 Felly, nesaf i'w meddwl am y 34th gweithio am gyfnod y Constitucion eu Caerdyddol i Gweithgrifennu i Eistedd gyda Cymru yn 2023. Yn amlwg, mae'n gweithio'r ddweud o'r gyferoedd Clyr Adamson MSP, ac mae'n cael ei ddweud. Mae'n gweithio'r ddweud o'r gyferoedd Mark Ruskell MSP. Clyr Adamson wedi bod yn ddwylo'r gymnas o gymnas, ac mae'n gweithio'r cyfeithio'r gymnas, ac mae'n gweithio'r cyfeithio'r cyfeithio'r cyfeithio'r cyfeithio'r cyfeithio, gweld i ti nid i gael eu hyfforddiol yn eu gyn ë побol. Nick Hanynw, hi fyddwn i fod yn gwneud hynny. I will not be interested either. I turn now to agenda item one, which is a decision on taking business in private. Are members content that we take item three on the agenda in private? We turn to agenda item two, which is the historic environment strategy a'r sefyllfa o'r ddweud. Felly, mae'n ddweud o'r past, o'r ffutur, o'r strategiaeth o'r environmente historyiol. Mae'n gweithio i gyd, byddai Christiana McElvie, Minister for Culture Europe and International Development, a'r ddweud o'r ddweud o'r ddweud o Chris Rafferty, head of sponsorship and Historic Environment Scottish Government. Mae'n gweithio o'r gweithio i gyd. Minister, ddim yn byw i dweud hynny i gyd, byddai Christiana McElvie. Thank you very much, convener, and please pass on my best wishes to both Mark and Gleir, if you can. Thank you for inviting me to give evidence to your committee today and as our past, our future strategy makes clear, our historic environment is a national asset. Intrinsitly linked to our sense of self and national identity I know from the many questions that I have had from members over the past few weeks holds a warm place in everyone's heart for the lovely attractions and assets that they have in their own constituencies. That strategy acknowledges just how unique and diverse Scotland's historic environment sector is. Our historic environment is of international significance, designated through our world heritage sites and iconic heritage attractions that are instantly recognisable and eternally memorable. I feel that it is important to reflect back on Scotland's first historic environment strategy, Our Place in Time, which was published in 2014. Our Place in Time has had a very positive impact on the awareness and perceptions of the priorities within and outside of the historic environment sector. It provides a framework around which historic environment Scotland and other stakeholders align strategic planning and develop other strategies. However, since Our Place in Time was published, we can all recognise that a lot has changed with the sector facing fresh challenges and opportunities. We are past our future focuses on priorities that have been identified through extensive consultation with the historic environment and cross-cutting sectors, as well as communities across Scotland. For me, as a former equalities minister, you will not be surprised that participation is a key element of all that work. It is telling that those key priorities source from active engagement within the sector, aligned with the Scottish Government's national goals and targets, which include delivering net zero, building a wellbeing economy and creating more resilient, inclusive and sustainable communities and places. Now to the challenges. We all recognise the challenges around climate change, the shortage of traditional skills and the current economic climate. The need to address skills shortages within the historic environment sector has become even more important and depressing. We are all too aware of the high-level masonry issues that we have been facing as a result of worsening climate change. Of course, we need traditional skills to maintain and retrofit our traditional buildings if we are to achieve our net zero targets and maintain our building stock for the future. There is a lot of good work currently being undertaken in this area, including on the Make Your Mark volunteering campaign and at the ridge in Dunbar. To ensure that Scotland's built heritage is sustainable and promotes wellbeing, we will continue to engage with the sector to understand the ways in which we can support actions around our national targets. I want to make it clear, convener, that the Scottish Government continues to recognise important contribution that the heritage sector makes to our economy and our wellbeing. Against the challenges of the financial backdrop, we will therefore continue to provide funding to the sector through our sponsorship of Historic Environment Scotland to support those key areas. A key part of the work that I want to do going forward on the work that has been done in the past is about collaboration and how we work together on all of this. It is important that, as we deliver the work, we work together to create opportunities to sustain and enhance the benefits that our nation's heritage creates and ensure that the Historic Environment is at the centre of our national life. My recent work with the convener of the wellbeing board of COSLA is an example of that collaboration. We must communicate better the significance of our historic environment and the contribution that the sector makes to the economy and to the wellbeing of Scotland's people. That strategy was created for everyone, and therefore we all have our part to play in its delivery. Our past or future does not exist in isolation. It fits within the context of a number of other Scottish Government strategies, such as the programme for government, the national planning framework 4 and the culture strategy. However, we can do more with our past, our future in mainstreaming across other areas of government, and we will. That is one thing that I have taken up as a personal action to do. In conclusion, convener, it is important that those challenges and opportunities around delivering our past or future are all considered, which is why I am pleased to be here today for the open discussion and any questions. Thank you very much, minister, for that statement. If I could begin the questions and ask you about the impact of closures and restricted access. HES updated the committee last week that around 20 sites are remaining closed, and I think that you gave answers to questions in the chamber yesterday about that, that there are still sites with restrictions in place. That obviously has an effect on tourism and the local economy, and I just wondered if the Scottish Government has firstly done any analysis of the impact of closures and restrictions, and secondly, if any support is available to communities affected by such closures or restrictions? I know that this has been an issue very close to your heart, convener, and many members not just of this committee, but across the chamber. I did give a bit of an update when I answered Ros McAll's question yesterday. We have had obviously the high-level masonry issues, which resulted in 70 buildings being impacted by that. We are now at the stage where the 53 buildings were opened or partially opened. Historic Environment Scotland has confirmed to me that it expects all those inspections in that work to be finished by March next year, which is ever closer as we move swiftly through this year. You asked the question about analysis. HES is doing analysis on this constantly, and they are always reviewing. They have looked at different ways to speed up inspection processes, to get more detailed inspections completed and, therefore, to get more detailed work done, including using technology. I was along to