Asked by: Iain Stewart (Conservative - Milton Keynes South)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether her Department provided funding to the Turner Prize (a) directly and (b) indirectly via an organisation in receipt of funding from her Department in 2023.
Answered by John Whittingdale
DCMS does not provide direct funding to the Turner Prize. The Prize is managed by Tate, which funds it via a mixture of fundraising, contributions from host venues, and from Tate’s own budgets. DCMS provides Grant in Aid funding to Tate to support the organisation's overall operational and capital requirements.
Asked by: Chris Bryant (Labour - Rhondda)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, which SMEs have received funding via the Create Growth Programme since its inception.
Answered by John Whittingdale
The Create Growth Programme provides finance, business support and investor capacity building to turn creative businesses into high growth firms. So far, the finance strand of the programme has awarded more than £3m to over 100 businesses. The business support and investor capacity strands do not provide direct grant funding to businesses.
In the Creative Industries Sector Vision, we announced new funding of £10.9m to expand the programme to £28.4m, providing support to another six English regions, to make 12 in total. As part of this, we are working with our national delivery partner, Innovate UK, to deliver a further two grant-funding competitions over the next 18 months. These will benefit even more high-potential creative businesses.
An initial list of funded SMEs can be accessed from the "Innovate UK's funded projects since 2004" dataset (filtered for "DCMS Create Growth Programme"), accessible here. The remainder of funded SMEs will be added in due course.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to provide financial support to arts and cultural organisations.
Answered by John Whittingdale
HM Government recognises the great value of the UK’s world-leading arts and cultural sectors, and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has a strong record of support for organisations in this space.
Arts Council England are spending £444 million annually on a record 985 organisations in their National Portfolio, which was enabled by a total increase of over £43 million in Arts Council Funding across the most recent Spending Review period.
We are also investing more than £200 million through the Cultural Investment Fund over this Spending Review period, and the £1.57 billion Cultural Recovery Fund supported around 5,000 organisations. The extension to the higher rate of cultural tax reliefs secured at Spring Budget 2023 is estimated to be worth £350 million over the five year forecast period.
Asked by: Earl of Clancarty (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they are taking steps to make up for in full the loss of funding from Creative Europe.
Answered by Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government decided not to seek continued participation in the Creative Europe programme, but to look at other ways of supporting the UK’s cultural and creative sectors.
The UK Shared Prosperity Fund is a domestic successor to the European Regional Development Fund and European Social Fund, and is not intended to be a replacement for Creative Europe. The UK Shared Prosperity Fund is focused on building pride in place and increasing life chances, and delivered through three investment priorities: communities and place, local businesses, and people and skills.
To support independent screen content – including film – to grow internationally, the Government launched the UK Global Screen Fund in April 2021 with initial funding of £7 million. We have committed a further £21 million to this Fund over the period 2022–25 to develop, distribute, and promote independent UK screen content in international markets.
Asked by: Earl of Clancarty (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they intend to use the UK Shared Prosperity Fund to make up for the loss of funding from Creative Europe; and if so, how much funding will be provided to that end.
Answered by Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government decided not to seek continued participation in the Creative Europe programme, but to look at other ways of supporting the UK’s cultural and creative sectors.
The UK Shared Prosperity Fund is a domestic successor to the European Regional Development Fund and European Social Fund, and is not intended to be a replacement for Creative Europe. The UK Shared Prosperity Fund is focused on building pride in place and increasing life chances, and delivered through three investment priorities: communities and place, local businesses, and people and skills.
To support independent screen content – including film – to grow internationally, the Government launched the UK Global Screen Fund in April 2021 with initial funding of £7 million. We have committed a further £21 million to this Fund over the period 2022–25 to develop, distribute, and promote independent UK screen content in international markets.
Asked by: Hilary Benn (Labour - Leeds Central)
Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what representations she has received on increasing funding for the performing arts.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government has increased funding for the performing arts.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport principally supports the arts through funding for Arts Council England, which makes individual decisions about which organisations and projects to fund at arm’s length from Ministers. At the Spending Review in 2021, the Government provided increased funding for Arts Council England. Arts Council England’s indicative financial settlement for 2022–5 includes an uplift of £43.5 million, or 2 per cent. As a result of this, and money from the National Lottery, Arts Council England will be spending more each year (by around £30 million) through its new Investment Programme (2023–6) than in the previous round (2018–23). It is investing in a record number of organisations, in more parts of the country than ever before.
