About

CLOA’s mission is to be the lead body that advises on, advocates and champions culture and leisure on behalf of sector professionals, locally, regionally and nationally.

Our vision is that every locality has a thriving, high quality and distinctive cultural and leisure offer.

We have two clear strategic aims which are –

  • To provide quality advice and support to senior officers to develop and sustain best practice.
  • Providing an informed and coherent voice at a national level to champion, support and advocate for best practice in local government culture and leisure development and delivery.

As a membership association we have a clear set of values that inform our activities:

  • We strive for Excellence
  • We succeed through Collaboration
  • We value our Independence
  • We always work with Integrity

A Leading Role for Culture, Tourism and Sport

The impact of policy drives and initiatives and the increasing focus on the cost of living and challenge of energy bills continues to influence public sector cultural, tourism and sport services. Such services are no longer delivered exclusively for their own sake, but are being resourced in order to impact in broader social areas, such as regeneration, crime prevention, economic development, social inclusion, health and education – and are being measured on the cross cutting outcomes achieved in these areas.

CLOA members are at the cutting edge of this agenda. They stimulate and manage innovative projects, pilot studies and research in areas that are delivering these broader social goals.

CLOA is helping to ensure that all of these new areas of competence feed into cultural policy development and that members, and the wider industry, are fully equipped to deliver real outcomes in this increasingly more complex arena.

Be part of this important network. As a member of CLOA you will have the opportunity to influence new developments and their impact on your organisation and working environment.

Equality, Diversity & Inclusion

We have a dedicated webpage that hosts our EDI statement, action plan and progress, along with a report of collated intelligence regarding under-represented groups working within the culture and leisure sector that informed our original thinking.

We also plan to begin collecting and featuring good practice case studies from our members who are leading work across public sector Culture, Arts, Heritage, Tourism, Libraries, Parks, Sport and Leisure services.