Reflections on the Scottish Government Budget for Culture 24-25

After huge anticipation and warnings from across the culture sector of the imminent crisis it faces, the Scottish Government Budget for 24-25 was published this week.

The Scottish Government’s budget next year is set to increase by £1.3 billion from the latest position for 2023-24. This is a rise of 2.6% in cash terms, or a 0.9% rise after taking inflation into account (so called real terms) (Scottish Parliament Information Centre Briefing).

The total overall Scottish Government budget for 24-25 is anticipated to be £59,706.5mil.

We did not end up seeing multi-year budgets as had been previously suggested by the Government. An above inflation increase was provided to Local Government’s revenue funding, but also a significant reduction to its capital budget.

The total budget announced for the Constitution, External Affairs and Culture (CEAC) portfolio for 24-25 is £331.7mil, an increase of £18.1mil or 5.8% from the current year. The funding allocated specifically to culture sees an increase of £15.9mil (8.8%) and including funding to Historic Environment Scotland and National Records of Scotland, totals £305.3mil, an overall increase of £18.9mil or 6.6%.

In the current climate, avoiding cuts and seeing any increase is an achievement, but what does it actually mean for cultural investment in 24-25?

Funding to Creative Scotland and Other Arts

Creative Scotland and Other Arts has been allocated £75.6mil, an increase of £11.1mil.

Creative Scotland’s settlement to their Grant in Aid funding for 24-25 is just over £68m. This compares to £55m provided for 23-24. This funding, however, includes restoration of the 10% cut of £6.6mil, applied this year, and will also restore the reserves that Creative Scotland used to maintain the RFO network’s grants for 23-24. This effectively means we are not seeing any ‘new’ investment to Creative Scotland and it is likely that standstill funding will continue to be offered to organisations supported through the RFO programme in 24-25, meaning the impacts of real terms cuts and threats to the sector continues.

In August, Creative Scotland received applications to their new multi-year funding programme from 361 cultural organisations with a total ask of £96mil per year. This is far in excess of the current £33mil cost of the 119-organisation RFO network and 40% over the total budget that Creative Scotland currently receives from the Scottish Government. The numbers of organisations which ultimately receive funding will be influenced by the budget that is made available to Creative Scotland from Scottish Government from 25-26.

Shona Robison, MSP and Deputy First Minister announced during her ministerial statement on the Budget to Scottish Parliament, “Our aim is to increase arts and culture investment by 25-26 by at least a further £25mil”.

A significant uplift will be required to support as many of the multi-year applicants as possible and it can only be presumed that much of this promised £25mil will be earmarked for this purpose. However, Creative Scotland will be making final decisions on multi-year funding in Autumn 2024 before the budget is confirmed for 25-26. How these difficult decisions will therefore be made in terms of the funding available, has not yet been confirmed.

Funding for Other Arts within Creative Scotland’s budget provides ring fenced funding for Screen Scotland and the Youth Music Initiative. This budget also provides for other smaller cultural opportunities and priorities as well as revenue funding of £800,000 to help sustain the V&A Dundee.

Creative Scotland will publish full details of their budget and how it will be allocated, including National Lottery income, in their Annual Plan, in April 2024.

Elsewhere in the cultural portfolio

The budget for the Cultural Collections has increased by just under £4m. Those benefitting most include the National Collections, comprising the National Museums of Scotland, National Galleries of Scotland and National Library of Scotland. However, other budget areas see a reduction in funding including other non-national museums, which could impact Museums Galleries Scotland grants programmes and possibly impact direct funding for the Scottish Maritime, Mining and Fisheries Museums. The non-national libraries see no change this year.

A further £700,000 goes to support the national performing companies including Scottish Opera, Scottish Ballet and the National Theatre of Scotland. This is a welcome increase as funding for Scotland’s national performing companies has remained flat in cash terms since 2016-17, representing a real terms cut of over 30% in the past ten years. However, this will also have to support the International Touring Fund, which given the high costs of working internationally is unlikely to go very far.

