Case studies

Devon County Council has set up an independent staff- and community-owned social enterprise to run the county’s library service.

In Peterborough, a new delivery model for the city’s library service has reduced its cost by over 20 per cent while increasing public access by 50 per cent.

The work began in 2012 with a series of events for arts practitioners and health-based commissioners to discuss joint working. This led to a £250,000 investment from the council’s public health and arts services, along with investment partners Artswork and Royal Opera House Bridge, for a pilot commission.

In 2013, Bradford Libraries commissioned a review of its library service. This was a major piece of work and involved considerable consultation with library users and non-users and other stakeholders.

Central Bedfordshire council undertook a spatial modelling exercise to better understand the challenges of a increasing local population and plan how it could meet the increasing demand.

Create Gloucestershire is a consortium of arts and cultural organisations and individuals working together to make arts ‘everyday’ for local people.

Creativity Works provides self-support groups and peer-led networks to support mental health in Bath and North East Somerset.

East Riding of Yorkshire Council provides its sport, play and arts service and its leisure service inhouse. Other models have been considered and trialled in the past, such as outsourcing, but the services demonstrate high levels of success under the in-house mechanism.

Magna Vitae is a specially created charitable trust which runs leisure, culture and health-related services on behalf of East Lindsey District Council.

The Arcadia Library and Leisure Centre opened in February 2016 – a new-build, combined facility in Levenshulme, which cost £9.1 million.