 Felly gollol â y ddechrau ei cyflawn i wneud cyfleid i gael agmall, gael i mwyaf i'r fwyllteidiaeth, gael i'n gwneud, gael i'n gwneud ar gyfer y wneud i'u sefyllfaedd cyflores ond hefyd ac i'n rai fwyllteidiaeth i gael ar gyfer mwyaf i bryd i ddechrau ei wneud i gael eylechidiaeth i ddweud i'n eu gyhoedd. Mi'n gwybod i ni o'n bwyllteidiaeth i wneud i ddigach mewn newydd Rose, While having item number two on the agenda, on the agenda item number three is a continuation of our enquiry into the economic impact of the creative industries and we have two panels this morning. I have Alan Clements who is director of content at STV. Ian McKenzie is development manager at Channel 4. Jane Meurhead is national director Scotland of Pact, the trade body for independent film, tv and digital media. Drew McFarlane is national organiser for Scotland and Northern for equity and UNANGAS, head of commissioning for BBC Scotland. Welcome to you all. Now, we have about 90 minutes or so for this panel, and we do have a broad range of topics we want to cover. I'm going to ask all members if they would to keep their questions as short and to the point. I think because there are five of you and I'm sure you'll all want to have your say, I think it would be helpful if you could keep your responses as short as is possible. I would also ask members when they're asking questions if they would address their questions initially to a particular panel member, and then if other members of the panel wish to come in and answer a question that's been directed to someone else, if you just catch my eye and I will bring you in as best as we can as time allows, and if members want to ask supplementaries they can do the same. I should also say we do have a couple of photographers here who will be going around snapping. I hope that's fine with everybody and doesn't cause any distraction. I would like to start off picking up a point that's featured in quite a number of the written submissions that we've received as a committee, and there have been a great many which I think shows the interest that there's been in the committee's inquiry. This is around the question of the relationship between the industry and the public bodies, namely Creative Scotland and Scottish Enterprise. There's quite a lot of commentary in some of the submissions that we've seen around this, just to quote from one or two of them. TRC media has said there's the absence of a single leadership role in public support for the sector. Tiernan Kelly at Film City Scotland says that he believes that the relationship between Creative Scotland and Scottish Enterprise needs immediate attention. Metaphorically, it is a failing marriage, he says. We have comments from David Griffiths, who's an independent feature film producer talking about how Scottish Enterprise and Creative Scotland have not worked well together and Cameron Fraser of Colick Films talks about the systemic neglect and the complete absence of vision from public funders, Creative Scotland, Scottish Enterprise and so on. I wonder if I could maybe start by putting this to Alan Clements from STV, because I noticed in the STV submission there was a reference to this issue of a lack of clarity at the heart of Government policy. If you'd like Mr Clements to tell us, what is the problem here? Why is this not working? Why is there so much criticism being expressed in the comments that we've heard as a committee about Creative Scotland and Scottish Enterprise? Yes, thank you. I'm delighted to address that point. Both as director of content at STV and previously as the owner of an independent production company, I think that for so long there's been a lack of focus and a lack of leadership in this area. I think that it's because Creative Scotland fundamentally has a cultural approach, which is very, very important in its own right but doesn't address the economic drivers of particularly the television industry. Scottish Enterprise, I think that it's sparing their blushes, has had a focus on other areas perhaps more tangible and areas in which they feel they're not stepping on the toes of Creative Scotland. I think that the fact that there are two quangos involved means that the minister probably feels slightly inhibited in taking indirect action. I think that the result of that lack of focus and lack of leadership to be blunt is that Scotland, and in particular Glasgow, was in a position maybe seven, eight, nine years ago to be the second centre of production in the United Kingdom. I think that it's probably fallen to fourth now behind the Salford, Manchester conurbation and I guess the area around the Severn because Bristol and Cardiff are really one travel to work area for the creative industries. I would say that we've now fallen to fourth and given Bellfast and Northern Ireland screens absolute stated determination to become the second centre of production across the UK, there's a danger that we might slip to fifth and I think that is really a very, very poor performance and a very strong indictment of public policy. I'm keen to get other thoughts on the panel on this question just to start us off. Ian McKenzie, I think that you were nodding through some of that. Yes, thank you. Channel 4's relationship with Creative Scotland, at least in recent years, has had some positive and tangible outcomes in as much as we entered into both a memorandum of understanding with Creative Scotland around development of formatted factual programming. What we're talking about there is series development, things that can return and bring sustainable business. I'll come to an example on that perhaps later that maybe relates better to one of the later