Arts correspondent Brian Ferguson speaks to Creative Scotland chair Robert Wilson on the new £208m shake-up of arts funding
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00:00Robert Wilson, this is a big day for Creative Scotland and a big day for the Scottish culture
00:07sector. To what extent do you believe that today this will mark a new era for Scottish
00:13culture?
00:14Well I think it is truly transformational and I think we have to start by thanking the
00:18government for their extremely generous budget consideration for us and it has enabled us
00:23now to have the largest number of regularly funded organisations, 251 in total, of which
00:30141, 56% are new to regular funding relationship with us.
00:36Why has it been important to organisations to have that security of three year funding?
00:43Well it enables them to plan because regular funding includes costs, upkeep, etc, etc.
00:49They can plan, as you well know Brian, many, many organisations plan many years in advance
00:55and they've gone through a number of years now with a very difficult situation to face
01:00with the cost of living crisis, Covid before that, so to have that ability to stand on
01:07their own two feet knowing that they've got a three year window to work with is enormously
01:13giving them confidence and stability.
01:15It's been quite a long period of seven years since the last big funding round, we had obviously
01:20Covid disrupted things for pretty much two years, this has been a long time coming for
01:25a lot of organisations hasn't it?
01:27It has and you know there's been a great deal of macroeconomic impacts that have impacted
01:33the cultural sector and we have enormous sympathy for the hardship and the sort of sense of
01:40worry and concern that so many of our cultural organisations have been going through over
01:45the last few years.
01:46To what extent do you think that the funding announcement will help realise the potential
01:52of arts and culture right across Scotland?
01:55Well I think one of the things you'll see from today's announcements is the strong level
01:59of community funded organisations, so it was not just supporting the great pillars of cultural
02:06community but to allow the local organisations that support local artists and local communities
02:13to really thrive.
02:15Do you think you've got the balance right of the crown jewels, the gold standard events
02:19but also the again of events, festivals and venues that are scattered around the country
02:23but also it does seem that a lot of fairly well regarded grassroots organisations have
02:29managed to secure and continue or get more support for the next three years?
02:35Well as you rightly pointed out Brian, there has been no review of funding since 2018,
02:41so we said that all regularly funded organisations had to have a significant uplift to support
02:47those organisations that we have for many years but at the same time offering more than
02:53double the amount of organisations that have come into regularly funded and there is a
02:58strong community element to that.
03:00So it was trying to get that balance between supporting the great pillars, the great creative
03:07strongholds and at the same time allowing younger more community based projects to thrive.
03:14How important is it that these budgets that have been announced and the funding settlements
03:19that have been announced, how important is it that they are protected for the next few
03:22years and built upon?
03:25One of the things that we've been working very hard with Scottish Government is to try
03:28and get a commitment for next year and we're really delighted to be able to announce that
03:34they have given us that commitment.
03:36So we are talking about an uplift in year two in 2026-27.
03:42Our budget to regularly funded organisations this year is 60 million, rising to 74 million
03:48next year and there is a hope that there might be some further increases in the third year.
03:54So the organisations that have got development funding for the forthcoming financial year
03:58are you hoping that all of those will join the multi-year funding programme in the second year?
04:03Well the development strand is to try to do that.
04:07A number of them are extremely important cultural organisations and we will be working very
04:13closely with them all to try and ensure that they do join the multi-year funding cohort
04:19in 2026-27.