Department for Culture, Media and Sport

The department's budget for 2025/26 is £2.29 billion. That is a 5.9 percent real terms cut from the previous year, at a time when overall government departmental spending rose by 5 percent. Spending per person has fallen from £48.43 in 2010/11 to £32.79 in 2025/26, a drop of 32.3 percent. This is the second successive Spending Review in which the Chancellor has cut DCMS while increasing total spending, something that had happened only once since Spending Reviews were introduced in 1998. The UK now has one of the lowest levels of government spending on culture among European nations.

Many of the sectors DCMS oversees continue to succeed despite government rather than because of it. Britain's creative industries remain globally competitive. British television, music, film, publishing and gaming command international audiences. Tourism attracts millions of visitors. British sport performs strongly at elite level. These achievements are real. The uncomfortable question is what role the department has played in creating them, and what happens when the foundations they rest on are allowed to weaken.

The foundations are weakening.

In England, 276 static libraries have closed since 2010, leaving 2,877 open. Local government revenue funding of culture and related services per person fell by 48 percent in real terms in England between 2009/10 and 2022/23. Arts Council England's core government funding fell by 18 percent over the same period. DCMS core funding of cultural organisations through grant in aid fell by 18 percent per person. The national picture remains impressive while the local foundations steadily erode. A country can have world class museums in London and closed libraries in Burnley at the same time. It does.

Sport tells a similar story. Britain celebrates elite success at Olympic Games and international tournaments. Participation rates, access to facilities and grassroots provision remain uneven. A country can produce world class athletes while struggling to provide accessible facilities for ordinary citizens. The gap between what happens on television and what happens in a local leisure centre is not a talking point. It is a policy failure measured in closed pools, reduced opening hours and vanished youth sports programmes.

Broadcasting presents another challenge. Traditional broadcasters face competition from global streaming platforms while the department has spent years failing to produce a clear long term settlement for public service broadcasting. The BBC Charter, Channel 4's ownership, the Gambling Act review, the Online Safety regime and the regulation of AI generated content all sat unresolved for extended periods while successive Secretaries of State rotated through the department.

The turnover is itself a problem. Since 2010, the department has had 12 Secretaries of State: Jeremy Hunt, Maria Miller, Sajid Javid, Karen Bradley, Matt Hancock, Jeremy Wright, Nicky Morgan, Oliver Dowden, Nadine Dorries, Michelle Donelan, Lucy Frazer and now Lisa Nandy. Several lasted less than a year. No other department of comparable importance has experienced such rapid churn. Ministers arrive, learn the brief, announce priorities, then leave before implementation begins. The permanent secretary and officials provide continuity. The political direction changes with each reshuffle.

DCMS directly funds 15 national museums and galleries, Historic England, the British Library, the British Film Institute and Arts Council England, which in turn provides core funding to nearly 1,000 further organisations. Several of these bodies are now under financial strain. The department has commissioned a review into the financial position of several of its public bodies, amid concerns that some could struggle to continue operating.

The department's broader weakness is that it has never won the argument for its own importance inside government. Culture, heritage and sport are treated as secondary concerns compared with health, education or defence. That creates a cycle where investment is limited, ambitions stay modest and long term planning becomes impossible. The creative industries contribute £124 billion to GDP. The department responsible for them receives £2.29 billion. The mismatch between what these sectors produce and what government invests in them is not subtle.

The public judges culture and sport through what they can access in their own communities. On that measure, too many people have watched facilities close, libraries disappear, youth services vanish, leisure centres reduce hours and local arts organisations fold. The department's challenge is not preserving Britain's cultural reputation. It is ensuring that reputation remains rooted in communities rather than concentrated in a handful of successful national institutions and a London postcode.