11.8.1 The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) is the lead sponsoring Government Department for developing and delivering public policy on culture, media and sport, for public broadcasting licenses, for managing the London 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, and for directing public investment in culture and sport activities
including National Lottery funds. DCMS devolves its statutory and governmental responsibilities to a range of national cultural agencies (known as Non Departmental Public Bodies) and commissioned organisations. At the national scale, the principal DCMS sponsored bodies are: Arts Council England, English Heritage, Sport England, VisitEngland and British Film Institute, along with the Centre for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE), Museums Libraries and Archives Council and the UK Film Council (that will be disbanded as of April 2011). Other Departments, such as Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and Communities and Local Government (DCLG) are also involved in aspects of cultural and sport policy development (economic growth, health, social well-being) and delegate these responsibilities to bodies such as SW RDA (abolished as of March 2012), Business Links, Big Lottery Fund and Heritage Lottery Fund.
11.8.2 With radical structural reform taking place at national and regional scales, decision-making powers over public-funded cultural and sport services are being devolved to local authorities and to the new Local Enterprise Partnerships. In South West England, two strategic partnerships are also active on cultural and sport service prioritisation and improvement: firstly, South West Culture Board of representatives from Arts Council England, English Heritage South West, Museums, Libraries and Archives Council and Sport England; and secondly, the South West Local Authority Cultural Partnership of cultural service leaders and representatives from the cultural agencies. Re-structure of cultural governance at the national and regional levels (described above), is similarly affecting many local authorities. While cultural services are not a mandatory service area, local authorities are being hard-pressed to maintain them, in the face of competing demands, departmental mergers and staff redundancies (McPherson, 2008).
11.8.3 Government and agencies acknowledge the challenges presented by current political and economic circumstances, but they also point to opportunities for improvement. To this end, governance and governmental bodies (national, regional and local) are seeking new service delivery models and partnerships – such organisational re-structures, collaborations, mergers and social enterprise. In the case of local authorities, radical governance solutions are being explored, in collaboration with local strategic cultural partnerships - Culture Swindon (Swindon Borough Council, 2009) and Creative Dorset are two such examples.
