Official Report 562KB pdf
We will now resume. Thank you for bearing with us for a few minutes—the first part of the meeting ran over a tad.
Our next item of business is another evidence session with the Scottish Government, this time on culture priorities. I warmly welcome Màiri McAllan, Cabinet Secretary for Education, Culture and Gaelic. She is joined by Jamie MacDougall, deputy director, culture and historic environment; and Richard Walsh from the culture and historic environment division. Thank you for joining us, cabinet secretary. I invite you to make some opening remarks.
I will be brief, but the fact that your session overran was no problem for me, as I have just come from a long evidence session at the Education and Gaelic Committee.
I am pleased to have the opportunity to discuss the Government’s priorities in the culture portfolio. As MSPs, we all know that culture has significant intrinsic value in our society and, in our constituencies, we all see the transformational impact that it can have on people’s lives. Our culture strategy, which we developed and published in 2020, speaks to that core value, and its ambitions still hold true. The strategy’s three interconnecting ambitions were strengthening culture, transforming through culture and empowering through culture.
First, on strengthening culture and cultural infrastructure, if culture is to flourish, it must be sustainable. That is the case regardless of where it draws its support from, so we are committed to supporting the sector to fulfil its enormous potential. We are making significant increases in culture funding and coupling that with multi-annual certainty such that we have never been able to provide before. We are also spreading the funding across a greater number of recipients than ever before, with the number of organisations now receiving Creative Scotland multiyear funding at more than double the number that previously received grants.
On transforming through culture, we recognise that it is not separate from our prosperity and wellbeing and the First Minister’s four priorities. As far as we are concerned, it underpins all of them, so we want to ensure that more and more people can participate in culture locally and nationally.
Finally, on empowering through culture, it is not the Government’s job to dictate how people engage with culture, but it is our job to make sure that the opportunities are available for everyone to do so, because culture, as we know, belongs to everyone. That is reflected in the priorities in our programme for government and in my letter to you, convener, which I was able to get to you over the weekend.
The main priorities that I will speak to, and which members will see in the PFG, are increased culture funding annually, in line with our commitments; a review of Creative Scotland; supporting the recovery of Historic Environment Scotland; allowing Screen Scotland to flourish as an independent organisation; piloting a minimum income for artists as a key plank of our fair work aspirations, while employment law remains reserved; establishing a national performing company for traditional music to sit alongside the existing NPCs; and, among other things, introducing a culture pass to underline that culture is for all.
Broadcasting remains reserved and, of course, editorial decisions are for broadcasters, but I will continue to press, in particular, the BBC to ensure fair investment in Scotland relative to our licence fee and relative to other countries in the UK, and to support indigenous language broadcasting in Scotland to the same extent that it supports the Welsh language.
All of that and more are my priorities, and I look forward to discussing them with the committee.
Thank you, cabinet secretary. I will begin by picking out a phrase in the programme for government that seems to have been worded to be deliberately open to a range of possibilities. You are going to
“Assess the potential to simplify the management of our national cultural assets.”
Will you unpack that for us a bit? What is the scope of the range of possibilities in that sentence?
It is right that I should begin with public service reform, given that it is going to be a prominent feature of the committee’s work and the Government’s work across the current session of Parliament. The sentence is broadly worded because we are at the beginnings, in some ways, of a process of understanding how public service reform works in the culture space. Officials have been engaged in what we call a culture cluster, which is a coming together of bodies in the culture sector to discuss how we achieve public sector reform, while we remember that this is principally about improved outcomes, as well as more efficient operating and other things.
As you can imagine, that could amount to a range of things. We are looking at backroom functions, including legal and human resources functions. I have had a good discussion with some stakeholders about the extent to which our collections are dealing independently with the challenge of cybersecurity and whether we might have strength in numbers if we were to reform that and do it singularly. We are also discussing straightforward things such as the approach to storing collections.
What this will not be about is cuts to the culture budget, because, although we might save money through some of that PSR, the commitment to increasing culture funding by £100 million in the coming years and then by an additional £50 million stands squarely alongside PSR.
The reason why I picked out that phrase is that it opens up the possibility that you have in mind a more fundamental restructuring of the types of organisations that exist to manage cultural assets. You will be very well aware that that was a serious concern for our predecessor committee.
In your opening remarks, you talked about seeking the recovery of Historic Environment Scotland. That has been the subject of ongoing discussion. The previous cabinet secretary with responsibility for culture tried to reassure us that a plan was in place, that people were in place and that that recovery was under way and would be well managed.
Now, the organisation has gone back into another period of significant uncertainty, with interim postholders in place and, I am sure, a great deal of anxiety for the people who work for it. At the moment, I am unclear about whether the Government has a clear sense of whether the organisation will recover in its current form or whether other options are on the table for how those functions will be carried out.
Let me take the two parts of the question separately. Underpinning this whole answer is the fact that every public body in Scotland is part of our assessment of the landscape and has to be challenged and to challenge itself on its functions and how best it is working.
