Strategic Partnership for Scotland's Festivals - second open letter from Culture Secretary Angus Robertson

In August through an open letter, I initiated a strategic partnership for Scotland’s arts festivals to ensure we are supporting and promoting Scotland’s arts festivals to flourish. I am writing to update you on progress.

The response to the letter has been heartening and equally unsurprising given the extent to which our country values our artists, our cultural organisations, and, of course, our festivals.

Through the conversations I have had across the culture sector since then, my focus has been turning intent into delivery, ensuring this strategic partnership has the means to deliver for our arts festivals and help them fulfil their potential. I'm extremely grateful to those who joined me to shape our ideas for the partnership.

Funding

The first step of delivery was the Scottish Government’s 2025/26 Budget delivering the biggest increase in culture spending in the history of this Parliament, after Covid recovery support.  An increase of over £34m in 2025/26 takes the total uplift in culture funding to £50m since 2023/24, a significant step towards the First Minister’s commitment to invest at least £100 million more annually in culture and the arts by 2028/29.

This Budget has also ensured a record number of cultural organisations across the length and breadth of Scotland will receive stable, year-on-year funding through Creative Scotland’s multi-year funding programme, around a third of which going to organisations who run a festival.

For Scotland’s arts festivals specifically, the Budget provides £4 million of additional support to develop and deliver work under this Strategic Partnership.  This includes a £3 million expansion of the EXPO Festival Fund to enhance the work undertaken by existing EXPO fund recipients and broaden the scope of the fund across the country.

These measures move us beyond sustaining the sector and return focus to where it should be, on long-term development.  And that is exactly what this strategic partnership will be – for the long term.

The following proposals on the purpose and working of the Strategic Partnership have been developed by an initial group of representatives of arts festivals and related interests.  I am very grateful to that group for their work on getting the Partnership going. It will now be replaced by the more formal Steering Group mentioned below.

Angus Robertson

 

The Strategic Partnership for Scotland’s Arts Festivals

Purpose
The partnership’s work will, in line with our national events strategy, Scotland the Perfect Stage, work collectively to make Scotland the perfect stage for festivals.  Equally as important, the partnership will focus how it can enhance our country’s cultural output, delivering towards the aims of the Culture Strategy for Scotland Action Plan and to our International Cultural Strategy in supporting our activity with the rest of the world.

Mission
Drawing upon the expertise within the sector and beyond, the Strategic Partnership will show leadership by

• driving and delivering progress on the key barriers to/enablers of future success
• supporting further collaboration across Scotland’s arts festivals and with the broader cultural sector and beyond.
• operating as a purposeful voice for the sector in seeking and shaping support from a variety of sources.

Practical
The work of the Strategic Partnership will  be supported by a Steering Group with representation coming from the range of arts festivals in Scotland across the country.  The Steering Group will be a focal point around which to gather public and private sector partners who are best placed to support Scotland’s arts festivals and take forward strategic development to support them.  Areas to be covered by meetings of a steering group or wider partners will be determined by ongoing dialogue across the sector.  Longer term the Strategic Partnership will consider the best ways in which representation can be determined by the sector itself.

Work programme
This newly formed Steering Group has indicated that it wants its work programme to be pragmatic and solutions focused, often delivered through and working with others such as the Events Industry Advisory Group and the Culture Fair Work Taskforce . Early action within the programme is likely to include:-

• shaping the use of the increased funding across Scottish arts festivals to support and enhance their activity. This will include building upon the success of the current Scottish Government EXPO Fund.
• Working with the transport sector to identify ways in which to improve access to and from arts festivals.
• collaboration between Scotland arts festivals and their promotion internationally, supporting areas like artistic/creative content, skills development and reputation.

We will also focus on achieving a greater consistency of public sector reporting requirements.

Lastly, I reiterate a welcome for the input of Scotland’s arts festivals, and those who care about them as the work of the Strategic Partnership for Scotland’s arts festivals progresses.