The team at Stirling’s Macrobert Arts Centre are celebrating after the green light was given to a three-year funding award worth almost £1.3million.
The centre was previously one of the designated ‘Regularly Funded Organisation’ by Creative Scotland – last receiving a £950,000 grant from 2018 to 2021 as part of its multi-year funding programme.
Following the announcement at Holyrood of an increase in the grant-in-aid funding, Creative Scotland then unveiled plans for more than £200million of support to be delivered to a total of 251 organisations dotted across the country.
The Macrobert – which hosts stage and screen performances year round – is one of the lucky groups to be included in the funding round, which Macrobert chiefs have said will help avert “cultural carnage” due to spending cuts.
Ed Robson, Artistic Director and CEO of Macrobert Arts Centre, said: “We’re all relieved to have secured multi-year funding from Creative Scotland.
“After recent challenging times across the arts sector, we can now begin to plan for the future. While we very warmly welcome today’s announcement and the security it brings, the increased investment broadly keeps the organisation’s core grant in line with inflation since the last grant agreements in 2018.
“Financial pressures in the sector remain high but with the renewed commitment from Creative Scotland, we can step forward positively while recognising that significant sustainability challenges for Macrobert, and for the sector as a whole, do remain.” The centre also stressed the grant support will help them deliver on goals to ensure “all parts of society can access, participate and experience art and creativity in a space local to them”.
It also vowed to help with organisations across the Scottish cultural sector which have not been supported during the Creative Scotland announcement.
Robert Wilson, chairman of Creative Scotland, said: “This is an extremely positive moment for culture in Scotland, bringing with it a renewed sense of stability and certainty to Scotland’s culture sector.
“Thanks to the vote of confidence in the culture sector, demonstrated by the recently announced budget from the Scottish Government, Creative Scotland can offer stable, year-on-year funding to more organisations than ever before.
“I’m particularly pleased that this funding will increase further from next year, enabling even more fantastic artistic and creative work to be developed here in Scotland.
“Stable, long-term funding for as many organisations as possible is the underlying principle of the Multi-Year Funding programme, and we are delighted to be able to bring it to fruition.
“This funding means that we are able to bring so many new, community focused organisations into the portfolio, while also providing significant increases to those more established organisations which have been on standstill, regular funding for so many years.”