Coronavirus (COVID-19) business support: equality impact assessments

Independent Cinema Recovery and Resilience Fund

Name of Grant:

Independent Cinema Recovery and Resilience Fund

Policy Lead

Emily Green

Legal power used:

Funding was provided to Creative Scotland to distribute this fund under the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010, Section 39.

Grant Overview:

This fund was established by the Scottish Government to help bridge the significant immediate financial gap faced by independently owned cinemas during reopening and operation. The financial support will cover a proportion of venue fixed costs, and covers the period 14 September 2020 – March 2021.

Executive Summary:

The Scottish Government understands the impact COVID-19 has had on independent cinemas, which had to close completely for the majority of the pandemic.

Before 19 July 2021, Scottish Government regulations required greater restrictions, particularly the need for 2m physical distancing, which greatly reduced cinema capacity. Most cinemas were operating at no more than 25% capacity. This has typically led to a lower number of showings and reduced attendance.

This fund has been established by the Scottish Government to contribute to addressing the financial needs of independent cinemas. In order to address the needs of many sectors adversely impacted by the pandemic, a range of business support funds were introduced over several months to provide emergency funding to help secure jobs, safeguard businesses and to alleviate hardship.

Within this context of needing to react quickly, there was limited opportunity to gather evidence on the possible impacts of these measures.

We are mindful that the equality duty is not just about negating or mitigating negative impacts, we also have a positive duty to promote equality.

We have sought to do this through the design of the funding itself and by the support and guidance available to applicants. For example, the guidance produced by Creative Scotland for the scheme said that all applicants were expected to create accessible and inclusive venues and signposted applicants to Inclusive Cinema for information on how to achieve that. Inclusive Cinema is a UK-wide project developed by the BFI Film Audience Network (FAN) and is designed to support screen exhibitors. It provides a rich resource with how-to guides, useful data and case studies and links to training and where to find funding.

In another example, the guidance for the fund, produced by Creative Scotland, ensured people, such as disabled applicants, who needed alternative formats, languages or access support for their application could request this. This included offering additional one-to-one support between applicants and Creative Scotland’s equalities team. BSL users were also able to access our services with the Contact Scotland-BSL programme. Support includes Sign Language Interpreters for meetings and scribing support for dyslexic applicants.

The Covid business support schemes were designed to support established businesses, and the grants awarded reflect the pre-existing gender imbalance in the established business base.

Closing that gap will require a cross-government approach and we have made a commitment of £50m for the Women’s Business Centre over the course of this Parliament.

The Scottish Government recently published a paper for the FM’s National Advisory Council on Women and Girls’ spotlight on gender inequality within the Creative industries, where we suggest a need for further work to tackle the gender inequalities across the Creative industries.

Key Findings - impact assessment of benefits and/or disadvantages.

Cinema audiences include people of all characteristics across Scotland. Access for people with disabilities is provided and there are sessions that are audio-described or subtitled available. Many cinemas run special sessions for older people, parents with babies and for people with autism or dementia.

Cinemas are spread across Scotland and between independent cinemas and touring cinemas such as the Screen Machine (an itinerant adapted screen that travels widely including to Highlands and Islands) reach a wider range of people in Scotland than other art forms such as theatre. Cinema is generally a cheaper cultural option than theatre (average UK ticket price of £7.11) and therefore more accessible to most people. Many cinemas offer concessions to older people, students or those out-of-work.

Cinema-going is the second most popular cultural activity in Scotland with 17% of adults in 2020 saying that they had been to the cinema in the last 12 months (Scottish Household Survey 2020). People from Black, Asian and other ethnic backgrounds over-index in the cinema-going public (Source- UKCA). Overall across cinema in Scotland, data from 2020 shows 19% from Minority Ethnic Groups attended cinemas compared to the adult average of 17% and among White Scottish this was 16%. (Scottish Household Survey 2020). The largest audience share is in the 16-24 age group. According to the 2020 Scottish Household Survey the breakdown was 25% in 16-24 age group, 23% in 25-34, 22% in 35-44, 15% in 45-59, 13% in 60-74 and 6% in over-75s. On gender, attendance is largely balanced at 17% for both males and females. (SHS 2020)

In terms of disability 13% of those reporting disabilities said they attended cinemas in last 12 months (2020) compared to 19% non-disabilities. (SHS 2020)

Age: Older People and Children and Young People

• The purpose of the fund was to prevent insolvency and significant job losses due to the impact of Covid-19. People of working age will therefore be the biggest beneficiaries of funding.
• As the statistics above show however, older people and children and young people make up a significant proportion of cinema audiences so they would benefit from more independent cinemas being able to re-open once Covid-19 restrictions are lifted.
• These venues provide a range of programming and events that are specific to each community, but include events such as relaxed screenings for neuro-divergent people, regular events for Deaf and Hard of Hearing audiences, LGBTQIA+ programming and screenings for older people that reduce social isolation.

