IT'S BEEN a busy eight months for Linda Fabiani since taking on the role of culture minister. She has condemned the "sticking plaster" approach to arts in the draft culture bill, hit back at critics of her policy towards the Scots language and desire to reclaim the Lewis Chessmen, and she has outlined her vision for Creative Scotland.

Since coming into office, Fabiani has made kindly noises towards the arts community - a sector terrified by the prospect of government interference. The draft culture bill, drawn up by the previous administration, proposed that ministers could give Creative Scotland "directions" that must be complied.

This part of the bill, in fact most of it according to Fabiani, is effectively dead. When it comes before parliament in the spring, the draft will be used to enact legislation to allow for the formation of Creative Scotland, and the merging of the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen.

"Let's not diminish Creative Scotland by lumping it in with so many other things," Fabiani said, in a wide-ranging interview with the Sunday Herald.

The draft culture bill received the same reception from Fabiani as it did from the hundreds of artists and cultural bodies that registered concerns with the government. Fabiani called it "legislation for legislation's sake".

She took particular issue with "cultural entitlement", the vaguely-defined buzz phrase of the previous administration concerning widening access to the arts and culture - an initiative Fabiani said was put in place to "tick the boxes".

"I could not for the life of me see how this could energise because everybody's going to be running around saying, Let's do something to make sure everyone's had their cultural entitlement', she said. "I know that's a bit of a parody, but that's how it seemed to me."

She added: "When I was in opposition I used to say, how many initiatives can you have? Can we not just address the core and do something. And since I came into this post I've found a lot of sticking plasters."

She refers to this streamlining of the culture bill and pruning of initiatives as "clearing the landscape", which she rates as one of her main achievements in office so far.

And although she might have a disdain for initiatives, the culture minister has started one herself: an audit of the Scots language to see how many people speak it and where. It aims to explore ways the government can help promote and preserve the language of Burns. It's an initiative Fabiani takes personally.

"I'm quite proud of that," she said. "Some people are saying that she wants to fund slang'. Where are these people getting off saying Burns wrote slang?"

One high-profile cultural pledge has fallen off the radar since the SNP came to power. Prior to the party's victory last May, its cultural manifesto held the eye-catching promise to introduce a grant enabling artists to reclaim the cost of tax paid on work they sold up to a maximum of £15,000. Fabiani said the pledge is still on the agenda.

"The Irish model of tax breaks for artists is very interesting, but Westminster won't give us the powers in tax to allow us to do that, so that's something for the future. But we're absolutely determined artists should be supported in some way. We're currently looking to see how we can bring in a system of equivalence so we can get that going."

Fabiani said she ultimately wants to "invoke a resurgence of creativity". For this to happen, there needs to be "some out-of-the-box thinking and imaginative solutions."

So why hasn't this already been happening? Previous occupants of her role being "maybe a bit too cautious, certainly too prescriptive" has not helped, Fabiani said. Neither has the structure of important organisations.

Fabiani believes creative industries will only achieve their potential if they are allowed to take risks.

"Without risk, art becomes bland. "You've got to let these things soar, take wings and go for it. And that's what I want Creative Scotland to do."