Arts, culture and libraries 2025

The LGA and Arts Council England are offering fully-funded culture and library peer challenges for councils to help inform strategic activity tailored to their local place and communities. Peer challenges are carried out to your specification aimed at improving, not judging, your council.

In response to feedback from councils, this refreshed programme includes options to apply for a limited number online or face to face peer challenges. 

The peer challenges take place across two days (your council will choose the dates) and can cover a range of themes, including:

• heritage initiatives
• tackling health inequalities
• community engagement
• wellbeing
• reducing loneliness and isolation
• income generation
• alternative delivery models
• co-location
• working with partners
• climate change
• contribution to wider strategic outcome.

Working collaboratively with the council, a team of expert peers will identify key questions that they can investigate with internal and external stakeholders, which, combined with good practice examples from the peer team’s own networks, will inform a set of recommendations. Your council can use these recommendations to help inform strategic activity. It is important to note that the peer team acts as a critical friend – the process is designed to be supportive and constructive.

The LGA will draw upon its pool of officer and member peers to create a peer challenge team with the expertise to help the council to address the key issues facing its library or cultural services. The team will spend 1.5 to 2 days either onsite or online with the council, meeting councillors, officers and partners, and understanding the council’s work in both theory and practice. 

Following the two-day delivery of the peer challenge, your council will receive a confidential report that sets out the key findings, provides some recommendations on the way forward and practical advice and signposting to help the council on its journey.

• You will be a council with responsibility for library services or culture depending on which challenge you bid for.
• You are at the point of considering significant change, or evaluating significant change.
• You will have commitment to change from senior councillors and leaders.
• Please note: when considering applications, priority will be given to councils that have not recently had a culture or library peer challenge.
• If you applied previously, but were unsuccessful, please do apply again, as your council’s needs or activity may have developed since your previous application.
• This is a popular programme and although not every application may be successful, we will try to work with every council to identify if there is appropriate support that the LGA and ACE can offer.

To apply in either a culture or a library peer challenge, please complete this application form, including what issues you would like the peer challenge to address and how you believe the peer challenge will assist your council, along with confirmation of support from the cultural services portfolio holder and senior officer responsible for library services or cultural services. Please also highlight any innovation and new ways of working that you think the peer challenge will help to support.

We welcome applications from individual or groups of councils, but for the latter please bear in mind the scale of the support that we are able to offer. We will then follow-up with you and may request some additional information.

When putting together your application think realistically about what insights can be gathered within the timescale, and ensure that the scope is sufficiently targeted to ensure the information will be useful to your council.

Bids will be shortlisted and successful applicants will be notified shortly after their application. If successful, we will ask you to indicate the dates your council would like to take part. These must be two consecutive working days.

For more information:
If you would like to informally discuss the scope of your bid, or what is entailed in a peer challenge, please email [email protected]

Arts Council England and the LGA are offering 25 fully funded places on an online leadership programme for senior officers with the strategic responsibility for culture and or library services. The programme aims are to support senior managers of culture and libraries services to:

• Develop a greater understanding of the role of cultural and library services in the future economic growth of the local area
• Develop skills to lead entrepreneurial thinking within their services and the confidence to apply those skills
• Build and strengthen their peer networks, share information, knowledge and expertise. The programme will be attended by both library and culture senior staff supporting a unique opportunity for peer to peer learning across these specialisms.
• Develop a vision about how their services can contribute to tackling social challenges in the current financial context. In addition to the themes noted above, these will include sustainable approaches to tackling social health inequalities, equality, diversity and inclusion and climate change
• Develop an understanding of change theory and how to apply it
• Explore the potential for arts, culture and libraries to work with officer and political stakeholders to deliver across council agendas
• Access a learning pathway through the LGA (for officers who have taken part in a Peer Challenge or Recovery and Renewal Panel).
   

This programme comprises 6 half-day online sessions, plus an online icebreaker and an online closing session. You will need to attend all sessions. The session dates are:

• Icebreaker – 4.45pm – 7pm, Tuesday 14th January
• Session 1 – 10am – 1pm, Monday 20th January
• Session 2 – 10am – 1pm, Thursday 31st January
• Session 3 – 10am – 1pm, Thursday 13th February
• Session 4 – 10am – 1pm, Tuesday 25th February
• Session 5 – 10am – 1pm, Thursday 13th March
• Session 6 – 10am – 1pm, Tuesday 25th March
• Closing session – 10am – 11am, Tuesday 1st April

To apply for a place on the programme please complete this short application form by 6th January 2025.

For further information email [email protected]

Following a fully booked pilot programme we are delighted to offer 20 fully funded places for library officers who are newly appointed senior leaders or on the career pathway to becoming lead library officers. 

The programme aims:

• Support officers to build new connections and networks with other lead officers and organisations
• Connect officers with leading sector organisations, including professional bodies, to make contacts and access a range of free support for you as an individual and for your organisation
• Hear and share good practice, with an emphasis on transferrable good practice that you can apply within your service 
• Hear about national themes and contexts which will directly affect your service, your service users, your organisation and your local area
• Support you to improve your confidence within your role, including working with partners and senior stakeholders 

Applications have now closed but you can join the waiting list by completing the waiting list form.

For further information, please contact [email protected] 

We recently ran a Leadership Essentials: Culture programme on 4th and 5th November 2024. We aim to run another programme in 2025, here is some information about the programme: