Cutbacks outlined in DCMS business plan

Full-scale preparations for the 2012 Olympic Games and deep spending cuts have been positioned at the heart of the UK Culture Department’s (DCMS) five year business plan.

Published today, the roadmap offered a chilling foretoken to the drastic measures that need to be taken by 2015 as the Culture Department looks to half its on spending.

The DCMS paper showed that a wider plan is in place to limit public spending and allow the private sector to fill the vacuum.

The department insisted that, “during a time when we have to reduce public spending, our world-class cultural institutions can continue to thrive”.

But it warned: “Funding should not be an excuse for dependence. We want to see our cultural institutions adapt their business models, liberating them to raise and spend money as they see fit.”

Plans remain in place for the abolishment of the UK Film Council, as well as a scaling back of regulator Ofcom. The coalition will abolish a number of museums and libraries, as well as the Archives Council.

All game-funding RDAs, save for one, will be axed while NESTA is to gain charity status.

The department wants to roll-out super-fast broadband across the country, and said will work with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills “to enhance the support that the UK’s intellectual property framework gives to entrepreneurialism, economic growth and social and commercial innovation”.

Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt said the plan will see the UK “boost economic growth, equip the country for future success and transform the way we deliver culture, media, sport and tourism.”

The UK games industry, like the music and film industries, were not mentioned in the report.