Arts in the Community Inquiry
We move on to item 2, which is our arts and community inquiry. The committee is to hear reports on case study visits that were undertaken in connection with the inquiry. I think that Jamie Stone is to make the first report.
I thought that Murdo Fraser was to give it.
Murdo?
Yes. It is the Fraser-Stone report.
Which one of you will introduce it?
The briefer of the two—and that is probably Murdo Fraser.
Agreed.
Is that on the record?
I commend the quality of the report. I should also point out that neither Murdo Fraser nor I wrote it.
Our grateful thanks go to Stephen Herbert of the Scottish Parliament information centre not only for writing the report but for driving all the way to Inverness. That said, we nearly got involved in a car accident on the way to Drumnadrochit, but we managed to survive. Our visit was extremely interesting and worth while and I will try to summarise it—although "summarise" might be too strong a word to use.
We held meetings with a number of different people who are involved in the promotion of community arts in the Highlands. We met representatives of the Eden Court Theatre, who were anxious to stress that, notwithstanding their Inverness base, their large outreach programme ensures that their operations are not restricted to the city. They see themselves as a theatre for the whole of the Highlands and Islands and get involved in pushing people out to different communities.
We also met an organisation called Hi-Arts, which is funded by Highlands and Islands Enterprise and the Scottish Arts Council. The function of Hi-Arts is to co-ordinate and market the huge number of annual arts festivals that take place in the HIE area, many of which are small-scale events that lack the capacity to market themselves. Hi-Arts acts as a central organisation that provides online ticketing, distribution and marketing services to the festivals in the area. The important point is that Hi-Arts does not support the festivals directly, all of which are self-standing, but acts as an umbrella organisation.
We also met the Promoters Arts Network, which is a similar organisation to Hi-Arts and which seems to be similarly successful. It exists to help venues in the area, such as village halls, by giving them advice on marketing and so forth. It also books acts to come and perform in the area. Again, the Promoters Arts Network gets central core funding and charges the various organisations that it supports for its services.
The last organisation that we met was Fèisean nan Gaidheal, which is based in the Highlands but which has grown to serve the central belt too. Its aim is to develop the Gaelic language and promote traditional Scottish culture—in particular, traditional music—through community involvement. It is a tremendous success and has grown exponentially over the past number of years.
Several of the groups that we met were critical of Highland Council, which they felt had not paid enough regard to the arts because of a cultural bias against the arts in some quarters. The arts were regarded as an add-on, not a priority, although that was probably starting to change. However, there was a feeling that local authority funding for the arts was patchy throughout Scotland and that other parts of Scotland were much better provided for than the Highlands.
I echo what Murdo Fraser said. He is right about what was said about Highland Council, with the exception of what Fèisean nan Gaidheal said, which was rather more complimentary to say the least. Rita Hunter of Fèisean nan Gaidheal told us that, compared to Eire, we were not doing a huge amount about exporting our traditional music and similar arts, whereas the Republic of Ireland has CDs of its traditional music on sale and being promoted worldwide. That is not to say that it all must be tat. She also mentioned that there is a slight problem in that some of the more classically trained musicians do not take the traditional Scottish arts as seriously as they might, but we know from the opening ceremony for our building that the traditional arts strike a huge chord with the Scottish people and beyond.
I think that it was Fèisean nan Gaidheal—Murdo Fraser will keep me right—that made the interesting point that the Parliament, as opposed to the ministers of the Scottish Executive, might be able to do more for the promotion of Scotland's arts. The Presiding Officer has been talking about that. We touched on the matter for about five minutes, but there might be possibilities in that idea.
To clarify, it was Sonia Rose from the Eden Court Theatre who pointed out that we have a community sports leader award that is designed to promote excellence in sport, but there is no equivalent for the arts. She suggested that the Parliament might be interested in promoting an artistic or creative leader award to try to encourage youngsters to pursue excellence in the arts in the same way as the sports leader award encourages excellence in sport.
I open up the meeting to questions or comments on the succinct report from Murdo Fraser and Jamie Stone.
It was an interesting report. One thing that hit me was that the Promoters Arts Network is
"trying to get back to a position 10 years ago where Highland Council had a full-time Arts Officer".
Does Highland Council not have a full-time arts officer now at all? When I think of the size of the area as well as the amount of activity in it, I find that surprising.
I can probably help you from my experience. Within its area structure, Highland Council has arts officers for areas such as Caithness and Sutherland or Ross and Cromarty, although the provision is slightly patchy. The trouble is that they tend not to have much of a budget.
The report says that their budgets are £500 per annum.
Yes. Before the reform of local government in 1995, Ross and Cromarty District Council had quite a big arts set-up—in fact, Bryan Beattie, who is an adviser to the minister, was very involved in it—whereas other parts of the Highlands did not have much at all. There was very good and not so good provision before reorganisation, but now funding reasons mean that provision is squeezed. I would not say that it is the lowest common denominator, because that would not be fair, but we discussed the fact that, as we all know, if a local authority is squeezing the revenue budget, it will say, "Wait a minute, we don't definitely have to give money to the arts. We had better concentrate on social work." I think that it is true to say that the Promoters Arts Network recognises that the problem is that arts funding is not a statutory role of the council.
I notice that the report says that the Eden Court Theatre
"relies on a patchwork of funding sources."
