Chamber and committees

Are there events in Clackmannanshire?

Having previously been responsible for the enterprise companies, I will say that there is a difference in their remits. I am not arguing with your point, cabinet secretary. There might be a role for Scottish Enterprise to view cultural initiatives more broadly, that is, as also being economic initiatives. I understand that point. However, from memory, HIE was set up with a specific remit to do that, and I am not sure that Scottish Enterprise was.

However, it goes to the point that we made. The committee requested information about cross-portfolio working in relation to that, but precious little detail has come back to us about any initiative—there is a little bit, but not much.

To go back to the point about Clackmannanshire, it is not down to individual members to provide such information. I could cite a number of people who have grown weary of making applications to Creative Scotland and no longer do it. In a small place such as Clackmannanshire, it is very difficult to maintain an infrastructure without at least periodic success.

My point is that we are not in year zero. Creative Scotland has existed for 16 years. What does it know? What has it done in relation to Clackmannanshire? That area’s next-door neighbour, Stirling, has been relatively successful, but is still well below average in what it gets. What is Creative Scotland doing?

I do not know what the Scottish Government can do, but it should be seized of the need to do something urgently in that area. I have been talking about Clackmannanshire but, for example, West Dunbartonshire probably also comes at the bottom of most Scottish deprivation indices and is getting nothing at all. This is a pressing and urgent problem and the Scottish Government and Creative Scotland especially should show a bit more urgency in dealing with it. Culture is important and is no less important to areas of huge deprivation.

I am keen to hear about that. I have asked Creative Scotland to provide a pattern of its grants and support over the 16 years of its existence, for both Stirling and Clackmannanshire, and it has undertaken to do that. However, it would be nice to see it taking a joined-up approach with the Scottish Government to considering how the issue can best be addressed urgently.

I want to go back to the convener’s opening question about the disparity between local authority areas. The convener mentioned Clackmannanshire and West Dunbartonshire, which are noticeable, as those are two areas of the greatest deprivation in Scotland, but they received nothing at all in multiyear funding. I would be interested to know how that has developed over the 16 or 17 years since Creative Scotland was created. I probably do not need the specific detail, as that would be hard to recollect, but has there ever been a period of bounty for Clackmannanshire, for example, or has the situation been pretty consistent?

It would be useful to get that information. If possible, it would also be good to get information for Stirling. I represent quite a chunk of Stirling and hope to represent a larger chunk of it after the election. It would be interesting to see what the pattern has been there. I see that the figure sits at around £12 per capita, which is still below the average, although it is an awful lot more than nothing at all, as we see in Clackmannanshire. I want to try to understand why that is. It is hard to judge until I get the information on how the different patterns have emerged.

You have said that you keep a close eye on the situation, but we are now 16 years into Creative Scotland, and its investment in Clackmannanshire, at least through multiyear funding, is zero. That is an area of substantial deprivation, so I find that hard to understand. It is no consolation to folk in Clackmannanshire to say that 28 other local authorities now receive funding. They are not receiving it, and their need is substantial.

It is not just about being seen; the experience of the arts and culture sector in Clackmannanshire also concerns me.

You mentioned Stirling. I would have thought that Stirling would be relatively vibrant due to the creation of Creative Stirling and some of the activity that has been associated with that, but, at £12, the figure for Stirling is still well below the average for multiyear funding, which is £17. The discrepancy in that chart is striking. You have said that you will provide a pattern over the past 16 years for Stirling and Clacks. In some ways, they are cheek by jowl and pretty hard to disentangle, but can you give us an idea of how many RFOs there are in those respective local authority areas?

You have, quite rightly, over the years, pushed and pushed for multiyear funding, because of the particular advantages of multiyear funding for organisations. For all the work that you said you have done, you have ended up in the situation in Clackmannanshire, as well as in three other local authority areas, where there is no multiyear funding.

Perhaps it is time to have a wee look at what has been going on and whether it is the right approach. Perhaps a different approach is needed for those authorities. North Lanarkshire is not much better—17p per head. Such a discrepancy should be a very urgent issue for Creative Scotland. I will leave it at that.

You rightly mentioned the huge uplift in culture funding in Scotland, not least as it compares to England and Wales. We have all supported that. You also mentioned the extent to which you are focused on multiyear funding, but that is utterly irrelevant in places such as Clackmannanshire, which receives no multiyear funding.

In the previous session, we had a little hint about why Creative Scotland believes that to be the case. It implied that it was down to those areas, because they cannot get their act together and make applications, which is an explanation that I find completely unacceptable. I hope that Creative Scotland and the Scottish Government will consider that because, although I understand the constraints on the Government when it comes to specific applications, it cannot be acceptable for those areas to get no funding whatsoever. More applications are being granted and more money is being given to organisations outwith Scotland from that funding, than to four local authority areas in Scotland.

I take it from that that you cannot give an account of the shape of Creative Scotland funding in Clackmannanshire. Was it in 2010 that Creative Scotland came into being?

Can you give an impression of what the spend has been like over the past 16 years?

It is far from perfect—with regard to Clackmannanshire, it is as far from perfect as you can get. Given your comment that Creative Scotland is a responsive organisation, I say that it must do a lot more than respond; it must be a body that encourages applications. I could list the number of people in Clackmannanshire who no longer make applications to Creative Scotland because they have been beaten down over the years by defeats, and who feel that there is no point in doing that any more. That has had a big effect in a small local authority area.

Creative Scotland must surely have a bigger role to play than just waiting to see who makes an application or implying criticism of those who do not have the capacity to make an application. It has to be a bit more than that if Creative Scotland is to properly represent the whole of Scotland.

10:00