I talked previously about the sharing of estate, infrastructure and so on, and Historic Environment Scotland will have to consider its operations like anybody else. There are good examples of that already happening, which Jamie MacDougall might be able to elaborate on. Despite the well-documented problems that it has faced—I state our commitment to getting it back on a stable footing of governance—it has been undertaking public sector reform already, because there has been a shift in support from the Government versus what Historic Environment Scotland raises in revenue. The balance has been shifting for it to be more self-sufficient, and that work is ongoing.
That is an example of how public service reform is already working in HES but, in relation to structure, my priority is for HES to get itself back to the excellent levels of governance and functioning that we expect and, indeed, that the employees of HES deserve to experience every day.
Jamie, do you want to say any more?
The agreement that we reached with HES a couple of years ago was that we would reduce by £2 million per year its grant in aid in return for financial flexibilities, and that has been working really well. This year is the first year when our grant in aid has been less than the commercial income that HES receives. I make it clear that, despite the well-publicised leadership issues, a lot of good work continues across HES.
We have just gone through a process of refreshing the board structure. We will shortly announce the appointment of five board members plus a new chair. We worked with HES to help it to find David Martin, who is a former local authority chief executive. He undertook a structured and fundamental review of leadership and governance at HES. The HES board has that report and is committed to implementing it, which includes a revised target operating model for the leadership structure in HES.
The last thing to note is that the cabinet secretary does not have the locus to interfere in employment matters in HES, which is why we are focusing specifically on getting in new board members to strengthen the governance and on working closely with HES as the board takes forward the implementation of the David Martin review, including the restructuring of the senior leadership cadre.
I appreciate the important distinction that the Scottish Government does not interfere in individual employment matters, but the Government does have an overall responsibility for the organisation. Cabinet secretary, since taking on your current remit, have you reached a view not just about mistakes that may have been made on the internal governance of the organisation but about mistakes that may have been made by the Government in the run-up to what began as a bit of a bumpy road and ended up as a full-scale crisis for the organisation, which is still not resolved?
On the point about a full-scale crisis, I emphasise what Jamie MacDougall said, which is that Historic Environment Scotland’s workforce, with its duty to maintain and support our heritage throughout the country, has continued to do that job throughout, albeit that I completely accept that there have been significant leadership and board-level problems, which are well documented and which I restate I accept were unacceptable.
Equally, in the Scottish Government, we have been clear that the gap in accountable officer, for which our sponsorship teams are responsible, ought to have been addressed sooner. That was made clear in the Audit Scotland report and in the internal HES review that Jamie spoke to.
Since coming into post, I have been concerned to make sure that we had an interim chair in Ronnie Hinds. I have been concerned to ensure that we have a process—it is under way—for recruitment of a permanent chair, that culture change skills are prominent in the advertising for and selection of the chair, and that the change of board members is done in an orderly manner. It remains my concern that an accountable officer should be in place at all times, and I will ensure that that is the case.
I am very clear about the challenges and have been working in the past few months to ensure that the structures are there so that recovery can happen.
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Members have a range of questions on issues throughout your portfolio, but I am keen that we first thoroughly explore the issues around HES. Keith Brown has a supplementary on that theme.
I agree with all the points that the convener made about the governance issues, which are being addressed, as the cabinet secretary said. I think that the committee will come back to that in some detail in future. However, I will ask about something that has concerned me over recent years. I understand Mr MacDougall’s point about HES responding to the reduction in grant in aid by increasing its contribution to its activities. However, for many years, there seems to have been a complete lack of enterprise or ability to exploit its assets.
One example of that is Clackmannan tower in my constituency. HES records that as open, but members of the public have not been able to get into it for years and cannot get into it today. I do not know how that qualifies as it being open. To be brutal about this, HES has so much at its disposal that it could monetise and exploit much more effectively by going after target audiences internationally and domestically, but that culture just does not seem to be there. Does the cabinet secretary agree? If so, are there any plans to try to address that issue?
I begin by restating that there are serious governance problems. There are excellent staff, but we all know that leadership difficulties can create difficulties throughout an organisation. As I said to the convener, my priority has therefore been to ensure that the Government does everything that we can to get stability in leadership. I hope and expect that from that will flow exactly what Mr Brown is talking about: the optimum care for and perhaps not exploitation—that is not the right word—but advertising of our built heritage throughout Scotland and encouragement of our population to enjoy it.
I expect Historic Environment Scotland to work to ensure that the people of Scotland can enjoy, understand and learn from our heritage. We all know that, to get the optimum from that, we need to sort out leadership, structures and governance, and that is exactly what everything that I have been doing is intended to achieve.
I will be glad to engage on individual constituency-level issues, and I expect HES to do so as well.
Jamie MacDougall has indicated that he wants to come in.
I will add a couple of points. HES continues to do quite a lot of good work, but the leadership issues definitely take up capacity, and therefore HES has not developed some of the sites that Mr Brown talks about as quickly as we would like. That is partly why we are working so hard on those issues.
However, there have been a number of really good successes in HES. Last month, the First Minister was down in Kelso, where HES stonemasons have completely reworked Kelso abbey to allow it to open to the public again. Although that is not about monetising, the event was attended by practically the whole town. I was down there—the stonemasons have done an excellent job and the First Minister was really pleased with that.
