The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is believed to be facing the axe as Keir Starmer pushes ahead with an efficiency drive of the civil service.
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy is facing a doubtful future as Downing Street insiders have said the existing policy briefs that sit in the department could easily be moved into other departments.
The end of the standalone Government department for arts and cultural matters, created over three decades ago, would likely lead to massive job cuts.
Insiders told the Telegraph the move would be part of a move by Sir Keir Starmer to streamline the civil service.
The department spearheaded by Lisa Nandy could be scrapped
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An insider told The Telegraph: "If we want to deliver the Plan for Change, you can’t just do business as usual. You have to do stuff differently, you have to be reformers."
Another Starmer ally said: "It is about a lean and agile state. It is not about individuals or reshuffles."
Set up under John Major's Conservative party following his election victory in 1992 as the Department of National Heritage, the branch has gone through multiple iterations.
In 1997, upon winning an election landslide for Labour, Tony Blair renamed it to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
Two decades later, it became the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport in July 2017 before reverting to its DCMS name in 2023.
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The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
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The broadsheet reports that official advice on closing the department was drafted for the Prime Minister's speech on March 13, when he announced the scrapping of NHS England.
While the announcement was not made in the Spring, it is understood there remains an interest in taking the move in Downing Street.
No final decision about the future of the DCMS has been made.
Speaking at the announcement earlier this year, the Prime Minister described the civil service as "overstretched, unfocused and unable to deliver the security people need today."
Secretary of State for Culture, Media, and Sport Lisa Nandy
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Nandy, the MP for Wigan, stood against Starmer in the 2020 Labour leadership election following the resignation of Jeremy Corbyn.
She finished a distant third behind Salford MP Rebecca Long-Bailey and the future Prime Minister.
In their time as opposition, she was initially handed the role of Shadow Foreign Secretary before being moved to the role of Shadow Communities Secretary in November 2021 and then to Shadow International Development Minister in September 2023.
She was given the role of Culture Secretary when Labour entered Government after the holder of the role in opposition, Thangam Debbonaire, lost her Bristol Central seat to Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer.
