Our cultural life may be ensnared in more red tape

Published on Tuesday 24 January 2006 00:31

AT LONG last, the Scottish Executive has unveiled its cultural policy. Five years after it started and with five ministers grappling with the problem, it has certainly been a long time coming, but is it as attractive as the fanfare that greeted it last Thursday?

In responding to the challenge that had defeated all her predecessors, the culture minister, Patricia Ferguson, appeared to rise like a delicate souffle. Unfortunately, now that the cold air of critical analysis is circulating around her, the deflation is tangible and her announcements are a lot less appetising.

Having heard her statement and then read and re-read it, I become more and more suspicious that what Scotland will end up with is a more centralised and bureaucratic cultural sector, instead of a dynamic and creative one.

There are three main initiatives.

The first is to remove the funding and monitoring of the five national performing arts companies (opera, ballet, theatre and two orchestras) from the remit of the Scottish Arts Council (SAC) and place them with her department.

The second is to abolish Scottish Screen and put its activities back under the responsibility of the denuded SAC - to be rebranded Creative Scotland.

The third is that government spending on the arts will increase by 20 million.

Taken together, one has to ask why it took so long to change so little. Take the first decision to place the national companies within the direct responsibility of the minister. There have already been some shrieks of horror over the ending of the arm's-length principle, whereby ministers could not interfere in artistic decisions, but this is nothing less than naivety or ignorance.

The truth is that ministerial interference has been around for some time and the evidence is there to see in the fate of Scottish Opera.

It was Sam Galbraith and subsequent Labour ministers that instructed the Scottish Arts Council to bail out the crisis-hit company, then freeze its grant aid, thus precipitating another crisis eight years later.

It was ministers that buried the Jonas Report, which highlighted the company's under-funding, and then forced it to cease full-scale productions for a year. The SAC was nothing more than a conduit for the decisions; ministers called the shots.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of these policies, there has been general acceptance in arts bodies and the SAC itself that the arm's-length principle was long gone. Both the Conservatives and the Scottish National Party recognised this some years ago and called for the national companies to have a direct relationship with the Executive. It is the situation already enjoyed by the national galleries, museums and libraries, and they appear to be treated no worse for it.

There is a case for the parliament to act as a guarantor of artistic independence, holding the culture minister to account by calling her and the companies' artistic directors before the culture committee on a regular basis. By asking searching questions about artistic excellence and Executive funding, this arrangement could be more liberating than the quango smoke-screen that currently exists.

Unfortunately, Thursday's statement falls short on detail. Therefore, those wishing to avoid the establishment of a centralised, all-powerful department with a cultural commissar at its head must press their case and be vigilant.

Greater bureaucracy will be the default position, unless every effort is made to resist official inertia.

The merging of Scottish Screen with what's left of the Scottish Arts Council offers significant opportunity to rationalise on back-office costs between the two quangos and the department, releasing funds that can go to artists instead of administrators.

But will that happen? So far, the minister has said some SAC staff will be transferred from Manor Place to her office at Victoria Quay. That's to be expected. But there must be significant duplication between the two already, given the hands-on approach she and her predecessors have been taking.

Before Creative Scotland is established, the finance minister, Tom McCabe, should insist on a thorough review of the administrative set-up. Anything less would be an abrogation of his duty.

This brings me to the extra 20 million that Ms Ferguson announced. Now, before anyone gets too excited, let us look a little closer at what the culture minister said.

The increase starts in 2007-8 after the Executive's own spending review, which will be held in 2007. The timing is important. If tight spending constraints are imposed (and ministers have been dropping hints that the good days are coming to an end), then this increase cannot be guaranteed.

If it is, then the spend review is meaningless - what other guarantees are being handed out to hospitals, schools and the police? - so the pledge is hardly rock-solid and is dependent on the future chancellor at No11 as much as whichever MSP happens to be culture minister by then.

There are other announcements of a more low-key nature that may yet give cause for optimism, but beware. This Executive's tendency to create more jobs for public officials and jobsworths knows no end.

The pleasant idea of giving our children an entitlement to see some Shakespeare, dance the Gay Gordons or learn the clarsach is to be welcomed, even though a great deal of this is already being done by unsung performers, venues and schools. That the announcement mentioned the need for monitoring, guidance, good practice and other consultants' jargon suggests that the officials are looking to colonise existing voluntary arrangements by making them more regulated.

This parasitic bureaucratic creed must be resisted. It is the real threat to artistic creativity and will become the real beneficiary unless we challenge it at every opportunity.