A second example, which has perhaps not yet hit the committee, is that HES has agreed to operate a pilot places of worship scheme. Last year, the UK Government shut down the places of worship scheme, and we were faced with having no replacement funding for that. HES has agreed to take forward a pilot scheme from within its resources.
Those are two small examples of how, although there is definitely a lot of work still to be done at HES, there continues to be a lot of success.
I suspect that everybody across the political spectrum will want to acknowledge the hard work of the workforce on the ground. Very often, it is people in those roles who are most let down when there is a problem of leadership in an organisation. On the flipside, we absolutely should not allow good examples of work on the ground to deflect from or undermine the seriousness of the leadership and structural issues that remain to be resolved.
I associate myself entirely with the convener’s remarks. So often, it is the staff on the ground who are most hurt by such things, and it is a leadership issue.
Cabinet secretary, I welcome what you said about the steps that are being taken, but the fact remains that Historic Environment Scotland operated for nearly six months without an accountable officer. The Auditor General found “unacceptable weaknesses” in its governance, misuse of company credit cards and hospitality tickets and allegations of a “toxic workplace culture.”
I am concerned, because HES is accountable to the Scottish Government. Could other bodies that are accountable to the Scottish Government be going under the radar and be in such a parlous state leadership-wise, because the Government is not doing enough to keep on top of them?
Well, it ought not to happen again. We have sponsorship teams throughout Government that are the link and liaison between Government ministers and organisations. As you would expect, their job is restricted to the areas in which ministers have locus. In the case of Historic Environment Scotland, that means the chair, the board and their functions, as well as funding; it does not extend to employment matters, for example, in relation to the chief executive.
However, with the support of the Auditor General and the section 22 report that Audit Scotland produced, I have made it clear that the accountable officer issue was an error, and it has already been rectified. The Government learns from all such incidents. I cannot say that mistakes will never be made again, but I can say that we will work determinedly to learn every lesson and ensure that HES is back on a stable footing and that sponsorship teams across the Government learn from these issues, such as that involving the HES accountable officer, when they arise.
The fact is that the core of the issue arose within an organisation over which we have locus but not complete control. I have no control over certain aspects of it.
I certainly welcome those comments. I think that a failure to spot that there was no accountable officer for six months is quite a fundamental issue.
Senga Beresford has a question about public service reform that might lead on from the previous one, and then we will move to other themes.
Your letter describes public service reform as being “about renewal, not reduction”, but the programme for government commits to substantially reducing the number of public bodies. How many public bodies will there be in the culture portfolio at the end of this parliamentary session, compared with today, and which statement from your party is true?
It holds that every public body under a public service reform work programme will have to consider its functions and the extent to which it can improve its delivery for the people of Scotland, but it is also true to say that the process is about renewal, not just reduction.
There is a very clear example of that in the culture portfolio. We are going to make Screen Scotland an independent entity and take it out from Creative Scotland, where it has been. It has experienced considerable growth, and to allow it to flourish independently and reach the £1 billion of gross value added target by 2030 that we have set for it, it will become a separate and stand-alone body. That is about having an additional body, rather than making a reduction—it is a good example from culture of how public service reform is not only about reduction.
I cannot pre-empt anything that might decided with regard to the number of bodies that will come out of the process of dialogue in which we are engaged.
We will come on to issues related to the screen sector in a few minutes, but I want to bring in David Green, first of all, and then go back to Jenny Young on the NPCs.
Thanks, convener. I welcome you to your role, cabinet secretary.
In its manifesto, Culture Counts made the case for culture being key to achieving wider public outcomes. I know that you reflected on that in your opening remarks, but you will also probably have seen the front page of yesterday’s Herald, which features the submission from Culture Counts on public service reform.
Before I ask you to reflect on that, I just want to say that I agree with Culture Counts that the arts—and culture in particular—are incredibly important for wider outcomes, particularly wellbeing. Over the summer, I visited An Talla Solais in Ullapool, which does incredible work not just with local schools but in workshops with folk who have dementia and their carers. First, will you reflect on the importance of that sort of thing? How will the Government recognise and protect it?
The second part of my question comes back to the evidence that you provided to the committee prior to today, in which you say that
“everyone has an equal opportunity to get involved irrespective of background or where they live.”
I represent a very rural constituency. We will all have heard evidence that, when it comes to the arts and culture, geography is often a barrier. How will the Government address that issue? I am thinking in particular of aspects such as rural proofing.
There was rather a lot in that question. I will try to take each issue in turn, but let me know if I do not cover any important parts.
First, I would absolutely reiterate from my perspective the link between art and culture and what they mean for our society. You mentioned examples in your area; I am utterly convinced of the role that arts and culture plays in bringing people together. It is about wellbeing—in this case, moving away from the highly digitised and sometimes acrimonious society that we live in; putting devices away and connecting with one another. It is part of the human condition, and it is important that we support it.
