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 The public row over the future direction of Scottish Screen rumbles on. The film agency is due to be merged with Scottish Arts into a new all-purpose agency, Creative Scotland. Leading Scottish filmmakers say the plan is flawed. The former Head of Locations at Scottish Screen has now publicly come out in support of an open letter sent by Scotland's leading film producers to the First Minister, in which they called for Scottish Screen to be restructured and retained. The producers have also generated a response from Scottish Screen CEO Ken Hay.
Writing to the Herald newspaper Kevin Cowle says:
Watching the dead hand of bureaucracy destroy Scotland's film agency over the past couple of years has not been a pretty sight. But the answer is not to merge it into Creative Scotland, it is to gear it precisely to the needs of the industry. That industry is worth millions of pounds a year and employs hundreds of highly skilled workers. These people deserve the support of a government agency staffed by professionals from the business, not "arts" administrators.
The Locations Department attracts inward film and TV investment into Scotland worth at least £10m a year. It has succeeded in this because clients outwith Scotland know that at Scottish Screen they are dealing with staff who have detailed experience of the industry and its technical needs.
All this will be lost if Scottish Screen is merged with the Scottish Arts Council. The consequences of that spell economic and cultural disaster.
Kevin Cowle, Kirkhill House, Netherton, Wishaw.
The open letter from leading Scottish producers has also generated a response from Ken Hay, recently appointed CEO of Scottish Screen, whose announcements about future direction of Scotland's national screen agency had so worried the Scottish producers. Addressing their concerns once again through the Herald newspaper, Ken Hay writes:
 Film and television are the most popular artforms in 21st-century Scotland. They generate huge audiences, big revenues and enormous interest. We recognise and are proud of the wealth of Scottish film talent working across the world on both sides of the camera.
However, Scottish Screen has always been about the whole of the screen sector - film, television and, more recently, interactive digital media. The challenge for everyone working in Scotland's screen sector is to grow an industry that will create jobs and opportunities beyond what effectively a few pennies of public money can buy.
Until recently there was an expectation that public money would not just underwrite activity but actually sustain it. Although some in the industry have benefited greatly, it patently hasn't produced the desired outcomes of sustainable production activity or more films being appreciated by Scottish audiences. It also didn't address properly the needs of audience and skills development, let alone the changing world presented by the digital revolution.
What we're doing is introducing a different approach where the talent, the audiences, the skills and the businesses are as important as the content, because then there might be more content and more audiences in the future, with or without public finance.
For the first time Scottish Screen is taking its full set of responsibilities seriously.
Any change to the status quo, however unpopular that status quo, is always uncomfortable and often seen as a threat. Recent improvements to Scottish Screen's strategy combined with the announcements around Creative Scotland have inevitably been viewed with concern and suspicion.
Creative Scotland is a step into the unknown for all of us. Our collective job over the coming months is to ensure that the screen industries across Scotland are properly understood and properly resourced by the new body. We send an open invitation to the whole of the screen industry sector to work with us in ensuring that this happens.
Ken Hay, CEO, Scottish Screen, 249 West George Street, Glasgow.
Previous Netribution Stories on Scottish Screen
DON'T LET OUR INDUSTRY GO DOWN THE PAN say Scottish Producers
SCOTTISH SCREEN SWALLOWED CREATIVELY
CABBA CABBA HAY
The open letter which fired the debate on Scotland's screen agency can be found here.
WEBLINK: Scottish Screen website
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