§ Lynne JonesTo ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what Government funding has been
Table 1: Allocation of grant-in-aid to DCMS sponsored museums and galleries £ million Region 1997–98 1998–99 1999–2000 2000–01 2001–02 2002–03 2003–04 England 206 203 219 229 246 268 275 London 184 185 197 205 218 238 243 South East — — — — — — — Birmingham — — — — — — — West Midlands — — — — — — — My Department does not provide core funding for other museums, but supports the wider museum sector in England through Resource: the Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries.
Following the creation of the Designated Museums Challenge Fund (DMCF) in 1999 Resource and its predecessor the Museums and Galleries Commission have made the following awards of non-core funding to museums with pre-eminent collections across England:
Table 2: Non-core support for regional museums via Resource £ million Region 1999–2002 England 15.0 London 2.4 South East 1.6 Birmingham 0.6 West Midlands1 0.9 1 Excluding Birmingham In the Government Spending Review 2000 Resource was allocated an additional £10 million per year to support regional collections. This will now be used to implement the proposals set out in the report of the Regional Museums Task Force "Renaissance in the Regions".