Lord Quirk – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture Media and Sport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Quirk on 2014-05-07.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to mitigate any reduction in staffing provision, acquisitions, and essential services in the British Library resulting from reductions in funding since 2010.

Lord Gardiner of Kimble

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has an arm’s length relationship with its sponsored bodies such as the British Library, and operational and management decisions are therefore a matter for the Board and Executive. In the Spending Review of 2010, funding for the British Library was protected by limiting resource cuts to 15% in real terms over four years, and at the Spending Round of 2013, the 5% reduction in capital and resource budgets was below average. The Chancellor signalled in his 2014 Budget announcement that there would not be any further reductions to departmental spending at this time, so that sponsored bodies will maintain current levels of planned spending in 2014/15 and 2015/16.