Manifesto Ask: Place: The Development of a Culture Act
This is Part 1 in a blog series on the Crowd-Sourced Cultural Manifesto for 2021. The culture sector has collaborated on 8 Asks in advance of the Scottish Parliament Elections in May 2021.
Place: A commitment to the development of a Culture Act that will integrate culture into communities, enabling Scotland’s local economies and wellbeing to flourish and to deliver fair-work. Incorporate minimum levels of cultural planning, stakeholder engagement and allow for percentages of local infrastructure projects to be invested into culture.
The Culture Act (Similar to the Arts Act in Ireland) would require all local authority areas to have a cultural plan. Plans would be collaboratively designed by a wide range of partners including local businesses; colleges, universities, prisons, health and social care, local freelance cultural specialists, artists, cultural organisations, social enterprises and third sector representatives.
The Culture Act would:
Ensure that Scotland’s communities can exercise the right to freely participate in the cultural life of the community. Ensure that ambitions are raised and opportunities increase for people with additional needs.
Require all local authority areas to have a collaboratively produced Cultural Plan.
Support fair-work for cultural freelancers. Planning leads to commitments which lead to secure work. Freelancers experience the negative impacts of precarious work; this is partly due to a lack of a long-term sustainable planning for the cultural offer in the local community.
Ensure that all children in Scotland of all ages are assured regular access to a diverse range of cultural experiences. Every school should have a cultural-plan.
Ensure a resourced culture and health action-plan in each Health and Social Care partnership area.
Require a percentage of local infrastructure projects and all property development projects to be invested into local culture.
Include the culture sector including Creative Scotland and Historic Environment Scotland as statutory consultees in growth deals and agreements; such as the ‘Falkirk Growth Deal’ or ‘City Deals’.
Protect libraries, museums and galleries, supporting digital inclusion, access to skills, local freelancers and the future of work.
In direct response to Brexit and in support of creative people across the nation, open an ‘Office for Cultural Exchange’ safeguarding international touring, festivals and residencies.
Secure a minimum data agreement and streamline the type of data collected by local authorities in terms of cultural provision and impact; work alongside the Improvement Service, COSLA, and Centre for Cultural Value, NESTA and the Creative Industries Policy Evidence Centre to design a data and evidence system.
The introduction of the transient visitor levy (when the time is right), to support investment into culture at a local level.
Manifesto 2021
Read the Full Manifesto on our website here.
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