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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[AJS-]

All sounds like classic hostage syndrome to me. We need the state to spend 50% of our GDP in order to make money, and have nice things.

This is the problem. Everyone wants to cut government spending in general but no one wants to cut anything specific, save for some abstract ideas of waste and some group of scroungers.

[AJS-]

Since I've never run a museum, and the most recent figures I can find are from 2001 (£46m a year for the British Museum) I am speaking from a point of ignorance, but supposing we put £7bn in a trust fund to be administered by a group drawn from museums, galleries, theaters etc, could it do significantly less that DCMS does with this amount every year?

I'm utterly unconvinced by rural broadband etc

[AJS-]

Twincam16 said:

AJS- said:

I'm utterly unconvinced by rural broadband etc

Improve the infrastructure in places other than That London, and business can establish or relocate to places other than That London.

When this happens, it has the effect of spreading wealth around the country. It also means that businesses that aren't in That London have the opportunity of a broader reach and greater moneymaking potential.

Also, because costs and rents are so dizzyingly high in That London, businesses based elsewhere won't have to spend quite so much money on just staying afloat. That money can instead benefit their employees and the local community, which in turn helps keep more people employed.

However, it seems to me that some people living in That London and the counties surrounding it, despite the fact that they've got a monopoly on both the banks and the government, want to abandon the rest of the country as it 'isn't being productive'.

Whilst overlooking the fact that they're not exactly helping that productivity because they're so mind-bendingly greedy, selfish and short-sighted, unable to see beyond the end of their own wallets.

I know this because I live in a broadband dead zone. It's in the countryside, yes, but not too far from several major towns and cities. However, my internet speed is not much faster than dialup level. Doesn't matter much to me as I'm not dependent on it, but running a business that needed a website in my area would be near-impossible.

Edited by Twincam16 on Wednesday 10th October 14:46

But I don't l I've in that London. I did for a while, but it was a dead loss. FWIW I come from a small village 30 miles out of Newcastle. I now live in Bangkok, but that's by the way. Small Northumbrian village had broadband about 8 years ago. Anyone who goes and sets up a business dependent on a fast Internet connection anywhere more remote than that needs their head read, not a government subsidy.

[AJS-]

tubbystu said:

AJS- said:

Since I've never run a museum, and the most recent figures I can find are from 2001 (£46m a year for the British Museum) I am speaking from a point of ignorance, but supposing we put £7bn in a trust fund to be administered by a group drawn from museums, galleries, theaters etc, could it do significantly less that DCMS does with this amount every year?

If you take out the BBC/licence fee element and lottery grants its down to circa £2.8bn it total, and yes you probably can just run the museums, galleries, theatres and other essential areas for that. But without the DCMS you would then need a whole new layer of Quango's to oversee the funding and this is the layer that is supposedly already being reduced to save costs..........

This also leaves all the other elements that the DCMS currently are responsible for. Even if 50% were just dumped that still leaves work for other existing depts to take back and carries a cost.

I think we all acknowledge greater savings are required that will affect a far wider range of existing services and public expectations.

Surely far more (easy) money could be saved by dealing with the poor procurement and contracting in the bigger depts - especially the MOD with their serial history of just buying so poorly.

Why do we need a whole new layer of quangos to do something that we have just deemed not worthy of a government department? You're making my point here. We can not go on forever depending on the government to fund every little comfort in life by way of taxation. It is simply not sustainable.

[AJS-]

tubbystu said:

AJS- said:

Why do we need a whole new layer of quangos to do something that we have just deemed not worthy of a government department?

Somebody has to negotiate with the treasury as to the level of funding available and then be responsible for how those tax funds are distributed amongst those who are eligible or applying for funding.

How else did you envisage the process ? A tombola at the Treasury summer fete ?

There is no funding available.

[AJS-]

Twincam16 said:

AJS- - what exactly do you want?

There's a 'small state' and there's 'no state at all'. Sounds like you won't be happy until there's absolutely nothing left. What do you tolerate your money being spent on, exactly? Because at the moment all you're wanting to do is smash, destroy, cut, demolish etc with the blank-minded glee of a remedial kid with a mallet.

