Campaigning For Craft: Sept 2024

In this series Campaigning for Craft, we invite you behind the scenes of Craft Scotland's Advocacy initiatives. 

Craft Scotland spearhead advocacy for the contemporary craft sector. We bring together different voices within craft, under one banner, supporting all disciplines and regions.   

We aim to influence policy and investment decisions to create sustained benefit for makers and the wider craft ecology. By building an evidence base for craft through research and consultation - cultivating connections with key stakeholders and creating impactful storytelling - we want to demonstrate craft's economic, wellbeing, and sustainability contributions to Scotland. 

Read on to learn more about key activity this summer/autumn period. 

Creative Scotland’s Open Fund for Individuals to Reopen

Earlier in August, Craft Scotland joined individuals and peer-organisations in advocating for Creative Scotland’s Open Fund for Individuals to reopen. We reached out directly to Creative Scotland and issued an open letter to Angus Robertson, Cabinet Secretary for Constitution, External Affairs and Culture and signed additional open letters.  

We welcomed the news on 5 Sept 2024 that the Scottish Government had reinstated the £6.6 million investment for Creative Scotland, this includes £3 million for the Open Fund for Individuals.  

Creative Scotland announced last week that Open Fund for Individuals will reopen for applications at 2pm on Tues 8 Oct. As the fund prepares to reopen, they will be in touch with all applicants who submitted before the closure to advise them of their options. 

Creative Scotland note that the Open Fund for Individuals has been under increasing pressure. Since 2019, applications have more than doubled - from 628 to 1,395 in 2022/23, with funding requests increasing by £7.8 million to £21.2 million. Notably, there has been a 42% increase in requested funding in the past year alone. However, during this same period, Creative Scotland's budgets have remained at the same level.  

To help address this, Creative Scotland is revising the Open Fund for Individuals to better meet the growing demand. Updates will include the maximum award amount reducing from £100,000 to £50,000 and decision timescales extending by two weeks. The updated guidance will be published on Tues 8 Oct. 

Read Creative Scotland’s full announcement 

Please direct any Open Fund for Individuals questions directly to Creative Scotland: enquiries@creativescotland.com.  

Access to Culture for Children and Young People in the Spotlight this Autumn 

Craft Scotland is part of Children’s and Youth Arts Advocacy (CYAA), a collective of leading national arts organisations. The network is dedicated to ensuring every child and young person in Scotland can access inclusive, diverse, and transformative arts experiences in alignment with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). 

This September, we were thrilled to sign and raise awareness of CYAA’s pledge 'We support children and young people's right to access the arts'. The network believes it is essential for all of Scotland’s children and young people to be able to access craft and the wider arts.  

Craft plays a key role in Scotland’s cultural identity and is an activity that brings joy and wellbeing to our communities. Craft holds a unique connection to our sense of place, creating strong bonds among people of all ages and backgrounds. It strengthens regional identities and sustains intangible cultural heritage for future generations. 

The seminal report ‘Craft and Making Education in Scotland Today’ by Rosemary James-Beith for MAKE Learn highlights many of the individual benefits of craft and making education for children and young people. These include improving mental health and resilience, building creativity and life skills, communication, problem-solving, and developing capacities to respond to the climate emergency.  

Working with partner organisations, educators, makers and curators, Craft Scotland are demonstrating the value of craft in Scotland’s schools and communities and advocating for wider access for children and young people. 

This includes supporting craft education through Career-Long Professional Learning (CLPL) sessions for teachers, Making Circles sessions in schools with Ostrero and community-based projects with Historic Environment Scotland.  

Together with Panel, we are advancing our joint advocacy project MAKE Learn and delivering MAKE with the Knit Shop; a two-year teacher development project introducing more craft-based learning into the classroom, supported by Paul Hamlyn Foundation. 

Through this work across Scotland, we see the enriching power of craft and arts engagement for children and young people. With funding cuts putting Scotland's arts sector at risk, it’s more important than ever to highlight that access to the arts is not a luxury. We stand alongside our fellow members of CYAA to help ensure every child has the opportunity to access inclusive, diverse and transformative arts experiences. 

Read more about the vital work of CYAA. 

We know that this continues to be a challenging time for Scotland’s craft community with situations regularly developing around funding, cost of living, selling opportunities, studio access and wellbeing.  

Please email our Director, Irene Kernan and the team if there are specific challenges you are facing, or types of support that would help you: hello@craftscotland.org.  

We are available to have a chat, offer advice and signpost towards additional resources and support. We have a variety of professional development resources on our new learning and development platform COMPASS: Online. Free to sign-up, available on desktop or mobile app. 

Cover image: Youth Theatre Arts Scotland (YTAS) at Traverse Theatre / Photography by Andy Catlin