St Andrew's Day Bank Holiday (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
As it is now one minute past 2, I welcome everyone to the 19th meeting in 2006 of the Enterprise and Culture Committee. I remind everyone to switch off their mobiles.
We have received three apologies, of which two are for absence. Jamie Stone is unable to join us. Karen Gillon is also unable to join us but we welcome Margaret Jamieson, who is here in her place. Christine May will be slightly late.
I welcome Dennis Canavan, who has joined us for item 1, which is the St Andrew's Day Bank Holiday (Scotland) Bill. Members will recall that, in consultation with the Executive, we commissioned fairly major research into and evaluation of the implications of the bill. The full report has been circulated to members. We have asked the consultants to give us a presentation, at the end of which we will ask questions and, I hope, get some answers. We will not take any decisions today as this is essentially a briefing session for members and for the public.
I ask Richard Sweetnam to introduce his team and to give us a presentation.
Richard Sweetnam (Experian Business Strategies):
First, I thank the committee for giving us the opportunity to discuss further our research paper, "Celebrating St Andrew's Day—An Assessment of the Economic, Social and Cultural Costs and Benefits". Representing the research team is Neil Blake, on my right, who is director of economics and forecasting for Experian Business Strategies. He led on the economic analysis in the report. On my left is Josephine Burns, who is a director of Burns Owens Partnership. She assisted on the cultural assessment. I am associate director of Experian Business Strategies and was project manager for the research.
For the next 10 or 15 minutes, I will speak about the research specification, our approach to the research, some of the options for celebrating St Andrew's day and our key findings. We will then break into the question and answer session.
I remind everyone that the St Andrew's Day Bank Holiday (Scotland) Bill was introduced by Dennis Canavan in May 2005. Its objectives are twofold: to establish a bank holiday on St Andrew's day or, if that day falls on a weekend, on the following Monday; and to facilitate the creation of a national day to celebrate Scotland. The bill would amend the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971 to provide for a new bank holiday.
The research specification to which we worked was to compile a set of celebration options, to provide information on the economic, social and cultural impacts of each option and to quantify, in monetary terms where possible, the impacts of, and to review relevant research on, how other countries celebrate their national holidays. The purpose of the research was to produce evidence for discussion by the committee.
Our approach revolved around desk-based and primary research and subsequent analysis. The desk-based research concerned how St Andrew's day is celebrated currently, the representations that members have received and comparative research on five celebrations. The comparators were St Patrick's day on 17 March in Ireland, Bastille day on 14 July in France, two examples from America—independence day on 4 July and thanksgiving day, which is the fourth Thursday in November—and the recently established national day on 6 June in Sweden.
The primary research focused on our omnibus survey, which discussed how people behaved on a recent May bank holiday, and on questions to local authorities about their willingness to surrender a local holiday for a St Andrew's day holiday, their role in facilitating such a celebration and how to ensure that a St Andrew's day holiday would complement other activity.
We held a series of structured interviews with a range of organisations and umbrella groups, including the Scottish Arts Council, the Association of Scottish Visitor Attractions, EventScotland and the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations. The full list is in the report. Other structured interviews were held with VisitScotland, homecoming Scotland, Historic Scotland and private sector operators, when appropriate.
The analysis focused on a synthesis of that information, our economic data and publicly available data on economic output.
Four options were presented during the consultation. The first option was to change the date of an existing bank holiday to that of St Andrew's day, which we interpreted for the purposes of the research as substituting a holiday. The second option was to establish an additional bank holiday on St Andrew's day. We believe that both holiday options would require a form of national celebration. The third option was to have no bank holiday on St Andrew's day but to hold an event or celebration to mark the day. Similarly, option 4 was to build on existing local practices to celebrate St Andrew's day. The public sector would undoubtedly be involved in all options, but under option 4, local authorities could have a greater role to play.
I move to the key findings. From the comparator evidence, an interesting finding about St Patrick's day in Ireland is that a bespoke unit was established about 10 years ago to develop a week-long programme of activities around 17 March. That is a Government-funded initiative that aims to showcase Ireland for a week at home and abroad, and which culminates in the St Patrick's day parade in Dublin on 17 March.
Similarly, in France, the main focus of national celebration is on the capital. However, that is supported by a network of local activities throughout the country on 14 July and the following weekend. Some research has been done into France giving up a holiday; our review of that research suggested that the 0.45 per cent increase in working time from giving up a holiday did not equate to the same increase in output.
