The year from April 2021 to March 2022 remained extremely challenging for the people and organisations that we support, and for society as a whole in Scotland, as the COVID-19 pandemic continued to impact all our lives in many different ways, economically, socially and in terms of health and wellbeing.
As a result, Creative Scotland’s priority focus through the financial year 2021/22 was to support Scotland’s culture and creative sector address the impacts of, and recovery from, COVID-19, as much as we possibly could. The Scottish Government provided significant levels of emergency funding support to Creative Scotland for the sector in 2021/22. The total funding awarded was £69.2 million across over 6,500 awards to people and organisations in Scotland’s culture and creative sectors. This significant level of emergency funding sat alongside over 1,400 funding awards made through our existing funding programmes totalling £84.5 million in value.
This includes the ongoing provision of Regular Funding to 121 organisations; the continued availability of Open Funding for Individuals and Organisations; and broad support for different aspects of creative and cultural provision through Targeted Funding support for Scotland’s screen sector and the Youth Arts and the Youth Music Initiative.
Looking forward, however, the budget situation for both Creative Scotland and for the cultural and creative sector in Scotland is far from certain. There is growing pressure on public finances; the cost-of-living crisis (which is impacting cultural organisations as much as individuals); rising inflation affecting operating costs; and global uncertainties which mean that long term financial planning, and the planning of future cultural activity and programming, is extremely challenging.
Nevertheless, we continue to support the sector in its fragile recovery from the impacts of the pandemic and in its ability to face current and future challenges. We will work to ensure that everyone recognises the value that creativity delivers for the people of Scotland in terms of its culture, wellbeing, equality, economy and global standing. See 2021/22 in numbers, and read more about what the funding supported in this Annual Review.