visit Tantallan Castle in the summer when it reopened to the public and was shown some of the damage that the climate change is doing there, but they talked about the way that they have used drones to identify issues that have come up. However, getting a person up there has been much more fruitful, because sometimes the drone does not tell you everything than getting a human pair of eyes and hands on what that looks and feels like, and they have been doing much of that. All the different sites have different needs and different issues, so they have been working very closely with us, obviously, with all the sites to identify those issues as quickly as possible, to find the remedies, to fix them as quickly as possible and then, obviously, to get them opened to the public in a safe manner. That is on-going, and they update their website constantly with the latest inspection data and updates there. I would be happy to give you and the committee that website in order to access that information as it is updated, because it is updated quite swiftly, so keeping in top of it all through communications with me is one way, but the other way is to update the public through their website. In terms of supporting local communities, you might have been affected by that. What can the Scottish Government do? Much of the work that has been done around some of those sites has been with local communities. What do you want to see from your historic site? How would you like to see the access? Enabling people to understand why it is safe or it is not safe, and asking them how they view their site. I was along at Tantall and Castle that day. Many members of the public there and I asked a few of them who had climbed up to the parapets the same as me to get the view of the damage that you can see coming in and off the sea from there. Many of them were saying that it is a really great place to come and visit. What is interesting is that what I found is that some of the issues that arose was that tourists knew a bit more about local sites than maybe local people did. Some of that educational work about what is on your doorstep and how important it is. During the pandemic, those sites became really important for people, because for most of them it was a daily walk. It was getting to know that it was in your community. I think that that is really important at that point. I made in my open remarks about participation and how we work with local communities both to inform them on the process of what has happened with inspections but then to inform them on how we are reopening and making them safe and how they can use them in a safe way too. Secondly, can I ask you about the phrase managed decline, which is mentioned? You referenced climate change and the transition to net zero in your opening statement. Is managed decline of sites basically letting them decline or degrade naturally? Is that part of the Scottish Government's strategy as far as you are aware, or is it something that you would like to avoid? It is not a term that I have ever used and it is not a term that I have heard since I came into this job in March. It is a term that I have heard and spoken about, but it is not from the people who are managing the sites, I have to say. There is a lot of positivity. Yes, there are challenges, but there are so many opportunities. How we use those opportunities to both give people a sense of their place in their own communities but also for Scotland on the international stage. I mentioned in my open remarks as well about how Scotland is viewed. Everybody knows Edinburgh Castle, Stirling Castle, the Wallace Monument and the iconic ones, but some people do not know what is on their own doorstep. Doing that work with people locally is important to that, but managed decline is not the attitude that I have seen from this. It is very positive with opportunities to raise awareness of what is happening in all of these sites. To use them as examples as well—I will go back to Tantall and Castle, because it is a very tangible example of that. When I was there, they talked about repairs that had been done in the past and the methods that had been used to repair in the past, which was quite a rough-looking cement. However, the sandstone around the cement had degraded and worn away, and those big chunks of cement were sticking out. They were looking at ways to look at that. That did not seem to manage decline to me. That seems secure in all of those sites for a future and a future in which we can use them to their best ability. Can I turn now to questions from colleagues? I begin by asking Alexander Stewart to ask questions. You spoke in your opening statement about the effective engagement, collaboration and partnership. I think that those are all vital. Last week, we had the opportunity to hear from Alex Paterson and Dr Jackson about the effectiveness and how they believe that that is crucial for the strategy to succeed. However, one of the difficulties that has arisen is that there is not really an effective engagement sometimes through local authority. Some local authorities may well be supportive and others are not. There was talk about trying to achieve the local authority-historic environment group. That did not succeed in becoming a structure that was used. That is seen as a potential barrier to the engagement within local authorities. Can I ask you how important that role should be for local government? With them working in collaboration and partnership, it works well, but if it does not, there is a gap. That gap creates the complexities for the sector. The strategy will then not succeed if there is not that co-operation and engagement taking place. I agree with you that participation is incredibly important. You know that the strategy was developed over the summer of 2022, with participation at the heart of that. It was not just in Historic Environment Scotland. It was the Scottish Government. It was built environment forum. It was many other organisations and people who have an interest, and there was a public consultation at that point as well. We then published, or HES published in there, let me get the report name correct. You said that we did the report, and that was a way to convey back to people their ideas that were engaged with that whole consultation process and how important they were and some of those issues from people not knowing what was on their doorstep and then getting to know what was on their doorstep came through that. However, I mentioned in my response to the convener about my intention to work very closely with local authorities. Many of our properties in care that HES looked after are also looked after by local authorities. I have a share of the role in my constituency, for instance. It is incredibly well looked after by South Lanarkshire Council. That is one example. You will all have examples in your constituency of where that is the case, between local government and historic environment Scotland. Therefore, the Scottish Government becomes incredibly important in that. However, one of the things that I wanted to do when I committed to that role was to reinvigorate the cultural convener's chairs forum, which we have done. We have now met and decided immediately that we needed to have some sort of an event that will happen in the new year, looking at how we work together but also looking at the value of culture in all of our lives. We call it the culture value summit, which is a straightforward name for that. However, that