The petition states: “This extraordinary short-changing of Scottish culture midway through the year has forced Creative Scotland to raid its limited reserves as a one-off, emergency measure. Otherwise, regularly funded arts organisations in Scotland would have seen their funding cut by as much as 40% as soon as next month.

“This is absolutely no way to treat Scotland’s arts and culture, let alone in a perfect storm of economic pressures and post-pandemic challenges. This ‘U-turn on a U-turn’ puts treasured venues and companies, thousands of jobs and access to Scottish culture at risk.”

The petition urges the culture secretary Angus Robertson to honour the Scottish Government’s commitment in February to provide “an uplift of £6.6 million for Creative Scotland for 2023-24”; scrap any proposal to cut Creative Scotland funding from the 2023-24 Autumn Budget Revision; and commit to maintaining and growing investment in arts and culture from 2024-25, for the benefit of everybody in Scotland.