A Culture Strategy for Scotland: Action Plan

Introduction

This Action Plan sets out the next steps we will take to support culture in Scotland and has been developed in collaboration with the Culture Sector.

Consultation began in late 2022 with a series of roundtables on the theme of resilience. The sessions were chaired by Matt Baker, co-chair of the National Partnership for Culture and were attended by the Cabinet Secretary for the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture, Scottish Government Culture Officials and colleagues from across the Culture Sector. Throughout these sessions, we placed an emphasis on collective leadership and collaborative action, considering how Government, public bodies, and cultural and creative organisations can work together to effect change.

In January and February 2023, we convened working groups, including the National Partnership for Culture, the Culture and Creativity in Learning Group and the Local and National Delivery Group to develop a set of draft actions, which we workshopped with the wider sector through a series of feedback sessions in May 2023. Finally, we met with Creative Scotland and their Sector Leads group in autumn 2023 to finalise the actions and ensure they were representative of what the sector needed.

Throughout this consultation, we have heard that the guiding vision, principles and ambitions of the Culture Strategy remain relevant. However, some of its workstreams need reconsidering and reframing to bring them into the new landscape we are working in, with a focus on resilience and long-term recovery. With that in mind, we have developed this Action Plan, which builds on the Culture Strategy rather than replaces it. Some of the actions that follow are brand new, and reflect the need for a guiding framework. Other actions have been reworked, building on the principles set out in the Culture Strategy and bringing these up to date. And finally, some actions have been retained, where both the principles and details remain the right ones.

The following four chapters provide the detail of how we will deliver on the vision and ambitions of the Culture Strategy. The first chapter takes an overarching view of the need to build resilience, and features new actions. The subsequent chapters follow the three pillars of the Culture Strategy: Strengthening Culture, Transforming through Culture, and Empowering through Culture.