The findings from the United States suggest that holidays are observed on the nearest Mondays, so the intention is to maximise leisure time and minimise disruption to key sectors. We examined 4 July and thanksgiving day. One day is a national holiday about independence, whereas the other is about going home and family celebrations and marks the beginning of the Christmas season. The day after thanksgiving is the busiest retail day in the US calendar. Both holidays are about national values and are an inherent part of the US's social and cultural heritage.
Sweden was added to the comparison because it recently introduced a national holiday on 6 June. Some research suggests that the cost of that additional holiday through lost output is 0.3 per cent of gross domestic product. However, if a holiday were taken in place of another holiday, the impact would be broadly neutral. In terms of the economic analysis—[Interruption.]
Sorry—there seems to be a glitch with the PowerPoint presentation, but I will continue. On the economic analysis, we took three overall approaches. The first approach was a cost analysis. We considered the negative impact and the cost of a day of lost output. That analysis does not take any account of positive impacts or gains.
Our second approach was a net analysis. We considered the off-setting costs and benefits and the impact on the economy of a bank holiday. We took cognisance of the fact that not everyone takes a holiday and that those who do might work harder before and after the holiday to compensate for the day off.
Thirdly, we undertook a positive analysis of the impact and considered actual spending behaviour on two holidays. The problem with such an approach lies in distinguishing between normal movements in output and those on a bank holiday. To do that, we examined two bank holidays that move. In considering March and April, we compared months with an Easter to those without. We also examined the Queen's jubilee holiday in 2002. We acknowledge that a St Andrew's day bank holiday is not directly comparable, but the analysis indicated the magnitude and the potential direction of movements.
What can we conclude? There is a table in the report that summarises the fact that Easter is good for retailing and the jubilee weekend was bad, whereas both holidays were good for hotels and catering. Easter has no lasting effect on manufacturing because losses are made up elsewhere in the month, before and after the holiday. On the Queen's jubilee holiday, drops in value added might show that the time of year was significant. For example, the retail sector might suffer more in warmer months than in colder months, given a lack of real alternatives for our leisure time.
I am sorry to interrupt you, Richard, but should we suspend the meeting for a few minutes to give you time to sort out your PowerPoint presentation?
Whatever the committee feels. I am happy to plough on.
You have taken a lot of time to prepare your presentation, so it would be a shame if we did not see it. I suspend the meeting for a couple of minutes.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—
Okay, we are back on course, so I reconvene the meeting. I hope that this time the technology is working. Over to you again, Richard.
Thanks.
Of the three approaches that I outlined, I refer particularly to the offsetting approach, which involves examining the actual behaviour of the economy on two bank holidays: the Queen's jubilee and the Easter holiday. What can we conclude? The Easter holiday was good for retailing, but the jubilee weekend was bad for that sector. However, both holidays were good for the hotel and catering sectors. The Easter holiday had no lasting effect on manufacturing, as losses were made up elsewhere, either before or after the month of the holiday.
On the jubilee holiday, drops in value added may be because of the time of year. For example, retailing may suffer more in warmer months than in colder months, when there may be a lack of real alternatives for leisure time. Obviously, St Andrew's day has a greater affinity with Easter. Our research discounted the jubilee holiday for two crucial reasons. One was the time of year—it was June of 2002—but there was also the complicating factor of the jubilee coinciding with the 2002 world cup.
On the net analysis, the impact of Easter at both United Kingdom and Scotland levels—as adjusted—is an increase in gross value added of £61 million and £4.6 million respectively for the UK and Scotland. On retail sales, the analysis indicates an increase of £107 million and £9.5 million, respectively. On the tourism impact, which was done on the basis that we travel and spend more at Easter, there was a net cost to Scotland of some £14 million.
I referred before the technical glitch to the cost analysis, which entails looking at the actual cost of output. By way of an alternative method, we valued output on a productive day, made assumptions about which industrial sectors would be most affected and came up with a cost—or a loss—of £135 million. However, I stress that that does not account for any productivity gains that are accounted for in the previous method.
On the cultural impacts in the findings, we were striving to present to the committee evidence on ideas rather than give recommendations about how Scottish residents should celebrate St Andrew's day. Overall, if there was a bank holiday for St Andrew's day, we would need a mechanism to celebrate it and to ensure that Scotland fully benefited culturally. As options 1 and 2 would involve a bank holiday, there would be more scope to develop an integrated programme of activities around a national celebration. That scope would be reduced somewhat under options 3 and 4, which would not provide a day off. There would be less time, and the time of year and climate would perhaps restrict some night-time activities. Given how option 4 could be developed, there would inevitably be a greater localised impact in the short term.
