SCOTLAND’S culture sector is about to ‘go beyond the tipping point’ following the significant cuts in the budget settlement, with Creative Scotland warning of major cuts for arts organisations.
Iain Munro, chief executive of the body, said he was “very concerned about the short and the medium and the long term future” of the sector.
He told MSPs that it was no longer about recovering from the pandemic, but rather “about survival.”
READ MORE: Creative Scotland resorts to dipping into reserve after Scot Gov cuts
Last month, Mr Swinney told MSPs that Creative Scotland’s funding would be slashed from £69.3 million to £64.2m in the coming financial year.
The body said that to avoid passing the cut on to their 120 regularly funded organisations (RFOs), they would dip into the National Lottery reserves.
However, this could only be a one-off.
RFOs include just about every major theatre in Scotland, as well the Scottish Book Trust, the Tramway in Glasgow, the National Youth Orchestras and the National Piping Centre, among many others.
The cut to Creative Scotland's budget came as the sector faces rising inflation, spiralling operating costs and the impact of the pandemic.
Giving evidence to the Scottish Parliament’s Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee on Thursday, Mr Munro said: “I don’t think the settlement for 2023/24 has responded to that perfect storm.
“I think the risks to the future of the culture sector as we currently know and understand it have gone up enormously as a result of that budget decision to Creative Scotland.”
READ MORE: Scottish Government accused of abandoning culture sector
He warned that if the cuts were sustained they would have to then pass them on to the sector.
“What that means is not a happy picture at all.
"Even under standstill, which is what we are going to achieve through the use of our lottery reserves in 2023-24, it is my estimate that a quarter to a third of the current 120 RFOs are at risk in the months ahead.
"If these cuts endure in the years ahead, and we don’t have national lottery reserves to pass on, and we end up passing them on to the sector, it is my estimate that we will probably see no more than 60 out of the 120 organisations funded.
"As if that wasn’t troubling enough, we have an expectation that there will be between 250 and 300 organisations beyond that interested in multi-year funding. They too would be unsuccessful the way that budget settlements look currently.”
He told MSPs the problems came from “systemic under-investment in the sector for many, many years.”
“And we're now about to go beyond the tipping point. And when things are gone, they're gone, and it's very hard to recover from that.”
He said the danger with an “already exhausted sector turning their attention to survival” was that energy was “not being channelled into creative output and creative work that delivers all the positive benefits and value that we know.”
READ MORE: Creative Scotland: Arts facing 'perfect storm' of increased costs and budget cuts
There was criticism too of Creative Scotland from some of the other arts bosses giving evidence to the committee.
Donald Smith from the Scottish International Storytelling Festival, said the body needed to lead on “coming up with some kind of rescue plan for the arts sector which takes into account the difficulties that are being faced, the severe risks that are being faced.”
Moira Jeffrey of the Scottish Contemporary Arts Network told the committee: “This is about money. But it's clearly also about strategic leadership.
“Our organisations, our artists are hitting all the aspirations of the cultural strategy. They're working doubly hard and under challenging circumstances.
“And at the moment, it feels that they're operating in a strategic vacuum, there's a lack of clarity about who would be saved, why they would be saved, because they're meeting all of these outcomes across the performance framework.
“And they're performing extraordinarily well under really difficult circumstances. So there needs to be a plan.
“And there needs to be a clear sense of strategic vision for the future.”
Scottish Labour Culture spokesperson Sarah Boyack said “Scotland’s arts and culture organisations at home are fighting for survival in a perfect storm, but Angus Robertson is busy jetting round the globe banging the drum for the SNP’s constitutional obsession.
“The SNP are squandering our cultural heritage and putting countless jobs and business in our iconic culture sector at risk.
“We need to end the ‘culture of doom’ starting to take over this crucial industry and offer Scottish cultural organisations a helping hand through this crisis.”
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