 Wylwch yn cael ei bod yn fiser, amser, ac rydyn ni i'n cefnod i'r 12 y swyddfaethau y Llywodraeth Cymru o Siogwrs Cymru i 2023. As yfodd y gwaith yma i fynd i'r wych erdwangosol, ac rydyn ni i'n amser i'r Gilymitul i'r Ffresgo, ac yn gyfa'r gwir yw ei f EQ yn gweithiau'r ffngwylwyd. Rydyn ni i'n gweithio—ennyn i'n ei bwysig sy'n gweithwylwch gyda'r SONDI—fyrtu gweithio'r I invite Mr MacPherson to make a declaration of interest. Good morning, colleagues and guests. I'm very pleased to be part of the committee as a proud internationalist and the son of a designer, so I hope to contribute positively. I refer members to my declaration of interests, and in particular that I'm still registered on the role of Scottish solicitors, which may be of interest in some of the sessions undertaken. Of course, I also served as Minister for Europe, Migration and International Development, which was underneath the Cabinet Secretary for Culture between May 2018 and February 2020, in case that's of relevance to me. Thank you very much. Our second agenda item is a decision on taking business in private. Are members content to consider the evidence in private of this meeting at future meetings? Yes. Thank you. I hope that made sense. It didn't seem to be me. Sorry about that. So our third agenda item is culture in the communities. Our third is to begin to take evidence on culture and communities inquiry, which is focused on taking place-based approach to culture. Our first session is around table with local authorities and culture trusts, and we're joined this morning by Kirsty Cumming, chief executive of community leisure UK, Heather Stewart, chief executive on 5, Billy Garrett, director of culture, tourism and events, Glasgow Life, Katie Nicholl, culture regeneration lead officer for Renfrewshire Council, Rebecca Coggins, principal officer, Arts and Museums in Frees and Galloway Council, and we're joined remotely by Kim Slater from Sport and Culture Services Manager at Murray Council. Heather Stewart is slightly delayed and hopes to join us, as does our committee colleague Dr Allen, whom he joined us in the next little while. Thank you for coming along this morning. We have three areas of interest to the committee. Three themes. I'm going to broadly try to stick to those themes. I know that around table that can be quite difficult and it can be quite free flowing, but initially we'll do local and national government issues. Second theme is unmet cultural need, and the third one is place-based cultural policy. If I could begin by asking to what extent the Scottish Government's culture strategy influences cultural policy at a local level, and I'll maybe just go round the room initially first time, I wonder if Katie, you wanted to go in first on that. Thank you very much and thank you very much for the invitation. In terms of the strategies, we obviously in Renfrewshire Council have been working really closely with cultural strategies, as it's influenced so much about our direction of travel, which we have coalesced around the UK city of culture bid. What we've done now is we've got a mechanism around partnership approach to cultural regeneration that's influencing our strategy going forward, because what we're trying to do is really embed culture across all of our services through partnership working, and that is across departments, housing, education, criminal justice, health and social care, but also with all our stakeholders and communities. All of that is influencing our strategy, because what we're trying to do is embed culture into our services, so it's really not sitting as an additional or an add-on that it's actually part of everything that we're doing. The cultural conversation is taking place right across the whole of our council at the moment, so I would say yes, the strategy is there as our foundation stone and we're trying to enhance what we're doing through the council. Let's say thank you very much for inviting me to be part of this, as my first committee. I hope you'll bear with me, but certainly within Dumfries and Galloway Council and Dumfries and Galloway border, we were very interested to see that national cultural strategy came with good timing, because our own cultural strategy had come to an end. I guess there's a few points to make. One, we very much appreciated the consultation that went into producing the national cultural strategy, so that's what we did when taking forward our own one. We asked in similar ways how can we support the cultural sector in our area to impact on other areas outside culture, so specifically health and wellbeing, education, the economy, communities, and we asked our cultural sector, are these the right things that we should be trying to do, and if so, what's stopping us from doing more? So that was the whole really of 2019, 2020, come lockdown, we had to stop for a while, then we kind of did another piece of work, which was looking at the impact of Covid and what the effect of that had been, and then we produced our own cultural strategy, which has three sort of main areas, which is our people. So that includes the cultural sector itself, but also the people that we're engaging with, our places very much, because one of the things that I'm very perhaps timely to this is that one of our first things that we thought about was Dumfries and Galloway as a kind of place, its own sense of place, because a lot of people looking in think of Dumfries and Galloway as a one place, because it is Dumfriesshire, it's Galloway, and the feedback very much was, no, wait a minute, it's not one homogenised area, each community is different, each community has its own culture, if you like, we have our own, so it's very much kind of the ideas that we need to support that happening in places, and then the third sort of area is how can we make a difference, so what does it actually take to make a difference in terms of health and wellbeing for our communities, in terms of community development, in terms of education, and so we're at the stage now of say okay very much, we've got this strategy, that's great, it's not just the council strategy, it's the whole region strategy, but how do we make things happen, so we're in the process now of trying to establish a cultural partnership, which will find a way to kind of a framework to support that to happen, it's in early doors, we're just in the process of doing that at the moment, but sessions like this will be very useful to feed into that, so I hope that's helpful. Thank you. I would, if I am being honest, I would say that the strategy has not necessarily influenced anything as yet from a local level. The sport and culture service for Murray is a relatively new service, and therefore we're taking that very bottom-up approach, looking to gather the data, baseline data of all our cultural activities and opportunities at a local level to help to identify the gaps, and therefore construct where we need to go as a plan moving forward, and hopefully from that bottom-up top-down approach we will identify the synergies and look again similar to one of the previous speakers, ensuring that we're embedding that culture into all our services and very much through that partnership working approach. Certainly in Murray a large percentage of cultural activities are managed, operated and created by our voluntary sector, so it's largely important that as a council we are engaging with those sectors, and as I say, in due course we hope that the strategy will influence what we are aiming to achieve in the Murray area. I think that probably quite a lot of my thoughts reflect the previous speakers in terms of the strategy. From our member's perspective it's provided a framework which has been really useful, I guess, a framework around the discussion and also, as was mentioned, the consultation process around the development of the strategy. I think it was really welcomed. I think it opened up discussions around culture, around the importance of culture, around the value of culture, and that's very much where the focus of our members kind of feedback is that there needs to be more focus around the value of culture particularly now, and the cultural strategy gives a bit of a springboard to enable that conversation to happen. It gives a sense of legitimacy to the conversation at a local authority level, so where there are decisions that are being made around services, delivery of services, actually having that strategy in place gives a sense of empowerment to the conversation around culture and the importance of it. In terms of how it's influenced the delivery at a local level, I think that it's perhaps a little bit mixed across the country, and that depends very much on local authorities' priorities and how they implement it and how they embed it. I think that another key strand, and I think that it was Katie who mentioned this, was about embedding culture across services across portfolio areas and taking it out of this silo that it's perhaps traditionally been in. It still feels there's a bit of work there to do, but having the strategy enables the conversation to take place, and that's certainly very much the intention of trying to look at the contribution across policy areas from a cultural perspective for members. The question that you asked was, to what extent is the national strategy influencing local strategies? My immediate answer to that would be that, speaking from a Glasgow point of view, it is influencing how we are approaching, how we conceive, deliver, conceptualise culture within Glasgow. It is influencing that significantly, and in a sense quite rightly, because I would argue that, without a strategic framework, it is very difficult to create a direction of travel, to create a platform and a framework within which you make decisions and create priorities and assess and create a platform decision making across culture. The national picture, the national strategy, is really important, and it's also the platform within which the conversations with national agencies take place. From our point of view, that ecosystem is incredibly important. I thought it was interesting what Kim said, and I would agree that, however, it has to be a top-down and a bottom-up approach, so that influence is part of a wider process. The national strategy, for instance, is influencing in Glasgow right now how we are refreshing and creating a new cultural strategy for the city, as part of a process that involves widespread consultation with the sector in the city. It is part of that overall context, but it is an essential part. I would argue that I encourage a continued focus on that national cultural strategy. I echo Kirsty's words, because it reinforces the significance of culture in terms of both community level, metropolitan level and national level across a whole range of agendas, from social impact to economic impact to soft power, etc. I would argue that an investment in the national strategy is incredibly important at a national level. Thank you very much. We want it to be as free-flowing as possible, so if you want to come in on a question or come back with further comment, please integrate to myself with the clerks. We are trying to include everyone as much possible in the discussion. On that, I am going to move to questions from committee members and if I could introduce Ms Boyack. Thank you very much, convener. It is really good to hear the opening comments from the witnesses today and to see the submissions that we have had so far. I would like to kick off with how we see the action taking place, the work between national and local government, between the voluntary and third sector organisations. Funding is not our job, but local authorities have seen a 29 per cent cut over the last decade, so it is a challenging environment. How do you make the most of your resources at the local level? How do you work together? I was thinking of three things to think about, the leadership issue, what are the access to venues, how do you support each other on that, and then employment. I thought I would mention those because when we did our work last year, the issue of leadership is important, but access to