Chamber and committees

Forgive me, convener, but we could spend a whole session on that. As part of my broad range of portfolio responsibilities, I chair the Scottish Government’s population task force. I acknowledge that Mr McMillan will have a particular interest in the issue, given that the population statistics for Inverclyde in particular are of great concern for elected members there.

I will answer the question in a number of ways. First, the Scottish Government is very seized of that issue, as are, understandably, local government leaders in authorities whose areas have suffered historical population decline especially. Traditionally, we in Scotland would have looked towards the north-west of the country—the Highlands and Islands—as an area in which there has been particular population decline challenges in the past, but we are now seeing those in other parts of the country, not least in Inverclyde.

That was observation one. Observation two is that we are heading towards population decline in the whole of Scotland. That is a huge challenge—and, frankly, totally unnecessary. Sadly, it is in significant part to do with UK Government policy and the restrictions foisted on us by the type of Brexit that we have, which has ended the free movement of people. Indeed, it is the single biggest contributor to our facing population decline. It could—and this goes to the heart of Mr McMillan’s question—be changed by Government policy. Our views are very well known and understood in Whitehall and Westminster and are totally ignored. The UK Government has shown no willingness thus far to be imaginative with different approaches to immigration policy or, indeed, taxation policy. There was, for example, the approach that we favoured to deal with refugees from Ukraine, which was not the same thing as immigration but was about giving people a place where they could stay and live. As we know, people in such circumstances often make a life decision to stay in the longer term, but we have a UK Government that is pursuing a refugee crisis as an immigration issue.

On all those levels, the UK is taking the wrong approach. Of course, the simple solution is to put Scotland’s Parliament and Government in charge of immigration in order to make better decisions and make Scotland an attractive place to come to and to live, work and study in. We are doing what we can. We are setting up a migration advisory service; we are doing everything we can to join up government at national and local levels to work out what we can do; we are running international marketing campaigns; we have policy ideas that we are trying to understand better; and we are working with other countries on these matters. Not long ago, I spoke to Spanish colleagues about this challenge, because it is being felt in parts of Spain. Lessons can be learned from other countries, perhaps primarily Norway, given what the Norwegians have been able to do to support population numbers in the west and north-west of their country.

There is a lot in your question, and I could give a lot more answers. Indeed, I think that the issue would be worthy of an entire evidence session. I am keen to keep up my attendance rate at the committee, convener, because it has been pretty good thus far and now that other colleagues from Government are attending with me, I do not want to slip down the batting average. I would want to have an exchange on where things are with population decline in Scotland, because it is such an important issue that brings with it very damaging economic and social consequences.

That is an apposite question, because it is a consideration for not only the Scottish Government but National Museums Scotland and the National Galleries of Scotland, whose trustees I met yesterday. That is one of the matters that we talked about, and the trustees made observations about the changes that they have seen over the past 25 years. There has been a change towards a much broader representation of people attending the national museum of Scotland and other museums. However, there is still a gap to be bridged.

I echo what my cabinet secretary colleague said. Embarking on the resource spending review approach will encourage all of us to ensure that we think about those things. One of the potential ways to deal with times of constraint is to increase the number of people of all backgrounds who attend and use our cultural institutions. How do we ensure that there is more school participation in museums, galleries and other cultural institutions, which could help to increase the attendance numbers of children from deprived backgrounds, for example?

Those considerations are very much on our minds in the Scottish Government and on the minds of the institutions, which see it as part of the task in the years to come. We will work collegiately to try to work out how we can help and how they will be able to manage to do it themselves.

I underline the distinction that my cabinet secretary colleague made between a resource spending review and a budget—they are not the same thing. That is point 1. Point 2 is that Historic Environment Scotland is an organisation that is significantly better funded in global terms than other parts of the portfolio, and it is fair to say that everybody has to play their part in making sure that we are able to live within our means.

I am the first to acknowledge that HES is an organisation that has particular responsibilities. The specific nature of the estate that HES has to look after is an area of significant challenge.

Point 1 is that this is a spending review and not a budget. Point 2 is that this is the beginning of a process of working with all organisations, including HES, to work out how we can manage through the next years. We need to be imaginative about whether there is the potential for additional and parallel funding streams—I am extremely keen to explore that area—so that, we hope, not everybody will have to deal with the constraints that the resource spending review points to, as an envelope. I am highlighting the point that it is not a budget projection.

Yes, that is certainly part of the consideration. Committee members will realise that all our institutions that have a high throughput—a high number of visitors—have in recent years seen that income fall off a cliff. I do not have the HES numbers at the forefront of my mind, but I can share an example that I can remember. Yesterday, I was at the national museum of Scotland. Before Covid, its annual visitor numbers were 3 million, and in the past year, it managed to recover that figure to 1.5 million.

That is an illustration of the fact that there is still a way to go, but there is a huge opportunity if we—I say “we” in the royal sense, meaning the institutions, Government and everybody else that is involved in the culture and arts sector—can give people confidence to go back to museums, galleries and events. We should do what the convener highlighted, which is to make the most of the untapped and thus far not-included parts of the population who have not been able to make best use of things. Doing that will have an impact. I hope that for those whom the sector is an income stream, doing that will put them in a better financial position than they would have otherwise been.

I think that all the work on and thinking about the national care service give us a very exciting opportunity for this to be a priority right at the inception. As things are being put in place, the considerations about how things should come together and should work form part of our thinking right at the start. We will not have to add it on later; it is right there at the beginning. The timing is very opportune.