questions. We also, with the Alpha Fund, which is a fund that is primarily focused on new and emergent companies and talent, had a co-investment arrangement with Creative Scotland for a period. That has now come to an end and I think that what we would submit is echoing some of the thoughts that Alan has put forward, a greater clarity around where television actually fits for Creative Scotland. Does it fit? From Channel 4's perspective, we're looking to a more sustainable and more vibrant independent production sector in Scotland and need to understand whether partnerships with Creative Scotland can continue or whether we should actually be looking to partnerships with Scottish Enterprise, which, up until this point, certainly within my role, within the creative diversity team at Channel 4, we have not entered into. Thank you. I should also point out that I'm managing director of an independent production company in Glasgow as well. I think that the independent television sector in Scotland, we feel that we fall between Creative Scotland and Scottish Enterprise and no one actually takes ownership of our sector. I also chair the TV working group in Glasgow as well. We just feel that the current levels of expertise in Creative Scotland and Scottish Enterprise, there is a lack of understanding of how our industry works. Creative Scotland, most of the funding available, is actually lottery funding and I think that that's not really fit for purpose for the TV production sector. It's maybe more focused towards film. We would just welcome more clarity of where we sit and also a greater understanding of all the products that Scottish Enterprise actually have on offer. I believe that there's actually more than 50. For any of the TV production companies to actually access any of these products, we have to spin what we want and that sometimes feels quite dishonest. We would just like greater clarity and to be able to access some of the services that are on offer more easily. I'd like to mirror what everybody else has said, particularly Alan. I'm fortunate enough in my job that I look after two national areas, Scotland and Northern Ireland. I think that Alan has tried to be helpful to Scotland putting them in force because I don't believe that they're there. I think that Northern Ireland has really stolen a march in Scotland for some time now. It seems to me that what we don't have in Scotland which we do have in Northern Ireland is one lead body who's fairly aggressive out there trying to work on behalf of the film and television production industry and that's Northern Ireland's screen. A lot of people outside of Northern Ireland would see it as a Mickey Mouse operation because it doesn't have a huge budget yet it seems to be a great driver and that's what we've lost, I think, with the loss of Scottish screen and the way it's been now metamorphised into Creative Scotland because all the hopes of an integrated structure coming through hasn't really happened and what we've seen now is Northern Ireland taking a lead in which Scotland should have taken. The jewel in the crown in Northern Ireland, Game of Thrones, Game of Thrones was looking to come to Scotland and it didn't come here because A, we don't have a body pushing hard enough, we have two public quangos and I'm not going to pour any more salt on them but we have two public quangos who don't seem to take a lead from each other and Game of Thrones looked at the infrastructure which is sadly lacking all there in Northern Ireland and I think the public bodies have got to answer that one. I couldn't comment on Scottish Enterprise but as far as Creative Scotland goes I think we've got a very positive relationship with them that spans a range of activities. We've had a memorandum of understanding with Creative Scotland since 2011. I think if I was to echo one or two of the criticisms I think it is around clarity and criteria for individual investment particularly into television projects. Can I maybe just go back to Alan Clements because I thought through my final point about Scottish screen was an interesting one. Is that something you would agree with? Do we need to recreate Scottish screen or something similar? I think that given the painful birth of Creative Scotland I don't think anybody would want to go back to revisiting that but I think if you look at Creative Scotland and we have partnered with them most notably in Fire in the Night, the theatrically re-documentary about the Piper Alpha disaster but it's not a criticism of any people in the organisations per se and I want to be really clear about that. It's a question of focus and Creative Scotland because it's a cultural focus and in terms of the industry about theatrical release it's a focus on film that they don't look at the industrial aspects particularly of TV production and the importance of that and I think when you look at the areas that have succeeded it's not only been private investment it's been the public agencies in Cardiff and in Salford and obviously the BBC itself who have done major investments in those areas and again it's about clarity and focus. I don't even think it's particularly about money it's about really knowing where we want to go and being determined to go there. I think Lewis McDonnell will have a supplementary on that. I was following up on those points and looking at the submission particularly from Tarn television which says that Creative Scotland and I noticed that Alun Clemens says well there's no point revisiting the abolition of Scottish screen but I think we do need to think about what model will work and what the feelings are and if Tarn are right they say that Creative Scotland