A Culture Strategy for Scotland

We welcome the ethos of the three Vision statements.

However, we are concerned that the concept of ‘excellence’ – which forms the basis for the second of the strategy’s three principle Visions – is not filtered down accordingly and substantiated within the details of the document itself. The term ‘excellence’ can be used to define many different elements of cultural delivery and engagement, and it would be encouraging to see it used in a positive way throughout the document, suggesting that the ambition of the Strategy is significant.

We also found the wording of the third Vision unclear, with a redundant repetition of ‘power’, and would like to propose the following instead: ‘Culture’s empowering and transformative potential is experienced by everyone’.

Partnership working is fundamental to the culture sector, now more than ever before, so it was encouraging to read that a collaborative approach across the sector, and across all policy areas, forms a core of the Strategy.

We would have preferred to see a bolder statement of intent about the need for arts delivery in schools. While noting that the remit of education falls under a different Department and Strategy, the potential of the Cultural Strategy will be undermined without a matching commitment to arts education in schools. A healthy ecosystem of formal and informal arts and culture education will, in future generations, lead to a thriving cultural sector with engagement from across the population. That would seem to be the ultimate goal of the Strategy.

Enabling the ethos and development of partnerships and alliances through the proposed new “cultural leadership post” is a positive development. For that role to have meaningful impact on all three Aims of the Strategy, it is vital that the post-holder’s first action be to engage immediately and meaningfully with the Department for Education and Skills to ensure that arts and culture are once again a well-funded core element of the curriculum and that training and pathways into the cultural sector / creative industries are supported and promoted.

As well, within this Ambition – and across the document as a whole – we found there to be a lack of tangible actions and hard outcomes. For example, one of the aims is that ‘culture is enjoyed widely’ – how can this be measured?

We commend the concept of making culture relevant to everyone but find this Ambition to be poorly worded. Terminology such as ‘Opening up and extending’ are ambiguous.

We would also note that there does not need to be a tension here between excellence/aspiration and access/inclusion. This Ambition suggests a preference for the latter and shies away from recognising the former. We would like to see an acknowledgment that engagement and participation with arts can light touch, but can equally be a lifelong pursuit of learning a discipline. Whether it’s an instrument, a voice, a dance style, a brush stroke, a design principle – a passion that requires a commitment of time, rigour, and depth of education that can be transformative, whether that individual pursues a career in an artform, engages as an amateur or merely as an audience member. As a music training organisation we would like to see that this ambition celebrates the well-researched lifelong benefits of undertaking this path. The strategic objective should be to offer this inspiration to as wide a group of people as possible – uniting the ideas of excellence and inclusion in a way that is relevant to everyone.

There is an acknowledgment in the document of the shifting demographics of Scotland – to an older, and more ethnically diverse population, with a shrinking regional spread as young people abandon smaller communities with fewer job opportunities. Those 3 trends create interesting challenges and opportunities for organisations such as ours, and we would welcome tangible outcomes in the Strategy of how to address and engage meaningfully with those 3 constituencies.

That being said, we would also like to see it properly articulated that the cultural sector is an ecosystem (as addressed in the First Strategic Aim), in which each organisation has its own specialism, and that not every organisation should be expected to do everything for everyone. That there are some organisations who will excel in delivering specific parts of this Ambition, and other organisations who will excel in delivering others.

The three Aims of this Ambition – skills development, valuing the workforce, and embracing a more diverse cultural landscape – are excellent, and align with our own ethos and, we believe, that of modern Scotland.

We welcome the exploration of new funding models, through the use of innovative partnership schemes as well as flexible taxation methods that would encourage the investment of individual and corporate wealth into the Scottish cultural economy. This would also help to diminish the reliance on funding from Government.

