Chapter 17

Department for Culture, Media and Sport

The Government is working with Britain's culture, media and sport sectors to widen the opportunity for everyone to get more out of life by:

building on the two year investment of £150 million in sports facilities announced in March 2000, with a step change in high quality sports teaching, coaching and competitive sport in schools;
putting a greater emphasis on enriching education, through extending cultural and creative opportunities for children;
investing in the nation's many world-leading arts organisations to encourage high quality and innovation and to bring more work to a wider audience; and
continuing initiatives to broaden access to museums and galleries.

17.1 The Government has two clear over-arching goals for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS): excellence and access. That is why the Government is committed to investing in making the nation's culture and sport sectors world-class as well as breaking down barriers to access.

17.2 Important steps were taken in the 1998 Comprehensive Spending Review when funding was targeted on extending and improving access - children and pensioners now get into museums free, and others will pay £1 from September 2001. Much has been done to streamline delivery mechanisms (for example the creation of the Film Council and 'Re:source', the new museums and libraries body). The Government has stripped out unnecessary bureaucracy to ensure that money gets where it is needed (£2 million annual savings are being made in the arts funding system). The Government has also taken positive steps to ensure that the distribution of Lottery funding now considers revenue rather than just capital schemes and strikes the right balance between different regions of the country.

Extending cultural and sporting opportunity to all

17.3 This Spending Review builds on that progress on excellence and access, and introduces a new focus on realising the potential of culture, sport and the creative industries to enrich education, particularly in schools. As a result of the Spending Review, additional funds have been provided to help schools encourage children to play sports, laying the foundations for a healthy lifestyle and developing our future champions. There is also funding to introduce a programme of Creative Partnerships in areas of educational need and to take forward a number of initiatives to improve access to arts, museums, libraries and galleries.

Box 17.1: Key PSA targets - Department for Culture, Media and Sport

Raise significantly, year on year, the average time spent on sport and physical activity by those aged 5 to 16.
Introduce at least 12 Creative Partnerships by March 2004, targeted on deprived areas, ensuring that every school child in the Partnership area has access to an innovative programme of cultural and creative opportunities.
Increase by 500,000 by 2004 the number of people experiencing the arts.

17.4 The new spending plans provide for:

increasing children's participation in sport through high quality sports teaching and coaching and an expansion of competitive sports in schools, building on the valuable contribution of the Lottery and the Capital Modernisation Fund in developing facilities for school and community use. This will bring long-term health benefits and improve performance in international competition;
encouraging links between arts organisations, museums, the creative industries and schools. The Government is introducing a programme of Creative Partnerships to give every child in each Partnership area access to a range of cultural and creative opportunities tailored to their individual interests and talents;
building and maintaining a sustainable infrastructure of arts organisations to enable them to develop the quality of their work, fostering high standards and innovation;
broadening access to the arts. The New Audiences Fund has already produced over one million additional attendees in its first year. The Government will help arts organisations to make fuller use of their capacity, so that the new money translates directly into more work on stage and in galleries, to bring the best in the arts to more people than ever before; and
widening access to museums and galleries. The next three years will see increasing visitor numbers as the Government takes forward and develops recently announced access initiatives. These will allow free entry to the national museums and galleries for children, pensioners and those on benefits, while others pay a flat £1 admission charge. The access initiative has already produced a 19 per cent increase in the number of children visiting.

Spending plans

17.5 New spending plans provide an annual average real terms increase of 4.3 per cent over three years. This will ensure that the DCMS sectors are able to create and maintain a sustainable infrastructure. This is particularly important in:

sport where, although the Lottery has been able to fund facilities, investment in skills and in school sport has been inadequate;
arts organisations which carry the burden of fixed overheads while capacity goes unexploited; and
museums and galleries where a backlog of repairs and maintenance work undermines the quality of service.

Table 17.1: Key figures

£ million
	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04
Total DCMS*	1015	1120	1170	1240
of which: Resource Budget	941	998	1100	1160
Capital Budget	74	122	70	80

*Departmental Expenditure Limit, includes £15 million in 2000-01 and £60 million in 2001-02 from the Capital Modernisation Fund for 'Space for Sport and Arts'.