The political theatre is in full swing with less than a month to go before the big Holyrood election day. The actors are delivering their well-rehearsed lines, trying desperately to convince us that if they land a seat in office, they can deliver real solutions in the wake of all the spectacle.

This week, the star of the show has been Scotland’s creative industries, with the SNP claiming they will pilot a Scottish Artists' Minimum Income following Ireland’s “basic income for the arts scheme”. The Scottish Greens also back the concept, while Scottish Labour has put forward a promise to pilot a Creative Enterprise Allowance that treats artists as “entrepreneurs”.

In Scotland, the concept of a basic income for artists is a sticking plaster over a gaping wound, but that doesn’t mean that I’m against it. The idea is to remove barriers and ease financial pressures – and it will do that (sort of). What it won’t do is help to solve the admin-ageddon that has been hindering the sector under the SNP’s watch.

Artists and creative workers securing around £15,000 a year under current proposals from the government to make their art, sure is a headline grabber. It’s the kind of policy that rouses the finger-waggers – there goes the SNP and their magical money tree again, they say. But it’s also the kind of initiative that sends a ripple of hope through my cold, despondent heart. Especially after such a precarious and devastating year for the sector.

Ireland’s Basic Income for the Arts (BIA) pilot launched in 2022 and was made permanent in February (a world first). It saw 2,000 cross-disciplinary participants selected by lottery from a pool of about 9,000 applicants. They were paid €325 per week with a net fiscal cost to the taxpayer of just under €72 million. Remarkably, for those who landed a coveted spot in the pilot, it helped their work and their mental health. A........

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