Do we need a Department of Culture, Media & Sport

[AJS-]

Growing out of another thread, this seems like one of many pointless government departments. We are focast to have a budget deficit of over £100m next year, and this department takes about £7bn. A drop in the ocean, but as good an example as any.

The way I see it we could cut it all we like, but all that will ever produce is civil servants increasing their fund grabbing efforts to ensure their own slice of the pie. Scrap the whole thing and it's gone, £7bn to the good.

Further more, I find the notion that our having a culture, a vibrant media or entertaining sports depends upon having government direction and funding to be foolish and insulting. We had all of those things long before we had such a department.

So let's just scrap the whole thing?

(And it was nearly a week since I'd done a poll!)

[AJS-]

Ah someone said keep it! Speak up man. Is it broadband for farmers? The Newcastle Royal Ballet? State your reasoning.

[anonymous-user]

interesting question, i can see they have the potential to do a lot of good work but then you just get dragged into a world of bureaucracy and the inability to dleiver all these great plans. Given Leveson etc though, they probably have a place at the moment.
without them, Murdoch would buy al lthe other papers, close them and we would be left with his version of events....

http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/content/list-gover... a list of the others...

[AJS-]

We would still have a monopolies commission.

Crickey there is a lot of departments there. I'd probably halve that number, but DCMS seems like a good example to start with.

[Twincam16]

I suspect that they probably do more (and bring more income into the country) than you assume.

I voted to keep it. There's no way I would want the cultural basis of this country beholden to sponsorship deals, or locked-out for the wealthy few as it was predominately before free museum and gallery entry.

And how do you think we would have managed to stage the Olympics without it? No doubt lots of people on here who see life purely in terms of profit and loss accounts and how much of it they can keep for themselves will have seen the whole shebang as a waste of time, but I think the country was socially much better off for it. Dare I suggest that without it we may have had more riots instead?

[rover 623gsi]

DCMS - about us

We are the Department responsible for the 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, and we help drive the Digital Economy.

Our purpose:
DCMS works to make sure the communications, creative, media, cultural, tourism, sport and leisure economies have the framework to grow and have real impact on people’s lives.

We create the conditions for growth by removing barriers, providing strategic direction and supporting innovation and creativity.

Through DCMS, the public funds: our cultural heritage, free access to world-class cultural institutions, art that challenges and provokes, the BBC, the sporting stars of the future. We want everyone to be able to enjoy our national culture, play sport and have access to effective communications.

We are accountable to Parliament and the public for getting value from the money we spend and the work that we do.

We are responsible for Government policy on:
the arts
broadcasting
creative industries including: advertising, the arts market, design, fashion
film
the music industry
publishing
historic environment
internet and international ICT policy
licensing and gambling
libraries
museums & galleries
the National Lottery
press freedom and regulation
sport
telecommunications and broadband
tourism

Our responsibilities also include listing of historic buildings, scheduling of ancient monuments, export licensing of cultural goods and management of the Government Art Collection. The Royal Parks Agency is an agency of DCMS.

We work jointly with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) on design issues, including sponsorship of the Design Council, and on relations with the computer games and publishing industries.

all seems perfectly sensible to me

[AJS-]

I don't doubt they do more than I assume, and that it's full of well meaning and dedicated people. I doubt that it brings a net profit into the country but that's pretty much impossible to adequately quantify anyway.

The point is we can't afford it, and rather than cutting it back and then having it grow again, why not just scrap it?

[AJS-]

It all seems perfectly sensible until you remember that most of these things developed without state help anyway. And now we are pissing away £7bn a year on something it while sinking into economic and social ruin because of our excessive spending.

[jdw1234]

Tricky one.

Culture is an extremely important part of what makes London, London.

Not really necessary in the rest of the country as they don't have culture apart from Xfactor and football (rascist Northern comedians and the Bullring don't count as culture).

[rover 623gsi]

AJS- said:

I don't doubt they do more than I assume, and that it's full of well meaning and dedicated people. I doubt that it brings a net profit into the country but that's pretty much impossible to adequately quantify anyway.

e.g.


The DCMS is the department with responsibility for the museums and galleries sector.

We:
•directly sponsor 20 museums and galleries
•fund Renaissance in the Regions, a programme to support England’s regional museums
•invest in museum and gallery education programmes
•co-fund and administer the DCMS/Wolfson Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund

Facts and figures

Eight out of the top ten UK visitor attractions are sponsored national museums. These are the British Museum (1), Tate Modern (2), The National Gallery (3), Natural History Museum (4), Science Museum (6), Victoria and Albert Museum (7), National Maritime Museum (9) and National Portrait Gallery (10). (Source ALVA).

so, eight out of the top ten UK visitor attractions are funded by the DCMS - that seems a pretty good deal to me

[Twincam16]

jdw1234 said:

Tricky one.

Culture is an extremely important part of what makes London, London.

Not really necessary in the rest of the country as they don't have culture apart from Xfactor and football (rascist Northern comedians and the Bullring don't count as culture).

