Scottish Government backs restoration of People’s Palace and Glasgow School of Art

The People’s Palace museum in Glasgow will get £14m towards its stalled refurbishment under the Scottish Government’s plans for culture over the course of the next parliament.

The 128-year-old museum and winter garden closed in 2024 to undergo a major redevelopment, for which it had secured £7.5m from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and £13m from Glasgow City Council. However the project was delayed after a funding request to the previous SNP government was turned down.

The new funding was announced as part of Holyrood’s Programme for Government, which was unveiled last week following the re-election of the SNP-led government in May and the Scottish Parliament’s return from summer recess.

The programme includes a commitment to invest a further £50m in culture by the end of the next parliament in 2031, in addition to the long-term funding settlement of an additional £100m annually for culture by 2028-29, which was announced during the government's previous term.

The government is also pledging to “expand opportunities for cultural participation”, with plans to introduce a Youth Culture Pass, which will give every young person £200 to spend on cultural pursuits, as well as new creative career paths.

Inspired by a similar initiative in the Republic of Ireland, the government will pilot a minimum income scheme to support Scottish artists and creative workers.

There was also some positive news for the Glasgow School of Art, which revealed in July that it could not afford the estimated £265m required to fully rebuild its fire-damaged Mackintosh Building after its insurance payout was delayed amid soaring inflation.

The government now says it will “work closely with the Glasgow School of Art and other partners to explore every opportunity for a faithful reinstatement of its iconic Mackintosh Building”.

The Programme for Government also pledges to deliver “all our other commitments to the sector”. Other key commitments from the SNP's pre-election manifesto include the development of a new Arts and Culture Bill for Scotland.

The programme for government has been cautiously welcomed by the culture sector.

Sharon Heal, the director of the Museums Association, said: “We welcome the £14m support from the Scottish Government for the refurbishment and reopening of the People’s Palace and Winter Gardens.

“We are also heartened that the Programme for Government includes a commitment to provide a further £50m for culture by the end of this Parliament and that the Scottish Government has pledged to deliver all other commitments to the sector.

“We hope this includes the development of a Culture and Arts Bill for Scotland which would recognise the important role museums and the culture sector play in delivering national objectives.”

However, there is also alarm in the sector over the Scottish Government’s planned reform of the public sector, which will see it streamline certain services to deliver savings over the next three years.

Responding to a consultation last month on the proposed reforms, the advocacy group Culture Counts said that culture's share of Scotland's public expenditure had already fallen by around a third, from 1.12% in 2013 to 0.75% in 2025, and that “savings from culture would make no meaningful difference to the wider fiscal challenge”.

Culture Counts warned the government that any plan to find savings on cultural spending “should be approached with extreme caution with full consideration given to the sector's current position and longer-term financial history”.