CREATIVE SCOTLAND BOARD/MGMT TEAM/INFO PAPER

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Response to DCMS call for evidence:
Exploring the current balance across society lotteries, The National Lottery and
competing gambling products in raising funds for good causes and maintaining player
protection.
Submission date: 4 March 2015
Contact:
Kenneth Fowler
Director of Communications
07970 557 960
kenneth.fowler@creativescotland.com
National and Society Lotteries – Call for Evidence – Creative Scotland Submission March 2015
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1. Introduction
Creative Scotland is the national body that supports the development of arts, screen and
creative industries across all parts of Scotland.
We enable people and organisations in Scotland to work in, and experience, the arts and
creative sectors. We do this by helping others to create culture through developing great
ideas and bringing them to life.
“We want a Scotland where everyone actively values and celebrates arts and creativity
as the heartbeat for our lives and the world in which we live; which continually extends
its creative imagination and ways of doing things; and where the arts, screen and
creative industries are confident, connected and thriving.” Unlocking Potential,
Embracing Ambition, a shared plan for the arts, screen and creative industries, 2014.
We aim to achieve this vision through four key functions:

Funding support for individuals and organisations working in the arts, screen and
creative industries.

Advocacy on behalf of these sectors, both nationally and internationally.

Development support for these sectors so that they can continue to grow and
thrive.

Influencing others to understand the value that the arts, screen and creative
industries deliver.
Creative Scotland’s overall budget for 2014/15 is £93m, which we receive from the
Scottish Government (60%) and The National Lottery (40%)and out lottery funding is
used to support work in the arts and screen sectors.
We distribute this funding to these sectors through three funding routes: Regular
Funding over three years for organisations; Open Project Funding for individuals and
organisations for programmes of work for up to two years; Targeted Funding to support
specific sectors, projects and initiatives (including Film & TV production).
In April 2014 we published our Strategic Plan, Unlocking Potential, Embracing Ambition,
which presents a shared vision for the arts, screen and creative industries for the next
10 years.
Alongside each year’s Annual Plan we also publish Companion Pieces that give an
overview of current sector development needs and opportunities across the arts, screen
and creative industries.
2. Creative Scotland and The National Lottery
The National Lottery forms a vital part of funding support for arts and screen in Scotland
as well as for other areas of public life such as sport, heritage and community
development projects.
Since its inception in 1994, more than £470m of National Lottery funds have been
distributed to the arts, film and culture sectors through the Scottish Arts Council,
Scottish Screen and, since 2010, through Creative Scotland.
National and Society Lotteries – Call for Evidence – Creative Scotland Submission March 2015
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Currently, more than a third of Creative Scotland’s annual budget comes from
The National Lottery (£34m in 2014/15) and we are one of four National Lottery
distributors in Scotland, alongside SportScotland, The Big Lottery and the Heritage
Lottery Fund, drawing on income from the millions of people who play The National
Lottery every week.
National Lottery funds complement the significant core funding that we channel to the
arts ans creen sectors from the Scottish Government (£53m in 2014/15).
A host of cultural organisations, individual artists and creative people do fantastic work
with funds from The National Lottery – work that expands imaginations, pushes artistic
boundaries, develops creative skills and makes a positive difference to all our lives.
Just some examples where National Lottery funding makes a difference to arts and
screen in Scotland include:

