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Policy

Arts, culture and heritage

From
Cabinet Secretary for Constitution, External Affairs and Culture
Directorate
Culture and External Affairs Directorate
Topic
Arts, culture and sport
Policy actions  4 of 4

Creative industries, talent and engagement

Our creative industries make a unique and vital contribution to society and the economy. We are committed to enabling conditions to allow people to turn their creativity into ways in which they can earn a living. 

The cultural and wider creative economy is a significant employer, enhancing the environment in which we live, and generating ideas and innovation, often testing and suggesting new ways of doing business across the country. 

We have a framework for our work to enable successful cultural and creative sectors in both our International Culture Strategy (March 2024) , our Culture Strategy for Scotland (March 2022) , it’s corresponding action plan (December 2023) and our policy statement for the creative industries (October 2019). Read more about our culture strategies.

We are supporting Scotland’s creative industries by: 

  • funding incentives and resources for the screen industry to encourage more film and TV production in Scotland 

  • funding Creative Scotland, the national public body for the arts, screen and creative industries, to develop and promote creative talent in Scotland  

  • chairing the Creative Industries Leadership Group  which aims to advise Scottish Ministers on how best to support and grow the sector 

  • increasing investment in festivals as invaluable, world-leading platforms for our performers and creatives 

  • scoping the establishment of a support service for cultural export and exchange as a key action from the International Culture Strategy 

Background 

Scotland’s creative industries contribute more than £5.7 billion to the Scottish economy every year, with 13,024 registered enterprises in December 2024, (7.5% of all registered business in Scotland), employing 90,000 staff. 

The creative industries sector is made up of 16 distinct industries: 

  • advertising 

  • architecture 

  • visual art 

  • crafts 

  • fashion and textiles 

  • design 

  • performing arts 

  • music 

  • photography 

  • film and video 

  • computer games 

  • radio and TV 

  • writing and publishing 

  • heritage 

  • software/electronic publishing 

  • cultural education 

We are committed to supporting, developing and promoting Scotland's creative talent, and ensuring that Scotland's culture reaches a wide audience at home and abroad. 

This includes: 

  • develop our burgeoning Screen industry, creating job opportunities for those that work in the sector in Scotland

  • supporting our artists and performers to collaborate and to reach a wide audience through Scotland’s festivals 

  • ensuring that  schools and communities are able to discover their creative talents and reach their full potential 

  • ensuring we support the sector’s ambitions for international activity, exchange and engagement

Screen Scotland 

Screen Scotland is part of Creative Scotland and it is our dedicated public agency for Scotland’s screen sector. It drives development of all aspects of our film and television industry through funding and strategic support. Since we created Screen Scotland in 2018, it has been instrumental to the transformational change in Scotland’s screen sector.  

We are supporting the screen sector in Scotland by: 

  • boosting the sector with an additional £2 million in 2025 to 2026, ensuring our screen sector can add £1 billion Gross Value Added to the Scottish economy by 2030  

  • supporting schools to access film and screen learning – so Scotland has the workforce to meet the demands a £1bn film and screen industry will create   

  • continuing to press the public service broadcasters to increase production from Scotland, helping to ensure that they serve audiences and the creative industries in Scotland fairly and authentically 

Read more about Screen Scotland on their website.  

Festivals  

As well as their outstanding work on stage, festivals provide hundreds of millions of pounds to the Scottish and local economies, supporting a pipeline of jobs and businesses.   

We are investing £4 million in festivals through the 2025 to 2026 budget to demonstrate the value we place on the arts.  

Through this investment we want to drive up opportunities for participation in creative pursuits, support festival commissions and collaborations on new and exciting works. This ensures that Scotland’s cultural output has platforms at home and abroad. 

Whilst this investment has provided greater long term stability, festivals continue to face challenges around transport, accommodation, connectivity and long term sustainability. We are exploring these areas further through the Strategic Partnership for Scotland’s Festivals and the Events Industry Advisory Group. 

Find out more about some of our world leading festivals below:

Festivals Expo Fund 

As part of our journey to delivering £100 million more in cultural annually by 2028-2029, we are investing £6 million per year in festivals to support work to expand the Festival EXPO Fund and funding to develop and deliver work under the Strategic Partnership for Scotland’s Festivals.    

We established the Festivals Expo Fund in 2007, supporting Edinburgh’s festivals to: 

  • help maintain our festivals' global competitive edge 

  • increase the funding available to Scottish artists and practitioners 

  • encourage creative collaborations 

Up to 2025, the Fund has provided members of Festivals Edinburgh with more than £37 million to create a legacy of important new work and to promote Scottish artists internationally. 

Alongside this, in 2018 the Festivals EXPO Fund was expanded to include festivals in Glasgow for the first time. 

We recognise the success of festivals in shaping and supporting hundreds of commissions, enhancing the ambitions of Scottish artists and attracting audiences in the millions.  This is why we are investing an additional £1 million in the EXPO Fund in 2025 to 2026 which is supporting 14 Festivals and Festival organisations across Edinburgh and Glasgow. 

From this foundation we are also committed to expanding the Festival EXPO Fund to support more festivals across Scotland, providing opportunities for the wider culture sector.   

Both funding and the assessment process for the Festival EXPO Fund are administered by Creative Scotland. 

Youth arts 

Culture is something everyone should have the opportunity to participate in and that is why we have a longstanding history of supporting youth culture programmes, such as the Youth Music Initiative and Sistema Scotland, to promote and provide access to the arts for all. 

Youth Music Initiative 

Our continuing investment in the Youth Music Initiative (YMI), which totals over £150 million since 2007, has made a big impact in helping young people across Scotland to develop their wider skills and learning.  The Youth Music Initiative is delivered on our behalf by Creative Scotland and celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2023. 

Read about YMI funding on Creative Scotland's website. 

Sistema Scotland 

Since 2012 we have provided funding to Sistema Scotland. This is a youth orchestra programme that aims to raise attainment and tackle inequality in disadvantaged communities, since 2012. The Big Noise programmes work with around 3,755 children and young people weekly across Scotland. 

There are six Big Noise programmes across the communities of: 

  • Raploch, Fallin (Stirling) 

  • Govanhill (Glasgow) 

  • Torry (Aberdeen) 

  • Douglas (Dundee) 

  • Wester Hailes (Edinburgh) 

At these centres each year children and young people have the opportunity to engage in a structured programme of learning. This involves learning to play a musical instrument as part of a group and to play in an orchestra with others. They do this by engaging in free afterschool and holiday activities in a caring and supportive environment. Such targeted interventions have been shown to have a positive impact on participants by helping to build self-confidence and developing motor and listening skills.  

Visit the Sistema Scotland website. 

Scotland's Makar 

The role of Scotland’s Makar or National Poet for Scotland, is a is a unique Scottish Government appointment.  

It rewards an accomplished poet who can speak for the nation’s community of poets and to their readers, and who represents the diversity of Scotland.  The role of the Makar is to promote poetry in Scotland and encourage its reading and writing.  

The current Makar (2025) is Peter Mackay. Visit the Scottish Poetry Library's website to learn more about Peter and his work. 

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