Funding boost puts Scotland’s arts sector on a firm footing - Angus Robertson


We are the first nation to provide multi-year funding at scale for cultural organisations through Creative Scotland, the country’s public development body for the arts and creative industries in Scotland.
The provision of funding will see the largest portfolio of cultural organisations ever to be supported on a multi-year basis. Indeed, £200m in support will be provided to 251 organisations across the length and breadth of the country over the next three years.
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Hide AdA record 141 organisations are new to multi-year funding, bringing stability and longer-term certainty to more parts of Scotland’s culture sector than ever before. More than a third of the portfolio is receiving awards of between £50k and £120k in 2025/26, which is an increase in smaller organisations now benefiting from year-on-year funding.
Organisations with an existing regular funding relationship with Creative Scotland will receive an average uplift of 34 per cent in 2025/26, increasing to an average of 54 per cent from 2026/27. Multi-year funding supporting organisations working across all parts of Scotland, with base locations in 27 local authorities, up from 21 previously. Over a third of organisations (35.5 per cent) deliver their work across all parts of Scotland.
Further to this, 13 other organisations will be supported by a £3.2m development fund, with a view to them joining the multi-year funding portfolio in 2026/27. While Creative Scotland cannot fund every organisation, all unsuccessful applicants will be offered bespoke support from Creative Scotland to adapt their business models for future success.
Above all, the multi-year funding programme is designed to provide stable, long-term financial support to creative and cultural organisations in Scotland, covering core costs and programmes of work that form much of the fabric of our nation's cultural offering.
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Hide AdFurthermore, and while this will not fix every challenge of the culture sector or secure every organisation’s future, there is more help on the way. The Scottish Government’s commitment to increase culture spending by £100 million by 2028/29 means that even greater resources will be available to the sector in future years. At the passing of the budget, we will be, subject to usual budgetary processes, ahead of schedule delivering this uplift, having been able to commit to spending an additional £34m this coming financial year, above the forecast £25m.
Scotland’s culture scene will be lifted as a whole but, as one of the globe’s cultural gems, Edinburgh will see over 40 organisations receive record multi-year funding worth tens of millions.
Edinburgh International Festival director Nicola Benedetti has recognised this funding as ‘hugely encouraging and symbolically powerful,’ and will allow organisations to ‘plan with certainty and newfound confidence’.
Mike Griffiths, co-chief executive of The Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh, said the funding is “an acknowledgement by Creative Scotland and the Scottish Government of the value that art and culture bring to the lives of the people of Scotland and its economy.”
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Hide AdWhile culture funding elsewhere in the UK is being cut by Labour, I’m proud that the Scottish Government is backing our culture sector. I look forward to seeing the results of this new funding and to continue to work with stakeholders to support and grow the sector further still.
Angus Robertson is Constitution, External Affairs and Culture Secretary
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