The Creative Scotland Independent Review marked a moment of national reflection — a chance not only to strengthen how we support culture across the country, but to reimagine Creative Scotland’s role as a partner in building a fairer, healthier, and more resilient society. At The Stove, we hope our submission offers a meaningful contribution to this vital conversation and helps shape a cultural infrastructure that works with and for all of Scotland’s people and places.
Below is The Stove’s full submission to the Creative Scotland Independent Review.
We welcome the opportunity to contribute to the independent review of Creative Scotland. We strongly support the principle of increased investment in culture and want to emphasise that any recommendations for improvement suggested here must not be used to justify divestment from Creative Scotland or reductions in grant budgets. Instead, we see this review as an opportunity for honest reflection on how Creative Scotland can evolve in its remit to support Arts and Culture in Scotland and be a vital part of a national commitment to culture as a foundation of a healthy society.
Given the tremendous remit of this review, we have chosen to focus on a single, actionable recommendation to develop Creative Scotland’s role within this wider context: that Creative Scotland adopt a more place-based approach to supporting culture across the country. This aligns closely with the ambitions of Scotland’s National Performance Framework, A Culture Strategy for Scotland1, the Place Principle, the Culture in Communities report published by the CEEAC Committee in 20232 and the national approach tested through Scotland’s award-winning Culture Collective programme.
Access and The Limits of a Market-Led Model
There are stark inequalities in access to cultural opportunity across Scotland. Geography, economic disadvantage, rural isolation and systemic underrepresentation all contribute to a funding system that is more advantageous to those with privilege, proximity, and established networks. In rural areas like Dumfries and Galloway this is even more visible making it harder to participate in or make a career possible in the arts. People face structural barriers from; travel, provision and learning opportunities, and lack of support and infrastructure. The reliance on a centralised, project by project model that does not take a strategic and place-specific approach to these challenges will only deepen these inequalities.
Creative Scotland’s current model also reinforces a competitive, market-led system. This limits the strategic potential of public investment in culture and inhibits the long-term thinking that could deepen the impact of what is currently invested and help broker further investment from other sources for wider social impact.
We would like to see Creative Scotland work with Scottish Government to take a Community Wealth Building approach to investing in culture and move away from Culture as an ‘industry’ in conventional economic terms as part of Scotland’s transition to a Wellbeing Economy.
Regional Visibility and Presence
A key challenge identified through our experience is the limited regional visibility and direct presence of Creative Scotland in regional and localised strategies. For many individuals and communities, Creative Scotland can feel distant, abstract, and difficult to break into. A lack of regional infrastructure both in terms of physical presence and tailored support exacerbates barriers to more joined up and equitable engagement in funding processes.
Creative Scotland could increase its relevance and impact by establishing stronger, more regular connections within regions. This might include regional relationship managers with embedded roles in localities, dedicated contact points for advice and collaboration, and an active presence in key regional forums. A shift like this would help Creative Scotland better understand the nuances of local cultural ecosystems and enable more responsive and context-aware decision-making.
Building a more visible and accessible Creative Scotland presence would also signal a cultural shift from being primarily a funding body to becoming a collaborative partner in regional development and cultural strategy.
A Place-Based Approach
A place-based approach would mean working with and supporting collaboration between locally rooted organisations and networks that play a coordinating and developmental role within their communities. These organisations are best placed to understand need, build trust, and support capacity building, especially among those underrepresented in traditional funding systems.
At The Stove, our work through the What We Do Now network (WWDN) has shown how a local hubs model can work together to support creative development of ideas, build the capacity to deliver projects, bring in additional investment, and build long-term visions for culture in towns across Dumfries and Galloway. Examples of the impact of this approach can be seen through LIFT D&G in Lochside, who with our support secured Creative Scotland funding to continue to bring high quality arts intervention to their community, a significantly underserved community in terms of cultural provision. Similarly, Creative Stranraer, a grassroots hub supported by The Stove is emerging as a centre for creative activity, skills development and community-led regeneration in a part of Scotland often overlooked in national cultural policy. These initiatives show how targeted investment in local cultural infrastructure can empower communities, nurture talent and deliver long-term social and economic value.
