Chamber and committees

That is a well-timed question. I welcome Mr Ruskell to the committee. I think that he is aware of the announcement that the Scottish Government made this week on funding for Sistema, which has been warmly welcomed by that organisation. I am sure that all members know intimately what Sistema does and how it literally transforms the learning experience of young people but, for anybody who is watching the proceedings, I note that it is an excellent example of a primarily culturally focused intervention that indisputably has an impact on the more general quality of people’s lives and, hopefully, as a knock-on consequence, on their opportunities in life.

Mr Ruskell’s point is, in its own way, an optimal example of the point that I made in my sneak preview, which you have kindly invited me to give even more insight on—forgive me, but I will have to resist that. I reiterate the point, because Sistema is a good example of a project that has an impact across Government responsibility. I am keen that the benefits are understood among colleagues whose primary responsibility might be health, education or justice. I am sure that many of the benefits are understood, because we are parliamentarians representing a constituency or a region, so we are aware of the impact that some projects have. However, I genuinely hope that mainstreaming that thinking across Government will help to deliver on the aspirations that we have in the culture strategy and the programme for government. Sistema is possibly one of the best examples of that.

Forgive me, but I am not going to show any more leg on the creative recovery strategy. I am sure that we will come back to that and I hope that it will be worthy of the ambition, because it should be.

I should first declare an interest, having attended Broughton high school, which is a specialist music school in Scotland’s state system. I was a normal school pupil and not in the music unit, but I had the benefit of being around people who were. In general, the school had a tremendous musical aspect in the education of pupils, which encouraged some of us, me included, to play for the Edinburgh secondary schools orchestra. I do not claim to have been a tremendous violin player—I was at the back of the second violins—but it was great to be part of that.

I am sharing with you my personal experience to show that I understand how transformational music in the broadest sense is for young people and the importance of encouraging music tuition and its take-up. I am delighted that, in its programme for government, the Scottish Government included commitments on that, and that those have been and are being taken forward.

That is another example of the cross-Government approach between culture and education. The committee needs to know that I am keen on supporting that. My officials know that I am keen to understand how the commitments on which the Scottish Government was elected are delivered. I want music tuition to go from strength to strength. I want take-up to be possible for kids everywhere, and not just for those who have the good fortune, as I happened to have, of being in a school with a particularly strong musical tradition. There are places where that is less the case. We have good organisations such as El Sistema that deliver among the most deprived communities, but there are other communities that perhaps fall between those positions. We have to try to ensure that we impact on young people’s lives as best we can right across the country.

It is a good kind of question. We could probably come up with a list of questions like it, against which a joined-up approach could be measured. I am not trying to introduce a whole series of new metrics—I am looking at the speed with which my civil service colleagues here are writing notes about my suggestion. However, the issue that Donald Cameron raises is a case in point. I suspect that, if people furth of the culture and arts world are encouraged to open up pathways so that people can get the benefits of our cultural institutions, some will be quicker than others to do that. To what extent does one have to pull and to what extent does one have to push for that to succeed?

We are talking about a cultural change—in the small c sense—in how we see culture. With hand on heart, I cannot honestly say that I know exactly how that will turn out. However, I know that we do not have an alternative, because we need to encourage kids, particularly those from deprived communities, to learn that cultural institutions and offerings are for them as much as they are for anybody else.

Creative Scotland has deduced from some of its research a statistic that only 30 per cent of people know how to access information on cultural events. That is probably surprising for those of us who go to such events and who know where to look. If we take that at face value, we have to accept the profound disconnect with a significant part of society. That is why we need a joined-up approach, with doctors prescribing or encouraging such activity, or schools helping kids to go to places that they would never normally go, instilling in them the sense that it is worth going back, and encouraging them to go with their parents. As I said, there is no alternative. That is another example of where good thinking on the committee’s part will encourage us to think about how we can deliver that across Government.

I am delighted to have been joined by David Seers, head of sponsorship and funding, and Bettina Sizeland, deputy director for tourism and major events, who are very much involved in such considerations at a technical level in the civil service.

A degree of at least medium-term financial security seems an obvious and understandable demand from organisations. It allows people to concentrate on their core cultural roles instead of having to spend what many might feel, when measured against their wish to deliver culture, to be a disproportionate amount of time securing funding. As a result, our three-year approach will be hugely beneficial to the organisations that will be impacted by the change.

This is very much work in progress, and I do not know whether the colleagues who have joined me have anything to add. I should also say that this is the first time that I have taken part in pre-budget proceedings at a Scottish Parliament committee. I will endeavour to answer every question that you have, but we might hit areas where I do not have specialist knowledge. If so, I will defer to civil service colleagues. I will also be happy to write to the committee to fill in any gaps and I will, of course, be happy to come back to the committee at any stage.

Understood. The last time that I gave evidence to the committee, I had benefited from the experience of having recently visited the Postcode Lottery. I was interested to note that that organisation has regular community-accessible events, at which people who are interested in drawing down funding can learn about the process and get an understanding of the best ways to apply. They are almost helped through the process. The default position is, “We wish to support community organisations.”

Another lesson that we can look at is how bodies furth of Government do the work that they do. Obviously, we are the Government, so it is public money that we disburse. Therefore, we are in a quite different position. If we lowered our standards for financial compliance, transparency and so on, the committee would, rightly, be the first to say, “Hold on a second.” I would not want to do that, but I am seized of the opportunity that we have to learn lessons of best practice, and not just from within Government.

