GUEST VOCALS LINDA FABIANI

Tomorrow I am addressing the Scottish Arts Council's conference entitled Scotland: Creative Nation. It provides a timely opportunity to look forward with anticipation to Creative Scotland, a new body with a vital task: to develop the country's creative talent and excellence.

The Scottish government has fresh ambitions to advance Scotland's prosperity and success based on a new, confident sense of cultural identity. Our national conversation has also inspired a country-wide debate about our national constitution.

The Creative Scotland Bill goes before Holyrood shortly, and we hope the body will be in place around this time next year. The bill will ensure ministers are unable to interfere in its artistic judgement regarding whom it supports financially and which art forms it chooses to develop and encourage.

Creative Scotland will have a strategic leadership role. The influence of arts and creativity needs to be felt more widely in Scotland. The education, enterprise, health and social justice sectors should discover a partner that can help find new, effective ways to improve public services and national prosperity.

Our artists, practitioners and creative businesses should be helped to new levels of aspiration and achievement, while arts providers should discover a ready source of advice and advocacy and a partner in promoting excellence and success in our nation and communities.

Our cultural identity is unique and diverse, embracing every kind of art form and creative endeavour, and of course our rich linguistic heritage. It is also rooted in a passion for innovation and new ideas - from ballads and oral histories to visual arts installations and high-tech computer graphics.

The government's economic strategy identifies these creative industries as a key sector of the economy, worth more than £4 billion and supporting 60,000 jobs. Creative Scotland will be a key driver in supporting and investing in them.

I am also determined that our culture will play its part in developing international relationships. I see a role for cultural diplomacy in persuading people to live, learn, visit, work, do business in and invest in Scotland. And, if our culture is to be truly life-enhancing, we must understand and overcome the barriers preventing many from participating in the arts. Creative Scotland will take these issues forward.

Our commitment to our cultural scene is aspirational and practical. An exciting and inspiring time lies ahead.