Creative Scotland (CS) has been formally established with the passing of the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Bill by the Scottish Parliament on 7 January, by 104 votes to 16. John Swinney, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth, in whose name the Bill was brought forward, told MSPs that the Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture Committee and the Finance Committee recommended the move. He alluded to some continuing concerns about the Bill’s financial memorandum, the rejection of which caused the original Creative Scotland Bill to fail in June 2008 (AP173), but said that the Government has been asked “to monitor and report to Parliament regularly on progress”. Culture Minister Fiona Hyslop confirmed that the new body would “inherit the existing budgets of the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen... [a] total provision of £57.5m”, and that there would be no compulsory redundancies to achieve the reduction of 30 in staff numbers. Labour’s Pauline McNeill said she was “in favour of a change of skill set for the new agency”, but opposed the slimming-down of the organisation, because of the additional functions the new body will take on. Referring to the way that responsibility for the creative industries is shared between CS and Scottish Enterprise, she also asserted that “the failure to make CS the lead body on the creative industries is a mistake”. Malcolm Chisholm (Labour) pointed to outstanding concerns over CS’s relationship to local authorities, the voluntary sector and other key partners, but voiced the opinion of many when he added that “we do not want any further delay”. Ewan Brown, the Chair of Creative Scotland 09, welcomed the news, and said that his first priority was “to find an outstanding leader to implement the business model”. Jim Tough, Chief Executive of the Scottish Arts Council, has already ruled himself out of the running by taking up the post of Area Executive Director, North for Arts Council England (p4).
