The cross-party parliamentary committee for Education, Lifelong Learning &
Culture has
concluded its Stage One examination of the Creative Scotland Bill. Its findings
are now
online:
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/s3/committees/ellc/reports-08/edr08-03-01.htm

Our written evidence to the committee earlier this year identified three main
areas of
concern:
1) the huge number of "creative industries" the new body will be supporting, far
more than
the combined remit of the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen
2) Creative Scotland will have to do this work with less money than those two
organisations, and there remains confusion over whether they will receive a
concordant
transfer of "creative industries" funding from Scottish Enterprise, as promised
in the 2007
SNP manifesto
3) there are as yet no guarantees of dedicated visual arts representation at the
board level
nor a discrete visual arts budget
Like many other arts organisations we were also worried about the Bill's paucity
of detail
and its author's stated reluctance to define words such as culture, creativity
etc. and willful
exclusion of the word "artists".

The committee's findings reflect these concerns only in part. On the positive
side, they
say:
-The Committee is concerned that the measures included in the Bill do not match
the
rhetoric from the Scottish Government.
-The economic role and functions of Creative Scotland in particular need to be
further
defined.
-The Committee further considers it would have been helpful for the relationship
between
Creative Scotland and the enterprise agencies to have been clearly determined
before the
introduction of the Bill.
-The Committee is concerned over contradictory evidence received on the transfer
of
resources. The Committee further noted that witnesses presented evidence that
Creative
Scotland is being asked to do more with a diminishing budget and the Committee
shares
these concerns.
-The Committee endorses the principle of the establishment of a single national
cultural
body, to be called `Creative Scotland'. However, the Committee has significant
concerns as
to whether the Bill as drafted will meet its objectives.

However, the SAU is disappointed to learn that:
-On balance, the Committee agrees with the Bill's approach regarding definition
of terms
such as `arts and culture' and `creativity', but believes how Creative Scotland
interprets
these is of significance in terms of how it delivers its functions.
-The Committee notes the arguments by COSLA and others for formal representation
of
constituencies of interest on the Creative Scotland board. However, the
Committee is not
convinced by these arguments.

The SAU cannot accept the concept of a new Scottish cultural development agency
charged to do more than the two it will replace with less resources than both
combined,
given no definition as to which sectors constitute its sole responsibility and
enabled by
deliberately vague legislation, one of the few specific points of which is to
exclude artists-
the wellspring of creativity- from the language of its remit.

We will continue to make these points as the Bill enters its second stage of
consideration
and the text is amended.