Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how much money they have invested in Unboxed: The Festival of Brexit; how many people have attended the festival to date; and what analysis they have made of value for money for the taxpayer.

UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK is a £120 million UK-wide celebration of creativity and innovation delivered through 10 major commissions. It is not called the ‘Festival of Brexit’.

Latest figures show that to date over three million people have engaged with UNBOXED, physically and digitally, and this number will only increase during the last two months of live programming, with two major commissions still to launch.

A departmental Accounting Officer Assessment for the programme was published on 12 August. It stated that our pre-delivery assessment of the costs and benefits for UNBOXED showed the programme would be value for money, even where some expected benefits are not monetisable. DCMS has kept the programme under review to ensure that it remains value for money.

There is also an independent evaluation of the programme underway. This will consider areas such as job creation; training, development and volunteering opportunities offered; the number of people who experience UNBOXED in person and online; and the number of participants in the learning and engagement programmes delivered by the creative teams across the country. It will be published in early 2023.