On August 19 2024, Creative Scotland announced that, within 12 days, it would cease to accept new applications to the Open Fund for Individuals (OFI), the grant programme through which it distributes money directly to “[f]reelance and self-employed artists and creative practitioners living in Scotland”.[1] The reason cited was budget uncertainty: the monetary allocation promised to this non-departmental public body by the Scottish Government had not been dispensed and, it seemed conceivable, may fail to materialise owing to a recent austerity directive.[2] As was to be expected, the decision taken by Creative Scotland’s executives in response to fiscal constraint elicited significant discontent—particularly as no such cut was made to the Open Fund for Organisations—and was but the latest in a line of controversies that had unfolded since its establishment as a successor to the Scottish Arts Council in 2010. Many commentators began to express their opposition, which variously took the form of online posts, letters to politicians, press articles and so forth. I—a freelance producer in the field of contemporary art, at the time taking a hiatus from work while writing a doctoral thesis—felt similar indignation, though had apprehensions about the implications of narratives constructed to pressure the fund’s reinstatement and the tactics used to amplify them. While it ultimately came to pass that Creative Scotland resumed accepting OFI applications, it is my contention that the misgivings I felt may hold strategic relevance to those that labour in the cultural sector.
Before proceeding, it is necessary to point out that the main purpose of the OFI is to ensure a supply of cultural outputs, and to summarise how it is administered. Creative Scotland produces a standardised application form, within which a candidate must outline the ‘project’ they intend to realise and its prospective ‘strengths,’ ‘impacts’ and alignment with ‘strategic imperatives’: in itself, a significant undertaking. Applications, which are appraised by officers at Creative Scotland using specified criteria, are accepted on a rolling basis, and owing to demand far exceeding the allocation, a large proportion that meet the prerequisite threshold do not receive funding. Notably, grant programmes such as this hold an equivocal status as to whether they are forms of ‘state aid’ or ‘service procurement’: in the case of the former, Creative Scotland is positioned as a ‘benefactor’ and the recipient a ‘beneficiary,’ while in the latter, Creative Scotland is a ‘purchaser/commissioner’ and the recipient a ‘seller/provider.’
In the aftermath of the announcement, I read several social media posts published and circulated by cultural workers within which there were two rhetorical tactics that I perceived as counter-productive to a politics of labour.[3] The first was to point towards research, whether academic or quasi-sociological, that pertained to demographic inequalities within the cultural workforce, which was intended to emphasise the disproportionate impact that the withdrawal of the fund would have on those already facing barriers to participation.[4] Fundamentally, such studies, which reduce complex social relations—of class, race, gender and disability—to measurable datapoints, serve to fulfil the appetite of the state to audit the domains under its jurisdiction more so than to redress the inequalities they document.[5] The problem with invoking them is that it reinforces the notion that all cultural workers are privileged beneficiaries, which begs the question, why ought the state—which is ostensibly committed to the edict of ‘equality, diversity and inclusion’—make concessions to us, over those at ‘greater disadvantage’ outside of our sector? It is necessary to be mindful that, as budget lines, all functions of the state are commensurable and convertible, and the conclusions that it is possible to draw from such research may justify not equitable reforms within cultural funding, but its further de-prioritisation. The second tactic was to provide testimonies that emphasised the struggle to generate income as a freelance cultural worker from a personal standpoint, highlighting that many of us do so through alternative means, often in other sectors. While this was articulated to evoke empathy in the pursuit of change, in reality, it may inadvertently provide those that control the overarching distribution of money—whether politician or bureaucrat—with a means to rationalise further cuts, because it suggests that we already provision cultural products and services without receiving financial remuneration for it. In effect, the purpose of the OFI, from the vantage point of the state, is then obviated, because we have conceded to being ‘providers’ without actually being ‘sellers’ of our labour-power. I raise these points not to diminish the effects of insecurity and marginalisation, but to caution that many of the political points accentuated may be susceptible to co-optation.