venues, investment in venues, rocketing prices and then people leaving the cultural sector, so how do local authorities work together with different cultural organisations to maximise the impact if we have now got this new strategy to make it happen, like communities access, that support. In terms of who would go first? Is anyone volunteering to go first? I would be happy to go first. Unfortunately, I am a bag, I do not have a pen to write down all your points. Oh, thank you very much. On employment, are you just the practicalities to enable access in our communities? In terms of leadership, where Remfrewshire Council are sitting is that we are, in terms of how our governance around Future Paisley sits within Remfrewshire Council, it is the cultural regeneration partnership programme that sits with the investment for Remfrewshire Council. We have a partnership board that picks up on all our council members, it has representation from external stakeholders, it has community involvement right across the piece and that really drives our conversation around how are we engaging culture that really is about embedding, that is not just a touch point, it is actually getting into the mix fit. One of the key things and the example that I would bring up is that we have really worked hard with our culture, arts, health and social care partnership and with that we have placed a cultural coordinator into the health and social care partnership, which is quite an unusual model because usually it sits within an arts team externally. By placing it right in the heart of it, we are now seeing for quite modest sums of money, now that that role is in there, that actually we are reaching organisations, communities that we have not been able to touch before and it is working with our third sector organisations. We are able to start to look at a community wellbeing network that is working alongside another partner in Gage Renfrewshire, which is a third sector interface. We are working with the Alice database to start looking at cultural provision through that database so that professionals and persons, individuals can find resources, services and activities within their local area that they can support and it is where we can see cultural offer as part of an alternative offer for client based in terms of social work and things like that. We have put money into building capacity funding, making arts and culture accessible and a creative wellbeing fund. That has quite a maximum amount of £2,000 for one of the funds, a maximum of £1,000, but we are seeing really incredible projects coming through that. Then there is also a sort of education between a transfer of knowledge between professionals in the third sector and artists-led organisations to understand what the offer is. It is a really rich scene of activity that is happening. One of our hopes is, as part of Future Paisie in terms of influencing, as Billy said, the influential aspect, is that we can look to enhance policy around aspects of this. That is what our long-term goal is, that we can start to change policy across the council. That is an example where we are really seeing proper investment, which we have put in. It is just over £200,000 into that project. That idea is that we want to work hard to make sure that that will be mainstreamed once Future Paisie investment finishes in April 2024. Billy, if you want to go next, I will put your hands up if you want to go in and I will come to it, but please go ahead. Just thinking about the question and actually listening to Katie, I could probably combine all of that leadership venues employment in that wider question. With two words, one is partnerships and the other is well-being. The way that we are approaching the landscape, the really challenging landscape that exists across the public sector nationally, is about that kind of innovative agenda around partnerships and well-being and what Katie has outlined is exactly that. The way in which you can still be ambitious, the way in which you can still meet the aspirations of communities and individuals and citizens is by really enhancing and amplifying and accelerating partnerships. That is partnerships across that health space, that is partnerships across the regeneration space. That is a whole range of innovative and imaginative partnerships. Focusing on that, I suppose that culture has an intrinsic value, but culture, as we now know and there is a significant body of evidence, is that instrumentalism agenda. So culture as an instrument is incredibly powerful in terms of the impact that it has on the physical and mental wellbeing of people who engage in cultural activity, incredibly strong body of evidence now. Utilising that and taking that evidence to partners allows us to access resources, assets, funding that historically maybe the cultural was not accessed for cultural activity. Certainly that is the way that we are approaching it in Glasgow and our submission included some examples of that. A very similar kind of approach in Glasgow, the pilot that we are currently running in the east end of the city, Live Well Community Referral, is based on social prescribing architecture, but much wider than that. Moving away from that medicalised view, and that is part of a wider agenda, it is trying to focus resources on prevention rather than treatment, it is trying to create a vision of health, which is community based and socialised as opposed to medicalised. If that pilot demonstrates in the way that we are very confident that it will, some really positive impact, then we will be coming and talking to a whole range of partners about how we upscale that, to really shift the dial in some of the most deprived communities in Scotland. But that initiative is based on a whole series of partnerships with health organisations and regeneration agencies, so immediately we are tapping into that employability agenda as well. And some examples, going back a few years, we worked with Clyde Gateway as part of a population health initiative in the east end, which actually worked with the health board to get people from the east end of Glasgow into jobs in the health board. Literally specific, tangible employability programmes. I think it's about partnerships, it's about that wider wellbeing agenda, it's about working with partners in a way that we maybe haven't done in the past on a much greater extent, so I suppose that's how I would articulate that. Again, I echo Billy's thoughts on his partnership wellbeing, but if I was to look at it from a slightly different angle and look at some of the challenges that go alongside that, there's obviously evidence of what happens when there's really good practice in partnership working, which should be celebrated, and Katie highlighted that very well, but equally there's challenges where culture doesn't have the profile at a local level, so we're seeing with some of the changes across local authorities, there's not necessarily people with a cultural remit within the local authority, that expertise is somewhere lost, so where we have a culture trust, there's not necessarily that connect into the local authority with the expertise to really understand and really embed some of the issues, so there's certainly a change in terms of the local authority expertise and angle on that. Also, if we look at community planning partnerships, again the voice of culture is not consistent across community planning partnerships across the country, so again there's opportunities very much, as Billy said, for partnership working, for real opportunities to come through that, but where there's not the connect to community planning, to health and social care partnerships or through the local authority, that's where we're seeing significant issues around that value of culture coming through, so the partnership absolutely needs to be there, but there needs to be the right kind of flags and the grounds to connect those different agencies at a local level, otherwise it becomes the ownership of one organisation to drive culture, which is where we then see the kind of move back towards silo working, which is not where we want to be. Picking up on your other points around access to venues and employment, employment, and I think we highlighted this in our submission, continues to be a significant challenge across our members, both in terms of recruiting skilled people into the sector, retaining those people, really seeing it as an attractive opportunity, a career pathway for people to come and actually progress through, so there's a significant challenge there that it's not seen as perhaps an attractive opportunity for people that are looking for which sector to go into, but also in terms of the levels of pay. Again, we highlighted this in our submission that actually there's a real challenge in being able to compete with some of the other sectors or to compete with private sector in terms of remuneration and making it attractive for people to stay within the sector. There are specific hotspots within our members where there's really just a real lack of staff and an inability to recruit into those positions, which is therefore impacts on the delivery of services. Yes, thank you. It was actually picking up a point that Kirsty just commented on there about the silo working. Culture is so diverse in the areas that it includes and what we have found difficult is bringing those different themes together because the people that are involved have very niche markets or specific areas that they're focusing on, be that music or heritage or arts, et cetera. It's the difficulty to pull all those individuals and organisations together to collectively move the cultural theme forward. In regards to the leadership, it's trying to pocket these communities of interest together for that greater gain. It's something in Murray that I would say is a challenge. The other point in the question was about venues. In Murray, there has been a lack of investment in venues and a lot of our venues, community halls, even council facilities, don't necessarily have got the technology or the setup to provide cultural activities to the extent that organisations are seeking. However, we are working quite significantly with our learning estate colleagues and with our open spaces team in regard to support our open parks, green spaces and to promote the cultural activities and programmes that could be operating in Murray. That has been highly successful since our return from Covid and we're seeing a greater increase in the use of open spaces for culture, which, considering the Murray climate, can't be a challenge, but it is certainly an area of interest for us to develop. I'm picking on some of the points that colleagues have made about the profile of culture within councils. We are one of the few services that are directly running cultural facilities, museums and galleries and a small cinema within the council. I was reflecting that, 15 years ago, we had an arts manager, a museum manager and two development officers in the visual arts and crafts side for curators. There's now myself, arts and museums, two curators and no development officers. I'm the only one within the team that doesn't have a role within a venue. I'm taking forward the cultural strategy, but I'm three tiers down. I noted that there was a reference to the culture conveners, and I was just thinking in that situation, although the council is incredibly positive and incredibly supportive of cultural and creative activity. The community committee covers governance and assurance roads and infrastructure, community engagement and neighbourhood services. I'm in neighbourhood services along with customer services, registration libraries, financial wellbeing and revenues, the fleet transports and operation, the buses, community assets, which includes all the many village halls, but a lot of those have been devolved to communities, and then you get to leisure, culture and wellbeing. We've got 13 museums and galleries, so I feel like it's difficult to make the case up, and to get into community planning I have to go another tier up and across and down. To be honest, it's always been like