Multi-Year Funding Programme - Stage One decisions

Creative Scotland announced today that that 285 organisations will progress to Stage Two of the Multi-Year Funding application process, representing an annual ask of £87.4m.

They received applications from 361 cultural and creative organisations with a total ask of £96m per year. Of these, 351 applications were eligible for assessment, and applications were assessed against the published criteria.

66 organisations, whose applications were assessed, have not met the Stage One criteria and will not progress to Stage Two.

The full statement is available on Creative Scotland’s website.

Culture Counts - reaction

Today’s news that 66 applications to Creative Scotland’s Multi Year Funding Programme from 2025-26 have been unsuccessful at Stage One, will cause concern for those involved and we call upon Creative Scotland to work with those organisations to support them to identify other sources of funding.

For those who will now apply to the second stage of funding, there remains a big hill to climb. Whilst the programme has lost just over 20% of applications out of the 361 that applied, the total ask in terms of demand for the programme budget has reduced by only 9% leaving it massively oversubscribed and significantly underfunded. Transparency on how Stage Two decisions will be made is now vital. There is still time for the Scottish Government to act and boost the budget available to Creative Scotland. We welcomed the First Minister’s commitment in October to provide an additional £100 million by 2028-29 to culture, and a further £25 million in 2025-26, however the sector needs clarity on what funding will be available to support the programme at the next stage and into the future and we call upon the Scottish Government to make as much of this funding available now, when it is most urgently needed.