becomes very important. I am really interested in your historic environment group that you mentioned. That is not something that I have heard of or came up from many of the culture conveners that I met with them all in that last meeting just a few weeks ago. However, I will pick up that point on the historic environment group and see where that got to. If you think about big cities such as Edinburgh or Glasgow, where the historic environment is around them, most of them are working in buildings that are in historic environment city chambers and are incredibly important buildings. Some of the challenges that come if there are issues with those buildings and local authorities are involved in the clean-up and restoration and all of that. That partnership is incredibly important to me. I want to strengthen it and grow it, but I want to make it much more dynamic in how we work together and how we tackle the challenges that are coming down the road. We can only do that in partnership, but there is no way that being separated from local government on that would deal with those challenges. I will take away the issue about the historic environment group and speak to councillor Maureen Chalmers, who I am working very closely with on issues of the wellbeing board. To make everything work, we need to have the resources, the manpower and the finances. We have touched on in the past about short and medium-term financial planning for the organisation as to how it will progress. If it does not have that stability in the financial sector for itself, it is not able to achieve some of the goals that it is trying to. You have already indicated that the Government is supportive of where it wants to go, but there still seems to be quite a gap between what the aspirations are for the organisation and for where we want to see the strategy. However, that can only be achieved if there is the backup from either the funding from local government or from national government or from sponsorship or from entrepreneurs or from individuals who give legacies or whatever to ensure that—as I said without that minister—the strategy will not succeed. Areas that have all of that engagement and all of that financial support will manage much better than the ones who are on the periphery. You have talked about the centre of entertainment, maybe Edwin McGlasgow having much more of that, but in the rural area where we have many, many local attractions and institutions that I was trying to support. We have talked about the past about sponsorship and how that has managed, and people are volunteering to give their time and their talents to make sure that something is restored or kept within a community. However, without the financial backup, it becomes a mountain for those organisations to climb. It would be useful to hear what your views are on some of that. You will not be surprised to hear me saying that the current budget round is incredibly tough, but I will put that aside for a second. In 2023-24, the operational budget for HES has risen by 18 per cent to £114.5 million. That shows a level of commitment. High-level masonry issues—obviously, the budget around that has risen dramatically, too. Again, we need to invest for all of our futures. We are coming into a new budget round. The draft budget will be published on 19 December. I am sure that the committee, among many others, will take the opportunity to have their say in that. I encourage you to do so. You picked up the point about sponsorship. I think that there is a bit of work to be done around that. I know that the committee has looked at that from other questions over the past few weeks, but you have been thinking about how to maximise the income. Interestingly, HES has suggested that they have had a very strong recovery from Covid, which is good to hear because it has been hard for many people to recover from Covid, but they have seen that strong recovery coming in, too. That revenue-raising is coming up to those levels again. One of the challenges that we have with HES is the way in which they were set up in the beginning. If revenue goes beyond a certain amount, that has an impact on the money that they get from Government. They are currently working on a new plan, a new model for business in the way that they do their business. We are looking at ways in which we can build some flexibilities into that in order for them to do more about revenue-raising, sponsorship and all the issues that can arise from that, but also positive relationships that they have around the world. The Scottish Connections framework is a perfect example of how we can use the numbers of £40 million or £60 million, depending on who you speak to, of people who believe that they have Scottish roots and a connection with Scotland. There are many ways in which we can use much of that network, but some of it depends on this new business model. We are currently working with HES on how we can build on that and build on those flexibilities that allow for those things to take part. You mentioned volunteering, which ties into the point that I responded to the convener on about local communities. Local communities are sometimes the best custodians of what is on their doorstep, as well as some communities that are not too sure what is on their doorstep. However, when local communities are involved in looking after their local heritage assets, they become the best custodians in that sense. We want to encourage them to develop that further and work with HES and others in order to create those opportunities, not just for folk who have a bit of time in their hands but for young people and older people to make the places that are accessible for all of those groups, including disability groups. The amount of events that happen within Shatlerow and my constituency are absolutely unbelievable. We had a serious issue of Badger Baton, believe it or not, and we engaged all the primary skills on Badger Watch and the Badger Baton stopped. When you engage a community into looking after not just the building but the land and the landscape around it, they become the best guardians of that. We want to encourage much more of that. You mentioned opening the shortage of skills and how that has become an even more important issue over the past few years. Brian talked about the financial situation earlier as well. Understanding the key issues that are facing the sector and investment in the skills is one of those key areas. Brian Dickson, head of building's policy at the National Trust for Scotland, expressed a view that, while the review of the skills investment plan should create some positive action, there needed to be more investment in that area. He also argued that the concerns of the historic environment sector need to be more mainstream to ensure that areas such as skills training have enough support. To follow on from Alexander Stewart's question there, I noted what he said about how the budget had increased for the historic environment in Scotland and in relation to stone masonry as well. Do you agree with the evidence that we have received that there needs to be more investment in skills? There is a combination of things going on here because we have obviously challenges around the skills in that area generally. One of the issues that has arisen is creating the opportunities in which young people and other people can develop those skills. I met Graeme Dey just yesterday with the Historic Environment Scotland team, his officials and my