Select committee: Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee
Conclusion 3
Third Report - Reimagining where we live: cultural placemaking and the levelling up agenda
Published 2 Nov 2022
Paragraph 38
Addressed to Department for Culture, Media and Sport
Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee Reimagining where we live: cultural placemaking and the levelling up agenda All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
Despite the potential for the creative industries to help drive the Government’s Levelling Up agenda, funding and support for arts and culture emulates the broader geographic disparities that affect the UK economy and society as a whole. The Government and its arm’s-length bodies have taken some welcome steps to redress this imbalance. However, we are concerned that outside London and the South East, there are areas still not receiving the necessary investment to support their own local and world-class institutions, while in London and the South East, grassroots organisations in deprived areas are experiencing serious financial risk due to a handful of organisations receiving significant proportions of public funding.
From: Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Third Report - Reimagining where we live: cultural placemaking and the levelling up agenda (HC 155), paragraph 38, 2 November 2022
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 3 February 2023 (deadline 11 January 2023).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government welcomes the inquiry and agrees that place-based cultural policymaking can help deliver the Levelling Up missions, but it disagrees with the Committee's conclusion on a joined-up approach and declines several recommendations.
- It disagrees with the Committee's "lack of faith" that a collaborative approach to Levelling Up cultural infrastructure is being taken, citing partnership working between Government, Arms-Length Bodies and places.
- On skills, it says a Government-led national training programme "is not required", and does not agree that an audit and roadmap of cultural placemaking skills is necessary, citing the risk of duplication.
- On Cultural Compacts, it says that "in the current fiscal climate, further Government investment in Compacts at this time is unlikely", preferring their "organic development".
- On funding, it says current policy does not distinguish "national" from "regional" or "local" organisations. It says there are "no plans to expand the Music Hubs model to other art forms".