Current status: Answered by Christina McKelvie on 4 October 2023
To ask the Scottish Government how many organisations applied to develop pilots for the launch of the Culture & Business Scotland Marketplace in May 2023; how many organisations were awarded places beginning in May 2023; how many organisations had, in addition to the pilots, or the launch of the Marketplace, developed and tested programmes ready to be rolled out across companies, and which of those organisations had the resources to do so; whether any of the organisations that were subsequently awarded places in the Culture & Business Scotland Marketplace had previously been turned down for funding or had funding reduced by Creative Scotland; if so, whether there has been any communication between the Scottish Government, Creative Scotland and Arts & Business Scotland or Culture & Business Scotland regarding the Marketplace, and how many organisations had informed Arts & Business Scotland or Culture & Business Scotland by January 2023 that they had already developed and tested programmes that had a wealth of evidence to show their effectiveness, and had teams of practitioners who are leaders in the field of arts-based wellbeing and development.
Culture & Business Scotland (C&BS) received 39 applications for the Marketplace pilot programmes. 24 of these were successful and awarded places in the Marketplace pilot. Three of the successful applicants to participate in Marketplace had developed one of their proposed products to a business before.
C&BS state that they do not ask applicants to Marketplace about their contractual relationships with funders, and therefore they do not know if applicants have previously been unsuccessful for funding or had funding reduced by Creative Scotland.