The second part of your question was on how we will continue to support that. I would point again to the commitment to increase culture funding by £100 million between the 2023-24 budget and the 2028-29 budget. With this year’s additional £20 million, we are £70 million into that £100 million commitment—and I would note that, in our manifesto, we committed to an additional £50 million by the end of the parliamentary session. That sort of trajectory of increased culture funding is unprecedented in recent times, and it is underpinned by better multi-annual certainty, allowing organisations to plan. As I said, I think, in my opening remarks, the number of bodies throughout Scotland that are supported multi-annually is more than double the number of grants previously offered.
The other really notable thing is the geographical spread. Communities throughout Scotland are being supported. However, I would like that to be better still, and I will look to prioritise the geographical spread of the support from Creative Scotland’s multi-annual funding.
That is excellent, cabinet secretary—thank you. I would encourage you, along with Government colleagues, to look more closely at rural proofing and ensure that it is reflected in the decisions that are made, particularly when it comes to spend.
I have a short follow-up question that takes another example from my constituency. Heritage is a side of the issue that we sometimes forget. Over the summer, I visited volunteers from the incredibly exciting Caithness Broch Project. They want to build the first broch in more than 2,000 years, and it could absolutely be a destination point—a real anchor for getting people to the far north.
You can probably guess where my question is going. Given how exciting that project is, would you be willing, in your list of engagements, to come and visit the volunteers and see what they are doing and what support the Government can lend?
Absolutely. I need no convincing to visit Caithness; in fact, I often say that Latheronwheel harbour is the closest place to heaven on earth, as far as I am concerned. I would therefore be very glad to make that visit.
I would extend that to the constituencies of all committee members. If members want to ask for some Government support for local projects, I am always pleased to engage on such matters.
I am sure that there will be lots of take-up for that offer.
My questions relate to the national performing companies. Your letter refers to the commitment to introducing a national performing company for traditional music, which I know will be welcomed both by the sector and more broadly, and it is certainly something that I would support. In January this year, however, the previous Finance and Public Administration Committee held an evidence session with the heads of the five existing national performing companies, as part of its budget scrutiny, and they expressed real concern that their budget had not been increased—since 2009, I believe that the evidence suggested—and they certainly saw no increase in the 2026-27 budget. I believe that, collectively, they receive around £24.6 million.
During that evidence session, there was also evidence on the GVA figures, and I note that there is a return of around £2.62 for every £1 invested by the Scottish Government in the national performing companies. That brings me back to your broader point about the huge value of culture in our society, for which there is certainly support around the table.
First, how do you foresee that working? You have talked about commitments to increase the broader culture budget. The 2026-27 budget provided Creative Scotland with a significant increase in its budget, which was obviously welcome, but where is the money coming from for an additional national performing company?
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You are right to highlight the excellent work that our national performing companies do across opera, ballet, theatre and the two orchestras. Between them, those companies are receiving almost £25 million of Scottish Government funding in 2026-27, and, by way of increases, they have shared an uplift of £1 million this financial year, following an uplift of £700,000 the previous year. That is an uplift of 9.4 per cent since 2023-24. However, future budget decisions have yet to be negotiated and discussed, and I will have the national performing companies in mind, along with the rest of the culture portfolio.
As for the second part of your question, on how the new traditional music company sits alongside that, I had a really excellent round-table meeting with sector leaders in traditional music, and, among many other things, we discussed funding. A series of funding streams supports music exports; the sector leaders were keen to know from me that this move would not take away from that funding, and I was able to confirm that it would not. Equally, though, next year’s budget is a matter of negotiation, and I will confirm that to the committee once we get to that part of the year.
Perhaps I can clarify something. The uplift happened last year, not this year, so the performing companies had a flat cash settlement this year—
Yes, that is what I said.
In an evidence session last year, the then cabinet secretary, Mr Robertson, committed to working with the companies on working through their requirements in more detail. I have undertaken deep dives with each of the companies to look into their finances, and I am due to give advice to the cabinet secretary very soon on the findings from that. We will, as per the commitment from Mr Robertson, be looking at next year’s budget—that is, the budget for 2028-29—when we get the final £30 million of the £100 million, and we have said to all five companies that we will look to give them a more significant uplift as part of that.
What we are discussing with them in return is how we broaden their reach not just in their day-to-day performances, but in their work with schools and hospitals. The chief medical officer has been really struck by the strong link between culture, including the work of the performing companies, and social prescribing, patient improvement and so on. We are building this together, and although the picture is quite complicated, it is exciting to look at how we can join together the different parts of the cabinet secretary’s portfolio and what the chief medical officer has started to say in his annual reports.
I am sorry for the error, Jenny.
No—that was helpful.
On 11 March 2026, your predecessor as culture secretary told the chamber:
“I am in favour of multiyear funding being delivered for the national performing companies.”—[Official Report, 11 March; c 3.]
I know that that is an ask from them, as it is, I am sure, from many organisations. The cabinet secretary then said that he supported that, although he was not really in a place to do anything about it at that stage, because the budget had already been passed. Can you say more about the Government’s position on multiyear funding for the national performing companies, including the new traditional music company?