officials, because we have been working over the past few months on all those concerns that have been brought up. With the verity review and the other work that Graeme Dey has spoken about just in his statement the other day of developing skills and skills landscape, we have been working very closely to look at ways in which we can tackle some of the challenges around that. When it comes to apprenticeships for those areas, particularly stone masonry, you are talking about a maximum of 30 apprentices a year. It is 27 sitting right now. We are working closely with Skills Development Scotland, the Scottish Funding Council and CITB in order to develop the framework. There is a bit of work going on right now to look at the qualification framework and whether that reflects professionalism and the way in which we want to hold those skills in our training formats. We have agreed to go and look at that with SQA and how we develop that professional framework. That is a piece of work that is being undergone right now. That makes the whole apprenticeship programme for people seeking those skills much more attractive when the qualifications are of those standards. That is a piece of work that we are working on right now. I met Graeme Dey yesterday on that. I do not deny those challenges here. There are challenges in how we deliver some of that work in a rural setting. You will know that Historic Environment Scotland is working with CITB and others in Elgin and in Stirling at the engine shed and the work that they are doing there. One of the conversations that we have been having is about having a centre of excellence. There is nothing agreed on this yet, but exploring all of the ideas that will create the circumstances in which people will be encouraged to commit to that role and then to create the framework in which they have the qualifications going out on the other side. We are continuing those conversations over the next few weeks with Mr Dey and his team. I am meeting with Hez next week to follow up on all of that too. It is a very live issue right now. Nothing has been agreed yet, but lots of ideas have been coming in. If you have some of your own, please share. Thanks for that answer. I think that it is clear that we do need a greater investment in skills and that is certainly the evidence that we have received. I welcome the meetings that Mr Dey is having. That is positive. I think that what the sectors are looking for and what people are looking for are more details and targets and more specifics in relation to how we are going to address the problems that are there. I appreciate that you are saying that no things have been agreed yet, but clearly we have got skills investment shortages in stone masonry, but I think as well in terms of traditional joiners, line plasterers, historic gardeners, surveyors, archaeologists. We are hearing that we need more investment in skills, but we also need more clarity from the Government as to where we are going in relation to that. If you mentioned numbers in relation to apprenticeships in stone masonry earlier, if we are accepting that there is a skill shortage, what analysis has the Government done of what that shortage is and what targets are there going to be to address them? We are currently working on that information as we speak. Historic Environment Scotland, I have recently, 13 November, engaged a new team, a programme management team, which includes a data analyst whose job is to look at all those issues and look at the skills gaps in which they emerge for Historic Environment Scotland. The other piece of work that you are looking for is within the skills sector. Rather than me trying to pull out the back of my head what Mr Day is doing around that, I will endeavour to get that information and send it on to the committee. However, for our purposes and the purpose of the strategy, we recognise that traditional skills gaps exist. We recognise that we need those traditional skills to be built into what we do. There are two million stone-built structures in Scotland, which means that over the course of the next few years, particularly with the acceleration of climate change, we need more people to be engaged in those skills areas, both to protect, repair and improve our structures. There is currently no training provision in Scotland for repair and maintenance skills in those key areas, and that is one of the issues that we discussed yesterday. However, how do we create the circumstances in which we can create the training for that? That will be about a apprenticeship model, a shared apprenticeship model and continuous professional development for people who are already qualified in those areas. We are looking very closely at all of that. The new data analyst for HES started his work on 13 November. We will give him the new year and then we will start to ask him about what analysis he is pulling out and what it is telling him. That data will then be able to inform our next steps. However, we are well aware that there is an issue there, and I think that we have HES is starting to address that with the new engagements. I welcome the answers, because we need to understand more about the actual shortfalls in terms of skills and the investment that is required. I look forward to receiving details on that. If I could just come in on that, we had very compelling evidence from Brian Dixon of the National Trust for Scotland, who said that this was two weeks ago. Even if the NTS had the finances to deliver large-scale capital works across Scotland, I do not think that we would have the skills available in Scotland to do so. I think that that is very significant. I just wondered whether there were any observations on the urgency of the gap in the market, as it were. I think that there is a recognition that there is a challenge there, and there is a recognition that we have to do something about it. I hope that there is a recognition now from the committee about the work that I have spoken about over the past few months. Yesterday, in the follow-up meeting with HES, next week, I will give you a demonstration of how urgent I see this issue and how we want to create the circumstances in which we do that. One of the things that I picked up on on a recent trip to Paris was how Notre Dame was being. It is amazing how, when you come into a new portfolio and you start to see things that become very relevant to the issues in your portfolio, you went along to see the work that is being done at Notre Dame to restore that and the way that they have engaged in apprenticeship programme in that whole project. You will start your apprenticeship at the beginning of that project and end it on that project. What a great thing to have on your CV is that you restored Notre Dame. I asked our officials in the Paris office to go and have a look at that, if there is any learning from that that we can use in the way in which they have engaged those apprentices. I think that somebody would quite like to have worked on Edward Castle or the ballast monument on their CV and the experience that that brings to them as well. It is about making that offer much more exciting for people who might not think about those careers when they are embarking on their further and higher education learning or even into jobs and apprenticeships. They might not think about those careers and that might give them an opportunity to think about the opportunities that they bring and the prestige that they bring with them. It is not just