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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether there were any restrictions on the way the Culture Recovery Fund could be used in a pay award.

Culture Recovery Fund resource grants were awarded subject to terms and conditions.

There was some variation in the language of the terms and conditions between Arm’s Length Bodies. However, it was standard that grantees were required to exercise pay restraint for at least 18 months from the date of their Grant Agreement, where legally possible for them to do so. This included – but was not limited to – imposing a pay freeze for all senior employees (defined as staff earning over £100,000) and a 10% pay reduction in remuneration to the pre-Covid-19 remuneration packages for employees contracted to receive above £150,000 per year.

DCMS did not issue any guidance on the optimal distribution of funds between different levels of employees within organisations.