We all appreciate the chance to go to the theatre more often. There are some wonderful venues around the country and some really superb drama companies whose interpretations of old classics and brand new material are well worth seeing. However, the theatre is something most people like to experience in good company and this makes […]

Thanks to a shake-up in the Scottish Arts Council, several of Scotland’s best known and loved arts organisations have lost vital sources of funding, at has been revealed recently.

Two of the best known, the Scots language dictionary and The Borderline Theatre company are amongst those hit by the financial reshuffle.

The Council says that the redistribution of funds is designed to share out funds more equitably across a wider area., citing the fact that it has only a £6.9 million budget and applications from over 100 organisations worth more than £15 million. There simply isn’t enough money to go around.

Amongst the 63 lucky organisations that did receive funding this year were the Hebridean Celtic Festival, the Scottish Jazz Orchestra. and the Glasgow’s Common Guild.

Borderline theatre was left high and dry and the application from the Pitlochry Festival Theatre was also turned down. However, the Festival Theatre was amongst several organisations that have agreed to negotiate with the Arts Council in order to find other sources of funding and there is to be a review of the role of the voluntary sector in the funding relationship.

Speaking to the BBC a few weeks back, the producer of Borderline Theatre, Eddie Jackson, said that he found the new funding decisions “alarming” and “incredibly sad”, creating “a wasteland outside the main cities in diversity of drama provision”.

However, chief executive of the Scottish Arts Council, the appropriately named Jim Tough, has responded that the new flexible settlement scheme “will allow artistic leadership to flourish and meets our original aim of responding to innovation, growth and new developments within the sector.”

We’ll keep an eye on developments over the coming months to see if this proves to be the case.