18 July 2025

Creative Lives welcomed the opportunity to contribute to the independent review of Creative Scotland, led by Angela Leitch CBE. This written response followed our participation in a roundtable event organised by the Scottish Government.

About Creative Lives
Creative Lives is a registered charity that was established in 1991. We champion community and volunteer-led creative activity across the UK and Ireland, and work to improve opportunities for everyone to be creative. In particular, we celebrate and promote people expressing themselves creatively with others, recognising the benefits this can bring.

Creative Lives is part of the Multi Year Funding portfolio, subject to Sector Development Support in 2025 - 2026. We previously received Regular Funding in Scotland and also work with the arts councils in the other nations of the UK and in the Republic of Ireland.

Everyday creativity
There are local creative groups in every community in Scotland. These groups are often overlooked and under-valued, but they contribute a huge amount to the cultural and civic life of the nation.

The Cultural Engagement in Scotland Report (2025) and analysis of Scottish Household Survey data (2022) shows that people across Scotland come together to create, to share experiences, to support each other and to have fun, both as active participants and as audience members.

Local creative activity brings significant benefits to participants and there is an extensive body of evidence which demonstrates the benefits that arise from taking part in communal creative activity. With appropriate support and recognition, local creative groups can make a significant contribution to the fulfilment of public policy agendas in Scotland, such as improving health and wellbeing, building community cohesion, reducing loneliness and social isolation, and being a nature-friendly nation.

Creative activities, like community choirs, amateur drama, crafting groups, and street festivals, are often driven by enjoyment, social connection, and personal expression rather than formal artistic goals. These activities contribute to wellbeing, social cohesion, and local pride, but are typically self-organised and only occasionally interact with formal arts funding.

Our Creative Lives Monitor 2025 survey explored the health of local creative groups across the country, finding that groups are optimistic about their future, and have high numbers of participants. But groups are struggling to find sufficient resources, in particular core funding and audience members, and groups feel very disconnected from Local Authorities, and are lacking confidence in raising issues with public bodies. The Creative Lives Monitor 2025 found a resilient but strained sector facing systemic challenges such as:

■ Structural funding issues
■ Volunteer burnout
■ Institutional isolation
■ An aging demographic
■ The impact of the cost of living crisis

Creative Scotland
We enjoy a constructive, positive relationship with Creative Lives staff and are particularly benefiting from thematic conversations at preset across areas of policy such as climate adaptation and mitigation, and place-based work while we receive Sector Development Support as part of our Multi Year Funding outcome. This developmental support - making introductions to local authority contacts, sharing research and giving feedback on our progress and stretch targets - is as valuable as core income. It is a pity that stretched staff capacity hasn’t previously always allowed for close working with a lead officer.

It has also been very validating for our Creative Lives Awards winners and runners-up to know that Creative Lives staff helped with our national judging process. Finally, we welcomed the opportunity to help shape Creative Lives 10 year strategy (2013 -2023) as part of a sector reference group.

However, we believe Creative Scotland, as the national arts council and in partnership with other non departmental public bodies, could be doing more to strengthen everyday creativity, which provides crucial social and cultural infrastructure, and brings huge benefit to individual and community wellbeing across Scotland.

Everyday creativity is not opposed to artistic excellence – rather, it creates the conditions for excellence to flourish. When people engage in creative activities themselves, they develop appreciation for skilled practitioners and become more likely to engage with professional arts. The more you try something yourself, the greater your admiration for those who have mastered it. It is therefore a false binary to separate ‘excellence’ and ‘access’. Quality of participation and engagement can be excellent, as well as the level at which many non-professionals are operating and the way in which the voluntary sector overlaps, intersects with and supports
professional and community arts. For example: in shared venues, tutoring, programming, festivals and local cultural infrastructure.

Any segregation of funding would misrepresent the rich cultural ecosystem in whichwe operate and the interconnectedness between different forms of cultural engagement. Indeed, the Scottish Government’s recent report into Cultural Engagement (2025) reinforces the need to support creativity at all levels - whether it’s emerging, established, or community-led. In reflecting culture as inseparable from everyday life, it is not something we only 'go to', but that it is part of leading a full and meaningful life.

Recommendations
1. Application processes must be proportionate to the size and scale of voluntary and community group applicants. Creative Scotland needs to focus more on arts development with trust and cooperation, and less on audit and process. Further, a holistic reassessment of what counts as excellence, quality, and cultural value in different contexts is needed.

2. Ring-fenced, micro funding can be distributed through less risk-averse local partners like community foundations to overcome barriers to creative participation. Our experience shows small investments in volunteer-led creativity (£200-£500 grants) deliver exceptional value, particularly in communities facing socio-economic challenges. For example the Creative Lives 'Do Your Thing' micro-grants supported 54 local grassroots groups to take part in Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture. We had more than 160
applications for these £400 grants and the groups we supported include: The City Gent (the fanzine for Bradford City FC), Equity Partnership, Ilkley Players, SEND Salaam and Topic Folk Club. Micro-grants targeting priority places create sustainable networks that continue without further funding.

3. There needs to be joined up thinking across government departments and the National Performance Framework about the role of everyday creativity in relation to health and wellbeing, informal adult education, human rights, communities and more. Applying the ethos of ‘dig where you stand’ (Matarasso), creative expression in people’s homes and informal, third spaces (village halls, pubs, school estate, clubs and societies) should be as much valued as that in formal institutions representing more traditionally valued
culture (concert halls, large theatres, stadiums).

4. A dedicated research programme should be commissioned to better understand everyday creativity, developing appropriate evaluation frameworks that focus on impact and community value rather than applying professional metrics inappropriately.

5. Creative Scotland should work in partnership with local authorities, libraries, and voluntary sector organisations to reach diverse communities and reduce barriers to participation.

6. Creative Scotland should develop campaigns and networks that promote everyday creativity and connect people with opportunities e.g. recognise and validate the achievements of informal creative groups, helping to reduce the perceived hierarchy between 'professional' and 'amateur' arts and normalising the idea of everyone taking part in creative activities. For example, since 2009 Creative Lives has worked in partnership with 19 BBC local radio stations to raise the profile of local creative groups and encourage
more people to participate in everyday creativity, reaching millions of listeners through Creative Lives On Air.

There are comparative examples to draw upon:

● Across the UK campaigns like Get Creative and Fun Palaces have successfully promoted active participation in creative activities, often with modest funding and strong emphasis on local empowerment.
● In Australia and Canada, government arts agencies have supported everyday creativity through micro-grants, access to public spaces, and partnerships with local councils, libraries, and community centres. These initiatives focus on reducing barriers, providing resources, and validating the value of informal creative practice. The role for government arts funding in this context is not to direct or control everyday creativity, but to enable it: by providing access to spaces, small-scale funding for materials or facilitation, training for group leaders, and recognition of the value of informal creative activity.
● Place-based funding, as seen in the UK City of Culture programme, or London’s Borough of Culture, or the Glasgow Life Artist in Every Ward scheme can also help by supporting local priorities and connecting grassroots creativity with wider cultural infrastructure.

A future vision

At Creative Lives, we work from an asset-based approach, starting with what people are already choosing to do in their communities. This contrasts with the deficit model that focuses on getting more diverse audiences to attend existing Creative Scotland funded professional provision.

The review offers an opportunity to properly integrate everyday creativity into Creative Scotland’s understanding and operational model, recognising its vital role in building strong, connected communities and developing audiences for professional arts. Creative Lives stands ready to work with Creative Scotland to develop practical approaches that honour both traditional conceptions of excellence and the vital role of volunteer-led creativity in our shared cultural life.