about filling the gaps in a perfunctory way, it is about making the whole offer much more attractive to encourage people to come into the sector as well, and that is the work that we are all picking up on now. I know that we have just finished building our house in the stone mason and it was absolutely the biggest problem that we had in getting people to come in and do stone masonry. Do you know if the new immigration system from the Government in the UK allows stone masonry in the skillset that are allowed to allow people to come in? Obviously, there are big gaps. You said that there are 2 million buildings that are built with stone in this country. We definitely do not allow stone masonry. Are we able to bring people in from European countries with the requisite skills to be able to help fill the gaps? That is always an opportunity and something that I would welcome and agree to. Given the announcements in the past few days on the new immigration measures that the UK Government want to take, that makes the process much more difficult. The earnings threshold is a barrier in its own but they have scrapped the list that they had of skills gaps in areas where we needed more skills. I have just said that they are going to scrap that list so that whole encouraging people to come from other parts of the world into Scotland to work on these amazing assets has become much harder. I was pleased to hear you say that you are looking at the issue of when HES might make more money, as they have been doing, that they are able to keep that money, because that is a real incentive for them to do more work. It is down to me to speak on behalf of the committee, but I think that the committee was a bit concerned in recent weeks speaking to HES and others that when this issue was raised, the idea of exploiting to a greater extent the facilities that they have, how would I put this? It was not exactly a jump upon as a huge opportunity, but given what you said and what we all know about the budget situation, surely some greater vigor and urgency around seizing opportunities to maximise income from other sources should really be, I would imagine, jumped upon by HES. Is there any reassurance that you can give the committee that that will be supported by, encouraged by and facilitated by ministers as a matter of emergency? Thank you very much. It leads on from the questions earlier about my response about the new model in which HES is developing. Scottish Government officials are working with them on that. We are supporting them to do that as the sponsorship body. They are in the throes of redeveloping that business model as we speak, and they want to ensure that that delivers a high-quality, sustainable and equitable service for the people of Scotland. What that means is to deliver that high quality, but sustainability becomes even more important, particularly in the current financial environment where everyone is feeling tough when it comes to budget. The built environment forum in Scotland has created a sustainable investment toolkit that any of our organisations in historic heritage can use. That was created on behalf of the predecessor strategy on the time strategy. That toolkit has been designed to assess societal and economic opportunities and the environmental potential of our built heritage. For HES's point of view, I explained earlier about the way in which they are made that creates some of those challenges. If they raise additional revenue, that has an impact on their grant that they get from Government. That is just a legal framework in the way in which they were set up. What we are doing right now is working very closely with them. As I said, officials are supporting them with their work. To look at the financial forecast and how that can be increased without that impact on their grant aid from the Scottish Government and how that can be disincentivised, I am not really surprised that they were not that forthcoming, because the current business model does not allow them to take full advantage of those opportunities. We are working with them right now with finance and checker colleagues to look at ways in which we can create flexibilities in which we can do that. I think that in a very tough financial environment, opportunities for revenue-raising become very important, particularly for sustainability, but also for investment into those assets. The ability for HES to hold reserves and all those things are all in play when we are looking at that. HES is also leading the way a bit on public sector reform and public services reform, particularly as a public body in the landscape in which they sit right now. We are looking at ways in which they can become an exemplar for other public bodies, looking at new and innovative and flexible ways in which they can raise more of their revenue and raise the profile and understanding of some of the amazing heritage that we have and then how they can invest that back into the work that they are doing, particularly around preserving, sustaining and maintaining those cultural assets for the future. Thank you very much for that. That is encouraging, but first of all I would say, and it is not true of all the committee, that the idea of public bodies accumulating reserves for no apparent purpose is not something that I am very supportive of, but there will be different views on that. I think that what I am really keen to see, and I think that the committee will look at this in the future, is that, given the assets that are there, it requires a kind of change in mindset so that imagination and entrepreneurialism takes place. If you think about what everyone talks about, as I did last week by B, for example, in Highlands, but the ones that are very important to people in North America from the clearances, there are also the Hanseatic League links, which parts of Scotland have got along the road, and Picardie Place, which is a link with Edinburgh, with the French region, and China. The presence of Scots and the banking institutions in Hong Kong and so on. If somebody took the sites that are very important, which are within his, and then started to look at a complete audit of what they have and also some places that they do not currently have, and if they were properly exploited, and it could also be done through fundraising, if you think of some of the corporate entities around the world that might be willing to contribute, it could transform the money that they have to develop and maintain and improve access to their sites. I suppose that what would be really useful to know is if the Government would be willing to encourage HES to have a complete, fresh audit of what those opportunities might be in relation to every site, and I know that they have got an awful lot of sites, but they could probably start with a priority list, if that kind of approach was possible. I think that any positive approach is possible. I suspect that HES has been, their imagination has been tempered by the current legal setup that they have for their operating model, and from 2425 they will have some flexibility within that, you know, which may be open that Pandora's box of imagination and how we can use all of these things. I hear you on the diaspora, the Hanseatic League links that we have with other nations in China, as one you mentioned as well, and that our new Scottish Connections framework is a great vehicle for how we use some of those examples that you have just spoken about and how we raise the profile