Cultural differences

LIKE most poetry commissioned to celebrate public events, the words written by Don Paterson last week to mark the publication of the Culture Commission's report into Scottish artistic life last week were somewhat dry.

"To find within our culture true measure/Of the mind's vitality and spirit's health," he declared, setting out the report's objectives. "To act as democratic overseer/Of our whole culture; wise conservator."

Fine, bold stuff. Like the massive 500-page report it concluded, the poem summed up the commission's high ideals: to herald a new enlightened dawn of cultural life. Yet, even as Paterson's words were being read last week, the picture emerging of Scotland's cultural scene presented a more squalid face. Far from being the first day of a glorious new cultural future, the back-biting world of Scotland's arts scene is alive and kicking. Involving an abrasive former BBC chief, disgruntled council leaders and the wife of Scotland's most powerful politician - the drama on offer has inadvertently become a theatrical display all of its own.

To the uninitiated - which, as 99.9% of Scotland are excluded from the lofty world of arts administration, means pretty well everyone - the Cultural Commission's report last week was a confusing turn-off. A year in the making, it was a root-and-branch study of the state of Scotland's cultural scene, from the high arts such as theatre and opera, to those at a lower level, such as newspapers. Commissioned by the Scottish Executive but remaining wholly independent, it had been written by some of Scotland's brightest cultural figures, chaired by former Radio Four controller James Boyle. It cost nearly 500,000 to compile - but it would be worth it, claimed Boyle, who also claimed it was a "Declaration of Arbroath" for the arts.

Its 124 recommendations for the next 30 years of Scottish culture centre on two main aims: to build an appetite for the arts in Scotland and to widen its audience. Boyle proposes we do this through education, restructuring and, most importantly of all, investment. Key to the report is a recommendation to the Executive that an extra 100m a year is needed. Boyle wants to create two new bodies: Culture Scotland, to make arts policy, and the Culture Fund, which would hold the purse strings.

Investment would be pumped into schools to create understanding of the arts. Among Boyle's suggestions are that this could be done with DVD screens for schools, so pupils can video conference with the major national arts institutions. Libraries, theatres, and the Edinburgh festivals would all receive more money to compete with their English cousins and raise the standard of their artistic output. Hard-up artists would receive tax breaks.

Schoolchildren would receive vouchers to visit theatres, films or galleries - even the Executive's culture minister would benefit with the appointment of a deputy.

Underpinning this investment are cultural rights. In Boyle's world every citizen would have the right to "fulfil their creative potential", "take part in cultural life", be part of "an enriching communal life in a satisfying environment" and "participate in designing and implementing cultural policy". Above all, he urged the Executive to take notice and deliver a Culture Bill by 2007.

Some of it was pie-in-the-sky, some of it was unnecessarily woolly, and some of it was perfectly reasonable. Yet from the response it received from Scotland's local authorities, some might have been forgiven for thinking it was advocating anarchy.

It wasn't so much a response as apre-buttal. A day before the report was published last week, the Confederation of Scottish Local Authorities (Cosla) - which represents most of the country's 32 local authorities - got its attack in first. Without having even seen a copy, Cosla's chief executive Rory Mairs was holding a remarkable fist-banging briefing at which he startled journalists by condemning the entire exercise. "Our experience of this report is that it's full of management gobbledygook. It is dull and unimaginative," he said. Boyle, he declared, was arrogant. "I don't know what the issue is," responded Boyle. "Maybe they don't like my ties or something."

What was going on? Why the furious response? For the answers to that, it is necessary to go right back to the inception of the commission last year - and to understand the grievances which local authority chiefs have held about it since then. They include one Bridget McConnell, wife of the First Minister and, as head of Glasgow City Council's leisure and culture department, one of the biggest players in the Scotland's cultural scene. It is she, according to many insiders, who was one of the puppet masters behind Mairs' outburst last week.

"She is a crucial player in this and she has been going round saying that they [the Cultural Commission] don't understand local government. That is why they [Cosla] have been going big time on it," said one insider. Another source said McConnell was one of many council leaders who were manoeuvring behind the scenes.

"It is certainly coming from Bridget McConnell but it is not just down to one individual." The insider added: "It has been a widely held view amongst local authorities that they all loathe the Scottish Arts Council. They just want to see it go. They want to get all the funding themselves, but that would be a disaster as they just haven't got a clue."

Bridget McConnell and Boyle fell out almost immediately after the commission was set up (a remarkable feat given that he was thought to have been Jack McConnell's personal choice for the post). Scotland's First Lady and Cosla had demanded they be able to veto any recommendations which the commission put forward - but were knocked back by the then Culture Minister Frank McAveety.

And while McAveety recommended that Bridget McConnell sit on the commission, Boyle refused, believing that having the wife of the First Minister on his panel would lead to claims of a political stitch-up. Excluded and marginalised, Glasgow's arts chief thus "took umbrage". The local authorities were being marginalised by Boyle, local authority chiefs claimed. The commission was failing to grasp the grassroots work they undertake.

