Chamber and committees

That report also said that free-to-air TV was probably the best route.

Good morning, Ian. It is nice to see you again. I will not go on about the fact that you are a St Mirren legend; most people would not know that, but I ask you to take that into account when I ask my questions. This is not personal, but what the hell is the video assistant referee all about?

I come to my question on the issue that we are discussing. You say that television rights are a third of your turnover, but the convener is right that it is almost a quasi-secret society activity to try to trace the money from UEFA to your body. It was only from a press release that I managed to work out that the money is a third—or 33 per cent—of your budget. Is it not a bit of an issue for us as fans or as the committee that it is difficult for us to follow the money in our national game? You are saying that most of it goes into grass-roots football and women’s football, but it is difficult to follow the money when it comes from UEFA.

Good morning. I will use the Gillies report as a starter. As we have all said at various points today, the report was about the lack of leadership and the leadership culture in the past, but we are back at this point again.

To use Mr Hamill’s example of going to commercial lenders to try to regenerate various parts of the campus and to get equipment for some of the departments, it is normal for a university to try to do something like that. On the whole, though, commercial bankers tend to want to see a strategy and a leadership group that will be there in the long term. However, you might not be there in the next 12 to 18 months.

Given what you are looking at now, is this not a crisis of some priority? From what I can make out—and please correct me if I am wrong—at least four senior posts are still held as interim positions. Would it not be a priority to get to the stage where we can look at people who will be doing that work in the long term? A commercial banker would look at it and say, “Yes, Professor Seaton. That’s all well and good. It’s a great plan, but you’re not going to be here in 18 months.”

Appointing a chair is your number 1 priority. You have to get that and then work your way down the list of the various processes from there. The point is that it is holding back the idea of the university moving forward. I know that the university is at a crisis point at the moment, but we need to get it into a better place.

Good morning. The definitions are one of the things that I am trying to get my head around. As you have quite rightly said, the teaching trade unions have issues, to put it mildly, with the definition. They will have to deal with it day in and day out, so it will be very difficult for them. There are legal concerns, as well as concerns about what the definition is.

My concern is around what would happen if a teacher was trying to stop a child from doing something that they should not be doing. The definition is so tight that if a teacher grabbed a child who was going to jump in front of a car, that could be construed as restraining a child. I know that that is an extreme example, but it could be seen as some form of restraint. Where do we draw the line? I have some concerns that the definition seems pretty vague and it could be opened up to all kinds of interpretation. The key worry is about where it could end up.

I have taken on board from some the evidence that teachers in the classroom might be second-guessing what they are going to do and how they are going to deal with certain situations, which I am concerned about. I do not like the idea of teachers not knowing how to proceed with something because the definitions in the bill are so vague. It is a challenging enough environment for teachers as it is. Will the bill not cause more problems, or am I my being overly dramatic?

It is all culture.

I have two questions, which I will ask very quickly.

Sorry about that. Good morning, everyone.

Iain, you said that, of the 28 organisations that were unsuccessful in getting multiyear funding, 13 are on a development stream to try, I assume, to build up future applications and so on. I am interested in hearing more about that. I am also interested in your comment that multiyear funding is not the only part of the process and in hearing more about the support that you give organisations to secure external funding.

Let me give you some examples, although you are probably aware of them already. When a witness from the Royal Scottish National Orchestra came before the committee, they talked about the idea of an endowment. When I said that that was a great plan and asked them to talk about such new ideas, they said, “Well, we have not worked it out yet.” What kind of support can you provide to develop other ideas that might be out there in the sector and help organisations secure some form of external funding?

That sounds fantastic. It is great to hear that that support is available for them to tap into and that they are able to look at other forms of finance, too, because it is frustrating for us when we get organisations coming here every year and telling us the same thing. It is good to know that there are other things out there.

I am also interested in hearing about the visitor levy. We know that, in its pilot, Edinburgh is looking at allocating 25 per cent of projected revenue from the levy to the culture sector. The issue has been brought up by many of the individuals who have given evidence; I know that it is up to each individual local authority to make that decision, but how do you, as Scotland’s cultural organisation, make that case to those authorities? After all, I know that you work with them at a local level. Do you say, for example, “There’s the Barcelona model” or “There’s the Amsterdam approach”? How do you make that pitch to local authorities and make it clear that such an approach could really help with their programmes to develop their local areas?