I have emphasised the need for increased funding and certainty, and I understand that that, in many ways, is the combination for success. That question has been part of the work that Jamie MacDougall has been doing, engaging with the NPCs, and, as he says, advice is due to be given to ministers on what is possible. Once I have made a decision on that, I will be very pleased to speak to the committee, but I will not pre-empt any decision today.
That would be helpful. Thank you.
I have a bid for a supplementary from David Green, and then we will come to Colin Beattie for questions on the screen sector.
We have five national performing companies—I am looking at the list right now—and four of them are based in the central belt. The fifth is the National Theatre of Scotland, which is famously a theatre without walls. I recognise that a consultation is happening now, but I imagine that a lot of my constituents would probably argue that the Highlands and Islands is very much the spiritual home for much of our traditional music. Would the Government be looking to explore the Highlands and Islands as the physical home for the new performing company?
As you would imagine, those thoughts and proposals have already been coming to me, not least through the round-table discussion that I had, but also from the public, who, as you have said, feel that traditional music has a special resonance in the Highlands and Islands. I have not decided on the final form and structure of the proposed company, so I should not be too definitive about this, but I will certainly be mindful of locations as well as ensuring that Gaelic and Scots have equal parity with English within it.
I direct members to my entry in the register of interests as vice-chair of the National Mining Museum Scotland. Cabinet secretary, I noted your offer to visit various sites—stand by for an invitation from the latter.
Anyway, I would like to talk a bit about Screen Scotland. At the moment, it is part of Creative Scotland, and I am wondering how well it is working, in your opinion. It is midway through its strategy period, which runs to 2030-31, and I wonder where you see it at this time.
I am hurriedly looking through my pack of papers, because I have some excellent statistics on Screen Scotland and the growth that it has experienced since it was formed in 2018. What might at one point have seemed like a very—and rightly—ambitious goal of achieving £1 billion of GVA by 2030 is now possible and, with the right moves and the right support, can be realised.
I can give you some facts for the record. The “Economic Value of the Screen Sector in Scotland in 2023” report, which was published in 2025, shows the exceptional growth in Scotland’s film and television sector that I have just spoken to. It is set out in a number of ways, but I point out, for example, that employment in Scotland’s screen sector increased by 12.1 per cent between 2021 and 2023, and that GVA in Scotland’s screen sector increased by 14.5 per cent over the same period. That is really substantial growth, and it has been achieved in Screen Scotland.
However, I very much share the view that, for its next period of growth, Screen Scotland should stand alone and have the flexibility that comes with that. That is why creating the stand-alone body is one of my priorities in the portfolio.
The market has been changing substantially over the years, and it seems to go faster and faster. How well has Screen Scotland done at adapting to that new market, where there seems to have been an explosion in on-demand services? How is it coping with that?
It is challenging. I had a really good conversation with my creative industries leadership group; it has representation from screen experts and from folks who understand content creation as a connected but separate issue, and we discussed issues such as the commissioning landscape—and funding from commissioning—being very different from what it was before, and the issue of intellectual property being all the more challenging in a modern landscape. I think that Screen Scotland has done a really good job at being nimble and seizing opportunities and, as I said, its being a stand-alone body will help us in that respect.
We have also been really adaptable, with, for example, the loss of the TV festival from Edinburgh. We, Screen Scotland and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society were able to move quickly and make it clear that we were not going to go backwards or allow a vacuum to emerge. As a result, from next year, we will have a new screen industry festival to complement the other Edinburgh festivals.
I do not for a moment underestimate how changeable and complex the landscape is, but equally I think that Screen Scotland has been particularly good and nimble at navigating it, and I want to keep supporting it.
The “Independent Review of Creative Scotland” report recommended that Screen Scotland be split from Creative Scotland to allow it
“to operate at the pace required.”
That implies that it is not currently operating at the pace required. What significant change will be achieved by giving Screen Scotland a unique identity? What will be the point of the change?
It has always been put to me that Screen Scotland is beginning to outgrow, if it has not already outgrown, the structure of being part of another organisation. Screen Scotland feels that, in order to enable it to take decisions at the pace that is needed and move with the nimbleness that I discussed, it must be a stand-alone organisation.
It is also worth noting that the wider review of Creative Scotland has made some substantial recommendations on how Creative Scotland could improve as an organisation by moving from being a grant-giving body to being a development body. That is probably quite telling in respect of some of what Screen Scotland needs to experience as a stand-alone body.
There is going to be quite considerable change, and we—you as the committee and I as the minister—will be grappling with that in the coming years. There will be change at Creative Scotland, including a change in the focus of what it does. I think that it is quite exciting to talk about Creative Scotland as a development agency, while equally allowing Screen Scotland, as a fledgling stand-alone organisation, to fly the nest—I have used that analogy a few times—and to flourish, and, we would hope, to meet the incredibly ambitious goal that has been set for 2030.
Will the change give Screen Scotland the opportunity to improve its funding sources?
Scottish Government funding to Screen Scotland has certainly increased—again, like other budget decisions, that is a separate negotiation to be had. It provides flexibility in a range of ways, and I have great faith in Screen Scotland that the organisation will seize the opportunities that it needs to.
