 Aberstyn. Welcome to the 16th and last meeting of 2016 of the Culture, Tourism, Europe and External Relations Committee on session 5. I would like to remind members and the public to turn off mobile phones, and any members who are using electronic devices to access committee papers should ensure that they are switched silent. Our first item of business today is for the committee to consider a number of biannual reports produced by the Scottish Government eu ishwys? Linear and European structural and investment fund. Diynau puppies that the drawdown on this has been very limited thus far for the current e-spending programme and I think that's something they should explore later. We can't explore that, cabinet secretary. Any other comments? Okay, we'll have a very brief suspension to allow our witnesses to join the table. Our second item of business today is an evidence session on the culture and tourismfaradau Srightsburyter Llywodraeth i ym 17 oedol 2018. I would like to welcome today's witnesses to the meeting. From Creative Scotland, we have Janet Archer, chief executive officer and Ian Munro, deputy chief executive, and from Visit Scotland, we have Malcolm Rivhead, the chief executive, and Ken Nielson, director of corporate services. Welcome. I would like to invite you to make a brief opening statement. Thanks. Thank you. It's great to be here. Actually, the last time I was here was in August at the Culture Summit, the International Culture Summit, and I had the pleasure of being part of a very feisty debate by a group of young people who were participating in that event in this very room. I also want to apologise because I've got a cold. I've been sneezing all morning, so if I splutter and sneeze to do this, please do forgive me. It's a good morning. I want to start by thanking the committee for inviting us to give evidence this morning. It's important to say that, of course, I'm here to represent Creative Scotland, but I'm also here to represent the very many people and organisations that work across the arts screen and creative industries in Scotland to whom we've made more than a thousand funding awards this year. In terms of our immediate response to the budget, as you will know, our discretionary grant in aid budget for 17-18 remains relatively stable. At 32.1.1.2, 0.000, so 32 million, a small 0.3% reduction on 26-17, so we're absolutely delighted about that. The primary purpose of this part of our budget is to support the 118 regularly funded organisations across Scotland and following a meeting of our board, which took place on Monday, where we're pleased to confirm that we'll be able to continue to fund these organisations at planned levels for next year. That's very welcomed. We currently support regularly funded organisations including some of Scotland's best-known cultural institutions, such as the Edinburgh International Festival, the Citizen Theatre in Glasgow, Eden Court in Inverness, and Lanter and Stornaway, and the DCA in Dundee, with 33.5 million pounds, mainly through grants in aid, although this is supplemented, it's important to say, by some national lottery funding. In the last full year, we've just scoped out our annual review, which I believe you've had a copy of. We've seen an increase in the number of performances, festivals, exhibitions, projects and events, and those organisations are reaching more people in more parts of the country with their work, which of course is supporting jobs and skills development, and through that the local and national economy. In the same year, we've also been able to increase the number of awards that we've made to creative individuals and organisations through our open project funding programme, and that's anything from £1,000 up to £400,000, and we've awarded almost £12 million of lottery support to 570 projects across Scotland, and that sits alongside the 450 awards we made through targeted funding, amounting to more than 30 million of support for key initiatives such as Time to Shine, which is our youth arts strategy, and Cashback for Creativity. We work really closely with young people, as I've already said. We have something called Youth Arts Voices. I had the pleasure of meeting a group of young people earlier on in this week, who are, I have to say, incredibly insightful, incredibly knowledgeable, incredibly determined to be able to contribute to painting a new landscape for culture going forward into the future for Scotland, and we find that a really exciting core part of the work that we do, particularly in the run-up to 2018, which is the year of young people. Just last week, we were able to announce record levels of film and TV production, so £52.7 million for 15, absolutely proving that Scotland's talent crews, facilities and award-winning locations continue to be a huge attraction to major international productions, and if you go back to 2007, that figure was £23 million. It went down a bit in 2010-21, and in 2014 it was just £7 million less than it is now, so it's going up incrementally, so we're seeing a real buoyancy in terms of what's being achieved. We're really pleased to be able to fund this whole breadth and depth and range of work, and we're extremely grateful to the Scottish Government, and in particular the Cabinet Secretary for Undoubted Effort. We know much work goes on behind the scenes in working out how to handle complex budget decisions, and we're very grateful for that. The committee should note that we're a distributor of funding from the national lottery, as well as grant and aid. National lottery funding is coming under pressure at the moment, so there's been a marked decrease in terms of income. It fluctuates, so there are trends where lottery goes up and down, but we are keeping a watchful eye on that. We have three routes to funding. Across those three routes, we're able to fund about a third of the applications that we receive, so we continue to be under pressure. There's a lot of creative potential in Scotland that's not always supported through our funding. You can't look at Creative Scotland's funded in isolation. It unlocks other funding around the work that we support, so just to give you an example of that, 33.5 million goes into regularly funded organisations. That unlocks, in the 15-16 year, that unlocked £109 million from other sources through a range of different kinds of income streams, so quite significant, and really pleased to see an increase in the amount of earned income of between £14 million and £15 million, I think, that's come through that across that year. Just to conclude, a key aim for us is to set out in our recently published art strategies to absolutely embed and generate understanding of the value that the arts offer to society through creativity. We really want to put artists, the people who drive the arts at the heart of society, valued contributors in all aspects of life, not just culturally, but also in terms of health and wellbeing, the economy, education and innovation. We know that that's really recognised in Scotland. 90% of the population believes that public funding for the arts, green and creative industries is a good thing. We know that the totality of contribution to the national economy is £3.7 billion. It supports almost 74,000 jobs. We know that 90% of the population take part in regular cultural activity. Of course we work with a broad range of partners, including Visit Scotland, in promoting Scotland as a location for screen production and film tourism. We also work with Visit Scotland on events and festivals and promote our amazing creative and cultural offer to the world, which generates both visitor numbers and revenue. We think that culture has a huge role to play in the future of our country and the ambition, talent and energy of everyone working in the arts and creative sectors is pivotal to continued confidence and success. I'm really looking forward to this morning's discussion. Thank you. Mr Roffhead. Thank you, convener. Just very briefly, I'll quickly look back in terms of 2016 and the tourism industry. I'm delighted that the momentum that's been generated over the last few years has continued. In February we launched, with the help of all the party leaders, the Spirit of Scotland campaign, which went global and some of the detail off that is in the written submission, but obviously I can go into that in more detail if you like. The events programme continued with the year of innovation, architecture and design and, as Janet mentioned, very much a collaborative effort with a number of agencies and the industry. One of the big gains that we got in terms of events programme looking forward was the Solime Cup, which is part of the legacy of the Ryder Cup. That's the jewel in Ladies Golf. Also at Visit Scotland, we believe very strongly that tourism is everyone's business, but we also believe that tourism is for everyone. In terms of inclusive tourism, we had two major projects this year, one around social tourism. We're working with the Family Holidays Association based down in Kent. We were able, through the generosity of the industry, to free up capacity and allow over 950 people who otherwise would not have been able to afford or take the time to have a break to actually do so. That is a project that we will continue to look at growing next year with the industry. We are also delighted to host the European Network of Accessible Tourism in conjunction with one of our strategic partners, which is Visit Flanders. That demonstrates where Scotland is in terms of accessible tourism across Europe. On the information provision side, our INO strategy continues. Over 700 businesses have signed up to deliver local information using their local knowledge and the passion that they have so that visitors' experience is enriched. My favourite, I have to say, is that we focused on pet friendly holidays this year. I encourage you all to go to the Facebook page of George, our ambassador dog. You can see his travels across the length and breadth of Scotland. In short, tourism is in root health. What we've seen is that GVA has grown since 2008 by 42 per cent. Employment in 2015 grew by 11 per cent to 217,000 people in the length and breadth of the country. Right now, at the moment, there's £16 billion of investment going into the industry. That gives us a great platform to go forward into 2017. Before I open up to other members, perhaps I could start with Ms Archer by asking, I understand that there has been a reduction of £100,000 in the core funding of Creative Scotland, which has effected real terms, cut of £500,000. How does that practically impact on what you do? First of all, I would say we're not entirely sure where the real term figure has come from, so we're working on understanding that. There has been a cut of £100,000, and we have managed to handle that through looking at our core administrative costs, which we'll reduce in order to accommodate that. We're budget assumptions and not that that will be passed on to the organisations or individuals that we fund. I understand that you have been asked by the Scottish Government to deliver a separate and enhanced screening within the organisation. What are the budget implications of that? We're working those through, so we're working in partnership with Scottish Government, Scottish Enterprise, Scottish funding council and with Skills Development Scotland to identify how we might map out what that screening unit will do, what we can all contribute to it and how we want to phase it. Clearly, if we're going to build something new and ambitious, we need to do that incrementally in a practical way, so we're currently working through that process in detail. I should have said at the outset that, as well as your own organisations, there are a number of cultural organisations that have submitted written evidence to the committee for which we are extremely grateful. One of the things that comes across it in that written evidence from Scottish Shopra and others, who are, I understand, obviously separately funded from yourselves as national companies, was the issue of one-year funding versus three-year funding. I know that you give grants out for three years to some organisations, and that's very much appreciated. If your own funding is on a yearly basis, what are the challenges of that? What we do is give planning figures to organisations over a three-year period with an annual funding agreement, which is subject to review every year. If budgets change year on year, then obviously that gives us the scope to be able to change funding agreements if we need to in response to that. What giving planning figures does is it enables an organisation to be able to look at how we can use that to catalyze other opportunities elsewhere. I've already referenced the £109 million that comes in against our £33 million. It gives a much better confidence for the kind of conversations that organisations need to have to be able to look at how they can use our money to catalyze over and above what we can do directly. That's why we offer organisations the scope to be able to do that. With the larger companies, and I should say, while I don't have, we Greater Scotland doesn't have direct jurisdiction over those companies, my personal experience is very much in that territory. With larger companies, they have to plan ahead because they have to be competitive with other players in different parts of the world. So to secure the right casts and the right productions, you have to be able to plan often three or five years, hence, if you are operating in that large-scale opera context. They made that point very well in their written submission. Thank you very much. I'll hand over to my colleague Lewis MacDonald MSP. Can we turn that last question around a little bit and just ask both organisations what more would you be able to do if you had a three-year funding horizon when you knew with certainty what your funding arrangements would be over a three-year period? I'd be happy to take that. From our perspective, we internally do look at long-term planning because, similarly, if we're looking at major events, very often you can be five years, ten years in the gestation period. Likewise, on the business events front, you could be bidding today for a major conference, but you won't actually secure that conference for maybe, say, five, six years time. So we do look at what our forward commitments would be, and then we build that into the planning side. Right now, actually, as an organisation, we are going through a process of looking beyond 2020, so we are looking to see where will the tourism world take us, how do we shape up for that in the future, which markets should we be in. So the funding is certainly an element of that, but I don't think that that should stop you from doing the planning. From our perspective, it