National Partnership for Culture recommendations: Scottish Government response

2. Community and Place

2.1 National initiatives should be joined up and both inform and be influenced by local and regional initiatives.

This recommendation aligns with a wide range of our ongoing policy actions, for example, in the draft National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4), which aims to embed culture in planning policy. This will help link the national, local and regional work, supporting the implementation of the Place Principle, and will foster a greater focus on the strategic delivery of the benefit that culture offers to communities, such as regeneration projects, initiatives from Our Place in Time - Historic Environment Strategy (more information on Our Place in Time) and Local Place Plans.

To take this forward, we will identify areas of best practice that have been developed, for example within the Creative Industries, Major Events and through the National Planning Framework (more information on the National Planning Network), and apply learnings from these examples within relevant policy initiatives. By working across the Culture and Economy portfolios, we will ensure that culture is represented at existing working groups, including Regional Economic Partnerships, and recognise the value that culture can offer to Community Wealth Building (more information on Community Wealth Building).

2.2 Equity of access to culture should be prioritised at a national level to support local, grassroots delivery.

Equity of access to culture is prioritised at a national level to support local, grassroots delivery, in many policy initiatives across the Scottish Government. These include the Agent of Change principle (more information on the Agent of Change principle), designed to safeguard existing cultural venues and facilities; the development of 20 minute neighbourhoods; and the New Scots refugee integration strategy (more information on the New Scot refugee integration strategy), which has a theme of Communities, Culture and Social Connections.

To continue to deliver on the recommendation, we will work with each of Planning, Architecture and Regeneration, New Scots and Planning and Development teams to understand how culture is considered in relevant policy and ensure culture is represented in the development of initiatives. The development of a refreshed Culture Strategy Action Plan will allow any policy compacts developed as a result of these cross-portfolio discussions to be captured and taken forward.

2.3 Local authorities should use culture as part of their delivery across wider local authority services.

Whilst setting the strategic direction of local authorities is not facilitated by the Scottish Government, nor does the Scottish Government provide direct funding for local authority culture facilities, we are working with partners to develop actions that support national and local organisations working together to support culture, which will be captured in the forthcoming Culture Strategy Action Plan. This work will complement meetings between Ministers and the Culture Conveners group, to identify ways to strengthen and review models of co-operation around the principals of recovery and renewal and through key workstreams such as education, health and wellbeing.