It is also worth saying that Creative Scotland deserves significant credit for having supported Screen Scotland since 2018 and getting us to this place. Nevertheless, there is change across the board in respect of both bodies, so I hope that we can have more examples of industries such as screen growing at that pace—I am thinking about the games industry and others. That has certainly been part of my discussions with the creative industries leadership group.
It has been noted already that the change creates an extra body, when the push is to reduce the number of public bodies. However, I find it encouraging that public sector reform is not just a one-way track to slash and burn and that, where appropriate, entities are being created that will add value.
That is right, and it underlines a point that the Government is forthright about: PSR is about outcomes for people in Scotland. It is about improving outcomes and reducing complexity, and making good things happen faster for people in Scotland. You are right that the Screen Scotland change is an example—as I said to Ms Beresford—of renewal rather than reduction.
I have a brief supplementary about the games sector, which you mentioned in your previous answer. There has always been a bit of ambiguity around where it sits in Scotland. Creative Scotland and Screen Scotland have given the sector some support, but at other times it has been seen as an enterprise agency issue. The games industry is distinct from film and TV, but there is some overlap in the skills and facilities that are needed. Are you saying that support for the games sector will move, with support for film and TV, to Screen Scotland and that that is where it will sit in the new architecture? Do you foresee any further changes or different approaches being taken in that regard?
I think that the games sector is still a stand-alone creative industry rather than formally sitting alongside Screen Scotland. When I talked about the sectors coming together, I was referring to the new festival.
It is right that, when we make a new international screen offer to sit alongside the other Edinburgh festivals, we should bring different industries together. The screen sector festival will not just work with games; it will also work with the book festival and the art festival to demonstrate the absolute best of differing art forms.
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I am also absolutely clear that the games sector is a massive success for Scotland, and it can sit and be supported in the culture portfolio just as it can in the economy portfolio. I am meeting the Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Tourism and Transport this afternoon—forgive me if that is not the time; I have had a busy morning—to talk about the interplay between our portfolios and how we need to work together. The games sector and the other creative industries will be part of that.
Will there be a lead Government agency for the games sector? Will that be Creative Scotland or Screen Scotland, or will the sector be considered part of the economy and enterprise portfolio?
I certainly do not intend for it to be strictly within Screen Scotland—I think that it will come under Creative Scotland.
At the moment, the games sector is a mixed responsibility between Creative Scotland and Scottish Enterprise. We are considering legislative options for how to set up a distinct Screen Scotland regardless of whether the games sector fits within that remit. We will need to consult on and look at that. The Royal Scottish National Orchestra does a lot of film scores, but it also does a lot of game scores—the boundary between the two is increasingly blurred.
We will certainly keep an eye on that.
The Government is committed to a bill on culture, although it is not a year 1 legislative commitment. Pauline Stafford has some questions in mind on that theme.
I draw attention to my entry in the register of members’ interests, which states that I am a sitting councillor on West Lothian Council and a former employee of the National Youth Choir of Scotland.
Welcome to your new role, cabinet secretary. You mentioned the interplay between portfolios. I have been asked this question several times, so I will ask you to give us a quick comment on your new cabinet secretary role and the interaction between education, culture and Gaelic. How might that interaction support the cultural aspects of that portfolio?
It is undoubtedly a broad portfolio, and I am certainly feeling that this morning, having just been in front of the Education and Gaelic Committee. However, the synergies between education, culture and the languages, as I refer to the role—it covers Scots and British Sign Language as well as Gaelic—are obvious. Those synergies were obvious from the start, and I am increasingly creating and looking for opportunities to bring each area together.
When I was appointed, I said that the areas in the portfolio are a precious combination of our past and our future. There is no better articulation of our future than our education system, while culture and languages help us to understand our past and forge our future. I consider the portfolio to be very broad but interlinked.
That is great to hear.
As the convener said, I want to pick up on something that was not explicitly in the programme for government—at least, it was not in the legislative programme for this year—which is a culture and arts bill. What are the Government’s intentions regarding the timing of that bill? Do you have any ideas about the content that such a bill might include and how its timing will fit within the wider programme of public sector reform, preventative spend and local government reform? When in this parliamentary session will be the best time for the bill to come?
The commitment is intentionally that we will consult on the content of a culture bill by the end of this parliamentary session. That is, very deliberately, a commitment that spans the whole five-year term. Equally, although I know that there are organisations that have certain views on what could usefully be included in the bill, I do not have a predetermined view of what exactly that is. I view the bill as an opportunity to spend the next however many years, in all the engagement that I have with the committee, stakeholders and the Parliament, looking for and shaping the ways in which legislation is required to move forward with our objectives in the culture portfolio.
We do not need primary legislation to do a lot of what I want to do in this parliamentary session. Equally, in the coming years, I will look for the key objectives that require a primary legislative vehicle and gather those into a potential bill.
That is helpful. I will ask about culture in its other sense. How do we perceive the value of culture and arts in society? You touched on that point at the beginning of the evidence session.
The programme for government talks about reforming the structures of local government. Within that, do you see a role for reviewing the delivery of art and culture through a local lens, using local government? Is there an opportunity to do that? At the moment, there is no statutory obligation on the authorities; all they have to do is provide adequate access to culture, and that ambiguity makes things really difficult, especially when budgets are under pressure. The risk, as a result, is that we lose the local connection. Is there any point in the review where the culture aspect could be brought in?
I appreciate that you will have particular insights into this, given the interest that you have declared, and I would extend that to other committee members who might have views, as I consider the bill and what needs to be done.
We could legislate for a requirement to recognise the value of culture or to provide it in a certain way locally, but in advance of that I can also use the multi-annual funding and the increases in funding to provide support for organisations across the country, with a large geographical spread. That is practical support that can be given now, in advance of any legislation being changed.
That said, I am conscious that local authorities feel under pressure when it comes to their cultural assets and the provision of culture. With regard to public sector reform in local government, the PFG, as you will see, talks about a three-month period of intensive dialogue on its future; that has to offer an opportunity in the culture space to work better across boundaries, share resources better and enhance the cultural offering across Scotland. However, I do not have any predetermined view on how we do that.
Going back to a couple of David Green’s points, I would say that culture is a very underutilised tool in delivering wider public benefits. You mentioned some of the work with the national performing companies on exploring a wider remit for them, but is any other work going on in that field, given the focus on preventative spend and the role of culture in that?
Absolutely. I might ask Jamie MacDougall to say a bit more about what the chief medical officer has been working on, but one of the great things about this job is that, every day, you get to see examples of how people across the country are bringing culture and wellbeing together. David Green mentioned examples in his area; just the other day, I was at Dundee Contemporary Arts, hearing about a class that it has been running for 22 years now to help patients manage chronic pain.
Given that this Government is trying to support wellbeing and quality of life for everybody in our communities, I cannot thank organisations enough for providing such things with longevity and for the really relational support that they offer. That particular approach came directly from relationships with the national health service, so we are, again, talking about services working together for the benefit of the people of Scotland.
There are loads of examples of the sort of thing that you have asked about happening already, and I am very keen for public service reform to have social prescribing, cultural prescribing et cetera as part of what we all know is a really important approach to wellbeing in our communities.
In his annual report, the chief medical officer says:
“Crucially, arts organisations should be viewed as public health assets: they foster connection, meaning, identity and joy and support mental and physical wellbeing. Making creative experiences accessible at scale requires cross sector collaboration to embed art and culture into everyday life and Scotland’s wider public health approach.”
In fact, we are talking to the chief medical officer about how we can build those links. It is still early days, but he has said to me that he is increasingly seeing the benefit of such an approach.
We are also looking actively at connections with other parts of the cabinet secretary’s portfolio. For example, in culture, we fund youth music through Sistema Scotland and the youth music initiative, and we are in discussions particularly with the RSNO about how we might be able to expand that offering. Again, it is still early days, and I am yet to put together advice on the matter, but we are working with our education colleagues on it. With the new ability that exists through online tools, there is a willingness in the RSNO and other national performing companies to look at how they can extend their expertise potentially into schools and other areas. It is really exciting stuff, and we are actively exploring all those different avenues.
Just as it does in wellbeing, culture has a hugely important part to play in community cohesion, particularly now. We talked about the separateness that we can experience as humans behind screens, losing connection from one another and an understanding of people in different cultures. That work, and all the wonderful people who are delivering it throughout Scotland, can help to overcome a lot of that.
I have a quick follow-up and then Keith Brown has a question. I am keen to pin down and fully understand what you have said about the timing of a culture and arts bill. The SNP’s manifesto uses the phrase,
“consult to develop a Culture and Arts Bill”,
and talks about that happening
“By the end of the next parliament”—
that is, this session of Parliament. Some people might have read that and thought that it means the development of a bill during this session, rather than only consultation. Is the Government open to having a bill pass in this session, if consensus emerges in the sector about what is needed in it?
I am open minded on that. Our commitment deliberately does not say that a bill will be passed in this session. What is important to me is to ensure that the quality and the necessity of what comes forward will be in it, among all our other priorities in this session. As I say, I am collecting ideas. I have a preference for moving ahead with things that we can do now but, where a piece of primary legislation is absolutely required, we will be able to develop that as well. I cannot say for sure whether that bill will be passed in this session. It will depend on content and timing.
We will certainly be keen to hear from the wider sector about the appetite and momentum and for seeing progress on that.
It is probably true to say that, over time, the committee will become more aware of the difference between the situation for culture and that for other parts of Government, because the £100 million increase with a £50 million increase on top is pretty unusual for Government functions. It is different compared with what happened before the £100 million kicked in and with what happened in other parts of the UK. It is a pretty strong position.
As always, we have heard a fair bit of special pleading today. We have heard it from performing companies and you will hear it from various festivals and from rural Scotland. Previously, we have heard it from people representing the northern isles. However, it is true to say that figures from the Government and the previous cabinet secretary showed that the lowest expenditure was in Clackmannanshire. I am trying to think whether that was expenditure generally or just from Creative Scotland, but it was roughly—in fact, exactly—zero.
The need in Clackmannanshire is just as great as it is anywhere else. It is a semi-rural area. I have tried not to do special pleading on that, but I will add my voice to those others to say that coming to see an organisation such as Resonate Together in Clackmannanshire would be a good move to let you see for yourself what the landscape is like.
I will move on to my substantial point. I do not know whether this is exactly one for Screen Scotland, but you will be aware of the decision by the BBC to end “River City”. That has ended a source of employment for indigenous talent, such as sound technicians, camera folk, writers and actors. That constant presence was vital to the ecosystem of creative arts in Scotland, and it strikes me that the availability of such talent is probably quite important to people such as Netflix and Paramount when they are considering locating productions here.
I imagine that the Scottish Government would not want to be in the business of trying to ensure that there is a baseline of talent here, but working with Screen Scotland and others towards that aim could pay huge dividends. We already see huge success with movies being shot in Scotland, but having more substantial productions would be a huge benefit as well. Is that on your radar?
Yes—absolutely. Again, there are a few important points in there.
On expenditure, those decisions are for Creative Scotland and I do not take day-to-day involvement in them. However, as far as I am concerned, there is no reason why one area should have no investment. I talked about my desire to see geographical spread. To the extent that you have not already raised that with Creative Scotland, I will ask it about that.
On the BBC and screen infrastructure, I regret “River City” being cancelled, exactly for the reasons that you set out. I have listened to some of the actors who were involved in it talking about how much development went on across all the skills that are required, including acting, producing, costume and writing, and how that transformed things in Scotland over the period for which the programme ran. Therefore, I do not think that it should have gone.
11:30
Happily, however, we have other productions that are based in Scotland and that are garnering that talent. If we think about “Outlander” and “Dept Q”, which has just got a second season, as well as “An t-Eilean”, the Gaelic drama, we can see that we are starting to build that presence. That is positive, and I want it to grow. However, the BBC has a responsibility to commission programming so that people in Scotland can turn on their TV or radio and see and hear content that reflects their lives, so I will certainly put that case to the BBC.
I will just say in conclusion that I raised that point about zero expenditure with the previous cabinet secretary and with Creative Scotland directly.
Every member of our predecessor committee made the point very forcefully to the BBC that it was losing by cutting “River City”, not least because of the point that you have just made about people hearing productions in their own voice. I do not dispute what you say about “Outlander” and other productions, but that permanency and baseline were absolutely crucial. If we want to attract other productions, including the ones that you mentioned such as “Dept Q”, which will be extended over time, that permanency is really important. Thank you for the answer.
I think that we have one outstanding question from Senga Beresford. Was it on measuring outcomes from spend?
I do not think so.
Maybe it was captured earlier.
In that case, I have one final question, although I know that we have overrun by a minute or two. You will be aware of the significant concern in Glasgow about the future of the former Centre for Contemporary Arts building at 350 Sauchiehall Street. I am conscious that the decision on that is not signed off by the cabinet secretary and that it sits with Creative Scotland’s board. However, the public finance manual for the Scottish Government sets out that, even when an asset is deemed surplus and is being disposed of for that reason, consideration should be given to ensuring public benefit in the transfer, or to transferring it within the Scottish public sector.
Given that everyone accepts that the premises are not actually surplus to requirements and that the issue is simply that Creative Scotland does not want to be the landlord any more, do you and the Scottish Government understand why there is such a strong public expectation that the asset should remain in the public sector rather than be privatised?
I understand the concerns about the Third Eye Centre and CCA, in respect of both the building and the archive. I have been actively engaged with the issue for a while. I was seeking daily updates from Creative Scotland on it, such is my understanding of people’s concerns.
I will deal with the concerns separately. You will, I hope, have seen yesterday that we confirmed that the archive has now been purchased for the public. My intention was that it be held together and made available for the public. That was very important, and I am glad that we have achieved that, so I thank Glasgow Life and Creative Scotland for their work on that.
On the building, my objective is to see it reopened and contributing to the arts and cultural scene in the west of Scotland, as it has done for decades. For it to be used to do that, Creative Scotland has to seek expressions of interest from those who wish to lease or buy it. Creative Scotland was explicit that it is seeking expressions of interest in leasing or buying.
Creative Scotland then has to examine those expressions to see who could viably run the building while reflecting its true importance in the cultural scene. That work is ongoing. From my perspective, I want it to continue, because I want the building to be used, but what it is used for is important to me, and I have made that clear to Creative Scotland.
There is a recognition that there will be a very different reaction publicly if that future is private rather than public.
The individuals and groups who care deeply about the CCA are well organised and are doing a good job of making clear their views. As cabinet secretary, I am listening, and I expect Creative Scotland to do so as well.
I thank you, cabinet secretary, and your officials for joining us. I appreciate that we have overrun by a few minutes, and I am grateful for your time.
We now move into private session. We have a few final items on the agenda, but they will be taken in private.
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Meeting continued in private until 12:10.