In The Stove’s Creative Placemaking Approach (2024)3 we set out a vision for the role and significance of culture in supporting healthier, fairer and more sustainable communities across Scotland. This is an approach we have tested through What We Do Now in towns across our region, placing creativity at the heart of wider goals around wellbeing, skills, enterprise, climate justice and local democracy. Scotland is at a turning point, with policy ambitions increasingly emphasising locally led change and place-based strategies.
We would like to see Creative Scotland take a leading role in developing their remit to align with a whole place approach to culture across Scotland.
Participative Culture
An important consideration in this review is the distinction between supporting professional cultural practice and facilitating broader community participation in culture. These are fundamentally different types of activity, each requiring its own approach to funding, development and evaluation. The latter is about ensuring that all have access to the positive impact participative culture has on individual and collective wellbeing in communities.
Sector support for the distinction of participative culture and how it is supported was highlighted in a recent event The Stove hosted at the Scottish Parliament (Nov 2024), Creative Placemaking: Culture in Communities, co-hosted with MSP’s Colin Smyth and Emma Harper and attended by over 70 representatives working with culture in communities.
We would like to see Creative Scotland play a more strategic role in clarifying these distinctions. This would require work with Scottish Government and other national funding bodies (Screen Scotland, Historic Environment Scotland, Foundation Scotland, Inspiring Scotland) to separate and align strategies around how culture is funded and developedas two distinct priorities with their own measurements of success and a clear understanding of the remits of each within that. This shift would be an acknowledgement of the vastly different needs of participative and community-led culture and its significance as the generative foundation for our Cultural Sector more broadly.
A More Equitable Future for Culture in Scotland
Culture in Scotland needs to be supported in a way that is fair, inclusive and reflective of the places people live. That requires a rebalancing of support, not a replacement of Creative Scotland’s current work, but an evolution of its approach.
We would like to see the following priorities for Scottish Government and Creative Scotland to work on together:
- Regional Strategies: work with local authorities and regionally significant organisations to develop funding and support aims for each local authority area. Allocate a proportion of funding specifically for regional delivery and help to develop outcomes that are region wide to measure against this investment. This would enable locally accountable decision-making and ensure resources reach underserved areas.
- Support for Local Hubs: Recognise organisations with a proven track record of community-led practice and resource them not just as delivery bodies but as convenors, hosts and capacity-builders for local creative sectors that are not supported.
- Develop Peer Networks and Learning Structures: Foster regional networks that allow creative practitioners to connect, share learning, and build resilience across geographies.
- Enhance Evaluation and Evidence: Take a leadership role in evidencing the deep and lasting impact of culture on community wellbeing, inclusion, and economic resilience. Develop a shared framework with funded organisations that reflects local as well as national priorities.
- Clarify Creative Scotland’s Role within a Wider Ecosystem: Explore the limits of Creative Scotland’s remit and seek greater strategic alignment with government departments, local authorities and national cultural infrastructure to better support community-based work.
We offer this submission as a constructive contribution to the conversation and in the spirit of generosity and collaboration. We believe that by working together, we can build a cultural infrastructure that truly supports all of Scotland’s communities.
- Scottish Government (2020) A Culture Strategy for Scotland. [online] Available at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/culture-strategy-scotland/ [Accessed 22 Jul. 2025] ↩︎
- Scottish Parliament. Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee. (2023). Annual report of the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee 2022–23. [online] Available at: https://digitalpublications.parliament.scot/Committees/Report/CEEAC/2023/9/14/4c816e37-a817-4de7-b22e-4b4c924d81fd [Accessed 22 Jul. 2025] ↩︎
- The Stove Network. (2024). A Creative Placemaking Approach. What We Do Now. [online] Available at: https://whatwedonow.scot/resource/a-creative-placemaking-approach/ [Accessed 22 Jul. 2025]. ↩︎
