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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of provision of core funding to community arts organisations through (a) local authorities and (b) private charities.

DCMS provides funding to community arts projects in England through a number of our arm’s-length bodies. Arts Council England, for example, invests in communities through their Lottery-funded Creative People and Places (CPP) programme. There are 41 CPP programmes covering 58 local authority districts across the country targeting the least engaged places in England. Arts Council England will invest over £38 million of Lottery funds into this programme for the period 2022-25.

Local authorities also need to continue to recognise the huge benefits that investing in arts and culture can bring and many already do, building successful partnerships to deliver arts and culture to their communities. The Local Government Finance Settlement made available £54.1 billion in 2022/23 for local government in England, an increase of up to £3.7 billion in 2021/22. The majority of this funding is not ringfenced, in recognition of local authorities being best placed to understand local priorities, such as their community arts offer.

While we are unable to quantify the total provision of core funding to community arts organisations by private foundations at this time, DCMS continues to work with key actors across the civil society sector to improve the data and evidence available.