The Culture, Media and Sport Committee is inviting written submissions from the art and heritage community on the possible impact of spending cuts from central and local government. The submissions are likely to impact part of the government's plans for spending cuts in the autumn, which Culture minister Jeremy Hunt were unavoidable.

The Committee is also asking the art community to share their views on what art organisations can do to work more closely otgether in order to reduce duplication of effort and to make economies of scale.

Among the other questions asked by the Committee are: "What level of public subsidy for the arts and heritage is necessary and sustainable?"; "Whether the current system, and structure, of funding distribution is the right one?"; "What impact recent changes to the distribution of National Lottery funds will have on arts and heritage organisations?"; "Whether the policy guidelines for National Lottery funding need to be reviewed?"; and "The impact of recent changes to DCMS arm's-length bodies - in particular the abolition of the UK Film Council and the Musseums, Libraries and Archives Council."

Furthermore, and drawing from a campaign promise made by Hunt in December 2009, the Committee is also asking whether businesses and philanthropists can play a long-term role in funding arts at a national and local level, and if so, whether there need to be more government incentives to encourage private donations.

All written submissions must be sent by Thursday 02 September at cmsev@parliament.uk with the subject line: "Funding of the Arts and Heritage". The submissions must not exceed six A4 pages, begin with a short summary in bullet point form and be in Word or Rich Text Format (no PDFs).

For more information, visit www.parliament.uk/commons/selcom/witguide.htm.