For the social analysis, we drew on the online omnibus survey and asked respondents at UK level how they spent their time on a recent May bank holiday. The results indicated that a higher proportion of people in Scotland than elsewhere worked on that bank holiday, which may be indicative of our culture of observing local holidays. Of those who did not work, 46 per cent stayed at home, 21 per cent visited friends and relatives and 12 per cent participated in short breaks.
We used the United Kingdom time-use survey as another indicator of how people could spend additional free time. Again, that indicated that in our spare time we tend to participate in sports, hobbies and cultural pursuits. We also quantified the number of Scottish residents who could benefit from a day off in relation to how economically active they are and the sectors of the economy in which they work. Based on there being some 2.3 million people in employment, we came up with the figure that about 17 per cent of Scottish residents—about 800,000 people—could benefit from a day off.
Our social analysis also considered the concept of willingness to pay. Essentially, it is a method of valuing intangible impacts, such as the so-called feel-good factor from an intervention, and it is common in health and environmental economics. If we assume that St Andrew's day would have similar effects to those that were quoted in research on the London 2012 Olympics—the benefits of national pride, uniting people and increased participation—and a willingness among Glaswegians to pay about £12, we can monetise the benefit at some £27 million per annum.
We also estimated which sectors could operate in the event of a holiday. We did that to assess the number of beneficiaries. Based on data from the Office for National Statistics on employment across key sectors of the Scottish economy, and on assumptions on whether those sectors would be open, closed or mixed, we came up with the estimates that are shown on page 46 of our report.
There are some key points in our conclusions. Research suggests that we need to clarify what it is about St Andrew's day that Scottish residents identify with. If there was a holiday around St Andrew's day, it would need to be distinct from other bank holidays and to integrate with what is already a busy period in the Scottish events calendar. Research also suggests that there would be a five to 10-year gestation period in the deliverability and branding of a national holiday. That would inevitably require financial support.
How to celebrate St Andrew's day depends on two things: first, whether we have a bank holiday; and secondly, if we do, the day on which we choose to celebrate it. Would it be fixed to 30 November, or would it be celebrated on the nearest weekend day?
Options 3 and 4 are generally more popular with the private sector, but they would perhaps dilute the cultural impacts. Option 1—substitution—is generally favoured as it would mitigate the perceived disruption or losses to the economy, but there may be a reluctance to surrender an existing bank holiday.
Thank you—that was very helpful. Before we move to questions, I remind committee members and people in the public gallery that the committee has been given two remits by Parliament: one is to consider the bill and the other is to consider other ideas for celebrating St Andrew's day. There might be a tendency for us to concentrate on the bill but we should bear in mind our dual remit. We should cover both sides.
First, I would like to thank Richard Sweetnam and his colleagues for a helpful and interesting presentation.
A criticism has been that the bill would not in itself achieve the objective of a national celebration of St Andrew's day, so other measures would be required. Your international comparison seems to indicate that considerable social, economic and cultural benefits could arise from a national holiday on St Andrew's day. Can we learn from other countries how to celebrate the day and make it a day of national celebration?
The crucial point is that there will be a day off in order to celebrate. We therefore need to develop something unique to St Andrew's day. Our research across all countries might provide innovative ways of how the idea might be delivered, and might suggest ways in which central Government and local authorities could join in or lead national celebrations.
Ireland is an obvious example of where there has been a specific intervention from a unit that develops activities and celebrations not only in Ireland but round the world. There is good practice to learn from.
I suspect that we have to come back to how Scottish residents want to recognise St Andrew's day and celebrate it. If the bill unlocks a bank holiday, we will have to do something to celebrate it.
Your paper refers to consultations of local authorities. You may have seen the document that summarises the responses to my consultation on the bill proposal. The document says:
"The vast majority of elected politicians who responded expressed support"
for the proposed bill, and
"a majority of local authority responses were in favour".
Can you confirm that the responses that you received from local authorities were, in general, from local authority officials such as chief executives and heads of human resources departments? There was virtually no consultation of elected representatives in local councils because of time constraints—some of the responses refer to that.
I confirm that there was no formal approach to elected representatives. However, within the time constraints to which you referred, we spoke to people in chief executives' offices.
