Scottish Youth Theatre handed Holyrood lifeline

SCOTLAND’S flagship youth theatre company has been offered a lifeline by the Scottish Government after complaining about having its regular funding removed by the country’s main arts quango.

Scottish Youth Theatre said it had been reassured about its future after a crisis summit with the SNP’s culture secretary Fiona Hyslop.

A string of high-profile supporters of the company have attacked Creative Scotland for turning down a bid for support for the next three years - without making public the reason for its decision.

But a statement from SYT - which had previously been allocated £220,000 a year - following the “very positive” meeting claimed the government had offered the company “strong support” and offered to help secure its future.

It is thought Creative Scotland will have to ring-fence substantial “targeted” funding - much of which is set aside to keep Scottish Government targets - for SYT after rejecting its bid for long-term support.

It was stripped of three-year support just 12 months after Creative Scotland had launched a national youth arts strategy in a blaze of publicity.

Writing in the document, Ms Hyslop said she wanted to see Scotland become an “international leader in children and young people’s art.”

CONNECT WITH THE SCOTSMAN

• Subscribe to our daily newsletter (requires registration) and get the latest news, sport and business headlines delivered to your inbox every morning

• You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Google +

Ms Hyslop agreed to intervene over the fate of the company despite Creative Scotland supposedly having “arms-length” status, with complete independence over key funding decisions.

She declared that she wants to see the arts agency keep working with SYT in future, claiming there is “huge potential for the future of youth theatre in Scotland.”

The funding blow came just months after SYT had welcomed First Minister Alex Salmond to rehearsals for its Edinburgh Festival Fringe show inspired by the historic vote offered to teenagers in the independence referendum.

Leading actors to throw their weight behind the company have included Blythe Duff, Douglas Henshall, Billy Boyd and Rebecca Benson.

SYT chair John Scott Moncrieff said: “We had a very positive and reassuring meeting with the culture Secretary.

“Ms Hyslop reiterated the Scottish Government’s strong support for a national youth theatre provision in Scotland and Scottish Youth Theatre.

“We therefore agreed to work with the Scottish Government and Creative Scotland to secure a sustainable, long term future for the organisation. To this end, we will continue our discussions with Creative Scotland on the best way to achieve this.

“Our aim is to ensure that we can continue to provide world-class theatre arts experiences for as many of Scotland’s young people as possible.

“We continue to be extremely grateful to all our supporters including participants and parents, patrons, alumni and our friends in the arts community.”

Ms Hyslop said: “This government’s strong support for culture was underlined in the 2015-16 budget, which increases support for culture and heritage by 10 per cent to almost £240 million, including over £48 million in core and ring-fenced funding for Creative Scotland.

“While individual funding decisions are a matter for the Creative Scotland Board, I am pleased to see that regular funding for youth arts bodies across Scotland including the National Youth Choir of Scotland, YDance, National Youth Orchestra of Scotland has increased.

“This will help to deliver the ambition set out in Scotland’s first national youth strategy to enhance opportunities for our young people to engage in culture and the arts.

“There is huge potential for the future of youth theatre in Scotland and I encourage Creative Scotland to continue to work with Scottish Youth Theatre to ensure it can meet those ambitions.”

Creative Scotland insisted it was supporting projects across Scotland which were allowing “tens of thousands” of young people to engage with arts and culture.

A spokesman added: “We recognise and value the important role that a national youth theatre plays as part of this overall ecology, contributing to the huge potential demonstrated by youth arts.

“Following on from our decision not to fund Scottish Youth Theatre through regular funding, Creative Scotland has met with Scottish Youth Theatre to discuss alternative routes of support. We will be meeting them again this week.

“These meetings have been positive and constructive and further announcements will be made in due course.”

SCOTSMAN TABLET AND IPHONE APPS

• Download your free 30-day trial for our iPad, Android and Kindle apps

• Keep up to date with all aspects of Scottish life with The Scotsman iPhone app, completely free to download and use