Scottish cuts hit innovation

Spending on Creative Scotland, Gaelic and international relations has been protected as the impact of the UK Government’s £500m cut was revealed in Scotland’s Draft Budget for 2010/11. Overall, the ‘Culture and Gaelic’ budget (including Creative Scotland, the Cultural Collections, the National Performing Companies, Gaelic and Other Arts), under the auspices of the Office of the First Minister, faces a £1.2m cut (0.6%) compared to planned figures from the 2009/10 Draft Budget last year. Within this, budgets for the Cultural Collections and Gaelic have actually risen (by 7% and 10% respectively). However, a planned expenditure of £5.2m on Other Arts has been slashed to an expected £2.8m, a cut of 46%. The Other Arts budget is normally spent either directly by the Scottish Government or via various funding bodies to special one-off projects. Labour’s Pauline McNeill, the Opposition Culture Spokesperson, told AP that “in examining the Arts and Culture budget, the devil will be in the detail… there is a £2m cut to the Other Arts budget with little clarity of what exactly might be cut. Until the subject committee and the finance committee of the Scottish Parliament get to interrogate both civil servants and ministers in detail, it’s too early for any clarity of what this will mean for Scotland’s arts community.” She added that the SNP’s handling of the establishment of Creative Scotland “has been a disaster”.

Culture Minister Mike Russell admitted that the cuts “will have a direct impact on how we support arts and culture and our wider international efforts”, and said that the reduction in spending on innovative cultural projects had been made reluctantly. He emphasised that funding to establish Creative Scotland as a Non Departmental Public Body had been sustained, and said that its Innovation Fund would receive a further £2.5m, bringing the total to £5m. He called the budget “outward-looking, supporting sustainable economic growth by developing Scotland’s place in Europe and the wider world”, and said that it would maximise Scottish influence within the European Union, and build links with other countries including the US and China. Further strengthening the impression that the arts has a place in building Scotland’s international profile, he said he was determined “to achieve maximum impact for our cultural sector and our relations internationally”.

Although the amount going to the National Performing Companies has dropped from an expected £27.4m to £26m, this still represents a rise of £1.3m on the 2009/10 total of £24.7m. £1m of the original budget was intended for potential capital requirements, but, because no such needs have arisen, it has been transferred to the Gaelic budget. Roy McEwan, Managing Director of Scottish Chamber Orchestra (one of the National Performing Companies) told AP, “While we will face challenges in preserving the level of our activity, we are very grateful to… the Culture Minister Mike Russell for championing the importance and value of our work.”
 

Commenting on the changes, the National Campaign for the Arts said that it “recognises efforts to maintain support of key priority areas” but “laments the reduction of opportunity for new initiatives as well as specialist one-off projects.”