Improvement strategy for the culture and sport sector

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), Local Government Improvement and Development (formerly IDeA) and other partners have produced a new strategy intended to support local government as ‘leaders of place’.

The strategy, set out in the publication ‘A Passion for Excellence: An improvement strategy for culture and sport’, aims to create a strong framework to:

• improve the quality, effectiveness and efficiency of culture and sport in the delivery of outcomes in local communities
• improve the performance of the culture and sport sector and to address under-performance
• build capacity and leadership
• simplify and coordinate the improvement architecture.

In conjunction with councils and regional and national partners, LG Improvement and Development will concentrate on:

• connecting ideas and expertise, both within the sector and beyond, to cross-fertilise ideas and accelerate progress
• focusing on best practice and forward thinking, enabling individual councils and local government to learn systematically and respond to the needs of changing environments
• delivering a flexible range of tools and services, carrying out risk assessments on behalf of local government by innovating and incubating new joined-up but locally-delivered initiatives
• supporting leadership development and awareness through its leadership programmes.

A Passion for Excellence: An improvement strategy for culture and sport

In March 2009, the partners published 'A Passion for Excellence: One year on', setting out the progress made over the first year of the strategy.

A Passion for Excellence: One year on

At the same time the partners published an integrated offer of support available to help councils improve:

Culture and sport integrated national offer to councils (PDF, 16 pages, 235KB)

Culture and sport improvement project evaluation report

The DCMS, on behalf of partners in the culture and sport improvement project, have commissioned an independent evaluation of the improvement strategy and associated support to councils. The evaluation team contacted 263 councils, held in-depth interviews in nine councils and held workshops attended by 23 stakeholders.

The evaluation provides positive and constructive feedback on:

• the value of the strategy and support tools
• the impact they are having on the positioning and improvement of culture and sport services in councils.

The evaluation will now be used to help plan next year’s programme. It will also influence the next phase of our improvement journey once the election and the expected spending review has been completed.

Evaluation of the Culture and Sport Improvement Strategy (PDF, 77 pages, 1.5MB large file)

The culture and sport improvement project board have published a formal response to this evaluation:

Response to the evaluation of the culture and sport improvement strategy (PDF, 9 pages, 188KB)

Useful links: where to find out more

Improving Culture and Sport: the IDeA offer to councils and their partners (PDF, 6 pages, 257KB)

Working Together to Improve Culture and Sport Services

Contact

Martyn Allison, National Advisor Culture and Sport
email: martyn.allison@local.gov.uk  

Page updated March 2010.