Culture in Scotland - the cloud and the barn

I guess it was grimly predictable, but last week’s news about a delay in decisions on funding for our country’s arts organisations, left me numb and desperate…all the foundations pulled out again. 

Before this news, I’d been reflecting a lot on my state of mind – when people ask me how I am and what’s new, I cast an eye around myself and my working world and, every time, I have to reach past a big black cloud before I can give any answer other than a gigantic, weary sigh. The cloud has been growing since July 2023 when The Stove joined many arts projects, organisations and venues around Scotland at the start of a judgement process that has been going on since then – a competitive process for organisational funding from our nation’s arts body Creative Scotland. The latest date we have for the end of the uncertainty is the end of January 2025, which will put the total time for the process at 17 months. 

However, I’m really unsure whether this will really be the end and my fear is that the announcement of the decisions could be the trigger for another round of distress, introspection and confusion for the cultural sector.

My mental health has suffered significantly and I seriously question what damage this process may have wreaked on creative people and our whole sector across the country. What kind of joyful creativity can we possibly put out into the world whilst under a heavy cloud of judgement and doubt about the value of culture and our continued right to exist as culture funding is also debated in Govt. My heart is still strong and I still believe with every fibre of my being in the creative people around me and our impact in the communities we work with – but I feel beaten down rather than raised up by the structures which were set up to support us.

I’d like to reach out to every single person and group that feels affected by the black cloud of the past year (and I include all the staff of Creative Scotland in this) – you are all incredible for believing enough to keep on keeping on. With all my heart I hope you get all the support you need and we will all make magic in our wee corners of the world and it will come together in a giant wave of celebratory creativity. (Sidebar…check out the recent statement by the head of the Irish Arts Council about the ‘golden age’ of the arts that she is experiencing in Ireland…and feel the difference from our own experience - https://www.rte.ie/culture/2024/0926/1471910-maureen-kennelly-why-we-need-to-keep-supporting-arts-in-ireland/  PS Maureen's call for increased funding for culture in the latest Irish budget in Ireland was successful). 

Before the noise that will inevitably follow the announcement of decisions by Creative Scotland at the end of this 17 month process, I’d like to suggest that we think about how we might do things differently in the future and create processes which we all understand and feel a stake in – or put another way: that the way we determine and nurture the creative ecosystem of Scotland is something that we ALL play an active role in, trust and give our consent to. My experience at the moment is that the conversation about culture in Scotland is unproductively trapped in a financial discussion of ‘how much’, rather than ‘why’ and ‘how’.

I think we need to reach a collective understanding of the different forms of cultural activity* and the roles we expect them to perform in society. Can we imagine an ongoing conversation which involves: those working in the cultural sector; those who experience cultural activities in communities; experts and researchers who are watching and measuring how things work; the politicians and civil servants who place culture within the larger context of how we function as a country; and people with the skills and experience to administer and coordinate financial support for cultural activity?

I have a few ideas to share – they do not represent a fully worked out proposal, rather I am offering them as prompts for further discussion and development.

I think that supporting cultural activity requires 4 key elements:

·       1) the cultural sector – the people, communities and organisations that produce culture

·       2) a developmental infrastructure for cultural activity – a body/network that actively works with the cultural sector to coordinate activity within the sector, gather/share learning, develop/implement strategy, facilitate collaboration with funders/partners and local/national government.

·      3) a funding body for cultural activity – a body with specialist knowledge of the cultural sector who can distribute funds and collect information on the impact of those funds on behalf of Scottish Govt and other funders supporting cultural activity. A funding body would work to the strategies evolved through the joint working of the four elements of the support system.

·       4) Scottish Govt, Local Authorities and other funders/commissioners of cultural activity (NB I recognise there are other sources of income for cultural activity, but am omitting these in the interests of simplicity)

A new system of exchange and ongoing development of values/purpose between these four elements, I believe, would help support thriving culture in our country.

In the current system, the second and third elements in the list above are within the remit of one single body – Creative Scotland. I think these two functions are fundamentally different and for one organisation to attempt to perform both simultaneously can short circuit the effective flow of information, transparency and trust that would be the aim of the 4-part structure described above

 

 

 

As the funding decisions for Scottish cultural organisations are unveiled with the inevitable debate that follows, I’d like to put in a plea that we also retain a focus on the bigger picture of how we could/should develop and support cultural activity. There is nothing radically new in the idea of a 4-part system as I’m outlining above, my hope in putting this forward now there might be some debate about developing two new elements in our national support structure for cultural activity – a development agency for culture that is separate from a funding body for culture. The development agency would work as a communication channel between all four parts to develop strategy and advise politicians regarding the role/impact of culture in relation to other national agendas. Strategy developed in this way would then be passed to the funding body to manage a process of allocating funding according to the objectives within the strategy – be that support for early stage organisations, particular geographic/artform focus, support for places to work with artists etc,etc. Key for transparency in funding would be a clear allocation for specific artforms so that funding decisions are based on comparing like with like within the same allocated pool of funding. Also, that all strands of cultural activity should be included within this system, including the national companies that are currently directly funded by Scottish Govt.

We might not need to create two new organisations, there is so much value and knowledge within Creative Scotland that could be built into a new system and also opportunities to combine the funding role with other existing funding bodies (e.g in heritage?) and possible ways of integrating the development agency role into existing regionally devolved structures and/or networking existing national artform support structures?

We’re a special bunch in our sector, constantly managing having no money, crazy expectations and workloads, with imposter syndrome thrown in for good measure. We are not alone in being starved of public spending in this current context – so many others are in the same boat. We all pulled together over the closing of Creative Scotland's Open Fund, let’s collectively support each other to value what we do and build a system that is based on our shared values - in the meantime big love and solidarity to everyone involved in this incredible sector at this truly challenging time.

*when I use the term ‘cultural activity’ I mean everything ranging from the people, communities and organisations that produce culture to the outputs and impacts of that culture at every level