The Scottish government has announced plans to increase its spending on culture by £15.8 million in its 2024/25 budget.
This £15.8 million includes the restoration of Creative Scotland’s budget, which was cut by £6.6 million this year, forcing the public body to dip into its reserves to maintain funding levels. How the remaining £9.2 million will be distributed is yet to be revealed.
Speaking at Holyrood today, finance secretary Shona Robison said the increase was “only the first step” towards fulfilling first minister Humza Yousaf’s promise in October to increase arts and culture spending by £100m within five years.
She also announced that the Scottish government planned to increase funding for culture by a further £25 million in 2025/26.
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Robison said: “As the first instalment of delivering the first minister’s commitment to double arts and culture funding, we’ll increase funding for culture in 2024/25 by £15.8 million, restoring funding to Creative Scotland for utilising their reserves this year, and more.”
Robison continued: “This is only the first step on the route to investing at least £100m more in the arts and culture by 2028/29, and our aim to increase arts and culture investment in 2025/26 by at least a further £25 million.”
The Scottish government has been under severe pressure to increase funding for culture in recent months, after it repeatedly U-turned on its plan to cut Creative Scotland’s funding by 10%.
Scotland’s culture sector is struggling with a “perfect storm” of rising costs and standstill public funding, with Creative Scotland warning that one in three arts organisations were “at serious risk of insolvency in the short term” in September.