THE chairman of Creative Scotland has signalled there will be no change in policy at the national arts body whose recent funding shake-up has proved to be controversial.
Sir Sandy Crombie, the former chief executive of Standard Life, has responded to a letter from leading playwrights which said the removal of the multi-year Flexible Funding regime for 49 companies and its replacement with project funding was a "catastrophic error of judgment".
Sir Sandy thanked the writers, including Peter Arnott, David Greig, David Harrower, Zinnie Harris, Linda McLean and Douglas Maxwell, for the letter and said the organisations affected by the change are "vitally important to arts and culture".
However, he went on to defend changes in the funding system, which he said are driven by the change in balance between Lottery funds, which are increasing substantially to £32m by 2014, and the body's core grant from the Scottish Government, which is to decline to £33.4m.
"It's also worth remembering that the current group of FXOs [flexible funded organisations] account for around 10% of Creative Scotland's total investment in arts and culture in 2011/12," he writes. "There are many organisations, groups, individuals and artists in whom we invest and who are not part of the FXO funding arrangement. Many of them have welcomed the opportunity now to have access to increased resources."
Sir Sandy says that Creative Scotland will listen to "constructive feedback from the cultural sector". He adds: "We do recognise that the most effective form of communication is dialogue during which we can begin to reduce the uncertainty regarding what the future holds for individual organisations."
Tomorrow, Creative Scotland is holding an explanatory roadshow in Inverness, with one to come at Glasgow's Lighthouse on June 20, and another to be staged in Dundee.
Forty-nine companies, including notable names such as the CCA in Glasgow, NVA, The Common Guild, Vanishing Point and Grid Iron, will now have to apply for project funding, while 22, including major festivals such as Celtic Connections and the Edinburgh Fringe, are now on annual funding.
Creative Scotland has said more money is now available through a significant rise in National Lottery funds, and £2 million has been set aside to help companies' "transition" from being flexibly funded to being project funded.
Chief executive Andrew Dixon said the changes are "not about cuts" and that the flexibly funded organisations are some of the most important in the country and are likely to be funded again.
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