The secretary has overall responsibility for strategy and policy across the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

[3] Responsibilities include:[3] The office was created in 1992 by Prime Minister John Major, as Secretary of State for National Heritage.

[5] In his autobiography, Major says that, before the office was created, responsibility for cultural interests was shared among various departments, but important to none of them.

[6] He also wrote that the system tended to favour the interests of the articulate and well-connected London-based arts lobby.

[6] Thus, when he became Prime Minister, Major said that he saw that the only way to give culture and sport the higher profile that he thought that they deserved was to establish a new department, under a minister of Cabinet rank, to bring together all aspects of the arts, sport and heritage.