18/09/2012 Newsnight Scotland

process with any vigour. But some commentators see -- think A-bomb

the administration seems much less likely. -- eight admit Romney

administration seems much less likely.

On Newsnight Scotland, what is going on over the Lockerbie

investigation? A court in Malta is examining element in the case on

behalf of Scottish authorities. I'll be closer to a new appeal or a

public inquiry? Also, what future for the arts, as Creative Scotland

changes the funding rules. Ms Ps a hear complaints, or is it just

people wanting top quality culture? Will they ever meet -- ever be

universally accepted answers to questions about Lockerbie? There

are reports a court in Malta has been re examining witnesses, and it

is being asked, what are the Scottish legal authorities doing?

Will they be a new appeal on behalf of Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi, or even a

public inquiry. This is the Maltese newspaper

article which has thrown the spotlight once again on the role

the Ireland played in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. And on the

secrecy surrounding the continuing investigation. Amid conditions of

secrecy so tight that even the peepholes in the Court Room were so

tight could -- were blocked, a magistrate questioned a number of

witnesses following a diplomatic request from the UK. Neither the

Maltese not Scottish authorities will comment.

A Malta was well known as a place for prominence Libyans to relax and

do business, probably in contravention of UN sanctions. The

only man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi, was

a frequent visitor, he had a mistress on the island. His last

visit was the day before the bombing in 1988. He was said to

have bought clothing, fragments of which were found wrapped around

pieces of the bomb timer. The shop keep that -- this shopkeeper

controversially identified in, and this was accepted by the trial

judges. Megrahi had used his Libyan Arab Airlines connections to send

an armoured deck -- other company to suitcase onto a service which

fed into a Pan Am Flight 103. Megrahi, who died earlier this year,

was convicted of mass murder and later released on compassionate

grounds. Police say they investigation into the bombing

remains life. Dumfries and Galloway police are working with Louis -- US

enforcement agencies in order to preserve the integrity of the

investigation, it would not be appropriate to offer further

comment. Reevel Alderson is with me now.

What is going on in Malta? We do not know what went on last

week, because neither the Maltese authorities nor the Crown Office or

the police, as we had just there, will comment. I have to say, from

the Scottish Crown Office perspective, it is fairly strange

that they say they will not comment on a life investigation of, the

police say that, they say they could not possibly comment on a

live investigation. Of course, the police do that all the time, they

appealed for witnesses and talk about how tragic an event has been

and so forth. We do not know what is happening, but it is quite clear

that the investigation that has been undertaken by Dumfries and

Galloway Constabulary since 1988 is continuing, are we know that, and

we know there are a number of officers involved, but we do not

know of any links to Malta or whether any of them went to Malta.

Up there is also a summit coming up at home about this. Yes, there is a

petition before the justice committee of the Scottish

parliament from the justice for Megrahi Group, at they are asking

for a public inquiry to be held into the circumstances and indeed

the conduct of the investigation and subsequent trial. It will

reappear before the justice committee later this month, what

will happen then, I think it will be continued, but there does appear

to be a body of new evidence which they have got which they are likely

to put to the Scottish government about what they would see as the

mishandling of the prosecution. It was intended to be a modern,

forward looking funding body to replace the Scottish Arts Council,

but two years on, Creative Scotland faces ramblings from the ranks of

artists and performers it invests in. Their main complaint is a

funding shake-up that would involve more of -- more companies using

lottery funding, and a lack of communication. Today, Creative

Scotland's chief executive was quizzed by the Scottish Parliament

at launched a robust defence. You deny people the right of appeal.

It would not be tolerated anywhere else. Secretive and unaccountable,

the charges levelled at the Scottish Arts Council when it came

under the spotlight at Westminster 14 years ago.

It is approximately one year on from the last meeting, had two

years on from its creation. Today, a new body at the new parliament.

