Cultural Policy in Devolved Scotland

Introduction

Good afternoon, and a very warm welcome to everyone. I appreciate your time on this special day in our annual calendar.

The images we have just seen, and this speech, will be broadcast via the web later today. So a very warm Scottish welcome to everyone throughout the world wherever and whenever you are viewing this. It is good to have you with us.

And, it's right that the message we send out about our country is a message to the whole world. For years our culture, along with some of our most talented people, has been Scotland's great gift to the world. It's important that today, the world continues to see how successful a contemporary country and culture we are.

But it is even more important for the world to see the scale of our ambition, and that is what I want to address today – here this afternoon.

The video we've just seen – in itself a great tribute to a young media company, Mirage TV – shows the tremendous range of cultural activity there is to shout about in this country.

I am delighted to be speaking today in Glasgow, where the City has long recognised the vital role of arts and culture in economic and social development. And now Glasgow is leading the way with cultural activity helping tackle chronic health problems and antisocial behaviour – at least so I ma told every evening at home!

And there is surely no more appropriate place for me to set out my aspirations for culture in Scotland than the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, one of our major cultural institutions and a hothouse for our future talent.

The Academy's alumni are a who's who of the international world of screen and stage - Robert Carlyle, Tom Conti, Janis Kelly, Ian Richardson and Evelyn Glennie among them. But, RSAMD is led by someone with not only an international reputation, but a real commitment to Scotland. John, I wish you well in this position. Scotland is a much better place now you are back.

Gary Walker, the new principle conductor with the RSNO is with us in the audience. It is great to have a Scot back conducting our national orchestra.

St Andrew's Day is the day when we should take stock of where we have reached in Scotland's cultural, economic and social journey. It's the day to celebrate the best of what our country has brought to the world community already and to look to the future with confidence about the contribution we can still make.

Increasingly, across the world, St Andrew's Day is used by groups of Scots and by the UK Embassies and Consulates to promote Scotland, Scottish culture and Scottish companies. With the support of the Foreign Office, this weekend there are events in 43 different countries.

I detect everywhere I go a growing enthusiasm for Scotland and all things Scottish, and I want to continue to build on that, year on year.

St Andrew's day is a day to be bold too – to challenge the down-beat attitudes and the negativity that too often undermines us and all that we are capable of.

A day to look outwards. To celebrate Scotland and all that is Scottish – and to promote ourselves to those outside our country. Scotland as - a place to visit and a place to do business with. Scotland as – a country to work in and a good place to live in too in the future.

It's also the day to think about where we might be – given the confidence and commitment to act - and the courage to talk, not about how things are now, but how they might be.

The vision and the ideal

The third annual report of the National Cultural Strategy was published on Friday. Like the initial Strategy document it gives a helpful and timely reminder of the health of the country's cultural scene.

It shows us examples of excellence and it demonstrates diversity, and it reminds us of the vital roles of all sectors of our country in ensuring cultural activity takes place.

But for me though it's not yet enough. The National Cultural Strategy was a bold starting point for a new parliament. It was an important statement of what we do and how we do it.

But now, more than 3 years on, we need a greater sense of ambition in our approach to culture and what better time to do this than on St Andrew's day.

Since the election in May, we have already: announced our intention to create a national theatre for Scotland; invested in music tuition so that by 2006 every primary school pupil will be able to take a years free music tuition – something a certain trumpeter benefited from many years ago in Fife; and published a draft bill to secure the status of the Gaelic language in Scots law

And, over the coming weeks, Frank McAveety will launch our consultation on the future of Scotland's cultural organisations and announce the initial key appointments for that National Theatre.

In advance of these significant developments, I want to set out today the importance of arts and culture policy in Scotland.

But more than that. I want to describe a vision and an ideal for arts and culture; to make the connection between the kind of Scotland that we want and the development of the confidence, the identity and the spirit of our people.

Culture and creativity are woven into every part of our national life, and there is so much good that government can do, by making those connections and having an eye to the bigger picture.

The Partnership Agreement that underpins our devolved government commits us to a review of cultural provision and institutions. Since then there's been a lot of speculation about whether this or that organisation will change, merge or disappear. But, that debate is for another day.

Today should be about the purpose of the arts, not the structure.

Let's agree first the importance and the centrality of cultural activity to all aspects of our lives, why it's important and how it can be used to revitalise us individually and as a national community.

And then let's see what structures are needed to make that happen successfully. A review of structure needs a clear purpose.