market, you know, use the word exploit, you know, use all of those iconic, you know, in some cases, backdrops for revenue raising and, you know, sponsorship and fundraising and, you know, clans maybe coming back and taking some responsibility and funding and supporting, you know, cultural heritage in which they are connected to. So I think there's a rich seam in there that can certainly be mine and I intend to do that. I think we need to settle the issue around about the operating model to allow us to be as adventurous and as imaginative as possible. I'm keen to do that as well. So I'll take up an action from today to sit down with the Scottish Connections team and the work that they're doing right now on diaspora and how we can use that with some of those iconic and maybe not so iconic places that we can use for all of that. The question on a complete audit, I'll have to go back and check whether that's something I think the audit all the time. I think the keep track of things like that all the time but maybe your audit that you're thinking about and you can correct me if I'm wrong is about looking at fresh opportunities in which to use those that you're nodding. So let me take that away as an action in how we look at that. You'll have known by, and I know it's nothing to do with the committee last week that Alex Patterson's decided to move on, and there's an opportunity for a new CEO to come in, a fresh leadership there and maybe a fresh pair of eyes and an opportunity with the new operating model and some of the ideas in which we can use to really create our place and time in all of those wonderful assets that we've got and how we use them. That new CEO is maybe an opportunity to do that. I probably will face on record now, convene, if you don't mind, my thanks to Alex Patterson for the work that he's done because he's managed through very, very difficult circumstances over the past few years to keep this organisation moving and to keep things going, but there's always opportunities and change and those opportunities I think should be positive. I wasn't aware that Alex Patterson had moved on and I hope that the grilling from this committee last week didn't play a role in that. I'm sure it wasn't. Well, we were grateful for the evidence that he gave. From a personal perspective, I completely endorse what Keith Brown was saying about the need to turbocharge the possibilities that we all know exist around trying to generate revenue from abroad or the private sector, whatever it might be. I think that it's a really, really important and significant aspect of what we've done so far. I have a question about the very laudable aims of the strategy. In a sense, the strategy picks up on aims that should really be aims that all of Scotland is pulling together to try and deliver in terms of transition to net zero, resilient communities and building a wellbeing economy. I put it to Alex Patterson that perhaps one of the most obvious aims that he would expect, which is the preservation of historical buildings, wasn't one of the aims. He, of course, said that that's almost in our DNA, which makes sense. However, I wondered if he sensed any legitimate tension that, as Historic Environment Scotland tries to meet those aims, would that have an impact, for example, even financially, on how they might be able to expand their portfolio? They have to use their resources in terms of rightly reducing emissions and making some of their current properties more energy efficient, so that they inevitably might absorb income. Rather than spreading themselves too thinly is the point that I'm making, they can invest more in their current portfolio. I wondered if you thought that was right or that that's flawed. I don't think that it's flawed. I don't think that it's flawed. I think that there is all of those challenges, current and on the horizon of the impact of climate, on all of our buildings. I explained that situation with Tantall and Castle and the where on the building and the sea wall and the bad repairs that had been done in the past. I agree with Alex Paterson that preservation is in the DNA of everything that we are doing. That is all about how we maintain, sustain and preserve our cultural heritage for future generations. How we do that is the approach that we take in a sustainable way. That will be different for examples of the materials in which those buildings are made from. The point that I picked up with Neil Bibby about how important those skills are and how we preserve them and take those challenges forward to resolution is that, in the past 50 years or so, we have used much more different materials in ways that we build. In our cultural heritage, what we built from the ground was things that were around us in our communities that people built from and going back to some of those ideas on how those buildings were created and how those landscapes were created and using those traditional ways in which to preserve them as well. I mentioned the fact that drone footage has been used to get to places where it has been difficult to get to, but that is not the be all and end all. It is not the best way in some ways for a pair of eyes and hands on crumbling rock or whatever. That preservation is an issue there. Keeping buildings watertight and windtight is one thing, but creating opportunities in which they can be the drivers for future generations. One example that I have of that is the burrow collection in Glasgow, which is a new building and an older building. It was much more solid than the new building and some of the challenges that came with that and the work that they did in creating the new hybrid building in which they are in right now. Most of the glass is all energy, conserving glass. Not only were they excited to show me all of the exhibitions that have been in the burrow quite a few times, but it was great to hear from the curators and the way in which they did that. The other thing that took me up was up on at the roof to see their big array of photovoltaics and the way that that has drastically reduced, including the energy conserving glass, their energy bills. It is not just about making sure the fabric of the building is wind and watertight and sustained for the future. It is the opportunities in which they have got to reduce their costs and their carbon impact on the environment in which they sit and use some of the new technologies in order to do that. They have become an award for the work that they have done at the burrow and they have become a bit of an exemplar for other buildings and cultural heritage examples in which they can share that experience and they are doing that as we speak. You cannot just put things in isolation in that sense, they are all connected and they are connected in different ways. Not only has the burrow collection now got a building that is going to be sustained for many, many years in the future, they have also dramatically reduced their energy bills. A point in time when energy is probably the biggest cost impact on any building in any setting that we currently have. I think that you have one of the best jobs in government in terms of being able to see some of those incredible assets. My other question to Alex Paterson was about just expanding the portfolio. The reason I asked that first question was just trying to understand, is there at all a trade-off? I asked, obviously, there are a lot of old buildings in Scotland and it is not feasible for Historic Environment Scotland