Chamber and committees

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

10:45

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.

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.

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.

11:15

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.