Culture ‘falling off the list’: Aberdeen arts funding in crisis

Aberdeen is facing an arts funding crisis due to cuts in the local council’s culture budget and declining national support, a Scottish Government committee on arts funding has heard.

Giving evidence to the Culture, Tourism, Europe and External Affairs Committee’s Arts Funding Inquiry, Ken Hay of Culture Aberdeen – a network that includes, amongst others, the city’s universities, Aberdeen City Council, Creative Scotland, Aberdeen Festivals and the city’s cultural organisations –  said that a 19% reduction in Aberdeen City Council’s cultural funding this financial year had left the city’s arts sector in a precarious position.

“The challenge is that local authorities, given that they have no statutory requirement to be bothered about culture, will focus on the many other things that they have to be bothered about,” Hay said.

“At the moment, ambitions locally – whatever they are – are always trumped by the need to empty the bins or to ensure that kids get education.”

Geographical inequity

A written submission to the committee from Culture Aberdeen says the city has had a real-term arts funding cut of 40% over the last nine years, when standstill national budgets are accounted for.

Funding cuts in the city have been exacerbated by “geographical inequities in funding spread, with Aberdeen receiving a disproportionately low amount of national level funding”, it says.

In a separate submission to the committee, Aberdeen City Council said that national arts funding in Scotland is biased towards Glasgow and Edinburgh.

It calls on the Scottish Government to “commit to decentralising the arts sector in Scotland” and to find ways to support regional creative economies “by requiring Creative Scotland to establish offices [outside] the central belt”. The arts funding body currently has its head office in Edinburgh and a second base in Glasgow.

Aberdeen City Council has also called for a “new or existing national [arts] company” to be established in Aberdeen and for more funding to be “devolved regionally to support arts and culture”.

Echoing the council’s concerns about a regional funding bias, Culture Aberdeen said there “is a specific issue for artists and other creative talent based outside of the central belt” in terms of attracting and retaining talent.”

It adds: “If the opportunities aren’t there then people won’t stay. The opportunities won’t be there unless there is a strategic recalibration of national level funding outside of the central belt.”

Cost of chasing money

Describing the funding ecosystem as “quite a fragile thing”, Hay noted the climate for arts funding was increasingly competitive, and that local cuts have a knock on effect.

“The only way we can continue doing what we are doing is by looking at alternative sources, but that affects all the other cultural organisations as well. We all start chasing those other areas, and that puts increasing pressure on them. Unless those sums have gone up, we have that conundrum.

“It also means that we spend more and more money on chasing money, which is slightly absurd.”

Hay also spoke of the pressing need for local councils to have a statutory obligation for cultural provision and a Scotland-wide strategic framework for arts and culture: “otherwise, culture will forever fall off the list.”

He continued: “Taking that approach would create the opportunity to dovetail what we are trying to achieve nationally with what we are trying to achieve locally.

“Aberdeen has made huge strides in the past 20 years by investing more in its festivals. That has got the local community more actively involved, but it has also put Aberdeen on the map as a cultural city. 

“Part of the challenge over the past two years is that a large chunk of that funding has gone, which sends out the message that Aberdeen is no longer that kind of city. That is high risk.”

Councils responsible for culture

A Scottish Government spokesperson said that individual councils are responsible for their own culture budgets.

They noted Aberdeen City Council will receive £380 million to fund local services this financial year: “using council tax powers, it will also generate an additional £5.5m, resulting in a total of £386.1m– an increase of £25.7m or 7.1%.”

The Government is also investing £296 million in Scotland’s culture and heritage sector in 2019/20.

“We will continue to do all we can to protect Scotland’s culture and historic environment and to ensure that our diverse and world-class cultural scene and rich heritage continue to thrive.”