Patrick
Boylan's
Cultural
Policy and Management Information Service
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Patrick
Boylan's |
Culture & Heritage in the UK: Other National Ministries
Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCFS)
New Ministry created in the major restructuring of Government in June 2007: brings together the part of the former Department of Education and Skills relating to education from nursery level to the end of secondary education, with the responsibilities for child and family welfare of the Department of Social Services. The new Department's main involvement with, or impact on, cultural sector includes:
Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS)
This new Ministry was created in June 2007 by bringing together the science and innovation responsibilities of the Department of Trade and Industry. Skills, further and higher education from the former Department for Education and Skills.
Key responsibilities in relation to the cultural sector is government support for research in the arts, humanities and relevant areas of the social sciences UK-wide, and policy and funding in relation to all post-school educational and training including further and higher education in England, including arts and heritage education in further and higher education institutions: the universities and higher education colleges, including the leading music, drama and dance conservatoires.
University museums and galleries are funded through the parent institution's block grant from the Higher Education Funding Council. These include some of the most important museums and galleries in the country, eg. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, Courtauld Institute Galleries, University of London, and at least 200 others, many of which are also of national or regional importance, eg. Pitt-Rivers and University Museums, Oxford, Manchester Museum and Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester.
Similarly, many universities and other higher education institutions are significant providers of cultural facilities and promoters of arts events to the general public, supported directly or indirectly by the parent institution's block grant from the Higher Education Funding Council. Examples include regionally important Arts Centres (eg. De Montfort, Sussex and Warwick Universities), theatres (eg. University of Exeter, University College, London) and concert halls (eg. Universities of Exeter and Hull)
Research:
Higher Education:
Department
for Communities and Local Government (DCLG)
Established in its present form in 2007, the main involvement with, or impact
of, DCLG on the cultural sector is through its responsibility for the funding
and regulation of all English local authorities, for planning policy and control
in England at the national level, for regions, communities and neighbourhoods,
and for a wide range of special programmes for social and economic regeneration,
particularly of cities and other prodominantly urban areas
Department
for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA)
New Ministry established in July 2001 taking over the responsibilities of the
former Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, along with environmental
and countryside issues from other ministries, particularly the former Department
of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR). Cultural institutions
are mainly affected by the Ministry's responsibilities for the heritage (see
below). Also through DEFRA a wide range of related animal welfare regulations
and wider European Union Common Agricultural Policy standards are enforced,
and these can affect countryside heritage institutions, such as heritage properties
and other historic farms.
The main heritage and related responsibilities and funded official bodies include:
Also re-structured to a very considerable degree in 2006 and again in 2007. Functions of special relevance to the cultural sector include:
The Armed Services each have long and distinguished musical traditions. Most major units have their own corps of musicians through which the Ministry of Defence is a major employer of musicians and a major spender on the promotion of music. (In the ealry 1990s it was estimated that the total Defence expenditure on music was greater than the Music budget of the Arts Council.) There is now a central directorate co-ordinating military music as below:
Kneller Hall, Twickenham - Directorate Corps of Army Music Headquarters and Royal Military School of Music
The Ministry runs directly six substantial national armed services and provides substantial funds through the relevant Service and Unit to support almost 200 museums. The national museums are:
Created in May 2007 by merging the administration of justice and related functions of the former Lord Chancellor's Department/Department of Constitutional Affairs with the administration of the penal system, including prisons etc., previously part of the Home Office. Responsibilities affecting the cultural sector include public records, including the National Archives and local authority archive services, data protection, freedom of information, human rights, and responsibility for the "home" self-governing Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Gurnsey and the Isle of Man
© 2007. City University, Northampton Square, London EC1V 0HB, United Kingdom. Last updated by Patrick Boylan 12th November 2007