So, I want to change the whole debate. I want to deal in first principles. For too long, we have responded to this or that dilemma in isolation, or been too busy dealing with the latest financial challenge facing one or other cultural organisation or building to deal with the big picture.

We need to agree first and foremost how pervasive and fundamental cultural activity and development is - how it's as necessary in our planning policies as in our schools. As relevant to health improvement as it is to our economic development.

And when we acknowledge that – when we affirm why we need culture - we'll be in a much stronger position to decide how we support our cultural activity.

Scotland has renewed itself democratically in the past 4 years– with the overwhelming consent of the Scottish people. We are no longer a restless nation.

But democratic renewal should be a springboard, the catalyst to a much greater and deeper rejuvenation of our nation.

We have had just four years of our new Parliament. Those very early years have been about finding our feet, becoming established. Doing the groundwork.

But now is the time to think big. To describe the ideal and set the country on a course for economic, social and cultural renewal.

We've got aims and ambitions for the economy, for public services, for community regeneration, for closing gaps in opportunities, and for tackling discrimination. And I believe those policies are all important.

However, I also intend that this country – our devolved government – should have – in the words of Jude Kelly - the courage and the faith to back human imagination, our innate creativity, as the most potent force for individual change and social vision.

In the 20th Century it took immense courage and political resolve to deliver universal health care and school education for all. But today these rights are unquestioned, pillars of modern society.

I believe we can now make the development of our creative drive, our imagination, the next major enterprise for our society. Arts for all can be a reality, a democratic right, and an achievement of the early 21st Century.

Impact and influence

Scottish culture has certainly made a difference for me.

My early experience of music, traditional Scottish song and dance, Robert Burns and Robert Louis Stevenson, was developed by powerful new influences in my teens. John McGrath's ‘The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil' transformed my interest in and understanding of Scottish history. Edwin Morgan's poetry brought new images and ideas to the fore, some will still see elements of this in our ant-social behaviour policies. The music of the Average White Band made me think Scotland was a more interesting place, where soul music could be played and our bands could master America .

Talking Scotland up

Scotland has so much to be proud of.

Year after year, I marvel when I see what a fantastic country Scotland is for cultural expression and cultural events.

And Scottish culture is a celebration of diversity, not a homogeneous type. A Shetlander would no more call herself a Gael than an Aberdeenshire loon claim he was a Weegie. Any attempt to pigeonhole our culture simplistically should be resisted – because it misses the point. Our diversity, as shown in that video, is our strength.

My Scotland is a Scotland of the mela and Up Helly Aa – and I love it. I love the fact that I can within weeks attend the Mod and the MTV awards; enjoy the Military Tattoo and the fantastic Edinburgh International Book and Film Festivals; visit galleries in Arran and in Glasgow; feel pride in school music bands, orchestras and choirs, and observe and sense, in such good weather, remarkably, the richness of our built heritage.

I love the fact that I can watch kids from a council estate in one of the poorest parts of the city sing their hearts out in a musical they've helped write, and in half an hour I can be at the world premiere of a new exhibition.

And I want to share that enthusiasm for what we do and what we are as a nation and as a people.

When heads of state visit this country I'm proud to show them our architectural heritage whether it's a castle, a cottage, or a House for an Art Lover. I'm delighted they can hear young musicians from this Academy, and from the feis movement, play the music of our country.

We should truly celebrate this cultural diversity while we seek to attract more and more talented people and creative people to come and experience Scotland. To visit Scotland – but to work and live here too.

And we have more role models than any small country might reasonably expect to have. In Hollywood and beyond, the world recognises Connery, Carlyle, Cumming, Coltrane, Cox, Conti and Connolly – and I'm still only at the start of the alphabet. I haven't even mentioned Ewan McGregor or new talents such as Shirley Henderson.

In literature we have an extraordinary wealth and depth of talent from Robin Jenkins to Alan Warner, from Janice Galloway to Ali Smith, and far too many more to mention here.

We need no reminder of the range of musical excellence we have Tommy Smith, young groups like the Mull Historical Society, Oscar winning Craig Armstrong, Capercaillie, James McMillan and Sheena Wellington to name a few.

We have the most popular and best-known writer in the world. We have the best-regarded international festival in the world. Our orchestras and operas delight thousands every year. Scottish artists and playwrights have imagination, a perceptive eye, and a rich heritage. There should be no limits to our pride and self-belief.

