Art of the matter

Published on Saturday 13 February 2010 19:11

ANDREW Dixon has a tough job as the new head of Creative Scotland, the quango charged with championing the arts. So what pitfalls must he avoid, asks Claire Prentice

GREAT art isn't hatched overnight. Neither, it seems, are great arts quangos. More than six years after former first minister Jack McConnell announced the creation of a new body to fund the Scottish arts, it was revealed last week that a chief executive had finally been found to head up Creative Scotland (CS), which will have an annual budget of more than 60 million.

The appointment of Andrew Dixon, a 51-year-old arts administrator who has made his name in the north-east of England, was greeted with sighs of relief all round.

The Scottish arts community, normally fractious and riven with personal and political animosities, is temporarily united by a sense that things may finally be moving. Creative Scotland, which will bring together the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen into one new quango designed to oversee all the arts, has endured an excruciatingly long labour.

Now everyone is watching with interest as it takes its first steps.

"There's been an awful lot of talk and hot air and now it's time for action," said one industry insider, summing up the feeling of many.

But Dixon, who will receive a salary of about 130,000, has already earned his first brickbat from a sector which feels increasingly cash squeezed.

"At a time when public funding for the arts is being cut it's hard to justify a salary like that," said publisher Robin Hodge.

Dixon will need to win over the more than 400 artists, writers and producers who last year wrote to MSPs urging them to vote down attempts to create Creative Scotland, and negotiate his way through a tricky reality: the creation of the organisation will see the loss of one-quarter of the staff working in the bodies it will replace.

All that is before he settles down to his real job of championing creativity and artistic ambition across Scotland. And all this at a time of swingeing public spending cuts.

While Dixon is relatively unknown north of the border, supporters say he brings many of the skills his new job will demand.

As chief executive of Northern Arts, he played a key role in the recent cultural regeneration of Newcastle through high-profile projects such as the Baltic arts centre, the Angel of the North and the Sage Gateshead. Crucially, he has significant experience of overseeing mergers within the arts sector. Those who have worked with him describe him as "a bit corporate but in a good way".

Reflecting on the challenges ahead of him, Dixon said: "Creative Scotland offers an exciting opportunity to engage the nation and deliver a new model of cultural development of international significance."

The relationship between artists and the government bodies who hand our money to them is often a tense standoff. To make an impact, Creative Scotland must make good on the promise in its name. If it does, it might even have been worth the wait. In the meantime, Dixon must answer five key questions…

1 WILL THE SCOTTISH FILM INDUSTRY SUFFER NOW THAT SCOTTISH SCREEN HAS BEEN SCRAPPED?

SCOTTISH Screen was formed in 1997 to be the dedicated champion of indigenous Scottish film production, and to lure international film productions to Scotland. Insiders fear that absorbing Scottish Screen into the larger mass of CS will blunt its ability to be a one-stop shop for filmmakers attracted to filming in Scotland's glens and council estates.

But many in the film industry blame Scottish Screen for making bad funding decisions and repeatedly pouring public money into projects that have failed to materialise. Of 26.2 million handed out to local production companies since 2001 only 2.2m has been recouped from completed projects, such as Stone Of Destiny, above right.

Critics charge Scottish Screen has repeatedly channelled funds to "those who it already knows", including former SS executives, and has demonstrated a reluctance to take risks by backing new talent.

One insider said: "There are a lot of rivalries within SS and there's been a lot of infighting and fights about money and who gets what. In that climate people become entrenched and defensive and good decisions don't get made. It's time for change."

John Archer, who runs Hopscotch Films and is former head of music and arts at BBC Scotland and the founding chief executive of Scottish Screen, said: "It has been good having a dedicated organisation within the screen industries.

"Inevitably people are going to be worried about what Creative Scotland is going to mean for the Scottish film industry but I think we all have to be optimistic."

2 ARE ALL FIVE NATIONAL PERFORMING COMPANIES – THE NATIONAL THEATRE OF SCOTLAND, ROYAL SCOTTISH NATIONAL ORCHESTRA, SCOTTISH BALLET, SCOTTISH CHAMBER ORCHESTRA AND SCOTTISH OPERA – SUSTAINABLE IN A TIME OF DRASTIC PUBLIC SPENDING CUTS?

THE national companies may simply be too big to be allowed to fail. If Scotland is to be taken seriously as a country which values culture then staging the biggest arts festival in the world in August is not enough.

Scottish Ballet's recent move into its new purpose-built 11 million headquarters at Tramway was attacked as a huge extravagance by critics. Supporters say it was a necessary expense and provided important evidence that Scotland's leaders regard culture as a vital part of the country's identity.