that, and part of our success in Dumfries and Galloway is the fact that we've acknowledged that we're not the only cultural providers. We have to work with the voluntary sector, with the individuals out there, and since I've been there, which is more than 20 years, we've always taken a kind of enabling role. That's where the leadership perhaps comes from. We were lucky to have, in 2012, when things were looking particularly difficult, we were lucky in getting one of the first place partnerships with Creative Scotland. That actually helped us to invest in creating a network within our cultural and creative sector, and that was called initially the Chamber of the Arts. It's now DG Unlimited, and that kind of brings together, it has a membership, a little bit like Kim was saying, that how do you draw together all of those voices? There's some of the bigger arts organisations, bigger museums, independent museums, but there's also the freelance potters, musicians, how do you draw those all together? Supporting networks can do that, and I think that the cultural strategy now has given us another opportunity to look at how we configure that. We've got the Dumfries and Galloway Chamber of the Arts, and we've also got a heritage network, which is growing now. That's through the support of museums galleries Scotland, but one of the key things that makes these things happen is capacity. As I put in my submission, what we really need to get this all going is, as Billy was saying, working in partnership, but it's building that capacity. At the moment, there was a recent study done, I think, employment, or if you include freelancers in that, the number of people who are employed and active in the sector across Dumfries and Galloway is actually more than there are employed in agriculture. So there's a lot of people out there, but it's very fragile existence, it's very hand-to-mouth. Certainly, to think about the earlier question about what the cultural strategy has done, the culture collective programme supported the Stove network in Dumfries and Galloway to create the what we do now project, and that's taking a creative place making approach to regeneration in towns across the region. A lot of their time is spent fundraising, and I see that from a lot of our cultural organisations. Dumfries, the upland that took on the role from the council when we lost our development officers of developing visual arts and crafts businesses through things like Springfilling Open Studios, they're spending a lot of their time just fundraising to make sure that they can continue for the next year. I guess that's the employment area, although we do have a lot of really dedicated people there. The venues, that is a challenge in a very rural area, definitely. From the museum side of things, it's also the issue of the energy cost to keep things going. I mean, the thinking of the museums that we have and our independent partners have, we're custodians for the heritage of our communities. It's really vital and important work, but to keep those things safe, we need energy to run the buildings, to maintain the environmental conditions. It is challenging. Ben, I'll take both those points, and then we can open it to the floor again. That's really helpful feedback, because part of it is about how you're co-ordinating at the local level. I think that your point is about who's doing that co-ordination and leadership in each local authority area, so that there's somebody who's making the connections with health and social care partnerships, venues or third sector organisations. That's how you have that architecture. With the strategy, is there sharing of best practice between local authorities in terms of different types of areas, very rural based areas, city based areas? How do you get that best practice and then kick it into other council department areas or health and social services to get them to start buying in, not on a health-based approach, but on a wellbeing approach, as you suggested? Just to elaborate on what's already been said, I wondered if the panel wanted to reflect any feedback or ideas and initiatives in terms of their engagement with Creative Scotland on the implementation of the strategy and any other feedback or constructive suggestions in terms of how they engage with national government going forward. Didn't quite catch the very end of your question, sorry. Sorry, Mr Garrett, I was just wondering if there's anything in terms of implementation of the strategy that you would want to feedback over and above what's in your submissions in terms of your engagement and collaboration with Creative Scotland and national government more widely? Thanks. In a sense, I might connect that question to the point that Ms Boyack was making just at the end. I do mention that in my submission. I think that there are a number of areas where we could do better. One of those areas is principally about connections and connecting. So that question that Ms Boyack asked about, to what extent are we sharing best practice across agencies, local authorities, trusts, et cetera, I think that that is an area where we could do better, to be honest. I'm not sure there is really any kind of comprehensive process for us doing that. I might argue, and this is where I might be commenting on the question that you asked, that in a sense one of the areas where we're starting from a reasonably strong position, but I think that one of the areas where we could do better is the connection between the national peace, the metropolitan peace, the regional peace and the connections at a local level. I'm not quite sure that that is completely coherent. I think that there is probably more that collectively we can do about that. Our relationships, I think, with the national agencies Creative Scotland's one, Museum Gallery Scotland's another, are positive, but given the challenges that we face and some of them have been mentioned and some of them are in our submissions, we have to do a little bit better. Recent events that we have seen display that slight lack of, in a sense, coherence between the local authority, national government level, whether that's at Scottish or UK level, if you think about some of the recent funding decisions that have been taken. There's absolutely no basis for criticism of anyone. I just think that we could probably all do a little bit better in terms of ensuring that there is a coherent picture up and down and across the sector. I suppose that's how I would describe it. I'm not sure if that answers your question but that's how I would describe it. It did and perhaps any reflections today or I've fallen in the committee session if there's any constructive propositions for how that could be facilitated, that greater co-ordination, that would be interesting to hear. I'm going to bring Kim in and then Rebecca after that again. Thank you. Just two points really. The first one, yes, we do have an excellent relationship with Creative Scotland, the name national agency there. However again I would say that the very focus with us is around music and again this is where we'll go back to our silo working slightly across the theme of culture. So certainly for Murray the connection with Creative Scotland is very much music and then if you take for example Slick, so the Scottish Library and Information Council, again very much focused on the sort of libraries, learning, heritage etc. So again work very well with national organisations but it's that again that overarching culture piece that we may struggle with and the second point really I just wanted to come in again back to that connection with lecs of health and social care in Murray. We're progressing very much with social prescribing and I think culture has certainly got a place in the social prescribing model as we move forward and again ensuring all private, public and third sector agencies are connected to that social prescribing model. Thank you. Thank you. I'll bring Rebecca and then Katie in after that. I suppose I was thinking in a way that national should mirror the regional and just thinking how things are happening with us very much as we see the partnership, the cultural partnership that we're trying to establish as having a kind of connecting role between the different elements of our sector and we're say for example health service and again it's that kind of introduction role. It's we certainly see probably one of the first things that the partnership will do in Dumfries and Galloway is for example with the health and wellbeing teams. We know that there's an understanding of the benefits that culture can have very much as we're saying the preventative agenda with the cultural sort of sector. You've got people who are keen and willing to kind of engage in that but they don't have the connect, neither of them know about each other. They don't know what the potential is. The cultural sector knows that it has value but it doesn't know how to translate that into a health setting, clinical or community and likewise the clinical and community health services don't really know what the potential is. And so I guess there is that kind of learning from each other and those connections making those partnerships happening kind of within the region but I can see at a national level that also needs to happen and I found Creative Scotland and Museums Gallery of Scotland to have a similar kind of connecting role and I think back to the place partnerships. Creative Scotland, certainly before lockdown, were every now and again arranging for all the place partnerships to come together and to learn from each other and I remember going to Aberdeen with some of the creative and cultural organisations from Dumfries and Galloway just as we were starting to think about the cultural strategy and it was hugely valuable to hear from the other place partnerships how they were doing that and a lot of that learning then translated down into what we're doing in Dumfries and Galloway but it is true that we do the dangers that we get too focused on our own little situation and we don't see what's happening elsewhere. We have another opportunity I suppose across the South of Scotland in that we have the South of Scotland Enterprise Agency and the South of Scotland regional economic strategy which does also have culture and creativity as a focus so that has started us to think more about Scottish Borders Council and live borders but they do things very differently but often it's just the time to get your head up and actually look around so that's one of the reasons why it's so good to be here today to hear from everybody else but I think those opportunities would be very welcome if they could resume. Yes, thank you. It was just really picking up on the relationship again with Creative Scotland and picking up a robust point about place partnership. It just feels like actually there is so much good content that comes out because it is embedded in communities. We're obviously in reference to council, we're just in the midst of a place partnership agreement with Creative Scotland which is a £400,000 investment, £200 from Future Paysing, £200 from Creative Scotland and we're delivering on five place partnership programmes. They're all at slightly different levels but one of them is working in partnership with like for instance in Johnston, it's a to create a Johnston textile space and it's working with business consortium, historical society, makers, remodor about ethical and sustainable clothing so it's this where you can coalesce around an idea and you really embed it in as a public facing community led partnership and so this one really has so much opportunity for us to build on because we're building something in Paisley around film and media space again rather an inspired space that sits on the campus of University of West of Scotland but it's from facing on to Story Street so it will be a place where we can talk about archiving footage, we can talk about new digital media, all of these things are coming from the grassroots level up but it's consolidated by business and then we're developing a cycle arts festival which isn't going to be in its third iteration