But the questions are the same. His Creative Scotland run by a group of

bureaucrats? A I would defend my team. We are

not bureaucrats, we are skilled people who are trying to make the

best of the limited resources we have to benefit the whole of

Scotland. That was certainly the end when

Creative Scotland was set up two years ago to handle a budget of �83

million with a diverse range of cultural activity. There were

already concerned about the merging of commercially viable art forms

with those which require a subsidy. A new film version of off a novel

got to Creative Scotland backing, but so did a successful television

cookery show, leaving many considering -- questioning of the

But it is the decision to move or 49 organisations like this one from

fixed funding on to lottery money which has caused the biggest outcry.

Are we need to do two things, one being building a large project with

multiple partners over a long time, like the show. Also, doing very

fast turnaround shows, a three- month run in April somewhere, now,

under the old system, we were given a plot of money for two years,

added was very flexible and we could do these things. And now,

with the new investment agreements, it is very different, because what

you have to bring to the table when you go to Creative Scotland is you

have to bring a level of detail that is almost impossible for some

projects where we do not know what will be having, so what it means is

that we will have to make many, many more funding applications to

Creative Scotland, which is our administration will have to grow.

But Andrew Dixon insists the lottery is the way forward, and not

just for individual projects. A lottery funding can be used for

this, and a number of the distributors, they have been

funding individual elite athletes. They do more revenue funding that

we have in the past. We want to explore that further. Why some --

while some may question whether Creative Scotland can use lottery

money to replace continuing funding, most are happy to consider any new

form of revenue, as long as Creative Scotland handles the

paperwork and enables them to focus on the work.

It has to start with Creative Scotland not party on

responsibility of navigating the rules of lottery funding to

companies like ours, but dealing with it themselves at working out

away where they can give us the money, to trust us if they like Al

work. And if our work has a track record. To say, there you go, do

not worry about these things, and there are specific things that fit

into that. I am sure we can get around things if Creative Scotland

do listen. Today, Andrew Dixon admitted he had

got it wrong, but intended to do better.

We needed to listen more to artists, not just work through the

intermediary agencies that where -- that we are funding to support

artists, so we are putting in place measures to do that. We have had a

very good dialogue over the theatre review that we have done a, a lot

of people are engaging with that consultation process, and now there

is a dialogue over how to spend the money, we will do the same with

dance and crafts. We are very committed to talking to artist. It

is quite good when the artists come to us and we can listen to them

directly. A lot of the commentary has been happening on Twitter and

in the press rather than directly engaging with Creative Scotland.

The end is no doubting that Scotland is an amazingly creative

place, and not just in the world of theatre. This city, just a month

ago, was a host to the world's largest art festival. Companies

take their world -- take their work abroad often. But with such a busy

and complicated cultural scene, is it feasible for Creative Scotland

to fund it all? Are so, tough decisions ahead for Creative

Scotland -- Creative Scotland, if they want to nurture all art forms

across the whole nation. I am joined by Joyce McMillan and

France is the key, director of Contemporary Art in Glasgow. --

Frances McKie. There are concerns over

communications and transparency. Where have we got to with that?

