THE RECENT changes to the Highland Council’s arts team mentioned in last month’s editorial will take time to translate into a practical response on the ground, but our request for an official response from Highland Council brought a fairly predictable reaction.

A Highland Council spokesperson said: “The council has had a difficult series of decisions to take this year in order to bring in a balanced budget. The Education Culture and Sport Service alone had options for savings of £10m examined by the Council’s Administration, leading to final agreed savings of over £5m. The options decided on by the Council span all elements of the Service.

“The posts lost will be one full time and two part time assistant area cultural officers and two part time arts workers. Because new capacity is being created through six new fulltime Cultural Co-ordinators, there is a net gain in capacity for at least the next fifteen months.

“Whilst these direct Council posts are going, the Council has demonstrated its commitment to culture and the arts by agreeing a new £600k directed to cultural activity – much of which will be available to the voluntary and arts sector. Details of the criteria for use of this fund are presently being worked up.”

What this will all mean in practice remains to be seen, and much the same will go for the workings of the proposed new Creative Scotland agency, combining the functions of the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen into a single agency. Those who hoped for anything much more than a straight-forward merging in the recently-published Creative Scotland Bill were doomed to disappointment. The proposed bill can be accessed at the Scottish Parliament website.

This month sees the second of the projected trio of Three Islands Workshops on the island of Hoy, in Orkney, famous for its formidable sea stack, the Old Man of Hoy. A group of around 20 artists will spend a fortnight working on the island, and in our main interview this month Lewis-based writer and artist (and Northings contributor) Ian Stephen talks about his own experiences with the Triangle Trust workshops.

Northings was instrumental in documenting last year’s workshop on Tanera Mor in a weblog (see our From the Archive feature this month). Pressure on resources (mainly in terms of time) has ruled out a repeat of that process this year, and while Ian is fulsome in his praise of the weblog, he also points out that the ethos of the workshops works against repetition in any case. Accordingly, our plan is to bring you a Podcast from this year’s event, we hope in time for inclusion in our May ‘issue’.

The Lewis link is maintained in our Venue Profile this month, which looks at another venue that has undergone a major transformation, An Lanntair in Stornoway. And while on the theme of refurbished venues, Visual Arts Correspondent Georgina Coburn has been checking out the newly re-opened Timespan in Helmsdale.

As ever, look out for more features and reviews in the course of the month.

Kenny Mathieson
Commissioning Editor, Northings

Kenny Mathieson lives and works in Boat of Garten, Strathspey. He studied American and English Literature at the University of East Anglia, graduating with a BA (First Class) in 1978, and a PhD in 1983. He has been a freelance writer on various arts-related subjects since 1982, and contributes to the Inverness Courier, The Scotsman, The Herald, The List, and other publications. He has contributed to numerous reference books, and has written books on jazz and Celtic music.