The headline on the front page of Saturday’s Glasgow Herald will no doubt have brought a smile to the faces of many in Scotland’s arts community: ‘Culture body U-turn will finally put artists first’.
The body in question was Creative Scotland, the embattled arts funding organisation whose Chief Executive Andrew Dixon recently resigned. In a statement released on Friday 7 December, the Creative Scotland board outlined a series of commitments that include the apparent reversal of its decision to remove fixed-term funding for more than 40 of the country’s arts organisations, a decision that had been widely criticised as a barrier to long-term planning that was having a destabilising effect on the arts in Scotland.
The statement acknowledged that ‘Stability is a core concern of many companies, not least in this difficult financial climate’. It went on to state:
‘As soon as is practicable, we will offer long term funding to organisations over a number of years. This will be subject to a review of progress, but relieve them of the need to submit fresh applications annually. We will work towards changing what has come to be viewed as a funding hierarchy. Instead we will offer the security of multi-year funding to organisations, project funding for specific time limited work, and funding to individuals which may include partnerships.’
The statement, which followed a Creative Scotland board meeting on 5 and 6 December, also included a commitment to include artists in the organisation’s policy making decisions, acknowledging that ‘artists and creative practitioners should be at the heart of our thinking’.
The statement also acknowledged the need to address ‘the lack of effective use of expertise available to the organisation internally and externally’, and said that this would be addressed in two ways: by changing ‘Creative Scotland’s operational structure to give staff the freedom to use their specialist knowledge more effectively’; and by the setting up of ‘internal and external forums that allow artists, creative practitioners and staff to feed into policy development’.
The moves have been cautiously welcomed. Speaking to the Herald, Katrina Brown, the former Director of Glasgow International and Director of Glasgow’s Common Guild gallery, said: “The words are good but it will of course be the actions that count.”
The Creative Scotland statement concluded: ‘These changes are the product of a period of painful but essential re- examination. We are individually and collectively signed up to restoring confidence in Creative Scotland’s work. We ask for time to be allowed to do this, and to be judged on the results of the changes announced today.’
The full statement can be read here.
