There's every reason to fund Creative Scotland and the arts

Only fools and right-wing ideologues still believe in the efficacy of trickle-down economics. But what about the trickle-up sort? It works, at least where the arts are concerned – a fact that’s worth remembering this week as a new round of austerity looms.

Take Edinburgh’s year-round portfolio of festivals as an example. A comprehensive survey published last year showed that while they soak up £11 million in public investment, they contribute £492 million to the economy of the capital and £620 million overall to Scotland. Distilling that into a haggis ball-sized info nugget, the survey noted that for every £1 of public money spent, £33 came back to Scotland. A pretty decent rate of return, no?

That’s one argument for funding the arts. Another is that it’s good for us. In 2019 the World Health Organisation (WHO) began testing what it calls “arts interventions” designed to “advance specific health goals”, among them suicide prevention and general mental health.

The WHO’s Behaviour and Cultural Insights unit reported last year and among its chief findings was that arts interventions can be used as a supplement to medication. In this way they can help tackle non-communicable diseases such as heart and lung problems. Even cancer. The arts can’t cure these things, as the WHO’s cancer-surviving Arts and Health Lead Christopher Bailey observed in a speech in 2022, but they can help to heal. “That is different,” he said. “They create this sense of deep personal meaning that make your life beautiful, no matter the circumstances.”

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Here’s another survey, this one called The State Of The Arts and published this year. It was undertaken by the University of Warwick in collaboration with UK charity Campaign for the Arts. Ranking 25 selected European countries by their culture spend as a proportion of GDP, researchers placed the UK fourth from bottom.

It was the same story when countries were ranked by the culture spend per person. Latvia, Lithuania and the Czech Republic all spend double what the UK does, while in the top ranked country – Iceland, if you’re interested – the spend was over five times as much. For the record, Iceland also placed second in this year’s World Happiness Report: the UK is at number 20, down three places from 2021. Just saying.

A third reason for funding the arts is the ability of a well-resourced cultural sector to extend soft power into the world. Sure, Tartan Day in New York is partly about economic activity. But it’s also about culture and the promotion of Scotland’s national arts companies and organisations. In a newspaper opinion piece published ahead of last year’s Tartan Day Parade in New York, Scottish Culture Secretary Angus Robertson effectively noted as much, while trumpeting the importance of the event. He also listed some of the famous Scots who have served as Grand Marshal, the person who gets to lead the 1500 pipers down 6th Avenue.

Among those celebrities, wouldn’t you know, were Alan Cumming, Sam Heughan and Brian Cox, three actors who have recently become very vocal about arts funding. In particular they are exercised about the Scottish Government budget cuts which have caused funding body Creative Scotland to end one of its main funding streams for individuals. “It seems to me that it’s money well spent,” Cumming says in a video posted to his Instagram page. “For that to go is a real tragedy and really alarming for the future of the Scottish arts scene.”

Heughan, meanwhile, has issued a statement calling the closure of the fund “a devastating blow, not only to some of our nation’s most creative people, but to the nation as a whole”. Cox was one of many signatories to last month’s open letter to Shona Robison MSP about the cuts. As Finance Secretary, she is the one tasked with overseeing the trimming of budgets. The extent of that trimming – £500 million – was revealed when she made her pre-budget fiscal statement to MSPs at Holyrood on Tuesday.

You can read coverage of that on this website, as well as more on the background to the arts cuts and reaction to them. It’s safe to say only a fool would ignore the sector.

Heritage acts

I’ve lost track of the number of newspaper articles I’ve read about Glasgow’s fabled Apollo rock venue. I’ve even written a few, despite never having set foot in the place. No matter, its legacy hangs over the city’s music scene even today: you don’t need to have been there to appreciate it.

Across the M8 in Edinburgh, my musical stomping ground, I could take you round the sites of long-gone spots which are almost as storied. The Venue, where I saw The Stone Roses in 1989. The ABC on Lothian Road, which hosted The Beatles in 1964. Or Calton Studios, along the road from The Venue, where on 26 October 1990 a then little-known band from Aberdeen played. No, not that Aberdeen. This one is in the US state of Washington, and the band was Nirvana.

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Look at the continued success of 20th century rock and pop musicians both real and virtual (hello ABBA!), and you realise the importance of rock heritage. That importance lies fundamentally in the music, obviously, but it has purchase elsewhere too. In a sense of collective nostalgia (essentially a sort of folk memory) but also, crucially, in the built environment. Rock has a bricks and mortar legacy too.

Glasgow’s ABC venue only began hosting gigs in 2005 but it racked up some important visitors before it closed in 2018 as a result of the second Glasgow School of Art fire. Now that wonderful old building is to be knocked down, with perhaps not even its Art Deco facade retained. Architectural campaigners are appalled, but so should music fans be as one more SSRRI – Site of Special Rock’n’Roll Interest – meets the wrecking ball and the bulldozer.

How does that old Queen song go? Oh yeah – another one bites the dust.

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Morning glory?

So, did you manage to secure tickets for the reunion of the decade, and if so are you now cursing the concept of ‘surge pricing’ – or are you just happy to know you’ll see Oasis live and hang the cost? What is certain is that by Saturday evening the story had moved on from celebrating the brothers’ past beefs to bemoaning the cost of their briefs and the difficulty many fans had in securing them.

Since then others have been asking other questions. Like can Edinburgh handle such a big event during the festival? Is Scotland’s not exactly slick transport infrastructure up to the job? What will be the economic impact? My answers are ‘Probably, maybe’, ‘Nae chance’ and ‘Invest in Buckfast shares’. You might have different opinions though.