Sex: Men and Women

• The Covid business support schemes were designed to support established businesses, and the grants awarded reflect the pre-existing gender imbalance in the established business base. Women occupy just 4% of senior film exhibition roles in the UK (Creative Skillset 2014).
• On gender, overall across all age groups, attendance is evenly balanced between male and female. There would therefore be no significant impact within cinema audiences for this protected characteristic.

Race

• We have evidence that cinema over-indexes with minority ethnic groups so there would be a positive effect for those with those characteristics from cinemas being open.

Disability

• While fewer people with disabilities (13%) attend cinema than average (17%) the availability of cinema-going and the efforts of the sector to make the experience accessible and promote attendance with specific sessions for instance for people with autism indicates there would be a positive benefit for those with disabilities.

Religion and Belief

• We have no evidence to suggest that people with Religion or belief are likely to have been impacted positively or negatively by this fund.

Sexual Orientation

• We have no evidence to suggest that sexual orientation is likely to have been a factor influencing whether this fund has had positive or negative impacts on a person.

Pregnancy and maternity

• We have no evidence to suggest that there has been a significant impact on pregnant people or mothers. However, we are aware that due to the necessary urgency of this fund, there were only three weeks for applications to be submitted. This might have proved challenging for parents with limited time to complete the form, although enquiries could be submitted to Creative Scotland.

Gender reassignment

• We have no evidence to suggest Gender Reassignment is likely to have been a factor influencing whether this fund has had positive or negative impacts on a person.

Marriage or Civil Partnership

• We have no evidence to suggest Marriage or Civil Partnership is likely to have been a factor influencing whether this fund has had positive or negative impacts on a person.

Socio-economic disadvantage: any people experiencing poverty

• Applications were for independent cinemas facing financial hardship, and to save jobs. So this scheme is likely to have positively impacted people economically. The cinemas helped by this fund are distributed across Scotland and therefore have wide geographical reach, including a touring cinema in the Highlands and Islands. Cinema attendance spreads quite evenly across income groups with 15% of those in the lowest 20% income group (by SIMD) attending cinema compared to 17% on average suggesting that helping cinemas to open offers cultural alternatives across all income groups that are taken up.

Stakeholder Engagement:

We have engaged extensively with businesses and their representative organisations during the pandemic. Due to the accelerated timescales of this fund, no official consultation with the sector was taken prior to launch, although financial information from stakeholders was gathered to understand the sector’s financial needs to help define the economic scope of this fund. We engaged regularly with the UK Cinema Association which represents almost all cinemas (commercial and independent) in Scotland and through Screen Scotland with the independent and touring cinemas who were supported by the funding. At the height of the pandemic, this engagement was on at least a weekly basis as we were also working with them and the cinemas on guidance around restrictions. We also engaged with some key stakeholders at large independent cinema groups such as the Centre for the Moving Image (CMI; Edinburgh and Aberdeen) and with Glasgow Film Theatre.

Mitigations: Alternative Formats, Languages and Access Support for guidance was available. There was also an Enquiries Service at Creative Scotland for any issues. This has ensured we have been able to provide support for disabled people as well as people whose first language was not English.

The guidance produced by Creative Scotland for the scheme said that all applicants were expected to create accessible and inclusive venues and signposted applicants to Inclusive Cinema for information on how to achieve that. Inclusive Cinema is a UK-wide project developed by the BFI Film Audience Network (FAN) and is designed to support screen exhibitors. It provides a rich resource with how-to guides, useful data and case studies and links to training and where to find funding.

When it administered the funding Creative Scotland, ensured people, such as disabled applicants, who needed alternative formats, languages or access support for their application could request this. This included offering additional one-to-one support between applicants and Creative Scotland’s equalities team. BSL users were also able to access our services with the Contact Scotland-BSL programme. Support includes Sign Language Interpreters for meetings and scribing support for dyslexic applicants.

Next Steps (if any)

In 2022, Screen Scotland will publish an addition to its funding requirements, which will encourage a more representative and inclusive Scottish film industry.

The Diversity Standards will be designed in consultation with industry and will encourage filmmakers, producers and distributors to make meaningful changes to their projects to become more inclusive. As a result, they will open up more opportunities for people from all walks of life to make and watch films.

The BFI Diversity Standards Scotland (the Diversity Standards) will initially be tested during a year-long pilot and will develop into a permanent requirement. for applications to all Screen Scotland funds.

Declaration and Publication

I have read the Equality Impact Assessment and I am satisfied that it represents a fair and reasonable view of the expected equality impact of the measures implemented.

Signed: Rachael Mckechnie

Date: 1 March 2022