Enterprise and Culture Committee, 01 Jun 2004

Meeting date: Tuesday, June 1, 2004

Official Report 229KB pdf

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Community Arts Inquiry

We move seamlessly to agenda item 4, which is on our inquiry into community arts and on which a paper has been circulated. It has been suggested to me that "arts in the community" would be a more appropriate title for the inquiry than "community arts", because the latter has a special significance. I am happy with that suggestion.

We have an introductory paper with recommendations. We agreed the inquiry's remit at a previous meeting and the paper sets out how we might conduct the inquiry. I hope that those who desired not to have formal evidence sessions on all occasions will be gratified by some suggestions. Do members have comments? They should not feel that they must comment.

The paper is essentially good, but I will add to some details. The idea of informal external meetings is good, but I suggest that we should have more than one. It is important to move away from the central belt and from Edinburgh in particular. I stress that Craigmillar Community Arts Centre is worth visiting, but it should not be the only place that we visit for an informal meeting. We need to cast the net a wee bit wider and I have two suggestions on that.

I am also unsure about why the informal round-table discussion should be in the Parliament. We are too tied to the parliamentary village. We should aim to hold that discussion somewhere else—I have suggestions on that too.

The inquiry will be of a different kind and we will treat it differently, so I seek to alter some of the details in the paper.

I am open to that and I take the point about talking to other people. I assume that everybody will have something to say along those lines, so I ask members to e-mail suggestions to the clerks. The number of discussions that we have outwith Edinburgh will have some budgetary significance, but that depends on how many suggestions we get. If members are willing to e-mail their suggestions, we will take them on board.

One of the things that I found particularly interesting in the background papers is the fantastic variation in support in different parts of Scotland. Perhaps we need to know why Midlothian Council spends 0.17 per cent of its budget on the area, while Aberdeen City Council spends 2.13 per cent. Indeed, some might ask why Aberdeen City Council spends almost twice as much as any other authority. If we have any external involvement, we must ask about that. Aberdeen must be doing something with community arts. I am quite happy to e-mail a specific suggestion to the clerk. [Interruption.]

I remind members that we are still in public session, so we should comment through the chair.

Brian Adam's point is fair, but those figures relate to all cultural spending, not just community arts. I am more interested in the significant differences that the comparison shows between Midlothian, East Lothian and West Lothian, between East Dunbartonshire and West Dunbartonshire, between South Ayrshire and North Ayrshire, and between South Lanarkshire and North Lanarkshire. In the inquiry, it would be worth while probing the reasons for those differences and asking whether they impact directly on arts in the community. I agree with Brian Adam that the differences are huge; they need some explanation, whether or not that is done in our inquiry.

I suggest that a potential item of inquiry and line of questioning has been highlighted.

First, by way of feedback, I think that the paper is excellent and it contains excellent suggestions. I hope that the outside world is similarly enthused by the committee's willingness to practice what it preaches and to be innovative and creative in its approaches. I am sure that some of the proposed techniques will work better than others, but it is good that we are prepared to test them. To reassure the deputy convener, I point out that the paper says explicitly that there will be

"up to three case study visits to community arts venues"

and that it gives Craigmillar Community Arts Centre as an example. I am happy with that, as long as it continues to feature as one of the three.

I raise two points, either to be addressed today or to be considered as the inquiry evolves. First, we need to be clear about what we mean by "informal", in relation to whether the public can walk in and listen to the discussions, and to recording. It would be quite legitimate for the discussions to be informal in the sense that would be understood by most of the people who will participate in them. They might not be big, open meetings, but it is terribly important to have a record of the outcome and the key points. Can that be clarified?

My second question is about external links. We are invited to consider whether we

"wish to invite the Culture Commission to give evidence in the course of the inquiry."

That idea feels odd—I would have thought that, as suggested elsewhere, we would give input to the culture commission. I am sure that some dialogue with the clerks would be appropriate—I am sure that that would take place anyway—to work out how and when that can best be done.

On the point about informal discussions, an

"informal round-table discussion in Parliament"

would allow us to use the official report. The committee rooms in the new Parliament building are a lot better than those that we have now. If we move outside Edinburgh, an issue arises about the meeting being on the record, and having a record of what is said will become more problematic and much more expensive. We can go outside and have discussions, but we would not necessarily have a verbatim record of what was said. That is not necessarily a problem, but members should be aware of the two possibilities.

As far as the culture commission is concerned, I share Susan Deacon's sentiment, but I felt that we should at least give you the option of influencing the troika, or however many people are on the commission.

The paper is very good. However, one little warning light flashed up at me. I do not want to say anything nasty about the Craigmillar Community Arts Centre, which I am sure does excellent work, but I do not want us to go down the route of selecting only formal community arts venues. All sorts of entirely voluntary musical, choral, Highland dance and other societies right across Scotland probably do not tie into any formal national organisation and exist quite happily on their own. We need to tie into some of those groups, because they do a tremendous power of work in bringing the arts to people in various communities. If we restrict ourselves to groups that operate out of formal arts venues, we will see only part of the picture.

I fully accept that. We would be doing ourselves a disservice if we restricted ourselves to the usual suspects in community arts. That is by no means our intention.

I welcome the proposed approach. Do you want members to make suggestions at this meeting or do you want us to e-mail them to you for future reference?

I would prefer members to e-mail their suggestions.

If members have no more comments, I ask them to agree to the recommendations. Perhaps we should amend the beginning of recommendation 6 to read "agree to liaise with" the culture commission. Are members agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you. We now move into private session for agenda item 5.

Meeting continued in private until 16:15.