British Film Institute: Expenditure
(asked on 14th March 2023) - View Source
Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how much the British Film Institute has spent in each region in each of the last three years.
At the heart of the British Film Institute’s ten year strategy, Screen Culture 2033, is a core principle for the work of the BFI to reach across the UK, so that everyone across the regions and all four nations can experience, create and benefit from screen culture.
The below table has been extracted from data that government publishes on identifiable expenditure in the regions and nations of the UK.
It shows all expenditure in 2021/22 prices, to provide a more accurate picture accounting for inflation.
BFI Country and Region Spend 2019-2022; 2021-22 prices
Country/Region | 2019-20 | 2020-21 | 2021-22 | Total |
Scotland | £1,629,000 | £2,132,000 | £2,049,000 | £5,810,000 |
Wales | £971,000 | £1,271,000 | £1,108,000 | £3,350,000 |
Northern Ireland | £5,076,000 | £5,029,000 | £6,565,000 | £16,670,000 |
England - North East | £802,000 | £1,284,000 | £889,000 | £2,975,000 |
England - North West | £2,234,000 | £4,162,000 | £2,675,000 | £9,071,000 |
England - Yorkshire and the Humber | £1,730,000 | £5,147,000 | £2,706,000 | £9,583,000 |
England - East Midlands | £1,560,000 | £6,522,000 | £1,727,000 | £9,809,000 |
England - West Midlands | £1,959,000 | £4,380,000 | £2,454,000 | £8,793,000 |
England - East | £6,200,000 | £15,438,000 | £6,944,000 | £28,582,000 |
England - London | £10,155,000 | £21,422,000 | £13,668,000 | £45,245,000 |
England - South East | £3,607,000 | £7,781,000 | £5,365,000 | £16,840,000 |
England - South West | £1,793,000 | £6,181,000 | £2,633,000 | £10,607,000 |
Outside UK | £971,000 | £1,330,000 | £1,006,000 | £3,307,000 |
Total | £38,687,000 | £82,169,000 | £49,786,000 | £170,642,000 |
Whilst BFI spending in London and the South East accounts for almost 36% of its total spending over 2019-22, this is due in part to the relatively high proportion of the industry based in London and the South East (70%) and also, due to the established method of recording awards based on applicant postcode, does not capture the broader outputs and widespread impact of organisations based in London and the South East but delivering on a regional or UK-wide basis.
For example, BFI National Lottery distribution awards - such as the award which supported Parasite to reach 1.6 million people across the UK - are used to give audiences everywhere the chance to enjoy the widest possible range of films; overall, titles supported by distribution awards have generated 4.5 million admissions across every corner of the UK over the course of 2017-2022. The Light Cinema Co. received £3 million from the Culture Recovery Fund and, whilst its head office is in London, the award was used to support its 10 cinemas, 7 of which are in the North of England. And ‘Into Film’, a London-based organisation who received £24 million from the BFI over 2017-2022, used this funding to deliver Film Clubs in UK schools, reaching in the last year alone more than 3 million children at over 6,500 schools across the UK. Through its National Lottery Funding Plan, the BFI will be devolving even more funding to organisations across the regions and nations through its National Lottery Skills Clusters Fund, which will invest £9 million in 6-7 clusters across the UK to lead on skills and training in their area, making sure people from a wide range of places have the opportunity to get into the industry. The BFI also funds a network of organisations across the UK - including in Nottingham, Birmingham, Sheffield and Manchester - to lead audience and talent development work in their respective regions and nations, with £15.2 million to be awarded to 11 partner organisations over the next three years.