Scottish Government

Building a Better Scotland

TOURISM, CULTURE AND SPORT

To enhance everyone's quality of life in Scotland through widening participation in sport and culture, and building on a successful and sustainable tourism and creative industries sector, to grow the Scottish economy, creating jobs and opportunities.

What we will do

Our culture gives us a sense of who we are and is the foundation of a strong, vibrant Scotland. The Tourism, Culture and Sport portfolio is therefore central to Scotland's future wellbeing. It contributes to economic development, better quality of life, prosperity and ambition. It promotes a Scotland which is vibrant, confident and healthy - a Scotland which is a desirable place to visit, to live and to work in. We aim to improve access to cultural and sporting activities for all and we support the pursuit of excellence.

The portfolio is committed to the Executive's aims of growing the economy, promoting equality and closing the opportunity gap, and to ensuring that our activities are sustainable.

Over the Spending Review period we intend to implement key commitments from the Partnership Agreement in order to:

• develop stronger partnerships with the tourism industry and invest in people and skills; and continue to invest in the quality of the Scottish tourism product;
• lead the visitor attraction sector through Historic Scotland; protect and conserve our historic environment and promote the highest standard of design for new buildings;
• re-organise the tourism network to improve services, and further strengthen the marketing of Scotland in the global tourism market;
• build on our country's many attractions and natural resources to turn Scotland into an all-year-round destination, aspiring to be one of the world's foremost events destinations by 2015;
• use major sporting and cultural events as a platform to promote tourism and display Scotland's potential;
• foster an environment in which creativity and the creative industries can flourish;
• continue the development of a network of world class national and regional sports facilities to improve access and opportunities for the development of high performance sport;
• protect and develop our cultural heritage;
• promote the widest possible participation in cultural life, bringing real benefits to the confidence, self-esteem and diversity of communities and individuals; and celebrate and promote Scottish art and culture at home and abroad;
• help the Gaelic language flourish alongside Scotland's other languages; and
• promote the widest possible participation in sport, bringing benefits to communities and individuals in terms of health and well-being, confidence and self-esteem, and competitive excellence.

We will enhance everyone's quality of life in Scotland through widening participation in sport and culture and building on a successful and sustainable tourism and creative industries sector to grow the Scottish economy, creating jobs and opportunities.

That is why we will:

• increase total expenditure across the Tourism, Culture and Sport portfolio by 25% from 232.9m in 2004-05 to 292.1m in 2007-08, representing an annual increase of more than 7%; capital expenditure will more than double in 2006-07, rising from 15.7m to 36.7m, and will still total 25.7m in 2007-08;
• maintain the recent record increase in the level of VisitScotland's marketing spend by a further allocation of 7m per annum through 2006-08, to continue to grow Scottish tourism and the economy;
• improve the range and quality of Scotland's tourism product by investing in support for the Year of Highland Culture in 2007;
• enable annual investment of at least 2.5m by March 2008 through the City Heritage Trusts for the enhancement of the historic environment;
• continue to build on our youth music initiative, maintaining expenditure of 10m per annum from 2005-06;
• establish Bòrd na Gàidhlig on a statutory basis and make an extra 1.75/1.75m available to support Gaelic language and culture; invest an additional 0.2/0.4m in Gaelic broadcasting to maintain spending on Gaelic broadcasting in real terms;
• maintain funding of 4m each year to allow the National Theatre to continue to develop;
• ensure that funding for the visual and performing arts through the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen keeps pace with inflation;
• support museums, galleries and libraries to ensure that access to our collections remains free of charge and that their education and outreach programmes continue to be developed; and
• provide funding for the National Galleries of Scotland to enable the purchase of the Gallery of Modern Art, releasing future resources for mainstream expenditure.

We will also ensure that we secure the best possible value for money over the Spending Review period by ensuring that cultural governance arrangements are fit for purpose and by implementing the outcomes of quinquennial reviews of the 3 National Institutions.

Table 6.01 Spending plans 2004-08 (level 3)