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Culture funding: where are we now?

EMCC Project Manager, Katie Goh, takes a look at the latest development in Scotland’s culture funding situation:

On Monday 11 October, the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee published their scrutiny of the culture portfolio ahead of the Scottish Government’s 2025-26 budget. Over 50 Scottish organisations in the arts and culture sector contributed their views as evidence for the committee – including us at EMCC. You can read our contribution – which advocates for integrating gender budget analysis throughout Scotland’s budget and revenue-raising processes – here.

The report urges the government to restore the confidence of the culture sector, highlighting the ongoing challenges in the public finances and the need for greater clarity over future funding.

Below are some highlights from the published report. 

An increase in funding for the culture sector 

The Cabinet Secretary told the Committee that the government will increase funding for Scotland’s culture sector by £15.8 million in 2024-25. This £15.8 million includes restoring £6.6m to Creative Scotland and providing a further £6.6 million to offset Creative Scotland’s shortfall in National Lottery funding. 

However, organisations, including the Musicians Union and Culture Counts, emphasised that this funding is not necessarily a new investment, but rather restoring past budget reductions. Creative Scotland explained to the Committee that “one tranche of £6.6 million is what we would ordinarily expect to see in our budget—it is part of what makes the funding contribution to support the regularly funded organisations”—and “the other tranche of £6.6 million is the recompense, in effect, of the £6.6 million reduction in the current year’s budget.” 

Cultural organisations also urged that the additional money pledged by the Scottish Government should be frontloaded given the urgent threats currently facing the sector. The Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society suggested that the £100 million is “invested in a shorter time frame to accelerate recovery and grow the capacity for seeking further investment”, while Making Music urged that “there is an immediate threat to our sector from the erosion of available spaces for cultural activity, and the movement of workforce out of the cultural sector”. 

A need for greater clarity going forward 

In their contributions to the report, Scottish arts organisations called for greater clarity from the government about how and when the pledged increased investment will be rolled out.

The Edinburgh International Festival said that since the commitment to increase the culture budget was announced, there has been a “lack of substantial detail” on the pledged £25 million for 2025-26. The Scottish Artists Union told the committee that “there is a depressing lack of certainty regarding the increase in funding that was promised in the December 2023 budget announcement”. Creative Scotland added that “clarity from the Scottish Government on the £100m funding commitment is essential to the short and long-term health of Scotland’s culture sector”. 

Moving towards multi-year funding

The Committee’s report emphasises that multi-year funding that comes from the Scottish Government ‘could have a considerable impact in providing greater long-term certainty and stability’ to the creative sector. However, the Committee notes with concern that ‘there has been limited progress to date on the Scottish Government’s 2021 Programme for Government commitment” which agreed to three-year funding settlements, yet have still not been delivered to the creative sector.

In light of the Multi-Year Funding Programme being delayed to January 2025, Creative Scotland commented to the Committee: “While we would have preferred to announce the outcome from this application process in October as planned and have been working collaboratively with Scottish Government to endeavour to do so, we also understand the extreme budget pressures that exist. These pressures mean we are required to postpone the outcome until such time as we have budget clarity.” 

Creative Scotland also told the Committee that “if our Grant-in-Aid budget remains at least the same in 2025-26 and beyond, we will be able to support far fewer organisations on a multi-year basis than we currently do.” Creative Scotland acknowledged that this would lead to organisations having to change or cease operations, leading to “significant job losses” and a “significant reduction in cultural provision and cultural opportunity for the people of Scotland.” 

While the results of the Committee’s scrutiny will be unsurprising to most people working in the creative sector, it does make for an alarming read. As EMCC has previously stated, we know that women and marginalised communities are already affected by the lack of secure jobs and consistent, longer-term funding in the sector. The Committee’s scrutiny highlights the uncertainty women and marginalised communities face in the culture sector, and the need for urgent support from the Scottish Government.

EMCC Scotland renews its calls for: 

• Assurance that the promised £25m funding for the culture sector in 2025/26 will be fulfilled 
• Commitment that the pledged annual £100m investment for the culture sector will be delivered by 2028-29 
• The Scottish Government to acknowledge systemic gender disparity in the culture sector. We ask that the Scottish Government actively addresses the inequality experienced by women by employing gender budgeting when designing funding solutions for the culture sector. 

Read the full Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee Pre-Budget Scrutiny here and the EMCC’s contribution here.