would enable us to manage risk, so risk management is an absolutely critical part of any business. If we had a greater level of surety in terms of the forward look, that would enable us to identify what the challenges are and look at how we can build up solutions within that, within a proper planning framework, as opposed to having to be reactive on a year-on-year basis. What you described in answer to the community's question was a process where you reach essentially indicative agreements with people whom you are going to fund for periods of more than a year, and then review them depending on any change in the funding. Has that thus far led to you cancelling or reducing any funding as a result of changes in the funding coming to you? The funding has remained stable. There's one instance of an organisation, you will remember the arches in Glasgow, which was not in a position to continue, not just because of our funding, but because of the wider market that it was playing into, so its business model shifted because it wasn't accessing the same level of income as it had in the past, so that's the organisation that has come out of the portfolio. We started off our three years with 119 organisations, and then very sadly there are now 118, but everybody else unless Ian corrects me is on the same level of funding as planned, and as I say we're really pleased that we're able to go into the third year of that commitment and we're able to honour that, and that's given those organisations a sense of stability. It's given them I hope a sense of confidence, which is tremendously important when one is trying to maximise over and above what you get from any public funder, and I suppose it's worth pointing out that one of the things that came through a very early piece of work that we did in the creative industries which looked at the barriers to success for Scotland's creative industries, interestingly one of the things that came through quite strongly through dialogue with the sector was confidence because of the volatility of the environment that people were playing into, and it was felt that if we could shore up a sense of confidence then that would give people a sense to lift themselves up into new ways of doing things, and so you can't scout the validity and the importance of having the ability to be able to plan. Do you have concurrent cycles where as you say 100 organisations are going into year three, but there are year two and year one, or do you simply have one cohort that you're managing on a three year by three year person? One cohort just now, we've just opened up for applications for the next round, so that would be from 2018-2021, so the deadline for those applications is at the end of March, and obviously many people are now planning their applications and business cases to us, which will come in, will then review those and make decisions at the end of next year. Can I ask visit Scotland simply a very similar question to the community's opening question, which is given our real terms reduction in funding, does that mean that there are things you're not able to do in the year ahead that you might have done had funding remain steady? That one, to look at the history to answer the going forward, is that we've operated an efficiency programme for many years. Last year we achieved savings of £1.8 million against a target of £1.2 million. These savings were largely in procurement, organisational change and asset utilisation, so from 2008 we've saved £17 million over that period of time against a target of about £8 million to £9 million. We've got a history of being able to make savings, and we'll look to continue that as we go forward into this year. Currently we've just finalising some property deals in Inverness, working with Scottish Ambulance Services on High, and that will save our organisation in excess of £0.25 million a year. We're also undertaking some property deals with Highlands Council, and that will save us another £40,000 a year. So what we have is an on-going programme of operational savings that we'll run through into next year, and that will help to compensate for any real term reduction. That's something very close to a 20% reduction over eight years. Clearly there's a point when efficiencies become cuts in things you want to do. How close are you to that point at this stage? Firstly, I'd just allow me to say that we too are delighted with the outcome in terms of flat cash, which is what we received. From our perspective, we've put a lot of effort in. It's not just been an overnight project. We've been looking forward, as Ken said, over a number of years as to how we can maximise the efficiency of the organisation. In many ways, it's all about how we spend money as well. In terms of media buying, we've become much more proficient, we're much more exact in terms of looking at what works and what doesn't, and hopefully you'll see that from the written submission in terms of the returns of those investments. As channels change, we're able, through procurement, to negotiate better rates, better deals. I think to be perfectly frank, it's about managing your business properly, and that's what we do. To date, we've not cut back on anything, and looking forward to next year, we don't see the necessity to do so either. Can I bring in Tavish Scott now? Can I ask a few supplementaries to those? I always love this phase asset utilisation, because that usually just means closing something, doesn't it? The TIC at the north end of the Kessec bridge would be a good example of which is all over P&J a few weeks ago. That's what we're talking about, isn't it? I mean, I quite understand it, but that's the reality of these things. You've made some decisions like that to save some money, isn't that, Patricia? I think the, well, let's go back to the information provision strategy, which is where that emanates from. What we've looked at is where's the best usage of the investment that we make. That's where, working with the industry—we have a very good relationship, for example, with National Trust in Historic Scotland—who have bought into this whole programme, so we're helping them train up their staff so that they can deliver the information. It doesn't make sense to have properties in places where they're not fully utilised, particularly when you can actually extend the level of information provision through other means. That means that we are able to take any savings there and reinvest those in, for example, digital provision, mobile provision, because it is actually about a mix of channels, so part of it is about bricks and mortar, certainly. By and large, the world is moving towards mobile technology, and we have to move with that if we're going to be relevant and salient in that particular space. I totally understand that, but on bricks and mortar, Fort George is a big brick and a lot of mortar. Have you got a long-term view of what's going to happen there in the context of how important that is as a tourism facility over the next 20 years? Well, I know that. There's a lot of people involved in that particular area in Fort George, and, clearly, conversations are still on-going as to its sustainability. Our view is very much about if there are attractions that are attractive to people, we would like to utilise those to the maximum effect. Okay. A couple of questions, if I may. I take in the answer to the earlier questions that you were getting that both organisations would rather you had three-year settlements. A perspective. It just makes life a lot easier in terms of looking forward, in terms of planning, but we are where we are, and we deal with that as we do. To have, as you well know, Malcolm, we've been in a long time at this game. We used to do three-year settlements in government. We're not doing them now. We'd rather not this year. No, exactly. The other side to it is, do you have a view about whether the timing of the budget, which this year is incredibly late, did that create any internal challenges in audit or accounting terms for either organisation? Not for us, no. No, no. I suppose I would just add that I've been used to working in an environment, and in other bits of my working life, where longer settlements have been in place. But even then, if there are pressures, then changes are made in year on year. I think it's incumbent on all of us to be adaptable and to be able to be able to work within that kind of environment. I totally understand that, although Scotland always makes some observations about in-year transfers and in-year changes from an auditing point of view, if never mind from a parliamentary scrutiny point of view, but I take that point. Final question I wanted to ask, convener, was the submission from the National Museums of Scotland makes a point about Scottish Government pay policy and the impact of that on their organisation. Would you have a similar observation in that they simply observe, as a matter of fact, that Government pay policy continues to apply and it generates additional pay costs with no additional funding to support it? Would you concur with that view that the National Museums of Scotland have forwarded to the committee this morning? Again, from our perspective, it's how we manage our business. We're aware of the pay policy, so obviously we build that into our planning. And for us, it can at times be challenging, particularly in the instance where we've taken on effectively what we might call a project through additional funding. We've built in stuff into that project, and then there becomes a point when one either has to choose to extend a contract and make those stuff permanent or sadly have to lose them, which is clearly not what you want to do if you've built up expertise within an organisation. So, it does generate some complexity, but we manage it. I'd like to ask Malcolm Ruffhead. In the draft budget, the Government stated that it will work with our enterprise agencies and other tourism stakeholders to promote South of Scotland as a tourism destination. It also says that it recognises the particular challenges faced by the region, its communities and businesses. I just wondered if you'd like to expand on how you're going to allocate that funding and what you believe the challenges that communities and businesses face are in the South of Scotland? In terms of funding, we don't break up the Visit Scotland budget by region. Otherwise, I don't think that you would get the maximum benefit of the money that we invest. We do work incredibly closely with Borders Council and also down Dumfries and Galloway. We work with the industry there, and just recently we've had the Borders tourism conference. For me, going forward, what I would like to see is a very clear strategy across the region that actually details what it is that we're trying to achieve collectively, because it is about people working together. It's not just about individuals and individual organisations. We have to have common goals and objectives, and then we can look at how we deliver that. A great example was the Borders railway, where there was a group who came together, part of which of our organisation that they belonged to, they had common goals and objectives and clear accountability and responsibility, and I would like to think that that project was a great success. It's not as if we don't already engage with the local authorities and the industry in that particular area, but what we can do is be a little bit clearer about what it is collectively we want to achieve. That you are going to set out a strategy, I just wondered what you felt that the challenges that we're facing this either Scotland for it to be singled out within the draft budget? I think that the challenges across the whole country, and I don't think that they're particularly different from, say, the islands or the islands. A lot of it is about getting people to work together, it's about creating critical mass, it's about looking at the attractions, how can we utilise those to maximum effect, it's about accessibility into the area and around the area, it's also about making sure that their voice is heard. Using the platforms that are there, some of them will be delivered by Visit Scotland on their behalf, but there are others, obviously. That's what I mean about a cohesive plan, so it's pulling it all together. There's lots of various assets around the place, but I just get the feeling that they're not working together, so therefore we're not getting the maximum benefit from that. Finally, when are we likely to see the strategy set out and do you have a timeline for this? We're only just beginning to talk to both local authorities. At the moment, we've already worked with the authorities, so it's much more about pulling the various players together, which we'll look to do in starting next year. I understand that Dumfries and Galloway local authority do give you funding, but in common with the other local authorities, I don't think that borders does give you funding, is that correct? No, we did receive, I think it was £47,000. It's not on the same scale as Dumfries and Galloway? It's not on the same scale, and therefore the level of activity is commensurate with that scale, because what effectively we are doing is acting as an agency on their behalf. Dumfries and Galloway, I think, put in about £130,000 into marketing activity. They were able to benefit from the efficiencies that we as an organisation, given the expenditure that we have, are able to negotiate on their behalf. The returns on that are actually in the written submission, but also some of it is about the softer side, it's not just necessarily about the money, it's how we work together, and it's also about looking at supporting the industry to come to the fore and work closely. This year, I was down in the Scottish Borders, and there were two different tourism groups. Would it not be better that there were one? Instead of dividing the effort, you're actually coalescing. I mean, this is, to put it in context, this was a manifesto commitment. I'm sort of very much aware of that as the south of Scotland MSP, and there's, I think it's fair to say, and I've said this to you privately, as I'll say to you publicly, there is a feeling that perhaps, you know, like since the formation of Visit Scotland, there hasn't been the attention certainly on Dumfries and Galloway, that there had been in the past, that certainly the local perception. Are there any other questions on the south of Scotland before we move on to Ross Greer? This is just a brief and perhaps slightly silly question, but just to clarify, what area are you defining as the south of Scotland? Is it those two local authorities in Fries and Galloway and the Borders, or does it expand beyond that? That's part of the reason why we haven't started, because as far as I'm concerned, I