Seriously, what kind of government do you want? Because I suspect that in the form you're aiming at it'd be so minimal it wouldn't have any authority or ability to support itself, effectively handing the governance over to completely unaccountable businessmen.

Topic for another thread really (and another poll?) but my idea of a good state is one that provides the framework for people to interact freely, form such institutions as they deem useful and behave as they wish within the bounds of a universally respected sanctity of the individual and his property, and otherwise stay the hell out of the way.

[AJS-]

Just because I don't live there it doesn't make you any more right. I'm British, I have friends and family there and I may well go back there at some point.

I live here because it suits me at the moment, but I don't see what that has to do with my views on UK politics? Though it does make it a bit easier to see that our government is badly bloated (your government if you prefer) and that countries don't fold up and die the moment they cut off funding to every well meant pet project.

[AJS-]

Colonial said:

AJS- said:

Topic for another thread really (and another poll?) but my idea of a good state is one that provides the framework for people to interact freely, form such institutions as they deem useful and behave as they wish within the bounds of a universally respected sanctity of the individual and his property, and otherwise stay the hell out of the way.

Any examples of how this anarchist ideal is actually workable or feasible?

Seems to me that like most idealists you have a philosophical position but no idea of how to implement it.

A bit like communism really.

It's not a utopian vision - most countries are successful to the extent that they follow these principles, and start to go wrong where they diverge from them, usually in pursuit of some abstract greater good.

But a couple of real world examples, since you asked so nicely:

Hong Kong is massively better for the people who live there than is the PRC next door.
Switzerland works better than it's much larger neighbours.

The defining feature of both is surely that they have small but stable and consistent governments, who uphold property rights.

[AJS-]

Colonial said:

Hong Kong, granted. It is better than China. Hardly a ringing endorsement though. Get chlamydiae. It's a less bad STD than AIDS!

I'm intrigued by what you mean in the swiss example.

They have subsidised health care, which is actually very similar to that in Australia.

Education is generally canton based, so equivalent to county or maybe state based.

Public museums exist and are some of the oldest in Europe.

Yep, they have a smallish public service, but swiss post, for example, is a government organisation.

Besides, as Orson Welles said, "In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed – but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

Hong Kong isn't just good by comparison with China. It's an immensely wealthy place that allows 7 million people to obtain a very high standard of living. The comparison with China is just easy and direct since it's literally a short walk across a river to go from the leafy northern part of the New Territories into Shenzen, and a very stark example of the difference between a light touch state with property rights and a communist dictatorship with none.

Of course PRC isn't really communist anymore, and there is plenty of money in Shenzen, but the point stands - the history is still visible.

Switzerland, at it's simplest their government spends 32% of GDP, while ours in the UK spends 47%, and Switzerland is accordingly wealthier, and can afford a better postal service, some museums etc.

When the country is so thoroughly intent on the state doing everything there is never enough money.


NB I didn't say Switzerland, Hong Kong or anywhere else are paradise on earth that do everything right. I pointed them out as examples of countries who have a smaller state than the UK, and benefit from it.

[AJS-]

thinforth
And he's doing it anyway, so why do we need to be pumping many millions more into this? Surely making sure your business is located somewhere with the infrastructure it needs is part of starting a business?

Twincam
What real difference does the size of the country make? At extremes like Monaco or Brunei I can see it, but neither HK or Switzerland are the hobby horse of some rich monarch or cities of a few hundred people built on an oil well. They're proper full on countries with most of the same challenges as the UK, France or Germany. 1/10th as many mouths to feed and jobs to find, but 1/10th as many tax payers too, 1/10th as many entrepreneurs and 1/10th as many companies. If anything the massive number of foreign workers attracted to both has a bigger impact than it would in a larger country like the UK with a few big cities.

DJRC
As noted earlier, I wasn't holding Switzerland up as the prefect model of a country, but it has a significantly smaller government than the UK in terms of spending as a proportion of GDP, and is significantly more prosperous.

[AJS-]

Both Switzerland and Hong Kong attract lots of foreign workers - not just highly paid professionals but also skilled and casual workers, for the simple reason that there is more work there. Once you get away from the extremes of a tiny city state that can live by the generosity of a rich family or similar I don't really see that the size of the country has much to do with it.