Culture, Healthcare, and the Gap Between Ambitions & Delivery

The Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee at the Scottish Parliament has submitted a written response to the Scottish Government’s public consultation on its resource spending review framework (RSRF).

The Committee has been looking at how culture spending can be mainstreamed across the Scottish Government. With a particular focus on the contribution which culture can make to health and wellbeing.

Through their work in this area the committee has heard that despite the established health and wellbeing benefits of culture, this had not so far led to a cross-cutting approach within Government, or increased budgetary support for culture.

The Committee recommended:

  • “Shifting funding towards preventative approaches should include consideration of a more systemic approach to multi-year funding of scalable culture projects supporting health and wellbeing,

  • the National Performance Framework and the Scottish Government’s culture strategy should more explicitly recognise the positive impact which access to cultural activities can have on health and wellbeing. This could include, for example, the inclusion of data related to cultural prescribing within the national indicator which measures participation in cultural activity,

  • Within the spending review there needs to be a reappraisal of what is considered as health spending. Specifically, there needs to be consideration of the contribution which preventative spend in areas like the arts and other cultural activities makes towards health and wellbeing.”

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Lori Anderson