Art attack: call to bring down the curtain over Creative Scotland

Published on Monday 22 December 2008 21:02

EARLIER this month, a private letter winged its way to the First Minister's office. It was signed by more than 100 chairmen and chief executives of Scottish arts organisations, from galleries to theatres and festivals. They were unhappy.

Discreetly, the members of this newly-formed "cultural alliance" were sending a signal of their deep concern directly to Alex Salmond, over the latest, painful and prolonged birth pangs of the planned new Scottish arts agency, Creative Scotland.

The text of that letter has not been released, nor is there news of any reply. But according to one signatory it warned Mr Salmond of the need for further consultations over the body being formed from the merger of the film agency, Scottish Screen, and the larger Scottish Arts Council.

Rattled by a two-year freeze in funding levels announced last month, the arts groups also sought guarantees that the transition costs of forming the new agency, reported to be as much as 7 million, won't be drawn from "front-line" arts spending. At a time of economic recession, they urged Mr Salmond to "invest in the arts".

The Scottish Artists Union, meanwhile, delivered a more radical message. It wrote to MSPs calling on them to ditch Creative Scotland and vote down the relevant legislation in the Public Sector Reform Bill when it comes before parliament.

It too complained of "the lack of meaningful consultation" and the "huge costs", but also warned of damage from Creative Scotland's "expanded remit" for building the "creative economy", but without extra money coming from Scottish Enterprise.

It seems like ancient history now, but on St Andrew's Day, 2003, Jack McConnell, the then first minister, gave a speech that mostly delighted Scotland's arts sector. Declaring that "culture and creativity are woven into every part of our national life", he promised a sweeping review, led by his culture minister, Frank McAveety, that would take a "radically new approach" to cultural provision in Scotland. It would embrace "cultural rights" and entitlements for Scottish citizens.

A central purpose of the reforms was for the newly-devolved Scotland to replace the Scottish Arts Council. A body established by Royal charter, hived off from the old Arts Council of Great Britain, the SAC did the basic job of funnelling public subsidies, including lottery money, to arts organisations. But it was seen as an out-dated hand-down from the UK government.

The SNP inherited the plans for building Creative Scotland from the SAC and Scottish Screen, with their current annual budgets of 45.4 million and 3.5 million respectively. The SNP choose to press ahead with the new quango. But it stripped out the Labourite language of social inclusion, vowed to keep it an arms' length body, and opted to stress its role in promoting the arts economy through the "creative industries" – a bone of contention ever since.

Last Friday the cultural consultant, Anne Bonnar, quietly vacated the hottest seat in Scottish arts. For a year, Ms Bonnar earned 10,000 a month as the transition director for Creative Scotland, but left when her contract expired.

After a succession of press reports over mounting costs and 200,000 spending on other consultants, to little obvious effect, arts groups had begun to complain bitterly of a lack of transparency.

They were concerned that over-priced reports on making Scotland a more creative place were all about Creative Scotland, and not about the organisations that it funds to do the work. While they tried to avoid a "big public fuss" and demonstrate patience and good will, said one insider, "there's been a complete loss of confidence in the entire process".

After the bill to establish the body calamitously fell through this summer, a temporary limited company, also called Creative Scotland, comes into effect early in the new year, chaired by Ewan Brown. But the parliamentary timetable means that Creative Scotland proper won't take shape until 2010.

It's not a pretty picture, but is there any way out of this mess? Should Creative Scotland simply be ditched? While Brown and Linda Fabiani, the culture minister, are to meet arts groups in the new year to try to head off concerns, they still struggle to explain what Creative Scotland is intended to achieve – or what the point of the costly and damaging exercise has been.

The reason now cited most often for bringing the new agency to life is simply to finish the job and finally close a door on years of uncertainty through reviews, commissions and consultations. But arts organisations are now complaining that they haven't been consulted enough.

While Scotland has endured five years of turmoil, the Arts Council of England has largely lumbered on with its job of funnelling financial support to the arts. Unlike its Scottish colleagues, its staff do not have an axe hanging constantly over their heads, with morale plummeting.

In Scotland, the drive for reform seems to have become a recipe for constant confusion. It all points to the need for more decisive and practical political leadership on the arts, from both Ms Fabiani and Mr Salmond. Ms Bonnar confirmed in a recent interview that the staff of Scottish Screen and the SAC would not be relocated en masse from their offices in Glasgow and Edinburgh respectively. If Creative Scotland was to keep a screen department, it further begs the question of what purpose is served by combining them.

One of these is the "brave new world" of the "creative industries", in which culture becomes an economic driver. Creative Scotland's remit would reach to the "creative industries", including film and television, but it's unclear how this will boost its budget.

There are continuing questions over why Scottish Enterprise, which has an overall budget of about 300 million, has not ceded control over more cash than the 100,000 funding for the Cultural Enterprise Offices that it has transferred to the SAC. "It's one of the elephants in the room," said Robert Livingston, director of Hi Arts, the Highlands arts agency, adding: "There seems to be an entire herd of them."

An added complication is that Highlands and Islands Enterprise, by contrast, has been extremely busy in the cultural sector, often with small business, in six local authority areas. "It's a huge amount of investment that would be extremely damaging if HIE was told you don't do culture, end of story," said Mr Livingston.

Julie Ellen, the chairman of the Federation of Scottish Theatres, was urging moderation. There are long-term decisions on funding, but "the philosophical vision of a future for Scotland is the most important thing, rather than where individual pots of money sit … It's one of the dangers of lengthy processes that after a certain point of time it would be easy to get alarmist," she said, and "it's easy to lose nerve along the way".

CREATIVE Scotland timeline:

&#149 November 2003: Jack McConnell, the then first minister, pledges new structure for Scottish arts to deliver cultural rights and entitlements in St Andrew's Day speech.

&#149 April 2004: Frank McAveety, the culture minister, announces Cultural Commission, chaired by James Boyle, in "a generational opportunity to look seriously and maturely at our culture". The budget is about 500,000.

&#149 October 2004: Mr McAveety sacked after "Piegate", when he failed to appear at Ministerial Question Time in the parliament and was spotted in the canteen. Patricia Ferguson, a close ally of Mr McConnell, is his replacement.

&#149 June 2005: In a 540-page final report, lampooned for its size, the Cultural Commission proposes the new agency or "super-quango", Creative Scotland.

&#149 January 2006: Scottish Executive outlines a new "cultural development agency", Creative Scotland.

&#149 May 2007: The SNP takes power with Alex Salmond becoming First Minister. Linda Fabiani, appointed culture minister, promises to move ahead with the new body.

&#149 September 2007: Anne Bonnar of arts consultants Bonnar Keenlyside, appointed transition director for Creative Scotland on a reported 10,000 a month contract. She is a former general manager of the Traverse Theatre.

&#149 June 2008: The SNP suffers its first defeat when the financial provisions for the Culture Bill, underpinning Creative Scotland, are voted down. Labour MSPs blame Ms Fabiani for wrongly suggesting more Scottish Enterprise cash for creative industries would shift to the new body.

&#149 August 2008: Newspaper reports that new body will cost 7 million to put together, ten times first estimate. Ms Fabiani later calls the figure "spurious", but refuses to provide costing details.

&#149 October 2008: Ewan Brown, the former chairman of Lloyds TSB in Scotland, named to lead Creative Scotland in its period as a limited company for about a year in 2009.

&#149 December 2008: Ms Bonnar's contract ends amid growing disquiet from arts companies and reports of over 200,000 spent on nine other consultancy firms.