Public value and cultural heritage

This chapter provides an overview of how ideas of value have been used in heritage, and how concepts of public value (PV) have added to that debate. It considers how research into the way citizens value heritage projects is vital to the process of heritage management, and sets out how the framework for PV operation could work in a way which might have broader application and thus contribute to thinking about PV in other contexts. The inspiration for applying PV to a cultural heritage organisation came through a project undertaken by John Holden and Robert Hewison for the Heritage Lottery Fund. PV thinking has lost ground more widely and in the heritage sector where some came to doubt the validity of the framework. Thinking about PV creates an opportunity for the sector to build stronger relationships within its ‘authorising environment’ – the key stakeholders or audiences on whom the sector relies for legitimacy and relevance.