Skip to main content

Museums and Galleries: Lancashire

Volume 458: debated on Tuesday 13 March 2007

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how many people visited museums in Lancashire in each of the last five years. (126153)

As part of the ‘Best Value’ framework for assessing service delivery at the local government level, single tier and county councils report visits to/usage of museums per thousand of the population. The definitions used in Best Value Performance Indicator 170 (BV170) can be downloaded from the website of the Department for Communities and Local Government at:

<http://www.communities.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1136118>

and the data provided by local authorities in any given year can be downloaded from the Audit Commission’s website at:

<http://www.audit-commission.gov.uk/performance/dataprovision.asp>

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how much museums in Lancashire received in Government funding in each of the last five years. (126154)

Museums are a discretionary local authority service and their core funding is a matter for Lancashire county council and the 12 district councils in Lancashire.

Excluding lottery funding, the Department through the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) has provided the following sums to museums within the Lancashire county council geographical area that are responsible for collections of nationally significant cultural items (designated collections):

Grants to museums with designated collections in Lancashire

£000

2005-06

36.1

2004-05

36.1

2003-04

35.0

2002-03

35.0

2001-02

95.0

The Department also sponsors the National Football Museum in Preston and has provided them with the following annual sums:

Grant to the national football museum

£000

2005-06

100

2004-05

100

2003-04

100

2002-03

1n/a

2001-02

1n/a

1 The museum was not sponsored by DCMS prior to 2003-04.

The Harris Museum and Art Gallery is also one of five partner institutions in the North-West Hub of the Renaissance Programme for regional museums. In total, this North-West Renaissance Hub has received the following funding:

Grant in aid to the north west renaissance hub through the MLA

£000

2005-06

1,402

2004-05

820

2003-04

220

2002-03

10

2001-02

1n/a

1 Prior to the renaissance programme.