The 'Big Five' have worked hard in recent years to counter claims of elitism with regional tours to far-flung venues and more populist strands. These include Scottish Opera's 'Five:15' series which aimed to attract a new and younger audience by inviting popular writers like Ian Rankin and Alexander McCall Smith to team up with composers like Golden Globe-winner Craig Armstrong to write 15-minute operas.

The key for Creative Scotland will be ensuring that everyone gets a fair share of the pie from large money-guzzlers like Scottish Opera and Scottish Ballet, below, to small indie bands and fledgling authors, two groups who many feel have been under-served in the past.

"There was always a joke in the pub among people in the industry that if the big institutions got into trouble all they had to do was phone the government and ask for more money," said one arts insider. "That may or may not be true but it would be embarrassing for any government if these big national institutions got into trouble financially."

3 IS THE NATIONAL THEATRE OF SCOTLAND STARVING SMALLER THEATRE COMPANIES OF RESOURCES AND AUDIENCES?

FOUNDED in February 2006, NTS started with a bang with the multi-award-winning, internationally acclaimed Black Watch, below, and quickly earned a reputation for risk-taking.

The recent Wall of Death: A Way of Life, above right, in which a group of motorcyclists ride around a vertiginous drum to heart-stopping effect, was something no other theatre company in Scotland could afford to put on.

Though criticised by some for being circus rather than theatre and a waste of taxpayer money, supporters hailed it as an example of brave, creative theatre at its best.

But while smaller theatre companies do not have the resources to compete with the NTS in terms of the scale of their productions and the pay they can offer, they have continued to attract talented writers and actors.

Arguably those that are suffering most are the medium-sized repertory theatre companies.

On the upside, the general tightness of budgets has led to a number of exciting co-productions such as Communicado and The Tron's recent production of The Government Inspector.

Meanwhile, Midsummer at The Traverse, a lo-fi collaboration between playwright David Greig and Gordon McIntyre of Edinburgh band Ballboy, proved that you don't have to have a big budget to be an international hit. One theatre director said, "People are being forced to get more creative because there's less money around."

4 HOW WILL CREATIVE SCOTLAND ENSURE ARTS SPENDING ISN'T DECIMATED?

THIS may be beyond anyone's control. With public spending likely to be squeezed to within an inch of its life in the coming years, Dixon and his CS colleagues are going to have to fight tooth and nail to get sufficient resources to fulfil their remit. The choices made by funding organisations always cause disappointment and there's never enough money in the pot. The trick will be to ensure that the lion's share of Creative Scotland's 60 million a year budget leaves the building and doesn't get swallowed up by the organisation itself. John Archer said: "Creative Scotland has to be lean and generous and strike the right balance between what is spent on the organisation and what is given out to the arts community."

In March, Creative Scotland will announce the winners of its Vital Spark Awards, with prize money totalling 500,000. Commentators have praised the diversity and boldness of the shortlisted projects which include a play about a wrestling match and a film by Turner Prize-winning artist Douglas Gordon, right, inspired by the 1936 documentary Night Mail. The awards are intended to encourage collaborations and to show the breadth of creative imagination at work in the arts in Scotland. All eyes will be on CS to see if it displays that same creative and dynamic spirit it seeks to reward.

5 WHAT DOES CREATIVE SCOTLAND NEED TO DO TO PROVE ITSELF?

THOUGH Dixon is not responsible for the bungled beginnings of CS, he is going to have to act fast to prove that the body is on a bold new course.

Theatre critic Joyce McMillan said: "In order to achieve anything, he is going to have to rebuild the trust and reassure people while also securing enough money so that the early phase is not all about cuts."

Under Creative Scotland, traditional departments will disappear and 14 portfolio managers will take their place. Each manager will have an area of speciality, such as dance or theatre, but will work across all art forms and policy areas, such as education and sponsorship. Critics describe the move towards generalists as "grossly optimistic and misguided".

MSP Pauline McNeill, Labour culture spokeswoman, said: "The arts sector will be under a lot of pressure in the coming years. It really has to sell the idea that arts are important for the Scottish economy and the establishment of CS is a golden opportunity to do that. The new director has to hit the ground running and show there will be something new and dynamic beyond a merger of the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen."

The new organisation promises to have a flexible culture in which managers will travel around Scotland, working from CS hot desks, engaging directly with artists and arts organisations. It might sound exciting but only time will tell if CS can inject the energy, passion and expertise into the job of promoting Scotland's creativity.