don't think the final area has been defined. Emma Harper. Just a comment. I have done some work with Doug Wilson for South Scotland, and I, like Rachel Hamilton and Joan McAlpine, are from South Scotland, but it's just that people keep telling me that Borders is different from Dumfries and Galloway, and as long as we can highlight that there are actually, you know, people from Dumfries and Galloway don't see themselves as Borders and vice versa, so that needs to be kind of clear in the way it's marketed as well. I think people from Kelso don't see themselves as the same as Huyg. Ask, obviously, with the tourism stream moving into Ms Hislips portfolio, previously it was in the economy portfolio. How do those plans match at all, if at all, with the plans to create a South of Scotland enterprise network? Will you be working with this South of Scotland enterprise network at all, or will you be completely separate from it? No, no, we will be part of that. We always have been. Wherever we've sat, and that comes back to what I said earlier in my pre-rambl, if you like, which was about tourism's everybody's business, wherever we've sat and whichever portfolio it's been, we've always worked with the cultural organisations, we've worked with the heritage organisations, and we've worked with the enterprise agencies. So from our perspective, you know, it's not any different. You know, we will continue to work with everybody. Thank you, convener. Just a few questions predominant around tourism, but the first one is probably for both of you, actually. Just in terms of the, there's an additional £17.7 million for major events. And how will both of your organisations actually play a part in helping to spend that money, and also in helping to promote both tourism element and also the cultural element? Well, from our perspective, the focus is the European Championships, and we're in discussion with Glasgow Life and sit on the board, and looking at how we can build on the fantastic work that happened in 2014 with the Commonwealth Games and 2012 with the Olympics, so long-standing relationships there to grow. That's also the year of children and young people. So, of course, we're looking at how that theme can weave through, and maybe lifting Scotland into celebrating the international context that that event's taking place in, and looking at how we can connect young people from Scotland with young people from other parts of the world through that process. So, that's some of the things that we're doing in that space. I'll just endorse that. I think it's the same. I mean, the model we've taken is very much the Commonwealth Games and the Rider Cup. It's how do we work with partners to maximise the benefits of those major events. And, you know, we've got a pretty long track record in doing so, and I don't think it will be any different. I mean, with that, I can take us on to the work in my next area, and that's just regarding the Visit Scotland submission where it touches upon the countries increasingly looking to Scotland as a model of success. And in terms of the budget going forward, how much of a cost does that actually have impact upon Visit Scotland? And also, will there be any effect upon what you do there as a result of the budget that you can have for the next year? So, that's in terms of the international partnerships that we have here. Well, again, over the last decade, really, we've been building up our strategic relationships. A lot of it is about knowledge exchange, so it's pretty low cost. Other areas, though, we've been actively involved in terms of giving advice and support, so we have strategic relationships with some of the Canadian provinces across Europe, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Malta. We've put in place quality assurance schemes on behalf of Northern Ireland and Namibia. On the marketing front, we've been helping some of the European destinations to look at how they measure the impact and evaluation. Accessible tourism, I think I mentioned earlier. In that particular area, we've seen very much as a leader, but it's not all about a one-way traffic. We partner up with a number so that we can learn from them as well. The social tourism initiative, I have to say, was based on work that Visit Flanders has been doing, and they have been doing since the First World War, as a necessity post that event. However, we also work with some of the Australian states, and just recently we seconded someone to New Zealand events to help them in terms of developing their own event strategy. It's relatively low cost, but the return in terms of reputation and the knowledge that we gain is pretty high. You mentioned the accessible tourism, and I know that Visit Scotland had accessible tourism contents only a couple of years ago. That's estimated to be £1.3 billion to the Scottish economy with a 20 per cent increase. I've raised an element of that within the cross-party group on visual impairment, which I convene. One particular area is something very, very simple on braille menus. I know that there are two organisations who undertake braille menus. One is Morrison's and their cafes and also McDonald's. In terms of Visit Scotland's approach and the budget of its mind, is there anything else that Visit Scotland could do to highlight the opportunities that that accessible tourism brings and offers to the wider community? Yes. We're nowhere near the end of that particular journey. The approach that we took was very much looking at it from a business opportunity. It started off when we did the research. Somewhere in the region of £9 billion went unspent in the UK because people weren't aware or didn't know if their particular disability would be catered for. Obviously, to get industry buying because it's about perception, people think that it's going to cost a lot of money, but in actual fact, it can just be very simple things as you've outlined that make a huge difference. We built a number of case studies. People have been very successful in this particular area. It's far better. It's peer-to-peer rather than us telling people what to do. Over the last few years, that figure has now grown. I think it was a 20 per cent increase to £1.3 billion. We're not finished yet. There's a lot more that we can do. We work very closely with an organisation called UNS Guide. They've been particularly helpful, but there are other hearing dogs and etc that we do work with. We'll carry on pushing that particular message. We've got accessibility toolkits online on VisitScotland.org, but as I said, there's much more that can be done. My final question is regarding marine tourism. I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear. In terms of 2016, obviously, the year of innovation, architecture and design, 2017, history, heritage and archaeology, 2018, or the year of young people, certainly 2019 or 2020, would you think a year of marine tourism or marine tourism and wildlife tourism would be something worth considering? I would like to see something like that. I know that we've been out consulting with industry around theme cheers. There's a summary of all of that that's being pulled together in terms of what the industry feel and what the types of themes that they would like to see going forward, because obviously, they have to buy into this. I think that there is definitely support for that as a theme going forward. Does that mean that you consider, obviously, the huge increase in the cruise liner traffic in Scotland, whether it's on the west coast as well as, obviously, up in the Northern Isles and also with the increase in the recreational boating and folk also coming from the Scandinavian countries into Scotland? There is a huge, huge opportunity there, as you know, as I've been knocking on the door and pushing the door open for quite something. I work and thanks to a good self and the cross-party group, I think a lot of good work has gone into the marine strategy, which is there now. Sales Scotland, I think, is in a far better place, but it's not just about the coastal waters. I mean, we have, you know, our inland waters, and if that theme were to merge, I think it would be really good, actually, if we could build that and integrate it into whatever takes place. Okay, thank you very much. Richard Lochhead. Did you have a supplementary? No, Richard Lochhead. Thank you. Just as Stuart McMillan very predictably raised marine tourism, I'm going to very predictably raise whisky tourism in a second or two. Firstly, let me thank Visit Scotland and Creative Scotland for their contribution in 2016 to what I feel is a very vibrant arts and culture scene in the country at the moment. Tourism has got a huge buzz and, you know, it's phenomenal to witness as I did in the sky during the summer, so a lot of good things are clearly happening and that buzz there has to continue, hopefully, for future years. What I'd like to know, though, is in terms of the budget pressures that are going to continue, given the pressure on public finances, what is the private sector doing to help boost tourism in Scotland and the creative sector? I look at the Scotch whisky sector, for instance, so we're exporting 34 bottles of whisky around the world every second, and I wonder what's the Scotch whisky sector and the multinationals behind much of that doing to promote Scotland overseas. Creative Scotland clearly has, hopefully, found a role for the private sector to contribute to our arts and culture as well, so just to get a feel, there's also debate over tourism levies taking place in Scotland, so what's the private sector doing to help? From our perspective, we've obviously found an organisation called Arts and Business Scotland which is set up to encourage private sector investment and to help organisations diversify their income streams and do some very proactive work in that space. I think there's more that we could do. I think we could better understand the way that the organisations that we fund have connections into the private sector. Clearly, some of our large cultural organisations have fantastic relationships with the private sector, and you see sponsorship coming to into festivals and programmes of work. I think there's more that we can do to build on that, so what we want to do is to convene a conversation with a representative group of individual vigils from across the private sector who have indicated interest in taking this forward to build a platform to move on from. There's lots of different things that can be done. It's not all about cash. Some of it's about expertise, some of it's about space, some of it's about networks and brokering opportunities for conversations that can benefit the different ways that Scotland's creative businesses work. We're absolutely pointing towards that. In fact, at our last board meeting, we discussed the need to develop a really strong sense of what our development strategy needs to be from within Creative Scotland, so we're working on that at the moment so that we can take it forward. On the question of whisky tourism, we have seen a growth in terms of visitors to distilleries across the country, and I think what's encouraging is that there's a growing realisation actually that tourism is good for that industry as well. Having said that, we work very closely actually with a number of the distilleries, and if you think about malt whiskies in particular, there's always a kind of backstory to the actual brand itself, which is very helpful in terms of feeding into some of the narrative that we have around positioning Scotland, so if you think of the Corrie Fragg and all those kind of things, it's a very rich, rich history that goes with it. At a corporate level, we tend to work with distilleries, particularly overseas, when we're doing events, so we bring people in. It's all part of the food and drink proposition that is often at the centre of what we're doing. On the other level, I wouldn't forget that actually these distilleries or organisations are bringing in many distributors, sales agents, some of their own staff in terms of incentive trips, who then go away as ambassadors for Scotland. I think that it's looking at it in the round, and looking at it from a slightly different angle rather than just, you know, are they bringing visitors in? They are, but in a slightly different way. I think that the Scottish whisky sector is doing a fine job in Scotland, and the most popular visitor attraction in my constituency is a whisky distillery. However, I was really wanting to know what the chief executive of Perno Rechard, the chief executive of Diagio, is doing to work with Visit Scotland to promote Scotland overseas. Well, I haven't had that conversation with either chief executive, but I can't tell you, we do work with their subsidiaries overseas, and I haven't been an employee of Diagio. I can tell you how difficult it is getting through the various corridors, but we do work very, very closely with them. A good example would be the Macmillan, with Edrington. I do a lot of work with them in North America. We do work with some of the other brands in Asia, slightly different. It all depends on what their relative strengths are, and obviously we are there to work with as many as possible rather than just a few. In fact, actually what you do tend to find is that some of the smaller distillers are much more proactive, because they are trying to break into markets rather than defend the market share. In many cases, it is horses for courses, and you also have the Scottish Whisky Heritage Association, who are also pretty active and tend to represent all of them rather than individuals. However, it tends to be malts that have the attraction. I will leave the message with you and maybe some potential there to engage at the highest level in some of the multinationals to promote Scotland overseas. I can ask one more question, which is for both organisations. In terms of your budgets—perhaps this is more for Creative Scotland—from previous conversations, we ascertained that a large part of Creative Scotland's budget in terms of the grants go to Edinburgh, and I would be grateful if you could clarify that, and then address how we support the rest of Scotland and the cultural and artistic events there. We have more organisations in Glasgow in our regularly funded portfolio now than Edinburgh, so balance across two cities, but increased amounts of work supported across the rest of Scotland. We have seen quite significant shifts, both through the regularly funded portfolio, so we are reaching out into more local authority areas than we had previously, both at Creative Scotland and through the Scottish Arts Council, and through our open project funding, and we have just announced open project funding awards in the last few days. If you look at that release, you will see that our work