The Scottish Executive’s draft budget for 2011-12 appears to have left arts and culture relatively unscathed, although fears remain for future years.
National Museums Scotland (NMS) faces a 4% cut from April, while Historic Scotland’s budget will be cut by 4.7%. Funding for Museums Galleries Scotland has not yet been confirmed.
The V&A Dundee will receive unspecified funding from the Office of the First Minister’s £20.5m capital budget, and Creative Scotland’s core budget of £35.5m has been maintained.
The fact that the budget covers only the next financial year has raised concerns that bigger cuts are in the pipeline.
Mark Taylor, director of the Museums Association, warned that it was also unclear what level of cuts local authorities, which had their budgets reduced by 2.6%, will make to culture.
Gordon Rintoul, the director of National Museums Scotland, said that, while he recognised the difficult financial climate, it was a significant cut over one financial year and it would have an impact on NMS activities.
“We are, in effect, significantly worse off than our London counterparts, shouldering a cash cut of 4.2% in year one by comparison with their 3% cash cut in year one.”
He added that the one year budget made it difficult to plan for the future. In Wales, funding to museums, libraries and archives will fall 8.5% by 2013-14.
Revenue funding to Amgueddfa Cymru (National Museum Wales) will be cut by 4% in total over the next three years, but capital grant-in-aid has been cut by 35% and the specimen purchase grant by 50%.
David Anderson, director-general at National Museum Wales, said: “While the funding available will curtail our ability to purchase artefacts for all seven national museums, we will redouble efforts to secure other sources of funding to develop the collections.”
Local government grants in Wales will be cut by 1.7% next year, before rising by 0.1% in 2012-13 and 1.1% in 2013-14. The budget settlement for the Department for Culture, Arts and Leisure in Northern Ireland is expected to be revealed in the new year.
l David Anderson profile, p36
