Artistic Leadership
The Scottish Arts Council is a recognised sector leader for the arts community. It acts as a support and development agency, creating and brokering new opportunities for artists with a range of partners, including local authorities, educational establishments, SportScotland, Scottish Screen, public and private museums and galleries, Channel 4 and the BBC. Its role is to
- encourage and expand good practice
- challenge and enable individual artists
- develop long-term national and international strategies for the development of the arts.
It also holds a commitment to nurture artists' networks, pulling together often disparate groups to build and strengthen arts communities. It aims to facilitate opportunities for professional development for artists through open funding schemes while remaining aware of the need to keep learning and to evolve.
Not only is it responsible for allocating Scottish Government and Lottery money through multi-year support and project funding to organisations and individual artists, but it has a responsibility to monitor and evaluate the quality of the artistic provision that it supports. It is nearing the end of an in-depth series of pathfinder projects in partnership with six local authorities and the Scottish Government.
| The Scottish Arts Council acts as an advocate for the arts, using the information gathered from funded organisations to strengthen the case for enhanced support from the public purse. It also works with other public agencies and local authorities to ensure a coherent, cohesive voice is heard for artists, arts organisations and the communities enriched and engaged by their work. |
Dance Quick Guide (2007)
Drama Quick Guide (2007)
Literature Quick Guide (2007)
Music Quick Guide (2007)
Visual Arts Quick Guide (2007)
Gaelic Arts Policy (in Gaelic) (2003)
Gaelic Arts Policy (in English) (2003)
International Arts Strategy (2006)
National Youth Music Strategy (2006)
This will ensure an integrated approach to delivering the artistic product to its audience. It is also recognised that evaluating the success of previous work and learning from any challenges is invaluable in developing the art forms and raising the bar on artistic quality.
There has been much debate surrounding the positioning of equalities. Within the first stage consultation some organisations wanted equalities to underpin every layer of the Quality Framework, whereas others felt it needed to be highlighted but to sit separately, or to sit within Governance. The Scottish Arts Council has decided to place it in Artistic Leadership, as this area is one that all organisations will be reporting on.
| The long-term ambition for all funded organisations is for equalities to be pervasive throughout the organisation and its artistic product and practice. |
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It is recognised however, that with extensive new legislation coming on-stream that this is an area in which organisations need support and so it is to be developmental until 2010.
The Scottish Arts Council is producing briefings for organisations to keep them informed of these legislative changes and the changing responsibilities of their boards (see links). The Scottish Arts Council is working closely with Foundation organisations over the next two years to assist them in achieving fully inclusive organisations.
| For further information and useful links please visit the Equalities pages on the Scottish Arts Council website |
Taking Part is a survey commisioned every two years by the Scottish Arts Council examining public attendance and participation in the arts and cultural activity over the preceding 12 months. Latest figures reveal that 90 per cent of people in Scotland attend or participate in the arts and cultural activity.
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