Wales spends less on culture than almost all European nations, report finds

Wales has the second-lowest spending per head on culture out of all European nations, a new report has found.

Published this month by the Senedd’s culture and sport committee, the report analysed the impact of a decade of spending cuts to the nation’s arts, culture, heritage and sports sectors.

It found that those sectors “have all seen a significant real terms reduction in revenue funding over the past decade”, with Wales now ranked second from the bottom of European countries in terms of spending per person for cultural services.

The report urged the Welsh Government to increase funding for culture until it is comparable to that of similar nations.

The committee heard evidence from a range of local and national cultural bodies, including Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales and the Federation of Museums and Galleries of Wales.

The research was conducted at a time of crisis for the sector, after last year's government cuts of 10% or more to culture and heritage bodies led to warnings that some could collapse.

The report found that the funding crisis had been particularly acute because historic underfunding meant those sectors were “not equipped to respond to such significant cuts”.

The committee said the government’s 2024/25 budget had “exacerbated a fragile situation” for the sectors, with all forms of cultural attendance still not recovered to pre-pandemic levels. High levels of inflation, including the rising cost of catering, had also added to the overall deficit facing the sector, the report said.

The government later gave an in-year funding boost to the affected sectors, but Amgueddfa Cymru told the committee that the additional funding it had received was a “sticking plaster” and that such grants “don’t answer the long-term demand to solve some of the problems that a lack of funding causes”.

The report found that much of the additional funding received by cultural bodies had been swallowed up by redundancy payments.

Amgueddfa Cymru also raised concern about restrictions around the spending of additional in-year funding, and said greater flexibility is needed in how government funding is spent.

A number of respondents told the committee that legislation should be introduced to make cultural services a statutory requirement for local authorities in order to protect spending. The Federation of Museums and Galleries of Wales said that the nation had a “unique opportunity to set a precedent for the rest of the UK” by introducing statutory protection for collections.

Amgueddfa Cymru added that “statutory responsibility would mean that there would have to be far more scrutiny and discussion in terms of local authorities’ spending on the arts and arts provision”.

However, the committee concluded that “statutory protection alone, without extra funding, is not enough to protect these sectors”.

The report said: “We are not convinced that there is a need for new legislation. Instead… we would like to see the Welsh Government giving these non-statutory services the value and recognition they deserve.”

A number of organisations called on the government to promote the contribution of culture to health and wellbeing.

The Welsh Local Government Association told the committee that the government should provide “greater national recognition of the preventative role the sector plays in terms of health and social care, and its contribution to the economy”.

The association said that encouraging early intervention with culture and sport is a “cheaper and better option than waiting until more expensive, specialist, intervention is needed.”

The Senedd committee recommended that more should be done to ensure that funding decisions are joined up with wider government priorities, especially around health and education, saying that culture is “intrinsic to achieving the goals of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015”.

Member of the Senedd Delyth Jewell, who chairs the committee, said: "For too long, culture and sport have been treated as 'nice to haves,' facing relentless funding reductions that have left these sectors brittle and under-resourced.

“The recent cuts in the 2024-25 Welsh Government budget, compounded by inflation and rising costs, have had a profound impact. We must tackle this to ensure that spending per head on culture and sport becomes comparable with other nations.

“Culture and sport are vital threads in the fabric of what makes life worth living: they enrich the human experience, and not merely luxuries to be enjoyed during times of plenty.

“Without significant changes, Wales risks being left behind in cultural and sporting achievements, endangering our national character and the well-being of our communities.”

Sharon Heal, director of the Museums Association, welcomed the report. She said: “We would strongly agree with the recommendations to increase spend per head on culture to that of similar nations and the development of cross-department strategies to fund culture, especially with health and education where we know museums are delivering against departmental priorities.”

The Welsh Government plans to provide an extra £5m in resource funding and an additional £16m-plus in capital funding for culture, heritage and sport in its 2025/26 budget.