is reaching out into a really broad range of different kinds of places, and we have committed to that as part of our investment strategy and will continue to mobilise funds to as many places as we can. The challenge is always what do you not do if you want to rebalance and even out how you invest funds, and that is always a big challenge for any public funder. Clearly, we want to build on our strengths, and that is vital if we are going to amplify and maximise the investment that we have. I do not know, Ian, whether you want to add to any of that in terms of data? We take the responsibility to work across the country very seriously. If you look in our annual review for 2015-16 that we are just publishing, figure 18 of that contains a local authority breakdown, and we will track that year-on-year to understand where there is movement. One of the bits that lie behind that is the capacity in different geographies of Scotland to make applications that end up being successful. When you look at the volumes sometimes, the application numbers are actually quite low, but the success rates are quite high in relation to them. Part of our job is working across the country to connect with people and make sure that people have a good understanding of what the opportunities are and how we can help them to get a better position to make those applications. That is all open application side of it. We also have a strategic programme around place-based working, where we have time-limited strategic partnerships with different parts of the country to work with the local community there, the local arts and creative community, as well as the wider public and the organisations in that area, to try and see how we can help work with them to see a step change in the offer in their local area to build that capacity and give rise to a ripple effect that flows into the open applications that we have. You will see in our project funding that we have funded the Shetland Folk Festival, the East Newk Festival, the Scream Machine, which is a touring cinema that travels. We are very focused on wanting to reach out to everyone in Scotland and not just focus on Edinburgh and Glasgow. The final point is, do you think that the issue of a tourism levy in Edinburgh, for instance, or indeed Glasgow, would help to address some of those budget issues? Very quickly, from my perspective, the industry view is that they wouldn't like to see a levy, given that they are looking at it from a competitiveness perspective. I think that you would have to look at what is the business case, how would it be distributed, where does it go, transparency around the whole thing. Before the industry, we would be looking at that in a serious manner. From a cultural perspective, clearly getting to a point where there is a recognition of the inherent value that culture offers in respect of tourism and understanding the interdependencies and making sense of that is clearly important because it is going to be vital for us to find solutions as we move forward, not just in the next three years, but in the next 10 or 20 years, and clearly a levy could play into that. I think we will understand the sensitivities and maybe there is a way that we can work together to open up that conversation in a constructive way. I was quite struck by the submission from Festivals Edinburgh, where they broke down the income from ticket sales, and they also broke down the VAT on the income from ticket sales. I was quite struck by that given that we are getting an allocation of VAT in Scotland in the future. Do you think that that will change the context of the budget debate, particularly for the hours, when you see the amount of tax revenue that we are raising? I think that it is something that should be explored. Remodelling and looking at how Scotland can maximise the new powers that it holds is absolutely critical in this mix, right across the piece, not just in terms of taxation, but potentially also in terms of what can be done in relation to the contribution that artists make to social welfare and health and education. Are there ways that one can incentivise a greater contribution from artists? For me, in the cultural space, it is about not just seeing the arts and culture and tourism as a drain on resources, but actually looking at what these industries contribute back on a societal level and an economic level, as well as a cultural level, and changing the way that we look at things so that we can make proper sense of that. I have some other questions that I was going to ask later, but I will just ask it now. There was another very interesting submission from System Scotland, where they talked about exactly what you are talking about, about the social value, which, of course, is one of the Scottish Government's priorities right across its budget, tackling inequalities to make Scotland fairer. In the paper from System, they had commissioned a piece of work by Glasgow Caledonian University into a part of their project, which showed that there was actually a negative cost over time because the actual money that you saved from investing in these young people in terms of education, in terms of perhaps even in the future criminal justice, meant that there was no cost. It seemed a very interesting piece of work, and I wondered whether you had done similar pieces of work in your projects. We have not done a similar piece of work, as such, because System is one organisation, and we have plundered many organisations and individuals. From my perspective, we have been sorting out the resetting of Creative Scotland, which I think we have done successfully, but we are now in a position where I think we have to look forward at really understanding how culture and creativity can play into prevention in a societal and look at what it can contribute in terms of society and disaggregate the value of what that actually offers. We most definitely are looking at that as something that we will think about doing. It is complex when you are looking at the overall ecosystem of both publicly subsidised, but also the organisations that sit within the creative industries that do not receive regular public funding. Of course, there are many more of those, so some 14,000 businesses operate in the creative industries. They all contribute back on a societal level and an economic level, and it is absolutely vital that, as the national funder and development agency, we have a proper understanding of that. Yes, it is the short answer. It is something that we are very interested in. From my perspective, we have been looking at social, economic and reputational impacts of events, which was the catalyst again for that in 2014. I mentioned earlier the social tourism project that we have been running throughout the year. Again, we are looking at the health impact in terms of attributing a cost to that, because clearly that is about well-being. I think that what is quite interesting is that tourism is no longer being seen in this one-dimensional way. People are actually saying how it can deliver social good, if you like, which has perhaps not been the case in the past in terms of people's perception of the industry. If I might just add a line, it is the interdependency of all that sits within the art space, which will always require public funding and everything else that we need to properly understand. We also need to tell the stories, I guess, of value in a way that has resonance. One point that struck home to me was that I went to the Glasgow Women's Library to meet with a group of young women who were volunteering at the library and one of the young women was reflecting why she was interested in culture as something that she wanted to pursue as a career. Her father was in the medical profession, so he was a consultant in a large hospital. She had effectively studied science all her life, but was passionate about the arts, had a chat with him, talked long into the night and resolved that she would come to the conservatoire in Glasgow because that is where her heart lay. The rationale behind that was her dad saying, when it comes to the end of life, which is what I deal with, I ask people what they really want to get out of their existence, things they want to do is go and see a show, read a book, watch a film, commune together with other people and celebrate human existence, and that's what adds value and that's what helps people, not just the people who are about to die, but the people who are closer to them, their families and friends, that's what makes sense of them as human beings. That's why she decided to go into a cultural life which they saw as being absolutely pivotal to all of us. It's been able to tell those stories as well as the hard data and numbers in a way that has coherence and connection that I think is really important. Do you have a supplementary? Just a quick supplementary, really. Richard Lochhead has described the whisk industry success in his area and Jin has been a great success as well recently. I just wondered if there was a way to promote or have you planned to promote that in the lowlands Scotland as well because we've got a great history of whisky and we've now got two distilleries and a gin distillery at Newton Stuart, so Anandale Bladnach and Crafty Gin, so would that be part of the promotion plan to help support the south west of Scotland? And craft beers. You also have some fantastic craft beers. You can tell I'm not a gin drinker. Absolutely, but that's all part of the asset base, so it's taken all of that and what it is is it's looking at what's unique to the area and promoting that and obviously I mean the rise in gin's been phenomenal across the country and I think we are now the gin capital in terms of production across the UK, so all of that adds together to give when you take the sum of the parts it actually means that it's a much more attractive proposition so we will be building all of that into what we do. Very quickly, a budget question looking at the level four figures for the for visit Scotland. Capital budget is reduced this coming year. Now the Scottish Government's tag says this capital budget is for refurbishment of the estate and for investing in the digital strategy and ICT resources, so where is that reduction coming and again what's it what is it reflecting a plan reduction in spend or is it simply investing less in the future strategy? Well, we're still really to commence the allocation of that into next year's budget and programme just now. What we have is we do have a budget put aside for a refurbishment programme that won't run through capital and that money's secure in there in terms of just a maintenance ongoing preventive maintenance. So what we'll look to do with that money, currently there's two potential projects that we'll look to do. One would be in Edinburgh where we would look to do work in the Princess Street VIC, which is by far the most used VIC that we have across the country and the other one would be actually looking at again the digital infrastructure that we've got in terms of the organisation and look at the what's called the DMS and the CMS, some of the underpinnings of the website. You've had flat cash for the last couple of years, you're not enjoying that this year, so which of those is likely to take the hit? I think we'll probably be able to do both. We'll just need to really plan it very well, let's make sure we can run that through. Okay, and a more general question for both, which may have an impact on the agencies, certainly has an impact on the sectors. We've had a low value pound in the last few months, there's not much that's predictable about the wider economy in the next few months but one thing that's a fair guess is that the pound will continue to struggle. What's the impact being thus far on the sector and is there an impact on the agency and I think that's really for both. Well impact in terms of fire ability to operate overseas is relatively limited because at this stage anyway the bulk of our expenditure is in the UK and a lot of the contracts that we have have been signed in advance so we haven't been immediately impacted by the variances. In terms of the industry, yes, I mean the strength of the pound works both ways, it means that it's a bit more expensive for people to leave these shores, you won't hear me complain about that and therefore you know the attraction is to stay in Scotland and around Scotland and obviously in terms of people coming into Scotland it makes it more attractive as well but I think the you know what we have to remember is that you know short-term currency fluctuations are no answer to long-term strategic and sustainable practices and so whilst we take advantage of it on a tactical basis I think we do need to look beyond that and look at our competitiveness overall which is not just about price. From an arts perspective, 80% of our organisations work internationally. Clearly there are barriers in terms of some of the work that takes place in other countries, touring internationally is becoming harder. We've actually commissioned some work which we've published on the impact of Brexit so that's available on our website if you want to reference it. From a screen perspective we are seeing enhanced numbers of productions wanting to come into Scotland, into the UK and taking advantage of the tax credit which is great and so that's obviously fueling more employment opportunities in Scotland when productions come in for crews and so on so that's the positive side. Just finally, the Government has announced plans to reduce air passenger duty. What are the likely budgetary impacts likely to be on your different sectors in your view? We've had a look at some of the average prices, it's always very difficult of course because airline pricing fluctuates according to demand but we had a look at markets which are new so India was one and if you took the average current price into London from Delhi and transferred that directly into coming to Scotland it would take about 7.5% off the price that a visitor would have to pay. Clearly the biggest part of our market is still Europe and 60% of the international visitors come from Europe so the impact is perhaps slightly less and lessened because obviously the duty itself is not as great on the ticket price but it certainly has a positive impact. And so clearly we welcome that too as I've said cultural organisations trade internationally quite prolifically and I suppose we haven't done the numbers but we also of course do a level of international travel directly ourselves as a staff in brokering opportunities for the cultural sector to function and so one could look at how that saving is going to reflect in terms of contributing towards the £100,000 that we've lost from our grant in aid. I'm not quite sure whether that would offset it