I think that the phrase that Michael Matheson and I heard when we were at Cumbernauld Theatre yesterday was "cocktail of funding sources", so there is a clear parallel.
I am not sure whether the Promoters Arts Network is a funded organisation, but the report says that it is considering employing area development officers. It seems odd that it would do that if Highland Council has arts officers, although I find it surprising that those arts officers have budgets of only £500, because they could barely get to the far end of Jamie Stone's constituency for £500, never mind do anything with the money that is left over. Is the Promoters Arts Network a funded body, or does it consist of people who are already in some way funded coming together to form a kind of support network?
From memory, I think that the Promoters Arts Network got money from Highlands and Islands Enterprise.
It does not say that in the paper before us.
As I recall, the Promoters Arts Network represents commercial ventures, so it is presumably funded by those individual commercial ventures to improve ticket sales and promote events. Did its representatives not come before us at our first informal session?
I think that they did.
Yes, I think that they did. I am sure that they said that they promoted—
Sandy Anderson is a familiar name.
I have two thoughts on the matter. One comes as a result of what the paper before us says about Fèisean nan Gaidheal. We have taken no evidence from anybody working in the fields of racial equality, minority ethnic community arts or minority ethnic festivals. I am thinking, for example, of the Edinburgh Mela and the Glasgay festival, which have done so much not just for the promotion of community but for tolerance, understanding and recognition.
I remember the second thing because I recently sent an e-mail to someone about it. A super new website has just been launched that pulls together downloadable Celtic and traditional Scottish music. I will circulate that for the information of the committee.
Judith Evans has just passed me a note to say that all those groups were asked to submit evidence, but did not.
I wonder whether we should chase one or two of them to put something in. I will talk to Judith Evans about that later.
Overall, I am disappointed at the amount of evidence that has been submitted. There were only 58 written responses in total and the fact that only seven local authorities responded is appalling. Only one commercial organisation responded.
I echo Christine May's concern about the importance of multiculturalism and diversity and so on in the arts. I accept the point that there is no excuse for big funded or statutory organisations such as local authorities not to send written submissions to an inquiry such as this. This is a wider concern of mine. Frankly, I think that our expectations are too high, particularly when it comes to largely voluntary organisations or organisations with limited numbers of staff, who would need to take time out to prepare written submissions.
We explicitly reached this conclusion at the beginning and we reflected this in the way in which we carried out some of our informal sessions: we felt that this was a topic that did not lend itself particularly well to written submissions. I agree with Christine May's specific point about the gaps in what we have heard. This might relate to the next agenda item, but I have a sense that it would be useful to have a wash-up session so that we can think about other areas where we want to reach out a bit more, before we reach the end point of the process.
The next item covers the beginnings of our draft report. We will be discussing the issues that we want to include in it. Next week, we will formally revisit our work programme. I suggest that, when we discuss our work programme next week, we discuss the first version of the draft report. Let us consider whether we need to take additional written or oral evidence at that stage, given that we will be considering both the work programme and the draft report, rather than making a quick decision on the matter today. Would that be reasonable?
That might put the publication of the report beyond the turn of the year.
We would just need to accept that.
Yes. I would not think that that would be disastrous.
We have two other things coming out just before Christmas, so everybody will still have something to read over the Christmas recess. Are there any other points?
I will just give you my book list now.
I agree with what has been proposed, but this issue also brings up general questions about how we as a Parliament engage with people on the ground. There is a wider question to be considered here. There may be room for exploring new ways of reaching out to people, possibly through the Parliament's outreach team rather than through the traditional routes.
That touches on Mike Watson's point two or three meetings ago about the need for us to get out and about a bit more. We rely an awful lot on people coming to the Parliament. Although that is quite handy for many people at the moment because they want to come and see the place, in my experience there is no substitute for our going out on the front line.
I wanted to make an entirely different point. Murdo Fraser and Jamie Stone mention the relationship between various arts organisations and HIE. Obviously, that relationship is possible because HIE has a social remit, whereas Scottish Enterprise does not. Did you get any impression of how valuable arts organisations found that link with HIE, particularly with respect to their relationship with the local council?
The link is hugely important—arts organisations recognise it and they are very grateful. I do not want to slam the council for the sake of slamming the council. Like all authorities, it is cash strapped; it has to justify to the electorate why the potholes are not being filled.
But to turn the focus slightly more on to HIE, and the value of that relationship—
The relationship is greatly valued. We heard that from all the people who gave us evidence. I would be hard pushed to think of any criticism of HIE. I do not say that because I live in the Highlands. Murdo Fraser and I came away thinking that HIE has an advantage because of its social remit. From what we heard, it seems to be quite creative in targeting funding via the different mechanisms that are outlined in our report.
HIE seemed to be having an impact in relation to events and festivals and to dance, music and painting. My one slight caveat is that, in an inquiry such as this, it may always be the nature of the beast that the report will be a bit of a snapshot. That bothered me slightly. Knowing the Highlands as Murdo Fraser and I do, we recognised that other things were going on that we did not have time to investigate. However, as the convener commented earlier with reference to members getting out there, our visit was very well received. I think that Murdo Fraser would agree that it went down a bomb—it was great. The members of this committee function well and there may be more scope for us to do such things. It is certainly quite cost effective. The people to whom we spoke opened up—I thought that they were very frank with us.
