Chamber and committees

A lot of venues are now looking at exactly that issue—what might the offering be at a venue that is tremendously appealing in the high season, but also wants to appeal to people for the rest of the year? There is also the potential for co-location. I have one example in the forefront of my mind, but I am not sure whether I am at liberty to talk about it because they have not confirmed exactly what they are doing. It is absolutely and totally groundbreaking in terms of doing something brand new, which will definitely attract people.

There are a lot of projects in communities. For example, something might be not just a gallery, but a cafe. A venue might have break-out space for other events. It might have the opportunity to embed an educational dimension to the offering. It might be a warm space that can be used in winter for people who are concerned about keeping the heating on. There are many opportunities to make the most of museums, galleries and other cultural venues and spaces.

That is where the funding provision that Lisa Baird was talking about comes in. Part of it is about helping smaller or more challenged venues in particular, which perhaps do not have the capacity to be aware of the possibilities to do some of these things. It is about helping everybody and letting all the boats rise.

I am optimistic that there is an awareness that Government—small g as well as large G—and our agencies can help the cultural sector to make the most of not just what it has been but what it might be in the future, which might look a little different, because we are using the facilities differently.

It is all culture, and I know that Mr Adam is an outstanding representative who always stands up for the interests of his constituents and for Paisley.

I can assure Mr Adam that my colleagues and I have worked extremely hard in recent years when there have been dangers to the continuation of different venues, whether small, medium or large, and to understand what potentially can be done to support them. If Mr Adam would be so kind as to write to me about that venue, I will look very sympathetically at that case, and I ask other committee members to do the same if they have other examples.

Absolutely.

That formal commitment is there from the Government; a number of years ago, I presented a paper to the Scottish Government Cabinet on the mainstreaming of culture right across all portfolios, and it is the standing policy of the Scottish Government that it should be so. Moreover, the First Minister gave a speech at the Edinburgh International Festival this year in which he expansively reflected on his personal commitment to culture and the benefits that it brings across society and Government.

I acknowledge that we will have to be focused on helping different parts of the Government understand how culture can make a transformational impact in the delivery of public services. Instead of seeing culture as something that happens in one area alone, we need to understand that it has an impact right across Government, as it does across society. I am alive to that; I am just being frank with the committee when I say that it is easier to say that than to ensure that it happens in every context.

Convener, you have given an example of somewhere where this could have had stronger billing. I make the same cases from time to time, but the good news is that there is a tremendous willingness to try to incorporate that as much as possible.

Mr Brown has definitely hit on a challenge, which is the very unwelcome increase in employer national insurance costs that is being borne in the culture sector and beyond. I acknowledge that that decision by the UK Labour Government is having a detrimental budgetary impact.

Energy costs, on which a commitment that they would go down was given by Labour in advance of the most recent UK general election, have instead gone up. Given that our national museums and galleries are significant buildings, they face significant potential energy costs. Their heating and lighting costs and all the rest of it represent a significant outgoing. The increase in costs in those two areas—the cost of employing people in our national museums and galleries and the cost of the heating and lighting of those institutions—is undermining the efforts that we have been trying to make. We asked the UK Government to mitigate those costs, but it is not mitigating them fully.

I acknowledge that those increases are very unwelcome, and our views on the UK Labour Government’s detrimental decisions in those two areas have been communicated to it.

For anybody following proceedings who is not aware, Mr Harvie gave the very specific example of the art works project in Granton, which is a very important project that is about introducing bespoke provisions for the holdings of our national galleries in facilities that are appropriate for the 21st century. The proposal to do so is part of a wider economic regeneration programme in Granton, Pilton and Muirhouse, which are in the north of Edinburgh.

Mr Harvie, you asked whether there is an understanding in Government that the art works is much more than just a culture project per se. In that example, we are helped by the fact that it is a capital project. That is the other area that I want to flag up to the committee as one of the things that is at the forefront of my mind, because I imagine that it might also be at the forefront of committee members’ considerations. We have been able to make significant progress in relation to revenue funding for culture—including the £100 million uplift, multi-annual funding and so on—but major building programmes fall under capital allocation, and capital allocation in the Scottish Government is extraordinarily constrained. It is an area in which we are literally dealing with the hand-me-down budgetary situation that we have through devolution, and, depending on what the capital allocation is, what that might mean for capital projects such as the art works.

I am under no illusion but that there is tremendous pressure; however we have a requirement as a Government to ensure that managing our national treasures—most of them are not on show at any one time, so they need to be stored properly—is not only what we do in relation to national museums, galleries and storage and, for example, the art works project. It must also be about what we do with our national records, which is another area to consider.

I very much welcome the question. Travel is one of the first areas that the strategic partnership for Scotland’s festivals, which I chair, has focused on, and it was the subject of a bilateral meeting that I had with the transport secretary. We need to get travel right to make sure that our festivals, but also the culture sector more generally, are properly served with the ability for people to travel with the least environmental impact possible.

I give Mr Harvie the assurance that that is at the forefront of my mind. I point out to him that the biggest single component of the audience figures for, for example, the Edinburgh festival fringe is people who come from here. I know that he is inviting me to share my thoughts on people who fly here from other parts of the world, and I am very keen that modes of further travel are more environmental—

Mr Bibby probably knows that I spent most of my professional life as a member of the National Union of Journalists, but that is not the only relevant union in this regard. I have also had regular meetings with Bectu and other trade unions on issues such as the decision to end “River City”, and I will absolutely have meetings with them about any potential job losses at STV.

The Scottish Library and Information Council’s idea is a very interesting example of new thinking about what cultural organisations—libraries, in its case, but potentially other types of venues—can offer as hubs for communities to access a range of services and opportunities.

That goes back to the question that was asked at the beginning of our evidence session about access to, for example, health and wellbeing cultural provision. I think that there is definitely something in all that. Earlier this year, in Falkirk, I saw a fantastic library which was, in effect, the community hub where the pensioners’ group and the book readers group met, and that also had a children’s play and reading area. There was much more than what one might traditionally have understood a library to house.

SLIC’s idea of a culture and wellbeing fund is to help libraries to offer more than they have done up until now and, as a result, allow them to maintain the numbers of people who are going to use them. One of the challenges for libraries is that, as many more of us are accessing books online and do not need to go to libraries in a way that we needed to in the past, they need to reimagine how they offer themselves and their space.

There is definitely something in the suggestion, and it is part of the answer to the cross-portfolio culture and wellbeing offering that we discuss with great regularity in this committee. That is one of the strongest aspects when it comes to delivering our aspirations.

I am happy to answer that question, convener. I have some words prepared, which I can read if that would be agreeable to the committee—or, because of the time, would you prefer me to get straight into answering your questions? I am happy to follow your lead, as you know what would be more useful for the committee.