Funding review should reappraise what 'health' spending includes, says Culture Committee

The Committee has been looking at how culture spending can be mainstreamed across the Scottish Government, in particular working with the health sector, to maximise the benefits of culture to health, and deliver better outcomes for the Scottish population.

Despite an increasing recognition of the established health and wellbeing benefits of culture, the Committee heard that this had not so far led to transformational change in terms of either a cross-cutting approach within Government, or increased budgetary support for culture across a number of spending areas. This has contributed to what has been described as “a major implementation gap between policy ambitions and delivery on the ground” by the Auditor General for Scotland.

To improve the use of culture to better health outcomes, encourage ‘social prescribing’ and funding for cultural activities from different areas, the Committee recommended:

• Shifting funding towards preventative approaches should include consideration of a more systemic approach to multi-year funding of scalable culture projects supporting health and wellbeing,
• the National Performance Framework and the Scottish Government’s culture strategy should more explicitly recognise the positive impact which access to cultural activities can have on health and wellbeing. This could include, for example, the inclusion of data related to cultural prescribing within the national indicator which measures participation in cultural activity,
• Within the spending review there needs to be reappraisal of what is considered as health spending. Specifically, there needs to be consideration of the contribution which preventative spend in areas like the arts and other cultural activities makes towards health and wellbeing.

The Committee also heard that overall participation in cultural activities was higher among women, those with degrees or professional qualifications, those with no long-term physical or mental health conditions, those living in less deprived areas, and those with a higher household income.

Speaking as the Committee reported its findings to the Scottish Government, Convener Clare Adamson MSP, said:

“We want to empower public sector leaders to deliver a more collaborative approach, and we believe rethinking how their performance is measured will help achieve these outcomes.

“The response to the pandemic showed what the public sector is capable of when it feels empowered to work innovatively and focuses on outcomes. We want to see a similar focus and innovation mindset result from this government spending review.

“While it would undoubtedly help our cultural sector in Scotland, we believe the biggest benefits would be to communities and people in Scotland, not least those who are currently less likely to benefit from cultural activities.”