We move to the report from Cumbernauld. As that visit took place yesterday, the report has not yet been circulated, so I ask for an oral report from Mike Watson and Michael Matheson.
I will make some initial comments and Michael Matheson may want to add to them. The visit was useful. I echo Jamie Stone's point—I got the impression that it was very much appreciated that we had taken the time to visit. I also got the impression that the people whom we met had put in considerable work in preparation for our visit. We were there for about three hours.
Are you talking about the theatre?
Yes, Cumbernauld Theatre. I have an aide-mémoire, which will probably be fairly close to what is circulated—I had forgotten that other members do not have it. Cumbernauld Theatre is a community resource as well as being a theatre. It is interesting, as it is not in any way a typical theatre. It is a kind of add-on to a row of cottages. It is multifunctional. Part of the cocktail of funding to which I referred is the contribution made by the theatre's public bar. There is a theatre bar, which is open when there is a production on, but there is also a public bar, which is open like any other bar in any other main street. Because of the nature of Cumbernauld new town, there is a shortage of bars, so the theatre bar provides a local function. It also gives a profit to the theatre of—did we say about £35,000?
On average, between £20,000 and £30,000—
A year. That probably comes to about 5 per cent of the total turnover.
We were particularly taken with the work that Cumbernauld Theatre does with young people in addition to its typical role as a theatre. There were two people there from Scottish Power, who were involved in one of their company's initiatives, Scottish Power learning. The theatre takes three lots of 20 fourth-year pupils from local schools—they are atypical children who are not achieving or engaging much—and tries to assist them by using artistic activity to get them more interested in learning. The initiative helps children to release their creativity in a way that they have not been able to do before. The theatre also has an interesting programme called ArtsWork. In the example that we saw, a CD-ROM was produced with 10 different themes, such as hype and freedom—it was cleverly done.
The money that Scottish Power puts into those programmes is important. The representatives of Scottish Power told us that they were keen to extend the work that the company already does. That was a useful adjunct to the information that we received from the Bank of Scotland at one of our informal sessions. As members will see from the papers for the next agenda item, the Bank of Scotland was the only private sector company that made a written submission to our inquiry, although Scottish Power clearly does a considerable amount of work and provides resources. In fact, one of the people whom we met worked full time on such projects, not just in Cumbernauld, but on other schools initiatives that Scottish Power uses to enhance learning through cultural or artistic activity.
Like everybody else, the people from the theatre to whom we spoke finished with a bit of a swipe at funding. We learned that the funding that the theatre receives is considerably less than it was before the local authority changes, which hit the theatre quite badly. The theatre used to receive money from Strathclyde Regional Council, but North Lanarkshire Council does not give as much.
Ten years ago, the theatre received £140,000 a year, but it now receives just under £80,000 a year in core funding. I was impressed with Scottish Power's involvement because many corporate sponsors do not like to get involved with arts projects in which they are the core funder—they just want to provide add-on funding. We could ask the theatre what it is doing financially to ensure that it is a sustainable organisation, but the core funding provides only one third of the money needed—the theatre raises the other two thirds through ticket sales, other events and schemes, and the pub. The theatre puts in a lot of work to remain sustainable, but it has a real problem with core funding. One of the key issues that was flagged up was the need for greater sustainability of core funding, which would allow the theatre to plan more effectively. At present, the theatre receives annual core funding. If a good member of staff thinks that they might not have a job in a year's time, they just disappear. The people flagged up the need for local authorities to provide groups and organisations such as theirs with core funding for three to five years to allow them to plan ahead and work out what they have to do in that time to bring in additional resources.
I was immensely encouraged by what the theatre does and by what it sees as its role. It is based in the community and engages with young people. The work that Scottish Power does through Scottish Power learning must also be encouraged. My understanding is that Scottish Power does not sponsor any sports events, but instead puts money into the arts through Scottish Power learning. It is encouraging that a corporate organisation is prepared to do that. The company wants to roll out its work further, but it sees a need for more Government and local authority involvement in order to make that effective.
I recommend that any member who has not visited Scottish Power's learning centre at Cathcart should go—the set-up is absolutely brilliant.
Mike Watson mentioned the girn, if you like, about the difference in funding now compared with a few years ago. Is a pattern developing? When arts funding was delivered in part by district authorities, that budget did not compete with budgets for major strategic services such as social work, education and roads and transport. What you said slightly parallels what we heard in Highland. I am thinking out loud and the issue might be for another day, but is a theme emerging? Out of interest, how does the theatre marry the idea of a pub that makes £35K profit a year with the fact that children put on shows there? Is there not a problem with that?
The pub is, effectively, a separate part of the building. It is connected to the theatre, but it sits on its own. It serves the local community in that it is the local pub for the nearby housing estate. There is a theatre bar as well, which families can use. There does not seem to be a problem.
You are right that there seems to be a theme. I do not know whether it is because priorities have changed since district councils provided funding and we now have unitary authorities. What is clear, however, is that core funding for community arts projects is seen as being an add-on rather than being central. Local authorities do not have a statutory obligation to support community arts organisations. Interestingly, Cumbernauld Theatre is the only independent arts organisation in the North Lanarkshire Council area, but it gets less than £80,000 a year towards its core funding.
The committee might want to discuss, at some stage, whether the events of 1995 set back the provision for the arts.
