Chamber and committees

You are reported as having written to the then First Minister in August last year saying that there were “affordability risks associated” with his programme for government. A series of meetings took place about the commitments that the then First Minister had set out, which were clearly unaffordable to the country, but you received only one ministerial direction. We are moving towards a £1.9 billion gap between proposed policies and the money that is available. Should we have confidence that you are running this process properly with regard to the affordability of government?

I recognise that the problem is complex. I am talking about the cost and the difference between the two figures—instead of the cost being £1.2 billion over five years, it would have been £3.9 billion over 10 years, and the committee prevented the public purse from being exposed to that. That is a dramatic variance. It must worry you, as the head of the civil service, that your organisation produced those figures and then had to come back to tell us that they were egregiously wrong.

Dr Elliott, do you have any thoughts on that fine difference?

I would appreciate it if you could do that.

I have a final question. In your conversations with the new First Minister, has he agreed not to delete WhatsApp messages?

To date, he has given no assurance to you that he will change his behaviour from the way in which we has acted previously.

Thank you.

That is a very good suggestion from Dr Allan, and it is something that we could consider in the group’s work programme—particularly letting the other cross-party groups know of our existence once we have started up and seen where there might be opportunities to engage.

Thank you, convener, and thank you to the committee for its time this morning. I am sure that you have a busy agenda ahead, so I greatly appreciate it.

First, I apologise for Clare Adamson MSP, who is the proposed co-convener of the cross-party group. She is also the convener of the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee, which is sitting at the moment, otherwise she would have been here today with me.

I am here to propose forming a cross-party group on the Scottish games ecosystem. Many of you will be aware of the importance of the industry to Scotland. It employs 6,400 people in Scotland and accounts for about 11 per cent of the United Kingdom total.

Scotland has a long history in computer games and the gaming ecosystem in what has now become the largest entertainment industry in the world bar none. Scotland does not just have a great legacy in its history of developing some of the most renowned titles globally and having big hits in the industry; there is huge potential for growth in the sector for Scotland in the years to come. The sector is estimated to be worth around £350 million to the Scottish economy annually.

There are innovations in gaming technology that apply in education, healthcare and environmental policy. It is not just the fact that many people will have grown up with and been aware of “Grand Theft Auto” and “Mario Brothers”; it is the broader application in technology, service delivery and service design across all parts of our economy. The industry has huge potential for the country.

The purpose of the cross-party group is to bring together the industry, parliamentarians and policy makers. One of the key challenges that came up in our scoping discussions with the industry and stakeholders is that the sector does not fit neatly into any area of policy. The technology and the business space are not supported by policy and provisions for the screen sector, and it does not sit within the education sector. The games sector spans a wide array of areas, which has been a persistent problem in the policy space for the industry for years. That is why establishing a cross-party group is the right thing to do.

On 12 March, we had an inaugural meeting in the Parliament to test the waters, and there was a huge turnout of people coming to their Parliament to discuss this area, for which they have a huge passion as developers, users and business owners. There is a real appetite for engagement.

Why now, at this moment in time? We are at a crucial juncture. In February this year, the Scottish Government backed the creation of a national games strategy. As its first task, we want the cross-party group to engage on that action plan with the Scottish Government, to inform the development of that strategy so that it is founded on real engagement with the sector. We are keen for that to be the group’s principal role.

The Scottish Games Network is the organisation that would provide the secretariat to the cross-party group. It organises Scottish games week on an annual basis. For the past two years, Clare Adamson and I have assisted in hosting the Scottish games week in the Parliament, to increase the visibility and policy awareness of that community and to build engagement. The cross-party group is a natural evolution of that, and we think it is an ideal forum.

We are keen to pursue three key themes in the first year of the group. The first is education. A number of institutions at college and university level are intensely involved in this work, but there are some challenges in the sector. The relationship between the industry and the education side of it needs to be addressed. There are concerns about the Scottish Qualifications Authority and the qualifications that it offers in this area, so we are already facilitating better engagement between the SQA and the industry.

The second theme is the Scottish Government’s action plan and national games strategy, which I have mentioned.

The third theme is visibility and ambition for the sector. As politicians and parliamentarians, we can all lift the ambition nationally to meet the opportunity that we have as a country in this area. Thank you.

Very much so, convener. I know that Clare Adamson has a long-standing commitment to the issue. She has a background in technology and a real commitment to it. My commitment comes very much from a Dundee perspective—I am a Dundee MSP—because of how important the sector has been to my city for many decades. We are both very committed in that regard.

I would say that, as I have said to the convener previously that I am very much of the belief that, if the groups do not work, they should be stopped. We will keep the group on a recurring evaluation at the end of the year, and we will look at whether we meet the objectives that we have set out in the work plan at the start of the year. If not, we will move to dissolve the group.

I think that there are cross-party groups that touch on parts of the area, but, as I said in my opening statement, the fact that there is not a key focus on it is part of the challenge. Of course, there is the cross-party group on the creative economy, which maybe encompasses a small part of this area, but it does not provide the focus that the area will require, particularly on the Government policy development that we want to engage in over the next year.