Chamber and committees

That is helpful—thank you so much. I will pick up on those points and take them to our other witnesses. I will start with Kirsty Cumming, because you made points in your submission about community investment for there to be investment on the ground. You talked about

“significant loss of reserves across public culture charities”

and a solvency issue due to the pandemic, as well as future pressures. Do we need core funding and more investment? How would you link that through to preventative investment that brings multiple benefits and to looking at outcomes rather than just inputs?

The need for core funding and multiyear funding in order to plan ahead and deliver comes across clearly. I ask Duncan Dornan the same questions about the funding aspect and the impact on wellbeing and preventative health, which was highlighted by the Christie commission.

That is pretty consistent feedback from the witnesses. I thank you all very much.

On one level, that is very heartening—the cabinet secretaries are saying the kind of things that we like to hear. However, in a year’s time, post-pandemic, what will you be able to show us that has changed? As the convener said, Mr Yousaf, we are 11 years on from the Christie commission and we have not seen transformative change. We can all quote brilliant local projects, but they are facing massive post-pandemic pressure, and the evidence that we heard earlier in the meeting was that local authorities have had a decade of cuts and that culture is not core funded.

In 2026, GP access will be a real issue—that is 15 years on from Christie—and both of you have basically said that preventative spending is not just good but very important for pandemic recovery. What is the kick-start approach to delivery on the ground?

It feels like we lobby the cabinet secretary for culture weekly, but you have the big budget that has the potential to cut right across our communities. What can happen in the health budget that is transformative? It is not just about link workers, but about them working with local projects on the ground so that those projects are still there in a year’s time.

I will kick off with a question about whether we need core funding for community and cultural facilities, which are clearly integral to successful outcomes and the delivery of wider mental health and wellbeing benefits. The evidence that we have received shows that the financial pressures on councils over the past decade have particularly impacted on libraries, which are a key service for young people to be able to read, overcome educational inequalities and gain confidence. They are also important for older people and people accessing digital services.

The Accounts Commission said that funding for cultural services is not statutory, so they face “budget reductions” when local authorities face pressures. Is there an issue about core funding for local authorities? Should that be part of the process and do the heavy lifting—mentioned by lots of our witnesses during budget evidence—at community level to make the interconnections that some of you have talked about? I will start with Carol Calder from Audit Scotland.

That is helpful and clear evidence. It is 10 years since the Christie commission report, which basically said that we need more investment in such services to deliver on health and wellbeing and to support people with mental health issues. Given the pressures from the pandemic, should there not be more of a focus on those services as we come out of it to enable community investment to deliver on the transformative change that Christie recommended? Both the Auditor General and the interim chair of the Accounts Commission were very strong on that. What needs to change in capacity for local government to have the expenditure to put directly into Christie commission priorities, which would then take pressure off immediate front-line challenges?

Your comments about what we hope is the significantly changing picture with regard to visa regulations reinforce the unanimity of the committee’s belief in the need for intergovernmental working on issues, the case for which has been made very powerfully this morning.

I want to follow up on two issues, the first of which is that of seasonal workers, which Mark Ruskell and Fiona Hyslop commented on. The importance of that issue came through powerfully from the Ukrainian consul general. There are 6,000 to 7,000 of those workers, who are very widely geographically spread—they are located in the Lothians, Edinburgh, St Andrews, Dundee and Falkirk.

It is critical that the local authorities and the voluntary sector in those areas gear up, because it is clear that there will be a demand there, and across Scotland, from people applying to come here. As you have acknowledged, the Ukrainian consul general said that their ambition will not be to come here as permanent refugees. They very much want their stay to be short term. I point you to the evidence that we took earlier, which was very specific and helpful.

I have a point to make about work with employers. We have talked about what our local authorities and third sector could do, and I hope that we can agree on the need for us to use our soft power as a country. Gordon Brown has been talking about war crimes and working with lawyers on that. I met him to talk about that yesterday. There is also work that could be done with employers and companies in Scotland. I make a plea to the Government to think about what more we could do there, whether by enabling staff or companies to donate to the Disasters Emergency Committee, or by assisting with access to work visas, where companies are looking for those.

Is there more that we could do to encourage employers to do more? I noticed that Skyscanner advertised and reached out to Ukrainian workers to work in its sector. I know that it is a fast-moving situation. For weeks, we have lobbied the Government about local authorities and visas, but it feels as though the situation in that regard might become more real, and those are some practical issues that I hope that the Scottish Government will pick up on.

I have a quick supplementary that relates to your answer to Alasdair Allan about health issues.

Lots of women and children have fled from Ukraine, but now we are seeing older people, people with disabilities and people with health conditions beginning to leave, because they have no home to stay in. I flag up the fact that people may arrive with quite a range of health conditions—their need could be as basic as needing free medicines. I hope that the Scottish Government is considering the range of support that people will need for their health and for post-traumatic stress, and not just in the future—it could be that people need that support from day 1, as soon as they arrive.

I thank you all for the work that you are doing. It feels like yesterday but, just before Christmas, we had a briefing from the Disasters Emergency Committee about the work that you are doing in Afghanistan. The amount of work that you have done in the past couple of weeks is incredible.

I want to pick up Sue Inglish’s point about older people. We have rightly been focusing on women and children who have been fleeing their homes but, on “News at Ten” last night, there was an incredibly moving piece about older people who had wanted their younger relatives and children to escape but, because things are so bad, they are now moving, too. There were images of people in wheelchairs or on crutches trying to escape. They are in a different set of circumstances, and the support that they need must be very different.

One thing that struck me was that people with heart conditions, diabetes or other long-term conditions all need medicine now, not in a couple of weeks. How on earth do you make that intervention on the ground to support those very specific needs? It is not about what happens in a fortnight; it is about getting people safe routes to somewhere else. How do you support local agencies on the ground to go from nothing to providing that detailed support overnight?

I do not know whether Sue or Madara is the best person to start on that.

That takes me on to what happens next, once you have supported people to either stay safely or to move. In such a fast-moving crisis, it must be incredibly difficult to provide support on the ground. I am not sure who the best person to ask is but, after the immediate support and the disaster appeal, where do you go next?

It was right to mention right at the start that there are lots of other crisis situations in the world that have less publicity. How do you ensure that you have investment in the right places with all the local organisations and that the raft of expertise is available on the ground? How do you make that work, and what more can we do to support you in that process, whether it is getting our constituents to donate or working on the strategic relationships on finance with the Scottish Government that you have referred to?