Paulo Nutini, The Proclaimers, Biffy Clyro, Young Fathers and Mogwai demand arts funding cuts rethink

Edinburgh-born, Fife-raised twin brothers Craig and Charlie Reid formed folk-rock band The Proclaimers in 1983. Picture Michael Gillen. | National World

Stars of Scottish music have demanded an urgent rethink from First Minister John Swinney over new cuts to culture funding as they told him it has triggered the nation’s “worst ever” arts industry crisis.

Biffy Clyro, Paolo Nutini, Franz Ferdinand, Young Fathers, The Proclaimers, Mogwai, Karine Polwart, Idlewild, Glasvegas and  Frightened Rabbit have raised the alarm that a “cultural catastrophe” is underway as they called for arts funding to be given “essential” status.

Singer-songwriter Paolo Nutini. | ANP/AFP via Getty Images

An open letter from the Scottish music industry, backed by more than 170 signatories, claims the country’s entire arts sector has been put at “immediate risk of collapse” after the government agency Creative Scotland was hit with new cuts, less than a year after the industry was promised £100m in new investment.

Instigated by the Scottish Music Industry Association, it also warns the First Minister that there will be an exodus of freelancers musicians and industry workers from Scotland, leading to the country losing its "diverse cultural identity” unless there is immediate action from the First Minister.

Franz Ferdinand. Picture: Getty Images | Getty Images

Joesef, Vukovi, C Duncan, Honeyblood, Seonaid Aitken, Stanley Odd, Elephant Sessions, Juliette Lemoine, SHHE, Carla J Easton, Karine Polwart, Niteworks and Withered Hand are among the other acts demanding the restoration of more than £10m worth of support for Creative Scotland which has either been cancelled or put on hold in recent weeks.

The protests from the music industry have emerged as Scotland’s world-leading performing arts school warned that the country's cultural assets had been left "utterly despondent" by cuts it said would affect the “lifeblood and future” of Scotland’s creativity and culture.

The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland - where Ncuti Gatwa, David Tennant, Sam Heughan, Alan Cumming, Robert Carlyle and James McAvoy all studied - has published its own open letter to Mr Swinney expressing “deep concern” that Creative Scotland has been targeted.

The national arts funding body announced last week that it was being forced to shut down a £6 million open fund for artists at the end this month due to “uncertainty” over the release of government funding which has been earmarked in its budget for the current financial year.

The Scottish music industry’s open letter states: “These decisions, resulting from the Scottish Government’s inability to confirm the release of previously allocated grant-in-aid funding, have ignited the worst crisis that Scotland’s music and wider arts sector has ever faced. A cultural catastrophe is in process.

"It will lead to both direct and consequential job losses across an already underfunded sector, one which was disproportionately crippled by the pandemic and has yet to fully recover."

Franz Ferdinand singer Alex Kapranos said: “This is a disappointingly short sighted cut which will cost exponentially more than what is saved in the short term financially.

“The arts are how a nation knows who they are. Without them we have an identity as two dimensional as the bottom line of a balanced account.” Idlewild guitarist Rod Jones said: “Art in all forms is crucial to growth, well-being, joy and life. 

“To be truly artistic, relevant and unimpaired art is not always commercial so government support and funding is crucial to growing a healthy arts scene, nurturing and developing new and existing talents to showcase what incredible artists Scotland can and has produced.”

Creative Scotland warned the Scottish Parliament that the arts is facing years of “managed decline” unless there is a change of direction from the government as it revealed that £10.65m worth of funding was either cancelled or on hold.

Shona Robison, the government’s finance secretary has told her fellow cabinet ministers that “significant uncertainty” over future UK Government budgets meant she had to introduce “emergency spending controls” which meant money would not be released unless it was deemed “truly essential or unavoidable.”

The music industry’s open letter states: “These funds need to be urgently reinstated or the sector is at immediate risk of collapse. Culture funding must be deemed essential.

"The explanation that these decisions stem from emergency spending controls may reflect broader financial pressures, but they are devastating for Scottish culture, the economy and society.

"Without the ability to secure funding, many artists and industry freelancers will be unable to sustain creative activities.

"This will lead to critical job losses and sector skills vanishing, damaging Scotland’s music industry irrevocably, along with the Scottish economy.

"It will weaken our cultural foundations, limit international collaboration and end the touring of Scottish works on the global stage.”

The music industry’s open letter highlighted a “disparity” between the government’s £100m pledge and the “immediate crisis,” adding that the industry could not wait years for investment which it “desperately needs now.”

The open letter adds: “The previously allocated cultural funding from the Scottish Government for this financial year represented just 0.5 per cent of total Government spending for 2024-25.

"This is almost one per cent below the European average. Scottish culture is already underfunded, and if the Scottish Government continues to withhold previously confirmed funds for this financial year this pushes the sector into crisis.

"Given that the proportion of funding is already so low and the impact of reducing it is so high, failing to sustain this vital support cannot reasonably be understood as being something outwith the Scottish Government’s control.”

The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, which is currently rated as the sixth best performing arts school in the world, has warned Mr Swinney of the impact that "continued attrition" is having on the arts industry.

An open letter from principal Jeffrey Sharkey and chair Dorothy Miell states: “We urge you to provide urgent assurances that continued and robust levels of grant-in-aid provision will be available to the national cultural agency.

“These funds facilitate on-going support of young people, artists, creative producers as well as the programmes, ideas and projects that are the lifeblood and future of Scotland’s creativity and culture.

“As the nation’s world-leading (and only) conservatoire, we see at first-hand the excellence and potential of some of the finest Scottish, UK and international emerging artists and creative producers trained in Scotland.

“We do recognise (and live with) the challenges presented by sustained constraints on public spending, the resulting cuts to operating budgets, as well as the anxieties around the very sustainability this presents to many creative and cultural organisations, the RCS included.

“However, continued attrition and a lack of planning certainty makes Scotland’s real cultural assets – its artists, creative producers and creative educators – utterly despondent about the present as well as the future of an already challenged creative sector."

The government is continuing to insist that it is investing more in culture this year, even despite the announcements from Creative Scotland, which had £13.2m worth of funding restored to its budget earlier this year, to bring it to more than £68m which was allocated in an annual spending plan published in the spring.

A spokesman said: “We will continue to do everything within our powers and resources to protect our world class arts and culture sector.

"We have increased arts culture funding this year, as the first step to achieving our commitment to invest at least £100m more annually in culture and the arts by 2028-29.”

Culture secretary Angus Robertson said: “I understand the concerns of many people within the artistic community, and I want to reassure those individuals that the Scottish Government is listening very carefully to the representations they are making.

 

“We are dealing with very significant challenges in the public finances, which are exacerbated by the UK Government’s recent announcements.

“We are investing significantly already in cultural activities, with over £55 million of investment in Creative Scotland this financial year.

“The government will set out in due course what further steps we can take to address the challenges that we facing and to make sure that we address the issues that have been drawn to our attention by the artistic community.”