The head of Scotland's leading arts body has strongly defended controversial changes to its funding system.

Andrew Dixon, chief executive of Creative Scotland, said that instead of cuts, more money was now on offer to Scotland's leading arts companies.

Last week, Creative Scotland revealed how more than 70 companies would be put on either project funding or annual funding, with three companies given stable Foundation Funding.

Forty-nine companies, including notable names such as the CCA in Glasgow, NVA, The Common Guild, Vanishing Point, the Talbot Rice Gallery and Grid Iron, are now on project funding, while 22, including major festivals such as Celtic Connections, GI, the St Magnus Festival in Orkney, and the Edinburgh Fringe, are now on annual funding.

The changes led to companies expressing fears that not only were their futures now uncertain, but project-by-project funding could bring instability that they did not have under the previous two-year regime, known as Flexible Funding.

Mr Dixon, who is in Cannes for the official Scotland Day, told The Herald: "There is nothing to stop a lot of those companies coming forward with [project-based] plans for one or two years.

"We actually have more [Lottery] resources for them to bid into than the programme they have come from. And of course these are our top companies, producers and festivals, these are people who you absolutely want to invest in – there is no question of us not wanting to invest in them. What we have been trying to do is give them opportunity to grow."