this year, we've received money from events Scotland to support the UCI cycling fringe programme which is really exciting because that will happen just in advance of the main event and so there is all of this learning but I agree with Billy, I think in some ways local authorities being able to share best practice and I think for Renfrewshire council we believe some of the models that have come out from that whole ambition of the UK city of culture bid, we're pushing some really innovative thinking, cultural co-ordination sitting within health and social care, we're doing an incredible partnership at Castlehead high school, we're secondary school that's linked to Glasgow school of art but that is progressing a whole new way of qualifications that sits outside the SQA framework around creative thinking and saying to young people there are possibilities to find work within the culture and creator sector and don't discount it and don't discount it from primary school as you go into secondary school choices that actually you know within the creative and culture sector there is still the need for marketing, technology, accountancy, all of these things still exist together but we are building a really strong base in which to offer up possibilities for employability and one of our main step changes is about where do that younger generation, how do we build our new creative workforce and what are the stepping stones so we're working actively across our council, our youth services, our developing young workforce, our careers and then we're working with the University of West Scotland and West College Scotland, we're working with Skills Development Scotland, all of these people are represented on our partnership board and so therefore we want to get a much clearer linear line that we can show how best to progress and bring it together because instead of as we all have been talking about these disparate strands and what we're trying to do at Renfrewshire is bring it into one comprehensive offer. Picking up on the partnership piece particularly I think what we've seen is perhaps one of the very few positives that came out of the pandemic was the increase in partnership working so we saw during Covid when we're in lockdown a number of agencies came together that previously sat together virtually albeit in the same meeting to understand how to respond to the pandemic from a cultural perspective and that was really important and we've been working really hard to maintain that partnership so that's across so we facilitate a group we call it the culture partners group which comprises creative Scotland, Scottish Government, Slick, museums, galleries, COSLA, regional screen Scotland, screen Scotland, a whole range of different partners that sit on that group and it's a monthly meeting but certainly the feedback that we had and from ourselves as well was that actually that connection was really really important it wasn't there before Covid you know we just hadn't really engaged as a collective and it comes back to I think it was Kim's point around the kind of engagement with national agencies and a kind of silo function it's actually how do we start to join up a little bit more and under the kind of broad cultural umbrella you know how do we actually work together as museums, as theatres, as libraries to actually talk about the value of culture through that partnership so I think there's opportunities to do to do more to continue with that partnership working I know that there's also some discussion around a network for local authority and culture trust and arts officers that's being led by creative lives at the moments who are looking again at that kind of void that's there so I know that they're exploring something to kind of pull together a bit of a network of learning and sharing we've had some discussions with COSLA around the culture conveners you know how does that work you know what's the actual purpose of it and maybe just you know shaping that a little bit more so that there's more value and a clearer purpose that sits around that but I think overall there's certainly as Billy said there's areas that could be improved I think the national local dynamic needs a bit more co-ordination but I think as well as that there's certainly been progress significant progress that's perhaps come out of the pandemic thank you we're going to bring in Mr Cameron thank you convener and good morning to everyone I've got just two areas to explore the first is around what might be termed barriers to culture we've had a lot of individual responses to to the committee's inquiry and I think the issues that arise won't come as a surprise to many of you but they are things like lack of public transport especially in rural areas lack of options for young people and young families one issue that resonated with me was a person from the highlands who said that there were more events during the tourism season and not so many in in quarter times a year access for disabled people price and availability of venues um as I say all issues I don't think will come as a surprise but I just wondered if I could have the panels observations on all or some or any of those um and I don't know who wants to look here Rebecca I don't know if you want to go first well I mean yes I mean certainly very familiar with the idea with the lack of public transport I mean Dumfries and Galloway's um it's 100 miles across um it's 600 000 6000 square kilometres and 140 000 150 000 people so very sparsely populated and it is an issue um definitely a kind of like how to to programme how to to support things happening um we have for example um Dumfries and Galloway arts festival which which puts on events across the whole of the region and has been supporting funded by Creative Scotland and our small sort of resources a programme called arts live which is supporting kind of promoters community-based promoters to put on events in their own communities but there is that whole issue of how do you make that sustainable how do you how do you make things that cost thing it costs to put things like that on it's also there's a whole question of climate and the whole kind of business of bringing something in and what the kind of that costs environmentally and then it's like how can people access that if you if you were to charge the cost that it would actually recover what it took to put put on that's not affordable for your small community to access so I think that's definitely the case and we hear the sort of same thing about young people and I suppose there are quite a few things on in the tourism season but having said that events that we put on in the or that we see being put on shoulder season do do kind of get quite a lot of you know local activity but but it is goes back to that kind of demographic how do you serve those people that you have and the visitors who are coming in across such a wide and sparsely populated area and make that possible to do there are you know we recently have been we've been interviewing for an access officer for one of our museums teams and um I won't say any names but a bright young person we were interviewing said you know said along the lines of you know look at your photographs on your websites they're mainly older people or families whereas where's the activity for young people where's the kind of activity for the kind of like the working people who maybe don't want to go into a facility and be overrun by small children you know what about um have you thought about um changing your opening hours you know are you are you sure that what you're providing is what people want if you like and I guess that's part of that what we need to be taking you know with our cultural partnership one of the things I think we need to start to do is to to look at that to sort of see if there's any way that we can support our cultural sector to sort of rethink maybe the model of what we're doing at the moment maybe it needs to be tweaked um it has to be more responsive I mean that's basically what we're saying and to overcome those barriers you need to be responsive you need to listen to those people what are the barriers and how can you overcome them and and I guess it's about kind of that with that leadership question it's how you can push that down the line if you like so that I think it shouldn't be top down we're sort of making sure that people have access to what we decide they want they should have but how do we support our communities that people to actually get involved in and growing the things that they want does that make sense thank you and thanks for the question because I think where we're I think the barrier there's quite a lot of options around that question but how we're trying to break down barriers really in organisations I was just thinking about the promise we know we're doing a lot of work with the promise with care experience young people and children and young carers and a lot of the work that we're doing that is breaking down barriers because it could be because of economic climate it could be attitude it could be logistics all of those things and it's trying to find a way to go to them so we're doing quite a lot of work with four of our care homes in renfrewshire but we're also doing a huge arts and culture programme to try and say what is it you want it's a really youth led approach and it's all about co-production co-design it's not like we're going to tell you to come and do this so it's really been an extraordinary exercise to see the growth in that and we're sort of building a promise champions and we're trying to introduce them to a lot of different opportunities to say actually if we're talking about the impact of inequalities we're trying to find a level playing field and those barriers about what what it is even using the word culture it's better you to use creativity for somewhere like a group like the promise for instance but I think it's that thing as Rebecca was saying it's where where we can discuss where we're finding out from our organisations and we do a lot of work with the we have this incredible foundation of cultural organisations and they're doing work throughout the year so we can we can populate with events and key festivals paisley book festival the big halloween event but in between there is always offers that is one thing we certainly have whether that's an earth skin or johnston or in paisley kill bark and run through it's it's it's there to access because that is the point that we're trying to get to so all of those barriers as we as we work through our services finding ways to not have high ticket prices having opportunities for volunteering at events for young people just ways in which you can say this doesn't sit out with your opportunity it's all it's all accessible for everybody that is what that is our position we're trying to get to. I'll bring Billy I wonder if I could just have a very quick supplementary just on what both Rebecca and Katie have been talking about because I think one of the things we're trying trying to look at is is the disparity between urban areas and rural areas and the offering and when you said that about the book festival I was interested in finding out from Rebecca when I think of your area I think of the victim book festival the sonaroiser festival the portpatrick folk festival so are you engaged with those festivals as they happen across the region as well? We are that a lot of those organisations are are very prominent within our cultural partnership and kind of working in certain and and we have we are very fortunate in Dumfries and Galloway as well that the council is invested in events and an event strategy so there's about I think 360 000 which is is used to support events across the region and there are I think it's six signature events of which for a cultural so and that includes Dumfries and Galloway arts festival the springfling open studios the Wigton book festival as you were just mentioning and the big band supper and all of those you know they have a very strong impact in terms of I guess that that strategy was originally an economic development strategy in a way and looking to draw