Committee
Culture, Tourism, Europe and External Affairs Committee 30 May 2019
30 May 2019 · S5 · Culture, Tourism, Europe and External Affairs Committee
Item of business
Arts Funding
Thank you very much. Our first item of business is a round-table evidence session as part of the committee’s inquiry into arts funding. The inquiry follows on from our work on regular funding last year, and we aim to consider the wider issues around the future of the funding of arts organisations. We are particularly interested in how we support our artists and cultural freelancers in Scotland, and we are looking hopefully at models past and present, from around the world, in relation to how we sustain not just our arts infrastructure but our individual talent. We have a fantastic round table this morning. I welcome Professor Richard Demarco CBE; Harry Josephine Giles; David Leddy, the artistic director of the Fire Exit theatre company; Rhona Matheson, the chief executive of Starcatchers theatre company; Ken Mathieson, jazz musician; and Raymond Vilakazi, the artistic director of Neo Productions. The inquiry is wide ranging and we will focus on a number of themes this morning. I will start on the theme of support for artists. All of the witnesses made written submissions to the committee, for which I thank them. I found them very useful, particularly in relation to the suggestions for arts funding that they make—many of which are very innovative—and in relation to the particular barriers that exist for cultural freelancers. I will start with Harry Josephine Giles. In your submission, you mention that “it’s easier to get money if you have money”. You also talk about how organisations that employ financial or fundraising officers find it easier to get grants. Obviously, that means that there are particular barriers for artists who work on their own. Can you elaborate on that, and on the interesting solutions to that challenge that you suggested?
In the same item of business
The Convener (Joan McAlpine)
SNP
Good morning, and welcome to the Scottish Parliament. I remind everyone to turn off their mobile phones, and I ask any members who are using electronic devic...
Emma Harper (South Scotland) (SNP)
SNP
I do not.
The Convener
SNP
Thank you very much. Our first item of business is a round-table evidence session as part of the committee’s inquiry into arts funding. The inquiry follows...
Harry Josephine Giles
Sure. The basic problem is that the majority of money that an artist gets to make art comes from public funding bodies, and that, in order to get that money,...
The Convener
SNP
Thank you very much for that. Does anyone else want to come in on that particular subject?
Raymond Vilakazi (Neo Productions)
The point that Harry Josephine Giles made is particularly acute for black and minority ethnic people, some of whom do not have even the language skills to be...
David Leddy (Fire Exit Theatre Company)
As a measure of the amount of work that Harry Josephine Giles is talking about, for the past nine years, we have been funded as a regularly funded organisati...
The Convener
SNP
Richard Demarco, your perspective goes back quite a long way, if you do not mind my saying so. Is the situation for artists that has been described today a h...
Professor Richard Demarco CBE
Things have changed dramatically in my lifetime. A meeting like this would have been unthinkable in the days when the Scottish Arts Council existed. That bod...
The Convener
SNP
That has certainly given us a lot to think about. Thank you. I will bring in Alexander Stewart because I know that he has specific issues to ask about.
Alexander Stewart (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con)
Con
The witnesses have touched on the whole idea of the funding and support that they have. It is quite obvious that those in the sector live from hand to mouth ...
David Leddy
That is how it appears, but it is actually worse than that. The current funding system works in a way that claims to be giving us a series of priorities that...
Alexander Stewart
Con
So, you fulfil all the criteria and are doing a really good job, but you still go to the wall and you do not get feedback telling you why you do not get the ...
David Leddy
It is even blander than that. It would just repeatedly fall on the idea that the situation is very competitive and it would just generally repeat that it wil...
Alexander Stewart
Con
So, what needs to change in that environment, and how should we be involved in that process as well, because we have a role in it?
David Leddy
For me, the highest priority is peer review. I do not know what other people here, such as Rhona Matheson and Ken Mathieson, feel about that, as they have no...
Ken Mathieson
I can say that part of the problem is the way in which the absence of budgeting impinges on everything. I say at the outset that I do not see this as a Creat...
Alexander Stewart
Con
It seems that a relatively small number of people have control over what is given and where it goes.
Ken Mathieson
There is clearly some issue inside the funding body. There are always tensions between finance and the other departments and finance has the responsibility f...
Rhona Matheson (Starcatchers Theatre Company)
There are several issues. Creative Scotland is the primary funding body in Scotland and that is one of the biggest issues. If someone is making art for art’s...
Alexander Stewart
Con
You end up having to follow the money to obtain the money: if you fit the criteria you get the money and if you do not fit the criteria, you do not get it.
Rhona Matheson
Yes and no. One of the biggest challenges is that there are lots of applications that absolutely do fit the criteria, but the resource is finite. When there ...
Raymond Vilakazi
I want to put in a perspective from the BME community. In the context of the limited resources that Creative Scotland has available to push out, what is happ...
Annabelle Ewing (Cowdenbeath) (SNP)
SNP
On Ken Mathieson’s point about viring and so forth, many of the submissions that the committee has received have called for long-term funding. How would that...
Ken Mathieson
The nature of the funding system makes it very complex. Large organisations and established companies are in receipt of regular funding, which is on a three-...
David Leddy
That is a serious problem.
Annabelle Ewing
SNP
That point has touched a nerve; I know that we will come on to ask about peer review shortly. Ken Mathieson made an apt point about the lack of involvement ...
Ken Mathieson
I cannot possibly say whether Creative Scotland has a commitment to jazz, but its response tells me that there is no analytical mind to separate one-off fund...
Harry Josephine Giles
I will touch on both of the previous questions, which were about the role of long-term support and how to approach the need to prioritise if funding is restr...
David Leddy
A few years ago, I had an interesting experience at a conference in Europe, at which a European just laughed at the United Kingdom and said, “You can’t get a...