In general, across the sectors, there is support in principle for a St Andrew's day celebration. Our consultation shows that. Among other things, we asked local authorities—with the caveat that that means chief executives' offices—about the propensity to surrender a local holiday. We were trying to home in on issues to do with option 4.
My final question of clarification concerns the possible uptake and observance of the holiday. This morning, an organisation called icScotland.co.uk reported:
"Fewer than one in five Scots would get a day off work if St Andrew's Day became a"
public
"holiday, a report before MSPs has said".
That is a clear reference to your report. Do you accept that that distorts its findings somewhat? On page 46, the report says:
"We … estimate that up to 36% of Scotland's jobs are in sectors that are likely to operate on a Bank Holiday."
I therefore assume that, in your estimation, 64 per cent of workers would work on the bank holiday. How did you arrive at those figures?
Moreover, 64 per cent of Scotland's 2.3 million workforce equates to 1.5 million people working on the holiday. If we assume that the bank holiday is also a school holiday, that means that 3.5 million people will not work. As a result, approximately 70 per cent of people will observe it.
This comes back to our assumptions about how people in each sector might react. The fact that the report covers a range of potential beneficiaries might address your point.
The estimate in question is based on our views on how sectors might react, which have been informed by our consultations. For example, the Scottish banking sector would mostly stay open; however, employers in various sectors are moving towards offering flexibility. As a result, the one in five figure to which Dennis Canavan referred might well be a distortion in that it is a specific figure. After carrying out the research, we do not know how people might behave. I should point out that there is no correlation between our omnibus survey on people's behaviour on bank holidays and the figure; we simply came up with an indication of the number of beneficiaries—that is, workers—and the time that they might get off.
Thank you for a very interesting report and presentation. Following from Dennis Canavan's question, I am interested in—and concerned about—not so much the desirability of having this national holiday as its deliverability. Given your research, are you able to elaborate on how we can make it happen?
Although the full report provides quite a bit of information on them, you have not said too much about the legislative frameworks in other countries. I wonder whether you can summarise the features and effects of the frameworks elsewhere. How important has legislation been in driving and delivering such changes? Does it, in fact, come later and reflect what has already happened in practice?
As far as delivering change is concerned, at earlier stages of considering the bill, I have asked about schools. Dennis Canavan, in passing, asked us to assume that the holiday would also be a school holiday. I do not like to make any assumptions, and experience suggests that we cannot assume that school holidays are necessarily aligned with holidays that business takes. Of course, that creates all kinds of issues for individuals and families throughout the land.
The two crucial issues are the deliverability and the legislative framework. In some cases, holidays are apparent and we have inherited them. The legislative framework is important, in the sense that it protects the work-free days in the comparator countries. Certainly in Ireland and France and, I suspect, in Sweden, they are a legal right of employees and employees who work on public holidays are entitled to compensation of the equivalent time off work. In that sense, the legislative framework protects the workers and is important to delivering and sustaining bank holidays.
If your question related to the deliverability of holidays for celebrations, that depends on what kind of celebrations Scotland has in mind for St Andrew's day. My colleague Josephine Burns may be able to comment on that.
On schoolchildren, research should reflect on the social element about logistics and managing children and work, particularly on bank holidays.
Josephine Burns (Burns Owens Partnership):
The heart of the question that Susan Deacon posed is whether legislation drives change and creates a signal to which the population responds or whether it reflects the public will, which in this case is the desire to celebrate and understand the national identity in a particular way and at a particular time and place. I stress that our research was limited and that the work that you asked us to do concentrated very much on the economic aspect. My caveat is that we did not consider every celebration, but only those that are mentioned in the report that is before you. On balance, we see a legal desire to reflect grass-roots celebrations. That is certainly the case with St Patrick's day. [Interruption.]
That is the fire alert. We are to remain in the building, so we will carry on in the meantime, but if we get another alert, I will have to suspend the meeting.
I hope that what I said did not cause that. [Interruption.]
The alerts may continue for a fair period, if 9 o'clock on a Wednesday morning is anything to go by. I am sorry, but we will try to carry on as if nothing is happening until we hear something serious. [Interruption.] I think that we had better suspend the meeting until further notice. It would be unfair to the witnesses not to suspend until the situation is resolved.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—
I think that we can reconvene. The fire alert message has stopped, but that does not mean that the mini-crisis is over; we may still have to vacate the building. At least we can continue without the background music.