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The Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games Culture Programme: The
Glasgow 2014 cultural programme was the largest, most ambitious, programme
of arts and culture events ever put together in Scotland and was supported,
through Creative Scotland, with £9.75m of funding from The National Lottery. The
programme consisted of more than 2000 different events and projects across all
parts of Scotland. This included those on a national scale such as Generation (a
celebration of 25 years of contemporary visual art in Scotland; Big Big Sing (a
participatory initiative to get people singing across the country); and Get Scotland
Dancing (a participatory initiative enabling thousands of people to dance)
balanced with more intimate cultural experiences such as King Creosote and
Virginia Heath’s film and music collaboration From Scotland With Love; Hanna
Tuulikki’s sound and visual art event on the Hebridean island of Canna, Away
With the Birds; and Tam Dean Burn’s Books on a Bike tour bringing to life the
works of children’s author Julia Donaldson for kids across Scotland. The cultural
programme reached almost 2 million people across all parts of Scotland and
across a wide range of communities. This would not have been possible without
funding from The National Lottery.
Open Project Funding for individual artists and organisations: Creative
Scotland’s Open Project Funding offers a rolling programme of funding for
individual creative practitioners and organisations – who can apply for between
£1,000 to £100,000 for a programme of work of up to 2 years. The programme
has a budget of around £1m per month and is supported, in the major part, by
funds from The National Lottery. This funding supports a range of creative work,
such as helping individual artists to develop their practice, assisting theatre
touring and providing support for festivals. As such, this support is vital to
creating a rich depth and breadth of cultural provision across Scotland and the
future work of individual artists. Information on the most recent awards from this
fund can be found here.
Supporting Film production in Scotland: Creative Scotland’s support for
Screen is currently in the region of £9m annually. This includes direct support for
film and TV production through a £4m Film & TV Fund, which is funded entirely
from The National Lottery. This means that the bulk of publicly funded film
production in Scotland is supported by The National Lottery. Recent productions
include Sunshine on Leith, Starred Up, ’71, Filth and the BAFTA Scotland award
winning For Those in Peril as well as international productions such as Under the
Skin, Skyfall and the TV production Outlander.
Regular Funding for organisations: Creative Scotland’s programme of Regular
Funding supports a range and breadth of creative organisations making a vital
contribution to the current health and future development of the arts and culture
in Scotland. This portfolio enables more organisations than ever before in
National and Society Lotteries – Call for Evidence – Creative Scotland Submission March 2015
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
Scotland to benefit from stable, three-year funding. The portfolio
consists of 119 organisations demonstrating creative excellence, potential and
ambition, with significant reach throughout Scotland and across many areas of
practice. While supported predominately through funding received from the
Scottish Government, a proportion of support for these regularly funded
organisations comes from The National Lottery.
Funding for Capital development: Since 1995, Creative Scotland (previously
the Scottish Arts Council) has awarded more than £160m of National Lottery
funding to capital and public art projects. These funding awards have supported
important elements of the cultural infrastructure across Scotland, ensuring that
more people, in more parts of Scotland, continue to access excellent artistic and
cultural experiences. Just a few examples of where National Lottery funding has
supported capital development projects include the Pier Arts Centre in Stromness,
Orkney; Eden Court theatre, cinema and arts centre in Inverness; the Picture
House cinema, Campbeltown in Argyll & Bute; and Platform in Easterhouse,
Glasgow. All of these, in different ways, have been transformative to the
provision of creative experiences for local communities and visitors alike.
Evidence suggests that Lottery funding distributed through Creative Scotland constitutes,
on average, 15% of overall project costs but is invaluable in helping leverage additional
funding from other sources.
This further demonstrates why it’s essential, if arts and culture is to continue to flourish
in Scotland, that the conditions are ensured for The National Lottery to continue to
generate funds for good causes, such as arts and culture, in the future.
3. Our response to the call for evidence
Creative Scotland welcomes this call for evidence as a further, valuable contribution to
our continued efforts to deliver economic sustainability to the sectors that we support.
We also welcome the opportunity to underline the importance of The National Lottery to
the ability of those working in the arts and screen sectors to continue to produce work of
local, national and international significance and resonance - work that makes a positive
difference to the lives of people and communities across Scotland.
Our submission focuses specifically on questions 6 and 7 in the call for evidence,
namely:
6. How far should The National Lottery be protected from, or enabled to meet,
competition.
As we have demonstrated above; The National Lottery makes a significant and highly
valued contribution to funding for the arts, screen and creative industries in Scotland
and, since its inception in 1994, has become an integral part of the culture funding
landscape, contributing more than £470m through the Scottish Arts Council, Scottish
Screen and now Creative Scotland.
In a time of uncertain economic conditions, where public funding is under both intense
scrutiny and pressure, the continued stability of National Lottery funding becomes even
more critical.
We welcome the UK Government’s assertion that it is “determined to maintain the
continued success of The National Lottery” and would fully support any initiative that
protects the levels of success that the National Lottery has demonstrated from any
erosion by other branded lotteries or from other gambling products.
National and Society Lotteries – Call for Evidence – Creative Scotland Submission March 2015
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For example, we would welcome better clarity, for players and the broader
public, to help understand the distinction between The National Lottery and other
‘society lotteries’ both in terms of branding and in terms of the level of contribution they
make to good causes and public life.
7. Does the emergence of lottery-like betting products and betting on lotteries (in
permitted circumstances) create risks or opportunities that need to be addressed?
As a significant contributor to funding for arts and screen in Scotland, any threat to the
sustained level of National Lottery support for good causes must be seen as a risk.
Scottish Government funding for arts and culture, both through Creative Scotland and
through other channels (such as direct funding for National Companies - Scottish Ballet,
Scottish Opera, the National Theatre of Scotland, the National Galleries, the Royal
Scottish National Orchestra and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra) has been maintained in
Scotland, despite challenging economic circumstances and the Government’s support for
culture remains strong.
However, several key strands of Creative Scotland’s funding support, as highlighted
above, rely on National Lottery funds and, if these funds are put at risk then
consequently so is the ability for these strands to continue.
Any significant reduction in support from the National Lottery would have a direct,
negative impact on Creative Scotland’s ability to fund as many individuals, projects and
organisations across the arts and screen sectors and across as many parts of Scotland.
Creative Scotland sees the emergence of other lottery-like betting products as a
potential threat to the long term stability of cultural funding in Scotland primarily as a
result of the erosion of the National Lottery player base; lack of clear distinction between
the National Lottery and other lottery-like products; and increased competition resulting
in less funding being available for good causes.
Again, we would support any UK or Scottish Government initiative that helps to address
these potential threats.
In the meantime, through our own communications and promotions channels, website,
events and external relations, we continue to showcase the artists, projects and
organisations that we fund.
We ensure that all recipients of National Lottery funding through Creative Scotland
recognise this in their own communications and promotional materials.
We also work collaboratively with the National Lottery Promotions Unit and other Lottery
distributors to communicate to the public and stakeholders the value that National
Lottery funding delivers for the people of Scotland and we intend doing more of this in
the future.
We also continue to recognise the invaluable contribution that The National Lottery
makes to the health of the arts and screen sectors in Scotland and the benefits they
deliver to everyone that lives here. Creative Scotland will work hard to ensure that this
continues.
ENDS
National and Society Lotteries – Call for Evidence – Creative Scotland Submission March 2015
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