Donelan: Lessons must be learned from UNBOXED

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) will conduct a review into the £120m UNBOXED festival amid claims it was a "waste of money", Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan has said.

Appearing before members of the DCMS Select Committee today, Donelan stressed that she was not involved with the project, but conceded there had been "shortfalls" and "lessons have to be learned".

The UNBOXED festival, originally announced in 2018, consisted of a programme of 10 creative projects which took place at locations throughout the United Kingdom, and digitally, between March and November 2022.

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But it has come in for significant criticism. Chair of the DCMS Select Committee Julian Knight has previously described the project as an "excessive waste of money during a cost of living crisis", and an investigation by the National Audit Office, published last week, found that its economic value had been "overstated".

Donelan, who became Culture Secretary in September, appeared before the DCMS Select Committee today to answer a range of questions on the work of her department, with Knight taking the opportunity to get her take on the festival.

Donelan said that while she believes the initial intention behind UNBOXED was "a laudable one", aiming to "spread culture to areas of the country that had been culturally deprived", there were failings.

Asked by Knight whether she would "do it again", Donelan said: "I never did it in the first place.

"I don't think anybody would do it exactly the same because there are lessons that have to be learned from UNBOXED."

'Monumental cock-up'

Julian Knight responded by saying that the DCMS select committee had previously warned against the project, saying that it "would be a failure".

"The reasons why we thought it would be a failure were because it had no idea behind it," he said.

"There was nothing we could grasp onto. It was literally just a splurging of money rather than something that was hooked to an event in time.

"People still talk about things like the World War One Commemoration, the 2012 Olympics and the jubilees we have had for her late majesty.

"But you have to recognise as the Secretary of State, and we accept this was not your fault, that this was a monumental cock-up of gargantuan proportions and this should never have been allowed to come to fruition."

Knight went on to ask Donelan whether she had been making enquiries with her department as to which officials were responsible for "banging the drum" for UNBOXED during its development.

He added that he personally knows of a previous Secretary of State who "was minded to cancel this, but was persuaded not to by officials".

"We will be doing a review into the project, as I know independent sources like you and the Public Accounts Select Committee are," Donelan said.

"Together, all of those will hold not just the department but the government to account.

"As I have said there are lessons to be learned. Would I have done things differently? Absolutely. Do I think things should have been done differently? Absolutely."

But she added that the objectives given to officials working on it were met and there "were many people who engaged with it who are big fans of what happened".