‘All options’ to be explored, FM pledges

Nicola Sturgeon has intervened in the row over the impending closure of Scottish Youth Theatre (SYT) to declare “all options” would be explored to try to keep it operating.

The First Minister said the company’s announcement, which said it had been left with “no option” but to wind up with months, would be of “serious concern to many people across Scotland”.

SYT has said it will cease trading at the end of July after being turned down for longterm funding by Creative Scotland, along with several other theatre companies. The announcement by SYT’S board has come less than three months into a multimillion-pound Scottish Government campaign to promote 2018 as the Year of Young People.

The government stepped in, along with a private-sector backer, Clyde Blowers, to bail out the company four years ago after a previous rejection by the quango.

Creative Scotland, led by chief executive Janet Archer, has already been forced to apologise to the Scottish Parliament last month for the handling of recent funding cuts and has pledged a “rootand-branch review” of the way decisions were made.

SYT warned in January that its funding rejection had left it facing “serious challenges”. But unlike several other companies reprieved by Creative Scotland after a board meeting to deal with widespread criticism, SYT was left empty-handed.

Speaking at First Minister’s Questions at Holyrood, Ms Sturgeon said: “I will certainly give a commitment that we will do everything we can to fully explore all options to allow young people in the future to benefit from Scottish Youth Theatre in the way that young people in the past have done.

“We are determined to look at all options to protect if we can the work that Scottish Youth Theatre does.”