Government launches Inquiry into The Funding of the Arts & Heritage
4 August 2010

Last week the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee announced an inquiry into The Funding of the Arts and Heritage. Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport will appear in front of the Select Committee on 14 September 2010. It also anticipated that Chief Executive, Alan Davey, will also be asked to give evidence - along with other representatives from the arts sector who are yet to be announced. It is thought that the Select Committee's final report will be published in November at the earliest. The Select Committee is interested in responses from people within the sector by Thursday 2 September 2010.

The committee stated that it intended to investigate the following:

• what impact recent, and future, spending cuts from central and local government will have on the arts and heritage at a national and local level
• what arts organisations can do to work more closely together in order to reduce duplication of effort and to make economies of scale
• what level of public subsidy for the arts and heritage is necessary and sustainable
• whether the current system, and structure, of funding distribution is the right one
• what impact recent changes to the distribution of National Lottery funds will have on arts and heritage organisations
• whether the policy guidelines for National Lottery funding need to be reviewed
• the impact of recent changes to Department for Culture, Media and Sport arm's-length bodies - in particular the abolition of the UK Film Council and the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council
• whether businesses and philanthropists can play a long-term role in funding arts at a national and local level
• whether there need to be more government incentives to encourage private donations

The committee's statement reads, "Although the report is likely to be published too late to directly influence the outcome of the spending review, your views are valuable and there may be issues of interest to the Committee that you may wish to highlight in a submission. For example, philanthropy or the potential for arts organisations to work together to share costs. If you are thinking of making a submission, please carefully read the guidelines on the format for responses, which you can find here."