The situation is still quite serious in the sense that there are

many leading artists who are very unhappy with the way things have

gone with Creative Scotland over the last year or so, and the issues

are to do party would be shift towards lottery funding, which you

have heard about just now, the insecurity and so on, but also to

do with the language and the tone in which that has been implemented,

and I have almost lost out of the number of people who have

complained to me about being talked down to a, about being patronised,

about being taught to as if they did not know how to run their own

companies, about being treated as if they need for public subsidy,

which is absolutely standard feature of the art scene in any

civilised European country, was somehow a problem which required

them to be harassed or questioned as to why they cannot enhance their

income from other sources and in other ways. I do not know why that

tone was taken, I do not know where that problem came from, but I am

very glad to see Andrew Dixon acknowledging that there has been a

problem at that level. That is a first step towards doing something

about it, but it has to be said that the row that he complains

about on the internet and everywhere else was absolutely

necessary to kick down the door and get that conversation going,

because it just was that happening, and a lot of people took to social

networks like the Twitter because How difficult is it for people to

actually apply for funding and then be critical, because they fear or

consequences for the funding? across the art community it is

difficult, but I think what has been done has opened the door and

broken the silence on discussion about funding. Now it is more

possible to talk about the detail of funding. Things have been

changing. The discussions we have been having have been much more

positive since your criticisms. We're talking much longer term with

no cherry-picking of projects so it is much more supportive. We

appreciate that but there is further to go. Then used to be more

communication from Creative Scotland about the changes that

have created the openness and their responses to the dialogue. What

about the actual structures? There are of his problems with

communication but that is not a whole story. There was could

discussion today about the way that Creative Scotland is trying to

focus -- function with a much up smaller staff from the Arts Council

had. What is happening is that decisions are being made by small

teams of Creative Scotland employees. I think the effect of

that, given that all those people are effectively managed by the same

line managers, is to narrow the Spear of decision-making. Are I

think that is an issue. It is not very clear to people how those

teams are working because they have all got new titles. Be on that, I

think there is the need for independent voices from people who

were not employees of the organisation to be advising on

those decisions, perhaps in an advisory rather than a decisive

role. That was how the Arts Council functioned and it was seen as

cumbersome but it did widen the voice is contributing. Do you have

concerns that they could be some geographical box-ticking going on?

Probably. It is very difficult for culture to happen across the

country. It does happen in the strangest places. It does not have

to beat Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, but it is very hard to say that has

to be replicated across every region of the country. Once again,

the questioning today to go to the issue. There was interesting

discussion about her project in Dumfries and Galloway which people

saw as having been parachuted in. I think it is great if Creative

Scotland starts to support infrastructure across the whole of

Scotland but I think there is a suspicion that at the moment they

go towards ticking their own boxes by parachuting things in. I do not

see at the moment one the processes are for preventing that. The whole

idea of their dialogue with local authorities and artists is not very

systematic and there is not much Monetary. Today in committee there

was evidence about social enterprise models in artist that

crude. What does that actually mean? I'm not so sure! I agree

there you need to have public subsidy as well. Some things, such

as working with the NHS or other social art forms, to do social good

with the hard. But not all art is socially could, not all art is

healthy and friendly. Some art is nasty and evil! So social

enterprise worked for some things but not others. People will be

listening to this and saying of the arts taking their share of the

cards? One of the interesting things about this row is that this

is really not about money. People are not complaining about the

amount of money. People understand that the core funding has to reduce

and they understand a lottery funding may have to play a bigger

role. It is about the way that the transition is being handled, the

values and language that up being deployed, and this kind of

insistence that some had there is something wrong with people for

needing public subsidy. Scotland should be proud of the way to have

publicly supported the arts. When Andrew Dixon took up his job, he

said that giving money was the boring part of his job. I think it

is her privileged to give money to some of the people who crate Art in

Scotland and they should be seen as a central part of the job of

Creative Scotland. I think because they have that attitude to it they

have let people down in terms of the detail, the transparency, and

they are still making it completely clear what they on about. They have

such a wide remit that people do sometimes ask what are they doing?

Other encouraging enterprise, of encouraging people to tackle social

problems, or rather, in fact, standing up for art? I think their

job is just enough for art. Thank you both very much for coming in. A

quick look at tomorrow's papers. The front page lead in all the

papers is the killing of two and aren't police officers in

That is it from me for tonight. A Good evening. It looks like another

day of a sunny spells and showers. The showers will push their way

down to the Midlands and it is from their northwards where most of the

showers will be. But even with the showers, some good spells of

sunshine in between. Temperatures up to 17 or 18 down towards the

south. For many counties of England it will be a fine day with plenty

of sunshine. Most of Wales enjoying a decent day. One of two showers

for the afternoon, most of them around the shores of Cardigan Bay.

For more than Ireland, a reasonable day. Not particularly windy and 13

or 14 degrees. Could spells of sunshine is gone and but equally a

scattering of my showers. Rain on the way for Thursday will affect

many northern parts of the United Kingdom. The further south the two

on Thursday, the prospects are that bit drier but it does look fairly