THE government is heading for a row with Britain’s arts institutions when it announces tomorrow that it will impose stricter controls on funding increases.

Tessa Jowell, the culture secretary, will tell museums, galleries and arts organisations that rises in their £1 billion worth of grants will now be linked to the consumer price index, expected to be 1.75% next year. Some will have their budgets cut.

The arts world will be disappointed, with several claiming they will have to close exhibition rooms and theatres, sack workers and curtail education programmes.

Worst hit will be the big museums and galleries that have not benefited from the recent large rises in funding. These went to the publicly funded bodies such as the Royal Opera House and National Theatre. The British Museum expects to be particularly badly hit. “Inflation rises will not been enough,” said Neil MacGregor, the director of the museum, which last year had to cull its staff by 10%.

The museum, which is funded directly by the government, was forced to close galleries temporarily in 2002. MacGregor says increases of 4% a year are needed to keep it running, mainly because of the rises in staff costs.

The Science Museum believes it may have to close some rooms, cut its education programme and possibly even lose its library. “Over the past seven years we have had the lowest settlement among the museums,” said Lindsay Sharp, the museum’s director. “I think it’s that science is not seen as part of culture by the department. It’s that old divide of the arts and sciences.”

The museum in South Kensington has had to close its Food and Time galleries and its flight simulator. Sharp says other closures are inevitable. “Britain is spending £3.2 billion a year on science research,” he said. “That’s good, of course. Yet, at the same time, the museum is being penalised.”

Since charging was ended three years ago, the Science Museum has increased its admissions from 1.8m a year to 3m. But the extra cost of staffing has not been met by the government even though the museum received more cash to compensate it for agreeing to end admission charges.

The museum is already threatened by industrial action by staff who rejected a 2.5% pay offer as “derisory”.

The V&A, which recently had to abandon its planned Daniel Libeskind-designed Spiral extension because of financial constraints, also feels aggrieved that its funding is falling behind its costs. Over the past seven years its grant, excluding the compensation for free admission, has risen by 14.5%. But its outgoings — which include salaries, buildings and maintenance — have risen by 40%.

The big museums and galleries do not want to reintroduce charging, but with such low future funding some might be forced to consider it.

Savings will probably be made from further restricting the purchase of new works. The museums and galleries are heavily reliant on lottery cash or private donations to expand their collections.

The only museums to receive increases of more than the rate of inflation will be in the regions. Last year, three of them — the northwest, southwest and West Midlands — were given extra cash. This will now spread to the rest of the country.

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