ALTHOUGH the news agenda has hardly been static over the festive period, with 2016's banquet of mortalities through terrorist outrage and celebrity demise continuing to the bitter end, it did seem slightly strange that the Scottish Government should choose the holiday period to make two significant announcements about its support for the cultural sector of the economy. The first was of the establishment of a new advisory body to steer policy on the cultural industries, and then, on Tuesday of this week, cabinet secretary for culture, tourism and external affairs Fiona Hyslop announced an additional £300,000 for the Edinburgh Festivals in recognition of the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the "the world's leading festival city" this year.

Elsewhere in the media this has been portrayed as a "U-turn", following the small cut in funding for the arts in the budget statement earlier in December, but really it is nothing of the kind. The culture sector came out rather well of the latest spending round in Scotland by comparison with other areas to which public resources are committed, as spokesperson for quangos and companies were very quick to recognise. And, to use the sort of terminology for which the first incarnation of Creative Scotland was derided by artists, the new money was portrayed very much as an "investment" in Hyslop's announcement this week. The Expo Fund's £2.3m towards the 70th birthday celebrations is relatively small support for a sector that the government calculates contributes some £313m to the Scottish economy.

Support for the arts and cultural industries is an ingrained part of the devolution settlement to such a degree that hardly an eyebrow is raised at the award of significant sum of new money, but we would do well not to take it for granted. It may be true that cultural pride, and the activities of artists themselves, were important factors in the groundswell of popular support for the re-establishment of a parliament in Edinburgh, but that carries with it no obligation that elected members continue to vote to reward the sector with funding. For at least a generation, however, there has been a recognition in Scotland – often in blatant contradiction of the rhetoric at Westminster – that the arts represent value for money for their own intrinsic worth, as well as for their demonstrable benefit to the tourism economy, the education of young and old, and the general health and wellbeing of the populace. Scots in the vast majority look askance at any argument otherwise, and politicians of every party seem unanimous in their agreement that there are no votes to be had in opposing arts funding from taxation, although we all know that some people – the promoter of Glasgow Royal Concert Hall's "Christmas Festival", Raymond Gubbay, springs to mind – can make a perfectly cogent case against.

In which case, might the day dawn when the Scottish Government goes the whole nine yards and embraces the often-stated demand that a nice round one per cent of GDP is ring-fenced for the arts? Despite the manifest benefits of cultural spending on which all are agreed, it currently accounts for about half that, which is one of the reasons why cutting it makes little sense – because any reduction makes hardly any difference to the big picture. That arithmetic would still be true if the money for the arts was doubled, yet what a dramatic difference that would make to the sector. If one of the parties were bold enough to make that a manifesto pledge, it would be an interesting test of the contrary theory that there are no votes in enthusiasm for the arts come election time. Perhaps Fiona Hyslop's new advisory committee might consider the question at its first meeting.