Exclusive:Glasgow council gave £300,000 emergency loan to CCA 18 months before collapse
The CCA was reported to have gone into liquidation on Friday
Glasgow City Council handed an emergency loan of around £300,000 to the city's now-defunct Centre for Contemporary Arts months before it fell into the hands of liquidators, The Scotsman can reveal.
The loan was issued to the CCA following a meeting of the council's city administration committee in August 2024.
The council said £285,000 was still outstanding on the loan to the arts venue, which collapsed on Friday.
Papers relating to the loan have been placed under restricted access on the council's website.
Details of the loan came to light as it emerged customers are still able to purchase tickets for events at the centre, despite it being in liquidation.
Tickets for already-scheduled events, including a talk by Daniel Temkin entitled Forty-Four Esolangs: The Art of Esoteric Code, are accessible to buy on the CCA's website - with the CCA’s ticketing site still fully functional and accepting payments.
A document linked to published minutes of of the council’s committee meeting on 24 August said a report had been submitted from the executive director of finance recommending a loan should be granted.
A separate report entitled “CCA Loan Excluded Item” is noted as an associated document on the council’s website, however, its contents are not publicly available.
The document filed with the minutes said the finance director’s report had explained that the CCA was a “significant cultural asset that supported a wide range of creatives”, and was “recognised as a leader in local, national and international best practice through its innovative, citizen-led creative programming approaches”.
It said the CCA had requested an emergency loan from the Council, “as detailed in the report”.
It added: "After consideration, the committee approved an emergency loan to the Centre of Contemporary Arts."
This comes as The Scotsman revealed the latest accounts filed with Companies House showed the CCA had warned of “significant financial risk and volatility” just weeks after being granted a £3.4 million funding from Creative Scotland last year.
In a statement issued after the liquidation was announced, Creative Scotland, which owns the building out of which the CCA operated, said it had already awarded £832,000 of the agreed funds to the CCA in 2025/26, with a planned further £1.3m for each of the two following financial years.
Details of the company's liquidation, which was announced on Friday by board member Louise Norris, a solicitor at Lindsay’s law firm in Edinburgh, are not yet known.
A notice on the organisation's website states it is in liquidation, but does not name the liquidator. Meanwhile, no reference to a winding up order or a liquidator having been appointed is yet available through Companies House or the Gazette, which is the paper of record for any company dissolutions.
Neither the trustees of the CCA, nor its lawyers, Glasgow based Turcan Connell, would respond to requests for comment or information.
Ms Norris, who served as a director for a year until terminating her appointment in June last year, was reappointed as a director on 27 January - three days before the company was said to have gone into liquidation.
Only two other directors, Kirstene Ogg and Dr Paola Pasino, who were both appointed in June 2024, remain on the CCA’s board.
A spokesperson for Glasgow City Council said “I can confirm that a balance of £285,000 remains outstanding of the original £300,000 that was loaned to CCA by the council.”
Comments
Want to join the conversation? Please or to comment on this article.