That certainly happened in Strathclyde, where there were 13 local authorities. It happened not only in the arts but in all areas that relate to bodies that were part funded by the regional councils. When that stopped, some unitary authorities were able to pick up funding but others said that, as the body was not based in their council area and not many people from their area used it, they did not see it as being their responsibility. To put it mildly, the pro rata contributions were variable.
That is exactly the point that I was going to make. Prior to the 1995 reorganisation, many organisations, venues and projects had been core funded by the district councils with top-up money from the regional council for reasons relating to education, health and so on. The squeeze in local authority budgets between 1995 and 1999 was mainly felt by the arts because, for the councils, there was no contest between arts and the statutory functions of health, social work and so on. It was a no-brainer. Councils had no option. It was not that they did not rate arts and culture, but that they were faced with situations in which there was no choice. The arts could be cut without affecting core services directly. Of course, indirectly, those cuts reduced the impact of those services that make people feel good about themselves and enable them to participate in society. More important, they led to a speeding up of the decline in the fabric of buildings. We have heard that over and over. Maybe the report should say so. We now have to get back from that situation.
At this point, I should remind members of my declared interests.
The reorganisation also made it harder to make links. A group that was trying to set up a tour of Strathclyde, organise a touring exhibition or establish six identical projects in different areas had to deal with the 13 organisations that Mike Watson mentioned, each with different timescales, deadlines, priorities and personalities, rather than with one organisation. All of that made it harder for the arts to work in a joined-up way.
There are no other comments. The written report will be circulated to members following this meeting. It could not be helped that the visit to Cumbernauld took place only yesterday. Obviously, under the parliamentary rules, we are not allowed to circulate papers informally; we have to do things properly. That is why members will not get the report until after the meeting.
We must now consider issues for inclusion in the draft arts in the community report, bearing in mind that we agreed earlier to reconsider whether we need to hear additional evidence at next week's meeting. The two papers have been circulated and I assume that all members have read them. I invite members to highlight points in the papers that they believe need to be changed, added to or subtracted from. Judith Evans has suggested helpfully that each member should highlight two or three major threads that they think we should develop. The clerks will prepare various drafts of our report, which we will go through. They will rely on the written material that we have received. This discussion is not a replacement for that debate, but is intended to add to it. Members may stress the key points that they think should be highlighted in the report.
I promise that I will make my three points, but first I would like to put them in context. I am concerned about how linear this kind of process often is. In reality, the thoughts and ideas of all of us evolve, as they should. It is important for us to have an opportunity to chew some fat around the table. The discussion should be wider than our saying, "Here's our list of points."
I want to take a step back and to ask what we are trying to achieve. I ask members to bear with me for a minute. We really want to add value to this discussion; we do not want just to repeat what people have been saying for a long time. I was reminded of that at the weekend, when I attended a launch of an exhibition at the City Art Centre in Edinburgh. I take this opportunity genuinely to encourage members to go along to it before we complete our report. The exhibition is called "Arts the Catalyst for Social Action and Change" and documents the history of the arts in Craigmillar. It goes back to the 1960s and 1970s and the genesis of the Craigmillar festival, showing how that came about.
We are still in public session, so the whole building can hear you.
I encourage everyone else to go along to the exhibition, too. I say that in all sincerity, because the exhibition concentrated my mind on the constant risk of reinventing the wheel. On the night, the actor John Murtagh, who opened the exhibition, reminded us all how much wheel reinvention had been done in this area in particular. Dotted around the walls there are wonderful quotes and commentary from leading lights in arts in the community worldwide. Those remind us of fundamental points about what works and does not work in arts in the community. My first plea is for us not to reinvent the wheel, to learn from some of the thinking that has been done and to make that explicit in our report. I know that that is sometimes easier said than done.
Secondly, I would like us to apply some of the philosophy of which I was reminded at the exhibition and about which we have heard a great deal at the meetings and visits in which members have participated during this inquiry. If we as politicians—the Parliament and, by extension, the Executive—really want to support and encourage the development of arts in the community in the broadest sense, we cannot merely propose a list of tight actions in our report. That is almost the antithesis of what is needed. If the inquiry results in more audits and reviews and changes to process in relation to funding mechanisms, we will have failed.
We must try to show what liberates creativity and people's potential in communities. One of my key points is that there are aspects of process that can and should do that. For example, we have received hard-edged messages about evaluation and monitoring of funding. We can have different approaches that involve not just counting heads or bums on seat, but measuring qualitative impacts and so on. We should make hard-edged recommendations on process in our report.
The biggest of my three points is that I would like us to speak the language of enabling, facilitating and releasing potential. We should challenge the top-down approach that is taken, because it does not work. I would like us to do something to address the issue. There needs to be more judgment and instinct around questions about what is supported financially and what is woven into policy and practice. We can go round and round in circles talking about evidence-based policies and literature reviews, but that has all been done. We should mop it all up and contextualise our report. We then need to move on and discuss the kind of culture change that we are advocating for policy and practice. Before I rabbit on any more and people start to kick me under the table, I should explain that my major point is about culture change and people-based solutions.
The more hard-edged point is about evaluation, monitoring and facing up to the fact that we cannot measure everything. My next point is probably more of a statement than a specific recommendation. We need to put up in lights the message about the wider benefits of the arts—although those benefits cannot be quantified, they are there. The literature review document used the idea of links rather than causal connections, so we should just accept that there are links.
