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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what support his Department has provided for museums in Medway.

DCMS directly sponsors 16 museums and galleries in England including the British Library, and supports regional museums through Arts Council England (ACE), the body responsible for museums and galleries in England. DCMS also supports heritage bodies including the Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust which is both a heritage site and independent museum. DCMS has provided £245,000 funding to Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust in 2014-15, and will provide £324,000 in 2015-16.

Both the Chatham Historic Dockyard and Trust, and the Royal Engineers Museum, Library and Archive received support from Arts Council England between 2011 and 2015. Chatham Historic Dockyard and Trust received awards of funding of £312,681 in Renaissance transition funding and £9,500 from the ACE Subject Specialist Networks scheme. The Royal Engineers Museum, Library and Archive, which has a Designated collection of national importance, received a single award of £73,035 from the ACE Designation Development Fund.

ACE has also provided support to museums in Medway through its Museum Resilience Fund. The Museum resilience fund aims to support a step change for the museums sector by enabling museums to become more sustainable and resilient organisations. The most recent round of awards from the fund was announced in March; the Guildhall Museum was granted £67,100 and Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust £263,000. Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust was also awarded £466,542 from the fund in the previous round.

DCMS and the Wolfson Foundation jointly fund the DCMS Wolfson Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund, which supports projects in English Museums and galleries that improve the quality of displays, collection interpretation, public spaces, and access and facilities for disabled visitors. In January 2014 two Museums in Medway received grants from the DCMS Wolfson Fund. Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust received an award of £150,000 towards its Building the Future project. The Royal Engineers Museum also received £22,794 towards its Waterloo 200: redisplay of Wellington’s Map project.