UK Inquiry Tracker

Financial resilience of government-sponsored museums and galleries

Public Accounts Committee Open Inquiry

Opened: 12 Dec 2025 Parliament page

Fifteen national museums and galleries, including the British Museum and the Science Museum, are sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), with free access afforded to their permanent collections as a result. These institutions received £480m from DCMS in 2024-25, amounting to almost 25% of the Department’s … Read more Fifteen national museums and galleries, including the British Museum and the Science Museum, are sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), with free access afforded to their permanent collections as a result. These institutions received £480m from DCMS in 2024-25, amounting to almost 25% of the Department’s total spend, and have successfully increased their own income to supplement this, with £380m in self-generated income in 2023-24. Post-pandemic, visitor numbers remain lower - 42.1m in 2024-25, compared to 49.7m in 2018-19, as other costs have risen. This has had a significant impact on institutions’ finances, with falling reserves being used in some cases to fund deficits. DCMS announced a 5% increase in grant-in-aid in February 2025. The Public Accounts Committee’s 2021 report into the £1.57bn Culture Recovery Fund found that what was the biggest ever single investment in the arts and culture sector would require skilled oversight and management for years to come. It also raised concerns about government’s ability to manage the significant and ongoing loan book commitments created by the Fund. In 2026, the National Audit Office (NAO) publishes its report examining whether adequate arrangements are in place to secure the financial resilience of museums and galleries. Proceeding from the NAO’s findings, the PAC will take evidence from senior DCMS officials on topics including how institutions are coping with their financial challenges, and how DCMS is supporting them to do so. If you have evidence on these issues, please submit here by 23:59 on Monday 30 March 2026. Please look at the requirements for written evidence submissions and note that the Committee cannot accept material as evidence that is published elsewhere. The Committee decides what information to publish and how. You can request anonymity or confidentiality when you send evidence, but it is for the Committee to say whether it will agree.It may treat submissions confidentially, even where you have not requested this. Please note that the Committee’s inquiry cannot assist with individual cases. If you need help with an individual problem you are having, you may wish to read the information on Parliament’s website about who you can contact with different issues. Show less

2 Recommendations

25 Conclusions

1 Report

1 Oral session

1 Letter

1 Event

Activity timeline 3 events

24 Jun
2026

Report published

7th Report - Financial resilience of government-sponsored museums and galleries

14 May
2026

Correspondence

Letter from the Permanent Secretary at the Department for Culture, Media & Sport relating to Financial resilience of DCMS-sponsored museums…

20 Apr
2026

Oral evidence

Oral evidence session

Oral evidence sessions 1 session

20 Apr 2026

View on parliament.uk

Andrew Pattison · Department for Culture, Media and Sport Hannah Malik · Department for Culture, Media and Sport Polly Payne · Department for Culture, Media and Sport Susannah Storey · Department for Culture, Media and Sport

Reports 1 report · click to expand

Title	HC No.	Published	Items	Response
7th Report - Financial resilience of government-sponsored museum…	HC 96	24 Jun 2026	27	Pending

Recommendations & Conclusions

27 results

2 Conclusion

7th Report - Financial resilience …

The Department is missing opportunities to help museums and galleries address some of the common...

The Department is missing opportunities to help museums and galleries address some of the common challenges to their resilience. The Department aims to have sufficient oversight of museums and galleries while at the same time allowing them to use the … Read more

HM Treasury

Financial resilience of government-sponsored museums and galleries

Activity timeline 3 events

Oral evidence sessions 1 session

Reports 1 report · click to expand

Recommendations & Conclusions

The Department is missing opportunities to help museums and galleries address some of the common...

The Department is not doing enough to ensure museums and galleries apply learning from recent...

The Department relies heavily on museums and galleries and their boards to ensure their own...

The Department’s current funding regime risks not providing museums and galleries with sufficient incentives to...

The Department does not have the necessary insights into museums and galleries to give it...

On the basis of a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, we took evidence...

Grant-in-aid from the Department forms a significant proportion of the total income of the sponsored...

In most years, when calculating the grant-in-aid for the museums and galleries for the coming...

We asked the Department whether its usual approach of flat rate annual increases in museums’...

We are concerned that the top-ups in previous years show ultimately that the Department will...

With regard to sources of external income, we asked the Department if it had considered...

The Department is working to improve its oversight arrangements so that it has a clearer...

The Department currently has a set of long-standing key performance indicators in place to monitor...

We also asked the Department about the new Strategic Indicator Tool covering both financial and...

There are indications that some museums and galleries may not have the financial management capability...

Museums and galleries face a number of common resilience challenges and opportunities, such as the...

We therefore asked the Department how it was going to support the museums and galleries...

The Department told us that it provided support by developing a community of arm’s-length bodies,...

However, the Department agreed that it could do more and play a stronger convening role.44...

The Department also told us that, after talking to its museums and galleries, helping them...

Common resilience issues faced by the museums and galleries include the increasing threats they face...

The Department assured us that it was now working closely with the organisations on how...

We asked the Department what actions it was taking to support the museums and galleries...

Museums’ and galleries’ boards play an important role in ensuring the financial resilience of the...

We therefore asked the Department why it was taking so long to get boards up...

The Department reiterated that, despite the vacancies, all the museums’ and galleries’ boards had been...

The Department told us that, as a result, the speed of board appointments had got...

Correspondence 1 letter