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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  1 of 4

Culture strategies

A Culture Strategy for Scotland 

A Culture Strategy for Scotland (February 2020) highlights how important culture is to Scotland’s prosperity and national identity and sets the direction for supporting culture in Scotland. 

It sets out a vision which recognises the intrinsic value of culture and the power of culture to inspire, enrich and transform people’s lives, our communities and the places where we live, work, study  and have fun. 

This  overview of the strategy sets out the vision, aims and guiding principles as well as the three main ambitions which support delivery of that vision: 

  • strengthening culture 

  • transforming through culture 

  • empowering through culture 

Delivery of the Culture Strategy is underpinned by an action plan which was refreshed in 2023 in close discussion with the sector. 

We continue to work closely with the sector and the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee to prioritise actions which will have the greatest impact on the sector going forward. 

Delivery of those actions is supported by our promise to invest £100 million more annually in culture and the arts by 2028 to 2029. We have demonstrated this commitment to the sector by increasing the culture budget by £15.8 million in 2024 to 2025 followed by a further £34 million in 2025-2026. This totals almost £50 million additional funding since the commitment was made in 2023. 

 Since 2023, we have progressed the following prioritised activity to deliver on the ambitions of the Strategy:   

  • £20 million additional support for Creative Scotland’s Multi-Year Funding programme, taking the funding available for successful organisations from almost £34 million in 2024-2025 to £54 million in 2025-2026

  • this has allowed Creative Scotland to offer regular funding to the largest ever number of organisations across Scotland   

  • a further £13.2 million towards other Creative Scotland initiatives, including maintaining the Open Fund  

  • a Culture Sector Support Programme, which will consider the wider sector support landscape to help inform future funding models and make the most of opportunities for collaborative working 

  • an additional £2 million for Screen Scotland  to support its goal of £1 billion gross value added to the Scottish economy by 2030 

  • additional funding for Scotland’s Festivals, National Performing Companies, National Collections and V & A Dundee 

  • a £4 million investment in a new, innovative Museum Futures programme to build capacity and support our vital non-national museums  

  • continued funding for the longstanding Youth Music Initiative, as well as providing significant support to Sistema Scotland  

  • a restart of our Culture Collective programme, allowing community engaged creative activity  to shape the future cultural life of Scotland 

  • funding for our flagship project Creative Communities programme to expand its reach to a national scale 

  • continued funding for The Scottish Library and Information Council to support the Public Library Improvement Fund 

  • this includes new funding to develop a Single Digital Platform to ensure equitable access to information and reading material across Scotland

  • a short-life Culture Fair Work Taskforce to consider and develop actions to further implement Fair Work in  Scotland’s creative industries 

  • a Culture Partnership Agreement that will be complementary to the Verity House Agreement and will be co-signed by the Scottish Government and COSLA 

  • continued work to implement the recommendations of the 2022 Empire, Slavery and Scotland’s Museums (ESSM) Steering Group 

  • continued collaboration and active engagement with the UK Government and devolved administrations on how to implement the ratification of the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage 

International culture strategy 

We published Scotland’s first international culture strategy Inspiring Connections: Scotland's International Culture Strategy in March 2024. 

While we have supported the sector’s international work, this strategy aims to maximise its potential and provide coherence to our approach. 

The development of the strategy was strongly informed by engagement with stakeholders. With a series of roundtables held in late May 2022 that were attended by around 50 individuals and considered the high-level principles behind this work. 

We published the International Culture Strategy consultation analysis report (December 2023). The report was produced by Social Researchers in the Scottish Government who carried out detailed thematic analysis on the 77 survey responses received to the public survey. The outputs of this survey informed the development on the Strategy.  

We are progressing  the implementation of the Strategy as part of our commitment to invest at least £100 million more annually in culture and the arts by 2028 to 2029. 

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