Our response to the Scottish Parliament Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee Pre-budget Scrutiny 2025-26

14 August 2024

The Museums Association (MA) has responded to the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee Pre-budget Scrutiny 2025-26.

Responses to this consultation will help the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee to make recommendations to the Scottish government ahead of its budget for 2025-26.

In our response, we called for:

• The Scottish government to invest some of the £100m committed to the arts and culture sector by 2028-29 in the museum sector.
• The actions in the Museums and Galleries Strategy 2023-2030 to be used to inform spending decisions.  
• The Scottish government to provide continued funding for the delivery of the Empire, Slavery and Scotland’s Museums (ESSM) recommendations.
• The Scottish government to provide core funding to museums to give them the essential resources to take forward the actions in the culture and museum strategies.
• The Scottish government to provide investment to museums that are delivering on cross-departmental policy priorities.
• The scope of the “percentage for the arts” scheme to be expanded to include the whole of the culture sector.
• The committee to support setting a target of at least 1% of overall Scottish government investment in culture.
• Multi-year funding distributed to the museum sector through MGS to give museums the ability to plan ahead.