We would like to see Scotland’s place in an international context articulated more strongly, and to see this reframed as a more outward-looking Ambition. We would hope that Scotland's arts and culture sector remain open, internationalist, connected and interconnected, and a strong player in the wider European and International sector. Scotland's contemporary cultural identity should be a celebration of the melting pot of voices - traditional and global - that make up our society and identity. A strong statement of intent about our diverse and traditional cultural identities feels even more pertinent in advance of Brexit, and would be a reflection of the views about Scotland that we have received from our international colleagues and partners.

In relation to skills development and creating a positive workplace for cultural employees, we would like to see a commitment to enabling and fostering pathways into the cultural sector. That would include – through both formal and informal education - increasing awareness of opportunities starting from a young age, through to specialist training, apprenticeship positions and potential entrance into the profession.

We do wonder however if it will be possible to commit to sustaining and embedding culture across all policy areas without increased funding.

On the subject of funding and support, the document recommends “enabling larger organisations with more sustainable funding to exploit international opportunities”. We would like to see it recognised that many other organisations in Scotland’s cultural sector – including youth organisations - can be equally strong ambassadors internationally and that funding should also be directed towards them accordingly.

In Scotland, an excellent example of a clear and concise vision and strategy can be found in the criteria for National Performing Companies, a Scottish Government document:
https://www.gov.scot/Publications/2017/03/1699/7

It is an aspirational document, that outlines fundamental support for organisations committed to excellence, international relevance as well as outreach and participation.

Internationally, Nordic countries are regularly referenced for good reason – the parallels in terms of population size and their ability to balance celebrating their traditional art forms as equals to other genres should serve as inspiration to any Scottish strategy. Two areas in which their approach is fundamentally different are the overall funding levels to the arts (which are significantly higher), and the manner in which the arts are embedded within the education curriculum. Having committed to these priorities over multiple generations, they have developed a highly skilled cultural workforce that is supported by a culturally aware, engaged and educated general population.

A newer example of good practice is Canada, which recently provided an unprecedented level of new investment to the Canada Council for the Arts with an additional $1.8 billion over 10 years for the arts, screen and media sectors (essentially a doubling of the annual pot). Like Scotland, it is reflective of a progressive government that sees arts and culture as a valuable measure of global soft power, and it too is a nation that is looking to reconcile the traditional art forms of the First Nations alongside other forms and genres.

Canada does this with a different funding and taxation methodology from those found in Scandinavia. However both models demonstrate that there is space for bold funding ambitions in national Cultural strategies.

We recognise that the strategy will require partners that embrace its vision and ambitions. As representatives of both the youth and music sectors, we already contribute significantly to many of these aims and ambitions and would look to continue to do so.

It will also be important that this this consultation process results in noticeable and genuine developments to some sections of the Strategy. If that happens, it will naturally incur trust and advocacy from the sector.

We would suggest that success might be measured according to how we compare with other countries of a similar size and cultural spend.

Through that, a commitment to arts education and the cultural sector will ensure that in a future generation we have an informed and engaged Scottish population that understands the intrinsic value of culture, irrespective of their background, and that sees the arts and creative industries as either a career pathway or as a fundamental aspect of their lives.

We find it encouraging that the strategy articulates a plan to not reduce outcomes to ‘simplistic target and output indicators’. However, with very few measurable outcomes listed within the document, it is difficult to see how these can be assessed.

We welcome the development of a new culture strategy for Scotland, and share the ethos outlined in the Vision and Strategic Aims.

Overall, it would be helpful to see more concrete, tangible outcomes documented across the strategy, with clear steps outlined towards each goal.

But mostly, we would encourage the framers of the document to be bold and adventurous. Scotland’s cultural and creative sectors are amongst the most vibrant and relevant in the world, huge assets and advertisements for the country. A strategy shouldn’t mirror the sector as it is in the moment – it should aim for a bolder ambition, encouraging the nation to be aspirational for its cultural provision and engagement into the future.

The Strategy aspires to have a meaningful impact on people from these constituencies. However without tangible outcomes it's difficult to anticipate how this could be delivered.