I have widened the scope, convener.

I am not going to give a lengthy answer to Sarah Boyack, but her point is well timed and well made. In my circle of friends, there is at least one person who works in the cultural scene as a freelancer in the arts environment. He delivers his work to younger people, to older people in care settings and in other environments. What we are able to do to allow freelancers to take part fully in the cultural recovery and renewal process should definitely be part of our considerations. I say this with a smile on my face, but I should probably declare that any such decisions that I would make would not be for the benefit of any friend of mine who might be active on the scene.

The general point is well made. What we found at the beginning of the Covid experience was that freelancers were not covered by Government support measures, which is another reason for our taking the issue away and thinking as best we can about them, what they do and what they offer.

I will reflect on the focus group evidence that the committee took, which I have read in full. There were some helpful insights from those who took part in the process, particularly on the approach to budgeting and drawing down Scottish Government funds. There are definitely lessons to be learned.

Members will understand that there is a balance to be struck between ensuring that funds are disbursed on an equitable and logical basis—so that the organisations that are in charge of disbursal can then satisfy people such as you as to how that operates—and at the same time trying to do that in a way that is not disadvantageous to smaller groups.

I am cognisant of the fact that, the larger an organisation gets, the more capacity and experience it will have to enable it to satisfy the criteria for financial applications. Sarah Boyack mentioned smaller organisations that do not have comparable capacity to apply for funds. There was some feedback in the focus group evidence about people having to make multiple applications and being turned down, then finally being accepted and receiving lesser sums than they had applied for. It is helpful to understand that that is the reality for many people in the process.

Examples were also given in evidence to the committee in which people said that the system that they were involved in worked well, so I do not take the view that the system is not working; I think that it is working. However, as we move forward, I am keen to discuss the issue with colleagues. The paper that Bettina Sizeland described is, at its heart, about how we help the cultural sector to bounce back. If people are finding it difficult to access funds, they will find it incredibly difficult to bounce back. I want to discuss that with officials as part of the wider cultural recovery approach that we will take in the months ahead.

We should definitely listen to the voices of those who have given evidence to the committee. To my mind, that is a really good example of the symbiotic relationship that I hope we have with you as a Scottish Parliament committee. You can identify the lived reality in cultural organisations so that we as the Government can listen to them and work out whether the systems that we have in place are as fit for purpose as we can make them.

It is a two-part answer to your two-part question. I am aware of the issue and I thank you for the evidence on it. I am considering the issue together with colleagues as part of the cultural strategy that we are considering right now. Our work has to be guided by continuous improvement and, if we can make improvements, we should do so.

Surely it has to be committed to all those things. If our ambition is to be joined up and to mainstream thinking about culture in the arts and its impact across Government, that should be considered in all the work that we do. The question is: are we making the most of and encouraging an understanding of that?

I am not mentioning this because a member of the Green Party has asked the question—I am just finishing off a thought—but I remember seeing a slightly tongue-in-cheek description of prescribing culture and the arts for health reasons as tree hugging. I know that that was meant humorously rather than seriously, but I simply point out that, 10, 15 or 20 years ago, it would have seemed rather odd or out of place to suggest having a discussion about the relationship between culture and the arts and health. Thank goodness that is no longer the case, which is why I know that the comment about the health benefits of culture and the arts was made humorously.

Regardless of our politics, I think that we are ready as a culture to understand the important role that this plays. I know that we are just at the start of the parliamentary session, but I think that it will be the session in which we really begin to make this happen. That encourages and enthuses me, as I am sure it encourages and enthuses you.

I am happy to write to the committee to outline further details on the issue. Sarah Boyack probably wants to know the extent to which that certainty will then roll out to the organisations that receive Creative Scotland funding. As I am sure that she will appreciate, I am in a slightly awkward position in that we have agencies that are funded by the Scottish Government but are—rightly—at arm’s length from it. There is not ministerial direction on everything that they do. If there was, that would be a cause for concern for Sarah Boyack, for me and certainly for the agencies. However, between us and Creative Scotland, which I know has given evidence to the committee, we can provide supplementary background information that will, I hope, fill in any gaps that Sarah Boyack might feel that there are on the question.

To answer that specific question, yes, we will. Your more general point about cultural organisations being able to access other potential funding streams from other parts of Government underlines one of our central considerations in relation to cultural recovery and the Scottish Government’s approach to it. Rather than simply understanding culture and the arts in isolation in the Government’s culture directorate—I hope that we do not do that—we must think of culture more generally as having an impact across people’s lives and across the Scottish Government’s work.

I am giving a sneak preview here—I must be careful not to do too much of that—when I say that one significant consideration with regard to the recovery strategy is about mainstreaming the importance of culture right across the Scottish Government. An example of that is the impact that culture has on health, which you cited in your question. One advantage of taking such an approach is that it will show how different funding streams are disbursed and what people’s different experiences are. It will also enable us to work out whether people have different experiences because the criteria are different, or whether it is just to do with the nature of the agencies and organisations that are involved.

In my view, that is a perfect example of why we should take a cross-Government approach whereby we view culture as relevant to all areas of Government. If we are able to do that better in some parts of Government, we can learn to do it better in others. That would definitely be a learning—to use an Americanism—from the process that I think would be beneficial to cultural organisations that have perhaps had a different experience.