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

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have made an assessment of the case for requiring publicly funded arts councils in each of the four UK nations to publish per-organisation data on staffing costs, freelance volumes, and artistic expenditure on a consistent and comparable basis.

The Arts Councils of each of the four UK nations are devolved responsibilities.

Ministers have not made an assessment of the case raised in the question. However, we are aware of the need for data collection to be consistent, proportionate, and manageable for publicly-funded arts organisations. Baroness Hodge of Barking has been appointed by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport to conduct a Review of Arts Council England. This includes in its terms of reference to consider how effective the relationships between ACE and the organisations it funds are; and how far ACE cooperates and shares knowledge with the United Kingdom’s Arts Councils in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Arts Council England publishes an Annual Data survey of its National Portfolio Organisations, which provides a breakdown of expenditure for those organisations. Data from this survey is available on line from the year 2016-17 onwards. ACE also publishes data on its own staff and expenditure in its Annual Report - the latest of which covering 2023-24 can be found on their website.