Arts funding

A new 'emergency' public campaign is calling on the Scottish Government to abandon its proposed £7m cut to Creative Scotland's funding.

Campaign for the Arts described the 10% cut in the 2023-24 Budget – which will be voted on at Holyrood on 21 February – as a “short-sighted move that will cause long-lasting and potentially irreversible damage”.

Jack Gamble, Director of Campaign for the Arts, said the resignation of First Minister Nicola Sturgeon should prompt a rethink: “We’re entering a period of change at Holyrood, and it should extend to a rethink about the Budget on Tuesday.

“Especially in this economic climate, the implications are devastating for cultural organisations and the communities they serve.”

Creative Scotland has projected that up to half of its regularly funded organisations could lose funding if the cuts go ahead.

Culture Counts, a network of arts, heritage and creative industries organisations in Scotland, is backing the campaign.

Joseph Peach, Advocacy Manager of Culture Counts, said: “The survival of many organisations and culture workers is at high risk – and the Scottish Government’s plan to enact this funding approach risks their long-term future.”

A petition has been launched, calling on Deputy First Minister John Swinney and Culture Secretary Angus Robertson to stop the cuts.

The director of a leading arts venue in the highlands of Scotland has voiced concerns over cuts to the Scottish Government’s arts and culture budget.

Charlotte Mountford, Lyth Arts Centre Director, penned a letter to Members of Scottish Parliament representing the Highlands and Islands, which calls for a reversal of the cuts to funding body Creative Scotland.

"Myself and my colleagues are calling for a reversal of the cut which is a relatively small amount (£6.6m of the overall Scottish Government budget of £59.8bn) which will have a disproportionately negative impact on a whole range of outcomes including jobs, the wellbeing of Scotland’s people and communities, and on the economy in general," the letter reads.

Lyth Arts Centre is Scotland’s most northernly mainland arts centre and has focused on delivering arts-based wellbeing activities after noticing a steep decline in its local community’s wellbeing since Covid.

The centre is not currently one of Creative Scotland’s regularly funded organisations, of which the funding body has said it expects to be forced to reduce in the wake of cuts to its budget.

A Scottish Government spokesperson told the John O’Groat Journal: "When the Scottish Government is facing difficult decisions about funding, the time is right for Creative Scotland to draw on the lottery reserves available to them".

The comment echoes remarks made by Scotland’s Culture Secretary Angus Robertson, who previously defended the decision to reduce the funding.

A large chunk of official audience figures for UNBOXED festival came from viewers watching Countryfile on the BBC, it has emerged.

Organisers of the £120m project said a total of 18.1m people had “engaged” with the project, consisting of 2.8m people attendeding events last year and a further 13.6m engaging with broadcast and digital content.

The Times reports that the 13.6m figure included five million Countryfile viewers watching an episode in October when the programme reported on one of the projects, Green Space Dark Skies.

Speaking in parliament, Labour MP Nick Smith raised the Countryfile figures with civil servants and ministers and questioned whether the festival had "made the impact it intended".

"The department [DCMS] reported in November that the figure for audience engagement was just over 18m," he said. 

"That sounds a reasonable reach, but it turns out that a one-hour “Countryfile” TV special was doing the heavy lifting with five million viewers — nearly a third of the total."

Smith has asked for the matter to be considered as part of a wider evaluation currently taking place.

The UK’s creative industries have lost out on £163m of European Union-level funding because of Brexit, according to analysis by the UK Trade and Business Commission.

The group found the UK’s creative sectors would have received an extra £163m from the European Union’s Creative Europe project, had the Conservative government decided not to pull out of the project during Brexit negotiations.

The calculation is based upon the percentage of funds the UK’s cultural industries received during the last funding cycle it was involved in.

Since Brexit, the European Union has decided to increase Creative Europe’s budget by two thirds, with £2.1bn set to be invested through the flagship project before 2027.

As first reported by the Independent, analysis from the UK Trade and Business Commission found the loss of Creative Europe funding means the UK now ranks below its European counterparts in arts funding per person.

Despite promises to match the lost funding, the government’s only successor scheme to Creative Europe thus far, the Global Screen Fund, provided £7m in its first year.

A DCMS spokesperson commented: “Our creative industries are a vital part of the UK economy and we are committed to supporting their success. Through initiatives like the Global Screen Fund we are supporting scores of independent productions as well as driving exports of UK film, TV and video games to new territories.”

The UK Trade and Business Commission met earlier this week to discuss the impact of Brexit on the culture and arts industries.