to own and run them all. He talked about the process of determining that. He also talked about the fact that he would actually quite like to change the approach that has been in recent years. He has not actually added anything to the portfolio. How do you feel about that? Would you like to see more ancient historic buildings coming into Historic Environment Scotland's portfolio or do you think that there are other owners that can run them well? I think that community asset transfer is obviously something that I have seen used very effectively right across the whole of Scotland, mainly for community assets, but you could see where a local community group with some expertise is looking after their historic assets in their communities. There is a properties and care review that is on-going right now. There has been extensive work done on that. If we take more properties into your care, it means more responsibility, including financial responsibility. In tight circumstances, that is a difficult thing to do. That is why the review of the operating model becomes more important, because if we can raise more revenue and therefore more investment, it becomes more straightforward in order to take more properties into care and look after them. Some properties in care are there because they are in a perilous state, and that is the reason why they have come in. It is about maintaining and sustaining those properties to do that. There is much more that we can do around community engagement. We have talked about volunteering and how that becomes important. We have talked about community development trusts and historical development trusts. There are lots of places in which communities can be engaged in all of that, and the issue that I raised at the very beginning of the session about participation then becomes important around that, too. One of the issues that we are grappling right now is with churches and historic churches, and many churches in small towns, particularly in rural areas, are the cultural heritage. Heads have now engaged a member of staff who is working closely with the Church of Scotland on the challenges that they have and the proposals that they have in order to dispose of some of their historical buildings, too. An example of that is the Trinity Church in Larkhall Main Street, which is an amazing building with an amazing historical stained glass window, which was removed a few years ago because it was stoned around and it started to degrade and they were worried. There is now a consultation on going with the community in that area to take over ownership of that and maintain it, both as a historical monument and to maintain it as a community asset, too. It may not be about more properties than to the care of Hesse. It may be sharing the expertise in which communities can look after what is on their doorstep. If I could just one small little one, I couldn't agree more with you on the suggestion that often visitors know more about our heritage than local communities. Even from a Highlands perspective, whenever tourists come, we always recommend that they go to certain areas or properties and ask locals, and they're not. How do you think you changed that? I think that the community is engagement locally in how we do more of that. That's one of the things I think that we will pick up in the culture values summit. It's about how do we engage communities more in what is on their doorstep and how do we get them involved and how do we get them getting fired up about them. You will hear a community if they find out that a asset is closed, which we have heard over the past couple of years. That was a bit of an earthquake in Larkhall in the Trinity Church when people went on that list and said, well, we're not having that. You can really engage people not just in an emotional way, but in a really committed way in which they can pick up some of that. I want to develop some of that work with Hesse and other cultural organisations and how do we do more of that. I think that you're absolutely right. Skills have got a huge role to play here and how we educate young people about what's in their local community. My lifelong interest in empire and slavery, for instance, was a primary school visit to David Livingston Centre when I was about 10 years old and I have never lost that interest. Now I have the real honour of taking forward that work in government now, too. Those things, for a 10-year-old, can spark something that becomes a lifelong passion. I think that it's a bit about creating the opportunities in which we can ensure that that happens. We have lots of wonderful young people and older people engaged in the local community. However, there are many ways in which we can do that. If you have ideas on how we could do it, particularly for our rural centre, please share. My mind and my ears are open and my heart is open to any opportunities that you think that we are missing. I don't know if there are any other questions. I've got a couple of final questions just on the back of certain things that have been asked. The first is to return to the question of mainstreaming, which you mentioned in your opening statement. It is a recurring theme that the priorities of the strategy reflect how the historic environment sector is delivering against wider Government outcomes such as transitioning to net zero. Alex Paterson told us last week that, if the strategy is not to be delivered by the sector only, the funding should not be constrained within the culture portfolio. What is your observation on that? Do you support the mainstreaming across portfolios, but do you also support access to cross-portfolio funding? For fear of speaking for my other colleagues in Government and a very rough budget situation that we are developing and going through right now, I will not answer that one, because I do not think that I can answer it for other portfolios. What I can say is that part of the role when I came into this job was to take on mainstreaming into mainstream culture right across the whole of Government. It was one of the roles that I had with equalities in human rights and now I see some of my own works coming back to me from other portfolios, which is always a good thing. Mainstreaming across many parts of Government is not just desirable, it is necessary. It is necessary from the point of view of taking net zero for instance, the heat and buildings regulations, which could be a bit, pardon the pun, dry for most people. I found that we had to engage with that, because that led straight back to the example that I used of the borough collection and how it managed to turn around its fortunes on that situation. That is one example. I think that I want opportunities to formalise some of that cross-Government work. That includes local government, so that is why that work with the wellbeing board in COSLA is incredibly important. Obviously, across the national performance framework, there will be an economy work, which is a huge interest of mine, because I do not think that we can have a wellbeing economy where culture is not one of the structural mainstays of that wellbeing economy, because having those opportunities to experience and be involved in and just have the imaginative input of something that you deem as a cultural asset is incredibly important to people's wellbeing. We have seen that during the pandemic, where people doing their daily walk would find very interesting and innovative ways to do that, so that wellbeing links