Select committee: Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee
Conclusion 8
Third Report - Reimagining where we live: cultural placemaking and the levelling up agenda
Published 2 Nov 2022
Paragraph 60
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)
While our inquiry focused on the financial barriers to cultural placemaking, there are many factors that co-determine whether local places can develop and maintain sustainable cultural infrastructure. Our inquiry has heard potential policy recommendations from stakeholders across the sector and across the country; we hope that the Government continues to respond to the sector’s concerns. While many of these issues were known when DCMS published its last White Paper for Culture in 2016 (only the second that the Government has published), the sector now faces additional challenges. Local authorities must be empowered to step up and take the lead on addressing these barriers.
From: Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Third Report - Reimagining where we live: cultural placemaking and the levelling up agenda (HC 155), paragraph 60, 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".