We cannot prove it, but we know that they are there.
We just know that the benefits are there and the committee should be willing to make a big statement about that. I apologise for talking so much, but the convener has not kicked me yet.
I agree with those three points—
Just say "agreed".
No, because I would head them slightly differently and put slightly different nuances on them. The first point relates to values and benefits. The one thing that does not appear in the excellent précis is the idea that poverty is not just about money; it is also about how someone is valued in society. We have clearly heard from all the practitioners that value is precisely what community arts can and does provide.
As an addendum to that point, I would like us to focus much more than we have so far on the 20 per cent of people who are not involved in any form of community art. I would like the committee to consider ways in which we can push arts further. I do not see why that target should not be 100 per cent.
Should we be aiming for 100 per cent? Is that not telling people that they must be involved in community arts? Some people are just not interested. They have the right not to be.
We can have a target of trying to find artistic activities that appeal to everyone. When we consider that that ranges from reading books and doing needlework—
Buddy Holly.
Absolutely. Why not? We have Elvis impersonators and things like that.
I am a bit intrigued as to why we should expect 100 per cent of the population to be interested in any one subject, be it sport, culture, foreign holidays or reading books. If we already have 80 per cent, that is not bad.
There are two other points. First, how do we get in touch with the other 20 per cent? Secondly, a small amount of that 20 per cent might say that they would have got involved if there had been something accessible, but most of them would say that they do other things and have no time to be involved in community arts. They are not really interested. It is like fishing. Thousands of people fish, but no amount of parliamentary activity would get me to start fishing even though lots of people do it.
So it is true what the Countryside Alliance says.
That may not be the most precise analogy, but fishing has the most participants of any sport in the United Kingdom. However, I have no interest at all in it, although I like sports.
Yes, but fishing is not such a catch-all.
Worm your way out of that one.
Shall we try to get back to the serious point?
The point that I am making is that we know much more about the 80 per cent who participate in community arts than about the 20 per cent who are not involved in any way at the moment. I would like the Scottish Arts Council to find out much more about that sector of society and why those people do not participate. The arts are not just one activity; fishing is one activity, but the arts cover an enormous variety of activities.
The second area to consider is funding. We have heard much about the complicated nature of applications and about the number of hoops through which people have to jump for a very small amount of money. We have also heard about the difficulties that can be associated with private sponsors. For example, the fact that private sponsors such as the Bank of Scotland say that they will sponsor only organisations whose message is in line with their brands makes it harder for some organisations to get private sponsorship money. I am thinking of organisations such as those that promote the arts in prisons and in mental health areas, which are not particularly attractive to private sponsorship. I would classify that as a funding issue.
The arts of the Scottish socialists.
Yes. We heard evidence that there is no way that 7:84 Theatre Company's most recent project would have attracted any private funding.
The third issue is the position of the arts in general and in politics. One of the notes from our informal meetings states that
"community arts can often be the only provider of essential support services, particularly for women",
and that it is
"essential that this is recognised and that other services can link in".
The minister said that all departments are considering their remit in relation to the arts, but I wonder whether the lead should be taken by the minister with responsibility for the arts. It rather looks as though the agenda is being set by the other departments. It is a matter of emphasis, but I wonder how central the minister is in setting the agenda of the other departments and ensuring that they fit into an arts agenda instead of an arts agenda having to fit into the agendas of other departments.
Are you suggesting some kind of arts proofing?
Some people are saying that the ideas of arts projects can become skewed in the search for funding, as they try to fit other people's agendas. Perhaps it is time that we put the arts agenda at the heart of Government thinking instead of making it a little add-on that gets knocked off by authorities when funding is tight.
We should ensure that, even if we cannot get 100 per cent participation, there is at least the opportunity for that. We have received written evidence that in rural areas there is not the same access to some activities as there is in other parts because of transport issues. Voice of Carers Across Lothian says that local government should be developing a clear policy framework for the delivery of community arts.
I was not able to go on a case study visit, but from what people have said it is quite clear that provision is not uniform. Perhaps it is difficult to make uniform provision, but greater strides can be made at least to give more people the same kind of opportunities and access. We want more access and we should identify and address gaps. Perhaps there is a role for local authorities and the Executive in that, too.
My second point is about cross-fertilisation of initiatives and funding. I am happy to be corrected on this, but we heard, for example, that the cultural co-ordinators just work in schools. It would be better if they could work on a wider basis with other organisations. I do not know whether I am right about that.
That is not the case everywhere. The evidence was that in some areas—I think Glasgow was one and Fife was another—cultural co-ordinators do more than just work in schools.
Yes. We need more of a standard overlap. The written evidence mentioned areas of health spending and investment in arts and other budgets and departments. We need to see what efforts are being made in each area and we need not to create silos but to galvanise work.
We did not look at a huge amount of the outreach work done by professional artists and national companies—perhaps we will do more on that. We heard a bit from the National Galleries of Scotland. A key issue in the work of the Cultural Commission is how much outreach work national companies are doing. That is a huge factor in getting best value from them and in promoting community arts, bringing their work into communities and encouraging other people to get involved locally on an amateur basis.
My third point is to reiterate what Michael Matheson said about three-year funding, which we must address. Local authorities have three-year funding and everything possible should be done to give local arts organisations that kind of ability to plan ahead.