straight into health and health outcomes. Many of the sites that I have visited have had lots of other incidental things that are going on there for the local community. One site that I visited recently was an older People's Ramblin group that was out walking around there. When I asked him what he would get from that, he said, he said, well, it keeps me mobile, it maintains good mental health, it maintains social connection, it reduces my social isolation and loneliness, so you can see right across the whole of government where that mainstreaming piece of work becomes incredibly important in everything that we do. It also makes it important in how we take things forward, and an example of mainstreaming, and Jim Fairlie will be interested in this, is that following concerns raised by stakeholders in rural and agricultural policy areas, we worked very closely with them on the draft Agriculture and Rural Communities Scotland Bill. Those conversations led to historic environment inclusion in the bill, which we probably have never been there before, but you will know from your background, Mr Fairlie, how important some of those cultural heritages are and how farmers are working around them and other things are being either grown or grazed around them, too. That enabled us to work very closely with that bill and then to preserve the historic and cultural assets in that. That is an example of how mainstreaming is important in that day-to-day creating of new pieces of legislation and regulation. For me, that is one aspect of it and the other is about the health and wellbeing aspect of it. We cannot do that without having mental health colleagues, without having wellbeing colleagues from Mr Gray's team and health colleagues from the health team working with us on all of that, because they can be transformational for people in their lives. Alexander Stewart wants to come in with us. It is about accountability and delivery of all of that, minister. Last week, we were told by Mr Paterson that all of the success of the strategy was built in. Everything was built in to make sure that that was the case. When I asked about data that was being used, what form of data was being used to reflect some of that, they were not convinced that all the data that they needed was being provided by all the groups in the sector. How is the Scottish Government going to monitor the performance of his in delivering that strategy? That was also something that we were not clear as to what the process was going to look like. I think that the engagement in the 13 November of a data analyst is an answer to your question and a recognition that there was maybe lots of data there, but how did it tie together in order to use it to focus resources or time or energy or realise there is a gap there that needs to be resolved? I think that that is an answer to that and they will monitor that and obviously report to us and report to the committee. You have that role of being a monitoring body as well and I know that you do that very well. Another part of that is about inclusion and who is included and how we create those inclusive environments. That is about making physical assets accessible, that is one thing. However, you will have noticed that all the websites and all the plans in which we have published and all the updates in which they are published are all available in Easyread and in Gaelic and in other formats in order to increase that inclusion. I think that that is maybe where some of the data gaps have existed. As much as it is easy to see a physical barrier but it is not easy to see the non-physical barriers and how they tackle that. I have put a lot of stock in this new person who is doing the data analysis. Again, as the former equality minister, I would not have been able to move forward with many of the actions that I took without having that underpinning data and what it told us and where it told us the gaps and how we resolved that. I am looking forward to hearing the first update from that person but we should let him get his feet under the table. It has only been a few weeks. Finally, I can ask you about community asset transfer, which has been mentioned. You will be aware that, in our past and future, there is a statistic that around a third of all community asset transfers since 2015 have involved a heritage asset. I was quite surprised that it was that high but I am very pleased that it is that high. However, it brings challenges for the community managing that asset. Obviously, there are initial challenges of acquiring it in whatever way, but there is also a longer-term challenge in managing, maintaining and so on. We heard evidence from the National Lottery Heritage Fund that we should consider providing a longer-term safety net to ensure that those transfers are successful. Last week, Alex Paterson said that HES has aligned its grant making to allow for greater flexibility to support community ownership. However, is there anything more that the Scottish Government can do to help communities that are managing assets in the longer term? The genesis of the community asset transfer was about community assets, such as community centres, libraries and so on. It is now moving into a new sphere, and part of that is about those heritage buildings that are sitting in communities. The Trinity Church and Lark call is a perfect example of that. When communities get together and hold their consultation to decide what they want to do with that, I met Caroline Clark from the National Lottery Heritage Church a few weeks ago. We discussed much of that and how they align their funding and grant making opportunities for communities. In some ways, a property not being in the care of a Government body can attract more—it becomes a tradisable trust or a constituent or a resident's organisation or whatever it is. Obviously, there are avenues open then for additional grant funding that might not come through Government bodies but other ways. Hearing from Caroline Clark and Alex Paterson talking about how they are aligning some of that will support people, but it is not just about money, it is about the expertise that people need in order to maintain some of those buildings. It is one thing to take on a community centre that is pretty straightforward. It is another thing to take on the Trinity Church and Lark call with the stone masonry issues and the stained glass window issues. That takes real expertise. We have all been talking about how we use the expertise that are currently in all of our bodies in order to support those communities to do that work. What Caroline Clark was talking about was some of the grant funding being attached to securing some of that, not conditional but attached to how we give people the opportunities to access those experts in those fields. On that point, when I met with Historic Church of Scotland a few weeks ago, they were talking specifically about the expertise in which they have in their organisation and how they can engage community groups and charitable trusts in the work that they do in order for buildings to be taken on by communities and maintained and sustained in that way that needs those heritage skills. Unless any other colleagues have further questions, I think that that concludes our evidence from you. Can I express the committee's thanks to you and to Mr Raftery for attending this morning? We are very grateful for the evidence that you have given. We will now move into private session for our final agenda item.