Press Release, 19 August 2024
For immediate use
Statement by Literature Alliance Scotland in response to Creative Scotland’s decision to close the Open Fund for Individuals
Literature Alliance Scotland is deeply concerned by the announcement today that the Creative Scotland Open Fund for Individuals will be closing on 30 August 2024. We are also concerned by the way in which this news has been communicated. Literature Alliance Scotland and other literature organisations were not consulted and had no prior warning of this decision, and we are extremely worried about the impact that it will have on writers in Scotland and about the anxiety and instability that it will create in the sector.
The Open Fund for Individuals has been one of Creative Scotland’s key funding programmes, supporting a wide range of activity initiated by artists, writers, producers and other creative practitioners in Scotland. The intended annual budget for this fund was £6.6 million, and it has been vital in sustaining the work of freelance writers.
Many writers credit support from this fund and its predecessors with underpinning careers that would otherwise have been out of reach. Among them is James Robertson, winner of the Walter Scott Prize and Booker Prize longlistee. Robertson said:
“I would not have been able to establish my career if I had been unable to apply to Scottish Arts Council – as it was then – for individual funding.”
Robertson is deeply concerned about the impact of the fund closure on individuals. He said:
“The idea that individual artists cannot apply for funding from their national arts body seems to attack the very baseline of where arts come from. For writers this is a disaster, and people right across the arts will feel they have been told, ‘This world is not for you’.”
Novelist Lucy Ribchester has also spoken today about how her career was helped by the Open Fund for Individuals:
“I received a Creative Scotland Open Fund grant in 2017, at a crucial juncture in my career. My first two novels had been published in a two-book deal, and marketed as commercial fiction. But I had also begun to expand my creative range in short stories, which had been shortlisted for two major awards; the COSTA Short Story Award and Manchester Fiction Prize. I really wanted to push myself further with my novel writing craft. The Creative Scotland grant allowed me to take a break from commercial publishing and place creative ambition and craft above the market value for my work. Ultimately it gave me breathing space to develop as a writer.”
Without access to the Open Fund, many writers will struggle to find support for their creative work. In 2022, Literature Alliance Scotland commissioned research by Ruthless Research on the situation of freelancers in the literature sector. The resulting report showed how precarious the livelihood of freelancers has become, and today’s announcement does not bode well for rebuilding the viability of the sector and enabling writers to build sustainable careers. The speed of this decision and the manner of its communication raise concerns for us about writers’ wellbeing.
Literature Alliance Scotland calls on Creative Scotland and on the Scottish Government to rethink this decision and to engage with individuals and organisations in the literature sector to ensure that writers and other artists are not deprived of the funding they need to continue their valuable creative work, and that those who find themselves already in a difficult position are not pushed further into crisis.
ENDS
Notes for editors:
LAS is a membership network committed to advancing the interests of literature and languages at home and abroad. As Scotland’s largest literary network, we bring together writers, publishers, educators, librarians, literature organisations and national cultural bodies.
The Freelance Report by Ruthless Research is available at https://literaturealliancescotland.co.uk/freelance-report/.
https://literaturealliancescotland.co.uk
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