Jo Burns was in the middle of her answer to Susan Deacon's question. It is probably best if you start again.
Okay. The two issues that Susan Deacon asked about were deliverability and legislative consequences or legislative importance. As you will see from our report, there is no clear answer to the question whether the legislation makes the day. As Richard Sweetnam has described, it protects the day—it enshrines it—but does it make it a cultural celebration? Does it reach into people's hearts and into the heart of the culture of a place? No, legislation probably does not do that.
We must, therefore, consider the question slightly differently and say that, on the basis of our limited research—this is not the principal area of benefit that you asked us to look at—which included an interesting interview with Calum Iain MacLeod, the chief executive of An Comunn Gàidhealach, which organises the Mòd, it is clear that a desire is emerging to celebrate Scotland's culture within a European and international context. Although there are many different small, medium-sized and even large celebrations, none of them coalesces into something in which each kind of celebration comes together to celebrate the thing called Scotland. There are the highland games, the common ridings, the Mòd and a range of evidence of culture and cultural celebration—not forgetting sport.
Deliverability and legislative importance are linked. Deliverability depends on structures that can be harnessed to make something happen. Action from the top down—the Parliament and the Executive deciding that you want to have this day and, let us say, hold a ceilidh in Edinburgh castle—is not the thing that will make St Andrew's day a real celebration as the bill wishes.
As our report suggests, there would have to be a gestation period in which we could examine and try to build capacity—that is consultantspeak. We need to build the extent to which existing structures or, indeed, new structures that might come through can develop local community celebrations that will somehow relate—inevitably and quite properly—to the big initiatives that the Parliament may wish to take, which might include a firework display at the castle or whatever. In our report, we have hazarded a few guesses at some of the things that might be involved in creating deliverability. In section 5.3.1 we give a brief and not comprehensive—nor thoroughly researched—list of ideas of what the thing might look like.
I hope that I have responded adequately to the question.
Yes. Thank you for both answers, which were very informative.
I want to clarify two factual points. The first goes back to something Richard Sweetnam said. You talked about how legislation in other countries protects the day and said that it ensures that, when employees work on the day, they are entitled to an alternative day off. Does the legislation protect the day in a quantitative sense—the number of days for which people are entitled to be off work—or the date?
The United States has a slightly different legislative framework, but I suspect that the legislation protects both the date and the time, as happens in Ireland and Sweden.
Thank you.
My second question goes back to my chicken-and-egg, cause-and-effect question. Did you come across any examples of legislation being used as a catalyst to bring about a holiday? We know that the dates exist as significant dates in the calendar. Has legislation elsewhere been used as a catalyst in that way or, more than that, as a means of forcing businesses or schools to close on a particular day?
I would be reluctant to answer that question in relation to holidays that have been established for a long time, such as St Patrick's day, or Bastille day in France.
This is not a direct comparison, but in Sweden the catalyst was the desire for a national day. A way had to be found to deliver that within the existing calendar of public or bank holidays in that country. In terms of cause and effect, the legislation delivered the desire for the national holiday. I may need to defer on other evidence from Canada. It was not formally assessed as part of our comparator research, but it is an example of a relatively recent legislative change in delivering public holidays.
My final point may be outwith the scope of your remit. It is naughty of me to ask you to take a broad-brush view of this, but in general would you say that the other legislative frameworks that you have examined are comparable in terms of the number of teeth that they have? Are we comparing like with like when we are considering the bill, the powers that we have and the legislative frameworks that exist elsewhere?
I would need to give further consideration to the legislative comparability across countries, nations and Parliaments. National holidays such as St Patrick's day are not specifically enshrined in legislative frameworks, but there are a number of bank holidays and public holidays that are delivered by legislation. We will have to examine specific legislation in relation to the more recent holidays, such as those in Sweden and Canada.
I am interested in what you call option 1: the idea of creating a new holiday, but in substitution for another holiday at a different time of year. The research that you did on Sweden was interesting, because if I read your submission correctly that is exactly what was done there. In 2005, the first year after the creation of the new national day holiday on 6 June, an existing holiday, Whit Monday, was effectively removed from the list of holidays. I understand that the information that you have on Sweden in the report is comparatively limited, but I wonder whether you can add anything to what has been said about the public reaction in Sweden to the idea of creating a national day holiday at the expense of another holiday. How was that received by the public? Was there any resistance to the idea?
