Book Publishing Support: Block Grants: Final Report on results of the pilot project and interactive communications
Over the past few years, the Canada Council for the Arts has conducted an in-depth review of its Book Publishing Support: Block Grants (BGP) program. As a follow-up to this review, the CCA is considering implementing a new calculation formula that would eliminate problems arising from the long-standing formula that is still in use, to make it simpler and easier to understand, and that would also be more closely aligned than the current formula with the Council’s intentions and objectives. This revised formula would not change the core of the program. To develop such a formula and to see to what extent it would be applicable, the process encompassed two main activities:
- On the one hand, a large-scale pilot project to fine tune the parameters of the new formula;
- On the other hand, the launching of an interactive consultation exercise open to all the beneficiaries in the milieu – an exercise that included the development of a dedicated interactive website.
This report will begin by recapping the circumstances that led to the review and will explain the nuts-and-bolts of the research that led from the current to the new proposed formula. It then describes how the pilot project was conducted and the various steps put in place to explain the approach to the new formula, and to obtain feedback from the publishing community. The next sections of the report explain the overall results of the pilot simulation exercise, including its expected impacts, along with the outcomes of the interactive communication exercise. The final section is devoted to the recommendations made by EEC Canada.