completely but it would certainly contribute towards it. I know there are some supplementaries but the cabinet secretary's arrived so I'm going to have to suspend the session now but thank you very much to our witnesses and we'll have a brief suspension before our next witness. The item of business today is an evidence session with Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Europe and External Affairs on the Scottish Government's draft budget for 2017-18. Welcome Cabinet Secretary Fiona Hyslop, Bettina Sizeline, Deputy Director for Tourism and Major Events and David Sears, Head of Sponsorship and Funding with the Scottish Government. Thank you all for coming to speak to us today. Can I open with? I understand looking at the draft budget that the 2017-18 draft budget shows a cash increase of £2.4 million in the total external affairs budget and in real terms that equates to an increase of 16.2 per cent. I also understand that the European line of the budget has been reduced now in the context of Brexit and many people looking at that on the surface will find that rather surprising and I wondered if you'd like to comment on that. Okay well the external affairs budget includes manifestal commitments which have been realised particularly around international development and humanitarian aid so the strategy that was produced and published yesterday by Alasdor Allen on international development is supported by an increase of £1 million to £10 million in terms of the external affairs budget and also we have a manifestal commitment that's covered in the budget for a new funding line of humanitarian aid of £1 million so that covers quite a lot of the increase in the budget. In terms of the changes if you also look in terms of the level four that was produced for you you'll notice there's a new line that wasn't there previously for the Brussels office and if you look at the European strategy line and the Brussels office line you identified that actually there's an increase in terms of activity because clearly as we know we've had to readjust not just for next year but within the year in some of the changes that we've had to deal with in making sure that we're geared up to deal with the consequences of the European referendum and our engagement in Brussels so there's a new line for the Brussels office which is where a great deal of the European strategy funding now is located. The other thing to refer to is the fact that previously prior to May the culture and European external affairs strategic function sat as one unit what's happened since the election in May culture now lies within a different part of government and enterprise and the external affairs line and in terms of organisation is separate we used to have one directorate we now have two directorates so some of that funding that had previously been in that line would be between the two areas so the net the important thing is there is a net increase in resources available to support our activities for European activity post Brexit it's just organised in different lines and the new Brussels line which is over a million pounds is a new line. I'm sure that's very welcome. In terms of this committee's previous scrutiny of the budget there were some concerns by the previous committee about underspends in the budget and also miscellaneous allocations of the budget to other departments given the situation with Brexit is that something that you think will be eliminated in the future? Well if you absolutely specified everything particularly for this year you know for this portfolio which is I remember relatively in terms of expenditure smaller portfolio budget compared to other areas you would not have flexibility to for example deal with a European referendum result that we did not want you know you have to have flexibility to be able to deal in the year and also the evidence I've given previously to the previous committee was the fact that we can actually mobilise more resources across government by being flexible across government some areas whether it's climate change, climate justice or indeed working with other departments enterprise for example in certain areas some of the changes in the year last year which obviously you're not discussing last year's budget but this year's but last year in particular round some of the issues round advice on immigration etc identifying where's the best place to do that some of it was in relation to business for example so some of the last year's changes was working with some of the enterprise lines to transfer some of the business advice for immigration in relation to talent skills was transferred over to enterprise and similarly if you think about relations to local government support for refugees some of the issues around the migration line that's moved so it's not they're moving for good reason they're moving for flexibility and it's not always one way sometimes we can get flexibility back as well and I think that's the point of it I know you I know I've got to be accountable to the Parliament in terms of where the spend is but in a budget such as ours it's not large amounts of underspend but it allows that flexibility for movement but when there is change in movement in year I'm more than happy to make sure that the committee is aware of when those movements are happening or certainly in order for you to track what that that is. You've answered my next question, my next question was going to be about the migration budget line which had reduced slightly and we've obviously taken a lot of evidence in this committee about the importance of migrants but you're saying that's moved to different different departments. Just before I move on and invite colleagues to come in you'll be aware that a UK level of the leaked Deloitte paper advising the UK government about the implications of Brexit and it warned that another 30,000 civil servants would be needed which is really quite eye-watering. Given what they outlined to the UK government as to the impact on bureaucracy and also budgetary impact is that something that you're concerned about that you know that presumably that will have a no-con effect here? If they need 30,000 additional civil servants presumably there's a resource implication for ourselves as well and also if the UK government does have to hire all these additional civil servants will there be Barnett consequentials for Scotland as a result of that? You'll be aware that the Scottish government doesn't have powers in terms of the civil service that's still a reserved and retained responsibility for the Westminster government but clearly if as a consequence a direct consequence of a UK government decision which the EU referendum and obviously then the subsequent result is and it requires additional resource to deal with that a lot of the areas as we know have impact particularly around if you think about the devolved competencies agriculture justice fishing health education all the different areas where there is some European competence that we need to identify what we need to do as a consequence gearing up of the UK civil service in terms of numbers would have a direct consequence for us and therefore the responsibility as a direct result of the actions of the UK government in causing the consequence of the activity that Deloitte has identified subsequently denied by the UK government but I mean everybody recognises the amount of resource that's going to be required there should be a consequential I would expect in terms of how the civil service resourcing could have an impact for Scotland how we've organised ourselves and we've worked very very hard to ensure that cross-government that every department clearly is going to be impacted by the decision and even the activity to date has been involving every part of government so even my cultural side of my portfolio will have been involved and has been involved in identifying some of the issues that are concerned and they're involved including on tourism as well in terms of the strategic work activity and the thinking and publication of the document of this week that activity has been primarily led by civil service in my department and obviously might rustle as the minister for UK negotiations has been very much part of that from a ministerial point of view but we have got very good and talented people we've been had a European focus for some time I've tried very hard I've related to previous committees here is to ensure that cross-government we have always had a European dimension and aspect of what we're doing to have that awareness so I expect every part of government to be involved in the consequences but as you point out if the if this department says this committee wanted to help argue the case with the UK government on resources for staffing and civil servants that would be a very welcome proposition from this committee should you choose? With the committee that for example negotiating trade deals for example if it's all done at UK level what happens to your Scotland's interests who's in there representing Scotland I'll just hand over to my colleague Lewis McDonnell. Thanks very much and in relation to Europe in particular one of the front doors if you like for communities around Scotland is the provision of structural funding and I know you hopefully responded to the community last week in your letter about where we are with some of the structural funding issues so I just wanted to pursue one or two of those points and first of all the issue of the current programme the 2014 to 2020 programme for European structural and investment funds clearly we're halfway through that period and it appears that the level of commitment is still less than 50 but what I was interested to understand was what level of spend there has been so I think the numbers in your letter say that 383 million out of 800 million or so has been committed but I was keen to understand how much has actually been spent and where that all stands. Clearly I provided one letter covering the budget which is my understanding was the subject for this committee's session was on the budget but I know that the convener had asked about additional information I'm not responsible I'm not the lead minister responsible for structural funds so I think if you've got any further questions to that which was provided in an annex we just provided one government letter in response because of time to the committee but in terms of the structural funds issues I'm more than happy to collect your your your your issues and concerns and questions and get the appropriate minister cabinet secretary to reply to you. I think that would be helpful because I think I understand the point that the the day-to-day responsibility for this area lies with Keith Brown but but clearly from the point of view of the government's accountability to this committee and as a member of the cabinet you will be aware of some of the issues that have arisen around European programme funding and I'm sure I'm aware of some of the anxieties around where we stand with the current programme. In terms of our general government approach we're very conscious of the one the importance to ensure and the commitment for their spend and particularly the allocation and the responsibility of the UK government for the period 14 to 20 and also recognising that the potential difficulties that we're anticipating because of the Brexit vote will mean actually in terms of the economic activity making sure we've got a stimulus early in the period as we did if you remember during the 2009 recession one of the things that we did was bring forward and front load some of the the European funding to help deliberately and very decisively to help counter some of the recession issues around about that the 2009-10 period and so that's a kind of general approach but in terms of the actual spend levels I wouldn't want to mislead you but because it's not an area that I have direct responsibility for. Fair enough and completely understood. I wonder one other factual question in which you may be in a position to answer in relation to this is the question of when because we've had the UK government's assurances those have been reiterated by the Scottish government but when will the gate close for European funded projects will it be 2020 or will it be 2019 is that one in which you are able to give an answer today? I think it depends and it doesn't depend on us unfortunately the ball is most definitely in the UK government's court as to what they would do and when they would see exit and what type of exit they would want and whether they would want anything that has for example if they were in whatever the solution they come up with but if there's continued commitment to involvement in any of the funding arrangements of any shape or form then clearly we'd expect something further and the real problem we've got is as of now and this is where I probably have more direct responsibility or understanding is in terms of if there's an exit that is before 2020 then clearly and it's a clean break and it's a hard Brexit and that's the end of everything nobody will be anticipating necessarily any continued funding streams unless there's arrangements made for things like very important to us horizon 2020 or some of the other erasmus interreg all the things you know things we think are good programmes and why we want to continue that relationship but that would very much depend on whether there is a the type of exit that they negotiate whether there's any transition programme whether there's any phasing but the problem we've got is if there is anything further and I think it's in Scotland's interest that we can be involved in as many of the useful structural funds and other funding like horizon 2020 that we can be the negotiation period for that will be starting much much sooner into you know and in 2018 etc so that we're already as of now things that whether it's another area that this committee is also been interested in digital single market or other areas we want to make sure that we're maximising our position come what may and the negotiating clout or influence or impact that UK government can have is already rapidly slipping away and that would be to the detriment of Scotland asking you to look beyond where we can see at the moment is it your understanding that the commitments that have been given around structural funding for the 2014-20 programme are for the duration of that programme regardless of the precise date of access I would say that's my my understanding but the actual financial commitment is still a lot to be desired and I think that's the area where actually the UK government has not given us as firm a commitment as we need in a lot of these areas but as I said I'll get Keith Brown to give you more information to the committee if that's an area