Select committee: Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee
Recommendation 10
Ninth Report - Major cultural and sporting events
Published 16 Mar 2022
Paragraph 82
Addressed to Department for Culture, Media and Sport
Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee Major cultural and sporting events All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
Recent years have seen major events policy formed through little more than ministerial fiat, and nothing illustrates this better than the vague and shape-shifting nature of Unboxed: Creativity in the UK. There is no one in Government with clear ownership for 2022’s programme of events, and few meaningful links between the events themselves. In the future, we call on the Government to be clear about what it is trying to achieve through major events and how they fit with wider policy priorities, and then to embed that vision through long-term planning and resourcing.
From: Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Ninth Report - Major cultural and sporting events (HC 259), paragraph 82, 16 March 2022
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 24 June 2022 (deadline 16 June 2022).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government welcomes the Committee's report and shares its view on the value of major events, but disagrees with its assessment of UNBOXED and of legacy work, and gives a mixed response on strategy, funding and legislation.
- On a strategy for major events, its "current assessment" is that publishing one "is not an immediate priority". It is establishing a cross-Government Events Team and refreshing the Gold Framework for Major Sporting Events, "for publication later this year".
- On football governance, it will legislate to establish the independent regulator "when parliamentary time allows", with a White Paper "for publication in the summer". It says the legislation "cannot be rushed".
- It "disagrees with the Committee's assessment" of UNBOXED, and on legacy and evaluation it agrees they are critical but disagrees that this is "not currently a priority".
- On the listed events regime, it has "no current plans to undertake a full review of the list", but "will therefore undertake a review" of whether its scope should extend to digital rights.