Chamber and committees

Good morning, and welcome to the fifth meeting of the Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee in this session of the Scottish Parliament. We have no apologies to record for today’s meeting.

The first item is a decision on whether to take items 3 and 4 in private. Do we agree to take those items in private?

Members indicated agreement.

If the information that I have been sent does not reflect decisions that have been made at the moment, I look forward to hearing what decisions are made. I ask you to bear in mind that some families struggle to have enough money to go out and visit the sites that HES manages for all of us, and they might blanch at the idea of already-high salaries being increased by anything like the figure that has been suggested to me. I hope that the figure is only a suggestion and I ask you to bear that in mind.

We move to questions from other members.

The next and main item of business is an evidence session with Historic Environment Scotland on the governance of the organisation. I warmly welcome to the committee Stephen Uphill, who is the interim chief executive officer, and Ronnie Hinds, who is the interim chair. Thank you both very much for joining us.

I will begin with some general questions about the status of the organisation. Thank you for giving the committee a written submission, which emphasises the challenges that the organisation faces in restoring stability and on the questions of trust and leadership. I will just reflect on it and ask you to respond.

When I read the submission, I thought back to being on our predecessor committee about a year ago. We went through a series of meetings, including with HES and the Scottish Government, and the same comments were made. People said that there had been a difficult period of turbulence and instability, and they recognised that there was a need to restore trust. The then Cabinet Secretary for Constitution, External Affairs and Culture said:

“we are now in a position where those issues can be addressed”.—[Official Report, Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee, 6 November 2025; c 2.]

Others gave us similar assurances. However, we have since had even more bumps in the road, to put it mildly.

Will you reflect on why we have got here and on what is necessary to inspire a degree of belief in the assurances about a return to stability and good governance and leadership?

I will be careful about how I phrase this next question—it will be the last question from me, and then I will bring in other members.

Can you tell me whether some information that I have been sent is accurate? I have been sent it anonymously, so I will not make any claims about its accuracy or its source; I would just like to know whether what I have been told is true. I have been told that the decision has been made to recruit executive directors with salaries of between £120,000 and £130,000, and that that compares with vacant posts at £90,000. Do you recognise those figures? Are they accurate?

You are currently in a phase of recruiting new people into the leadership team. Is that correct? Tell us about that.

I thank you both for your time in answering questions. The committee will consider the evidence that we have heard today, and I am sure that we will return to the issue either in writing, in future evidence sessions or, presumably, both.

I suspect that I speak for the entire committee and for many other stakeholders around the country when I say that we want HES to succeed and achieve the stability and good governance that has been spoken about. I very much hope that we return to the issue and hear about positive progress in the future. Again, thank you both very much for your time today.

11:08

Meeting continued in private until 11:32.

If no other members want to come back in, I will ask a final, wrap-up question. We have heard a balance of big-picture and specific examples from around the country. I think that that is appropriate, because, after all, these are the assets that HES exists to look after, protect and make available for us all.

I will follow up on some of the issues that have come up, particularly in Pauline Stafford’s questions about the connection to public service reform. Your organisational and cultural review includes a recommendation that

“The CEO and the Board should as a priority consider whether the current organisational structure is fit for purpose”,

and it could not be more big picture than that. I am thinking about that in relation to the comments that you made about the programme for government and your discussions with the Cabinet Secretary for Education, Culture and Gaelic, Màiri McAllan. The programme for government talks about assessing

“the potential to simplify the management of our national cultural assets”,

and Màiri McAllan acknowledged that that is very broad and open as a piece of work. To what extent has the discussion between HES and Government about the scope of potential further change already progressed? You are already talking about putting a new operating model in place. Is that achievable while such big, open-ended questions remain to be answered? When do you anticipate being able to give the committee, as well as your staff and stakeholders around the country, some clarity about the direction of travel and about the point at which more clarity and stability will return?

We strayed just a little bit beyond the committee’s remit there.

Undoubtedly, there are lessons for not just local government but the wider public service reform agenda in all this, as well as some warnings for the Government’s programme. I note that some of the issues that were raised about the extent to which the Government is involved in HES board meetings are questions that we will come back to with the Government. It will be for the Government, I assume, rather than for HES to make decisions about the extent to which that is changed or when HES might return to a more normal way of working.

I appreciate that.