Yesterday, the Chancellor set out details for the Spending Review 2020. His full speech is available here, the full set of documents can be found here.
Billions of pounds have been allocated to COVID-19 recovery for next year across different government departments. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has seen an increase to both its resource funding and capital funding. For the year 2021-22, there will be over £100 million of capital investment for DCMS-supported bodies working across culture, heritage, and sports.
Other key spending announcements for heritage are:
- over £150 million on cultural and heritage infrastructure, including through the Cultural Investment Fund and Museums Infrastructure Fund, enabling the development of British Library North and continued investment in the Heritage High Streets programme
- over £320 million for galleries and museums
- increased core spending power for local authorities by an estimated 4.5 per cent in cash terms, along with over £3 billion of additional Covid 19 support
- over £150 million in 2021-22 for upcoming major events, including the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, Festival UK and the celebrations for the Queen’s Jubilee
Click here for the Alliance’s summary of the Spending Review and headlines for the sector. We await further detail to fully understand how this will affect the heritage sector and heritage sites across the country