A culture of confidence

But there is of course a serious issue regarding confidence. For me it's the difference between being an excellent country – which we are – and a truly great one – which we can be.

One of the statistics I find most dispiriting was revealed in a recent study that ranked Scottish children's confidence levels amongst the lowest in the world.

The inheritance of our children cannot be a poverty of aspiration or ambition. That is a serious and damaging disease – to each individual and to our society. Scotland doesn't have to be like this. We can alter this view of ourselves.

Scotland's glass can and must be half-full, not half empty. And participation in, and experience of culture can help deliver that change.

By celebrating, and enabling, the widening of horizons and the development of all the talents, we can encourage confidence for the many not the few.

There is ambition in Scotland. There is innovation and imagination. There is creative energy and vision. And there is always the opportunity to be doing even better.

Children and Young People

And the best place to start is with Scotland's young people.

From the earliest age, we must give children the chance to express themselves – in art, dance, drama, music and sport.

I have seen the difference as a teacher, politician and parent in the confidence and self-esteem of teenagers leaving high school after a childhood of creative expression and exposure to the arts, compared to those who leave with few cultural experiences.

A generation of young people growing up with access to cultural activities will be a generation with a greater chance of self-fulfilment and success than those before them.

Children and young people are not just the audiences of tomorrow. They are audiences now, in their own right. And they have talents and potential, which must see the light of day.

There are people in Scotland who have got that vision – like the Macrobert in Stirling – an arts centre designed for children, with a youth council advising the management. And Councils like North Lanarkshire and West Lothian where musical tuition and performance have been central to driving up standards in local schools in deprived areas.

Next year Scotland will have its First International Film Festival for children and young people. A powerful symbol that shows Scotland is taking the cultural experiences of its young people seriously. A symbol of both access and excellence.

Access and Excellence

But whenever I hear ‘access' and ‘excellence' as alternatives, I despair. We should all reject, once and for all, the notion that there is a trade-off between access to the arts and the quality of the arts.

I fundamentally believe that access is only meaningful, if it is access to quality. Because if a first experience of the arts was poor then we may have lost opportunities – lost the chance to broaden a horizon, stimulate an ambition or open up a mind.

Culture should be for the many not the few. And the few must not be the only ones to experience or create the most brilliant productions or the most outstanding works of art.

It is absolutely central to my politics that excellence should be accessible and access should be to excellent.

The Review and Cultural Rights

The UN's Declaration of Human Rights states, ‘Everyone has the right to freely participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share its scientific advancements and its benefits”.

In the near future Frank McAveety will be launching the review of the cultural sector our Partnership Agreement promised. But it will be based on a radically new approach to our cultural provision.

The review will take as its starting point the premise that each person in Scotland has cultural rights. That each person has rights of access to cultural activity.

The right to high quality cultural provision – whether that is an exhibition at one of our national galleries, or a writer's visit to a school. The right to study at an arts institution of excellence such as RSAMD. And, I hope, the right to be proud of Scotland's culture and cultural identity.

This will not be easy but Frank will work with the cultural sectors to help define those cultural rights.

The structure should then ensure that those rights are delivered.

Let me be quite clear - how we provide our cultural activity will be defined by the needs of our citizens. It is a citizen-first approach. The entitlement of individuals to access, enjoy, learn from and contribute to their culture will be paramount.

The review will not be an exercise in shoring up institutions for historical reasons or sentimental attachments. Nor an excuse to attack them for what has been done in the past.

Our cultural provision should take the citizens of our country and their rights as its starting point. This is consistent with the way Scottish Ministers are now approaching a whole range of justice, education and health policy issues.

It is an opportunity – I think perhaps a generational opportunity – to look seriously and maturely at our cultural activity as a nation and decide the framework of its provision for generations to come.

We will not change levels of provision or structures overnight, but we can set a course that will, over several years, make a huge difference.

We will deliver that review, and where we can we will reduce bureaucracy and overheads in the national infrastructure, freeing up resources to spend on art, artists and audiences. But we will also set out next year, a new statement of cultural policy and intent, which genuinely influences and is influenced by the whole of government.

Cutting Across Portfolios

For the last two years I have asked our devolved government to focus on delivering better health care, improving schools, creating the infrastructure required to secure jobs, and tackling crime.

But focussing on these priorities should not de-prioritise culture. Culture cuts across all these, in fact all portfolios of government, and it can make a difference to our success in each.

Perhaps because it is part of so many aspects of our everyday lives it is difficult for a bureaucracy to cope with. Maybe it hasn't received the attention it should have in the past. If that is the case it will now change.

