The Culture, Media & Sport Committee has launched a new inquiry and call for evidence into the funding of arts and heritage. The Committee is inviting written submissions and requesting views on the following issues:

• What impact recent, and future, spending cuts from central and local Government will have on the arts and heritage at a national and local level
• What arts organisations can do to work more closely together in order to reduce duplication of effort and to make economies of scale
• What level of public subsidy for the arts and heritage is necessary and sustainable
• Whether the current system, and structure, of funding distribution is the right one
• What impact recent changes to the distribution of National Lottery funds will have on arts and heritage organisations
• Whether the policy guidelines for National Lottery funding need to be reviewed
• The impact of recent changes to DCMS arms-length bodies – in particular the abolition of the UK Film Council and Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA)
• Whether businesses and philanthropists can play a long-term role in funding arts at a national and local level
• Whether there need to be more Government incentives to encourage private donations

The Committee will also examine other areas of interest that are raised during the course of its inquiry. A copy of the submission should be sent by e-mail to cmsev@parliament.uk and have ‘Funding of the Arts and Heritage’ in the subject line.

Submissions should be received by Thursday 2 September 2010

Each submission should:
• state clearly who the submission is from, i.e. whether from yourself in a personal capacity or sent on behalf of an organisation
• be about 3,000 words in length / run to no more than six sides of A4 paper
• as far as possible comprise a single document attachment to the email
• begin with a short summary in bullet point form
• have numbered paragraphs
• be in Word or Rich Text format (not PDF) with as little use of colour or logos as possible

Please supply a postal address so a copy of the Committee’s report can be sent to you upon publication. It would be helpful, for Data Protection purposes, if individuals submitting written evidence would send their contact details separately in a covering email in a block of text laid out vertically.

You should also be aware that there may be circumstances in which the House of Commons will be required to communicate information to third parties on request, in order to comply with its obligations under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Though there is a strong preference for emailed submissions, those without access to a computer should send a hard copy to:
Committee Assistant,
Culture, Media and Sport Committee,
Committee Office,
House of Commons,
7 Millbank
LONDON
SW1P 3JA

A guide for written submissions to Select Committees may be found on the parliamentary website at: http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/witnessguide.pdf