Creative Scotland chair Robert Wilson on the new £208m shake-up of arts funding

The Scotsman

Arts correspondent Brian Ferguson speaks to Creative Scotland chair Robert Wilson on the new £208m shake-up of arts funding

Transcript

00:00Robert Wilson, this is a big day for Creative Scotland and a big day for the Scottish culture

00:07sector. To what extent do you believe that today this will mark a new era for Scottish

00:13culture?

00:14Well I think it is truly transformational and I think we have to start by thanking the

00:18government for their extremely generous budget consideration for us and it has enabled us

00:23now to have the largest number of regularly funded organisations, 251 in total, of which

00:30141, 56% are new to regular funding relationship with us.

00:36Why has it been important to organisations to have that security of three year funding?

00:43Well it enables them to plan because regular funding includes costs, upkeep, etc, etc.

00:49They can plan, as you well know Brian, many, many organisations plan many years in advance

00:55and they've gone through a number of years now with a very difficult situation to face

01:00with the cost of living crisis, Covid before that, so to have that ability to stand on

01:07their own two feet knowing that they've got a three year window to work with is enormously

01:13giving them confidence and stability.

01:15It's been quite a long period of seven years since the last big funding round, we had obviously

01:20Covid disrupted things for pretty much two years, this has been a long time coming for

01:25a lot of organisations hasn't it?

01:27It has and you know there's been a great deal of macroeconomic impacts that have impacted

01:33the cultural sector and we have enormous sympathy for the hardship and the sort of sense of

01:40worry and concern that so many of our cultural organisations have been going through over

01:45the last few years.

01:46To what extent do you think that the funding announcement will help realise the potential

01:52of arts and culture right across Scotland?

01:55Well I think one of the things you'll see from today's announcements is the strong level

01:59of community funded organisations, so it was not just supporting the great pillars of cultural

02:06community but to allow the local organisations that support local artists and local communities

02:13to really thrive.

02:15Do you think you've got the balance right of the crown jewels, the gold standard events

02:19but also the again of events, festivals and venues that are scattered around the country

02:23but also it does seem that a lot of fairly well regarded grassroots organisations have

02:29managed to secure and continue or get more support for the next three years?

02:35Well as you rightly pointed out Brian, there has been no review of funding since 2018,

02:41so we said that all regularly funded organisations had to have a significant uplift to support

02:47those organisations that we have for many years but at the same time offering more than

02:53double the amount of organisations that have come into regularly funded and there is a

02:58strong community element to that.

03:00So it was trying to get that balance between supporting the great pillars, the great creative

03:07strongholds and at the same time allowing younger more community based projects to thrive.

03:14How important is it that these budgets that have been announced and the funding settlements

03:19that have been announced, how important is it that they are protected for the next few

03:22years and built upon?

03:25One of the things that we've been working very hard with Scottish Government is to try

03:28and get a commitment for next year and we're really delighted to be able to announce that

03:34they have given us that commitment.

03:36So we are talking about an uplift in year two in 2026-27.

03:42Our budget to regularly funded organisations this year is 60 million, rising to 74 million

03:48next year and there is a hope that there might be some further increases in the third year.

03:54So the organisations that have got development funding for the forthcoming financial year

03:58are you hoping that all of those will join the multi-year funding programme in the second year?

04:03Well the development strand is to try to do that.

04:07A number of them are extremely important cultural organisations and we will be working very

04:13closely with them all to try and ensure that they do join the multi-year funding cohort

04:19in 2026-27.

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