I have two points, the first of which relates to the paper from the event on 21 September—the first round-table discussion that we had here. A point that does not appear in the summary—members might disagree with what I remember—is that there was a division among the people there. The clerks had done a good job of getting a cross-section of people from the arts. There was a lady there from the Embroiderers Guild and another lady from Making Music who represented a particular strand of purely voluntary groups, which exist happily in their own communities. The Making Music lady represented choral societies and music societies that put on shows in small communities. The Embroiderers Guild lady represented other groups. Their view seemed quite different from the view of some of the others present, who were professionally or semi-professionally involved in the arts and whose salaries depended on the funding coming in. It seemed to me that people from the purely voluntary sector were saying, "We're quite happy just to get on with it. A bit more co-ordination between our groups would be helpful and a bit more joined-up thinking would be great, but we can just get on with it." The other groups were much more concerned about funding. There was a clear distinction between the two groups.
Inevitably, the meeting was dominated by the people in the second group—those who were involved professionally—because they were saying, "We must have second-year funding because we are actually employed in the sector." That was an interesting development. It is important that we do not lose sight of the fact that we are talking not just about people whose jobs depend on the sector; there are people in the purely voluntary sector—if I may use that expression—for whom funding is not the issue. They are concerned with promoting their activities and widening access, but for them it is not about providing salaries.
My second point came out of our trip to Inverness. It is obvious that there is a patchwork of provision throughout the country. That is probably an inevitable consequence of the fact that local authorities are often charged with delivery—the role of the Scottish Arts Council notwithstanding. That raises the question of how we can reconcile what we want to happen nationally with the fact that delivery is done by local authorities that have different priorities.
I agree with the sentiment that if the report is merely to be a description of where we are now and a list of what is happening in various places, it will be no better than a list of registration numbers of cars travelling up and down the Canongate. Clear action must be proposed; we must have the bottle to say what we think should be done.
My first point is that, although I do not think that we should say, "Thou shalt be involved in arts," I think that 100 per cent of the population should at least have the opportunity for such involvement. Let us park the remote parts of Scotland for a moment and think instead of the inner cities. Some of the most disadvantaged people in society have no opportunity for such involvement, for a variety of reasons, which I will not go into now. The angle from which I approach the issue is that I would love a quality picture, if not an original, to be put up in the soup kitchen—I hate to use that expression—just up the Canongate, on the right-hand side, or in the Grassmarket mission. I do not know whether members have ever visited the Grassmarket mission, but the people there are in real trouble in our society. They do not get to see such pictures. A clever selection of prints of some of the masterpieces could be used, as security would obviously be a point to bear in mind. Such people are not getting access to art in any shape or form. I do not want to force them to look at pictures, but I believe fundamentally that good surroundings are beneficial for people in some deep way. It would not be difficult to do something for people who, I am acutely aware, are utterly excluded. Prints could be obtained, a performance could be put on or music could be provided. From the way that Susan Deacon is looking at me, I am not sure whether she agrees.
My second point is that what the Bank of Scotland said was very interesting. A great deal can be done on corporate social responsibility. I concede to Murdo Fraser that it is necessary to go with the grain of business and make it worth its while to go down that route. It is clear that the Bank of Scotland thinks that it is worth its while to chuck big chunks of money at opera, but not at art in prisons. Perhaps there are ways in which we could tweak things, for example by changing the law or the circumstances in the country, to encourage more corporate social responsibility so that companies realise that it would be worth their while to do something in prisons. We will have to change things, because we cannot force business down that route. I am talking about using more carrots rather than more sticks. We should think about creative ways of doing that, although perhaps not as a committee.
My final point relates to an old hobby-horse of mine. The Parliament could do a little bit for the arts, both because of the nature of the building and because of what we are about. I used to have arguments with Sir David Steel about that. People say that, come the summer recess, when we are off doing our bits in our constituencies, this place should be locked. To me, that is rubbish. If the Edinburgh festival, or I do not care who, wants to hold an exhibition or to find a venue for a quintet, for traditional music, for humour and comedy—that might be appropriate—or for whatever else, why should not some of the space in this building be used? We are talking about a wider message. If the institution of the Scottish Parliament and its building are to belong to the Scottish people, there must be something creative that we can do on that front.
To be fair, is George Reid not prepared to do that?
He is, but we should remember that we are a parliamentary committee of many colours. We have a locus in such matters. I do not know whether I will be able to persuade my colleagues on that front, but I would love such a recommendation to be included in the report. That would be genuinely creative. Can members imagine what anathema such a suggestion would be in the Palace of Westminster? If a request were to be made to hold a performance or to have a quintet playing in the central lobby, the response would be, "You must be joking!"
We can take a very different approach. We are all Jock Tamson's bairns. We MSPs should not get above ourselves and we desperately need to reach out to the Scottish people—to try, for example, to reverse the decline in voting. We have an opportunity here. I feel a bit passionate about this, as members can tell.
I do not disagree with Jamie Stone. The committee rooms would be ideal as small venues and I do not see why they should not be used.
I have three points to make, the first of which concerns funding and picks up on a point that VOCAL makes on page 9 of the summary document. Across Scotland—and I include the Executive in this—we are missing opportunities to use community planning to set out a series of priorities. After that has been done, we can consider allocating funding to a range of activities that delivers on those priorities. That is the only way in which we will ever achieve the value of arts and cultural activities to the economy, to health and to social regeneration. I have been preaching that message for the past five years and I will carry on preaching it, because I think that it is the right way to go.