people into the area but those organisations also have a really really key impact on the communities that they work with and each of them has a sort of a sort of like a wider developmental role if you like that's one of the things that we saw through the establishment of the chamber of arts that feeling that actually the developmental kind of aspect has passed from the council and maybe the arts agency that we used to have to to those those those organisations so for example Wigton book festival sees itself it does the festival but it also has sees itself as having a developmental role for literature for writers for readers across Dumfries and Galloway and they work with the moat bray literature centre in Dumfries and they have a sort of if you like a strategic head-on in terms of developing literature and access to literature and the same thing will be with the Dumfries and Galloway arts festival that kind of developmental sense and performing arts across the region springfling open studios very much how do we support individual creative visual artists and craft makers businesses those sole traders how do we support them to come together so if you like that there's very much a kind of a big burn supp I should say is one of the most inclusive festivals that we have really kind of engaging with with the community in and around Dumfries and some of the more poor and deprived areas and getting them involved so if you like there's a sort of like a strategic thing that they're doing that we that I suppose we see is is our role is in a supportive framework that makes that helps that to happen thank you don't know did you want back back in want to bring donald in and then I come to belly I mean I actually had a separate point or observation to make which I'll probably just raise now just for the sake of timing but one of the things that Creative Scotland said to us was that there are certain cultural practices in their view which don't necessarily take place in theatres or music venues and they raise Gallic culture and traditional music and I'm sure we can think of others and I just wondered if in addition to the point I made earlier what if the panel had any views on that and I appreciate it slightly segues into the the question of what is cultural need and I've been very struck by your responses about determining co-production and determining cultural needs through what people are saying sort of organically as it were so I don't know if you'd like to address that as well sorry it's quite a lot of finish on that point because I think we as you know paisley has these incredible cultural venues but they are they're all under refurbishment so when all of those buildings the town hall the art centre the museum and the new central library are coming online we have invested across the whole of renfisher and to build the cultural ecology so we are not in venues at the moment I mean obviously there are venues johnson town hall and you know there are venues but we are working in a much more fluid way so there's a rather brilliant old cooperative building that sits in pacy that's three floors enormous it is now the home of outspoken arts and paced theatre so it is now a space within a shopping mall where you get absolute access into really high quality cultural experiences and when we did the future Paisley exhibition again it was in a shopping mall it was a bespoke offer where people would come in comment on the ideas say what their needs are for the community but it was all addressed within spaces that anybody could occupy it was this egalitarian space not to say that theatres and things aren't but it was because they weren't there we were able to utilise different ways of approaching people and again that's about breaking down barriers to expectations and culture really thank you in terms of the barriers question there's not I think it's important that we don't give the impression there's a kind of slick answer to that I think we we live with those challenges and I think the the answer and I think that's reflected in what people have said the answer is to ensure that we weave in to our practice on a permanent basis in a sense a set of values and a set of principles about how we approach what we do so those and these have been mentioned so co-production I think is key so rather than us forming a view of what it is that people want and where they want it and how they want to access it we actually discover that in partnership with citizens and communities diversity that's diversity of programme diversity of space diversity of presentation inclusivity which is slightly different so it's about building in I think a whole range of of values and principles into everything that we do locality working place-based approaches person-centred approaches that's building those values and principles across our sector and I talk about diversity so for instance some of our in Glasgow some of our cultural output will be the Royal Scottish National Orchestra in the concert hall but exactly the same time some of our cultural output is people who are signposted to cultural activity through our community referral programme and it happens in their community it's completely free and it's built on 20-minute neighbourhood principles so in those very in those kind of different ways we are trying to tackle that issue around ensuring that there is something in a sense for everyone and that that our overall our overall content is barrier free in as far as we can make it I think I think that the issue about where cultural activity takes place I think is ab is is just so important because I think we have to be clear cultural activity can take place absolutely anywhere it can just take place absolutely anywhere it can take place in a pub in a park in a street corner in and in the tramway or the the national concert hall and certainly that's I think probably you'll find out that's how absolutely everyone around this table approaches approaches culture we're very fortunate in Glasgow to to stage what is now I think the world's largest winter roots music festival Celtic Connections and a significant part of that is is produced in partnership with Glasgow's significant Gallic community when people think about Celtic Connections they probably think about the concert hall and the really exciting programme that happens there but actually Celtic Connections take takes place in about 30 to 40 venues all over Glasgow church halls pubs a whole range of facilities including for instance in the most recent iteration the the cruise ship at down and govern that was that was housing Ukrainian refugees we had concerts there that were completely free so I think that has to be the approach a multiplicity of approaches multiplicity of content multiplicity of of kind of venues content but with those principles and values woven in throughout I think that's how because it's an ongoing constant process because barriers change I think it was Katie mentioned that it's you can always be surprised about what the barriers are you know it's threshold anxiety you know it so I think it's important that we that we evolve our practice around those thanks okay thank you I know Kim you dropped out for a little while there is anything you want to add at this point I suppose just the note about them I noticed one of the barriers mentioned was transport and yes Murray is a rural local authority and it is certainly something that has been commented on by both residents on tourists in regards to culture activities the lack of public transport and again you know we don't necessarily see that as a barrier it's like how can we improve on that situation and challenge and again that's where some of our local communities come in and provide that support mechanism because the public transport resource is just not there or sufficient enough to cope with the demand we're about to have the spirit of space at a Husky festival in Murray in the forthcoming weeks which is an extensive array of activities in very rural space side where there is no public transport and again it's where communities come forward willing to identify how we can transport our local residents and tourists to ensure they access those cultural activities so completely appreciate that transport is a barrier in our local authority and it's just trying to provide that network of support to ensure that anyone and everyone can access any cultural activity or event that's available to them thank you thanks kirstie you haven't come in on those so anything do you want to add just in a couple of points probably just building on billy's comments really i'm not going to dwell on the barriers but in terms of of addressing the barriers and we touched on this earlier there's certainly something around the partnership working and across different different agencies so understanding where the barriers are but also whose best place to engage with to actually access those communities to understand needs better and to make it much more of a partnership approach i think the other two points that i wanted to kind of touch on one is the role of volunteering as well so you know how does volunteering actually help in terms of breaking down some of those barriers you know the opportunity to engage people through volunteering to bring different people into services and also to use volunteers as a way to engage with different communities that's perhaps seen as less formalised in terms of of engagement rather than it being an organisation that's reaching out and approaching the public there's a role for volunteers there and how do we maximise that and how do we maximise the skill set that we have within our volunteers and the third point i wanted to touch on was really just in terms of understanding where the barriers are and in terms of understanding who's participating i think there's still a piece of work to do in terms of the data and actually understanding who's using you know what services are they using how are they using them i think there's a lot of anecdotal data across the sector but certainly across our members i think they would struggle to give a very a very concrete picture of exactly what it looks like across different services so there's a bit of work perhaps to do just to understand you know from an inclusivity perspective there's certainly seems to be a lack of really concrete data that we can actually build on so we can actually see and monitor progress in a way that's more than kind of anecdotal or bit pieces across different services thank you i was certainly moved into the second area of unmet cultural need and i just wondered i think it was Katie you mentioned that you had to be able to reach some of the really hard to reach areas with the partnership and the what do you possibly say a little bit more about how that works thank you um i think it's that thing about because because we're embedding that cultural um possibility across all of our services that we're able i mean the promise is obviously a national it sits within the national policy context and but to really start to see what's happening when we when we put in a promise and arts engagement programme that actually now we have individual social workers going to the promise group to say can you come and speak to us where can we do more with this group of young people and young carers and that that breaking down of of the barrier and accessing groups that you may not normally get to has been a really really insightful aspect i think across our full programme it's a way we were talking about co-production because co-production is absolutely everybody's usp it feels because that is our way in but somewhere like the pacy museum they have been working with syrian refugees looking at the collection the syrian glass and the collection this is english as a second language so we're doing an arabic and english translation so that then that goes into the museum there's a there's an ownership there starts to be an ownership on groups that we're not meeting immediately so we're finding ways in there's this amazing other programme that's coming through the co-production with the ymcm pays the and they're working