Balancing audience appetites with the needs of artists
02/03/2006
The Scottish Arts Council has agreed that from April 2007 it will change the way it offers support to the arts in Scotland in its role as a development and funding body.
The changes will place a sharper focus on the needs of artists*, ensure a more healthy, sustainable arts sector and reinforce our commitment to improving the opportunities for people who wish to participate in the arts.
There is no shortage of artistic excellence in Scotland and we wish to harness that dynamism by ensuring that we can refresh and expand that pool of talent. This is achieved by securing a solid foundation of organisations and then freeing artists to concentrate on their work.
The Scottish Arts Council has a unique role in supporting high quality art and artists and we have reviewed our aims and our ambitions for the arts in Scotland to ensure they reflect the needs and aspirations of a 21st century Scotland. Our priorities are:
- Increasing the scope and quality of our support for artists
- Securing the foundation of Scotland’s artistic development
- Creating flexibility to support the new and the innovative
- Creating opportunities for participation in the arts
To support these priorities, Council has agreed that we will offer our funding in a different way. We are proposing that organisations with a distinctive and significantly unique role in relation to an artform, policy priority and/or place will be funded on a long term basis, with what we are describing as foundation funding. However, there will also be additional expectations on those organisations particularly in relation to quality and standards. We have been developing a new quality framework and foundation organisations will be expected to meet the standards set in the quality framework.
We will of course continue to fund individual artists through bursaries, fellowships etc and on a project by project basis.
Flexible funding allows for funding for the development and presentation of programmes of activity that are artistically driven; audience focused funding for the development and presentation of programmes of artistic activity that aim to maximise audience attendance; and funding for arts organisations which have a strategic role in the development of a key policy area or serve a particular community of interest.
There is another category of flexible funding which will specifically support one-off projects: a tour, a production, a festival or an exhibition.
(*artists in this context means artists, creative teams or collaborations, creative producers, publishers and directors, and arts organisations)
- Total funding for foundation organisations will increase by approximately £4m to £14 million in 2007-08.
- Support for youth companies alone will rise to £700,000 from £390,000.
- The overall balance of funds, other than foundations, will increase by £3m to £17 million. This includes increased funds for venues to stage touring theatre that reflects the tastes of their audiences.
- Work for and by disabled people also receives a boost, a doubling of the budget from £200,000 to £450,000, as does support for organisations reflecting Scotland’s cultural diversity (from £200,00 to £450,00).
- Literature Festivals, which have seen a remarkable boost in audiences recently, will receive an uplift of £100,000.
What the changes will mean:
- Curatorial development in both the visual arts and in crafts to increase the range of contemporary work created in Scotland on display in Scottish galleries, as well as giving Scottish audiences more opportunities to see work created internationally
- A new fund to support venues to programme touring drama; this will mean more opportunities for audiences throughout Scotland to see a range of theatre productions, as well as increased support for artists to develop work
- Better support for choreographers to create work in Scotland, by supporting a longer period of research and development
- Greater support for individual makers in crafts, through a range of smaller grants distributed at a local level, as well as increasing the size of awards made to individual visual artists
- Support to establish a Scottish Music Industry Association, as well as increased support for contemporary youth music development
- Increasing the awards to writers, through bursaries and fellowships, as well as supporting more new Literature Development Worker posts for readership initiatives; Scottish publishers will be supported to publish more work by Scottish writers
- Better funding to arts centres and agencies around Scotland to support their programming and their work with local audiences
- More support for volunteers in the arts, by providing professional development funding
- Foundation organisations will exemplify best practice in the areas such as audience development and education as part of their core work
Richard Holloway, Chairman of the Scottish Arts Council concluded: ‘This review was a root and branch look at the whole landscape of arts funding in Scotland, with a view to getting major movement, as well as building in space for the surprise of new talent and new approaches.
‘We have decided that this is the best way to confirm and support the great work that is going on, as well as building in enough space for those happy surprises I mentioned earlier.’
Notes to editors
- These will be the only categories of support we will offer; there will be no ‘core funded’ organisations. It is important to emphasise that there is no ‘hierarchy’ between organisations that will receive either foundation or flexible funding. It is not a distinction of quality, as all our funding will support quality, but more a description of our relationship with organisations.
- The Scottish Arts Council champions and sustains the arts for Scotland, investing over £60 million from Scottish Executive and National Lottery funding to support and develop artistic excellence and creativity throughout Scotland. Further information is available from our website at www.scottisharts.org.uk
- Figures above exclude the national performing companies and the Youth Music Initiative
- A summary of Council's decisions are available at www.scottisharts.org.uk/1/information/publications/1003106.aspx
- View CFO papers online
Contact email(s)
media.office@scottisharts.org.uk
Issued by: Scottish Arts Council
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