I received an e-mail yesterday as a result of an event called B in the park—a rock concert with local bands and kids—that was held at Riverside park in Glenrothes. The various activities and aims were supported by NHS Fife, the substance abuse team, the colleges, one of the banks, the enterprise company and the local authority. All the activities and aims met with the corporate and individual priorities of those supporters. We sometimes get this funding business the wrong way round and it is high time that the Parliament and the Executive considered that.
My second point is about buildings and locations. Murdo Fraser spoke about people doing activities that were purely voluntary. The most that such people ever want from public bodies is a venue—an affordable, warm, safe and accessible venue. A huge number of publicly owned buildings are underused and under-resourced. We could encourage and support local authorities—who generally own the buildings—to close some of them and so rationalise the number of their buildings.
My third point goes back to one that Susan Deacon made. Let us encourage everybody, including ourselves, to streamline the processes so that we capture the essence of what people are really doing out there. Sometimes we do not know why something works, but we know that it works. Go with your guts.
Those would be my three messages.
I have only two points—I joined the committee fairly late on in the inquiry and obviously did not hear all the evidence.
I will start with the negative point. I agree with a lot of what Susan Deacon said but, in our report, we must address some of the issues of process. Some of the organisations that gave evidence to the committee would want us to take such issues on board. I am thinking, for example, about three-year funding, the streamlining of the application process for funding, and the evaluation of effectiveness.
Having said that, I feel that the report should also be about celebrating art in the community. A lot of research has been done on the value of community art and we should highlight what is going on in different communities and the benefits that accrue. We should highlight the need to encourage such initiatives in other parts of the country. In some areas, people encounter barriers.
In producing reports, there is always a danger of merely making about 50 recommendations and saying that we want the Executive to go through them in turn and give a response. However, the committee also has a responsibility to highlight the good things that are happening. If we believed the media, we would think that the arts world in Scotland was terrible, but an awful lot is going on. We should acknowledge that and support it.
Corporate social responsibility is increasingly becoming an issue for many major companies, both those that are based in Scotland and those that are based outwith Scotland but which operate here. I am encouraged by the partnerships that I have witnessed so far between arts organisations, the Scottish Arts Council and corporate companies in taking forward arts programmes. We need to consider how we can develop that agenda, with corporate organisations becoming much more involved in community arts projects rather than being involved purely at the high end to get their brand across. One of the things that we must do to encourage that greater involvement is to address some of the issues of process to ensure that community arts projects and organisations are sustainable. If we can do that, companies might be more encouraged to engage in the process.
We have a unique opportunity with this report, because it will not only be sent to the Executive but will form our submission to the Cultural Commission. If we can put forward ideas that have merit and convince the Cultural Commission that they have merit, it might incorporate at least some of those ideas in its report. That would give our report even more weight, and we should bear that in mind.
Based on what we have seen and heard during the past couple of months, there is, as Michael Matheson said, a tremendous amount of good stuff going on. It is not all about the funding of Scottish Opera and doom and gloom: will the artistic director leave and if so how will that affect the company and what will the new woman who comes in do about refocusing? The national companies are of great importance, and that is recognised. We talked about Cumbernauld Theatre and the work that goes on there with Scottish Power Learning. Scottish Power does that work, but it also part funds the Royal Scottish National Orchestra—it sees the micro with the macro.
There is no getting away from the fact that funding is crucial. There is no doubt that there should be more funding of the arts and cultural activity in Scotland. I have a major proposal that I would like to see in the report. It did not come to us in evidence, although I think that I mentioned it during our hearings. In Sweden, which I visited two years ago, there is a requirement that 5 per cent of the cost of any new building, whatever its total cost, must be spent on some kind of cultural input. Perhaps 5 per cent is a bit ambitious—I do not have details of how the scheme operates, so the first thing that I would like the clerks to do is to contact the Swedish embassy in London to see whether they can get those details—but even if we specified 1 per cent as a starting point, for every £25 million building we would have £250,000 of cultural input. That might be art on the walls, sculpture, a performance space, a rehearsal space or a reading facility. There is no limit to what it could be—we are limited only by the imagination. We could start with the public sector in Scotland and say that 1 per cent of all public sector spending on buildings and facilities in Scotland should have such input. That could make a dramatic difference, not least in the further flung communities.
My second point is also on funding. One of the things that struck me most in the information that we gathered was the list of Scotland's local authorities and what they spend on cultural activities. The information related to a specific cultural activity, although I cannot remember what it was—it might have been theatre or drama. There were huge differences, not only between, say, Aberdeen and the Borders, but between North Lanarkshire and South Lanarkshire and between the Ayrshires. There is no obvious reason for that. Councils hate ring fencing and I am not suggesting that they should be given money that is ring fenced by the Executive, but we must find a way to ensure that there is a bit more consistency in the level of funding so that we do not have the artistic or cultural equivalent of postcode prescribing. There needs to be a way to take borders into account—not the Borders, but local authority borders.
I notice in the report on the Inverness meeting that 45 per cent of the people who use Eden Court Theatre live more than 45 minutes' travel distance away. That means that quite a few of them do not live in the Inverness council area, which is important. In relation to our earlier discussion, how do we get a local authority to contribute to a facility that is not within its boundaries? A facility might benefit a lot of an authority's citizens even though it is not in that authority's area.
