From www.guardian.co.uk

Up to one in two of the staff at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport are to be made redundant as part of the cuts programme submitted to the Treasury by the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt.

Hunt has also proposed moving out of the well-appointed departmental headquarters in Cockspur Street, just off Trafalgar Square, with the remaining staff finding room in a different, existing departmental building.

In a move which will send a chill through the arts world, Hunt, who has proposed cuts of between 35% and 50% of all staff, believes he will not be able to win support for the coming deep cuts in arts and media budgets unless he leads by example.

All government departments have been told by the Treasury to offer cuts of between 25% and 40% of total budgets. Some departments have failed to meet the Treasury deadline or are refusing to produce 40% cuts, saying it is not realistic to do so, and therefore a waste of time.

Ministers who settle early with the Treasury have been told they can then sit on the star chamber set up to arbitrate on departments that refuse to settle until September or October.

The DCMS, even now still referred to in some circles as the "Ministry of fun", has one of the smallest of Whitehall budgets at £2.1bn, compared to, for example, the defence budget of more than £36bn. It also has one of the smallest workforces – 590 of the 468,700 civil servants employed by central government.

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