The second issue I seek to highlight was the reliance upon so-called ‘sector-support bodies’—named herein as intermediaries—to speak on behalf of freelancers during the dispute. While this was presented as a collective mechanism to overcome the individuation and fragmentation inherent in work, at an ideological level, intermediaries serve to construct an artificial unity between agents that play various roles in cultural production and mediation, masking the unequal ascription of individual prestige and uneven infrastructural endowment of power vested in the various roles subsumed under the sectoral ‘we.’ Other commentators have argued convincingly that, in the context of organisational funding, Creative Scotland has strategically repositioned ‘bureaucratic’ functions as cultural activities through intermediaries, which diminishes the likelihood that money will actually be distributed to pay for art’s production.[6] The practice of funding intermediaries is not new, and was and is often leveraged for a specific purpose that is also crucial to recognise: cutting the state’s internal costs through outsourcing, which is coterminous with the destabilisation of administrative labour. Though intermediaries in the present have ‘fair work’ policies—a prerequisite for Creative Scotland funding—the salaries and job security they offer is comparatively lower than in public sector employment, where there is a greater assurance of permanence untethered to securing time-limited grants and access to union representation with high membership density.[7] This is not necessarily the most convenient truth to highlight for those of us who lack the security of employment, though it is, in my estimation, necessary to recognise if we are committed to leftist politics, because it testifies to the systematic dismantling of worker protections within the ongoing process of neoliberalisation.
The intermediary with which I am most familiar is the Scottish Contemporary Art Network (SCAN), a charitable organisation constituted in 2012.[8] It is run by a small staff team, most of whom work part-time, and, since 2018, has received multi-year funding from Creative Scotland to deliver a programme of work predicated upon “knowledge-sharing, networking, research, professional development and advocacy”.[9] Despite this public funding, it nonetheless charges annual membership fees to individuals and organisations, using a tiered pricing system that distinguishes individuals by income and employment status, and organisations by turnover and type.[10] Even if one sets aside potential divergences between the ‘individual’ and ‘organisational’ interests that SCAN purports to represent, this model must be problematised, as it reverses the direction of monetary flow that freelancers must demand.[11] Rather than being paid for our labour-power, we are asked to self-invest, financially and temporally, within a system designed to maintain the capacities and shape the sensibilities of cultural workers, prospective and extant, without providing a means of subsistence or other material guarantees.[12] Compounding this, organisational members are generally recipients of public funding, meaning that their membership subscriptions are paid from the same state-allocated pot, amounting to a secondary intra-sectoral redistribution away from cultural production. This perversity is a direct consequence of the terms Creative Scotland has established: in order to be eligible for funding, an organisation must prove that it can generate additional income. The sleight of SCAN’s specific model lies in the fact that it ‘earns’ this by extracting from the sector itself, while pledging service to the people that compose it.
As an addressee on SCAN’s mailing list—though not a dues-paying member—I received an email on 22 August about the OFI closure. It stated that SCAN was,
continuing to advocate for artists and freelancers in our community at this crucial time. We are working hard behind the scenes to communicate our demands for both immediate action and long-term reassurance for artists––both the most vulnerable and the most important people in our workforce.[13]
Framed through a lens of solicitude, this statement offers little more than a promise of symbolic recognition, gratifying artists’ desires for psychic, rather than economic, appreciation. This reinforces disempowerment, positioning artists as recipients of goodwill rather than as active agents capable of securing politico-economic gains. In its capacity as a benevolent exponent, SCAN had “been in touch with Scottish government officials, briefing MSP’s directly about the crisis and speaking to Creative Scotland.”[14] These lobbying activities, far from being exceptional, are a core function of the organisation. While some may argue this lends credibility and visibility to exigencies, it is imperative that we recognise that SCAN’s role as a sanctioned conduit for consultation and negotiation forms a part of the very rationale for which it is funded by the state. SCAN’s receipt of money is predicated upon comporting with the agendas of Creative Scotland, as is the case for all funded cultural organisations, though it is particularly acute in the case of intermediaries positioned as administrative proxies. This means that the content of any demand it puts forth must remain politically palatable to the decision-makers within the state. The influence SCAN exerts upon cultural workers may, in turn, impel acquiescence to a normative framework that we know to be misaligned with our material interests, subtly shaping the demands we conceive to hold validity. Put otherwise, SCAN’s dependence on Creative Scotland does not simply compromise its ability to adequately represent us; it is funded for the very purpose of regulating both conduct and consciousness, in order to advance a politics of consensus.