might work better for film than it does for TV but that for a television and independent television producer it's Scottish Enterprise that they need to talk to and their questions are their concerns their experience is around Scottish Enterprise measuring essentially a creative industry with its own unique characteristics by the criteria they use for measuring other things like headcount and so on and a difficulty in finding for example flexible augment support for second stage research and development. I know Paak made some comments about that as well. Does that reflect a view in television that the bit of Creative Scotland that deals with this area perhaps does film a bit better but doesn't do television well at all and also is Scottish Enterprise sufficiently taking me into account the particular characteristics of the TV sector? Perhaps Jane Wood, what did you start on? I think that Tarn's submission actually reflects pretty broadly what the independent television sector feels in Scotland. I would actually have to stress that Scottish Enterprise absolutely want to get this right but again I think it's for Alun saying it is about clarity and focus and again when we go back to the range of products that they have on offer they're actually not fit for purpose for our industry so I think that there could be a lot more work done around about that to make their products a bit more fit for purpose. I think it's very difficult to compare a TV production company with a life science company for example. The way it functions is very very different. Development and IP is the lifeblood of our industry and focus on development and winning commissions that's what actually brings revenue which builds infrastructure and brings employment. On Scottish Enterprise in particular and there? Not necessarily on Scottish Enterprise maybe just one point that was surprising to me and is perhaps worth creative Scotland taking into consideration is that I was surprised when meeting with them to discuss what comes next, that television is captured under media as a catch-all film and media. That was surprising to me given how valuable the independent production sector is to Scotland, how successful it is. It could be more successful but it's actually just while I absolutely would take on more Drew's points about the success of Game of Thrones if you look at the nation's production figures for Channel 4, Scotland is by some distance the biggest contributor to Channel 4's content budget. If it wants to stay ahead of the curve though, ways of us supporting new and emergent companies and indeed established companies on a co-investment basis with the likes of Creative Scotland would be welcomed. However, when television is captured next to lots of other bits as opposed to being something that is recognised as key to the creative industries that might be a problem. I think that there's a willingness to deal with people in Scottish Enterprise, there's a great willingness to engage with the TV industry, but I think that James pointed out that the products, so to speak, are not really fit for purpose. If somebody is going to be given the lead role, again giving them that clarity would be incredibly helpful. And do witnesses of abuse, if clarity and focus requires a lead agency, what should that agency be? That needs to be a decision for the Scottish Government. I don't think it's ready for us to say, but it needs to be someone. Someone needs to own it. I think that's the most important point that I would make this morning. I'm nodding a ticket, you all agree with that. Just on that last question, that's a bit of an epic question, but do Scottish Enterprise have the expertise and the understanding of your industry? There are people within the organisation, but I think that they are very tentative about it because no one is quite sure. It's easy to do life sciences because that's their job and they're the only agency involved in that, but because in the creative industries there's also creative Scotland, I think that it's a structural thing. I don't think that it's a weakness in personnel personally, but I think that it's a structural issue. The reason I ask is that in the previous session we were talking about, I think that James Withers of Food and Drink mentioned that in the case of SDIF, we have life sciences experts, the people out there are life sciences experts on a Monday, energy experts on a Tuesday and so on and so on, and I just wonder whether we are missing opportunities. We're doing another enquire on exports and I know how successful you'd be, but whether or not we have that level of embracing the industry and understanding the industry within one of the agencies that should be helping drivers. I think that they would agree themselves with some way to go in terms of that level of expertise. Who else? Isn't too honed in in the film and television production industry because the expertise can be gleaned, it can be taken from elsewhere, but it seems to me that Scottish Enterprise, in terms of the television production, put too much emphasis on what's happening with the broadcasters and that's not really the case. The reality for independent producers in Scotland is that the PSB broadcasters are, first and foremost, our main customers. I think that they're still responsible for 85 per cent of commissions in the UK and there are big, big opportunities coming down the line, for example with channel 4 and their increased commitment to commissioning from the nations. Nine per cent is the target up until 2020. We just have to be ready and able to take advantage of this opportunity or Wales and Northern Ireland will steal the march on us. