Enterprise and Culture Committee, 16 Nov 2004

Meeting date: Tuesday, November 16, 2004

Official Report 266KB pdf

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Arts in the Community Inquiry

Item 4 on our agenda—of course, we are still in public session—is consideration of a draft report on our arts in the community inquiry. A downside of holding this discussion in public is that we are limited in the extent to which we can engage the clerks. We might not hold every such session in public, but it is fair to have this initial discussion in public, to give a broad outline of what we want to do. A paper has been circulated to members, which provides a broad outline of a suggested approach. I open up the meeting for comment and suggestions.

Susan Deacon—who cannot be here today—has spoken to the clerks and to me on the issue. She wonders, given the nature of the inquiry and the nature of some of the evidence that we took from voluntary and community groups—people who were not the usual suspects—whether we should, as well as doing what is suggested in our paper and producing a two-part report as we did for our renewable energy inquiry, consider commissioning a DVD or video so that people could actually see and hear evidence. I have not had time to discuss the suggestion in detail with broadcasting staff or anybody else but, if resources are left in the committee's budget, such a DVD or video should perhaps be commissioned. For an inquiry such as this, it might be a very good way of getting the message out.

I agree. That is a good idea that is worth exploring. If the committee agrees, we could ask the clerks to do some costings and to consider who might do the work. We might have to go through a procurement procedure to keep ourselves in line with Parliament's procedures.

It is an idea that would often not be appropriate, although clearly it would be in this case. It would also add a bit to our leaflet, if we were to produce another. It is a very good suggestion.

Are we just agreeing to explore the practicalities, which would be immense?

That is right.

It is a good idea if it is doable.

The clerks will talk to Susan Deacon in more detail about what she has in mind and will come back, perhaps in two weeks, with a report.

Would the DVD or video be to augment the report?

Yes.

Timescales might be an issue. I know that we are not looking beyond the end of the year, but if performances are to be announced and things have to be put together, edited and linked, time issues might arise.

We might do what our predecessor committee did and get our report done and dusted but delay publication until the DVD is ready. Susan Deacon's suggestion does not stop us producing our report.

Do members agree that, in principle, we are happy to explore the suggestion, and that we will consider the practicalities and the cost when we see the report that we ask the clerks to prepare?

Members indicated agreement.

I have to leave within the next five minutes, but I want to raise a point in relation to the section in our paper under the heading "Practical support", which talks about

"the need to secure stability by providing three-year rolling funding … potentially to local or regional based-funding".

For the limited period when I was involved in the inquiry, my impression was that the issue was about sustainability of funding over three years, which comes from local agencies such as local authorities, and which can be matched by national bodies such as the Scottish Arts Council, although the process was not always devolved to regional or local level. Several local arts organisations whose representatives I have met are anxious about funding being devolved to local level, where it would probably be administered by local authorities. The current problem is that local authorities provide only annual funding and the Arts Council does the same. There is an issue of balance and the problem is not simply about a potential move to local or region-based funding. The paper does not quite show the balance that I had picked up on.

I know that Michael Matheson has to leave us shortly, but the easiest way to deal with the matter is to go round the table for members' views or comments, in particular on what they think is missing from the paper. That will allow the clerks to absorb members' comments as they start to prepare the first draft of our report.

I will return to something that I have banged on about for a long time—I will bang on about it again—but which is not in the paper. Public funding is delivered in silos, but I wish that it would be delivered across a range of policy objectives. Such a change being effected and the committee's encouragement of it would have a huge benefit to community arts and activities such as those which we have considered today. Those activities do not fall neatly into community services, education, health, social work or other boxes, but they do come under the policy objective of building stronger communities. I would have liked that to have come through among our recommendations.

Is that agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

I saw a draft of the paper earlier, and I had one or two changes to suggest, but they have been incorporated. The only point that I would make is on the final recommendation, which is that we

"launch the report in early January, on a Friday, at an external venue."

I am not sure whether it is taken as read that that should be some form of arts or cultural venue. If we are to produce a DVD, someone who features in it could perhaps be there, just to add something for the media at the launch.

We might want to revisit holding the launch in early January; we may have to hold it back a wee bit for the purposes of the DVD.

I mentioned to the clerks last week the Tolbooth in Stirling, which is an imaginatively refurbished old building that has been made into an arts and cultural centre. That is merely a suggestion; there will be many other places, but holding the launch at such a place would enhance and give extra weight to our report.

My point follows on from what Christine May said—I made the point last week, too. The "Philosophy into practice/Making it happen" section of the paper makes lots of good references to sharing experience, best practice and expertise. As Christine May said, it is sometimes a matter of sharing resources. Funding already goes into some education budgets to allow schools to engage in cultural experiences, and something similar applies to some health budgets. Some of the resources, which involve people working at various projects, could be shared more widely around the community. It is not just about sharing best practice and experience; there is also a resource issue. In many ways, I am just echoing what Christine May said.

I have a couple of things to raise, starting with one of the bullet points under the "Practical support" heading in the paper, which refers to

"the need to secure stability by providing three-year rolling funding".

Two issues come under that bullet point. The first concerns "three-year rolling funding" and is about striking a balance between keeping funds available for projects on a one-year basis while also providing security of funding for others—it is not about providing three-year funding for all. We ought possibly to be considering new solutions.

It is extremely difficult to get an initial year's funding, because projects have to prove that what they will do is good and worthwhile and is not provided elsewhere. Having got the first year's funding, the process of obtaining continuation funding should be slightly easier. We could explore that within the report. There is tension between three-year funding and one-year funding. There is a case for both, but we should consider developing alternatives.

My second point is on the potential to create funding to assist organisations with professional marketing. I have given that a fair bit of thought because, as I said, I used to manage an arts mental health organisation. Such funding might not have helped us, but we could have been helped by a volunteer base. Instead of having a fund to which one could apply, it would be helpful to have a base of experienced volunteers who could help organisations. Arts & Business Scotland has a contact database for professional arts organisations and has 45 placements under its scheme, but there is nothing to help unfunded amateur community arts organisations. That is far more relevant to community arts, so I would prefer us to look in that direction.

We do not in the report examine the fact that HIE has cultural responsibilities within its remit although Scottish Enterprise does not, and has not since the reform of what was formerly Lothian and Edinburgh Enterprise Ltd and the other development agencies. I would like to be able to express an opinion on that. I do not know whether the committee would like to do so.

Scottish Enterprise never had responsibility for the arts. Its predecessor organisation was the Scottish Development Agency. The Highlands and Islands Development Board was the predecessor of HIE; from 1965, when the HIDB was set up, it always had a social and economic remit, which was inherited by HIE. The SDA never had a social responsibility; it always had a purely economic responsibility, which was inherited by Scottish Enterprise.

I understood that organisations such as LEEL had social responsibilities.

Not in statute.

The question could still be examined in the inquiry, because we have seen that HIE supports the arts and community arts in a way that is not open to organisations furth of the Highlands.

I am cautious about that. If we were to broaden Scottish Enterprise's remit further the jam would be spread even thinner. Scottish Enterprise is trying to get out of that. The memorandum of understanding that is apparently to be agreed between it and a number of bodies will define the parameters of its involvement in social and cultural issues. I do not think that Scottish Enterprise is qualified or skilled to do much of that stuff. That is not to say that it should not be allowed to put funding in now and again as part of a regeneration project. There is nothing to stop it doing that.

If you take on board my suggestion that there should be theme-based funding, local authorities and enterprise companies would have a remit to grow the economy. It would then be for arts projects to show that they would fulfil that growing-the-economy remit, and would therefore be eligible for funding. That would make it clearer for funding bodies in making determinations, and clearer for applicant organisations in saying exactly what they are about.

That is fair enough and I agree, but any arts body that wished to make that case to Scottish Enterprise would find doing so difficult, because that is not part of its culture and thinking.

That is a separate issue.

I agree with Christine May's suggestion, which is a sensible approach. If we agree to it in principle, we can leave the practicalities to another day. Do you agree to that, Chris?

Sure—I am happy with that. I have a final point on location, which is that my vote would be for the Gracefield arts centre in Dumfries, because I do not think that we do enough within the south regions. Gracefield is an all-round centre. We have had many positive comments about it from Dumfries and Galloway Arts Association.

Every member of the committee is entitled to suggest, through the clerks, where the event should take place. However, members should bear it in mind that it is a public launch and, if we want coverage for it, it will need to be located within a reasonable radius of an outside broadcasting unit. Any suggested location would need to be a manageable proposition.

Border Television is located very close to Dumfries.

I am not sure what that says about Dumfries.

That would be an interesting discussion. However, every committee member should feel free to nominate a place. I am sure that we can have a public discussion on where we want to do the launch.

On Chris Ballance's point about Scottish Enterprise, we can guess what the current chief executive's view of that might be, but I will go no further down that road.

I have three points, the first of which is a general one. A two-part structure to the report is a sensible way forward—I am sorry, but I am reminded that there are to be three parts: two on paper and a DVD.

I love the way our suggestion has been assimilated.

It is a good suggestion because it will make the report much more readable and user friendly. I have two more specific points. The first is on the final bullet point in the second section of the briefing paper, "Philosophy into practice/Making it happen", which is about

"the need to develop centres of best practice".

I do not disagree with that, but we must be careful not to go down the road of proposing yet more buildings. It seems to me that we have enough arts centres in the country, some of which have rather difficult economic arrangements. Plenty of other possible venues are already underused, such as schools and village halls. We probably do not need more in the way of physical locations for arts centres. That point is in tune with a decentralising approach.

My second specific point is on something that came out of our trip to Inverness and which I believe was referred to in the report of that trip. The suggestion is to have for the arts something similar to the sports leader awards in Scotland—for example, arts leader awards—to try to promote excellence and provide a challenge, particularly for younger people, to achieve in the arts in the same way as they do in sports. I would like that suggestion to be explored further.

I want to return briefly to two points. One is about a bullet point in the "Philosophy into practice/Making it happen" section, which talks about

"the need to develop better networks and relationships between government-funded and voluntary agencies".

I mentioned outreach work by, for example, the national companies. We did not hear much direct evidence about that, but some people talked about people from Craigmillar who were successful in the arts going back to their community. I hope that we will return—perhaps when the cultural commission reports, if not in our report—to outreach work by national companies, which could help encourage community arts.

Secondly, to back up Chris Ballance's point about a database of volunteers, many national business companies—I think Alastair Ross from HBOS might have referred to this—not only donate money as part of their corporate social responsibility policies, but encourage employees to share their experiences and talents with charities and, I am sure, with arts groups as well. In a volunteer database we could find, for example, a graphic designer from the Bank of Scotland who could give time to help a theatre company produce materials. Such a database would be useful and major business companies might take it on board when considering their CSR work.

In Fife, we have two toolkits. One is a funding option for voluntary organisations, which provides a step-by-step guide to establishing an organisation, accessing funding sources and so forth. The second is one that I launched last Friday, which is the Fife environmental network toolkit. Each of those is suitable for arts organisations. I know that the toolkit's subject matter is specific to Fife, but it comes on a DVD and could easily be adapted for other areas. It might also help if our report suggested that examples of best practice—I am sure that there are others across the country—should be available on a national database.

Are members agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

Our next discussion on the draft report is on 30 November, St Andrew's day. As the clerks obviously have a lot of work to do between now and then, I ask those who have been most heavily involved in the inquiry to put out some feelers when the clerks have completed the initial draft to get some comments on it. I am quite happy for folk to submit their comments to the clerk as the draft proceeds in order to ensure that, by the time we receive the next draft, it is as close as possible to what the committee is looking for. Do members agree?

Members indicated agreement.

Excellent. We now move into private session for item 5.

Meeting continued in private until 16:32.