Funding to cultural businesses: FOI response (reference 4950)

09 February 2022

09 March 2022

Funding to cultural businesses over the past five financial years.

We advised that cultural businesses was not a searchable term available within our finance systems, hence it was agreed to amend the wording and scope of the request, to make use of the Industry/Sector headings that were available.

The request was therefore amended and widened to be payments provided to businesses within the Tourism, Creative Industries, and Food & Drink sectors.

A table detailing spend over the last five full financial years under these three specific sectors is provided at Appendix A.

Scottish Enterprise recognise the important role that culture, arts and heritage organisations play in our economy and have provided support to businesses that are vital to the cultural life of Scotland. As advised previously, funds that Scottish Enterprise delivered as part of the Covid19 response, to businesses adversely affected by the pandemic, are of relevance to the request:

The Creative, Tourism & Hospitality Enterprises Hardship Fund (CTHEF) which was developed for small creative, tourism and hospitality companies; and the Scottish Wedding Industry Fund. It would appear that some of those awards may relate to cultural businesses and therefore could be in scope for the request. For example, the Scottish Wedding Industry Fund provided support to eligible businesses whose main income was from the wedding sector, which could include musicians and entertainers. As these awards are published on our website, there is no requirement to provide them under FOISA due to the exemption for information otherwise accessible. A link to the list of awards can be found on this webpage opens in a new window under the subheading Grants and Investment Information / Covid-19: Additional grant funding.

Appendix A (PDF, 1.53 MB)