We have already tested the water. At a recent cabinet discussion every single Minister was not only enthusiastic about our cultural development but thoughtful and helpful about how it could be applied to their own area of responsibility within government.

And each made the commitment to use the power and creativity of culture and the arts to help them in their work. To entrench cultural development in their portfolio – because for our country's future it can be neither peripheral nor an add on.

That is the way to really make a difference here. This isn't about taking money from the health service and putting it into cultural activity. It is about using cultural activity to nurture and foster well-being. A healthier Scotland must be holistic; it must be about the health of the body, but it must be about the health of the mind too.

The choice isn't between education spending or culture spending. The challenge is how to use cultural activities to boost educational achievement.

This is about how ministers use arts and culture to achieve more effectively their policy objectives. Its not about the arts and culture being a different policy objective.

This is not just the responsibility of the Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport. He of course is at the sharp end and will continue to deal with direct support for our artists and cultural institutions.

However, every Ministerial portfolio must make a contribution. It must recognise its role and responsibilities in helping strengthen, support, and in some cases provide for developing cultural activity in this country.

The action

Our cultural budgets tend to support artistic initiatives in health, education and elsewhere. But our new approach must be to recognise that spending on cultural provision is integral to the work of all those other departments.

Of course the use of taxpayer's money needs to be justified. Within the context of the arms-length principle, funds need to be well-managed, directed at developments which have maximum impact, and accounted for afterwards. But we should also be prepared to think new thoughts, to invest now for longer term benefits, and to try new approaches – especially where there is evidence they do work.

I want to see imaginative and new proposals coming forward from all ministers that help create access to cultural activity and help deliver social justice, that help us achieve our economic targets, our community safety proposals and our other objectives.

There are many examples where a new approach can make a difference. I want to highlighted just a few.

The planning system can be a powerful tool to encourage creativity in both open spaces and the built environment. The right to an aesthetically pleasing environment is as much a right for the poor in run down areas as it is for the rich living in today's conservation areas.

While gardens and designed landscapes are important both culturally and historically, the planning system can today encourage the use of art in the design of new open spaces. The inclusion of elements of art can encourage a sense of ownership and community pride in the new open space.

Design issues have, in recent years, properly assumed increased prominence within the planning system. More and more people are recognising the contribution of design in achieving or retaining a high quality environment, and creating a sense of place that people can identify with.

Our devolved government has issued the first ever Policy Statement for Scotland on "Designing Places". This was followed early this year by the Planning Advice on Open spaces and on Housing Quality and Design both published earlier this year.

We recognise, absolutely, that the ‘conservation areas of tomorrow' will not happen by chance, but by design. So, we will continue to drive forward with the design agenda, and will be producing further design based Planning Advice Notes.

In Jim Wallace's Enterprise and Lifelong Learning portfolio there are many ways that increased investment in cultural development will pay economic dividends for the country. To create a smart successful Scotland you need the fundamental building block of creativity.

The creative industries have shown themselves to be one of the leading growth sectors in our economy. And the cultural sector attracts and retains creative people to Scotland. Our Libraries are central to widening access to skills and knowledge, and our academic institutions of cultural excellence such as the one we are in today, can compete internationally and operate at the very highest levels of excellence. They and our colleges and Universities can develop even more creative talent across sectors of the economy.

This new policy is not about diverting money from the health service towards existing arts companies. Our Health team will look at the range of ways the arts have been used innovatively around the world both as therapy and to engender mental and physical well-being, and to see how we might apply that more in the Scottish context, where that is so badly needed.

In our schools, there is clear evidence that access to cultural activities and opportunities transforms levels of aspiration, motivation and standards in the classroom. Participation in cultural activities builds confidence, self-esteem, teamwork and commitment to the school. Our music tuition pledge is a clear signal to schools and education authorities that we believe creating cultural opportunities in the school curriculum is very important indeed. And the development of a more flexibility throughout that curriculum opens further opportunities for that creative activity.

In Transport we will look at ways of creating easier access for people to the cultural events and buildings in their area, and around Scotland. One of the biggest barriers to people attending is not the perception of the arts or fear of entering a formidable building, although they can both be factors, but in physically being able to travel to it. That's a challenge for the transport team as much as the cultural sector.