but maybe perhaps your clerks could collect the areas of interest and we could follow that up in the new year. Thank you very much that's pretty sure. Tavish Scott, was yours a supplementary? Right okay a supplementary. Can I just further to Lewis MacDonald's question just clarify that the issue of structural funds has been as it were repeatedly or repeatedly but regularly discussed at the intergovernmental meetings that have been taking place and that the that Mr Russell's been informing this committee of? Well in terms of the structural fund I think might Russell's involvement in the UK government has been about the negotiation on Brexit. Alistair Allen has been attending the joint ministerial committee on Europe which is related to the on-going you know some of this is to do with the on-going and that's why it's really important that we don't you know we don't think everything is just about the Brexit situations how do we make sure we don't lose ground between now and the actual UK you know UK leaving unfortunately and I'll unfortunately I think the time attention that UK government is placing on the regular work and the continuing work until 2020 or otherwise has not been at the level it should have been and it's something that you know we are impressing and we will continue doing part of our responsibilities to keep them to pace on the existing items and there was a there has been problems with the holding of the joint ministerial committee on Europe there has been one since the the EU referendum but my concern is that has not been given the attention it needs to and that's where the structural you know the issue of the on-going issues around the structural funds should be addressed the issues I think where you may be getting to is what would their future relationship be in structural funds would be an area that might Russell would be involved in in terms of what might come as a result of that and I think again I a lot of the thinking I think in Scotland is ahead of some of the thinking that's elsewhere and we know the importance of you know horizon 2020 your committee has done a huge amount of evidence gathering on that and a really useful job to identify kind of areas where whatever happens we want a continued relationship and I think drilling down on some of those inter-eggs quite an interesting one because it's one where other countries other EU countries have an interest in working with us horizon 2020 clearly because it's not just financial it's about as we know it's the relationship that people have with the the the fantastic academics that we have here so I think doing more work from the committee and and and keeping pace on what the UK is doing on that and from what we can provide you with our understanding of what the priorities are but I think we maybe need to separate the difference between the day-to-day operation of the existing relationship and what the future one might be but I just think I mean they're providing now a running commentary so it's all very entertaining to watch in the sense that they used to say they weren't going to have a running commentary and now they absolutely certainly do but my other my other supplementary was the convener's questions earlier on we've obviously had creative Scotland and visit Scotland in front of us just before now and they both not so much argued but certainly would welcome a return to three-year funding to provide that continuity across government and across their work does the government plan in overall terms to get back to something I think we all in principle agree with which is an approach to finance which is on on the basis of three-year funding rather than year-in-year settlements my understanding that's we want to be able to return to this this is a very unusual year for lots of different reasons our election late autumn statement and the consequences of european referendum so but we're very conscious of the the importance of being able to plan ahead a lot of the organizations are planning ahead on a particularly cultural organizations on the their arranging years in advance of what they're doing and we've tried and I've tried as a culture minister whatever the challenging circumstances to try and give them a sense of stability so that they can have we can try and support them as well as we can do and so that stability has been helpful but obviously it's easier if it's over a longer period but you know that's not a decision for me that's a decision for the finance secretary and the cabinet more widely but from my point of view I would argue in favour of that for particularly for our organizations what's interesting about the culture brief in particular is most of the resources go out the door immediately in terms of organizations and companies and and they have you know they haven't to rely on different funding streams not just us but actually having um Scottish Government underpinning gives them confidence therefore to go out and seek other funding from philanthropists private donations whatever and we're very conscious of our role in that thank you Emma Harper thank you convener um good morning cabinet secretary and everybody um you mentioned about the international development and humanitarian fund um and i'm going to read from my notes just to make sure i get my numbers accurate it says the international development fund accounts for a large proportion of the external affairs budget and it's been increased from 1 million to 10 million so i'm wondering what the objectives of the international development fund are and how this increase in budget will be spent and also how the new fund of the humanitarian fund how will that operate and then complement the international development fund we just published yesterday Alasdair Allan published the international development strategy it's been subject to consultation through the best part of this year and it may be an area that the actual policy side of it you might want to come back to with Alasdair Allan at some point in the future what has happened is we've identified that you know the commitment to Scotland internationally in terms of charity international development is very very strong and the commitment of this institution and its parliament to Malawi and the people of Scotland to Malawi is very very strong and it's something that you know we value it's not just about tackling inequalities at home it's also about tackling inequalities globally and it was a commitment in our manifesto the i suppose that the to give you a kind of what is different shorthand is that we have focused on four countries previously there were other countries we were involved in indeed this committee in its previous iteration had previously said like you know you're spreading yourself too thin there can concentrate relatively small amount in the big scheme of things obviously international development is the different budget is far far far bigger than anything that we have but the areas that we're concentrating on Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Pakistan particularly in relation to education and women so that's the kind of focus we're having in that a lot of what we're doing again is trying to work additionally with other areas I referenced earlier for example the climate justice fund isn't funded from here it's funded from another part of government I was always clear that that should be separate and additional some of the things that we're doing around climate justice for example that you know we were the first country I think in the world to to commit to the climate justice fund and allocate funding there but that's a separate part of government it's not in this budget but also in terms of the millennium goals and how we can deliver on those both domestically and internationally and a lot of the focus will be on on women as well and some of the work we're doing particularly around peace reconciliation we've been identified as an area by the United Nations we've done some training and work with Syrian women and one of the reasons is because this parliament as a whole had a strong commitment to women and democracy and we have three women leaders and that again was one of the reasons why the United Nations were keen to to work with us on that work connectivity as well on humanitarian fund I mean clearly you'll you'll be aware that just within the last few weeks the Scottish Government announced funding for Yemen and sorry to make sure that we can provide our support in that activity why is that important because when you've got a deck appeal the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal we know from experience commitment from government can be an encouragement for other people to give and it's well over a million pounds has been donated since that deck appeal was launched just the other week from Scotland I think it's 11 million UK wide previously when there's been humanitarian disasters I've had to identify for the Philippines or other areas where the Scottish people want the Scottish Government to step up to the mark we've had to sometimes have to go to other parts of government and it's quite difficult sometimes in tight budgets and you know there may not be the underspends that there may have been in previous years everything very tight and our ability necessarily to be able to deliver humanitarian support was really getting quite stretched at a time when actually it would help particularly around disasters emergency committee appeals and we work very much across the Scottish committee and obviously in timing with the a deck appeal from the UK so it was felt that we better to have it as a standalone fund but again as the Dallasers the lead minister in this area so I'm sure at some point the committee will want to engage with him. Do you think there's an understanding amongst the wider public out there that Scotland already contributes to the UK international development budget through its taxes so what we are providing in Scotland and what you're providing in Scotland is in addition to that do you think there's an understanding of that? I'm not sure the degree to which there is but I think there generally is I think there's an expectation that Scotland is a humanitarian country it has internet I mean I'm not saying that the rest of the United Kingdom doesn't but there is a if you look at the responses from Scotland to international charity work is very very strong and the commitment I think I think what's interesting about Scotland is the personal commitment of people to people activity I mean the interest what interests other countries and I remember speaking to a former European commission international development commissioner that is that because we cannot provide and don't provide funding direct to government because we're as you said international development is reserved and we're not able to do that a lot of our international development work is agreed certainly with other governments like Malawi but it's not direct to the government and it's project to project but our civic reach is phenomenal the Malawi reach I'm sure everybody around this table will know people in their own town villages and constituencies that have a relationship with Malawi in some shape or form and the activity now also looking at Rwanda and Tanzania will be important as well there has been some criticism in the more rabid aspects of the the tabloid press of the UK's governments funding to some other governments do you think that the fact that your money goes as you've said directed projects direct NGOs that it's actually from a budget point of view is actually easier to track where the money is going and the outcomes that you're achieving as a result of that then perhaps with the UK where there's large amounts of money going to foreign governments I think it is and I think that's also again I remember speaking to a former international development minister foreign Commonwealth minister in Whitehall at the time where they were withdrawing funding from the Malawi government directly for example and they were interested in our our model and how we did that and how that perhaps during a sort of interim period they could actually do something similar in terms of their activity and that's also I think what the European Commission was interested in is the people to people and the organization it's more sustainable the relationships as well are very strong I'm not saying you can replace it and you know that I'm not saying that I would change a model that you couldn't provide funding direct from the UK to governments but it is an interesting model and I think that civic relationship is really important because some of these issues are not necessarily just around providing for example as we are currently support for hardships the Malawi floods for example some of the kind of issues that we've an additional funding we've been finding this year to try and help support that it's not just about that Malawi has been issues around the state and the standards of prisons mental health issues again areas where actual relationships between professionals have been very important and so actually it mobilizes different parts of civic society to think about what they can provide as well and a lot of it interesting the climate justice issues that have been coming through as well have come through relationships that universities have managed to to provide and identify as well so and they're also looking at lessons there in the projects that people are very interested in and a lot of the issues as we know around international development it's about sustainability and particularly around how you can have sustainable resilient communities and some of the things that like for example tackling some of the issues around HIV and AIDS in Malawi is actually about civic society and relationships and power relationships as well that are going on in terms of the position of women so empowering women has been a very important part of what we've been doing but we've been doing it very much with people on the ground our challenge probably is how you monitor that effectively because obviously any international aid has been monitored effectively and with what is a relatively small budget in the scheme of international development in the world I think we would be rightly criticised for spending too much time and too much resource on administration and what you really want to do is make sure your spend is impacting on people directly I think the UK can learn from that approach that you're taking I think they're interested in our approach but obviously you know our job is to share where we've got good practice but I'm not going to underestimate the fact that we have many many effective professionals operating and working out of East Kilbride where Difford is located and they are interested in what we are