Culture Recovery Fund: London benefits the most from latest grants for museums and arts venues - how much has each region got?

Londoners have received more than three times as much government Covid funding per head for their venues, museums and other cultural organisations compared to other parts of the country.

The latest round of grants in the Government’s Culture Recovery Fund has been announced by Arts Council England today (2 April).

Analysis of the figures by NationalWorld reveals London has received £26 per head of the population so far in the scheme.

That’s more than three times as much as in the East Midlands (£7.88) and East of England (£7.99), and £11 more than the next highest allocation (the North West, £14.71).

The Culture Recovery Fund is designed to support cultural organisations through the pandemic as they “transition back to a viable and sustainable operating model”.

There were 2,272 organisations listed in the latest round of funding, sharing a pot of £262 million.

The biggest award was £1.93 million, which went to the York Archaeological Trust for Excavation and Research.

The smallest was just £8,000, which went to The Lounge Bar, a music venue in East Hampshire.

Of the 20 biggest awards in the latest round, eight went to London-based organisations.

To date, £751 million has been dished out to arts venues, museums and cultural organisations across England.

That is the equivalent of £11.24 per head of the population.

Organisations in London received £233 million of that – almost a third of the total, and £26 per resident.

However, North West organisations have enjoyed the largest average payout – 490 institutions have shared £108 million, at an average of £220,368.55 a piece.

That’s compared to a national average of £172,303.19 per award.

The total amount of funding per head of the population in each region is:

In addition to the grants, some businesses have received a share of more than £165 million in repayable loans.

All locations are based on the postcode of the applicant.