MSPs reject Commission findings

The 124 recommendations contained in the 500-page report of the Scottish Cultural Commission have been broadly rejected by Scotland's Culture Minister. Opening a debate on the Commission's findings in the Scottish Parliament, Patricia Ferguson rejected all the main points in the report before pledging that she would come up with final proposals to overhaul Scotland's cultural infrastructure before the end of the year.

The key recommendations in the report, delivered in June after a year-long consultation period, were that culture spending should increase by £100m a year, the Scottish Arts Council should be abolished, and a new body, Culture Scotland, should be established to oversee cultural policy. While Ferguson agreed that the current cultural infrastructure was 'no longer fit for purpose', she added that she was 'not convinced that the Commission's preferred solution is the right one.' She also questioned 'some of the arithmetic in the commission's report', and suggested that any additional spending would be unlikely to go to new funding bodies but might be channelled directly to arts organisations.

Her attitude to the report was mirrored by other speakers, with agreement across the chamber that the proposal for Culture Scotland to work in conjunction with a separate funding body would be unworkable. Speaking for the Scottish National Party, Michael Matheson said, 'I agree with the Minister that the Commission went wrong with its preferred option for structural change in the sector. Its proposal that there should be two competing bodies – one dealing with funding and another dealing with priorities – is a recipe for conflict and simply would not work.'

The suggestion that 1% of the Scottish Executive's annual budget (equal to about £240m) should be allocated to cultural provision, an increase of nearly £100m, was not supported by any of the main parties. Donald Gorrie, the Liberal Democrat spokesman said, 'We should closely scrutinise quangos – if possible, we should get rid of some – and we should reduce bureaucracy. We should have no more consultants ever again.'