Our criminal justice system will look at building on the success of the pilot restorative justice projects we've introduced that have already begun to make real reductions in crime. Late-night opening of facilities for kids here in Glasgow and refurbished or new cultural facilities in some or our more impoverished areas can be used to restore community self-confidence, inspire trust, and thereby reduce vandalism and petty crime.

There is real evidence that exposure to creative options can divert youngsters and adults from expressing themselves through violence or destruction.

In our rural areas cultural development can increase the sustainability of some our most vulnerable geographical areas. Increased cultural activity in the Highlands and Islands in the past twenty years, perhaps particularly in Skye and Mull, has shown itself to be an important part of the economic renewal of fragile communities. The integration of cultural provision can contribute to our broad development strategies for rural areas and it can also encourage re-population.

In Tourism we can make more of our cultural activity in promoting Scotland internationally and the potential of cultural tourism in Scotland could be even more significant than it is today.

Other sectors need to be involved

Ministers will also be asking other parts of the public sector to do likewise - our enterprise network, the public bodies and government agencies. And Scotland's local authorities have long recognised many of the benefits of cultural investment, but we will also ask them to examine how they can take that even further. –

But we – government – are not alone in this. We are not the only folk with a stake in the development of our culture. Everyone has. The private sector and voluntary sector are extremely important players too.

If we can all work together, it could result in the most extraordinary release of talent, and crucially a stronger, more vibrant and a confident country. We would be recognised around the world as a creative hub – a powerhouse of innovation.

There are more imaginative ways the private sector can engage with their local community and communities of interest through their partnership with the cultural sector.

This is not about subsidy – this is serious investment for them.

And to really stretch the new opportunities available, new sources of sponsorship, and mutually beneficial deals, can complement –public funds. These need not be limited to advertising on the night and seats for the board. Sponsorship of tours abroad can promote exports, joint projects can develop the creative potential of businesses, and their contribution to the community.

All new developments could, indeed should, have an artistic or cultural component to them. Artistic displays inside new buildings and public art in open spaces – large and small – should not be seen as optional luxuries, they should be integral to the ambitions the developers and planners have for the experience of those who will live or work there in the future.

And joint ventures can support learning too. More art, design and other talented students could team up with companies in Scotland, to their mutual benefit.

Our voluntary groups offer real potential too. In the community, in the studio, new options for volunteers, those they support, or indeed artists themselves are possible. The personal and community development that may follow could be life enhancing.

We need to get beyond the barriers that have been allowed to creep in between public and private and voluntary sectors. We need to work together.

Because the extraordinary creativity of Scots – in the class-room and the Board room – is the edge we need to have in a competitive world. Our duty is to create the conditions that allow that creativity to flourish.

Timetable and legislation

Now I am under no illusion of the scale of the task and the potential impact on our current way of doing things of some of what I have outlined today. But we must start now. And we will set clear, realistic goals in the year ahead. I have not said much about funding and there will be those who notice that.

To achieve recognition as a global creative hub, we will need time to strengthen our physical infrastructure, but we can still make progress in the short term.

We may need legislation to ensure that the roles and responsibilities for all aspects of our cultural civic life are clearly delineated and to help implement some of the structural changes that will be required.

And, if legislation is necessary we will publish a Culture Bill before 2007.

Conclusion

In conclusion though, I have tried to outline today the way in which we will build on the National Cultural Strategy to put creative and cultural activity to work in building the new more confident Scotland I believe that we all want to see. Today's statement is about the direction we will take and the priority we will put on the arts and culture across the whole of government. Not some new additional priority, but a new emphasis to help deliver the social and economic priorities of Scotland.

And against this background of policy renewal, improved provision, new rights and better structures, we will move ahead with specific developments.

We will help Edinburgh bid to be the City of Literature. We will support the Year of Highland Culture in 2007, and a Year of Homecoming in 2009. And as resources become available we will continue to invest in our Museums, Galleries and other facilities.

We have said that for the lifetime of this government, our overarching priority is to get Scotland's economy growing again.

But our objective is not to increase the rate of economic growth for its own sake. We must expand the Scottish economy, because we need to if we are to have excellence in public services, full employment and prosperity more equally shared.

But quality of life is so much more than just a standard of living.

The late Robert Kennedy said: "The gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile."

Growing our economy is crucial, but we should be careful not to measure our success in only one way.

Today I have outlined what I believe has the potential to be a new civic exercise on a par with health, housing and education - the commitment to providing and valuing creative expression and opportunity for all.

It is a challenge I relish and I hope you do too. And I look forward to working with you to help make it a reality.