A letter to First Minister John Swinney and Angus Robertson, Cabinet Secretary for Constitution, External Affairs and Culture

We write to you to express deep concern at the impact on artists and the creative sector in Scotland of the imminent closure of Creative Scotland’s Open Fund to new applicants, as well as the delay in re-opening other key Creative Scotland funding streams such as the YMI Access to Music and Strengthening Youth Music funding strands.

We urge you, on behalf of the Scottish Government, to provide urgent assurances that continued and robust levels of grant-in-aid provision will be available to the national cultural agency.

These funds facilitate on-going support of young people, artists, creative producers as well as the programmes, ideas and projects that are the lifeblood and future of Scotland’s creativity and culture.

The creative sector is one of the fastest-growing, most vibrant in our economy. As recognised across a range of Scottish Government strategies (education, culture, international, international education, for example), those active in Scotland’s arts and culture play an essential role in the well-being of individuals, communities and our economy, as well as how Scotland connects with and is received by the world.

As the nation’s world-leading (and only) conservatoire, we at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland see at first-hand the excellence and potential of some of the finest Scottish, UK and international emerging artists and creative producers trained in Scotland.

The Conservatoire’s broad academic community of teaching artists, practitioners, researchers and alumni are also in themselves active contributors to Scotland’s creative and cultural ecology.

Many are or have been beneficiaries of Creative Scotland’s financial support to develop, make and share innovative work, practice or ideas with collaborators and audiences.  These are all essential components in themselves of creating vibrancy in Scotland’s cultural life.

We do recognise (and live with) the challenges presented by sustained constraints on public spending, the resulting cuts to operating budgets, as well as the anxieties around the very sustainability this presents to many creative and cultural organisations, RCS included.

However, continued attrition and a lack of planning certainty makes Scotland’s real cultural assets – its artists, creative producers and creative educators – utterly despondent about the present as well as the future of an already challenged creative sector.

The fact this letter is being written in the month Scotland hosts the Edinburgh International Festival and Festival Fringe, when the world looks to this country for creative excellence, should in itself be a matter of regret.

It is less than a year since the Scottish Government pledged an extra £100m of funding for the creative and cultural sector by 2028. Then First Minister, Humza Yousaf, announced it last October in following terms:

“I want to send a clear signal today about my ambition for culture in Scotland. We’re not just going to protect our arts funding. We’re not just going to increase it in line with inflation. No, we’re going to go further than that. I can announce today that over the next five years we will more than double our investment in Scotland’s arts and culture.

“This means that by the end of the five years, our investment will be £100m higher than it is today. This is a huge vote of confidence in the future of our culture sector and in the vital work of bodies like Screen Scotland, Creative Scotland and our festivals.’

First Minister and Cabinet Secretary, we seek clarity on whether, given recent events, that Scottish Government’s commitment made to those who uphold Scotland’s culture and creative life still has substance and whether, how and when the ‘huge vote of confidence in the future of our culture sector’ will be realised.

Professor Jeffrey Sharkey, RCS Principal

Professor Dorothy Miell, RCS Chair