Chamber and committees

Can I just confirm that, as you said earlier, there is no impact assessment from the UK Government of the pros and cons and of issues to do with international work?

Thank you for joining us this morning. We heard from the first panel about the status of Channel 4 overseas, the high regard that the channel and its productions are seen in and how the independent sectors are a key driver of that success. I wanted to ask you the same question that I asked the first panel: how might privatisation affect that international work and that international standing of the channel and what it produces?

We have heard some pretty sobering thoughts from the panel already. I turn to the international work that Screen Scotland does. Obviously, we will see increased investment in Screen Scotland for its international engagement work. How would the privatisation of Channel 4 affect that?

If you had to sum it up in one word, would you say that there was a sense of fatigue?

Thank you.

Alan and Stephen, both of you have mentioned the importance of wellbeing among staff. Stephen, I think that you said that empathy and resilience are strong values. I am trying to contrast that with quite a stark figure for the level of staff turnover, which I think has gone up from 5.1 to 9.4 per cent over the past year.

Is that a bit of a red light for you? What is the story underneath that turnover? What themes are coming out of the exit interviews with staff? Are there issues underlying the decimation of people in the industry or where they want to go next? I am trying to second-guess what those issues are. Is it a natural consequence of Covid that people are now thinking about the next position in their careers? I do not know. It is tempting to look at a figure like that and hear alarm bells. What is the story behind that? On the face of it, you are losing people.

Okay. It was useful to unpack that. I am much more reassured now.

You mentioned the staff surveys—the pulse surveys and the wider annual surveys. One thing that has come out of that is a series of graphs comparing Audit Scotland with appointed firms.

Whether it is easy to make an exact equivalence in that respect is, I suppose, debatable, but on the face of it, staff in all those firms—and, indeed, your organisation—say that they all feel relatively well encouraged and supported in doing their work. However, there seems to be a bit of a gap between Audit Scotland and the appointed firms with regard to the resources that you have, and a noticeable gap between what Audit Scotland staff and staff at the appointed firms are saying about training and development, with the latter seeming to be more satisfied in both areas. What is your response to that issue, given that it seems to be flashing amber, if not red?

This might seem counterintuitive, but would a four-day week benefit your organisation? After all, in the majority of cases in which such an approach has been implemented, productivity has improved. You might well think that you are at a point at which productivity cannot increase any more, but if you are talking about staff wanting to reutilise their skills and move more flexibly around the organisation, I think that there would be some opportunities in that respect. Has that been looked at in the context of your organisation?

I recently met staff from the Ukrainian advice centre and the worker support centre. The Government finance for those centres is welcome and much needed. As I understand it, the Ukraine extension scheme, and any legal advice that is required about that scheme, have been relatively straightforward. However, the Ukraine families scheme and the sponsorship scheme throw up far more complex needs for immigration advice and support, and for legal advice. At the moment, a lot of that advice is being provided pro bono.

What might any on-going support look like? What resources might be required to ensure that people get what they need? Legal aid is not available to many people.

When might you be able to get that over the line? Some of the complexity around the national entitlement card has been about providing documentary evidence to the Improvement Service in order to get the card. I presume that displaced people are some of the most highly documented people in our society so, in technical terms, it should be relatively simple, although I understand that, to extend the franchise further, a committee might need to agree to an updated statutory instrument.

Can you give us a horizon for when the Government might come to a decision? We are now entering the summer, and people need that entitlement. As you said, the number of people is less than 4,500 and probably only 2,500, given that both ends of the age spectrum already have the entitlement. As Mr Mankovskyi said, it is the families in the middle—the mums with kids—who are really struggling at the moment. It is a small gap, so when can we fill it?