Fresh standstill funding fears for Scottish arts events and venues despite £34m boost for industry

Warning over prospect of Creative Scotland being forced to ‘spread the jam really thinly’ when funding decisions are made

Kirsty Findlay starred as Maria in the recent production of The Sound of Music at Pitlochry Festival Theatre. Kirsty Findlay starred as Maria in the recent production of The Sound of Music at Pitlochry Festival Theatre.
Kirsty Findlay starred as Maria in the recent production of The Sound of Music at Pitlochry Festival Theatre. | Fraser Band

Scottish arts industry leaders have warned that festivals, events, theatres and venues could still be left in financial turmoil despite an additional £34m being promised for culture in the next financial year.

Fears have been raised that the Scottish Government's arts agency will be forced to "spread the jam really thinly" after ministers suggested they wanted to more than double the number of organisations with long-term funding.

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Jade Chan played Jim and Amy Conachan played Lean Jean Silver in the recent production of Treasure Island at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, in Edinburgh.Jade Chan played Jim and Amy Conachan played Lean Jean Silver in the recent production of Treasure Island at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, in Edinburgh.
Jade Chan played Jim and Amy Conachan played Lean Jean Silver in the recent production of Treasure Island at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, in Edinburgh. | Jess Shurte

However Creative Scotland is facing a £33m shortfall to meet demand for the first year of a new long-term funding programme ahead of its first major round of decisions later this month.

The Federation of Scottish Theatre and industry body Culture Counts has raised concerns that previously-supported organisations could be left on "standstill funding" despite seeing a dramatic increase in their costs since the last funding decisions were made in January 2018.

Same Team was staged at Traverse Theatre during last year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Picture: Tommy Ga-Ken WanSame Team was staged at Traverse Theatre during last year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Picture: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan
Same Team was staged at Traverse Theatre during last year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Picture: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan | Tommy Ga-Ken Wan

MSPs have also been warned that the government's plan to see as many organisations as possible secure multi-year funding could lead to the "slow, private failure" of the cultural sector.

Celtic Connections currently gets long-term Scottish Government funding via Creative Scotland. Picture: SNS GroupCeltic Connections currently gets long-term Scottish Government funding via Creative Scotland. Picture: SNS Group
Celtic Connections currently gets long-term Scottish Government funding via Creative Scotland. Picture: SNS Group | SNS Group

Creative Scotland currently provides annual long-term funding worth £34m to 119 organisations but has had applications worth an annual £87.5m from 281 organisations for the next three years.

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Creative Scotland has secured a £20m share of the £34m increase in culture funding in the new Scottish Budget, which the government has claimed will be "transformational" for Scotland's cultural sector.

Nico Guerzoni, Sam Stopford and Robert Jack in Creative Scotland theatre company Vanishing Point's show The Metamorphis. Picture: Mihaela BodlovicNico Guerzoni, Sam Stopford and Robert Jack in Creative Scotland theatre company Vanishing Point's show The Metamorphis. Picture: Mihaela Bodlovic
Nico Guerzoni, Sam Stopford and Robert Jack in Creative Scotland theatre company Vanishing Point's show The Metamorphis. Picture: Mihaela Bodlovic

Ministers have ring-fenced £54m for the multi-year programme in Creative Scotland's budget for the next 12 months, although a further £20m has been pledged for the following financial year, as part of plans to increase investment in the arts by £100m by 2028, which were first announced in 2023.

Culture secretary Angus Robertson previously said Creative Scotland's budget for the forthcoming financial year would ensure that "the highest ever number of artists, organisations and venues receive regular funding".

Speaking about Creative Scotland's next multi-year funding programme, he said: "At present, there are just over 100 regularly-funded organisations being funded by Creative Scotland. In the last round, it had more than 250 cultural organisations applying for multi-year funding.

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"I would like the maximum number of artistic organisations to receive that funding. If the figure is anything close to that, it will be more than double the number of Scottish cultural organisations that receive multi-year funding."

Writing to Holyrood's culture committee, Creative Scotland chief executive Iain Munro said the government's funding pledges meant it would be able to support "many more" organisations than it had previously anticipated.

However a report for MSPs from Culture Counts, the independent industry-wide network, has pointed out that Creative Scotland will only be able to support 62 per cent worth of the funding bids it has received for the forthcoming financial year.

It states: "This represents a significant improvement over the previously feared outcomes, but how Creative Scotland handles transition support for unsuccessful applicants will be vital.

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"We hear a strong message from our members that the great opportunity of this increased investment is to increase the number of sustainably-funded organisations in the sector, which will have knock-on effects for fair work, ambition, collaboration and equity.

"We hope that Creative Scotland resists the temptation to spread this funding too thinly via a narrow focus on raising the total number of awardees as high as possible. ‘Bare minimum’ funding serves no-one and indeed would perpetuate the sense of scarcity in the sector."

Fiona Sturgeon Shea, chief executive of the Federation of Scottish Theatre and chair of Culture Counts, said there was "cautious optimism" over the impact the new government funding would make, but admitted organisations were "anxiously awaiting" the outcome of their funding applications.

She added: "There is a much greater sense of optimism in the sector than this time last year, when we were very much concerned about the devil being in the detail. We are still potentially in that situation. 

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"We are not in the dire straits that we felt we might be, but applications are currently at the final stage of Creative Scotland's process.

“Only 62 per cent of applicants, by value, will be funded, so there are obviously caveats to the warm welcome for the increased funding, which we are not ungrateful for. It's just about considering the sector as a whole."

Ms Sturgeon Shea questioned whether growth should be seen as "the best indicator of a healthy flourishing cultural sector."

She added: "What has come up very pertinently from the sector is the temptation to spread the jam really thinly and the metric of more organisations being funded as the successful metric.

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"I think that really just puts us back to standstill funding again. We need to really caution and hope that Creative Scotland will make sensible decisions around what that means."

Wigtown Book Festival director Adrian Turpin highlighted previous suggestions from the government that it wanted to see as many organisations as possible secure long-term funding.

He said: "We all want our colleagues to have jobs and we all want the sector to create employment.

"But I do worry that that is a recipe for slow, private failure rather than quick, public failure, and that we are actually going to end up with a sector that is structurally fragile."

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Creative Scotland chair Robert Wilson said: "The multi-year funding model is about giving security to the sector and an ability to plan longer-term.

"The commitment by the Scottish Government, both to this year's funding and, more importantly, to give us a clear line of sight for next year's funding, enables us to be able to plan and be able to give that level of stability to the cultural institutions that we support.

"It is very much how we would like to see things going forward. The more clear lines of sight that we can envisage enables us to be the support organisation for culture in Scotland.

"The government has been listening as we have been presenting the multi-year funding model.

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"We are quite unique in that this is the only sector that has adopted that model, but it is incredibly important that organisations have the ability to plan over the longer term. Having that ability and security will be an enormous comfort to them.”

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