FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Here you’ll find some of the questions we are asked by both those we work with, as well as those who want to find out more about the Leadership Centre and if our whole place approach to public services will assist them.
If you have any questions which aren’t here you can get it touch.
Is The Leadership Centre part of a government department, or a government agency?
No, the Leadership Centre is an independent charity registered in England and Wales, no. 1123234, and a company limited by guarantee, no. 05467557 (registered as the Leadership Centre for Local Government).
Who funds the Leadership Centre?
When the Leadership Centre was first set up in 2004, it was originally funded by a central grant from the Department of Communities and Local Government. Since then, having evolved into a registered charity, it has moved on to be financially self-sufficient, generating income from a variety of sources, including charitable grants, investments and sponsorship. However, the bulk of our income is derived from the design and delivery of leadership development programmes, with any surplus invested in the Centre’s charitable objectives.
Can I look up the Leadership Centre’s accounts?
Yes, as a registered charity, you can find the Centre’s accounts filed with the Charity Commission here and as a registered company, you can find the Centre’s accounts filed with Companies House here.
What (training) programmes does The Leadership Centre run?
The Leadership Centre designs and delivers programmes and in-locality leadership and change support for leaders.
Where we see there is a need not being met we develop initiatives with partners – for example the 2013 launch of Future Vision and the 2023 launch of Boosting Middle Leaders.
The Centre also acts as a broker, connecting places with experts who best suits their needs, and supporting them to achieve their goals for their place.
What information is there to show the effectiveness of your work in places?
The sustainability of learning is a key design principle for Leadership Centre’s. Identifying impact and iterating your approach is also a key leadership attribute. For these reasons, we work alongside those we’re engaged with to ensure the visible and invisible value of what we do together becomes evident.
Internally, the Leadership Centre carries out evaluations of its work. Average ratings on our key performance indicators vary from 9.29 out of 10 to 9.69 out of 10.
The Centre also conducts and is featured in external assessment exercises.
In 2015, mindful of the reach of the Centre’s Local Vision project across the country, the University of the West of England was commissioned to look at the outcomes and effects of the Local Vision projects in different localities. The report that followed, ‘The Difference that makes the Difference’, considered how local context enables or constrains the potential for sustainable change, basing its analysis on case studies, interviews and secondary data from localities.
In 2019 the Leadership Centre was featured in ‘Systems Leadership for Sustainable Development: Strategies for Achieving Systemic Change’. A Harvard Kennedy School report examining how ‘Systems Leadership’ is required to achieve the 2023 sustainable development goals.
What can you do for individual managers or politicians?
The Leadership Centre is highly adaptable, providing bespoke leadership solutions.
If you are a public service manager or politician, your leadership development requirements may tally with one of our existing programmes, or else you may have something more tailored in mind, in which case we would be delighted to hear from you.
Where possible we design bespoke packages including coaching, mentoring and in-situ leadership and change capability support.
In addition, the Leadership Centre runs, or contributes to, a range of cohort-based leadership development programmes – some framed by professions, others by shared leadership challenges. Variously designed for those working in health and care, local government councillors and officers, charity chief executives and civil servants we equip leaders with the leadership capabilities to meet the challenges they face.
Please get in touch to discuss your requirements.
Can I order hard copies of your publications?
Many of the publications on this website are available in hard copy, although there may be limited supply of some of the more historic publications in our archive.
If you’d like to place an order, please get in touch and we’d be happy to help.
Does The Leadership Centre have a leadership framework?
We believe that every place is unique, with its own particular challenges and ambitions, and so there is no one-size-fits-all solution that will magically transform local leadership. Rather than a framework for leadership, we work with a set of leadership design principles developed from the real-life experiences of today’s leaders.