Keith Bruce
Scottish Youth Theatre will have to produce plans that meet with the approval of the Creative Scotland before it receives any of the £1m pledged to youth arts by retiring First Minister Alex Salmond at the SNP conference last year.
The newly appointed chairman of Creative Scotland (CS), Richard Findlay, said that he welcomed the appointment of consultants by the youth theatre company to reshape its case for a share of the extra money found by the Government after SYT failed to secure regular funding under the quango's new grant structure.
"The money is being made available to Creative Scotland, and the criteria for how that money is spent is up to Creative Scotland," said Mr Findlay. "The youth theatre is important, but when weighed up against other applicants we weren't able to fund it. We have given it some money for a transitional period, and it has wisely decided to use that money to bring in an outside consultant to help it reshape its case for funding and I am optimistic that they will come up with something that makes sense and then we can release the money that the Government has given us.
"But it is not just for the national youth theatre, it will go to other youth arts organisations as well."
Mr Findlay was speaking at the Waverley Gate headquarters of Creative Scotland for the first time since his appointment to succeed Sir Sandy Crombie as head of the board of the embattled arts body. He brings experience to the post of a long career in broadcasting and the arts, having chaired Scottish Television and Scottish Radio Holdings as well as Edinburgh's Royal Lyceum and, most recently, being the first chairman of the National Theatre of Scotland.
His history in some ways parallels that of the late Sir William Brown, a respected chair of the Scottish Arts Council in the early 1990s, and contrasts with the business background of his predecessor. However he denied that Creative Scotland was reverting to an arts council model.
"I chaired the Lyceum in the 90s, when you went to the arts council you went as a supplicant. That's wrong, and having been in that position I don't want anybody to be in that position again. We need to be a partnership organisation working with the cultural community." he said. "We'll always have difficult decisions to make at the end of the day but if we are open and honest and straightforward with people, then hopefully they may not like it, but at least they will understand the reasons for the decisions that we have made."
Mr Findlay declared his support for a Scottish film studio, but declined to be drawn on where that facility might be situated. "So many of the commissioning decision are still being made in London, but a missing part of the jigsaw is the need for a film studio which I personally do support. And that is a process that I hope will be brought a conclusion reasonably soon. We are not driving that timescale, but the point is nearing where a decision has to be made."
On the day when the Scottish Government assigned a further £10m towards the construction of the V&A Museum of Design, Mr Findlay was clear that the over-budget project would have to look elsewhere to make up the shortfall in its cost.
"We have allocated £5m and fully support it. It is good for Dundee and good for Scotland, and it is good to hear this morning that the Government has decided to put more money in. But we're quite clear that our commitment is our commitment, and we don't have the funds to go further than that."
ends
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