PE777 is by Lorne Boswell on behalf of Equity and calls on the Parliament to urge the Executive to safeguard the future of Scottish Opera by ensuring adequate funding to allow maintenance of a full-time chorus. Before being lodged formally, the petition was hosted on the e-petitions website, where it gathered 1,619 signatures during the period between 2 July and 30 September. The committee may wish to link PE777 with PE715, which is also on today's agenda. PE715, from Brian Jamieson, on behalf of the council of the Friends of Scottish Opera, calls on the Parliament to urge the Executive to ensure that Scottish Opera has adequate resources to maintain a full range of operatic provision. Are members content to link the two petitions?
Official Report · Committee
New Petitions
Scottish Opera (Funding) (PE715 and PE777)
Speakers
Choose an MSP to read only their contributions- John Scott Con 3
- Sandra White SNP 2
- Helen Eadie Lab 1
The record
8 contributionsMembers indicated agreement.
The committee considered PE715 at its meeting on 17 March. It noted that Scottish Opera had been asked to prepare a forward business plan and agreed to seek updates from the Executive and Scottish Opera on relevant discussions, together with details of the review of the structure of the arts in Scotland. Responses have been received, but appear to have been superseded by an Executive press release of 7 June, which states:"Core Scottish Opera posts are expected to reduce from the present 208 to approximately 120."The business plan that was produced by the Scottish Opera board retains a core administrative staff and a 53-person orchestra. Approximately 88 full-time posts would be made redundant. The Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theatre Union—BECTU—has also been campaigning to maintain the chorus at Scottish Opera.
I would have liked to hear someone speak to the petition, as the situation has been updated; however, I will not raise that issue again. PE777 was lodged on 6 October, and things have changed greatly for Scottish Opera—perhaps not moved on, but gone the other way. I am very concerned. All I can do is give my opinion, because I cannot ask questions of Lorne Boswell or anyone else. For a country the size of Scotland not to have a full and properly funded opera company is indefensible.I am loth to suggest that we should write to the Executive again, or even to Scottish Opera or BECTU, for an update. However, I have not heard any updates and I want to ensure that these people get their jobs back and that we have a proper opera company. I am open to suggestions as to how we can move forward. Selling off the Theatre Royal, the home of Scottish Ballet, to make up a shortfall, and giving Scottish Opera £7 million and then telling it that it has to pay back £4.5 million in a short period, is not a good business plan by the Scottish Executive. It has done down Scottish Opera, which I want back at the standard it was at before. However, I am quite willing to admit that I do not know how to go about that.Whether or not we write to Scottish Opera for an update, I would like us to write to the Scottish Executive with our concerns about the financial situation of Scottish Opera. We cannot ask the Executive to overturn its decision—because it probably will not do that—but we should ask for clarification of its position.
We should write to Scottish Opera and BECTU to ask them to respond to the issues that have been raised. That would inform us for any deliberations in future committee meetings.
I will not disagree with Helen Eadie but, now that the minister with responsibility for culture is new, we should write to her about this petition, telling her about our concerns and saying that we are writing to Scottish Opera and BECTU. That would keep her informed.
It is plain that the Executive has decided to cut funding for Scottish Opera. Nevertheless, we can write to the Executive, Scottish Opera and BECTU to find out how matters are progressing. An update would certainly inform the committee's future decisions on this petition. Is everyone happy with those suggestions?
Members indicated agreement.
In this meeting
Everything on 27 Oct 2004 →- Scottish Parliament Public Petitions Committee Wednesday 27 October 2004 Petitions · 2
- New Petitions Petitions · 38
- New Petitions Petitions · 36
- New Petitions Petitions · 64
- New Petitions Petitions · 12
- New Petitions Petitions · 11
- New Petitions Petitions · 8
- Current Petitions Petitions · 5
- Current Petitions Petitions · 8
- Current Petitions Petitions · 11
- Current Petitions Petitions · 16
- Current Petitions Petitions · 4
- Current Petitions Petitions · 10
The type of each item (debate, statement, questions, members’ business and so on) and the times shown are worked out by this site from headings, the chair’s opening words and the Official Report’s running timestamps. They are not the Parliament’s own classification. Text: the Scottish Parliament Official Report.