Last week saw the communication of Creative Scotland’s review of Flexibly Funded organisations and agencies. These organisations are central to Scotland’s cultural infrastructure and we have every intention on building on their success through access to growing Lottery funds and investment in their international potential.

The reality is that there is now more funding for these organisations to access. These are some of the best performing cultural organisations in Scotland.

We have confirmed secure funding for 25 organisations, three of them as Foundations and 22 as Annual Clients with budgets set aside for 3 years. The other 49 organisations have secure budgets until April 2013 and will have access to bid into £11 million of lottery budgets each year.

Anyone delivering quality work need have no fears. We want to invest in their international potential and to find cultural ambassadors from within these organisations. We want better and deeper public engagement.  We’ve also set aside funds for organisations to work together in areas such as education and equalities.

Our aim is a healthy, sustainable and creative sector. Of course, opinions differ about how we get there – particularly in the media, and some people are very vocally uncomfortable with change  – but Scotland’s creative future is at the heart of our thinking.

Thankfully, we are now working with the organisations involved in the review to move forward in a way that delivers positive benefits for the Scottish public and a thriving cultural sector. Had we kept the FXO programme we would have had to cut 20% of the organisations we currently support and then open it up competitively to those who lost out in the Scottish Arts Council’s 2010 bidding round.

Our strategy will enable us to support a wide range of quality producers to realise their ambitions.

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