I will share where I think the challenge for all of us is. We agree with the concept, we understand that there is already good work going on and we know that there are nationally known organisations that are doing things in the culture space. That is one thing and, of course, it is a good thing. The example that Jenni Minto has given is the classic challenge. First, how do we ensure that there is an awareness of much that goes on out there in Scottish society that happens anyway? It is not necessarily funded by anybody. It could be voluntary or in the third sector, which are very good things. How do we make sure that there is an awareness that that is happening and how do we then make sure that those who are prescribing are also aware of that good work that is going on?

In a previous evidence session, we discussed how we can match up those sort of examples with those who will be socially prescribing. I do not think that we are there yet in working out how we can capture that information and make sure that the people who are in a position to socially prescribe, for example, participation in a scheme in Argyll can do that. I think that it will be much easier in the culture space to ask, “What is Scottish Ballet doing; what are other performing companies doing; what is National Museums Scotland doing; what is Historic Environment Scotland doing?” That is one thing. That will be quite easy to identify, because the memo will go out from culture central asking, “What is happening here?” but in the cultural part of Scottish Government and Creative Scotland and so on, how do we know what is happening in Argyll? How do we work through that? We will have to make sure that we are capturing that.

I have said this to the committee before: politicians do not do culture, nor should we. It is for people who do culture and the arts to have the support that they need, and therein, yes, let a thousand flowers bloom, but we are trying to work out how we can incorporate all of the great practice that is going on out there and match that up with what we are trying to do in, in this example, health and social care. I am not sure that I have the answer to Jenni Minto’s question. I have ideas. I am not sure that there is an answer but, as long as we are asking the question, I think that we have a better chance of getting there.

It is a pleasure, as always—it seems like I am here every week—to be back before the committee. I welcome the opportunity to discuss the resource spending review for the constitution, external affairs and culture portfolio and, in particular, the important synergies between the culture side of the portfolio and the health and social care portfolio.

As the resource spending review proceeds, we want to hear about the experiences and views of the people who use public services and those who help us deliver them. It is helpful to have the committee’s views, drawing on the evidence that you have received. In addition, there is, as you know, a public consultation that closes on 27 March.

The review is an opportunity to bring about longer-term financial planning to March 2026 for bodies that are funded directly by the Government and organisations that are funded through those bodies. That is what the culture sector, in particular, has been seeking, through evidence to your committee and its predecessor, for some time.

The committee is a champion for securing more resources for the portfolio that it oversees, which is understandable for any subject committee. You will not be surprised to hear, however, that I and my cabinet colleagues will face some difficult choices to live within the total resources, without borrowing powers at our disposal and as the pressure on public services continues to grow.

To finish on a more positive note, the review gives us the opportunity to be discussing joint approaches at a strategic level, given the positive potential of culture to contribute to health and wellbeing outcomes. We are agreed about how vital the contribution of culture is to our shared goals. Our culture strategy was published in February 2020, right before the start of the pandemic, which has disrupted its implementation. However, we have still made significant progress.

We have launched three innovative programmes: the Culture Collective, Arts Alive and creative communities. Together, those programmes are working to empower communities to develop cultural activities, bring creative residencies to education settings in areas of multiple deprivation and use cultural projects as a positive diversion away from crime. We have also launched the national partnership for culture, which recently provided recommendations to ministers on the sector’s recovery and renewal.

The pandemic has shown us that the key message of the culture strategy—that culture and creativity are valuable in their own right and that everyone in Scotland has the right to a cultural life no matter where they live—is more important than ever. Culture is at the heart of who we are and underpins our economic, social and even environmental prosperity. Culture is, therefore, something that all parts of Government have a stake in. On that basis, we have been working to develop closer cross-portfolio relationships, including with health and social care services, and we will continue to prioritise that.

There is a parallel point to this, of course, which is that it is not just about health boards; where are local authorities as part of this conversation about being joined up? There are some outstanding examples of local authorities and their arts officers, for example, who are already doing a lot of the work in the area that we are talking about. How are we pulling together all this best practice as we go forward with things? We all know that different local authorities have their own local priorities, and that is quite right and proper. Some will view the likes of arts officers as being a priority; in other places, they will not.

There is a conversation to be had and I am very careful not to be steering and instructing local government colleagues on this front, but if we are agreeing that it is a national priority—I count some of the local arts officers as personal friends of mine, so I know exactly the value that they bring and especially in the areas that we have been talking about—how do we bring all this together to make sure that we are delivering across the piece and across government? Bringing people into this at a local level, as well as national Government and then local authorities on a national level through the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, is definitely one of the pieces that make up the jigsaw puzzle of getting us to where we want to get to in this area.

There is so much in those questions; thank you for asking them.

On the recovery plan, we have already discussed the most important thing from a Government perspective, which is getting the Government to understand that culture is important across the Government—in other words, mainstreaming that thinking about an approach across Government. This is an example and is what we are talking about today. We have identified that and we are doing it and trying our best to work our way through it.

We have received the recommendations that you mentioned, which will be published shortly. We should look closely at the recommendations and take them seriously. I am happy to come back when we are at that stage.

I go back to your question about where we will be in a year’s time, which is exactly the right question. I know where you all will be and I know where I will be, because I will be sitting in this chair and you will be saying, “We are year on from you saying that the Government was starting to do this and that.” We are not beginning from a position where progress has not been made since Christie. Progress has been made, but how do we scale it up, and how do we get it delivered right across the country? That is the challenge. We will have to play our part in making sure that we are delivering, bearing in mind the constraints that you identified.

However, I am optimistic. For one thing, I think that there is consensus that this is what needs to happen. I am not sure that you have heard any evidence that our approach is not the way that we should be taking things forward, so there is consensus. The issue is how we make that happen—and happen consistently. I am optimistic that there will be considerable change and improvement. I am excited about playing a part in making that happen, because I think that it will be transformational for people. We just need to make sure that we are doing it in a way that reaches as many people as possible.

I will be back, but I am not waiting a year.