SCOTTISH Youth Theatre has walked this troubled stage before.
In 2014, it also suffered a rejection from Creative Scotland, and, in a dramatic move, was saved by the intervention of the then-First Minister, Alex Salmond. They have received £400,000 in targeted, Government funds since then.
Last April, like arts companies throughout the country, it applied for Regular Funding (RFO) from the arts body, a potential three-year deal which would give the 40-year-old company stability and life into the future.
However, in its ill-fated decision-making after the Scottish budget, it was to be frustrated again.
Again, Creative Scotland decided SYT, based in Glasgow, was not worthy of RFO money. And so the company is now facing closure. One board member said: "The money simply runs out in July."
What will happen now? Creative Scotland is meant to be an 'arms length' body - politicians are meant to have no say in its funding choices. And, back in 2014, some staff felt that its independence had been undermined by Salmond's sudden intervention.
Yesterday Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister, said it was of "serious concern". But she also re-iterated that arms-length principle.
One way of removing that distance would be to take the SYT and make it the sixth National Company - along with the National Theatre of Scotland, Scottish Opera, Scottish Ballet, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. It would therefore be directly funded by the Government and not have to go through the RFO ringer again. But does the government want to do this? And money is tight.
Right now, the potential death of Scottish Youth Theatre could be the first tragedy of a remarkable arts funding crisis
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here