Creative Scotland forced to order funding review after climbing down on arts cuts

Analysis Brian Ferguson

it allocates funding in future, adding: “We must, and will, learn lessons for the future.”

The quango has raided £2.6 million from other budgets to pay for the climb-down, which has been announced in the wake of widespread criticism online and an intervention from the Scottish Government, which has instigated a “Year of Young People” in 2018.

Ms Hyslop was particularly critical over the cuts for children’s theatre companies Catherine Wheels and Visible Fictions. Lung Ha and Birds of Paradise both specialise in working with disabled artists, while the Dunedin Consort is a leading clas- sical music ensemble. The reallocation of the £2.6m will also pay for another company, Stellar Quines, which works with women and girls, to have a 22 per cent funding cut over the next three years reinstated.

However, there is no reprieve as yet for another 15 organisations who lost out when Creative Scotland announced how a £99m “regular funding” budget would be spent.

These include the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the Edinburgh Unesco City of Literature Trust, dance company Plan B, the Ayr Gaiety Theatre and the Transmission Gallery in Glasgow. Creative Scotland said the 116 organisations awarded three-year funding deals in the original announcement were unaffected by the rethink.

Two board members, Ruth Wishart and Maggie Kinloch, had resigned ahead of Friday’s emergency summit amid claims of a “flawed” decisionmaking process. Ms Wishart admitted Creative Scotland was a “family at war with those it seeks to serve”. in the wake of a shake-up which saw 19 companies win three-year deals.

Ms Archer said: “The board met last week to take stock on Creative Scotland’s recent regular funding decisions. The outcome was a decision to adjust our overall budget and increase regular funding, enabling us to include five more organisations in the network.

“Alongside this, we will be reviewing how we fund in the future and will engage with as many people as possible as part of this process. We recognise his round of funding decisions has been challenging. We must, and will, learn lessons for the future.”

Ben Thomson, acting chairman of Creative Scotland, said: “Funding decisions of this scale and importance are always extremely challenging. We’ve listened to the extensive and constructive feedback we received from many individuals and organisations working across the arts and culture.

“I appreciate that, even now, these decisions do not address all of the issues currently being raised by individual applicants. I am sorry that some will be disappointed.”

Ms Hyslop said: “Decisions on funding are taken by Creative Scotland and ministers have no role in this process. I’m pleased Creative Scotland has listened to the concerns of stakeholdersandhasreviewed the decisions.”

Painful process for quango

It is less than two weeks since Creative Scotland made its long-awaited announcement on who would be guaranteed its support for the next three years. But it must have felt a lot longer than that for chief executive Janet Archer and her staff, with criticism raining down on them ever since.

To say it was a huge surprise that 20 different companies were completely stripped of long-term funding weeks after it was awarded an extra £6.6 million a year from the Scottish Government is a huge understatement.

Creative Scotland had been briefing for months of the grim consequences that would follow if it suffered a cut in funding in its budget settlement. In reality, the government had been working since the beginning of last year to ensure that the quango’s regular funding pot was protected in the face of declining lottery income.

Confirmed in December, it was perceived, rightly or wrongly, as a rescue deal. Surely it was a matter of Creative Scotland steadying the ship with its funding announcement?

If only it was that simple. It has faced growing demands for funding ever since its formation in 2010 and appears to be woefully under-funded. The regular funding hierarchy may appear out of date, but such companies are the bedrock of the sector. Removing some completely was a high-risk strategy Ms Archer and her team should have known would backfire.

The widely-held perception is they blundered into it. It also looked as if they had targeted groups working with children, women and disabled artists. With criticism heading in her direction, culture secretary Fiona Hyslop was left with no option but to intervene. It has since been a matter not if but when.

The end result has left some companies celebrating, but a bitter after-taste for others. With a full review of the process promised by Ms Archer, the post-mortem is likely to be long and painful.