Manifesto Ask: COVID-19: Embeding Culture in Scotland’s Recovery
This is Part 5 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.
COVID:19 To ensure a rounded economic and wellbeing recovery from COVID-19, make a commitment to embed culture in Scotland’s recovery action planning.
The culture sector alongside the hospitality and tourism sectors have been the hardest hit.
In the next Parliament, we call on all of Scotland’s political parties to commit to helping national recovery by supporting Scotland’s vibrant cultural sector to thrive again and play a valuable role in rebuilding social bonds and livelihoods.
The cultural sector returns a positive impact for a relatively small investment. We can reach people in communities, hospitals, schools and homes, in theatres, concert halls and in outdoor spaces. We generate positive outcomes in place-making, in the visitor economy, in creative entrepreneurship and across mental, physical health and recovery.
The next Scottish Government should invest in a five-year plan for the continued development of the National Arts Force as outlined in the report ‘Towards a robust resilient wellbeing economy for Scotland’ from the Advisory Group on Economic Recovery. A pilot of the project will be launched soon and learnings from this can be taken into the five-year plan.
The next Scottish Government should provide a minimum of a three-year-guarantee investment agreement to organisations such as Creative Scotland. The impact of one year agreements is a major problem for our sector and regularly stalls the cultural sector’s ability to plan for and work in a sustainable way. A three-year agreement would make a huge difference to the sector as would the introduction of budget that takes account of inflation. The sector has worked with budgets which don’t include inflation for too long and results are now plain to see; this norm should not continue.
The next Scottish Government should support pilot test and trace systems (including investing in the technology required) and distancing requirements based on test evidence of risk by investing in partnerships between industry and Scottish universities; supporting our events, venues and world-renowned festivals to re-start as soon as possible.
Manifesto 2021
Read the Full Manifesto on our website here.
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