Our Response to the Scottish Parliament's Pre-Budget Scrutiny 2023-24: Funding for Culture

Museums Galleries Scotland has responded to the Scottish Parliament’s Committee for Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture as part of the inquiry into the Scottish Government’s culture spending portfolio. This inquiry follows on from the Committee’s previous pre-budget scrutiny for 2022-23 and 2023-24.

The purpose of this inquiry is to help the Committee make recommendations to the Scottish Government, ahead of its own budget announcement, on how funding should be allocated to the culture sector. The Committee has asked individuals, groups, and businesses operating in this area to support and inform this work.

We are extremely thankful to the museums and galleries who took the time to complete our Financial Impacts Survey. Your feedback has been anonymised and embedded into our response to the Committee to add impact and provide evidence of the challenges and opportunities facing the sector.

In our response we have:

• Highlighted the crucial role of museums and galleries in Scotland’s culture and tourism sector, stressing the need for continued, sustainable investment and support across four key areas;
  • Ability to drive forward a thriving tourism economy and accessible participation in culture and heritage – particularly through regenerating domestic and local tourism
  • Connecting Scotland’s communities to their places and helping to tell local stories
  • Creating and sustaining a diverse, valued, competitive and skilled workforce that has the ability to meet Fair Work principles
  • Capital works, buildings repairs, and maintenance that increase the resilience of museum’s spaces and supports net zero ambitions
• Provided a detailed overview of proposals that could ease financial pressures on the sector, in particular, opportunities for strategic funding and collaboration that recognises how museums and galleries contribute and impact on national priority areas such as education, health and wellbeing, and climate.
• Called for a national culture strategy that not only sets out an ambition to place culture as a central consideration across all policy areas but also provides a meaningful framework by which appropriate resource and sustainable funding can make these ambitions achievable for the museums and galleries and the wider culture and heritage sector.