New grant-making model for Scotland as Creative Scotland prepares to abandon its funding hierarchy
The board of Creative Scotland has issued a statement giving details of a series of commitments to change, following an autumn of discontent among the Scottish arts community, which culminated in Chief Executive Andrew Dixon stepping down. A two-day board meeting ended with a list of eight areas where Creative Scotland will be introducing key changes, including re-visiting current funding models and 'strategic commissioning' to enable more organisations to benefit from “stable, multi-year arrangements”. The current “perceived hierarchy of Foundation, Flexibly Funded and Annual Organisations” will go, as will activities that could be construed as “promoting Creative Scotland ahead of artists, creative practitioners or cultural organisations”. The content and tone of the language used in communications with the sector will also be reviewed and in future the organisation’s values and operations will place an emphasis on “support” rather than “investment”. There is an intention to create “effective regular consultative forums with artists and creative practitioners and staff to inform policy development and increase transparency.” Accusations that Creative Scotland has failed to make effective use of the expertise available to it are being countered by setting up internal and external forums to enable artists, creative practitioners and staff to feed into policy development, and there will be simpler “routes through which individuals and organisations can access advice and funding”. The board has acknowledged that there “has been an inconsistency in our dealings with external partners, and… many important relationships have deteriorated". It concluded: “we are very conscious that future success depends on us functioning as a team with shared goals, operating in an environment of mutual respect.”