SCOTLAND’S most prestigious arts festival is facing a cut of £200,000 in its funding.

The director of the Edinburgh International Festival, Fergus Linehan, has said he has found the proposed cut to its funding by the City of Edinburgh Council “confusing”, and has lamented what he said was a real-terms cut of more than £1m since 2009.

The council is planning on reducing the annual festival, the linchpin of the city’s annual August festival season, to £2.02m in 2020/21, a drop of £100,000, and cut a further £100,000 in 2021/22.

Mr Linehan said the trend of funding since 2009 has been down, and questioned whether the long term plan of the council was to continue to cut its funding.

He said the festival had almost become bankrupt in 2006, and although the EIF was in relatively robust financial shape now, the continual cuts could see changes in its programming.

He said: “If you are going to do free opening events at Tynecastle [such as this year] or put on shows at Leith Theatre, you need the funding.

“We need to decide what the direction of travel is. How can you plan if you see that the core funding is going to be sliced.

“This will take is down to £1.9m, and what you see is we have had a decade of a deterioration of funding.

“We will go out and hustle like crazy [to make up for the cut] but we need to know what the direction is for our core support.”

The plans are to be voted on by councillors next week.

Among those to lose out are the Collective Gallery, which has moved to a new home on Calton Hill and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

A new Flexible Fund is also to be established, worth £200,000.

SCOTLAND'S most prestigious arts festival is facing a cut of £200,000 in its funding.

The director of the Edinburgh International Festival, Fergus Linehan, has said he has found the proposed cut to its funding by the City of Edinburgh Council "confusing", and has lamented what he said was a real-terms cut of more than £1m since 2009.

The council is planning on reducing the annual festival, the lynchpin of the city's annual August festival season, to £2.02m in 2020/21, a drop of £100,000, and cut a further £100,000 in 2021/22.

Mr Linehan said the trend of funding since 2009 has been down, and questioned whether the long term plan of the council was to continue to cut its funding.

He said that the festival had almost become bankrupt in 2006, and although the EIF was in relatively robust financial shape now, the continual cuts could see changes in its programming.

He said: "If you are going to do free opening events at Tynecastle [such as this year] or put on shows at Leith Theatre, you need the funding.

"We need to decide what the direction of travel is. How can you plan if you see that the core funding is going to be sliced.

"This will take is down to £1.9m, and what you see is we have had a decade of a deterioration of funding.

"We will go out and hustle like crazy [to make up for the cut] but we need to know what the direction is for our core support."

The plans are to be voted on by councillors next week.

Among those to lose out are the Collective Gallery, which has just moved to a new home on Calton Hill, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the Scottish Fiddle Festival, which is held in Edinburgh.

A new Flexible Fund is also to be established, worth £200,000.

The programme includes two new Strategic Partnerships, one with theatre-related companies and the other with literary organisations.

This means Capital Theatres, Lung Ha, Royal Lyceum Theatre Company, Traverse and Edinburgh Performing Arts Development will work together to apply for funding.

Cllr Donald Wilson, Culture and Communities Convener for City of Edinburgh Council said: “Our grants programme has always supported the city’s year-round cultural offering.

"The development of Strategic Partnerships is intended to strengthen our cultural infrastructure for a three year in principle term from 2020/21, which I strongly believe meets our aims of sustainability and ensures Edinburgh-based practitioners, participants and audiences benefit.

“The task of creating a way to open up access to funds whilst sustaining our current cultural offering was not an easy one but I’m delighted that we have been able to create the Flexible Fund which will open the doors to companies and projects not currently funded by the council. I’m excited to see what it will fund."

He added: "While we recognise realigning our existing resources in new ways means change for some, it also allows opportunities for others. The aim is to nurture more new work and emerging artists and enable greater access to our funding programmes for previously unfunded groups in the city."

The funding will be considered by councillors on 18 June.