The future funding of the arts in Scotland is a blank canvas, at least until Creative Scotland, the funding body that will replace the Scottish Arts Council (SAC) and Scottish Screen, emerges in final form from the Culture Bill to be put before parliament later this year. An invitation to draw on that canvas brought movers and shakers from different arts perspectives to suggest a range of possibilities which could multiply the amount available for artistic activity. It signals a philosophical change from dependence on grants to a more sophisticated mix of loans (possibly at low or zero interest from the public purse or charities), investment by venture capitalists and individuals. There is agreement that grants should remain as a key element and that will be important in attracting additional funds. Debate will continue about how they should be disbursed, with a strong lobby from arts administrators for more grants to be made over a five-year period. As the 50 companies which receive five-year foundation funding have found, it allows forward planning, which is vital in retaining performers and backstage staff. Few will have the appetite for the suggestion by Brian McMaster, former director of the Edinburgh International Festival, that the scheme in which elite companies in England are allocated funds on a 10-year basis be extended north of the border.

The future funding of the arts in Scotland is a blank canvas, at least until Creative Scotland, the funding body that will replace the Scottish Arts Council (SAC) and Scottish Screen, emerges in final form from the Culture Bill to be put before parliament later this year. An invitation to draw on that canvas brought movers and shakers from different arts perspectives to suggest a range of possibilities which could multiply the amount available for artistic activity. It signals a philosophical change from dependence on grants to a more sophisticated mix of loans (possibly at low or zero interest from the public purse or charities), investment by venture capitalists and individuals. There is agreement that grants should remain as a key element and that will be important in attracting additional funds. Debate will continue about how they should be disbursed, with a strong lobby from arts administrators for more grants to be made over a five-year period. As the 50 companies which receive five-year foundation funding have found, it allows forward planning, which is vital in retaining performers and backstage staff. Few will have the appetite for the suggestion by Brian McMaster, former director of the Edinburgh International Festival, that the scheme in which elite companies in England are allocated funds on a 10-year basis be extended north of the border.

In Scotland, a significant change to the disbursement of public funds for the arts has been the transfer of the five national companies - Scottish Opera, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Scottish Ballet and the National Theatre of Scotland - from the SAC's budget to direct government funding. That should provide them with stability, but allow more leeway for smaller companies to be funded in a way which rewards originality and creativity as well as artistic excellence. It now seems they will be encouraged to apply equally innovative thinking to their funding mechanisms. That is welcome. Linda Fabiani, the Culture Minister, said Creative Scotland "will have a licence from the government to take risks, to stimulate controversy and challenge accepted thinking". Just how much controversy will be tolerated has yet to be tested, but the arts, to be meaningful, must be challenging.

Creative Scotland has been described as "a new type of cultural development agency" by Anne Bonnar, appointed to oversee the transition. That will ring warning bells for some, but the evidence from the "culture summit" is that the idea of the arts as a driver for economic payback is not the main impetus. There will always be more calls on an arts budget than it can meet. Public money has to be balanced between supporting artistic excellence at a professional level and allowing everyone to access the arts. The SNP government is ending the funding for cultural co-ordinators whose role was to introduce schoolchildren to the arts and arrange cultural visits. That seems short-sighted but, with Ms Bonnar talking of the arts as "creative industries", the idea of them being less dependent on the public purse suggests more taxpayers' money could be used to widen access to all sorts of artistic experience. Cultural enrichment benefits all of society, and we should encourage private as well as public investment.