Creative Scotland

The recent amalgamation of the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen into a single entity called Creative Scotland has been announced. But doubts about the experience of the people chosen to lead this new “Quango” (Quasi-Autonomous-National-Government-Organization) have already been raised. To quote Scotland’s national paper “The Scotsman” (June 10th); “Senior figures in the Scottish arts community yesterday privately questioned whether any of the three (executives) boasted a proven expertise in the needs of the Scottish Film Industry.

And why should “senior figures” have raised these doubts? Lets take a look at the three key executives. Caroline Parkinson, who will be in charge of Skills Training for the Visual Arts (among others duties,) has a resume with no experience in this area. She is a photographer and a member of Scotland’s rhythmic gymnastics squad. Iain Munro, who will be a director of creative development (in other words, deciding which filmmakers and which projects get development funding) is a student of singing and economics who has overseen Lottery Funding for arts and creative industries. Perhaps the most experienced of the three named so far is Venu Dhupa. A former chief executive of Nottingham Theatre, her tenure as Head of Arts at the British Council ended in resignation after her strategy and methods “sparked an artists’ revolt”.

It took me a moment to digest this - perhaps because of weary disbelief. But only a moment.

Not one of these key people appears to have had any film industry experience. They may have some experience in handing out taxpayer or lottery player money to “artists” - but none in evaluating film projects or in developing screenplays. Nor do they have any experience in film financing, film production or, most important of all, film distribution.

I was not one of the “senior figures” referred to. Obviously an over-sight! So I decided to write a Letter to The Editor of The Scotsman. You can find it in my next post.

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