Scotland's cultural life in future should be for everyone.
So everyone should help write that future.
The Cultural Commission needs your help in writing its review of cultural provision in Scotland.
We're asking you to think about what the nation's cultural life should be a generation from now. Then send us your ideas on how to achieve it.
We'll insert as many of these thoughts as possible into a developing pen portrait of what Scotland's culture could and should become. As this vision of the future builds up, we'll publish it on our website. And your ideas will feed into our report to Scottish Ministers.
This project, like Scottish culture itself, is something for everyone.
The Cultural Commission has been set up by the Scottish Executive to review Scotland's cultural sector and to "consider an ambitious cultural policy that will endure for at least a generation".
Part of our remit, set out in the Executive's Cultural Policy Statement, is to explore the idea that Scotland's citizens and its creative community have "cultural rights" and to define how these might be "translated into a scheme of entitlements". The outcome, says the statement, should be "a nation that encourages the habit of creativity through the release and celebration of its citizens' talents".
Our starting-point, then, is that Scotland's cultural life should be for everyone. So we're focusing on the interests of the individual Scot, either as a contributor to the nation's cultural life or as a consumer of it.
That includes Scots who at present don't think of themselves as involved in "culture".
Our remit also tells us to "imagine and describe how the nation might develop and direct such creativity in practical ways for the common good". We've decided to take that literally. We're writing a pen portrait of a confident, cultured, successful Scotland a generation ahead, in 25 years' time.
And we're asking you to help us write it.
We're going to write a simple story – entitled Future Scotland – of Scotland in 2030. By then, the story will have had a happy ending: our present cultural ambitions will have been achieved.
The story will be more than a vision of the cultural sector. It'll be a description of Scotland's whole cultural life and the individual's place in it.
This will be a nation where all Scots can be enthusiastic about cultural activity and participate in it. They will appreciate excellence. And that will make them demanding of the cultural sector, whether they're consumers or artists.
The cultural community, for its own part, will have developed in line with those changes. It will be satisfying not only those increasingly demanding citizens but also aspiring artists, international visitors and audiences around the world.
In short, Scottish cultural activity will reflect a society that's appreciative, creative, cosmopolitan and multicultural.
Writing all this down will help you – and us – to be clear about what we want and how Scotland might get it.
What's required is not pipe-dreams but a hard-headed case for investment.
To make the future happen the way we want it, we need to concentrate people's ambitions into shared, achievable objectives. For that, we need to hear your ideas and practical suggestions – including how to fund change.
We've already started writing the story. We've outlined a Scotland, a generation ahead, where we're providing excellent education for youngsters and producing citizens who are keen to take part in the nation's cultural life.
What we haven't yet written is how Scotland achieved that. We want you to help answer that question by describing what was done in the intervening 25 years.
To give an example, let's stay with education. Suppose part of your vision of 2030 is schooling that gives young citizens a real chance to experience Scottish literature. We want you to imagine what steps were taken to bring this about.
Perhaps, in those 25 years, Scottish literature was given new emphasis in teacher-education. Writers might have become more involved in schools. And what did libraries do? Or the writing of Scottish literature itself might have undergone changes. Did we do more to encourage writers in this country? How did the agencies that fund them go about it? Were there changes in publishing? What was the role of booksellers and literary festivals? And so on.
That's the sort of thing we're asking for: ideas on how the Scotland of the future ought to look and behave – and practical ways of getting there.
You're unlikely to work through the whole story and contribute to all sections. You'll probably offer only ideas about your own areas of interest. Contribute in the way that suits you. One simple thought, simply expressed, will be just as welcome as a detailed scheme.
You can write to us at:
Cultural Commission
Broughton High School
Carrington Road
Edinburgh
EH4 1EG
Or you can e-mail us at info@culturalcommission.org.uk
Please give your name and your address, or phone number or e-mail address. But that information will remain confidential. We won't name contributors on the website or anywhere else. So you can be as radical and controversial as you like. If you're drawing on your professional knowledge, we promise: "Don't be feart – your job is safe!"
Again, we must always be thinking about the net cost of changes and how we're going to fund all the success we're visualising. So, before you send us your ideas, we'd like you to check that you've thought about that.
Our only criteria for using ideas will be whether they make sense and whether we have room for them on the website. We can't use every contribution. But no one will be ignored.
So now it's over to you.