Projects

BRIEF

Western Sydney is identified as a priority area in the NSW Government’s strategic policy framework Create in NSW. As part of their 2015 election commitment, the NSW Government invested $20million over four years to support artistic and cultural organisations based in Western Sydney.

NSF Consulting was commissioned by Create NSW to evaluate the outcomes of the Government’s $20million election commitment funding to Western Sydney and to identify future action to influence impact in Western Sydney. There were three overarching evaluation questions:

1. How successful was the process of delivery and implementation of Western Sydney funding?

2. What have been the outcomes and impacts of the NSW Government’s election commitment to funding in Western Sydney?

3. What future actions could Create NSW take to enhance its positive impact on Western Sydney’s arts, screen and cultural sectors?

APPROACH

We conducted a combined Process and Outcome evaluation. The Process evaluation examined how well the Program was delivered; the Outcome evaluation analysed for whom the Program worked best and under what circumstances. We adopted a non-experimental design method using both qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis.

84 Create NSW funding applicants and three additional members of the Western Sydney Roundtable stakeholder group were consulted. The key research components were an online survey (n=84) and face to face interviews (n=10). We used an inductive research approach, used a rubric for converting data into metric ratings representative qualitative estimates and then arrived at overall evaluation conclusions for each criterion of merit.

We prepared a detailed strategic evaluation report for Create NSW which discussed the evaluation findings and provided recommended future actions to enable Create NSW to drive positive impact in Western Sydney’s arts and cultural sectors in the future.