Extracts from key political party manifestos relevant to leisure-time music
This is an extract of the key pledges in party manifestos relevant to the community of members of Making Music and leisure time music making. Extracted from the manifestos of the 5 parties represented in parliament up to 2021, with reference to our Asks to MSP Candidates which were: • A Culture Act for Scotland • Spaces for music making and performance to be considered essential in community planning. • Music making to be considered a well-being activity and included within strategies to improve the nation’s health and well-being • Free instrumental music tuition in all Scottish schools
Scottish National Party
CULTURE • Learning from countries such as Ireland and the Netherlands, we will establish a “Percentage for the Arts” scheme which will create a requirement for a percentage of the overall cost of a construction project for new public buildings, places or spaces to be spent on community art commissions. We estimate this would raise £150 million per year for the arts once fully up and running.
• To aid future planning and recovery, we will agree 3 year funding settlements for Scottish Government core funded cultural organisations. We will also continue our culture recovery funding to get support to those who continue to be significantly affected by Covid related restrictions.
• We will support the co-ordination of Scottish commissioning and create a Scotland Touring Fund for Theatre and Music as part of economic recovery, helping to take live performances directly into alternative community venues and revitalising year- round tourism.
• We will expand our Culture Collective programme, giving artists and communities the length and breadth of Scotland even more opportunities to collaborate on creative activity, supporting a sustainable creative recovery from the pandemic.
• We will establish our first regularly funded Youth National Performing Company, to showcase the creative gifts of Scotland’s young people, and help grow the talent of tomorrow.
• We will support tax relief for culture and creative industries including the games sector, high-end and children’s TV production, animation, film, theatre and orchestras.
• We will call on the UK Government to work with the EU to deliver free movement for performers, artists, musicians and freelancers, and ensure there are no barriers to those looking to tour and perform in Scotland and the UK.
• And we will utilise our international network to better support Scottish-based artists to work internationally, and help to facilitate new cultural connections between Scotland and the rest of the world.
• We will continue the highly successful EXPO fund for Edinburgh’s major festivals, Celtic Connections and Glasgow International, reviewing how it can continue to meet its aims of ensuring the Festivals maintain their global competitive edge, increasing the funding available to Scottish artists and practitioners, and encouraging creative collaborations.
• Taking Wigtown, Scotland’s National Book Town, as a model, we will extend the reach of the arts by launching an open competition for further National Towns of Culture for example, Scotland’s National Live Music Town, Folk and Trad Town, or Scotland’s Visual Art Town.
EDUCATION • (We will) abolish fees for music and arts education, including instrumental music tuition in schools. To support this we will accept all recommendations of the Music Education Partnership Group, mainstreaming music as a core subject in Scotland’s education system and ensuring Scotland’s school-based instrumental music teachers receive GTCS registration and accreditation creating a professionally-recognised national music teaching force.
• (We will) expand the successful Youth Music Initiative model across other artforms and we will support children and young people from disadvantaged communities to access music and realise their potential by continuing our annual funding for Sistema Scotland.
Scottish Labour
CULTURE
• Just 0.2% of the Scottish budget is spent on culture and we get so much back for so little investment. We will establish a baseline for cultural spending that reflects its value and delivers a greater share of Scottish Government budget.
• We will embed Good Work principles into the sector, and achieve trade union rates for the job.
• Local authorities must be properly funded in order to support culture provision and activities, and to establish a fund for engaging marginalised groups.
• We also support the introduction of arts officers in local authorities.
• We will establish a Cultural Rucksack Programme to ensure that every child has access to artistic and cultural experiences, based on the successful Norwegian scheme.
• Scotland has a vibrant music scene which needs support to thrive. We believe grassroots music venues should be supported by continuing business rates relief after the pandemic.
• We support the introduction of an Arts Bill which places a statutory responsibility onto local authorities to deliver an arts plan supported by a fair funding deal for local authorities.
• Many Scottish theatres, cultural institutions, museums, art galleries and cinemas, particularly those run independently, are at the greatest risk of closure because of the impact of Covid-19; Scottish Labour is committed to supporting them to maintain their long-term presence in the sector.
• Creative festivals in Scotland have grown significantly over the last decade. Their survival will be, in part, dependent upon a strong return to tourism, and additional interim support will be necessary. As part of any recovery deal, we must ensure that festivals, big and small, are affordable and accessible to everyone.
• Many services have transferred to leisure trusts. In consultation with local authorities, we will develop a framework and funding plan to reintegrate these services back into local government.
• Scottish Labour will properly fund local authorities to support the arts and sport within their area.
EDUCATION
• We support the mainstreaming of music education in schools, enhancing equity of access and rolling out the We Make Music schools programme.
• We will also ensure free instrumental music tuition for all pupils who wish to learn an instrument.
PLANNING
• It should be the priority of community planning, working with national agencies like sportscotland, for every community to have access to at least one open and freely available local space for sport and recreation, which is safe and secure. Our neighbourhoods should be designed around these safe and secure facilities together with other community amenities.
Scottish Conservatives
CULTURE • To help music venues, heritage sites and festivals recover, we will set up a £50 million Cultural Kick Start Fund. As part of this, we will deliver a half price entry programme for heritage sites for the remainder of 2021.
