The Stage

SAC call on new arts minister to address industry anxiety

Published Tuesday 12 October 2004 at 11:10 by Hamish Mackay

Scottish Arts Council director Graham Berry has called on Scotland’s new arts minister Patricia Ferguson to restore confidence in the sector amid concern that she is underqualified for the job.

Ferguson replaces Frank McAveety, unpopular with many in the industry for his handling of the Scottish Opera crisis, from her role as minister for parliamentary business where she oversaw the executive’s legislative programme. According to her spokesman, she is “getting her feet under the table” before speaking on cultural policy.

But Berry is concerned that the sector is feeling a great deal of anxiety while it waits for former SAC chairman James Boyle and his Cultural Commission to deliver its overhaul of arts policy. It could be a few years before the commission delivers major changes, he argues, and that hiatus has helped feed a level of anxiety that the minister must address.

“One of the key things the minister has to do is create confidence in the arts sector,” he said. “We are in a hiatus just now. People are hanging back, waiting. What is the commission going to do? How are they going to do it?

“There’s a slight anxiety there. Are they going to change the nature of all the organisations, the arts council, the national galleries. Are they going to take control of the national companies? That anxiety needs to be addressed by the new minister.”

Arts insiders are also concerned that her minister portfolio embraces tourism, sport and external affairs - and she will not be able to devote sufficient attention to the arts scene.

Scottish Opera chief executive Christopher Barron and chairman of the Federation of Scottish Theatres Eddie Jackson are calling for a politician devoted entirely to the arts sector. Said Jackson: “It would be a real signal that the executive is putting arts at the centre of Scottish life.”