Campaign group Culture Counts wants ministers to commit an annual budget for Creative Scotland’s “Open Fund”, which has been heavily reliant on National Lottery income over the last decade.

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It is calling for the move to end “volatility” and “enormous” variation over the level of open funding in Creative Scotland’s annual budget settlement from the government, which has pledged to roll out more than £140m in new investment in the arts sector over the next five years.

Creative Scotland has capped applications for open funding at just £50,000 for individual artists and £100,000 for organisations for years due to the level of demand.

In a report for Holyrood’s culture committee, Culture Counts said there had “not been a coherent approach” to the government’s role in supporting individual artists.

It has suggested that ringfenced support for open funding in the Scottish Budget would send an “important signal” about the value the government places on artists and the work they create.

Creative Scotland’s “grant-in-aid” funding from the government went up from around £68m in 2024-25 to £89m in 2025-26 as part of a commitment by ministers to invest an additional £100m in the culture sector by 2028-29.

Creative Scotland was able to fund just 688 projects out of 2126 open funding applications worth £42m made in 2024-25, with the government’s grant contributing £4.23m to the available pot of £13m.

However, government support accounted for just £515,000 of the open funding pot in 2025-26, despite £33m worth of applications being received, as the number of successful applications dropped to 668.

Just 1990 applications out of 5556 made to Creative Scotland over the last three years were successful, with 3566 rejected.

Culture Counts has told MSPs the figures “almost certainly understate” the true level of demand from artists for funding.

The group has claimed that the number of unsuccessful applications and persistently low success rates is having a “significant impact on morale” across the cultural sector.

Culture Counts has revealed its demands almost a year after an independent review of Creative Scotland raised concerns about “insufficient” support for individual artists and the “low success rates” among applicants to the national body’s open fund.

The report from Angela Leitch, the former local authority chief executive who led the review, said she found “widespread agreement” that funding levels did not “match the ambition” of the cultural sector in Scotland, adding that the handling of the open fund was limiting “innovation and creative risk”.

Ms Leitch also highlighted concerns that the £50,000 cap on awards to individuals was seen as “a barrier to delivering ambitious projects”.

The government says it has rolled out more than £70m in new culture funding over the last two years. However around £40m of this has been ringfenced for Creative Scotland’s current long-term funding programme for organisations, which was announced at the start of 2025.

In his report for the culture committee, Joseph Peach, policy and public director at Culture Counts, said the “stabilising effects” of the additional investment had not been felt by individual artists, freelance arts workers and organisations outside of Creative Scotland’s multi-year funding portfolio.

He added: “The primary source of investment available to these individuals and organisations to create new artistic works, undertake career and artistic development activities, generate opportunities and produce projects is Creative Scotland’s open funding.

“There is no art without artists. The Scottish Government must treat investment in their work as a strategic priority.

“Until now, there has not been a coherent approach to the Scottish Government’s role in supporting this work. There has been an enormous variance in government grant-in-aid reaching the open funding over the past 10 years.

“This volatility has arisen because Scottish Government has never stated, at budget time, how much it intends to invest in artists making work.

“We recommend that the 2027-28 Scottish Budget sets a dedicated grant-in-aid allocation for open funding, or similar future funding mechanisms, and that this allocation is maintained as a permanent feature of subsequent budgets.

“A dedicated allocation would send an important signal about the value Scottish Government places on artists and the work they create.”

Mr Peach said the role of open funding was “fundamentally different” from that of a minimum income for artists scheme, which the government had promised to roll out over the current parliamentary term and is based on a model introduced in Ireland.

He added: “A minimum income can help create the conditions in which an artist can sustain their practice, while open funding provides the resources through which that practice can become new artistic works and projects.

“They enable artists to develop ideas, bring other people into the creative process, make and present work, and create opportunities for audiences to experience it.

“Both forms of support therefore have a role to play, but neither is a substitute for the other.”

The government has said it is developing a “programme of work” to take forward the recommendations of the review of Creative Scotland.

Speaking in the Scottish Parliament, culture secretary Màiri McAllan admitted that careers in the creative industries were “characterised by insecurity for too many people”.

She added: “Freelancers and artists often find it difficult to begin and to sustain a long-term career.

“Opportunities remain unevenly distributed, particularly for people from backgrounds that remain underrepresented in the sector.

“If we are serious about growth, which the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament are, we must ensure that creative opportunity is open to everyone.

“Artists and creative practitioners are central to our cultural life and our international reputation, yet too many of them face financial insecurity and barriers to accessing the profession.

“That is why we are taking forward a minimum income pilot for artists, reflecting our determination to support artists to begin and sustain their careers and to pursue artistic excellence in Scotland’s name.”

A spokesperson for Creative Scotland said: “Our National Lottery funds work hard to support open funding and we would welcome any further funding to enable more artists and projects to be successful.”