they have a whole sort of digital programme then there's a group of girls who are interested in stem subjects and so they found this old loom in the pacy museum collection this jackard weaving loom and it has a binary formation which then is the same that's used in computer programming so now there's going to be this whole new level of work which we would not have met those young people and that's been a long time that is a conversation that started 2018 so these are building trust building relationships getting in there the whole thing what we're trying not to do is just come in and come out what we're trying to do is get in under the skin and where we have our big event portfolio we've also got projects with criminal justice programme where we're working with women who are on criminal community payback orders they're learning a skill on how to make like embroidery making stuff that then they can either donate or they put into a way of selling the project to put the money back into the programme so this idea that they go off with a skill set it's it's this idea that you have another step to take and I think reaching groups like these these this is what this cultural programme is being able to do is to get into areas that would not normally have been seen but certainly through our young people that is our big big development work as well. Willan local YMCA has recently been engaging and we have I think of Fitch of Rydouts in North Lanarkshire where the schools finish early and then there's activities put on but they've actually set up an e-sports club and it's a proper kind of leak but it has brought in young people who are isolated from other activities into being part of that community and so yeah quite an interesting example too. Because urskine arts work a lot with young people who are choosing not to be in school you know like they really don't see education another step in education and so they're coming to urskine arts they're learning how to put a backline in for a stage they're learning how to use equipment filming editing and it's it's and they're called the crew and it's it's an amazing opportunity because it doesn't you're not always fed through one route you can find different ways through. Thank you and Mark did you sorry Billy did you want to come in there to sign comment on just in terms of the question that you you'd asked it feels to me there's maybe two parts to that question and I suspect we would all say the same thing one part of that in terms of whatever it is that we do what does success look like and how do we know when when we've got there and and the answer to that is is evidence is data is evaluation so we are all engaged in various evaluation evidence gathering data surveys etc processes and I'm sure that that runs throughout all of our submissions and one thing I would say however and I feel this quite strongly is that there are the numbers you know there is the empirical data but what is just so powerful and what and so important is people's stories and just the testimony that people who are engaged in those programs give you and and and one thing that I might say is that quite often whether it's funders whether it's partners there's a real emphasis on the hard data on the numbers on the crunching and and that's legitimate and that's understandable but we shouldn't we shouldn't ignore the stories of people who are engaged in those programs and and how it's made them feel and what impact it's had on them and their words and their feelings I think that's really important but that's one part I think so so I think we're all engaged in that process but the other part I think of your question is how actually do we go about getting to those who are currently furthest from engagement furthest from participation and I think that's one of the areas where actually I think there's a bit of a positive picture I think collectively the sector is becoming really quite good at that I think you probably heard and in the submissions there's a number of examples of programs and projects which which are actually doing that you know we've you know I've given you an example of for instance our community referral programme based currently in terms of our pilot based in Calton within one of the most challenges communities in Glasgow and Fifex probably in Scotland and how we are engaging and how we are working with other agencies to to identify communities identify individuals identify families working with education working with social work so I think I think that is another area where we are becoming really quite good at opening ourselves up but working with other agencies and partners to absolutely do that as part of our wider commitment to the sector I think one of the challenges around that however to go back to challenges is that it is and I think it was Rebecca that said this earlier it is a little bit fragile it is a little bit precarious just because of the financial landscape it's all a little bit project by project and one thing and it's maybe part of the question that you asked Mr McPherson if it would and this is very difficult and it's it's the kind of thing that people like myself always ask for if there was a way of constructing a much longer term strategic funding framework around some of this incredibly impactful and positive work that would make a real difference that would make a really big difference in terms of shifting the dial nationally that would make a real difference so thank you I'm sure you'll be aware that our budget inquiry and one of the recommendations from that was about multi-year funding and more sustainable funding for the arts and so something we have covered already does anyone else want to come in on the unmet need kind of the gaps area Rebecca it's just just just to kind of emphasise again just as Billy was saying I guess there's that that I suppose it would be really good to be able to kind of move beyond that area where we need to keep gathering all the evidence and spending such a lot of capacity and time on on doing that to make the case and I think that the should the long-term view is really important I'm just that sort of thinking of it there was there are so many different examples of you know of where those making those connections and building that you know getting those communities involved is so important but I think back to I think is that is a Cacubi gallery there was a kind of health and wellbeing project that ran for a summer I think it was but then it stopped because the funding stopped but the people who involved didn't stop coming into the gallery and looking for you know where's the creative writing group can you help me going to the you know up to the staff can't you know wanting that connection because they built that that community that kind of experience through those those sessions and then suddenly they were removed and it's almost like worse you know so it's it's um it does need to be long term but I think there's such such evidence of the positive impact it can have finish off that needs piece I think that thing that billion everybody's been talking about around social prescribing being a really essential part of it we have invested in a role for a cultural social prescribing role within one ren who is obviously the arm's length charity that sits to deliver services on behalf of renfrewshire council and that role is really instrumental within our cast with our culture arts health and social care so there's a really joined up piece of work there so that links to the alas database so you go in and you can find what services what groups and that you can refer to cultural activity as part of your health and wellbeing rather than waiting for other interventions so I'm going to move on to a final area of interest which is about police based cultural policy um and in a market some questions of the senior convenience being a really interesting session um I wanted actually to go to back actually to the points made about community planning partnerships and I'm interested in exploring their role and other forms of partnership in terms of you know strategically organizing and delivering um those place based approaches and I was struck by what Kirsty said earlier on that there's perhaps a disparity around Scotland in the way that cpps are incorporating culture and and cultural organizations within their planning and articulating cultural outcomes so I was interested in that I was interested in what Billy was saying earlier on around how partnership working is is perhaps spreading more now into health and social care partnerships value of social prescribing and I was interested in Rebecca's point as well about how you have to kind of work sideways and then up in order to access the more strategic cpp so I wonder if there's anything that you can kind of distill out of that in terms of your experiences in terms of what works well with community planning partnerships um how does a cultural sector get get its value and its voice into those objectives and if there are any other parts of the architecture of local strategic planning that that we need to consider um beyond that because it's a big picture and um I'm aware through what you've said this morning already that culture touches on so many different things from community regeneration to social care to to everything so is is our community planning partnerships a vehicle to do that or are there other ways that we should be should be looking so yeah happy to come in on that I think I mean as I said earlier I'll say there's a different approaches and that's absolutely how community planning partnerships were set up is that they are all slightly different so there's um you know it's not about being uniform but it's about how we get a cultural voice consistently across community planning partnerships so there's been I mean we've had a lot of discussions with our members some of our members sit on community planning partnerships you know and are absolutely involved and there we see that they're actually you know involved and they can actually understand the discussions around the community and there's opportunities for them to be involved to look at you know whether it's a discussion around health and wellbeing actually they can offer a service and that connection is made you know much more fluidly rather than sitting outside and then trying to understand what's happened within the community planning partnership and and be part of it other members are on you know some of the committees of community planning partnerships the subcommittees so again you know kind of involved at some level and able to kind of engage and be involved in shaping those conversations and then there's areas where there's just there's no engagement at all and so it's very much you know trying to understand what's happening and then coming after the party to try and influence and kind of offer services and actually say there's potential partnership here so you know from my perspective it's not about you know our members being on community planning partnerships per se it's about a voice for culture and a mechanism for a cultural voice you know and understanding that you know there needs to be some mechanism at a local level so you know whether that's you know somebody from a library that's you know sits on as a statutory service for example I'm not saying this is what we would necessarily recommend I'm just giving an example of you know there is a statutory service is there something there where people can feed in through a representative to have a cultural voice so I think there is for me it's the voice of culture and having somebody that can give a representative opinion on behalf of the community so not necessarily one organisation or one service but actually it's that mechanism for people to feed in and then kind of take back as well from those those opportunities and similarly on health and social care partnerships you know again we can see you know from our membership that where there's direct engagement there's opportunities that are happening there and there's some interesting you know approaches and there's things that are being shaped and