I can't work out whether you're joking or not.

[AJS-]

rover 623gsi said:

e.g.


The DCMS is the department with responsibility for the museums and galleries sector.

We:
•directly sponsor 20 museums and galleries
•fund Renaissance in the Regions, a programme to support England’s regional museums
•invest in museum and gallery education programmes
•co-fund and administer the DCMS/Wolfson Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund

Facts and figures

Eight out of the top ten UK visitor attractions are sponsored national museums. These are the British Museum (1), Tate Modern (2), The National Gallery (3), Natural History Museum (4), Science Museum (6), Victoria and Albert Museum (7), National Maritime Museum (9) and National Portrait Gallery (10). (Source ALVA).

so, eight out of the top ten UK visitor attractions are funded by the DCMS - that seems a pretty good deal to me

And all these things would just stop dead without DCMS? As I said I'm sure they do something worthwhile, we just can't afford it.

Actually with a obedient of £7bn it would be hard not to do something worthwhile, short of outright malice.

[Twincam16]

AJS- said:

And all these things would just stop dead without DCMS? As I said I'm sure they do something worthwhile, we just can't afford it.

Without it, culture would be handed over to the market, which would deem it worthy of sinking or swimming.

This would mean that only lowbrow populist trash would stand a chance of public exposure. You'd have to pay to get into galleries, which would end up carrying corporate branding at every turn. Controversial or otherwise challenging artwork would be as good as banned if it was at odds with the corporate message the sponsors or owners would want to put across, or criticised them.

Just because something isn't 'popular' (and by that I mean ecstatically, X-factor levels of popular) doesn't mean it shouldn't be part of our culture.

Consider the status of the British Grand Prix. One of the major cultural/sporting draws this country has to offer, and yet it struggles to get on the calendar every year, constantly having to make a case for itself. Nearly all other Grands Prix are under the jurisdiction of their respective countries' DCMS equivalents, and are on the calendar de facto because they have the weight of the government, rather than just a racing driver's club, behind it.

[tubbystu]

AJS- said:

I don't doubt they do more than I assume, and that it's full of well meaning and dedicated people. I doubt that it brings a net profit into the country but that's pretty much impossible to adequately quantify anyway.

The point is we can't afford it, and rather than cutting it back and then having it grow again, why not just scrap it?

It doesn't matter if you think we can or can't afford it. Much of our general lifestyle requires some form of govt dept responsibility/in one way or another.

So given that much, if not perhaps all of, what the DCMS does is deemed as neccessary, if it were closed their workload would just have to be taken back into other govt depts - mainly by The Home Office (and we know how good they can be when they really try..........................).

We have business dealings with a number of govt departments, and the DCMS are the most sensible and easiest to deal with. Other depts could learn a lot from their attitude. Hello M.O.D.

[AJS-]

So how did all these things come into being in the first place? There was no DCMS in the 19th century. There are plenty of wealt patrons of the arts.

[tubbystu]

AJS- said:

So how did all these things come into being in the first place? There was no DCMS in the 19th century. There are plenty of wealt patrons of the arts.

Yes, and now those patrons have long died somebody has to manage those looking after those legacies and gifts to the nation.............so you have really answered your own question.

And whilst doing this they are also ensuring sports grounds are safe, theatres & cinemas have adequate fire exits and protection, audio levels at concerts & nightclubs are within limits, tv programming respects the 9pm watershed, ensuring that important works of art are not auctioned off without recourse, the punters to the Jubilee are safe and secure with toilets/water/food supplied in appropriate locations by licensed vendors, amongst a plethora of other mainly unglamourous responsibilities that need to be done by one dept or the other.

[jdw1234]

Twincam16 said:

jdw1234 said:

Tricky one.

Culture is an extremely important part of what makes London, London.

Not really necessary in the rest of the country as they don't have culture apart from Xfactor and football (rascist Northern comedians and the Bullring don't count as culture).

I can't work out whether you're joking or not.

Sorry mate. Yep, joking.

Should have added a winky face

;-)

[AJS-]

And there are no wealthy people around now who could or would patronise the arts?

Fire safety and portaloos don't cost £7bn a year, and councils have standards for these things anyway.

Not trolling, the UK is massively in debt and getting deeper. Something has to give.

[tubbystu]

AJS- said:

...........councils have standards for these things anyway.

Somebody has to formulate and set the national standards which councils then work too.

Philanthropy in the 21st century means they usually get accused of tax dodging...



Graphic lifted from here http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/oct/2...

There doesn't seem to be huge wastages in there. And £7bn is mearly 1% of the govt budget and whilst every little helps, metaphorically bigger targets are easier to hit - benefit spending levels being the current bete noire.

[AJS-]

Dole scroungers and efficiency savings apparently. I just don't see that these will ever give us the billions needed to get into surplus, let alone reduce the tax burden.

The state simply needs to do less, and unfortunately (or not) that means cutting out vast swathes of what it's currently doing.

Nearly £3bn for the BBC - is that from the licence fee or general taxation? I suspect the latter.