Sources close to the commission claim she decided to hit back - setting up a 'rival' culture review body under Cosla's wing, which sat independently of Boyle's commission. Boyle quickly lost patience, fearing that the Cosla group would undermine his own findings. One insider said earlier this year: "Bridget took the view that her group should work independently of the commission. Others were trying to take a more reasonable line, but to a great extent she basically said: 'No'.

"It was just a personal thing. She is a very powerful person in the arts world and this is the way she decided she wanted to run it," the source continued.

This spat between Boyle and the First Minister's wife has also to be put in the wider context of a feud between Scotland's Labour-controlled local authorities and Jack McConnell's Scottish Executive. Labour councillors are furious that the First Minister has agreed to reform the voting system at local government elections, to allow a more proportional system. The move, forced on McConnell by his Liberal-Democrat coalition partners, will throw hundreds of Labour councillors out of power, loosening Labour's grip across Scotland on its town halls.

A cold war has now broken out between the two camps - and for local Labour politicians, the Cultural Commission's findings are just another example of McConnell attempting to muscle in on their power base. One Labour MSP said: "All this is because of PR [voting reform]. Everything we put forward at the moment, they will oppose it. They do it so much now that they have lost credibility even with our opponents."

It seems the immediate reaction to the Cultural Commission's report has been lost within the power struggles of local and national politicians. "If the local councils ever got control," said one cultural source, "there would be mass emigration."

More mature critics, wading through its 500 pages, are giving it a mixed verdict. "This entire thing could have been written in about an hour," said one insider close to the project. Despite all the good intentions, those involved in the arts predictably insist that more money will be key. One source in the music industry said: "It will only have a significant impact until there are more resources on the table. You can move the furniture around but ultimately a sea-change is only going to be effected by an increase in resources and that the money being used is properly administered."

So what will Jack McConnell and his low-profile Culture Minister Patricia Ferguson do? The signs for the luvvies are not massively promising. McConnell has resisted calls for extra funding on culture throughout his time in office. There was the bitter row over Scottish Opera last year, when ministers refused to stump up extra funds for the company, in a move which has led to the loss of jobs for its renowned choir. There are claims that McConnell two years ago changed his mind over a boost in funding for the arts, and came up with the idea of the commission to provide a sop.

Intriguingly, those close to the First Minister also say that - despite being married to one of the country's most powerful advocates for the arts - McConnell does not follow his wife's lead. Labour insiders say that Bridget McConnell wanted Frank McAveety to stay on in the Culture Minister's job last year - but failed to prevent her husband from sacking him. If he was not prepared to bend to his wife's wishes on this, will he acquiesce to any pleas for extra cash in the future?

One senior figure on the Scottish arts scene said: "Who can predict how the politicians will react? One option is that the radical big thinking side of it will appeal to ministers who might persuade parliament, and in a year or two we will have a big bang with a new culture bill followed by an act and move into a bright new future with an extra hundred million."

McConnell and Ferguson will spend the summer dwelling on the report before reaching their verdict. By then, it is hoped that the petty squabbles might give way to a more rational debate about the future of the arts.

Or, as Paterson put it: "To the Planetary and local space we share/ We will do this wakefully and imaginatively."

• Additional reporting by William Lyons

Key changes for a more cultured life

The Cultural Commission's main recommendations include:

A Culture Bill by 2007, mapping out a blueprint for Scottish arts.

A strategy to tackle the funding gap in Scottish Arts by injecting a further 100m each year into culture in Scotland. Chairman James Boyle says this represents only 1% of the Scottish Executive's annual budget.

Four cultural rights, prepared by Scottish ministers and recorded in legislation, ensuring that every person in Scotland can share in any publicly funded cultural activity.

National standards to raise the quality of provision in the arts, heritage, libraries, museums, galleries, architecture and the creative industries.

Entitlement schemes for schoolchildren, such as culture vouchers, to be piloted in Scottish schools. This would be piloted along the lines of the Scandinavian model with the intention of offering each young Scot one experience of the live performing arts and one experience of exhibition culture each year.

Two new independent companies with a board selected by the Executive. Culture Scotland would make policy and the Culture Fund would hold the purse strings.

A new television channel and a new radio station devoted to contemporary Scottish music. The report suggests playwrights and actors of the National Theatre of Scotland take a prominent role on the channel.

A scheme of tax support for creative individuals, promoted to the UK government by the Scottish Executive. This would primarily be aimed at low-earning individuals, reimbursing tax paid on the first 30,000 of income.

More funding for public libraries to buy quality books and recordings by publishers and labels, and by writers and musicians living in Scotland.

A deputy minister for tourism, culture and sport to be appointed.