Cultural engagement in Scotland: what is it and why does it matter?

Introduction

Understanding what culture means to people

In the Scottish Government our national outcomes describe the kind of Scotland we want to see. For our culture outcome, our broad vision is that Scotland is a vibrant and creative country where everyone is encouraged to enjoy culture in all its forms.^[4]

The Culture Strategy for Scotland^[5] was published in February 2020 following engagement and consultation with artists, cultural organisations and communities across Scotland. There is not a set definition of ‘culture’ in this strategy. This is because culture is described as being something that takes place across the country every day. It is something that can be expressed in a wide variety of ways, and it means different things to different people. The strategy also highlights the positive impact that culture has on society and its potential to contribute to individual, community and national wellbeing and prosperity. The data presented in this report will help the Scottish Government, and our key partners across the public sector and cultural sectors to track the progress of Culture Strategy ambitions.

However, a number of major challenges over the last four years, including the pandemic and the cost of living crisis, have negatively impacted on people’s ability to engage with cultural opportunities. For extended periods of time there was limited access to events, public facilities, travel and community spaces. For some, this may have encouraged participation in activities that are done at home, such as, reading, listening to music and watching online performances.

The cost of living increased sharply from 2021 to 2023 - with increases in food, energy prices and housing costs. People responded by cutting back on ‘non-essential’ spending, including subscription and media services, eating out and trips to events.^[6]

This report was written to take an in-depth look at how the Scottish Government measures and understands cultural engagement. Also, to set out people’s experiences and behaviours and how these may have changed over time due to the challenges of covid and the cost of living crisis.

Data collection

The main way of capturing patterns of cultural engagement in Scotland is through the SHS. This is an annual survey of the general population in Scotland. It has been running since 1999 and it aims to collect reliable and up-to-date information on a range of topics, including culture and heritage (See Annex A for detailed information on SHS).

Specifically, there are questions in the survey about people’s cultural attendance and their participation, their satisfaction with services, factors that may limit their attendance and participation and what value culture has for them. This provides valuable statistical data on attitudes and behaviours.

The 2022 results are published as official statistics (see below) in line with 2019. This is in contrast to 2020 and 2021, which were published as experimental statistics. This was due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which resulted in the 2020 and 2021 survey years having a different methodology, lower response rates and a change in the profile of respondents compared to typical survey years. Data relating to 2020 and 2021 can be found in their respective key findings reports and supplementary documents. As the pandemic disrupted the survey approach in 2020 and 2021 it has not been possible to compare survey data from before and after the pandemic until now.

To supplement the data from SHS, and understand in greater detail how people may experience culture, including what it means to them, how it makes them feel and if they have any problems accessing the things they would like do, we also developed an open ‘free-text’ survey (see Annex H for survey method). This survey offered members of the public chance to share their views and experiences in their own words. This report also presents the findings from this survey.

Structure of the report

This report is structured into seven sections:

1. How do we measure and understand cultural engagement in Scotland?

2. Cultural engagement in Scotland 2022 – what do national trends tell us?

3. What is engagement like for different Local Authorities in Scotland in 2022?

4. What is engagement like for different people in Scotland in 2022?

5. What does cultural engagement mean to people and how do they experience it? (qualitative research)

6. How has cultural engagement changed over time (2019 to 2022)?

7. Impact of Culture and Heritage (2022).