delivered but again where there's not that engagement and it comes back to kind of Billy's point around partnership and wellbeing then again it's much harder when decisions are made and then you're kind of trying to come in from the outside into those so I guess kind of the key point is around understanding the role of CPPs across Scotland understanding should there be a statutory need for a cultural voice through that and then that might be determined locally depending on organisations and how culture is delivered locally and I guess that the kind of adding to that which is a slight tangential point but is understanding you know what is what is culture and we've kind of touched on that a little bit already but I think culture for some people is almost a slight barrier in terms of of the words you know what is culture is it highbrow is it theatre is it opera is it something that's you know for for the public you know so there's something around perception of what we mean when we talk about culture as well and I know that there's a bit of a move towards the term everyday creativity to capture at a local level a lot of the activities that are happening and so again it's just understanding where the barrier is and how that fits in terms of the voice. That was very insightful yeah. Yeah I'm going to bring Kim in and then I'll come to to the other members through him thanks. Thanks chair. I would certainly agree with Kirsty's comments there and certainly there are opportunities to improve the connection with our community planning partnership culture would definitely be embedded in all four of our local outcome improvement plan priorities however the clear detail and connect of the four priorities would certainly at this current time be connected to the economic development priority and therefore a lot of the focus and channeling will be around the economic development aspect therefore maybe to the detriment of the overall wellbeing of our population and how culture contribute to the wellbeing of our population so I think there is I'm glad to note that in Murray you know culture is connected to our community planning partnership and our right but there is certainly more explicit information and connections that could develop to sort of showcase the impact of culture on our overall community and not specifically just connected to the economic development of the area. Thank you. Rebecca you want to come in Billy did you want to come in after Rebecca? Thank you for the question I suppose I was going to say I think at the moment although I'm thinking this will probably change as we develop the cultural partnership and one of the things we're looking at is how that partnership will work with other partnerships that there are in our region and not cause any duplication but dovetail and so we are about to start talking to the community planning partnership about how we can do that but I think at the moment we're very much kind of in and around it if you like there's lots of things happening and I'm just thinking a few examples there is a creative wellbeing project for the region has developed from one of our creative organisations in Langham from a sort of project they did through lockdown on creative art journals they've been successful in getting funding from the NHS endowment fund but also and then also the creative wellbeing sorry the community wellbeing fund to run a two-year project which will set up a wellbeing network to make creative interventions into the clinical and the community-based sort of healthcare systems and if you like that's kind of working around I guess it's grassroots and it ultimately will deliver on what the community planning partnership is trying to do then you have the stove and their creative place making there on the the place planning partnership not the community planning partnership but the place planning partnership so if you like there's kind of an influence and a voice in and around there and then I sit on the community learning and development partnership and they were when we were developing the cultural strategy we had two reference groups one from the cultural sector and another we wanted from the non-cultural sector and in the event the community planning sorry the community learning and development partnership became our non-cultural sector kind of lead kind of reference group so there's a good kind of connection isn't there but as yet we're not in the community planning partnership but hopefully that will come and it's just finding the right mechanism and I guess as you were saying if there's certainly within our the way that things are set up because I suppose the lead for cultural development is within the council but in a different section and lower down it doesn't feature in in the community planning partnership as it is at the moment but hopefully that will change. Okay, Billy. Thanks, really good question and there's a couple of things I suppose that we just have to recognise and contextually one and Rebecca's just summarise it really effectively it is a complicated landscape community learning development partnerships cpp's health and social care partnerships you know various forums so that so understanding that and understanding how you can make all of that complementary is in a sense an on-going challenge so that's one contextual issue. The other contextual issue I suppose is that in terms of the public pound there are always competing priorities and culture always has to make its case that's true at every level including at community partnership level so that's part of the context as well. I think however I think it's a bit of a no-brainer for culture frankly so community planning partnerships and I'm talking from a Glasgow perspective obviously principally are a really important part of the landscape really important in terms of presenting a real opportunity I think for culture to build coalitions to build consensus to really develop relationships and to move things forward. Certainly Glasgow life are heavily engaged in the community planning partnership process and all of the networks not just in terms of culture in terms of overall the work that we do and I think that's really positive. I think we could probably do more and I think the community planning partnerships possibly could be their understanding and the priority they attach to culture could be better from my point of view but we're in there and we're in there arguing the case for culture and building relationships building networks and building coalitions around some of the things that I've spoken about already so we go we take our ideas we take our propositions to community planning partnerships and and you know they are compelling and we win over hearts and minds and we move on from that we build a platform for developing and implementing and executing these things so I think for the cultural sector I think it's really really important that we do engage positively with with that network so that would be my response to that. Katie? I suppose from the Renfrewshire council we haven't had to make the case for culture as hard recently because obviously we've come we coalesced around that UK city of culture bid and the legacy plan that came there so we had already got a lot of buy-in to keep that investment on the table for the activity that we are taking forward until late for 2024 due to the hiatus because of Covid so really we are seeing that cultural regeneration as a really positive driver for economic and social change in Renfrewshire and the CPP along with many other organisations are part of all of that discussion around how our investment is going is being spent and it's a substantial investment and it comes back to how we're going to tell our story through the impact of evaluation and evidencing how we have made that change but I think we we are certainly in a position where the case hasn't had to be really driven home as much but that's not to say we're hitting challenging times things are changing all the time future pays it concludes in April 2024 and that is why we're really committed to seeing if we can change policy to really embed some of those activities that they cast like the social prescribing cultural social prescribing but yet all of these partner voices are really influential in how we're driving this whole programme Mark, are you okay? Thank you. Maurice, did you have some questions? Yeah I was just wondering in the context of place-based culture policy how you measure success and what metrics are being used and indeed if there's any standardisation so you can compare across either different sectors or indeed local authority areas I don't know who would like to start on that. Katie? I might jump in just because I spent the last year finalising an evaluation framework which has been extremely complex but when we talk about sharing best practice I sort of think all of this that work that we are undertaking could be utilised not just within Renfrewshire Council but we did a partnership Renfrewshire Council with the University of Western Scotland to create the centre of culture events and sport and that dialogue across the 80 live projects we're doing across every aspect from civic pride to health and social care. We have to see what our high level is what our grassroots are doing and find the sub outputs and sub outcomes across that because under each of our five step changes we have three strategic outcomes against each of them so we can directly go to our project needs they can take their project and they can use the framework to find themselves within it so everybody should find their position within that framework then you can use the sub outputs and sub outcomes to actually determine the data you're collecting both qualitative and quantitative and we have a process now where we get a report back every quarter the information is put into a smart sheet we can then identify exactly how we are hitting protected characteristics how much external funding is coming in we can actually pinpoint all of that so when we look at the evaluation and look at the impact we're starting to drive really strong data we're sort of using the Scottish household survey that's the right word but we're what we have is this sort of tool of information so everybody has a user-friendly framework and we've given them the tools to then identify and say you should look at this because that will be able to capture some of the information that you're doing in your particular field so we've got a sort of bundle of indicators that a lot of programmes can sit under and they've got a bit of bespoke so actually it's a really we've just launched it in January the first bout of reporting is just coming in people are already seeing how useful it is it's not to say they weren't gathering data before but we're trying to find a way to get a cumulative picture from all of these multiple projects that we're running which has been highly complex and that's why it's taken so long for us to get to the point and obviously the impact will be found much further down the line once future PACE is finished but we can already evidence the impact that's happening and it's just about the longer term so if we are doing something with Castlehead High School new qualifications are we really putting the stepping stone are they going to go into creative workforce we all only know that five ten years so but at least if we've got the foundation that's really robust I think we've got really great data and metrics that we can put against that thanks and just as a follow-up Katie are you able to compare your framework with a similar local authority like Dundee City Council for example I think what has happened in the past and forgive me because I have only been in the roles since for a year I think there will have been a lot of work to to do comparisons before that because this has been years in the making and so I would say they would have used evidence to start to see what they could use that would then be specific that we could shape into the Renfrewshire Council framework out of thought okay thanks Rebecca I just just thinking about how difficult it is to think of