A ROW has blown up over Glasgow missing out on millions in Scottish Government coronavirus lockdown support for performing arts venues without any call for applications.
Ministers announced £3m in funding was going to just three charities leading to questions over how they were singled out.
Aberdeen Performing Arts – which runs His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen Music Hall and The Lemon Tree – is to receive £1.4 million in new funds.
Capital Theatres – which operates the Festival Theatre, the King’s Theatre and The Studio in Edinburgh – will receive £800,000.
And Eden Court Highlands – Scotland's largest single-site arts venue in Inverness – will receive £800,000.
It means that Scottish ministers will have ploughed £2.38m of Covid-19 support money into Aberdeen Performing Arts, £2.07 million for Eden Court Highlands and £1.55 million for Capital Theatres.
READ MORE: Coronavirus: Fears for long-term future of Scotland's visual arts
The decision has shocked Iain Gordon, general manager of The Pavilion Theatre in Glasgow - which outside of furlough support has received £150,000 - and he is lodging a complaint with ministers saying the beneficiaries "contribute nothing to the UK economy" through paying corporation tax.
He believes theatres should have been able to apply for the tranche of money and it should have been shared more equally.
"The whole thing stinks," he said. "Why can't anyone apply for this fund.
"When you look at the Pavilion, in the past ten years we have paid half a million pounds into corporation tax, and these other businesses are run as charities, so they don't pay corporation tax. How can they be singled out with figures like that.
"And there is no Glasgow venues in that payout. It is all east Scotland. It just isn't right."
Details of the funding emerged on January 17 with culture secretary Fiona Hyslop saying it would help to secure the future of "three of Scotland’s important independent performing arts charities, protecting jobs and addressing some of the financial pressures they are facing".
He said: “These venues all receive UK and international touring work of major scale, make a significant contribution to the economy and support a network of arts organisations, artists and creatives at the heart of our cities and regions."
Eden Court chief executive James Mackenzie-Blackman said the pandemic had had a “devastating impact” on the venue and that the funding was a "lifeline".
He said that without the confirmation of this support it would "have been my corporate duty" to recommend to Eden Court’s board of directors that they initiate, in February, a programme of mass redundancies in order to protect the business from facing insolvency in the summer.
He said Eden Court had used previous emergency funding to hire 34 different artists and contractors to make work, as well as honour contracts to another 15 artists for cancelled projects.
Jane Spiers, chief executive of Aberdeen Performing Arts, said that the funding "will go a long way towards helping us survive, thrive and play our part in the cultural and economic recovery of the north east".
The organisation was said to have had a high reliance on earned income and to date has been faced with more than 500 show cancellations, stretching into 2022, due to the pandemic.
Capital Theatres is said to have faced a “double jeopardy” situation because it has saved funds, earmarked for a major refurbishment and upgrade of the King’s Theatre but was forced to spend that on sustaining itself through the pandemic.
Fiona Gibson, the chief executive at Capital Theatres said they had lost over 90% of their turnover as a result of the pandemic which she described as a "truly staggering experience".
Mr Gordon, who has already lodged objections with Scottish Government arts body Creative Scotland which is delivering the new money, has questioned why the three charities were singled out for such support.
He wrote: "It was extremely disappointing to see that there are no Glasgow theatres / venues that are deemed as 'elite theatres' in Scotland or is there further venue funding still to be announced?
"A few of Glasgow theatres do the same shows as the other three elite Scottish theatres and Glasgow has some of the biggest and busiest and successful venues / theatres in Scotland.
"It really is obscene that given the number of other businesses around all these theatres, all the freelancers, actors, technicians, musicians, who we all rely on to keep theatres alive and who have had very little and in a lot of cases nothing that we continue to throw money at theatres who give very little back in return.
READ MORE: Top 100 Tunes from Scotland in 2020 Part 4 (26-1): From Lewis Capaldi to The Blue Nile
"Given that Glasgow is Scotland’s biggest city with a large number of similar venues, why is there no Glasgow venues / theatres included in this additional funding?"
He is also asking if there was an audit of the companies carried out to see if they had used all of the previous funding that they have received.
An Aberdeen Performing Arts spokesman said: “This new funding recognises the unique scale of the challenge facing large scale theatres and concert halls, the significance of culture to the region’s economic future and the vital role Aberdeen Performing Arts plays in civic, cultural and community life. We can’t wait to welcome everyone back when it’s safe to do so.”
A Scottish Government spokesman said: “We do not underestimate the devastating impact this pandemic has had on Scotland’s culture sector, particularly for organisations which rely on audiences and live performances.
“The recent funding announced for Aberdeen Performing Arts, Eden Court Highlands – cultural anchors for the North East and Highlands – as well as Capital Theatres will help support three charitable organisations, recognising the scale of UK and international theatre they host.
“To date we have allocated more than £125 million of additional funding for culture and heritage since the start of the pandemic. This includes the £12.5 million Performing Arts Venue Relief Fund and £15 million Culture Organisations and Venues Recovery Fund which have supported theatres and other performing arts venues across Scotland.
“This has included funding to Glasgow theatres, including the Pavilion Theatre, the Tron Theatre, Citizens Theatre and International Entertainment Holdings (Ambassador Theatre Group), which operates the Theatre Royal and King’s Theatre in Glasgow.
“We will continue to work with and listen to the needs of this sector.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel