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Review of Scotland's Cities - The Analysis

5.2 CIVILISED CITIES: ARTS AND CULTURE

Arts and Culture is a broad term. It includes theatre, literature, classical music, sculpture and painting; and ranges through the cinema, traditional music and jazz to the street culture of music and clubbing. The café and the bar may be as culturally relevant as the theatre and the museum. Arguably it is popular culture which most enlivens cities for the young, perhaps even the majority of Scots. For the crucial 18-25 year-old group, popular culture will have important implications for decisions on where to go to college and work.

Visual art, theatre and music all entertain and inform and can contribute to the city experience. There is no doubt that for many residents and visitors the supply of such events or facilities enlivens places. In that sense culture undoubtedly plays a key role in shaping city image, with implications for tourism and inward investment. And there is a growing awareness that active involvement in cultural activities can play important roles in regeneration and addressing social exclusion.

5.2.1 The Economic Significance of Arts and Culture

World class festivals, art collections and other cultural activities play a significant role in attracting visitors to our cities. They also influence directly the international image of cities as places to invest and live. The 'must see' pull of attractions is a core economic/social asset for our cities.

Cultural tourism currently accounts for 37% of world travel and is growing in significance. UK residents take an average of 200,000 holiday trips per year to Scotland for cultural reasons (theatre, concerts, opera, ballet, museums, art galleries, heritage centres) and these trips lead to expenditures of 36 million per annum. More than one in seven of UK holiday visitors to Scotland participate in cultural activities as part of a holiday, accounting for nearly a quarter of all the money spent by holidaymakers in Scotland. 58% of overseas holiday trips in Scotland include visiting museums, art galleries and heritage centres and 16% of overseas visitors watch performing arts.

Arts and culture is also a significant economic sector in its own right. Scotland-wide employment in the arts and culture sector (covering film video production/distribution, television & radio, literature, music, theatre, popular music) is around 25,000. ⁵¹ Arts & culture jobs are disproportionately city based: disaggregated data for 2000 suggest that nearly 40% of this employment is in the four cities. ⁵²

5.2.2 Punching Above Our Weight?

In many respects Scotland - and Edinburgh and Glasgow in particular - are punching above our international weight artistically and culturally. The Edinburgh summer Festivals, some major cultural icons of international significance, e.g. Burns, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, the culture of the Highlands, and artistic/heritage collections which can compete with the majority of other European Cities are obvious examples.

The significance of the major cities in Scotland is illustrated by their sizeable share of Scotland's most important cultural assets. The Scottish Museums Council's 2001/02 Audit of Museums and Galleries provides information on the 'significance' of collections, applied consistently across museum collections, irrespective of size, location or funding status. For the purposes of the Audit, five categories of significance were identified: international, UK, Scottish, regional and local - Table 5.4 lists the 20 most significant collections (a number of museums with smaller collections also have high percentages of objects of international, UK and Scottish importance e.g. Burns's Cottage at Alloway, the Glasgow School of Art).

TABLE 5.4: 20 Largest Collections of International, UK and Scottish Significance

Source: Scottish Museums Council, 2002

The above analysis also illustrates the widespread distribution of collections of quality across different types of museums, underlining the point that collections of national significance are not exclusively within the care of the National Museums and the National Galleries and they are not all located in Edinburgh.

Edinburgh's festivals, in particular the internationally high profile International Festival, Festival Fringe, Film Festival, Book Festival, Edinburgh Tattoo and Hogmanay festivities, bring major cultural, social and economic benefits for the City and Scotland as a whole. They underpin Edinburgh's role as Scotland's gateway for international tourism. In 1996, the direct and indirect economic impact to the city was 122 million, supporting some 2,251 full-time jobs. There has been a long-term growth in overseas visitors to Edinburgh's festivals, now representing 31% of attendance at the Tattoo, 18% at the International Festival and 15% for the Fringe. The Edinburgh summer Festivals make a unique contribution to the world festival circuit. There are no Festivals elsewhere in Scotland that compare with the Edinburgh Festivals in cultural and economic significance at a national and international level, however others, such as Celtic Connections have significant spin-offs for city image and 'buzz'.

Glasgow City Council has for some years now had an explicit policy of promoting tourism to the city through major cultural festivals, responding to opportunities to compete for awards such as the European City of Culture, the Year of the Visual Arts, and the Year of Architecture and Design, as part of the change over from a manufacturing to a service and creative centre. It is widely held up within the UK and overseas as a model of pro-active city image building.

The arts and cultural provision of Edinburgh and Glasgow in particular, but also Dundee, has received substantial investment and modernisation in recent years. In Edinburgh, the 1990's saw the opening of the Museum of Scotland, the new Traverse Theatre and the revamping of the Lyceum and Festival Theatres; and Our Dynamic Earth, the Dean Gallery of Modern Art, The Festival Hub and the Royal Yacht Britannia all opened in 1999, joined by the new Dance Base in 2001. Glasgow has similarly transformed its offering, beginning with the opening of the Burrell Collection in 1983, with more recent additions such as the Royal Concert Hall (1990), the Gallery of Modern Art (1996), the new Tron Theatre (1999), and The Lighthouse (1999). The Tramway was refurbished in 2000 and the Centre for Contemporary Arts opened in 2001. Dundee has established DiscoveryPoint and the new Contemporary Arts Centre, underpinning a new cultural quarter at the west end of the city centre, with over 300,000 visitors recorded in 2000.

The challenge for the future is to ensure that the offering in Edinburgh and Glasgow remains internationally competitive; to ensure that Dundee maintains its recent progress; and to address the needs of Aberdeen and Inverness which have seen less activity/investment in recent years.

The competition does not stand still, with prestige investments in regional centres within Europe (e.g. Bilbao Guggenheim) and within the UK (e.g. Tate Modern, new Imperial War Museum in Manchester) all commanding 'must see' status. At the same time, some of Scotland's greatest assets are suffering from long-term under-investment and under-exploitation.

During the Cities Review's programme of consultations in Aberdeen, repeated reference was made to a lack of breadth and depth to Aberdeen's cultural offering. The business community in particular expressed concern that a lack of city 'buzz' was deterring skilled professional workers from moving to the city to work. These concerns are being addressed through the Community Plan for Aberdeen, aberdeenfutures, which is discussed further below.

Inverness and the wider Highlands & Islands face major challenges in attracting visitors in an increasingly competitive global market for global tourists. Tourism is a key contributor to the wider Highlands & Islands economy, however both total visitor and overseas visitor numbers have declined since 1990. The Highlands has a relatively small number of heritage visitor attractions which are a draw in their own right, most are small-scale and relatively under-resourced. Inverness itself lacks significant 'must see' tourist attractions, the city centre generally has suffered from a lack of high quality investment in the public realm and is disconnected from its most distinctive asset, the River Ness. This affects both Inverness' competitiveness as a tourist destination, but also its attractiveness as a place to invest, live and learn. There is recognition locally that action is required to lift the quality of the cultural/tourist offering in Inverness, which has galvanised the city's European Capital of Culture 2008 bid - see below.

In considering the way forward for both Aberdeen and Inverness, the significant turn around in Dundee's image and cultural provision in recent years illustrates what is possible in a small city, with a clear sense of vision, of the positive impact of investment in cultural provision and a proactive strategy for delivering.

5.2.3 Supporting the Arts and Culture Base

It can be argued that the provision of financial support for arts & culture from national sources is unduly driven by historical considerations and institutional arrangements, rather than genuinely reflecting the role or significance of what is supported. This gives rise to claims for more "equal treatment" by the cities other than the capital. These cannot be ignored, but equally a proper understanding of the background factors is important.

In the museum/gallery sector, the National Institutions are funded by the Scottish Executive. Local Authority collections are chiefly supported from general local authority revenue/capital allocations - which are supported by the Executive's block grant to authorities. By contrast, university museums receive the bulk of their income from the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council and similar sources; the independent museums rely on diverse sources of income, the most important being admission charges - over a fifth of the total.

As noted above, funding source and levels are not related directly to the quality/size of the collection. Little attempt has been made to achieve effective strategic planning across the sector, which remains very fragmented, or to address alleged inequity in the geographic allocation of funds. No wider strategy has guided the pattern of funding.

In the arts, the Scottish Arts Council (SAC) is one of the main vehicles for central government support. The four National Performing Arts Companies take a significant share of the total revenue grant - around 35%. Each of these companies receives some support from local authorities, but this has been declining in recent years. These Companies are funded to perform at a range of venues throughout Scotland and do so successfully. The SAC also supports a large number of other organisations, the majority of which are located in the cities. Many similarly perform in a range of venues. Venues tend to be the responsibility of local authorities, but not where they are producing venues - e.g. the Theatre Royal, the Royal Lyceum, Dundee Rep or the Citizens - where the artistic companies, funded by the SAC, in effect support the on-going costs of the venue. All venues are eligible to apply for lottery financing for capital improvements.

Overall funding levels need to be adequate to allow our main cities to match the best and improving provision in competing English and European centres. Short-term economies might otherwise simply lead to loss of arts competitive capacity over the longer term.

Lottery funding has played a substantial role since the 1990's in renewing and enhancing the arts and culture assets owned by local authorities, the national institutions and the independent sector. But Lottery funding for capital has declined substantially in recent years - a trend which is forecast to continue. As part of the 1998 Lottery reforms, the focus has moved away from capital projects and towards people and activities. One of the results of this has been a decline in the number of awards to large capital projects.

Table 5.5 below illustrates changes in arts capital spending since the mid-1990's.

TABLE 5.5: Capital Spending on Arts & Culture

Source: Scottish Executive, Scottish Arts Council
Note: Local Authority spend in column 1 will include some Lottery grants.

Moreover, local authority revenue and capital expenditure for this and wider arts and culture purposes (i.e. including sport and libraries) has declined substantially in real terms in recent years ⁵³: and so has not compensated for reducing Lottery income. If these trends and policy shifts continue, a more strategic approach with clearly identified priorities at national and at local level may be helpful in ensuring the available funding is used effectively.

5.2.4 The Geographical Patterns of Funding

It is of course not the case that every area should receive identical funding support. Some variation in funding is inevitable because major centres of population tend to attract the larger capital projects, e.g. a city theatre or museum will serve a much wider surrounding area: the National Galleries in Edinburgh or the Kelvingrove in Glasgow attract visitors from well beyond their host cities. Some areas of the country may already have a very good range of arts facilities and are therefore less likely to need new facilities. However, even taking these factors into account, it would appear that some areas of the country have benefited less than others from arts funding.

As noted above, the great bulk of Scottish Executive funding for arts and culture purposes goes to the core funded national arts organisations, largely located in Glasgow and Edinburgh: National Museums (mainly Edinburgh), National Library (Edinburgh), National Galleries (mainly Edinburgh), Scottish Opera (Glasgow), Scottish Ballet (Glasgow), The Royal Scottish National Orchestra (Glasgow) and The Scottish Chamber Orchestra (Edinburgh).

These are, of course, national bodies providing cultural services for national (and international) audiences and thereby serve their surrounding hinterlands and the rest of Scotland. The national institutions have a legal duty to collect and undertake research for the benefit of Scotland as a whole; the national companies have a duty to make their performances accessible to audiences throughout Scotland. It is appropriate that they are funded as national bodies.

What of the argument that the national significance of other museums and galleries also warrants national funding? This argument needs to rest on more than just the presence of nationally or internationally important items in a collection. As we have seen, significant numbers of collections would thereby qualify. It is the contribution of the collection in terms of out-reach to wider national audiences, research, touring that is key. The national contribution of some other organisations, whether local authority owned or independent, may deserve national recognition, but such formal recognition would need to be combined with more explicit definition of their duties and accountability for them to the nation as a whole.

Local Authority spending levels vary significantly - Table 5.6 sets out the latest figures for museums and galleries. The city authorities and Highland Council rank amongst the higher spenders, representing 57% of the total, Glasgow alone spending nearly a third of the Scottish total. This is commensurate with their relatively higher holdings of quality collections (Table 5.6).

TABLE 5.6: Local Authority Revenue & Capital Expenditure on Museums and Art Galleries 2001-02

Source: Scottish Executive

The geographical distribution of Scottish Arts Council expenditure, including Arts Lottery funding but excluding support for the National Companies and the Edinburgh Festivals, is set out in Table 5.7. Excluding the National Companies and the Edinburgh Festival, Edinburgh would appear to do significantly better than the other cities. However, Table 5.7 is based upon the postal address of each of the organisations in question. This has significant implications for interpreting the data. Core-funded bodies supported by the Scottish Arts Council may have a 'home-base' in e.g. Edinburgh or Glasgow, but by their nature they are strategic organisations which have a regional, and often also a national, importance with regard to their artistic output and audiences. Their remits often include touring, outreach and educational activity which extend well beyond their base of operations. For example, over 40% of the Scottish Arts Council's core-funded bodies (2001-02 awards) are organisations which provide wider sectoral services.

TABLE 5.7: Scottish Arts Council Awards by Area: 1999-00 to 2001-02

Source: Scottish Arts Council

A similar spatial analysis can be undertaken for Lottery funding. Table 5.8 below shows the number and value of awards from the three arts and culture related funds to each of the cities and the Scottish average since the inception of the lottery in 1993.

TABLE 5.8: National Lottery Awards by Theme by Area: 1993-2002

Source: Department for Culture, Media & Sport, August 2002

There is again significant variation in levels of funding between the cities, the Highlands and the rest of Scotland. Edinburgh, Glasgow and the Highlands have done particularly well compared to the Scottish average. In particular, figures for the Millennium fund skew the figures for Edinburgh and Glasgow (with almost 70% of such awards going to the two cities). Even more striking is the persistently poor performance of Aberdeen in attracting awards under the arts, heritage and millennium funds, which mirrors the position for Scottish Arts Council funding above. This is particularly pertinent given local concerns about Aberdeen's cultural and wider image discussed above and is clearly an issue for the City Council to address in discussion with funding partners.

Lottery distributors are required by the Government to ensure that the distribution of funding is as fair as possible and to address issues of deprivation. The National Lottery Act 1998 empowered Ministers to require distributors to produce strategic plans for their use of lottery money and allowed them to adopt a more proactive approach in the allocation of Lottery funding, enabling them to solicit applications from groups or areas which previously have been under-represented.

In recent years, a significant amount of effort has gone into addressing the specific needs of deprived areas, reflecting concern that some are not generating sufficient numbers of quality applications and as a result receive less than might be expected under an equitable distribution formula. This is a positive development.

But the wider importance of arts and culture to the overall city and national economy needs to be taken into account. National funding bodies could usefully develop, in partnership with national and regional stakeholders, a national perspective on the gaps in cultural provision in cities and key existing assets requiring strategic investment.

The development of a properly strategic approach needs to be supported by a better understanding of the role of arts and culture investment in the wider economy, both direct and indirect. In recent years, the Executive in partnership with the Scottish Arts Council have commissioned research on the impact of culture on addressing deprivation. The evaluations of Glasgow's year as European City of Culture emphasised the economic benefits, but the research is now dated. Contemporary research on the wider economic impacts of arts and culture might be helpful in this context.

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