The Scottish government has re-imposed a £6.6m cut on arts body Creative Scotland, inclusive of national film organisation Screen Scotland, sparking concerns for what this might mean for Creative Scotland’s future funding.
Last week, the government confirmed that the cuts would go ahead in its autumn budget, despite a seemingly successful campaign from the arts sector to cancel the cuts earlier this year.
Creative Scotland will use £6.6m of National Lottery funding reserves to plug the gap. However, the reserves will only be usable for this funding cycle, with uncertainty surrounding what the 2024/5 budget will look like, and what this might mean for the already stretched creative industries.
A Screen Scotland spokesperson told Screen: “The Scottish government budget cut of £6.6m to Creative Scotland, inclusive of Screen Scotland for (2023/24), was extremely disappointing and given the pressures on budgets and risks to the culture sector, this is a concerning development.
“Creative Scotland acted swiftly to help stabilise the situation in the short term. On September 27, the Creative Scotland board agreed to use £6.6m of our National Lottery reserves to prevent us having to pass it the cut on to funded organisations.
“Using National Lottery reserves in this way will only happen once. The budget for 2024/25 will not be decided by the Scottish government for some months yet, but should the Scottish government choose to sustain any cuts, Creative Scotland will be required to pass them on to the sector.”
Screen Scotland has £4m per year for its film development and production fund, and £9m including TV. It also works to develop audiences, support screen businesses and grow Scotland’s screen infrastructure. The cuts come at a difficult time for filmmakers, in which central funding from the British Film Institute (BFI) is also under pressure, with the Filmmaking fund budget dropping from £25m per year to £18m per year from 2023-26.
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