No-one immune from cuts, says Creative Scotland boss

Andrew Dixon said Scotland's arts sector was a success story

The boss of Scotland's new arts agency has said it needs to find "new ways" of investing in the industry, amid the prospect of public spending cuts.

Creative Scotland's chief executive designate, Andrew Dixon, said nobody was immune in the economic climate.

But he told BBC Scotland's Politics Show that Scotland was a "success story" when it came to the arts.

Creative Scotland is being established through a merger of the Scottish Arts Council with Scottish Screen.

'Success story'

The process was delayed after the original legislation to set up the new agency was rejected by MSPs in 2008, amid opposition claims the government had been unclear about aspects of the financial arrangements.

Mr Dixon said the government had taken time to put Creative Scotland in place, adding: "What we've got is a success story in Scotland - we've now got an agency with the capability to look at that holistically."

On the issue of cuts, he added: "I don't think anybody can be immune from the sort of economic climate that we're currently in, but Creative Scotland's got to find new ways of investing in talent, new ways of investing in ideas and new ways of investing in places.

"We want to create a bit of a rallying call for culture in Scotland to enable people to work together to make the most of that talent that's here."