Ninth Report - Major cultural and sporting events

We welcome the Government’s commitment to building on the UK’s strong reputation for delivering major events but believe more could be done to develop a strategic approach to hosting them, particularly beyond the realm of major sporting events. In an increasingly competitive national and global landscape, such a strategy would assist with the effective allocation of resources and ensure decisions to host major events are joined up with wider Government priorities. Within the next two years, DCMS should work with industry to develop and publish a strategy for hosting the full scope of major events.

The lack of guaranteed funding for UK City of Culture hosts creates unnecessary uncertainty and risks undermining other fundraising efforts. The Government should guarantee successful hosts of UK City of Culture an appropriate amount of national funding from the outset, rather than require the host to wait for a decision, to enable organisers to focus their efforts on securing other sources of funding.

The recommendations and reforms proposed in the fan led review of football governance should not be hanging over the Football Association as it goes into a bidding process for the 2028 EUFA EURO. The Government must ensure implementation of the review’s principal recommendation, the establishment of the independent regulator for English football in legislation, is completed by the time the campaign to host the 2028 competition begins in earnest. (Paragraph 26) Communicating a vision

Since the event’s inception in 2018, the aims for Festival UK* 2022/Unboxed: Creativity in the UK have been vague and ripe for misinterpretation by the press and public at large. We see no evidence to refute such scepticism now. The desire for it to seemingly cater to everyone, everywhere, is a recipe for failure and investing £120 million in something when the Government, by their own admission, “did not know what it was” is an irresponsible use of public money. Despite ambitious “stretch targets” for engagement, just a few months out there remains a worrying lack of detail about how that will be achieved, particularly when it comes to touring projects internationally. We therefore intend to scrutinise how 2022’s events are leveraged overseas in our subsequent inquiry on promoting Britain abroad.

Handled sensitively, major events can be an opportunity for communities to reflect on difficult subjects and grow from them. Organisers and stakeholders, including the media, should not shy away from interrogating potential fault lines, but carefully assess and manage cultural risks accordingly.

The listed events regime is vital to the UK’s sporting and media landscape, amplifying major events and enabling the country to capitalise on its investment in them and their stars. As people’s consumption of media content changes, this crucial tool needs to be gold-plated for the future. The Government should review extending the protections currently offered under the listed events regime to digital and on- 32 Major cultural and sporting events demand content. The Committee reiterates its view that sporting events which are a long-established centrepiece of our national sporting heritage, such as the Six Nations Rugby Tournament, should be added to the live listed events regime.

The news media are vital stakeholders for major events, amplifying them at home and abroad and delivering greater value for money. Moreover, beyond this purely instrumentalist role, there is an intrinsic value to free and reliable reporting of major events. It is, therefore, concerning to hear of increased restrictions on reporting at major events and that the news media’s requirements are not always fully considered in event planning and delivery. DCMS and UK Sport should, in consultation with news media organisations, update the Gold Framework to set out requirements for publicly funded events to protect media freedoms and consider coverage requirements from bid stage and throughout the lifecycle of each event. (Paragraph 58) Delivering a meaningful legacy

Legacy programmes and independent evaluation are vital for delivering long-term value for money from major events. However, current funding structures and limited evaluation periods give the impression that they are not a priority, as illustrated in the case of the Commonwealth Games. To ensure learnings are taken forward from 2022’s events, we intend to revisit this topic in a follow-up session later this year or early next. (Paragraph 79) A missed opportunity

The Government is spending a lot of money on this year’s major events. Yet while individual occasions may well deliver memorable moments, we see no golden thread linking the events or tying them to a vision for the future of this country. If the UK is to leverage major events fully, they must unite people at home and abroad around a sense of shared culture. However, we see no sense of how 2022’s events will take us on a journey of renewal as a country—despite the many differing views about the image of Britishness that the events should promote.

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. (Paragraph 82) Major cultural and sporting events 33