doing but I'm not going to preach to them but I'm sure that when we have the opportunity to share we can and we will okay Ross Greer it was on the international trade hubs that the Scottish Government's announced or the First Minister announced the opening of a trade hub in Berlin and I was just wondering if that will have a very specific focus as a trade hub or if it will have a wider focus more similar to the North American and Brussels offices that come under your remit cabinet section. Part of my wider responsibility is to make sure that we're promoting Scotland internationally in whatever shape or form and indeed in my visits internationally I always pursue the trade agenda very very strongly indeed and particularly around some of our very strong export opportunities around food and drink etc which is and food and drink have been remarkably successful and particularly in the European market and that's some of the challenges we have actually post Brexit is around the food and drink sector in particular. We've recently opened a hub in Dublin the activity has been very much to try and reinforce and emphasise the activity we've been doing around Irish relations in terms of the opportunities around trade of which food and drink is one but there are others energy different companies activity in the First Minister and visit very successful visits Dublin recently it was energy was one of the key focus for input and development so in relation to all our our approach to innovation investment hubs clearly there's an economic drive but a lot of the economic activity will depend on some of the relationships you can have with government as well that will vary from country to country so it's less so in the States but it's absolutely the case in other countries like you know if you're doing activity in other countries where the inter-governmental relations are really important and having a ministerial visit or ministerial connections can make a difference for for their investment so I would expect the Berlin office to cover yes business but also culture creativity as well in terms of our international relations that's as important as what we can do have a hub for that and it we also have for tourism again a lot of our work if you look at with STI they also work with Visit Scotland a lot you I'm not sure what evidence I didn't hear all the evidence from the previous session but Visit Scotland itself obviously is operating a great deal internationally in terms of the marketing so it's the innovation investment hubs how can we get better value for everybody and provide a hub not just for government but also as a landing base for those that are operating on for example universities huge opportunities for them perhaps again restricted by what's happening in terms of brexit but you know we want to make sure that we are open for business that we are trying to pursue as much investment opportunities and activity as we can and also inter-governmental relations can be important as well and having a base from which you can then have that activity is very important indeed and that goes for the London hub as well because clearly that that will also provide a focus for us and how will the success measures beyond economic measures be observed? It's a good question but not an easy answer because obviously in terms of diplomacy or self diplomacy it's not something that you necessarily broadcast shout about you just get on and do and it's about the activity and the relations of how you can then have good and successful relations with with different governments some of it is on policy common policy issues and so for example you know particularly in relation to France you know I've met twice with the European Minister there a lot of the focus has been on education and culture because they're very keen to continue the agreements and the understandings that we've developed with them but also it's an opportunity for us to to have exchanges about common interest so for example in my previous my last visit to Paris I also met with the head of their refugee and immigration service who was looking it was just I met him in an empty it was an empty shelvin office where he was just he'd just been appointed to gear up with gear up how France was going to deal with the large influx of refugees and they were interested in what we were doing as well in terms of our activity in supporting refugees and the community and social aspects so you know how do you measure the success of that that sharing of information sharing of knowledge sharing of experience and sharing of common agenda and you know you could and you know people write extensively about soft diplomacy and soft power I don't particularly like the phrase but you know again how you measure that is a big challenge but you know having over 20 governments represented in this parliament during the culture summit during august I think is a very good sign of the value in which Scotland has held both in a government sense but primarily in a cultural sense so putting a kind of pound pence measure on some of these activities I think would be misplaced but I think it's worth saying are these things important to us yes they are can we have impact in terms of the profile of Scotland yes you can measure it through the adult brand index for example Scotland's positioning but actually some of these things are more far more subtle far more and I think is the Scottish Parliament and indeed the Scottish Government has developed over the last period since 1999 where we are now in our international relations is night and day then obviously where we were in 2000 and that's a sense of the maturity of the institutions and the relationships and the credibility and the integrity and experience that we've developed and that counts as much for this parliament and the committees of this parliament as it does for government just finally very briefly with our relationship with the rest of Europe changing are there considerations to expand the number of trade hubs particularly in eastern Europe and Scandinavia well I've asked us on to pursue our Nordic Baltic strategy and policy thinking because there's great opportunities there that we need to to further enhance I'm not going to commit to hubs and locations and buildings but with a doubling of the number of STI staff in Europe that's a key indication of where we want to be but we've been very clear that if we can achieve a doubling which we have London Brussels reconfiguration and Berlin that would be a strong statement in that direction thank you thank you Stuart McMillan thank you now good morning cabinet secretary so there has been an additional 17.7 million pounds in the draft budget for major events and how will this money be spent and also how will the government measure the impact of that money and the money previously assigned to major events I was quite upfront in the letter that I sent to the convener because you know on the face of it you might see oh that's a very big increase for your budget line that's good for culture heritage but you know the two big items and that one is the census and as Stuart you've identified is on the major events now clearly there'll be a gearing up as there was for the Commonwealth Games for example of the budget line support events so we have the Solheim cup and we have the European Championships in 2020 and these events you know we'll see over the next you know until their delivery a steady increase in terms of the funding for that in terms of the impact again I would refer to you how we've measured previous activity around for example the Commonwealth Games but you know these are you know big events we are expanding our tourism and our opportunity to showcase Scotland as a place to come for the perfect stage for for major events and there's a challenge because you know having had the Ryder cup having had the Commonwealth Games we've actually done very well at achieving big big events and that's been a cooperative from previous governments as well because if you remember in terms of starting to try and pitch to get major events you're starting way way much earlier than the actual delivery of the events so in terms of the this area we've allocated funding that's required for that in terms of the monitoring of that I expect an interest from this committee on that and also at some point referring to the other big budget line on census as well we'll work with you as to how the committee wants to be involved or to know the progress of the development of the census as well but it's early it's still quite early days in relation to that but you know again it's something I'm sure we'll come back to as it goes on but this is the first year where you see a major shift in terms of the gearing up for that event or those events right? In terms of major events going forward I posed the question to Malcolm Rothhead in the previous session I know it wasn't particularly a budget related question but I know it's something that you and I have discussed in the past as well in terms of the targeted years also the next year being the heritage and archaeology 2018 year of young people but certainly beyond that it could there be a thinking from the Scottish government to have a year of marine tourism or marine and well-lived tourism and then but also to have some target that as well with some marine events some of the larger events that potentially could take place. I know the members keen interest in marine tourism and chopping of it the same years have been very successful in fact this last year of the year of innovation, architecture and design the amount of tendencies at the different events as you far surpassed those that we expected and of course I think it just reflects that actually there's a real kind of cultural connection with people in place and the buildings that we have in Scotland and there's been a huge number of very successful events and it allows everyone to to provide focus on what they can work together it's quite a challenge doing one every year so we're thinking about whether that would be a model that would want to continue. 2018 is a big year it's quite an unusual year it's a year of young people so it's cross government and Mark McDonald who is the he's the lead minister for that year in particular it's been co-produced with young people we may be the first country in the world to actually have a year celebrating our young people but it's also an opportunity to say actually Scotland's a nice you know great place to to live work study bring up your your children but also to visit and I think you know perhaps the the doerscotts and children should be seen and not heard view of our our culture will be smashed to pieces in 2018 when we you put young people centre stage and I'm very keen from a cultural position we have that but also for families visiting and it also allows people to think about a family approach to holidays and activity and what can be what can be done going forward I think the suggestion of celebrating Scotland's marine tourism is a very good one and the only question I'm kind of resting with as well and there are other candidates that we're looking at as well is how do you do something that reflects all of Scotland and we've got a very extensive coastline but perhaps something that reflects is our canals and our locks and our rivers as well might share share the celebration and the opportunity but there's a lot in terms of our outwards exploration a lot of the activity marine activity really really strong a lot of challenges for tourism post brexit and so maybe the opportunity to try and reinforce those activities that work very well there I'm I'm committed to the themed years I want them to continue but the shape of form of them was yet to resolve that's more of a policy issue but again in terms of the commitment in the budget the budget is still there and of course we're about to enter the year of history heritage and archaeology and there's lots of happening all over and I would encourage everybody to go on the Visit Scotland website identify what's in their own constituency and if you can help promote that that's a great step to help tell the story of Scotland so that at any time of the year in any place of the year tourists can either from within Scotland or from the rest of the UK or the rest of the world come and find out the amazing story that we have to tell and just that one final question for me because I know that she's yeah just very very quickly because I'm trying to bring in Rachel Hamilton has a question it's just a once again it's on the marine area just regarding the cruise ship tourism and the wider opportunities there I know the Scottish Government are committing funds through the city deal projects set across Scotland and the and there are even greater opportunities inside that in that cruise sector market and do you think the Scottish Government has got the strategy correct in terms of helping to promote that wider and that wider opportunity for Scotland I suspect this is a rural versus city approach to economic development and tourism and I think we have to try and help support both so which is why for example in our manifesto we've got a commitment to the south of scotland tourism in particular I'm very conscious of it I'm also very conscious that throughout any of the city deals that we need to make sure there's a strong culture heritage and tourism aspect but of course city deals the impetus and the focus and the priorities for that should come from the local government itself and the cities themselves but the way I'm very conscious of my responsibilities is that actually I think in terms of my portfolio is the one portfolio that probably reaches every single part of Scotland from the most remote and the most rural and the most coastal to obviously our burgeon vibrant tourism cities so the answer to that is yes I'm very conscious of that bichill Hamilton I'd just like to go back to the migration strategy budget and I understand that 150,000 has been transferred to COSLA to the migration population and diversity team which will help them with their immigration advice and policy support however that leaves 480,000 to actually spend on promoting and attracting talent and skilled individuals to live study and work here. How do you propose to support Scotland's workforce planning and in particular that's important in the hospitality and agricultural industry in Scotland? Primarily by trying to persuade the United Kingdom Government not to have a hard Brexit and to go forward with a proposition that supports single market membership and freedom of movement because yes we want to have development of our own young people and also people returning into the area in terms of the capability for skills but when you've got something in like 50 over 50 per cent of our