The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations is the membership organisation for Scotland's charities, voluntary organisations and social enterprises. Charity registered in Scotland SC003558. Registered office Caledonian Exchange, 19A Canning Street, Edinburgh EH3 8EG.
Culture & creativity
The vast majority of Scotland’s cultural organisations are constituted as charities or not-for-profits, meaning they are part of, and reliant upon, the same funding landscape as the rest of the voluntary sector. And, like the rest of the sector, they are struggling. Short-term funding, delayed decisions, standstill settlements that fail to account for inflation, and a lack of support for core costs are all placing enormous strain on organisations that deliver enormous value for Scotland.
Culture is not a luxury or an optional extra. It is fundamental to who we are as a nation, to our sense of identity and belonging, and to our health, wellbeing, and economy. Scotland’s cultural organisations enrich lives, bring communities together, support learning and creativity, and make an enormous contribution to our economy, not least through tourism. Yet the organisations delivering this value are too often left in a state of financial precarity.
The impact of this precarity is felt right across the sector. Organisations are unable to plan ahead, forced instead to focus on short-term survival. Skilled, experienced staff are lost to more secure employment elsewhere. And the freelancers who make up such a significant part of the cultural workforce face particular insecurity, with little in the way of stability or protection.
Fair Funding would provide the stability and security that Scotland’s cultural organisations so desperately need. Multi-year funding, timely decisions, inflationary uplifts, and support for core costs would allow the sector to plan ahead, retain skilled staff, and continue delivering the cultural value that means so much to Scotland.
Fair Funding would provide the support we need
The value of Scotland’s cultural sector is difficult to overstate. From our world-renowned festivals to our local museums, galleries, theatres, and community arts organisations, culture is woven into the fabric of Scottish life. It enriches our communities, supports our wellbeing, strengthens our sense of identity, and makes an enormous contribution to our economy. The Scottish Government has itself recognised this value, committing to significantly increase investment in culture over the coming years.
Yet the organisations that deliver this cultural value continue to operate within a funding landscape that is complex, uncertain, and frequently fails to provide the stability and security they need. As overwhelmingly charitable and not-for-profit organisations, cultural bodies face exactly the same challenges as the wider voluntary sector, including short-term funding, delayed decisions, standstill settlements, and a chronic lack of support for the core costs that underpin all of their work.
“The complexity of the funding landscape is exhausting,” explains a cultural organisation working across several art forms. “We’re constantly piecing together funding from multiple sources, each with their own requirements and timescales, just to keep going. It leaves very little time or energy for the actual creative work.”
“Standstill funding, with no recognition of inflation, is effectively a cut,” admits a small arts charity. “Our costs keep rising, but our funding stays the same, and we’re expected to somehow deliver more each year with less in real terms.”
“The insecurity affects everyone – our staff, our freelancers, and ultimately the communities we serve,” adds an organisation delivering community-based cultural activities. “We lose brilliant people because we can’t offer them any security, and that has a real impact on the quality and consistency of what we can provide.”
The implementation of Fair Funding would allow Scotland’s cultural organisations to move away from this constant precarity, providing the stability and security needed to plan ahead, retain skilled staff, support freelancers, and continue delivering the cultural value that means so much to communities across the country.
“Fair Funding would provide the support we need to plan properly, invest in our people, and focus on delivering the best possible cultural experiences,” says the multi-artform cultural organisation. “It would make an enormous difference to the whole sector.”
Independent Arts Projects
Independent Arts Projects is a creative producing organisation that develops and delivers ambitious arts projects across Scotland. Working with artists and communities, the organisation creates high-quality cultural experiences that engage audiences, support artistic development, and make a meaningful contribution to Scotland’s cultural life. From large-scale public events to intimate community-based projects, Independent Arts Projects plays an important role in Scotland’s vibrant cultural ecosystem.
As with so many organisations across the cultural sector, however, Independent Arts Projects operates within a funding landscape that is complex, uncertain, and frequently challenging to navigate. Much of the funding available is short-term and project-specific, requiring the organisation to piece together support from multiple sources, each with its own requirements, timescales, and reporting demands. This creates a significant administrative burden and makes it extremely difficult to plan ahead with any real confidence.
The short-term nature of much of this funding is compounded by the timing of funding decisions, which are often made late, leaving the organisation uncertain about its future until the last possible moment. This uncertainty makes it difficult to commit to projects, to plan for the long-term, and to offer any real security to the staff and freelancers who are so central to the organisation’s work. As a producing organisation working with freelance artists and creative practitioners, this insecurity has a knock-on effect throughout the creative workforce.
The lack of support for core costs presents a further challenge. Like many cultural organisations, Independent Arts Projects finds that funders are often willing to support specific projects but far less willing to support the essential infrastructure and capacity that make those projects possible. This leaves the organisation in the difficult position of delivering an increasing volume of work while the core capacity needed to manage and sustain that work remains dangerously stretched.
For Independent Arts Projects, the implementation of Fair Funding – including multi-year funding, timely decisions, and greater support for core costs – would be genuinely transformational. It would provide the stability required to plan ahead, invest in people, support freelance artists, and continue delivering the ambitious, high-quality cultural work that enriches communities and contributes so much to Scotland’s cultural life.