Four articles about the latest Scottish Arts Council allocations:
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Funding shortfall means tough choices By Mike Wade for The Scotsman
IF THE health of the nation is defined by the state of its great performing arts institutions, Scotland is on the critical list.
Despite some amazing feats of accounting trickery, the Scottish Arts Council (SAC) yesterday introduced a budget which postponed plans for a national theatre, cut its contribution to Scottish Opera and offered increases to Scottish Ballet and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra which were less than the rate of inflation.
True, as an SAC budget of £60 million was carved up, there were beneficiaries and some theatres, galleries and literary organisations secured large increases in funding.
However, the process of distributing its budget - £38 million in Executive grant and the remainder in lottery funds - proved a painful business for SAC members meeting at Edinburgh’s Festival Theatre.
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Boyle calls for public inquiry into arts funding By MIKE WADE for The Scotsman
THE chairman of the Scottish Arts Council has called for a public inquiry to stave off financial catastrophe in the arts and to nurture the sector for future generations.
Endorsing a proposal for a "McCrone of the arts", James Boyle said: "If we don’t get the change we need in the next financial settlement, we will live to rue the day."
Mr Boyle was speaking at an SAC meeting in Edinburgh, where its budget proposals made plain the extent of the financial crisis in the sector.
As widely predicted, the plan for a national theatre of Scotland was postponed and Graham Berry, the SAC director, said the appointment of a chairman of its board was unlikely this year.
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Cuts mean fewer nights at the opera Company warns that real-term reduction will affect productions, writes PHIL MILLER for The Herald (Glasgow)
SCOTTISH Opera is likely to face cuts in its production programme following the latest annual budget announcement by the Scottish Arts Council.
The opera company, which has had a number of financial crises in recent years, said it was "dismayed" last night to receive, in real terms, a budget cut and it is expected that it will have to cut the number of operas it has planned.
All three of the other national arts companies, and the National Theatre plan, also emerged as cultural casualties in the new budget announced yesterday. The Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Scottish Ballet and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra received small funding increases.
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A hard look at arts funding Review might help Executive decide its priorities. Leading article in the Herald (Glasgow)
ROYAL commissions, it is said, are set up in haste to report at leisure. Scotland's arts community is not asking for anything as grand as a commission with a regal imprimatur, but it does believe the time is ripe for a serious, independent investigation into the way the arts are funded. The idea was floated yesterday by Ann Matheson, chairwoman of the Scottish Arts Council's literature committee. It received the support of James Boyle, the SAC's chairman, and Graham Berry, the SAC director responsible for disbursing public funds to Scotland's arts companies. Mr Berry's was a thankless task, given that the SAC had been handed a standstill budget by the Scottish Executive. There were very few winners but plenty of losers in yesterday's funding round. Perhaps the biggest casualty was the Scottish national theatre, officially consigned to cold storage (at best) when the £1m in start-up funding was distributed among the existing theatre companies to keep them going.
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