This is in addition to the direct funding programmes through which the Department invests in arts and culture such as the Cultural Investment Fund and cross-Government funds such as the Towns Fund and the Levelling Up Fund which have benefited arts and cultural organisations across the country, as well as the more than £1.5 billion of support the Government made available to around 5,000 organisations and sites during the pandemic through the Culture Recovery Fund.
At the Budget last month, we extended the higher rates of Theatre Tax Relief, Orchestras Tax Relief, and Museums and Galleries Exhibition Tax Relief until 2025 – changes that are estimated to be worth £350 million over five years.
The Department is proud to work with a range of organisations representing the performing arts, and to receive representations about funding and other issues which can help them thrive. Arts and culture make a huge contribution to this country, not only to our economy and international reputation, but also to the wellbeing and enrichment of its people and communities.
Asked by: Barbara Keeley (Labour - Worsley and Eccles South)
Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to the recent Arts Council England funding decisions for National Portfolio Organisations 2023-26, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of basing those decisions on the postcode of an organisation’s office rather than the postcode of the work being delivered on levelling up outcomes.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
In line with its published guidance, Arts Council England considered both where organisations were based and where they were planning to deliver their activity in its assessments and decision-making for its 2023–6 Investment Programme, just as it did for previous rounds. This included consideration of the impact of investment on Priority Places, Levelling Up for Culture Places, places of historically low Arts Council investment, places of historically low cultural engagement, and the spread across the country and between rural areas, towns, and cities, as well as other balancing criteria unrelated to geography.
Asked by: Barbara Keeley (Labour - Worsley and Eccles South)
Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of the appeals process for the funding decisions of Arts Council England.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Arts Council England has a complaints process for its funding streams. This is available on Arts Council England’s website.
Arts Council England will only reconsider a decision if it finds that a material mistake has been made. For example, an organisation (or individual) can use the complaints process if it believes that:
Arts Council England has delayed, made mistakes or failed to follow its own processes;
Arts Council England has failed to give an applicant access to information or has given an applicant incorrect advice or information;
Arts Council England has not treated an applicant politely;
Arts Council England has unlawfully discriminated against an applicant or not treated an applicant fairly.
Arts Council England uses the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s principles of good complaint handling. If a complainant is dissatisfied with a decision or the way a complaint has been, complainants can refer the complaint to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO). Funding decisions by Arts Council England can also be subject to Judicial Review.
Asked by: Barbara Keeley (Labour - Worsley and Eccles South)
Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether her Department is taking steps to review how Arts Council England (a) allocated and (b) announced funding, for the National Portfolio Organisation 2023-26 funding round.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The decisions made by Arts Council England about the allocation of funding for the National Portfolio Organisation 2023-26 funding round were taken at arm's length from HM Government. This is in accordance with the well established process, which is published on the Arts Council’s website and made clear in the guidance for applicants. As such, DCMS does not, nor should it, review individual decisions.
The Department works with all its public bodies, including Arts Council England, on continuous improvements and assurance. My officials will work with Arts Council England to learn from this recent funding round, as they would for any area of its work.
Asked by: Barbara Keeley (Labour - Worsley and Eccles South)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how many public libraries there were in England in each year since 2010.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
This information is not collected by the Department. Arts Council England collects data from local authorities and publishes a basic dataset of information on public libraries in England. The libraries basic dataset 2021 shows the number of static libraries in England (statutory and non-statutory) as at 1 April 2010, 1 July 2016, 31 December 2019 and 31 December 2021. It can be found at: https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/search?query=basic+dataset&sort_by=titles
The libraries basic dataset 2022 will be published by Arts Council England later this year.
Annual library data are also collected by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) from local authorities across Great Britain and include the number of libraries (statutory and non-statutory). Access to these annual library data is available through subscription to CIPFA. The House of Commons Library subscribes to the CIPFA ‘stats+ public libraries statistics dashboard’ which includes figures for library service points.