how you do that because you're starting from so many different baselines in your different communities my first sort of reaction is is kind of community response is talking to that community how they felt an intervention has been but I guess the other sort of thing is it is thinking down that kind of place planning more holistically you know that there are you know that there will be kind of like around a place there is the place planning tool isn't there where people can assess how they feel on certain sort of it's like it becomes like a spider's web and I guess kind of you really want to sort of see the kind of cultural sort of impact kind of embedded within that so that you're making you're seeing that the just you know how that changes from the first time that you're looking at that place and how that place feels about itself and then how it feels about it afterwards but I think it's difficult sometimes to to dis to remove that cultural input from the other inputs that are going in in a way it shouldn't be separate should it it should all be part of a one if we're taking a kind of holistic approach to a place and kind of responding to what that place feels it needs and giving it the means to to kind of build on its assets and develops then it should be kind of holistic so but I guess there's kind of like I'm thinking of because we are thinking about this but aren't there yet you know we're only just starting to build our cultural partnership and and create an action plan for the cultural strategy and the metrics that would would base on that so we just start to think about it but I think you know that there's the household survey but that is for us that is like so few people in our and in our area and actually it's not necessarily kind of we don't know what they've access to tell us what their you know what their reactions are so I think but it is something we need to put in place but without overloading people. I was quite interested I went with a colleague to to there's an evaluation session in Hull after their city of culture and it was about how they had made a difference and it was interesting to sort of hear that there were sort of short term measures but as you say there's longer term measures but they had been doing a kind of community survey for Hull citizens more generally about how they felt about their their selves and where they lived and their role and they had seen in the different annual surveys a change in that kind of positive feeling as a result of the the city of culture festival so I don't know if I'm sort of asking I guess I'm throwing ideas in the air but I'm thinking it's not necessarily I think it's maybe more holistic than just the cultural elements definitely I mean do you think there's a role for if you like you know look thinking about community engagement some sort of standardized questions so that actually it doesn't stop whether it be individual sectors or councils adding to that but at least there's some form of comparison so that you know we can actually recognise where there's good practice and actually try and bring everyone up together no I think I think absolutely and I think there are there are sort of frameworks being used already I guess um yeah but I think it is pulling that together and and you're right it would be good to be able to make comparisons with other areas but I think we certainly have found that in the past because each local authorities area has a completely different kind of cultural landscape it can be really difficult because you're kind of comparing apples with pears but it would be great to find some some way of a simple way as well something that's not too difficult for your arts organisation on the ground or your community group to to do yeah quite daunting to develop from scratch and if everyone's doing that all at the same time it seems like there's a you know a use of resources that actually perhaps is a centralized role there in some shape or form absolutely right and I'm just thinking about sort of a cultural organisation say who's getting its funding from various different sources and if all those funders are actually asking for different metrics it can be so difficult to so much time kind of spent on that aspect of it when you should be just doing the stuff yeah no that's really helpful so billy wants to come in as well and and then i'll come to question can i just ask a very quick question of katie and obviously that was a big project you've been involved with and you said considerable amount of time and complexity what was the driver for putting it in place where did that come what policy driver the driver is because the level of money as we all know every all public money needs to be properly evidenced and evaluated you know evaluated i think for for my position in future pacy it's this is the mechanism that will allow for future investment decisions being made because that is where a lot of the evidence is going to sit saying you should continue to do this and you should continue to do that because it's clear evidence but the framework picking up on rebecca i think where it sits because we've got these five step changes that work across all it's about community and wellbeing or you know sustainable and resilient thing actually these frameworks instead of have everybody working off separate ones i do think a comprehensive piece and i would be really happy to share it because it has been such a long term and the thing and actually it could be useful for other local authorities to look at because i think you know we have project leads dealing with it because of the thing if we're giving it to individuals to do much smaller pieces it's that thing of we need to consolidate it because otherwise as you say you spend your time writing different reports for different organisations and actually a framework should something that's really picking up on all of the objectives for so many of us this cross this cross pollination between us all actually could be really useful thank you for that um so i'm going to bring in uh billy and then kirstie and i don't know if kim wants to come in at the end as well i think in some ways maybe what i was going to say has been covered uh now i think what i was going to say echoes rebecca's phrase i think she captured it very elegantly and we're not quite there yet it's a really good question and i don't think any of us have got the answer lots of different agencies ask very different questions so if you're working with the health and social care partnership and they've provided money they will ask specific questions that require a specific type of evaluation the health service will ask slightly different questions much more clinically focused that requires a very different set of evaluations and so on and so on different agencies use different software we might use a software called upshot someone else will use something else so it is a very it's another complicated picture at katie i think summarise it perfectly i think there is space for a conversation about some kind and this is happening across other parts so if you think about the event sector there's a similar conversation but how how might it be possible to create some kind of national evaluation framework that would have to be very flexible and very modular but it is there is i think there's a space for that conversation and that might be something that falls out of this process i think that could be really positive and i think we would all probably be really keen to to engage in that kind of process because i think that is something that would really benefit this sector it would require lots of agencies to engage in that you know out just not not cultural organisations specifically but out with the sector like health and social care partnerships like community planning partnerships like the NHS and like some of the national agencies but if there was a willingness if there was a coalition of the willing i think that would be a really really positive initiative for the sector nationally thanks kirstie thank you yeah we are actually doing quite a bit of work in this area and by no means do we have any answers to this before i start but one thing that we are looking at is a common approach around reporting against social value so we've got we're using the there's a platform that's used across england and it's started on the sport and leisure site so it's the moving communities platform which captures a range of data across all local authorities with public leisure in england and it's been really providing some really really good data it's still got you know development to go but we've been looking at it for our members in scotland's we're actually working with Scottish government analysts at the moment to understand their views on it and actually whether they would see the information that would come as credible whether it would kind of fit from a Scottish government perspective but we've got a few members that have signed up because you can sign up to the platform individually the data hub platform we have some members in scotland are already using it at a local level and we've piloted pulling together that information from those that are already engaging which is really powerful i wish i had the stats to hand but i don't have them off the top of my head but it was across four trusts and it was the social value of what they were providing and there is a scope within that to break that down for cultural services as well so that it can actually be focused around culture and so there's i think there's potential i don't think it's it's you know going to solve all of the issues that we have it's not as billy was talking about an evaluation framework but it's a start in terms of some consistent data reporting so we've been working with COSLA as well because if this was to go ahead for us it would be much wider than our membership you know it would be across the whole country and at some point in time you know as as england are looking at the moment they're looking to start capturing you know kind of local groups activity community groups and feed that in so they get a place-based picture through the platform that's in developments but that's the intention so i think there's potential there to to look at something as a starting point that's not onerous it essentially captures participation data and some financial information so it's not anything that our members wouldn't already be capturing and there's an automatic feed into the platform so i feel like i'm going to sound like a salesperson from the platform but i think it's something that's in development that might have some legs to give us a starting point for some kind of national data kim you wanted to come in as well yeah just to say that i concur completely with rebecca and belize points in regards to the the asks of the various asks of funders in regards to whatever project you're doing and and how these are very different and complex and so a standardisation would be great but not sure how you achieve that and and really just from a selfish perspective i think an area that we certainly need to improve on is the evidence of social value and economic value of culture to really strengthen the case in the locale area so happy to receive any information or systems that are being developed and i think that's where it is sharing of best practices is key for us to really strengthen the cultural market out there so yeah just maria will happily receive any content thank you thank you very much i'm looking to my colleagues are there any final questions this morning any closing remarks um can i can i just say again thank you so much it's been really really helpful session um i the first in our inquiry in this area so um i've got a few more to do a few more visits to do and i think some of our colleagues will be visiting the recent gallery as part of that experience so um we're really looking forward to continuing with this work but thank you for your attendance this morning and having taken agenda item 2 the decision to have a consideration of evidence in private for this meeting in future meetings i now move into private session