Not that we have come across. The Swedish comparator was unearthed during our research. We were reacting to something we found. Uniquely, some research had been done on the economic costs of a public holiday. That was the trigger for us to look at Sweden. Our focus was specifically on that research. That said, nothing emerged during our research that indicated support or lack of support for a substitution.
Neil Blake (Experian Business Strategies):
Richard Sweetnam will correct me if I am wrong, but the move from Whitsuntide to 6 June is not particularly significant in terms of time—it is a change in the purpose of the holiday—but moving from Whitsuntide to November could have a different effect.
I understand that. If I read your report correctly, I think you are saying that there was no negative economic impact of moving the holiday and that the general effect was relatively neutral.
Richard Sweetnam indicated agreement.
It may be too early to say because the national day holiday in Sweden was introduced only in 2005 and you may not have information about it, but I would like to know the extent of take-up of national day celebrations and how they have been aided by the fact that the national day is now a holiday whereas it was not previously.
That too would warrant additional research by us. As I have said, the Swedish comparator came to us late when we were carrying out our case studies. However, you are right: it may be too early to assess the impact.
Okay. Thank you.
It is important to point out that Sweden has 11 public holidays and that it could replace one holiday with another holiday. Perhaps that makes a difference to the options for Scotland, which has fewer bank holidays.
I found your report positive, particularly on how important national holidays can be and their various cultural and social benefits. We should consider what happens on thanksgiving day in America against the concerns that have been expressed about the proposed St Andrew's day holiday being at the end of the year, when the weather is not good. As your report points out, the experience from America is positive—thanksgiving day is used to visit family and friends and is a national day of celebration.
I have a concern. Such holidays are well established in other countries and their social and cultural impacts have been seen to far outweigh their impact on the economies of those countries. Social and cultural impacts are seen as much more important than any economic downturn that may result. However, with the new holiday in Sweden, there has been an immediate assumption that GDP matters and is more important than social and cultural impacts. Do you think that the cultural and social importance of recognising a national day far outweighs the importance of there being a slightly negative impact on the economy, which is possible? Am I putting words into your mouth?
I suspect that the cultural and social momentum in those countries has gathered over many years. There has never been a need to quantify the economic impact on some of our comparators. There has been academic research on the economic costs of the bank holiday in Sweden, but that does not mean that economic costs are more important than cultural and social benefits. That is my initial reaction.
I want to clarify something. Any negativity that I conveyed when I compared St Andrew's day with other days arose from comparing it with the Queen's jubilee holiday and a June holiday. St Andrew's day is, of course, in November, at the same time as thanksgiving, as has been pointed out.
It might be dangerous to say that our report absolutely and conclusively proves that the cultural and social benefits would outweigh any marginal or greater economic loss. I do not think that we can prove that they would, partly because it is extremely difficult to compare people's evaluation of cultural or social benefits with their evaluation of economic factors, as we found in undertaking the work. It depends on what a person feels and what their values are, which is both a collective and an individual matter. Having a St Andrew's day bank holiday is a collective matter in respect of whatever decisions the Parliament might make and an individual matter in respect of how the person on the Musselburgh omnibus might feel about it.
I should perhaps point out that my taxi driver on the way here was very keen on having a St Andrew's day bank holiday. However, what taxi drivers think is not necessarily the litmus test.
Both the presentation and the report say that 30 November is a busy time of year. For the life of me I cannot think what is being referred to, apart from the run-up to Christmas, as there are no bank holidays from August onwards—
The run-up to Christmas is what is being referred to.
In addition to the run-up to Christmas, some activity already takes place around St Andrew's day and there are winter festivals in places such as Edinburgh. After Christmas, we start to get into Burns territory. In the calendar of Scottish events, the end of November is a relatively busy period.
An interesting point that is highlighted in the report is that St Andrew's day is celebrated more in the town of St Andrews than anywhere else. In that area, the deliberate strategy has been to use St Andrews day as the beginning of a six-week festival running through Christmas and new year and right into Burns day—in fact, that is eight weeks—which is at the end of January. One issue is the degree to which St Andrew's day can give energy to the run-up to Christmas and hogmanay celebrations, which could finish off with the Burns thing.
From the report, it is clear that thanksgiving day has a significant impact on that period. I will leave the issue at that.
