Despite 'austerity', it still makes economic and cultural sense to double Scotland's arts funding – Joyce McMillan

Committing just a fraction of the Scottish Government’s budget to the arts world would reap huge rewards

It always seemed almost too good to be true, the coming of Summerhall, back in 2011. In a UK where the wealthy often seem to prefer to stash their cash in offshore havens, here was one – Robert McDowell, of Edinburgh – who had decided to use his wealth to buy the old Dick Veterinary School building, a huge and rambling complex of clashing architectures on Edinburgh’s south side, and to operate it as an arts centre and music venue, complete with cafe-bars and glorious outdoor spaces.

The venue’s history has been a financial and organisational roller-coaster, of course; yet it it has also emerged as perhaps the leading venue on the contemporary Edinburgh Fringe, and a vital and much loved year-round cultural and social hub in Edinburgh.

So when the news broke this week that the Summerhall board had decided to put it on the open property market, the shock was palpable; once again, the public good and common weal, the joy and liveability of our capital city, seemed to be running headlong into the ruthless commercial logic of the UK’s permanently overheated property market, and losing the battle. And of course, confronted with such crises, we turn to our governments, at every level; which are supposed – in a mixed economy – to exist to defend the public good, and to make sure that major public assets are not lost to the power of unregulated markets.

Environmental artist and activist Mella Shaw's exhibition Sounding Line at Summerhall in Edinburgh last year (Picture: Jane Barlow/PA)

A promised good deed

How, though, do we in the UK find our public authorities, in 2024? We find them cash-strapped and deeply demoralised; either, like the UK Conservative government, actively in league with the worst forces of socially illiterate capitalism, or – like Edinburgh City Council and the Scottish Government – so battered by the questionable mantras of “austerity”, over 15 years, that they are more used to pleading for crumbs from property developers’ tables, than to fulfilling their proper role of regulation and rebalancing.

Get our weekly opinion newsletter for expert analysis from The Scotsman’s team of columnists

Yet here’s the thing; even in the midst of such misery, and against a global backdrop of mounting horror, both political and environmental, there is one good deed that the hard-up Scottish Government could do right now; and that would be to implement immediately, without further delay or statistical smoke and mirrors, the promise made last year by the then First Minister, Humza Yousaf, to double the funding of arts and culture in Scotland.

The total sum involved, just for clarity, is £196 million a year; a lot of money, which could be put to hundreds of good uses around our cash-starved public realm, but just one-third of one per cent of the Scottish Government’s total annual budget. As a point of European comparison, it’s worth comparing this to the annual cultural budget of the city of Berlin alone, which is more than four times as much, at 947 million euros.

Cast-iron case

And there is massive evidence that European cities and small nations invest in culture on this scale not because they have money to burn, but because they know it works. Even in purely economic terms, the case is cast-iron; for every pound spent, a labour-intensive and relatively low-wage sector such as the arts generates far more employment than most industries, and produces greater tax returns.

The arts are also a hugely effective force in generating international status and prestige; even in what have been exceptionally tough times since the pandemic, Scotland’s major cultural institutions continue to represent us brilliantly on the international stage.

Campaigners warn access to Scottish culture 'gravely at risk' due to funding crisis

And even beyond all that, the painful closures of the pandemic years should have made us aware of how, in communities across Scotland, arts venues can act as a hub, a gathering-point, and an inspiration. The artists who work in those centres act as a constant resource for other public services, co-operating with hospitals, mental health services, schools; and the widespread availability of arts centres and hubs is – among many other benefits – an essential engine of social mobility and change, opening up new possible lives to young people from every kind of background, and helping them to fight their way out of whatever limitations they suffer.

So in this difficult time, why not do this one thing which – even in a time of such constraint – is well within both the powers and the budget of our Scottish Government? A first increase in cultural funding of 25 per cent for 2025-26 has already been promised. In the meantime, though, companies like the Lyceum Theatre, the Edinburgh Festival, or the Tron in Glasgow, are on their uppers; and the main funding agency, Creative Scotland, is about to make three-year decisions which will have a profound impact on the performing arts on the basis of a standstill 2024-25 budget, and of a yawning £47 million gap between what it can afford, and what it needs to sustain Scotland’s cultural landscape.

Healing signs

Yet the sum involved, say, in doubling Creative Scotland’s budget is on such a small scale, relative to total government spend, that it could easily, if necessary, be met from the contingency funds that all governments hold. Doubling our spend on the arts and culture would not be a cure-all for the current ills of our cities; it would not necessarily save Summerhall, or, in Glasgow, rebuild the mighty shaming shell of the School of Art.

What it would do, though, is signal a passionate care for our community and collective life as fully human beings, at a time when such healing signs are deeply needed. And it would demonstrate a profound hope for, and belief in, our shared future; one towards which we will not be able to imagine and work our way, without the help of our storytellers and makers, musicians and performers – the artists who make things new, and constantly remind us that change and reinvention is not only possible, but essential, and a deep source of joy.