THE head of a leading organisation that champions Scottish traditions has joined the chorus of condemnation over a multi-million-pound funding cut to the creative arts sector.
Steve Byrne of TRACS told the Sunday National that the £6.6 million cut had made a “precarious situation much worse”.
However, he added that the biggest casualty as a result of the cut could be trust in the Scottish Government.
It was announced last week that the Government had failed to “keep a promise” to restore funding to the creative industries.
Ministers were accused of “cultural vandalism” after axing Creative Scotland’s budget, months after pledging the funding was safe.
Creative Scotland said it had been forced to use its reserves to make up the £6.6m shortfall but if the money is not restored next year around half of the current regularly funded organisations would be at risk, leading to 2000 job losses, 26,000 lost opportunities for artist employment and nearly 3.5m lost audiences.
Even with the use of the reserves this year, funded organisations are so “financially fragile” as to be at risk in the next six months, according to Creative Scotland chief Iain Munro.
He said this could mean the loss of 900 jobs, 12,000 employment opportunities and a 1.4m audience loss.
A petition has now been launched by Campaign for the Arts calling on the Scottish Government to reinstate the funds and has already attracted thousands of signatures.
Campaigners argue Scotland cannot afford to lose any more arts organisations after several went to the wall this year, including the Nevis Ensemble street orchestra.
Regularly funded organisations (RFOs) supported by Creative Scotland with Scottish Government funds include the Scottish Book Trust, Edinburgh festivals, Glasgow’s Citizens Theatre and Dundee Rep.
Byrne said: “This makes an already precarious situation much worse, and perhaps the biggest casualty is trust. Had Creative Scotland not been able to mitigate the cut from its reserves, we’d be seeing our quarterly staffing budget cut in half, and a knock-on effect in the communities we work with.”
Along with others in the sector, Byrne argues that instead of cutting arts funding, it should be increased from 0.58% of the Scottish Government budget to 1% because of the benefits the arts bring to communities across Scotland.
The cut also flies in the face of “warm words” about culture recently voiced by the Government, according to Byrne.
He said: “We strongly welcome the warm words on culture being embedded across policy areas in the recent Programme for Government – a validation of our own approach in recent years. So I am at a loss to understand how this [cut] tallies with the Government’s expressed intentions.”
A consultation is also currently being held on a Human Rights Bill for Scotland that would potentially incorporate the right to culture in Scots law for the first time.
Byrne said the benefits culture could bring to other policy areas should be recognised.
“How does culture tie together with ideas of health and wellbeing and other parts of policy that traditional arts help fulfil?” he asked.
“We are seeing a bit of a space there in terms of policy and our experience in the last couple of years has been that we are often the last people standing when other services have ground down in local communities.”
Despite pressure on local authority and national government budgets, Byrne said traditional arts projects resulting in widespread benefits could often be carried out with just small amounts of funding.
“Sometimes you only need a little money for venue hire to make the thing happen,” he said.
Community development and planning should also be reformed.
“We have seen many community planning partnerships where culture does not play a role at all,” said Byrne. “Yet people’s cultural experience, their language, how they express who they are and what it means to them is key because it gives people confidence that their place is just as important as anywhere else.”
TRACS has recently applied to become an advisory body to Unesco on its Convention on Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH).
Byrne pointed out that while the UK had yet to sign up, Scotland had made “significant” progress in this area.
“Scotland is ahead of the game in some respects because we have organised ourselves to be ready to act more formally in the event that the ICH convention is ratified by the UK,” Byrne said.
“Some organisations have been working on the UK Government to sign up but the main stumbling block there has been the revolving culture door brief. “ There have been nine UK culture secretaries in the past five years, including Nadine Dorries and Matt Hancock.
In response to the calls from arts industries to restore the funding, culture secretary Angus Robertson said: “Over the past five years, the Scottish Government has provided £33m to Creative Scotland to compensate for a shortfall in National Lottery Funding and we agreed to provide £6.6m to cover this year’s shortfall.
“The Scottish Government has an obligation to balance the budget each year and prioritise funding to deliver the best value for every taxpayer in Scotland. As a result of rising costs and pressure on budgets across government, made more challenging as a result of rising UK inflation, we are unable to provide funding to support the lottery shortfall this year. However, I expect this funding will be able to be provided as part of next year’s Budget, subject to the usual parliamentary process.
“Creative Scotland has built up funding reserves and I am pleased it has agreed to use all the resources at its disposal, including these reserves, to support the culture sector and help protect jobs at this challenging financial time for us all.”
As part of the Scottish International Storytelling Festival this month, Byrne is hosting Our Cultural Rights on October 26 at 2pm, an online workshop event.
For more information about the festival which is both in person and online go to www.sisf.org.uk