There is almost room for a mini-inquiry, perhaps through the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, into the disparity in funding; it could cover what local authorities do, what they fund and what they regard as their responsibility. Councils know that any theatres within their boundaries are their responsibility and they do something about that. However, Michael Matheson and I found out yesterday that councils may not do as much as they could. For example, as Michael said, people from Falkirk go to Cumbernauld Theatre, but Falkirk Council contributes nothing to that theatre. I am sure that it never shows up on its radar, although quite a few of its citizens go there. I want to address that kind of thinking. Local authorities should spend a bit more on the arts and should divide the money more logically instead of spreading it evenly across the board.
Finally, I want to stress the benefits of community arts. Evidence from SPARC—social inclusion partnership arts for regeneration and careers—highlighted the range of benefits to individuals from artistic activity, including increases in self-confidence, self-expression, physical fitness and social interaction. Such benefits carry a lot of weight in encouraging individuals to get involved. West Dunbartonshire Council highlighted the community benefits of artistic activity, including strengthening cultural life, increasing civic pride and providing volunteering opportunities.
People probably do not associate many benefits with cultural activity. Somebody said at one of our informal sessions that people who are involved in cultural activity would not necessarily use that expression to describe what they do. They might think that they are just doing something for their community. I wish that we could somehow put a price on the benefits, but it is difficult to do that. However, we should highlight what the arts and culture contribute not only to individuals and communities but to society in Scotland in general. Our report's conclusions on that will surprise many people.
I agree with most of what has been said, but I want to add two or three points. First, local authorities cannot be relied on for arts funding. Frankly, the fact that only seven local councils gave evidence to our inquiry makes it clear that the arts are not high on councils' lists of priorities, although we understand why that is so. We will fail if we go down the route of relying on local authorities to be the main distributor of funds, or the main delivery agent—or whatever phrase we like to use—for arts in the community. We must try to get down to more localised communities. I am not saying that the arts money that goes to local authorities should be withdrawn. However, we could, for example, earmark lottery funding for more localised activity.
I agree with Jamie Stone that the Parliament should take the initiative in involving the business community in the arts. We could encourage people not only in the private sector but in certain institutions to provide funding for local initiatives that get nearer to the grass roots than local authorities do. In addition, there is an awful lot of centralisation and snobbery in Scotland in the arts. They are very Edinburgh-centric and we must change that if we are to deliver arts in the community or, more important, to make the arts accessible.
I agree with Mike Watson that we should copy the Swedish idea, but another thing that strikes me is that an awful lot of art is locked up in Scotland in private estates and public institutions. Beginning with the public institutions, it would be worth while unlocking such art and sending it to, for example, Inverness or Ayr, and putting it in public and non-public buildings so that people can see it. Let us have a travelling circus of art so that people can see what is, after all, their inheritance. Art is not just our inheritance or that of the people of Edinburgh, Glasgow or Ayr, or wherever it happens to be locked up. Art is the inheritance of all of us, so let us push some of it out and use what is there. It would not cost a hell of a lot of money to do that.
Christine May's point about buildings is critical. In the evidence that I sat through, people said that if they got a building the rest could be left to them, although they might struggle a bit.
The other big point is not just the level of funding, but its accessibility and flexibility. We have reached the situation whereby everybody is the funder of last resort and people must put together a package to run even a small project. Then, when they get core funding, they get it for only a year. That is how not to encourage people and initiatives. I think that Michael Matheson and Richard Baker mentioned that extending core funding beyond one year—certainly to three years and perhaps even to five years—would do a lot to give enthusiasm and initiative to people.
We have had a fair discussion. Earlier, I made a mistake in saying that we would discuss the draft report next week—we will return to it the following week. I am fairly relaxed about the report. If it is necessary, I would prefer to have the report in January or February and to get it right rather than to have it even for the week before Christmas. We have a bit of slack at the beginning of January. We could use that time to soak up our discussions a bit.
I want to give members some food for thought. It strikes me that we are discussing a report that it might not be necessary or desirable for us to agree in private. We cannot take a decision on that today, as the matter was not on the agenda, but let us be a bit innovative and let us start the process of participation. Although five political parties are represented around the table, I sense that we are talking about something that is in not any way party-politically controversial. It might be good for the Parliament, the committee and—more important—the subject matter if we held our discussions in public on what should and should not go into the report. We do not have to make a decision on that until two weeks from today when we have our first formal discussion on the report, so I am not making a hard and fast recommendation, but it strikes me that it would be good to discuss the report in public. I simply leave that thought with the committee.
Does any member have any additional points to make? Obviously, we will receive a first draft of the report. If members want to feed more stuff to Judith Evans, they should do so. The more threads and thoughts that the clerks receive from committee members, the easier it will be for them to come up with a first draft that reflects what the committee is trying to say. If members have additional material, it would be extremely helpful if they could submit it by around next Tuesday.
On what I said earlier, I want to re-emphasise the point that Murdo Fraser made. We heard in the Highlands that there was an opportunity not only for the Parliament to do things in this building, but to reach out there. I cannot remember the term that was used.
Absolutely. Is everybody happy with our discussion of the item?
Members indicated agreement.