Historic Environment Scotland and National Records of Scotland see increased investment of £1.5mil apiece.

Funding for Royal and Ceremonial activity and for Architecture and Design Scotland remains at standstill levels.

Major events have been removed from the portfolio (other than operational costs for the Culture and Major Events teams) and now sit under the Deputy First Minister who has responsibility for cross-government delivery and outcomes. This reflects the broad range of policy interests, costs, and benefits of these events and may be in response to the increased costs for the 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships in Glasgow.

Whilst these increases are welcomed and a move in the right direction, the impacts of the lack of long term investment coupled with ongoing high inflation reduces the value and impact of this investment in real terms.

Need and demand

The Scottish Government has listened to evidence this year of the challenges facing the culture sector and the calls for significant investment. Culture Counts called for a £104m increase from 24-25 to help mitigate the impact of the cost crisis, and reduce the risks of venues, organisations and events closing down and secure a sustainable future for Scotland’s culture sector.

At the SNP’s party conference on 17 October First Minister Humza Yousaf announced plans to increase the Scottish Government’s investment in culture by £100mil over the next five years. The Cabinet Secretary, Angus Robertson confirmed that the priorities for this increased investment would be made annually as part of the parliamentary budget process and taken forward in line with the Scottish Government’s recently published Culture Strategy Action Plan Refresh.

Culture Counts urged the Scottish Government to bring as much as possible of this £100mil investment forward into the budget for 2024-25, to prevent the tipping point that many organisations and artists stand to face next year.

The increased funding for culture and heritage this year from £180.7mil to £196.6mil, an increase of £15.9mil, was stated by Shona Robison as “the first step on the route to investing at least £100 million more in arts and culture by 2028‑29.”

Given the warnings that have been made regarding the scale of the crisis facing the culture sector, the ongoing cost crisis and the future levels of demand for funding, the announcement falls far short of the investment levels called for, and does not even represent one fifth (£20mil) of the £100m investment promised, which is not being delivered at the pace or levels needed.

Percentage of Government spend

Culture Counts noted in our evidence to the CEAC Committee’s Pre-Budget Scrutiny that the total budget to the Constitution, External Affairs and Culture portfolio in 23-24 was 0.58% of overall government spending, based on the budget figures published in April 2023. The figures for 23-24 provided in this week’s published budget for 24-25 show that the revised investment to the portfolio actually represents a lower figure of 0.52%.

Proposed for 2024-25 is a budget representing 0.56% of total Government spending. This appears to show little progress in terms of the percentage allocated to the portfolio.

If we are to consider the funding allocated only for arts, culture and heritage, the percentage to culture of overall Government spending is even bleaker at 0.51% for 24-25.

We have consistently called for investment in culture to be increased to 1% in line with the 2019 CEAC report Putting Artists in the Picture which recommended that culture should establish a baseline target for national arts and culture funding above 1% of the Scottish Government’s overall budget, supported, on a cross-portfolio basis, in line with the recommendation of the Cultural Commission. Our long-term goal continues to aim for 1% of overall Scottish Government expenditure towards culture. This will bring us closer to the levels of investment across Europe, where the average is 1.5%.  

What next

The Budget document includes in a separate appendix a summary of how the submissions from the Parliamentary committees have influenced the formulation of the proposals. The Cabinet Secretary for Constitution, External Affairs and Culture confirmed to the CEEAC Committee that the Government is exploring the potential for additional and parallel funding streams for the culture and creative sectors, including industry-led proposals. We look forward to hearing more on this and contributing to its development further.

Parliament now enters a phase of scrutiny with further debates and possible amendments proposed to the Budget. In Jan/Feb the Budget Bill will be voted on and if passed becomes law, becoming the Budget for the year from April.

In the meantime, Culture Counts has been invited to go back to the CEAC Committee on 11 January, to provide sector reflections on the budget and its impacts.

Please get in touch with any insights before 4 January, to be included in our evidence report. Lori Anderson: lori@culturecounts.scot