Five days later, on 29 August, SCAN hosted an ‘open meeting’ online to “[provide] an update on our understanding of the position; help us understand and share impacts; [and] discuss current actions and next steps”.[15] In this, SCAN’s workers were genuinely sympathetic to the hardships faced by freelancers and committed to assuaging the anxieties of attendees; many of whom had preexisting grievances about the administration of the OFI and were profoundly affected by the recent announcement. There were two interrelated aspects of this meeting that, from my vantage point as a participant, warrant concern; which arise not in spite of, but precisely because of, the circumstances just described. The first relates to the fact representatives of SCAN were tasked with fielding questions about the withdrawal of the open fund, over which they had no control and limited knowledge; which is to say that, in spite of their dialogue with state actors, they were not actually granted privileged access to granular decision-making purposefully insulated from publicity.[16] The issue this raises is that by calling upon intermediaries to explain the determinants of our working lives to us, we may perceive ourselves to be more informed, yet gain little insight through which to apprehend our situation. My second concern pertains to the fact that, ultimately, it was those with the authority to alter the distribution of state funds—the executives of Creative Scotland—who were the rightful recipients of our inquiries and the politico-affective utility of this misdirection: by stepping in to mediate the anger and frustration of cultural workers, SCAN channelled the emotional momentum away from direct confrontation with those in power. It was not the “reassurance” offered by SCAN that we required; soothing concerns without an ability to offer substantive change ultimately serves as a form of neutralisation. The meeting, in essence, functioned as a buffer, which illustrates the role of the intermediary within a broader architecture of cultural governance. To be clear, I do not blame SCAN’s workers for this fact—adhering to the duties of one’s employment does not make one wholly answerable for the structure in which one operates—and recognise that, within this specific circumstance, they were caught in a double bind: while I have critiqued this meeting, abstaining from convening it would undoubtedly have elicited condemnation. What this ambiguity reveals, rather, is the need for freelancers to ourselves reconsider where we locate opportunities for political agency and collective bargaining in a broader struggle for structural change.
As it transpired, the mobilisation of cultural workers shifted the balance of forces within the state apparatus, and Creative Scotland reinstated the OFI.[17] This did not, however, alleviate my concern that in a dispute centered on the non-procurement of labour, we, as freelancer cultural workers, embraced political tactics that may prove counter-productive in the longer term. Though it is not always popular on the left to frame cultural funding as a quasi-market relationship, we must remain mindful that it is not charity we require, but compensation. It is, moreover, critical that we do not, by default, delegate to intermediaries our critical negotiation with forces that govern our professions and determine our labour conditions. However well-meaning their workers, intermediaries are structurally compromised as dependents, functionaries, and agitators of Creative Scotland, and exist as such precisely within the state-orchestrated orthodoxies of neoliberal containment. These points are critical to consider if we are to strategise, as labour, to change the infrastructure of the cultural sector.
