New modes of arts participation and the limits of cultural indicators for local government

•We examine four cases of local government cultural policies and plans.•We identify how these policies and plans define and measure arts participation.•Participation is seen as a public good, but there is no common definition of it.•Arts participation indicators are shaped by the context in which they are deployed.•There are limits to a standardised system of cultural measurement.

A common characteristic of neo-liberal modes of government is an emphasis on quantifiable outcomes for the delivery of public services. This is increasingly evident in assessments of local government performance. Meanwhile, new modes of arts participation mean that community involvement in the arts can no longer be measured simply by box office data. The measurement of local government achievement of cultural goals has become more complex at the same time as it has become more common. This article brings together two bodies of literature: critical literature on the trend towards measuring public service performance and literature on community participation in the arts. It identifies a nascent shift towards a standardised system of measurement of community participation in the arts. Using a case study of Australian local government cultural strategies, it examines how the definition of community participation in the arts varies and the extent of a council's commitment to measuring participation. The article finds that the definition of participation varies greatly with the characteristics of the municipality. It is argued that a common understanding of the meaning of participation and a standardised system of measurement would risk jeopardising a council's capacity to respond to its highly context-specific needs.