Decision ref
0012 2026/27
Decision date
23/07/2026
Portfolio
Leisure, Culture & Heritage
Wards
All wards
Title
Acceptance of 2027/28 Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation extension funding
Summary
Approve the acceptance of the Library Service of the award from Arts Council England (ACE) for National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) extension funding of £252,120 for 2027/28 to continue to deliver its successful Arts in Libraries programme.
Purpose
To request permission to accept the Grant Award from Arts Council England (ACE) for National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) extension funding of £252,120 for 2027/28 and to provide information to support this decision.
Background
St Helens Borough Council Library Service has been an Arts Council England (ACE) National Portfolio Organisation since 2018. NPO's are awarded regular funding (across a 4-5 year period) to help ACE deliver its Strategy to engage UK residents in the arts and to support the development of the creative and cultural workforce. St Helens Library Service was one of the initial 6 Library Services nationally to receive this funding (2018-2023) and was successful in securing the second round of NPO funding for 2023-2026, followed by the current 2026/27 extension year funding. Accepting the 2027/28 Extension funding will enable:
1) the Arts in Libraries programme to continue to provide opportunities for St Helens resident to experience the arts as participants and audiences.
2) the Library Service to bid to ACE during 26/27 to be part of the 2028-2033 National Portfolio.
The current delivery programme focuses on three strands:
• A programme of visual and performing arts including exhibitions, theatre and music that takes place predominately in our library spaces.
• Participation activities where people can take part in hands on projects including creative writing workshops for children and adults, Arts Award opportunities for schools and an Arts on Prescription programme for adults experiencing anxiety and/or depression
• Support to artists and students to broaden and deepen their knowledge, skills, and experience in arts practice, and become the next generation of practising artists in the borough.
Key findings in the 2025/26 Programme Evaluation Report produced by Helen Corkery, an independent researcher, demonstrate its value to St Helens:
• Strong scale and reach: Delivered 200 activities, 423 sessions and 13,934 engagements across the year.
• Place-based impact: Over half of activity took place in communities ranked among the 20% most deprived nationally and around a third of audiences came from the most deprived communities. The programme was particularly successful in reaching people from lower-income socio-economic groups, with 44% estimated to be from the least affluent social grades.
• High Quality: 99% of audiences and participants rated experiences positively, with a Net Promoter Score of 84 (an industry recognised score that measures customer loyalty and satisfaction).
• Investment in people: 166 artists and creative practitioners were engaged including St Helens based artists.
• One of the clearest findings is the programme’s success in reaching local communities, including those who face the greatest barriers to participation. Audiences came from all 18 St Helens wards, with the borough’s residents accounting for three quarters of all audiences.
• The results show that Arts in Libraries continues to sustain engagement with groups that are typically least engaged in arts and culture accounting for well over a third (38%) of adult audiences, including time and money poor families and 18% of audiences identifying as D/deaf and/or disabled.
• Activities were delivered across St Helens, in a wide range of familiar settings, including libraries, schools, community hubs, village halls and cultural venues, enabling people to access arts and culture close to home. This local, distributed model has helped to increase visibility, reduce practical barriers
such as travel and familiarity, and helped position culture as part of everyday community life rather than something distant or exclusive.
• Schools-based activity has remained a significant and highly effective part of the programme. More than 1,700 pupil engagements were achieved via Arts Award activities, writing and creative workshops, involving at least 16 schools and colleges across the borough. The feedback from teachers has been exceptionally strong, with all those providing it rating activities highly. They reported improvements in confidence, participation, creativity, literacy, self-expression and enthusiasm for learning. They also recognised wider benefits to their schools, including an increased range of creative opportunities, improved quality of creative teaching and stronger pathways for children and young people.
Conclusion
All previous Arts in Libraries Programme evaluations and the recent 2025/26 evaluation confirm that the project is delivering both the borough priorities and the funders objectives by achieving real outcomes for our residents. Besides providing access to cultural activities that meet local need, it also complements the wider library offer and this work is directly contributing to the delivery of the borough’s priorities and the Art Strategy and the Heritage Opportunities plan.
Risk Implications
The five posts above are funded by ACE, one of which (Senior Arts in Libraries Officer) is partly funded by St Helens Borough Council at an annual cost of £19,155. These would be at risk if grant funding extension was not accepted. This risk will be mitigated by accepting the 2027/28 funding and applying for the next round of NPO funding for 2028-2033.
The project has an internal risk register which is reviewed at meetings of the Advisory Board (a NPO funding requirement). Its current governance model assessed by ACE as low risk, has been previously held up as a model of good governance.
ACE provide ongoing Risk feedback in which we are currently scored 3 (Feb 2026) which is in the Minor risk bracket (scored on 1-12 basis in Minor/Moderate/Major risk brackets). The risk-score is due to the request to carry over just over 5% of the ACE funding into the 25/26 since a small amount of funding circa £13,500 was requested to be carried over. We have a programme of mitigating actions in place to reduce this score further, through the reduction on our grant underspend and the continuing work with our Advisory Board members.
Measures to Redress Risk
Accept 20267/28 extension funding from Arts Council England to continue the programme of work until March 2028.
Apply for Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation funding in the next round for 2028-2033 to continue the programme of work until March 2033.
Apply, where possible for other funding streams to strengthen the work.
Continue to foster good relationship with the Advisory Board to strengthen position at next application stage and for the Board to help to ensure future risks are considered and mitigated.
Monitor the budget to ensure underspend at year end is under the ACE 5% monitoring threshold.
Declarations Of Interest
None
Equality Impact Assessment
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More information
Please contact Cath Shea on 01744 677078
