Scottish budget: Huge ‘relief’ that arts and culture funding will rise by £34m

The Scottish government has pledged to make a series of funding increases to the country’s arts and culture sector as part of its draft budget announcement for 2025- 26.

Addressing Holyrood today (04 December), Finance Secretary Shona Robison said the SNP had “heard in particular the concerns of the culture sector”, citing the challenges that “the Tory cost-of-living crisis, inflation and Labour’s national insurance hike posed to their future”.

Robison announced that the budget for culture will rise by £34m next year, calling it a “record increase” and “transformational” for the sector.

Recommitting to the party’s previous pledge to increase arts and culture funding by £100m by 2028-29, Robison said she was planning a further rise of £20m next year.

The additional financing in the budget paper includes £20m for Creative Scotland’s 2025-26 multi-year funding programme, taking it from £34m this year to £54m.

In total, Creative Scotland’s 2025-26 budget is projected to be £80m, compared with £51.4m after the 2024-25 Autumn Budget revision and £56.2m in 2023-24.

Additionally, Robison said the budget would include relief from non-domestic rates for music venues and an additional £2 million for Screen Scotland.

Urging all MSPs to vote in favour of the minority government’s budget, Cabinet Secretary for Culture Angus Robertson‬ wrote on Bluesky that there would also be “uplifts” to National Performing Companies, a doubling of Festivals EXPO funding, above-inflation increases to Sistema and the Youth Music Initiative and a restart the Culture Collective programme.

‘Maximise the impact of public funding’

Just before the announcement Robertson‬ confirmed that a planned review of Creative Scotland and the wider arts and culture sector would begin sector engagement early this year. It will publish its recommendations by summer 2025, calling it “a necessary part of a wider piece of work to maximise the impact of public funding”.

Speaking during portfolio questions, Green Party MSP Patrick Harvie said that both the review and “the trajectory toward £100 million of additional culture funding” offered “a huge opportunity to improve much about the culture sector,” particularly addressing issues such as fair work.

Robertson said: “It’s our belief that public sector funding should deliver wider societal benefits, such as the promotion of fair work, in order to support the development of a sustainable and successful well-being economy over the long term.

“That is fair, that is green and is growing, and the Fair Work Taskforce is due to present its recommendations in June 2025, and this will allow them to be considered during the course of the review.”

‘Better than expected’

The Federation of Scottish Theatre‬ said the increased culture spending was “better than expected” and “a positive sign for the sector”, while Creative Scotland said it was “enormously welcome.”

It follows uncertainty over Creative Scotland’s budget from the government, which led it to briefly close its Open Fund in the autumn and delay decisions over its new multi-year funding programme.

Outcomes for 281 multi-year grant applications, amounting to £87.5m, were due by the end of October but were instead deferred until the end of January 2025 after Holyrood admitted it could not offer Creative Scotland funding clarity until the release of its draft budget.

The delay followed months of messy cultural funding announcements, cuts and u-turns, with Robertson implying that Holyrood was waiting on the UK government’s Autumn Budget before making any commitments in the short term.

An extra £3.4bn was made available to Robison by the UK government for today’s draft budget, but with pledges such as a 9.3% average increase in pay for public sector employees and a partial reversal of the winter fuel payments taking up a significant chunk, it was unclear whether the arts and culture sector’s lobbying would be successful.

Marlene Curran, an official for Equity Scotland, said its members’ voices had been heard.

“There will be a collective sigh of relief at today’s culture funding announcement and music venue exemption from non-domestic rates”, said Curran. “The uncertainty has been painful, and many artists and organisations have suffered while funding u-turns pulled the rug from under them.

“This money has been promised, taken away, dangled, hinted and thankfully now confirmed. It will be huge relief to performers of all kinds, as well as the many cultural organisations across Scotland who rely so heavily on this arts funding to survive.”

MSPs will vote on the final budget reading in February.