Scottish Artists Union Member and former president Guyan Porter, along with
Leigh French
of Variant magazine, has written a letter intended for circulation to the
parliamentary
Cross-Party Group on Culture and Media, culture spokespersons and heads of all
political
parties in Scotland, MSPs of the Art Advisory Group, other concerned MSPs and
the media.

The SAU is currently calling for Creative Scotland to be excluded from the
forth-coming
Public Services Reform Bill as we feel the government are moving to prevent
proper
scrutiny and debate over the new agency's inception. Messrs Porter and French
are asking
that Creative Scotland be abandoned outright. We feel that this position is
understandable
as artist undoubtedly feel excluded from and resentful of the Creative Scotland
project.
We live in hope that an artist-centric vision for Creative Scotland may yet be
forth-coming
and accept that there are many views on the matter. We are assured all of us in
the sector
want the same thing; a markedly better proposition than the present government's
proposal.

The letter reads as follows:
"Dear Member of the Scottish Parliament,

It is with great concern, that we, the undersigned are contacting you. No doubt
you will
be aware that there has been growing apprehension regarding the formation of
Creative
Scotland, and the effects it will have on artists' welfare and practice. The
situation
regarding Creative Scotland has now reached crisis point. We believe the
following
measures to be particularly damaging to the cultural freedoms and 'entitlements'
originally
envisaged by the Culture Commission:

- The lack of meaningful consultation with the arts communities during the
transition
process, culminating in a refusal to refer to artists within the strategy at
all, has exposed
the abandonment of freedom of expression as a central issue.

- The expanded remit to support the creative industries, without additional
funding being
reallocated from Scottish Enterprise, will be at the expense of the public
funding of artistic
independence.

- The huge costs of setting up a new institution, coupled with over-stretched
resources,
will inevitably result in a damaging cut in grant aid funding for artists and
arts
organisations.

- The proposed exploitation of Intellectual Property Rights and the introduction
of loans
coupled with a cut in grant aid, will all act to reinforce artists' poverty. The
case of
Catalonia shows that increasing artists' debts has been disastrous for all
concerned.

We feel strongly that this bureaucratic process has not concerned itself with
representing
artists' needs, nor does it address UNESCO declarations on culture and freedom.
We have
no confidence in the process of the formation of Creative Scotland, or the
confused and
inappropriate proposals that have arisen. We are simply not convinced that the
proposals
will promote the development of and entitlement to culture in Scotland. Whilst
many of us
have been critical of the existing institutions, Creative Scotland does not
offer
improvement on the current provision managed by the Scottish Arts Council and
Scottish
Screen, and will impact negatively on Scotland's international reputation. For
these
reasons, we urge you to vote against the formation of Creative Scotland and
instead
refocus on supporting artists."

To reiterate: the above letter was not written by the Scottish Artists Union
Executive and is
not an official statement of our position on Creative Scotland. However we feel
it
accurately portrays the current feeling of many of our members and practitioners
in
various media and art forms across Scotland. If you are one of them, you can
add your
signature to the letter by emailing your name and email address to the authors
by Sunday
20th December.
Guyan Porter : guyanporter@...
Leigh French: variantmag@...