Funding and Resources
Part of the Heritage Counts series. 5 minute read.
A wide range of organisations provide funding for the historic environment. The 'Funding and Resources' theme brings together datasets that track the funding provided to the sector by a selection of national funders and voluntary organisations.
National public sector funding
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) is the department dedicated to the UK’s cultural, media, sporting, tourism and charity sectors.
DCMS is directly responsible for several important sources of funding for the historic environment. These include the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme, the Memorial Grant Schemes, funding for Royal Parks and Royal Households. Historic England is an executive non-departmental public body sponsored by DCMS. 2021/22 is the final year the English Heritage Trust received Grant in aid from Historic England, after which the Charity is intended to be financially sustainable.
Funding sources for the Historic Environment, 2021/22
The National Lottery Heritage Fund is the largest heritage funding source in the UK
Figure FUN 3.1 – A treemap of the different funding sources for the Historic Environment. Source: DCMS, Historic England, English Heritage.
Local Authority funding
Local government expenditure accounts for around a fifth of all government spending. Local Authority revenue and expenditure outturns are published by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) as an official statistic, providing the most up to date and comprehensive information available on Local Authority revenue spending.
- Total revenue expenditure includes all spending on employees and running costs. This totalled £111.1 billion across all local authorities in England in 2021/22. In real terms, this is 1.3% lower than 2020/21 and 7.3% higher than 2019/20
- Net current expenditure is the total revenue expenditure less income. In 2021/22, net expenditure was £107.1 billion, which was 1.9% lower in real terms compared to 2020/21 and 7.3% higher than in 2019/20
Local Authority total net expenditure, 2021/22
2% of Local Authority expenditure was on cultural services
Figure FUN 3.2a – A doughnut diagram showing the percentage of net expenditure which goes towards cultural services. Source: DLUHC.
Allocation of funds across various sectors
Figure FUN 3.2b – A bar graph illustrating the allocation of funds across various sectors within a particular budget, indicating the priorities and financial distribution for each service category. Shown in billions of pounds and as a percentage. Source: DLUHC.
Local Authority expenditure on the historic environment
Includes spending and income from key services relating to:
- Archives: All spending on archives
- Heritage: All spending on repair and maintenance of the authority’s historic buildings and ancient monuments, including recovery of expenses; Costs of compulsory purchase orders and income from sales of properties so acquired; Initiatives or services designed to develop or maintain an awareness of local history, including grants to certain voluntary groups; Special events to celebrate historical events
- Museums and galleries: All spend on museums and galleries including grants to independent museums
- Development control: Spending under town and country planning legislation including on Advice; Conservation and listed building applications/Buildings preservation orders/ Urgent works and repairs notices, and spot listings; Listed building and conservation appeals; and Enforcement
- Conservation and listed buildings planning policy: Spend on determination of policy or guidelines for conservation; The designation of conservation areas and the preparation and implementation of any schemes for their enhancement, including conservation area appraisals; Building risk assessment and general advice on historic buildings and conservation areas
Since 2009/2010, there have been significant decreases in Local Authority expenditure on services for the historic environment. This ranges from -34% (Museums and Galleries) to -57% for Development Control by 2021/22.
The impacts of these large spending cuts are demonstrated amongst owners and occupiers of listed buildings who find the listed building consent process and resources increasingly problematic.
Local Authority net expenditure for Historic Environment related services
Figures on expenditure have declined over time
Figure FUN 3.3 – A stacked bar chart showing expenditure between 2009/10 and 2021/22 over the 5 main Historic Environment subcategories. Source: DLUHC.
Regional net expenditure for Historic Environment related services in Local Authorities, 2009/10 to 2021/2
Development control has seen the biggest drop in expenditure over this period
Figure FUN 3.4a - Across historic environment subcategories, arrows show there has been a drop in expenditure and the percentage of this drop between 2009/10 to 2021/2. Source: DLUHC.
Figure FUN 3.4b – View this information by 9 regions in England, showing losses and some gains. Click the legend to filter the range visible.
Note: Producing the Local Authority Expenditure on historic environment time series estimates
To produce insights based on Local Authority Expenditure data over time, we have undertaken some important data adjustment to account for anomalies, changes in Local Authority boundaries and adjusting for inflation using CPI.
- Financial Data: Where Financial Year 2021/22 data was not accessible, we have used the previous financial data from Financial Year 2020/21. This is to prevent a large fall during the Financial Year 2021/22 where lots of data was missing
- Use of Moving Averages: To smooth out short-term fluctuations and highlight longer-term trends in the data, we have employed moving averages
- Omission of Finacial Year 2011/12 for Conservation Policy: Financial Year 2011/12 has been omitted from the conservation policy analysis. Instead, an average is taken between Financial Year 2009/10 and 2012/13. This decision was driven by the presence of substantial outliers within the dataset, covering all regions
- Greater London's Conservation Expenditure Data: We have adjusted Greater London's data to better reflect the changes in conservation funding for the Financial Year 2021/22
- Normalisation of Funding Post-Northampton Boundary Changes: Northampton witnessed a surge in funding for conservation following boundary alterations. To ensure consistency and enable more meaningful comparisons, we have adjusted the data to be in line with the levels observed in the Financial Year 2020/21. If this is a long-term trend, this will be reflected in the next iteration
The data presented in the Heritage Counts Indicator spreadsheet has remained untouched from the source and does not include these adjustments except for adjustments for CPI inflation.
National Lottery Heritage Fund funding
The National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF) is the largest source of public funding for the historic environment in the UK.
- Since its inception in 1994, it has awarded over £16.5 billion to more than 38,500 projects up until 2022
- In 2021/22, 644 heritage projects were financed with a total expenditure of £112.8 million
- Over £46 million of this funding was awarded to projects in the 25% most deprived local authorities
NLHF funding, 2012/13 to 2021/22
Over time, funding has decreased by nearly two-thirds (in real terms)
Figure FUN 3.5 – A bar graph showing National Lottery Heritage Fund funding. Source: NLHF.
Countryside Stewardship Scheme
The Countryside Stewardship Scheme provides funding to farmers and other land managers who deliver effective environmental management on their land, including protection of the historic environment.
- In 2022, the scheme’s penultimate year, £20 million of funding was awarded by the scheme through agreements including historic environment options (an increase of 57% over the 2021 total of £12.7 million)
- In 2022, 2,142 agreements were taken up, an increase of 57% over the 2021 total of 1,362 agreements
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Funding and Resources
Spreadsheet of the raw data. It is our aim to help improve the usability, accessibility and machine-readability of statistical spreadsheets, please bear with us whilst we make these improvements.
