During the 2022 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Summerhall — the sprawling, old Edinburgh University vet school that has been home to new and emerging work at the world’s largest arts festival for over a decade — hosted performances by 22 Scottish companies."

Last year, they had 12.

This year, they had just six.

“I found that fairly frightening,” Sam Gough, the general manager of the venue, told The Herald on Sunday.

“That is not enough, and that reflects the fact that the funding landscape is horrendous for Scottish artists.”

He says the level of Scottish work is “rapidly decreasing” and while the money situation is difficult for most in the sector, it is having a real impact on emerging and early-career artists.

READ MORE

There is a feeling amongst many creatives and practitioners that something is wrong with how Scotland funds the arts.

The Campaign for the Arts group has warned the country is heading towards a "cultural catastrophe."

Hundreds took to Holyrood on Thursday to protest. Skeletal wolves carried colourful coffins while a New Orleans-style marching band played the funereal St James Infirmary.

"Most of us are juggling five different jobs at any one time,” the actor, writer and director Cora Bissett told The Herald on Sunday.

“And when one bit of the jigsaw puzzle falls... We're not making empty threats, there will be a talent drain, we'll just have to go elsewhere and we have to go and do other things. And then you've got a very weak looking country. "

Artist Jim Fraser said: “The thing is, if it stopped tomorrow — and this is the arts all over the world and all over the UK — if you stop funding it now, no one will notice, and money will be saved, and people will feel happy, and in 20 years time, there will be nothing new coming through.”

The gathering was called to protest the closure of Creative Scotland’s Open Fund, the main source of funding for individuals in the sector.

It closed at the end of August, with the arts quango saying the uncertainty over future funding from ministers left them with no choice.

The Scottish Government rejected that, saying the money was always coming but, as is standard practice, due diligence needed to be carried out.

News of the closure sparked outrage from stars including Alan Cumming and bands like Franz Ferdinand.

Artists were given 11 days notice. Of the 965 people who applied 819 did so between August 19 and 30.

In his Programme for Government on Wednesday, John Swinney announced that not only was the money now available for the fund but that he was sticking to the commitment — first announced by his predecessor Humza Yousaf — to increase arts funding by £100 million by 2028/2029.

There are still questions, however, over exactly where that money is going and how it is going to be allocated.

Creative Scotland, in the meantime, has to work out how they will allocate the money they now have. The applications to the £6.6m Open Fund total £15,197,390.

It is a vital funding stream.

Analysis of the awards made by Creative Scotland this year so far shows that of the £2,011,326 financial support received by individual artists, £1,783,319 came from the Open Fund, around 88%.

Some 144 of the 189 projects to receive cash, got that money from the Open Fund, roughly 76%.

The troubled arts body also soon has to make some decisions about its multi-year funding programme from 2025-2028.

Some 281 applications have been made with a total ask of £87.5m per year. However, the body does not yet know what its budget is.

The results of the application process are due to be announced at the end of October 2024, with funding in place for successful organisations from April 2025.

Creative Scotland may not know how much they will receive until Shona Robison sets out her spending plans for the year ahead on December 4.

There are questions too over whether Creative Scotland is up to the task.

The 14-year-old body has been dogged by scandal and questions over its competence.

Earlier this year, they were criticised over their decision to fund Rein, a show which involved non-simulated sex.

After the public furore, the body clawed back the money and claimed there had been a “significant change” to the project from the application.

However, documents released under FOI showed that Creative Scotland was told that Rein would involve a "sex scene with genital contact.”

Despite that, they still insisted that it was the artist who was at fault rather than themselves.

There have also been questions over the decision to remove funding from projects like Glasgow's Aye Write book festival, the Edinburgh Deaf Festival.

Last weekend there were reports that Dr Alice Tarbuck, a Creative Scotland literature officer, tried to prevent a bookshop from stocking a book by poet Jenny Lindsay, because of her gender-critical views.

(Image: Andrew Milligan/PA)

In his Programme for Government, the First Minister announced a review of Creative Scotland, with the quango’s “remit and functions as a funding body” set to be examined.

The government may have already made up its mind about the outcome.

A Scottish Government source told the Daily Mail: “This will not be a review to fix Creative Scotland - Creative Scotland is over.“It is a cumulation of things - there was obviously concern that they didn’t absorb any spending cuts in line with other organisations and cut funding to artists.

“The latest scandals were the final straw.”

Neil Bibby, Labour’s Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Constitution, Culture and Sport, said the review needed to be independent of government.

“There are obviously issues between the Scottish Government and Creative Scotland,” he said.

“I also think it shouldn't look necessarily just at Creative Scotland, but wider than that, how we protect what we've got in terms of our cultural assets, but also how we can support the creative industries more widely.”

Mr Bibby who was at the protest outside Holyrood on Thursday, added: “I think there's also real anger about what appears to be a constant cycle of promises followed by cuts and u-turns. That uncertainty really has an impact on people's lives and also people's jobs as well.

“Clearly, the sector needs certainty and clarity on funding, and there needs to be that ability for people to plan for longer than just a year.”

Ms Lindsay told The Herald on Sunday that Creative Scotland was simply not fit for purpose.

The poet said there was now a perception that Creative Scotland had been “captured by a set of ideological beliefs that colour how some staff or panel members, or even Heads of Department, may be judging individual applicants.”

“There has to be a radical overhaul of hiring practices, with freedom of expression questions centred to ensure anyone sitting in judgment of writers and artists is actually capable of doing so, as they prioritise good art, good literature, freedom to explore, above their own personal politics. “I'm afraid that, though there are most definitely some very good people at Creative Scotland, I've no confidence across the board that this is something some are capable of.”

Ms Lindsay said the review must listen to people like her “who have been facing an uphill battle with ideological bureaucrats who have, demonstrably, fostered an atmosphere of fear and alarm in the literary arts in particular.”

She added: “Any Review that does not take in the experiences of talented writers and artists who have been really harmed by this atmosphere is a wasted opportunity for all of us. Freedom of expression is a fundamental basis for all art. “That so many have lost sight of that is truly alarming to me, but there's still time to put things right.”

Dawn Taylor, the artistic director and CEO of Manipulate Arts said she was worried that the review could “hamper delivery of the ongoing multi-year funding process for which organisations expect an outcome in October. "

Any decision to delay the rollout of additional funds promised for culture in Scotland pending the outcome of a Creative Scotland review would be nothing short of disastrous for the Scottish arts sector.

"Many organisations are at breaking point, and simply will not survive further delays and cuts – they form the essential infrastructure of Scottish arts, including community arts centres, festivals, producing companies, venues and artist support organisations, and they require urgent support to prevent loss in cultural provision for communities across Scotland."

Following Mr Swinney's statement in parliament, Creative Scotland's CEO, Iain Munro said: “Creative Scotland notes the intention to review the way the sector is supported, as announced by the First Minister in the Programme for Government, and we look forward to hearing more details."