On 26 March 2025 the Senedd will debate the Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport and International Relations Committee’s report, A decade of cuts: impact of funding reductions for culture and sport. The Welsh Government’s response can be read on the same page. Since the report was published the Committee has published its report on the Welsh Government’s 2025-26 Draft Budget. The Welsh Government response can be read on the same page.
Following a decade of funding reductions from the Welsh Government and local authorities, public funding of culture and sport in Wales is lower, per head, than most European nations.
The Senedd’s Culture Committee has called for the Welsh Government to reach parity of funding with similar countries. The Welsh Government accepted this recommendation in principle, and responded with funding increases in the 2025-26 Final Budget.
A decade of cuts
Welsh Government funding of culture and sport is largely channelled through arm’s-length bodies, such as the Arts Council of Wales, Sport Wales and Amgueddfa Cymru/Museum Wales. In 2023-24 the Welsh Government cut the revenue funding of all culture and sport bodies by between 5 and 15% (the Books Council received the highest percentage cut) in a budget that saw funding swinging to health and social services .
In total, 2024-25 saw the Welsh Government cut revenue funding for culture and sport by 7.7% compared to 2023-24 allocations. Capital funding, which is less than half the value of revenue allocations, increased by 6.3%.
This meant that, by its own calculations, the Welsh Government had cut revenue budgets in these areas by 17% in real-terms over a decade. Over the same period, capital budgets (which are still less than half the size of revenue budgets) almost tripled in size.
The biggest losers were the Arts Council, which saw the Welsh Government reduce its revenue funding in real-terms over a decade by about 29%, and the Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments, which saw a 38% reduction.
Provision of culture, sport and recreation services is discretionary for local authorities. Between 2013-14 and 2023-24, local authority revenue funding of libraries, culture, heritage, sport and recreation reduced by 28% in real terms, whilst spending on education and social services soared.
Local authority revenue outturn by service (£000s) (2001-2 to 2022-23)
Source: Stats Wales
Public spending on culture and sport among the lowest in Europe
Following these prolonged real-terms cuts from central and local government, public funding of culture and sport in Wales is among the lowest in Europe. Analysis from Senedd Research compared public spending on culture and sport with 24 European countries (including the UK as a whole) for which data was available.
The average spend on recreation and sporting services in these countries is £187.74 per person. In Wales the figure is £59.75 per person, or 32% of the average of these countries. This placed Wales third from bottom.
Source: Senedd Research analysis of Welsh Government, StatsWales and OECD data
The average spend on cultural services in these countries is £215.02 per person. In Wales the figure is £69.68 per person, also 32% of the average of these countries. This placed Wales second from bottom of the group of 25 nations.
Source: Senedd Research analysis of Welsh Government, StatsWales and OECD data
Triple-whammy of pandemic legacy, cost of living increases and funding cuts
The impact of public funding cuts on culture and sport bodies has been compounded by the pandemic and the increased cost of living. Although these sectors received emergency funding from the Welsh Government during the pandemic, this funding ended, and Covid’s legacy remains.
The latest figures (from 2022-23) showed that all forms of arts attendance were down since before the pandemic. “Most (venues) have not returned to pre-pandemic levels of attendance”, the Arts Council explained in 2024. Reduced funding, they said, “has exacerbated a fragile situation”.
The Football Association of Wales has described “poor facilities” as “the number one issue affecting players and clubs”. And Swim Wales has said that, after a “steady decline” in the condition of aquatic facilities for a decade, 30% of swimming pools are at risk of closure over the next ten years.
According to the Arts Council of Wales there is “a crisis currently facing the culture sector”. Similarly, the Musicians' Union has said “there is a crisis developing in Welsh music”.
The national concert hall – St David’s Hall, which is owned by Cardiff Council – remains closed after RAAC was discovered in 2023. The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama has stopped its regular weekend youth provision for musicians and actors. And question marks remain over the financial viability of Welsh National Opera after funding cuts from the arts councils in Wales and England. “Survival is incredibly perilous”, they said, “because it means stripping the finances to such a level that there is no room for error”.
Crisis? What crisis?
The Minister disagrees. “I wouldn’t myself describe it as a crisis”, Jack Sargeant MS, Minister for Culture, Skills and Social Partnership told the Culture Committee in January 2025. “There are challenges”, he said “and we will work collaboratively and in partnership with the sector to overcome those challenges”. The Committee raised “significant concerns about whether the Minister fully appreciates the extent of the pressures the sector is facing”.
He called the slight increases in the 2025-26 Draft Budget a "step in the right direction" and pointed towards additional in-year funding the Welsh Government had provided to the arts in 2024-25. Welsh Government funding of £2.5m had enabled the Arts Council of Wales to run a £3.6m Resilience Fund which it distributed to 60 organisations.
The Arts Council previously described in-year funding top-ups as a “sticking plaster”, adding that such grants “don’t answer the long-term demand to solve some of the problems that a lack of funding causes.”
Welsh Government revenue funding slightly higher than 2023-24 levels
When the Welsh Government published its 2025-26 Draft Budget in December 2024, it had reversed many of the cuts to culture and sport it implemented in the 2023-24 Budget.
But the Culture Committee was “not yet assured that the allocations are sufficient to improve the situation materially”. These small increases since 2023-24 had all been wiped out by inflation, and organisations faced other increased costs, such as their contributions to new Welsh Government projects such as the National Contemporary Art Gallery.
Furthermore, arm’s-length bodies are still unsure who will pick up the bill for increased National Insurance Contributions. Amgueddfa Cymru estimates these to be £500,000, of a £900,000 year-on-year revenue uplift. The Minister explained that the Welsh Government would “look to support” these organisations “where we can”, and that he was “not concerned” about the current lack of clarity.
In the Final Budget, published in February 2025, culture and sport saw an additional revenue increase of £4.6m. That means a real-terms increase for these areas between 2023-24 and 2025-26 of about 1%.
But once you look beneath the bonnet, the picture is different for many organisations. Revenue funding for Amgueddfa Cymru and the National Library, excluding non-cash, is now at 2023-24 levels in cash terms. Sport Wales’s has increased by £4,000 and the Arts Council’s has increased by £157,000. This means a real-terms revenue cut for all these bodies (excluding non-cash) between 2023-24 and 2025-26 of about 2%.
A “step in the right direction”, perhaps, but a long way until Wales leaves the relegation zone of the European league table for culture and sport funding.
Article by Robin Wilkinson, Senedd Research, Welsh Parliament
