Short-sighted cutting of arts funding will impoverish all our lives

And that anguish is very real. Only a ­handful of people who choose a career in the arts and creative industries make ­serious money. The rest live from hand to mouth; often relying on money from ­Creative ­Scotland to keep a shaky ­financial show on the road or buy that priceless ­commodity – time.

Time is very literally of the essence in this sector, whether it’s needed to construct a novel, a play, a project or a poem. ­Thinking time is the essential prerequisite of good work and, for that matter, a safety net ­allowing for occasional failure.

We’re not talking small beer here in any sense at all. The 90,000 plus people who work in some part of our creative industries generate literally billions of pounds for the economy.

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Ironically, this not-so-small but largely unheralded army has been celebrated by Creative Scotland’s own Creative Voice ­initiative – a device, including a short vimeo, to celebrate the varied ways in which the cultural sector in all its many forms is also vital to the nation’s health and wellbeing as well as its bottom line.

I know from my own years on the ­Creative Scotland board, before ­resigning, that ­balancing its budget is an annual ­headache. Nobody wins popularity contests being responsible for arts funding, and over the years, it’s managed to de-clutter some of the bureaucracy and attempted to de-jargonise its application forms.

(Though many wet towels are still wrapped around an awful lot of heads come form-filling time.) In fairness, it attempted to streamline the process in response to the cultural ­sector rising up as one when it felt strangulation by red tape was not a good way to go. But there are a lot of good people working there, who care a great deal about the arts.

I vividly recall a year when the senior team outlined a budget which, if not given more dosh from the Government, would have wiped out half of Scotland’s most ­venerable institutions.

Part of the problem lies in the ­conundrum of keeping regularly funded organisations from bankruptcy (or heart attacks) while trying to nurture newer kids on the block. Heads they lose, tails they lose.

The current crisis stems from Creative Scotland failing to get a promised £6.6 million from the Scottish Government, thus having to raid its National Lottery reserves last year to keep its own show on the road.

They were advised the sum involved would be made good. Not when, ­however … They’re also waiting to hear ­whatever happened to the £100m promised for ­future arts funding announced last ­October. Frankly, in the current climate, I doubt much breath is being held.

Meanwhile, the Scottish Government has to wait for puffs of white smoke from the London Treasury to find out what’s in the UK budget and what they might expect as a notional share. Talk about pocket money!

(Image: PA)

There was a clip on social media the other day where George Osborne was ­applauding the choices of Chancellor ­Rachel Reeves (above) and saying he would have made the same ones. I do hope she didn’t take that as any kind of compliment. (So much for reading Anas Sarwar’s lips when he promised “no more austerity”.) After the death of Scotland’s first first minister, Donald Dewar, the ­Scottish ­Government set up the Dewar Arts Award in his memory, given that – ­unlike so many politicians – he was a regular ­consumer of the arts from books and paintings to concerts and theatre.

As its inaugural chair, I could see first hand the utter transformation the arts ­always had on individual lives. Even those who didn’t make it to the top of their profession went on to live vastly more fulfilling lives.

And the great thing about its twin founding principles – which still obtain – is that its awardees had to have a lot of talent and not enough money to progress it.

Although it’s sadly still the case that we lose too many creative weans from their being advised at home or school or both that the arts are not for the likes of them.

Somehow or other though, this wee ­nation still manages to punch above its creative weight.

When our local book festival first ­started more than 10 years ago, it had to be in November because there were so many of them and they’d all bagged more clement slots in the calendar.

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We’ve just seen the annual cavalcade of festivals in our capital city ­encompassing not just some brilliant performances in the International Festival and the still ­vibrant Fringe, but a Book Festival ­celebrating its new home(s) with more than 500 live events, a fifth of them for kids.

It’s worth remembering that when ­everyone was reeling from the Second World War, and trying to figure out how to construct a peacetime future, ­Scotland decided to launch an International ­Festival of the Arts – which is very much still going strong at 77.

We have a fabulous gaming industry, more than a sprinkling of top actors in theatre and film and a quite amazing ­array of writers in every genre.

Yet so often when governments are obliged to make cuts, the arts prove to be the lowest-hanging fruit. Somehow the message that they are crucial soul food doesn’t seem to penetrate enough ­political skulls to protect them from the axe.

As Robert Motherwell, the legendary American painter and printmaker once observed: “Art is much less important than life, but what a poor life without it.” A sentiment which really ought to be ­attached the arts as a whole.

It’s fair to observe that with too many people struggling to feed and clothe their families, the arts might seem little more than an inessential frippery.

Yet even if it’s only watching movies, ­listening to music or reading books the arts are being consumed, and the work needed first to be created. A poor life without all of that indeed.

LAST week, the law according to Sod was in full swing and I was chairing a Book Festival panel consisting of a celebrated author, a critic and columnist, an academic, and a playwright and screenwriter. They were all talking about the arts and arts funding.

Later that very same day, the news came out that Creative Scotland needed to cut what it itself deems one of its “key” funding streams. Too late, alas, to gauge the panel’s views though I could hazard a guess or two.

The government’s cabinet secretary in charge of matters cultural is Angus ­Robertson who, I imagine, has one or two other things on his mind at this ­moment. The fact that his portfolio ­includes the constitution and external ­affairs with culture tagged on perhaps tells us a little about where the latter ranks in ­government thinking.

Even when Fiona Hyslop (above) became the longest-serving culture secretary in 2020, external affairs was added. But at least there was a long period of continuity ­following the years when the culture post was subject to revolving doors syndrome.

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Some office holders like Mike Russell had a genuine interest in matter cultural, others, who had probably best remain nameless, had probably never darkened a theatre door.

Keeping Scottish arts alive is not about funding well-heeled luvvies, and it’s ­certainly not about throwing ­unnecessary money at an utterly vital part of our ­economy.

If this goose is killed, prepare for a ­national shortage of golden eggs. And a much undernourished life.