Creative Scotland has launched a strong defence of its practice and policies, but its chief executive said more could be done to communicate with artists and cultural companies.

Andrew Dixon, leader of the arts funding body which has been under sustained criticism – including a strongly worded attack from leading poet Don Paterson in The Herald – told MSPs he "put his hands up" and said more could be done to communicate with the cultural sector.

In a 90-minute session at the Scottish Parliament's culture committee, Mr Dixon said he was confident the body's plans would come to fruition. He said its controversial commissioning role was only 20% of its work, and was used to address weaknesses or enhance strengths.

The committee also heard from Francis McKee, director of the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow, who said: "Trust is being lost at the moment, and that's dangerous."

Creative Scotland's removal of fixed-term funding for more than 40 com-panies has caused great controversy.

Mr Dixon told the committee: "We've not been good enough about getting information out about change. "

Marco Biagi, MSP, asked about the balance between Creative Scotland's role of funding art and artists, and taking an active commissioning role.

Mr Dixon said: "The reality is that 80% of what we do is invest in cultural organisations and artists and 20% is to identify gaps and build on our strengths."

He said using Lottery money instead of Government funds was not breaking any rules on Lottery "additionality" that is directly replacing Government funds.

MSP Joan McAlpine asked whether putting arts companies on project funding was "interfering in their artistic freedom".

Mr Dixon said: "What we are doing is trying to devolve money to cultural organisations to take decisions themselves."

Last week Mr Paterson, one of Scotland's leading writers, said in an article that Creative Scotland was a "dysfunctional ant-heap" and should be abolished.