The Chief Cultural and Leisure Officers Association (CLOA) welcomes the government’s response to the Independent Review of Arts Council England and its commitment to widening access to culture across all communities. We particularly note the recognition that cultural participation remains uneven, with lower engagement in disadvantaged and deprived areas, reinforcing the importance of locally rooted delivery.
Local government is the biggest public funder of culture and the direct deliverer of public libraries, museums, galleries and local arts development. Council support for culture is used to lever and match‑fund Arts Council England (ACE) and The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). To be effective, the reforms proposed—including changes to the National Portfolio, strengthened community engagement, and the move towards more regionally informed decision making—must therefore be shaped with local authorities at the table from the outset.
We welcome the ambition for more responsive, community‑centred funding. But to realise this vision, DCMS and ACE, together with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) must work closely with local authorities to align national programmes with local strategies, governance structures, and the realities of place‑based delivery. This includes responding to locally developed priorities and involving local government in new decision-making arrangements. As the statutory duty for library services sits squarely with local government, we advocate for sector-led development of libraries; Councils are the experts in matching library provision, library workforce skills and library resources to local need and making the connections to other local services and organisations which are vital to their impact.
Through the National Alliance for Cultural Services, CLOA and Local Government Association (LGA) in partnership with the family of local government networks, has been leading a project to develop a national cultural framework proposal to set a vision for a fit-for-purpose approach. We have been, and continue to work alongside DCMS and ACE colleagues, as well as other stakeholders, and look forward to discussing the concrete next steps as part of that work, ensuring that national reforms are grounded in local knowledge and that investment flows in ways that genuinely strengthen culture in every community.
