{"id":4143,"date":"2012-05-04T17:12:06","date_gmt":"2012-05-04T17:12:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ihbconline.co.uk\/newsachive\/?p=4143"},"modified":"2012-05-04T17:12:06","modified_gmt":"2012-05-04T17:12:06","slug":"dcms-potentially-under-threat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=4143","title":{"rendered":"DCMS: \u2018potentially\u2019 under threat?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The proposal by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) to scrap the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and in the process reputedly save \u00a31.6bn (which IEA says would go \u2018some way\u2019 towards abolishing inheritance tax), has been receiving especially close coverage in the media.<\/span><\/p>\n

Commenting on the implications of closing down the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, Mark Littlewood, Director General of the Institute of Economic Affairs, said: \u2018The subsidies provided by DCMS should be ended altogether and any residual regulatory functions should be substantially liberalised and transferred to other departments.\u00a0 A complete closure of all DCMS functions could save the taxpayer around \u00a31.6bn per annum. Whilst this is a small proportion of overall government expenditure, it would allow for some worthwhile reductions in overall taxation.\u2019<\/p>\n

Museums and Heritage writes in response:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2026 It also proposed an end to government funding of museums, claiming an additional \u00a30.5bn could be clawed back if free entry to national museums was abolished. The report estimated that the cost to the taxpayer per visit per person to some of London\u2019s National Museums and the British Library ranged from \u00a35 to \u00a372.
\n\u2026
\nIn a BBC Radio Four Interview between MA head of policy Maurice Davies and Littlewood, Davies pointed out that many of the estimated savings would instead be transferred to other departments: \u2018The cost of actually running DCMS itself is very small \u2013 the actual cost of the civil servants \u2013 and since DCMS was set up, first as the department of national heritage, museums have become far, far better, and culture has become far, far better.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018All the evidence suggests that the numbers drop by about half when you start charging, which means ironically it costs more to the taxpayer for each visitor because most of the cost in those museums isn\u2019t people coming through the door, it\u2019s all the behind-the-scenes work.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018I think about 90% of the money that goes to DCMS goes straight on to funding good things that millions and millions of people in this country enjoy and learn from.\u2019<\/p>\n

Littlewood replied: \u2018Maurice can’t have it both ways round. These are either museums and activities that millions of people gladly engage in and would pay for or they\u2019re not \u2013 and if millions of people would gladly engage in and pay for them, let\u2019s allow pricing to reflect that.\u2019<\/p>\n

In a statement after the interview, MA director Mark Taylor commented: \u2018The IEA director was very muddled and did little to hide the ideological nature of the proposal.<\/p>\n

\u2018He didn’t seem to understand the difference between getting rid of DCMS and scrapping any public investment in the arts, he didn’t seem to understand the contribution and impact of museums.<\/p>\n

\u2018He clearly did understand the price of everything – it’s just that he understood the value of nothing.\u2019<\/p>\n

The IEA proposal follows rumours that the government is planning to close DCMS after the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and transfer responsibility for museums to the Department for Education.<\/p>\n

For the Museums and Heritage report see<\/span>: LINK<\/a><\/p>\n

For the IEA report see<\/span>: LINK<\/a><\/p>\n

For the evening discussion \u2018Should we abolish the DCMS?\u2019 on YouTube, you can follow the c.27 other viewers at<\/span>: LINK<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The proposal by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) to scrap the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and in the process reputedly save \u00a31.6bn (which IEA says would go \u2018some way\u2019 towards abolishing inheritance tax), has been receiving … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sector-newsblog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4143"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4144,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4143\/revisions\/4144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}