Cultural debate is kicked into the long grass: again

That report, the result of a year-long consultation with the country's cultural sector, was invited to think the unthinkable and come back with a radical new vision for the future. So it did. Of its three main recommendations, two have now been turned around 180 degrees and the third was buried last week. That'll teach you to think radical, boy - this is government you're dealing with.

In my parallel universe, alcohol and pies are good for you, sweeties strengthen teeth and Gordon Brown is a socialist. Scotland were allowed to keep the Jules Rimet trophy after winning the World Cup for the fifth time, and there's no need for legislation because things are decided by common sense and consensual reasoning.

Er, that last one, didn't the minister claim that's why there was no need for a culture Bill? Ah, yes, here we go: "Our reform agenda requires a more mature relationship between central and local government based on outcome agreements and trust." Aye, well, that'll be that sorted, then.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favour of trust - great concept, very helpful, particularly if you think you're going to get an outcome agreement on culture that will last beyond the next council budget round. Certainly safer to trust than to hold your breath. Maybe a wee prayer might help as well.

Before we get too misty-eyed it's worth recording that the last administration hadn't got it all right either, but they were at least on a journey of progress. Now we've taken a step backwards. 'Twas ever thus. In matters of public policy culture is never the bride, never even the bridesmaid. It's the second cousin invited at the last minute sitting in the pews at the back.

But for one brief moment, though, it was invited to join the bridal party. Jack McConnell's St Andrews Day speech in 2003 was the talk of the cultural steamie for a while. There was hope, a bright new dawn, a parallel universe full of inspiring musicians, jam-packed libraries, brilliant architecture Then one of the cyclical Scottish Opera storms came roaring in and battered him, and the commission sat for over a year, and then when its recommendations came back it was to a Scottish Executive that had found new priorities and a new culture minister, and things didn't seem quite as urgent.

Last year I suggested the First Minister had to re-engage with the process or the natural default position of the civil service - caution, no change - would resume its inevitable control. That's what happened a week past Wednesday. I suspect the new minister's feet have not been under the desk long enough to realise the enormity of this decision on the long-term health of grass-roots culture in the country. The teeth of legislation were required.

If you're going to start levelling the playing field you need all the heavy machinery you can get.

Legislation may be heavy duty but ask a librarian, a museum curator, an arts development officer - anyone involved in the cultural front-line of local authorities - if they need more support. They'll tear your arm off.

So what's to be done? And does anybody actually give a monkey? Is it just me? The cultural community has not risen with one outraged voice, nary a murmur from Cosla, and hee-haw from our national cultural agencies. Why?

It's true, arcane matters of cultural policy and legislation are not the topic of choice for the breakfast table or the water cooler, and the language of "rights and entitlements" in the draft Bill is not user-friendly (I humbly share the guilt over its introduction).

But those unlovely phrases had a clear intention to create more equal provision of libraries and museums and opportunities across the country, and their impact would, should, have been systemic and long lasting. Legislation would at least have ensured culture did not walk naked into the council chamber when the budgets were being divvyed.

The minister maintained the drive to create Creative Scotland (some kindling for the bonfire of the quangos), albeit a version dreamed up by civil servants rather than the one actually supported by the cultural community through the commission. And she blew away one of the smokescreens of the draft Bill by letting the new body make artistic decisions without government intervention. It's a welcome amendment to a clumsy draft, but was a small issue in comparison with the overall purpose of the Bill.

And this is probably the main reason for no outraged stushie (apart from the disillusioned sighs of folk who've been led optimistically to the well once too often). It's that our national government, agencies and institutions have never really acknowledged that the bulk of cultural activity in Scotland takes place without them. It happens in the village halls and community centres, living rooms and pubs of Scotland. Most folk write, sing, design, play, research, or exhibit out of the reach of public funding and out of sight of national bodies.

Locally, they're more visible, and that's where there's greater need for better ways of supporting and encouraging cultural activity. But national government (and I mean primarily the civil service) is not really familiar with life on the ground from a local-authority point of view, let alone that of the librarian or curator.

The time-honoured divide and mistrust between local and national government still exists, in both directions. It will take a long time to remove, if it can ever be done, to the stage where the minister's ambition for mutually agreed outcomes can ever be anything but a naive aspiration. I wish it weren't so, but it is.

The new government has aligned culture very clearly with international image and relations (the other parts of the minister's port-folio). It's good that we send Black Watch, the Peatbog Faeries and the SCO to represent our country abroad. But we need to shore things up back home and we may have just lost a generational chance to do it.

• Bryan Beattie has been an elected councillor and a local government officer, and was expert adviser to two previous ministers for culture.

Iain Macwhirter is on holiday.