I remember when Fife Council, of which I was then leader, picked up the St Andrews celebrations of St Andrew's day and began to develop them into a week of celebration and activities. The success of hogmanay over the past five to 10 years demonstrates that it is possible to generate sufficient interest and public support around a day or date in the calendar without legislative designation for it. After hearing the responses that we have been given today, I am coming to the view that we may need simply to hold our noses and jump one way or the other—there seems to be no definitive evidence either way.
I have one question about the slide in the presentation that referred to the need for support. It was suggested that if we are serious about promoting St Andrew's day as a national day of celebration or as a day that, as Alex Neil suggested, kicks off eight weeks of celebration that end with Burns night, we would need to provide public support. Demands for additional public sector support have also been made for the Edinburgh festival and for hogmanay. Is there any evidence to quantify how much support would be required over five to 10 years? Is there evidence from Ireland—where what was already, by and large, an established church holiday was moved into a week of celebrations—or Sweden, where I presume some funding had to be put in place?
In our research, we were reluctant to attribute a cost to celebrating something when we did not know the form of celebration. On that basis, we did not come up with an attributable cost. However, developing St Andrew's day as part of a bigger offer to get more people into Scotland would involve costs for marketing and so on.
By way of evidence—the caveat is that we are not comparing like with like—the Irish Government's most recent contribution to support St Patrick's day celebrations amounted to £690,000. However, it would not be correct to assume that Scotland would face similar costs; the cost would depend on what we were trying to deliver and what we were trying to achieve.
Are any figures available for Sweden?
Our research did not uncover any.
I want to ask about the practicalities. I note that you conducted primary research through local authorities, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the Scottish Trades Union Congress. Did they express a view on the practical application of the four options? In the public sector, a significant number of people have reduced their public holidays from 10 to five fixed holidays and five floating holidays. Local authority staff say that they will move some holidays so that they can have a Christmas closedown. Were the practicalities discussed with the Executive, particularly the Health Department, and with the STUC, COSLA and local authorities?
Yes. All the interviews were structured and all interviewees were presented with the different options. Our research flagged up the shift, among some local authorities in particular, to allowing employees the flexibility of so-called banking bank holidays—staff having an aggregate number of days and choosing how to spend them.
Did that not influence those who were involved in your research to say that one of the four options was a better fit for them?
We presented evidence around the options without articulating the preferences of individual consultees. Across sectors there is broad consensus about celebrating Scotland in some form. The no holiday option was a better fit for the private sector. All public sector and local authority consultations fed back the need for flexibility. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. In general, the respondents said that they would need a lot more information before they could commit to saying how they might behave.
I have a couple of questions about how to generate the celebration of St Andrew's day both inside and outside Scotland. Two things struck me. The first is that there is a dedicated unit in the Irish Government to co-ordinate St Patrick's day activities. I suppose that EventScotland could take responsibility for organising St Andrew's day activities; otherwise, we could simply have a dedicated unit. How important would that be in making a success of the celebrations?
Secondly, what kind of celebrations have the most impact domestically and internationally? In Boston, at least, where I lived, St Patrick's day is almost as important as thanksgiving and independence day, because of the Irish community there. What kind of celebrations are most effective for getting the message across?
You asked about a dedicated unit, or some other intervention to deliver a successful celebration. The unit in Ireland is a relatively recent important intervention to rejuvenate the flagging brand of St Patrick's day, which you are right to say has always been a major event in America.
A parade-driven event, with a series of satellite parades or events, that is focused around a capital or major city seems to be one common denominator in the events that have the most national and international impact. It would be interesting to know whether that is a legacy of the history of national days.
It is quite hard to quantify success. There is something about the large, civic public display that is extremely important. It is the big signal, but that must not be all there is. The most successful days seem to be those in which such displays are linked to and somehow in relationship with a local community engagement that involves family or other structures.
Thanksgiving day has been mentioned. On thanksgiving day, the community is the family; people stay at home to be with, and eat with, their families. You must signal the flavour of St Andrew's day—the kind of day you want it to be—and there will need to be a lot of engagement with the local community to define what it might be and might become over the years.
That was an extremely helpful evidence-taking session. I thank the consultants very much for a helpful and well-researched piece of work. We will schedule for next week a discussion on the committee's attitude to the bill and other ideas on the celebration of St Andrew's day and will discuss a draft report on 19 September. We are working to a fairly tight timetable, which has been set by the Parliamentary Bureau, but on that schedule we should be able to complete our consideration in time for the stage 1 debate, which is scheduled for 29 September.
As we have had two suspensions, I am inclined to move straight to item 2.