• We will also bring forward an Arts Bill to ensure local authorities carry out a minimum level of cultural planning and engagement, provide a more sustainable funding model and introduce measures to ensure a fairer geographic spread of resources.
EDUCATION
As a basic right, we must ensure every child has the opportunity to play an instrument, learn a language and play a sport at school. • We would ensure instrumental music teachers can access GTCS registration and accreditation and make music education a core part of the curriculum to ensure lessons are available to all students free of charge
Scottish Liberal Democrats
CULTURE
• We will earmark money for a new Show Must Go On Fund. This will have five-year objectives to:
• Create graduate internship opportunities in the arts, paying for graduates to start their careers within art and cultural companies.
• Protect performance, rehearsal and exhibition spaces that are at risk because of the lower footfall legacy of the pandemic.
• Step up support for in-person performance with the aim to get more arts into more communities than ever before, to inspire and entertain.
• Set up a government-backed cancellation insurance guarantee so that producers have confidence to begin preparations for new shows.
• Support seat purchase initiatives to help shows go ahead with social distancing.
• Develop a new initiative to have more high-quality Scottish arts performances available digitally.
• Work towards a Creative Schools initiative to support the arts equivalent to Active Schools for sports.
• Make learning an instrument free again in schools through agreement with local authorities.
• Work with the General Teaching Council Scotland to introduce professional recognition of instrument music teachers.
• We will also work with UK Government to resolve problems in their Brexit policy which are now restricting people touring and performing abroad.
EDUCATION • Make music tuition free in schools in order to encourage participation and equal access.
PLANNING
• Make sure there are community engagement plans in place at the planning stage of major infrastructure projects to allow local people to have an effective voice.
Scottish Green Party
CULTURE
We will: • Increase investment in culture, and ensure all regions benefit from this by supporting local authorities to develop resourced Cultural Plans in collaboration with local residents, artists and industries.
• Contribute to the revival of our town centres by supporting the repurposing of commercial properties into low carbon artists’ spaces such as studios, venues, cinemas, workshops and production facilities.
• Amend the Scottish Government Sustainable Procurement Strategy to allow artists, creative freelancers and microbusinesses equal access to procurement opportunities.
• Extend the Scottish Government’s Culture Collective scheme, which supports creative practitioners and communities to work together in adapting to the impacts of the pandemic, while providing vital employment for freelance artists.
• Develop an ‘embedded artists’ scheme that places artists and creative thinkers in local and national government, utilising their unique ways of thinking and working to imagine and co-design new spaces and systems for communities, economies and participatory democracy.
• Encourage collaborative working between the health and cultural sectors, involving arts organisations in the delivery of health and wellbeing in all Health and Social Care Partnership areas, and support initiatives such as A Sense of Belonging in Edinburgh, which promotes positive mental health and wellbeing through participation in the arts.
• Create a cultural leadership scheme to ensure that people from diverse backgrounds are heard at an early stage across Scottish Government cultural policy making.
• Support the introduction of a mandatory quota for recruitment of artists from minority ethnic backgrounds for organisations in receipt of public funding.
• Support calls to remove barriers for people with disabilities to play, learn, compose and perform music, and to create drama training pathways for people with learning disabilities.
• Create an Innovative and Accessible Culture Fund to support artists’ upskilling in the use of technologies to produce more accessible work.
• Push for a free cultural work permit that gives artists visa-free travel throughout the EU, minimising the harm from Brexit on their livelihoods and artistic development.
• Create an Office for Cultural Exchange to facilitate European and international touring, festivals and residencies.
• Push for a fairer deal on streaming so that musicians and writers receive a greater share of the royalties from their music than record labels, streaming platforms and big tech companies.
• Give every primary pupil the opportunity to learn and develop through expressive arts such as music, drama, visual art and dance as both a participant and an audience member.
• Ensure that the experiences offered to children and young people are diverse in terms of content as well as artists represented, including diversity of ethnicity, class and disability.
• Support cultural ventures in all the languages of Scotland; Encourage the use of Gaelic, Scots and Doric as well as the languages of those from minority ethnic backgrounds.
EDUCATION
• Remove charges for instrumental music tuition. We will adequately fund local councils to ensure that there is no need to charge fees for instrumental music tuition.
PLANNING
We will:
• Create a town and city centre green transformation fund to re-orient these places towards pedestrians, cyclists and vulnerable road users including children, the elderly and disabled people. We will reclaim road space for outdoor leisure and commercial opportunities, and support the use of vacant premises for arts, recreation and other activities that benefit local communities.
• Fund communities to lead plans for their local areas. Local Place Plans are a new tier of community-led development planning that need actioned. We will equip communities and councils with the tools and power to investigate their own development needs and plan their futures.
• Ensure meaningful public engagement in planning. We continue to support communities having appeal rights, but until that happens we will demand improvements to public engagement at every stage.
National Federation of Music Societies (trading as Making Music). A company limited by guarantee, registered in England no. 308632. Registered Charity in England no. 249219 and in Scotland no. SC038849. 8 Holyrood Street, London SE1 2EL