Publication - Impact assessment

Coronavirus (COVID-19) business support: equality impact assessments

Published: 11 March 2022
From: Director-General Economy
Part of: Business, industry and innovation, Coronavirus (COVID-19) in Scotland, Economy
ISBN: 9781804351864

Detailed equality impact assessments (EQIAs) for the COVID-19 business support funding issued between March 2020 and April 2021.

Supporting documents

Three Arts Venues

Name of Grant:

Three Arts Venues

Policy Lead

David Seers

Legal power used:

Funding was provided to Creative Scotland to distribute this fund under Part 4 of, and schedule 9 to the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010.

Grant Overview:

Three charitable arts organisations will receive a share of £3 million of additional funding as part of the ongoing emergency coronavirus (COVID-19) support for three performing arts venues. Aberdeen Performing Arts, Eden Court Highlands and Capital Theatres Edinburgh. The funding is distributed through Creative Scotland

Executive Summary:

The Scottish Government recognises the significant impact that COVID 19 restrictions are having on the performing arts sector in Scotland

Performing arts venues are valued by communities right across Scotland, and deliver social impacts in education, health and wellbeing, and social inclusion, as well as substantial economic impacts.

Emergency funding has supported otherwise strong and viable businesses, protecting the business base, jobs and livelihoods helping prepare for a stronger economic recovery. Preserving jobs through financial support, while much of the sector has been closed, has helped prevent many businesses laying off staff.

In order to address the needs of many sectors adversely impacted by the pandemic, a range of business support funds were introduced over several months to provide emergency funding to help secure jobs, safeguard businesses and to alleviate hardship. The Three Arts Venues Funding is part of this wider support.

While venue closure during lockdown was essential, it created an extremely challenging environment for performing arts venues.

Community engagement and learning programmes at all three venues are crucial in reaching out to people across the range of protected characteristics, many of whom have been disproportionately affected by COVID 19.

The intention of the funding was to help the resilience of three performing arts companies who are facing particular hardship from loss of trading income from COVID-19 restrictions, because their usual operating models built up significant commercial income pre-pandemic.

Within this context of needing to react quickly, there was limited opportunity to gather evidence on the possible impacts of these measures. Nevertheless in developing this funding we took advice from Creative Scotland. This helped us shape the funding in a way which recognises the importance of assessing new and revised policies against the needs of the general equality duty as set out in section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation, advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not, and foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not. The Scottish Government also considered whether the measures could constitute direct and/or indirect discrimination.

We are also mindful that the equality duty is not just about negating or mitigating negative impacts, we also have a positive duty to promote equality. We have sought to do this through provisions contained in the measures or by support and guidance available.. Two of these venues (Aberdeen Performing Arts and Eden Court Highlands) are in communities where their closure would have a heightened impact because of lack of alternative cultural offerings nearby.

Key Findings - impact assessment of benefits and/or disadvantages.

Age: Older People and Children and Young People

The only available data on this protected characteristic is sector specific, not venue specific.

Comfort with returning to indoor venues is highest among younger people (16-34) according to Creative Scotland/ 56 Degree Insight research^[182]. However, performing arts venues are subject to closure in levels 3-4 and significant restrictions on numbers in levels 0-2 and mean without this additional funding these three venues will continue to struggle to operate.

The Scottish Household Survey^[183] figures shows levels of cultural attendance, in 2018, were generally higher among the younger age groups, although there were differences in the cultural activities attended by younger and older age groups.

Ninety one per cent of 16 to 24 year olds attended a cultural event compared to 56 per cent of those aged 75 and over. Sixteen to 24 year olds also had higher cultural attendance than those aged 75 and over after excluding trips to the cinema (78 per cent and 54 per cent).

As noted above, young people’s interest in returning to culture events and venues has declined less than for the general population.

Almost half of 16 to 24 year olds (44 per cent) attended a live music event, compared with 10 per cent of those aged 75 or over.

IPSOS – Tracking the Coronavirus Report^[184], Scotland has found that older people (over 55) are more anxious about returning to events than younger people (under 35). Those who are most worried about the health impact of the virus are most cautious about returning to venues and events. This includes older age groups who are generally most concerned^[185].

According to the Creative Scotland/ 56 Degree Insight research, the frequency with which the Scottish population expects to attend arts events and venues has decreased. Although around half of respondents expected the extent of their activity to be the same as before the COVID-19 outbreak, many others expect to attend less often, particularly for live music events, dance, theatre and cinema. People who are most confident in attending in the near future tend to be younger and are more likely to have children at home. Respondents were asked how comfortable they would feel attending performances at a range of venue types. While over half (56%) felt very or fairly comfortable attending outdoor events, fewer were comfortable attending community venues (39%), medium to large indoor venues (37%), arena sized venues (34%) or smaller indoor venues (30%). Notably, nearly 40% of the population would not feel comfortable in smaller indoor venues even if they had assurances on safety measures. Across all venue types, people aged 16-34 were more likely to state that they felt comfortable while people aged over 55, those with a disability or long-term health condition, residents of rural areas and infrequent arts attenders were least comfortable. However, anxiety about returning and any negative impact on older people is considered to have reduced due to the rollout of the vaccination programme which began with older people, with almost all people over 50 having received their first vaccine dose^[186]. We are not aware of any evidence that suggests the other measures (apart from closure of these venues) will create any particular inequalities for this protected characteristic.

There is no recent information on workforce demographics for the sector available so we are unable to give a view on that at this point in time.

Sex: Men and Women

The data on this protected characteristic is all sector specific, not venue specific.

Attendance at a cultural event or place is higher among women (Scottish Health Survey 2018) and, therefore, more likely to benefit if open. 82% of women attended or visited a cultural event or place compared to 79 per cent of men. Women also had higher cultural attendance than men after excluding trips to the cinema, with the gap between women and men increasing to five percentage points (76 per cent and 71 per cent). We are not aware of any evidence that suggests the other measures (apart from closure of these venues) will create any particular inequalities for this protected characteristic.

There is no recent information on workforce demographics for the sector available so we are unable to give a view on that at this point in time.

Race

The data on this protected characteristic is all sector specific, not venue specific.

We are not aware of any evidence that suggests that providing support to these three performing arts venues will create any particular inequalities for this protected characteristic.

There is no recent information on workforce demographics for the sector available so we are unable to give a view on that at this point in time.

Disability

The data on this protected characteristic is all sector specific, not venue specific.

People with a disability or long-term health condition were amongst those least comfortable about returning to indoor venues according to Creative Scotland/ 56 Degree Insight research. It is possible that certain measures implemented to mitigate spread of virus may create barriers to disabled people working at or attending events.

For example:

General guidance not to use lifts (impact on people who use wheelchairs or others who find it difficult to use the stairs).
Use of face coverings by event staff and / or those attending events (impact on people who lip read or those who cannot wear face coverings due to health conditions).
Provision of additional handwashing or hand sanitiser in particular locations that are not accessible / not at correct height (impact on those using a wheelchair).
Provision of information before and on the day of the event about the measures to reduce spread of coronavirus not available in a range of formats (may exclude those who are reliant on a particular format – e.g. people who are blind or deaf).
Facilities being removed or reduced – for example disabled parking spaces removed to allow for queuing or disabled toilets changed to general use to increase capacity.

All reasonable steps should be taken to ensure that measures do not disadvantage disabled people. The guidance for performing arts and venues emphasises that people with disabilities should have equality of access^[187].