Independent Review of Creative Scotland

Background

Creative Scotland was set up to support and develop Scotland's arts, screen, and creative industries, and to promote creativity across the country. As part of that role, Creative Scotland distributes funding for the arts, screen and creative sector from two sources, the Scottish Government and the National Lottery.^[1]

Creative Scotland supports culture and creativity in Scotland as a development organisation, a funder, an advocate, and as a public body that seeks to influence others to increase opportunity and maximise the impact our resources can offer. It works in partnership with government, local authorities and the wider public, private and voluntary sectors to deliver this support.

Why review Creative Scotland

Culture Secretary Angus Robertson commissioned an independent review of Creative Scotland as part of a commitment to “ensuring excellence in Scotland’s public services”^[2] and in line with the high value the Scottish Government places on culture.[3]

The Scottish Government has committed to increase its investment in the arts, culture and creative sector.^[4] It is important to make the best use of public funding, especially as the ambition within and for the sector remains high.

The Review was tasked with:

a) considering Creative Scotland’s functions and remit, as set out in the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010, to ensure they continue to be relevant for the culture sector and meet Ministers’ aspirations

b) evaluating how Creative Scotland delivers its functions including appropriateness of existing governance arrangements

c) maximising the impact of the funding Creative Scotland provides to the culture sector by ensuring Creative Scotland uses and distributes funding appropriately and effectively

The culture sector, in its broadest sense, is referred to in many ways. Several people fed back their views on terminology. For the purposes of this Review, the report will use the term ‘art, culture and creative sector’ or ‘sector’, except where using the terminology from others, for example Creative Scotland’s description of itself and terms used in legislation. This is not a recommendation on terminology. It is intended to be fully inclusive.

Context

The Review took place in 2025, fifteen years after the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen merged to form Creative Scotland.

Creative Scotland’s support of the sector has been broadly stable during this time.^[5] It inherited Scottish Government and National Lottery funded programmes from the Scottish Arts Council. The majority of the Scottish Government funded programmes have continued, except for the Innovation Fund which was redirected by the Scottish Government to support the screen sector in 2015-16.

Creative Scotland has simplified legacy National Lottery funded programmes by introducing Open Funds for individuals and organisations. It also pivoted to provide temporary emergency funding to the sector, including for those individuals and organisations not already in receipt of funding, during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Despite these changes there remains a perception that certain art forms are more likely to receive funding in line with the priorities of the old Scottish Arts Council.

Screen Scotland was formally launched as part of Creative Scotland in 2018. It was created to lead the development of Scotland's film and television industry, providing increased funding, specialist support, and marketing initiatives to foster both local and international production within the country.

Scotland’s art, culture and creative sector has been profoundly impacted since Creative Scotland was established due to global events such as COVID-19, increasing operational costs, and as a result of leaving the EU.^[6] Audience profiles, behaviours and attitudes have also changed.[7] The cultural landscape is also becoming more diverse, with new art forms emerging and changes in approaches to cultural participation.[8]

These changes provide the context for this Review. Culture has the unique power to inspire, enrich, and transform people’s lives, as well as being a key economic driver.^[9] Culture helps to support many positive outcomes including community cohesion,[10] improved health,[11] tackling poverty,[12] and addressing climate change.[13] As the sector adapts and evolves in response to external changes, so must the support it receives.

Many in the sector would like to see a vibrant national body offering more advocacy, development, funding, research, and other areas of support, with strong principles, transparent decision-making and meaningful partnerships. Good governance ensures organisations work effectively, ethically and in everyone’s best interests.

The remit of this Review (see Annex A) was limited to Creative Scotland and so this report does not consider the coherence and rationale for the approach of public funding of the arts, culture and creative sector in Scotland. The Scottish Government is undertaking a wider review of the way the culture sector is supported, which will take the form of a culture sector support programme.^[14]

Financial considerations

The Review was not tasked to look at the rationale for public funding of the arts, culture and creative sector, or the amount of public funding the sector should receive. There will always be a limited supply of public funding and increasing demand. It is claimed that more funding would allow more to be done, and there is currently widespread appetite amongst the sector to be able to do more. The degree of funding is a political decision, to be taken within the wider context of the state of economy, the needs of other sectors and the value given to culture by society.

Methodology

The Review was conducted by an independent Chair, Angela Leitch CBE, supported by Vice Chair, Stuart Currie, and a small secretariat. Measures were put in place to ensure that the work of the Review was conducted independently of day-to-day policy, operational and sponsorship duties.

The Review provided opportunities for stakeholders from across Scotland to contribute their views and experiences. Over 450 people contributed. Input was received from Creative Scotland staff, Board members, applicants, other cultural and creative freelancers, organisations, trade unions and other interested parties. Annex C provides more details on the evidence gathering process.

Creative Scotland is one part of Scotland's cultural landscape (see Annex D). Meetings with those not in receipt of funding from Creative Scotland were also arranged to develop an understanding of the importance of the interconnections across art, creative industries, heritage, the historic environment, libraries, museums and the National Performing Companies.

To understand what alternative funding models could be explored or developed, meetings were arranged with the enterprise agencies, Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA), Arts Council England, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Arts Council of Wales, as well as with Creative Ireland and Culture Ireland. Whilst the scale, scope and parameters of the arts councils in the rest of the UK and Ireland are not directly comparable, there is nevertheless value in understanding how their funding models and associated application and assessment processes are delivered and have evolved.

The delivery timeframes for the Review influenced the approach taken. The Chair was appointed in April 2025 and asked to provide a report by the end of November 2025. A large part of the engagement took place during the summer months which may have influenced the ability of stakeholders to contribute due to the holiday period.

There were four main sources of information for the Review. These were:

1. the analysis of the Scottish Government’s Culture Sector Support Needs survey.^[15] The aim of this research was to hear from a wide range of people and organisations across the culture sector about their experiences of, and views on, current support provision for culture in Scotland

2. in person and virtual meetings. These included meetings with targeted individuals and organisations, and roundtables that anyone could sign up for, held in eight different locations and virtually

3. contributions sent by email. These included written and voice note submissions

4. existing published evidence, of which there is an extensive body, including research across various sectors in recent years.

The evidence gathered informed conversations and discussions throughout the review process. All the recommendations made by the Review are based on an assessment of this evidence base. Information collected specifically for this Review, via meetings, roundtables and emailed submissions, was collected based on the Chatham House rule so that contributors were able to share their thoughts freely. Specific published evidence is highlighted in the relevant sections of the report.

Several people got in touch during the Review to suggest that recommendations or findings be tested with sector representatives. It is for the Scottish Government to consider how it wishes to take forward the recommendations in this Review. Given the significant interest in this work, doing so in a consultative manner would be advisable.