hotels and restaurants not just in Scotland across the UK staff by EU nationals the most immediate thing we can do usefully to make sure that we've got the skills pipeline that we need is actually the policy area as opposed to a budget area it's a policy area of persuading the United Kingdom to ensure that we can continue to have freedom of movement in the single market and that's a proposition that we put forward this week so I know this is a budget session but that's probably the biggest impact that we can have in relation to the other activity part of that can be about promotion in country but with the best will in the world how can we advertise to encourage more people to come to Scotland to live work and study when the Prime Minister has yet to give commitment to the EU nationals that are living here so I think a lot the solutions to this has to be you know the reality check of what the real the real drivers are here are we'll continue to try and make that promotion as much as we can to encourage people so for example for universities that we've made the decision that we would honour the tuition for those European students applying for years from the year 1718 and we made the decision very early about 16 17 but it also had impacts on that so you know the open for business we still want you to come to work and study is still there but the power and issues how do we how do we get to a situation where we can support our tourism industry with over 17 percent of the wider tourism industry dependent on the EU nationals that's the one thing I was speaking to the Scottish tourism alliance only yesterday and that still is their biggest biggest concern so we've got to I think put it in proportion that will continue our business as usual promotions but it really needs a policy position and I think the you know the problem with to is amazing has she lost the moment and had she made that commitment far far earlier to EU nationals would be in a better position she tried to get the European council to discuss what would happen to you know British migrants are British citizens working and living in the EU but because she'd left it so late and by this time there was no negotiation before triggering article 50 she left in position where nobody would say anything and nobody would discuss it she could have had the opportunity much earlier and so I think we're left in the very challenging position but that's a policy you know I suppose that's a policy solution not a budget solution and secondly since 2010 11 there has been an underspend in the external affairs budget of 1 million I just wondered if you were going to address that issue and how you're going to go about it I think that reflects the question that the convener asked at the beginning is that you know this is a budget that has to respond to events and to different initiatives that can happen during in year and there has to be some flexibility within that and the the the proposed sometimes you know we don't spend for the sake of it so you know for example there may be an underspend sometimes in international development we have over the piece met our commitment in relation to nine million a year and three million from Malawi but sometimes in some years it's a you know we spend more because if people are delivering a programme and it's not ready to be delivered within that financial year that would count towards an underspend and so therefore you know some of that has to do with you know when programmes are spent where internationally and some of them don't necessarily fit neatly in the financial year so I mean there are I'm not and I'm not particularly concerned about it but I do recognise it and we need to make sure that whatever happens it's efficient and effective use of of of the Scottish budget it's public public money but we're not going to rush fund out the door just so there isn't an underspend that would be inappropriate it's important that we have effective use of spend but sometimes that can mean we have to have a bit of year-to-year movement on some areas okay thank you good morning cabinet secretary one of the most impressive pieces of evidence we had was from the artistic director and chief executive national theater of scotland on behalf of the national performing companies where she says that the headteacher of port glasgow high school attributed the 14 percent increase in attainment amongst one year group to the participation in the national theater of scotland's transform project that created large scale site specific theater in collaboration with 20 schools across the country there's many really good initiatives being carried out by the national performing companies and other cultural arts organisations taking our arts and culture across scotland into communities and I had a fascinating meeting with Sir John Layton the director general of the national galleries last week but I'm trying to persuade him to take some of the superstars and the national galleries collections to Elgin for instance and I just would like to have an assurance that you think it's really important that those who are getting the budgets are paying you attention to getting our arts and culture into every corner of scotland and that the really good initiatives that have been happening from the scottish opera or the national galleries over the last couple of years will not only continue to be being enhanced so we can get to places like Elgin and other places around scotland who perhaps not benefited as much as other places and I'm very committed to that it's also a key driver in the programme for government and from the first minister that we tackle inequalities across scotland and some of that is geographic but some of that obviously clearly is poverty and that's one of the key drivers of what we can try and tackle I mean I've seen in scottish opera for example in bonus a fantastic outreach and connection and there's probably far more activity happening than the committee might want to take a continuing policy interest in this area there's probably more activity than people realise all over scotland and also the festivals have told me that they I mean they have work across every you know every one of the 32 local authorities so the reaches reaches there but remember you know part of what we're trying to do is gear up the capability of places to take valuable pieces of work that require it tends to be not necessarily the unwillingness to to share but the capability of museums and galleries to house in terms of security and the quality what they have and what they can what they can receive so in venes for example the refurbishment in venes castle I'm very keen that museums and galleries of scotland can showcase there but there has to be the spec of that will have to be such that they can receive it but remember during the commonwealth games we had generation and as part of our kind of arts and culture legacy from that and that went to every single part of scotland so you had in terms of some of the douglas gordon it is a bit in dorna for example and you had you know every small part of and under if you look at dunun if you look at the refurbishment the borough halls again it was taken to spec so it could take the maple thorp and photographic exhibition so we're getting much better at that reach some of the challenges we have in the budget is how do we deliver with the national companies and collections when a lot of their spend particularly in the collections is on their staff and we have a large number of lower paid staff in this portfolio which is why I was very keen if we got a flatline funding has been a very good result in the context of a real challenging budget for our companies and some of the other areas of challenge for outreach will be the use music initiative has had to take a reduction this year it's been the only one of the only parts of my portfolio that hasn't had a reduction over the last 10 years and so we've now been had the experience of how efficient we can be in delivering that we have to provide more flexibility in it but I am saying to the committee there is a reduction in that line and what I want to do is get a bit more coordination that everybody is working across the country and my my tester and I had the conversation is to John Layton when I know that the national galleries and others are working in the Falthouse primaries of this world not just the Edinburgh with its Castle Bray or whether it's Craig Royston or the more obvious places that quite regularly get support because they're from they're located in Edinburgh it's Lanarkshire I want to Lanarkshire I want to the south of Scotland and other places have that work but that's quite a strain on them because you know they're also doing excellence but I come back to the point that the research has shown that young people are more likely to be audiences of the future for companies and cultural activity if they have participated not just seen something but participated in arts and culture at an early age regardless of parental income and that regardless of parental income is a huge thing for Scotland because that's the life changes that we can make for people who don't have parents who will necessarily have the capability of income wise to be able to take them to to visits. I went to the outstanding Scottish opera production of The Elixir of Love at Elgin town hall and clearly I'd like to see some of the paintings going there as well and elsewhere in rural Scotland and one local person said to me because the town hall was packed out for the production that this is fantastic this doesn't normally happen in Elgin and I would just like and I welcome your comments that you've made so far to know that the objective is to make sure that these things do normally happen in our towns and villages throughout Scotland in the future. I mean I think in terms of you know having a flatline media on and no cuts for our national companies and our national collections is a good result from the budget point of view from a policy point of view we also have a commitment in the manifesto to develop a culture strategy and part of the culture strategy you I'm looking to have it based on the principles of access and equity and excellence and actually underpinning that is a lot of what you're looking at again that's more of a policy thing going forward but again that is an impact on everybody who receives public funding will have to make sure that they're delivering on these areas. I think there's a will to do that and we just have to get better at doing it. I realise you have to answer a question in the chamber very shortly. Can I just do before you go cabinet secretary just bring you back since I was going to ask you about the youth music initiative. What evaluation have you done in terms of how it tackles inequality? There has been an evaluation that was published during the course of last year which will make sure and send to the committee. It has had a major reach and impact because it reaches all of Scotland and there are two aspects to local authority funding areas but also additional outside of school activity. What we're likely to do with the refresh we've just refreshed the youth music initiative is to provide more focus on the impacts for those you know to tackle inequalities because we know that that can have the most impact so the best thing is to send you a copy of the actual assessment of the youth music initiative but it is about opening up the world for everybody and it comes back to that point about participation it's not just seeing or hearing something it's actually taking part in having the opportunity to play and that's why you know I've been absent adamant right through my tenure as culture secretary to protect it as much as possible this year it's having to take a reduction because in order to protect the other parts of the budget at some point everybody's had to take some reduction at some point but because we've got the experience and the efficiencies of 10 years of activity we know we can deliver a bit more flexibly. One of the changes is that we're not picking a limit on p6 even just seeing it to the end of primary will provide a bit more flexibility for delivery but the impact on for young people who might not that this might be the only the only ever chance they have to play an instrument and I think is transformational and I think if you see the impact of orchestras across Scotland the changes that I now see as an MSP compared to when I first started is it used to be only those students that were studying for music exams that would be in the school orchestra now because of the youth music initiative and the demand it has it's much wider and it's become a norm for everybody and I think the numbers and reach of that so I can reassure you I'm absolutely committed to it and it's having to take a reduction this year but we're just going to find different ways of being able to deliver more effectively and be more targeted because the school based music making reduction goes from 5.8 to 2.1 million so it seems to be and that would be where most children get get access to the musical instrument no it's it's it's it's it goes down from 10 to 9 over the piece and that won't kick him because of the school year to a bit later so we'll be able to plan in advance of what we can do with it but I'll be upfront with the committee that in order to protect the the portfolios Creative Scotland's portfolio who also visit Scotland the national performing collections and the national performing is the national collections and the national performing companies I've had to take some reduction somewhere is it possible for you to write to the committee to explain what evaluation you've done about the impact that it'll have? I offered that at the beginning was that there has been a evaluation of it and there has been identification of how successful it is I'm a I'm a big supporter of it and it's one of the reasons that for the last eight years that I've had responsibility I haven't reduced it at all when there's been budget reductions right across the portfolio and across government so at some point we're gonna we're gonna have to adjust this is the appropriate time to do it because we've now had it as much learning from the refresh and the study that we've had the evaluation that we think we'll be able to do that in a way that cause the least the least impact but I go back to your point we want to focus on those young people from facing disadvantages where music can be transformation on their rise and that's actually what the refocus is likely to do okay thank you very much thank you and we'll now have a suspension we'll close the meeting rather excuse me can we agree before we do to write to us the cabinet secretary invite us to do to pursue the questions around european union funding