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Education, Culture and Sport Committee, 25 Sep 2001

25 Sep 2001 · S1 · Education, Culture and Sport Committee

Item of business

Scottish Ballet

Lorne Boswell (Equity): Watch on SPTV

On behalf of the dancers, I thank the committee for holding its inquiry because this is the first opportunity that the dancers have had to air publicly some of their concerns. I also abuse the privilege of appearing before the committee by asking it to scrutinise the Executive's budget in relation to arts expenditure—particularly for next year. Perhaps that is something that we could talk about on another occasion.As Paul McManus said, there are financial implications to the matter. The main thing that concerns the dancers is their jobs. There are proposals, which are vague and have not been explained well, for 12 apprentices and which appear to suggest that 12 jobs will be replaced with 12 apprenticeships. There also appears to be an abandonment of ambition. There will be a scaling-down of the company to one that is not performing on a large scale, but which is acting as a promoter to import on a large scale. The dancers believe that that significantly affects their job prospects.The second aspect affects the income of the company, which will not be playing on a large scale, in large auditoriums and to large audiences. It is more expensive to produce for medium-sized auditoriums.The dancers also believe—as the committee has highlighted—that Scottish Ballet and Scottish Opera seem to be treated differently. There appears to be one rule for the ballet and one for the opera. As far as the dancers and I understand it, that is financially driven. The same strictures do not seem to apply to the opera.There are disadvantages in having the merged board. I highlight the proposed move of the facilities—which appeared in The Sunday Times this week—from 261 West Princes Street to Edington Street. The facilities in 261 West Princes Street are terrible and an upgrade is long overdue. However, those facilities are in a residential area and are accessible, particularly for the ballet's outreach work.Edington Street is just under the motorway, on an industrial estate. It is not somewhere that I would like to walk with any of my children on a dark winter night. The intention to move to Edington Street is probably more to do with the fact that Scottish Opera is on the site than with its being the best place to relocate the ballet.The dancers think that it is strange that those uncosted plans—it is vital to come back to that point—were endorsed by the SAC. There are two significant points of disagreement that the dancers have with what we have heard before. The first of those is about consultation; there has been no consultation by any process that the dancers understand. An announcement was made and they had several meetings with the management and the board, but there appears to have been no change. The announcement that was made on 15 August is being driven through. There was no consultation prior to the announcement and there appears to be little prospect of changing minds now that it has been made.The second point of significant disagreement is that the dancers see no benefit in the merged board as it exists. I have given the example of the move to Edington Street; there are possibly other examples as well. The fact that we find ourselves in this situation indicates that the dancers feel that their board has not responded to them and has not looked after their concerns in the way that they expected.Over the past few months there has been a fundamental breakdown between the dancers and their board and, as the committee is aware, the dancers are calling for the reinstatement of an independent board that can look after their concerns exclusively.

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Education, Culture and Sport Committee, 25 Sep 2001

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