Creative Scotland, “Open Fund for Individuals,” Creative Scotland, n.d. https https://www.creativescotland.com/funding/funding-programmes/open-funding/open-fund-for-individuals ↑
Creative Scotland, “Open Fund for Individuals: closure of the fund,” Creative Scotland, August 22, 2024, https://www.creativescotland.com/news-stories/latest-news/archive/2024/08/open-fund-for-individuals-closure-of-fund (accessed April 20, 2024). ↑
While social media users arguably choose to enunciate their views in public on digital platforms, I have opted not to cite posts published via personal accounts herein. This is partly due to the ephemeral nature of how content is circulated through certain formats, such as Instagram Stories. At the time I viewed the material, I had no intention of writing this article and therefore did not document it; though I did make a post of my own, briefly signalling some of the concerns to ‘followers.’ I have, however, since been able to recover some of the original content, though I also wish to avoid drawing attention to individuals who have not explicitly consented to being treated as authors within the context of this article. ↑
For example, see: Siobhan McAndrew, Dave O’Brien, Mark Taylor and Ruoxi Wang. “Audiences and workforces in arts, culture and heritage,” Creative Industries and Policy Evidence Centre, 2024, https://pec.ac.uk/state_of_the_nation/arts-cultural-heritage-audiences-and-workforce-2 (accessed April 19, 2025); Ruthless Research, “The Experience of Being a Freelancer in the Scottish Literature, Languages and Publishing Sector,” Literature Alliance Scotland, 2022, https://literaturealliancescotland.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/LAS-FREELANCE-REPORT.pd (accessed April 19, 2025). ↑
Whether commissioned by cultural funding bodies, research councils, or cultural organisations, this predominantly quantitative type of research also often captures resources that could otherwise be allocated to fund artistic production. ↑
Neil Cooper, “The Last Days of Creative Scotland,” Bella Caledonia, February 3, 2018, https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2018/02/03/the-last-days-of-creative-scotland/ (accessed April 19, 2025). ↑
See Creative Scotland, “Funding Criteria 5: Fair Work,” Creative Scotland, July 2024, https://www.creativescotland.com/binaries/content/assets/creative-scotland/resources-and-publications/applicant-and-recipient-materials/funding-criteria/5-fair-work-fund-june-2024_final.pdf pdf (accessed April 19, 2025). ↑
SCAN was founded by Scotland-based members of the Visual Arts and Galleries Association (VAGA), a UK-wide professional membership body funded by the Arts Council of Great Britain and, later, Arts Council England (ACE) between 1990 and 2012. In 2011, VAGA’s application for multi-year funding from ACE was rejected: a decision partly attributable to its overlapping remit with the Turning Point Network, an ACE-funded pilot project that ran from 2008 to 2011 and led to the creation of the Contemporary Visual Arts Network (CVAN). SCAN emerged in response to ACE’s withdrawal from funding cross-national ‘sectoral development’ via VAGA, to fill the territorial gap left in Scotland. Its functions closely resemble those of CVAN, but with a specifically Scottish mandate. ↑
SCAN, “Unaudited Annual Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2023,” SCAN, 2024, https://sca-net.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Scottish-Contemporary-Art-Network-SIGNED.pdf (accessed April 19, 2025). ↑
Organisational members include Fruitmarket Gallery, add in others. For a full list see SCAN, “Members,” SCAN, no date, https://sca-net.org/network/members/ (accessed April 19, 2025). ↑
Because organisations hold the power to determine an individual’s access to work, pay and conditions, their interests are not merely structurally imbalanced, but often conflictual. Likewise, because the right to define the interests of an organisation is delimited to those at the upper echelons of its hierarchy, the lowest-ranking staff–whose interests can by no means be consolidated with that of their employer–effectively remain unrepresented. ↑
For an extended analysis of self-investment as a mechanism through which individuals are governed as appreciating human capital, see Michel Feher, “Self-Appreciation; or, The Aspirations of Human Capital,” Public Culture 21, 1 (2009), pp.21–41. ↑
SCAN, “SCAN’s response: Open Fund for Individuals closure,” Email, August 22, 2024 (accessed 19 April, 2025). ↑
Ibid. ↑
SCAN, “Funding for Artists Open Meeting,” Email, August 27, 2024 (accessed April 19, 2025). ↑
Additionally, representatives from Applied Arts Scotland, Engage Scotland and Scottish Artists Union also fielded questions within this meeting. ↑
To clarify once more, I do recognise those that projected the types of messages I have scrutinised and the employees of intermediaries to have contributed to this outcome. ↑