Creative Scotland has published its 3-year plan entitled ‘Investing in Scotland’s Creative Future’. In it, Creative Scotland sets out its ambition to see Scotland as ‘one of the world’s most creative nations by 2020’.
In order to share its vision for the arts, screen and creative industries and present its first corporate plan, Creative Scotland is hosting a series of roadshows across Scotland. These events will take place in April at the following venues:
Wednesday 13 April - Citizen’s Theatre, Glasgow (sold out)
Friday 15 April 2011 - Catstrand, New Galloway
• Wednesday 27 & 28 April 2011 - Creative Scotland, Edinburgh (28th sold out)
All events are free, but you must register in advance. Visit
Creative Scotland publishes ten-year plan and Theatre
Creative Scotland has published its first ten-year plan, outlining how it is going to transfer from its inherited models of grant aid to a new funding system. The plan is the first concrete evidence of how CS intends to incorporate the responsibilities it has inherited from the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen with new responsibilities for crafts, fashion and the digital technologies.
The plan sets out five headline areas for investment – talent, production, audiences (including participation), the cultural economy and place (including capital investment and cultural tourism). These are supported with a move towards strategic budgeting in the organisation’s first financial year from April. The existing 108 separate budgets for projects and schemes will be replaced by 16 ‘strategic investment programmes’.
The budget is based on its treasury income – £35.5 million a year for its core activity with a further £14.5 million restricted funds – staying at its current level. As a lottery distributor its £19.7 million 2011/12 budget will rise to an estimated £28.2 million by 2012/13.
Creative Scotland plans to maintain its £18.2 million core support for the 51 foundation organisations, but support for the 60 flexibly funded organisations will stop in 2011/12. This £8 million budget will be replaced by a “£7 million programme for strategic commissioning with any saving invested into our talent budget”.
Within the Lottery budget, there will be a 50% increase in film investment for the year 2011/12. Unused reserves of £5 million will be put into a new £20 million capital programme over four years.
Meanwhile, 2012 – the year of the Olympics in London – has been designated as the “Year of Creative Scotland” with £6 million allocated over two years to both headings. A further £6 million is planned over the following two years to support national cultural programme partnerships for the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games.
For the performing arts, the plan is largely supportive of the existing structure of theatre in Scotland. It talks of the benefit of the “innovative” National Theatre of Scotland model and talks positively of building-based production companies. It is particularly glowing in its remarks on theatre for children, from practitioner education, through the sector’s companies and the Imaginate festival.
The plan does note gaps in the theatre infrastructure, however. It says: “There is more to be done on the large scale with regard to the availability of high quality work and in the middle scale if we are to keep the full network of Scottish theatre vibrant. On the small scale there is a need to resolve the tension between highly progressive experimental work and ensuring enough diversity to serve the needs of the broader population and rural venue base.”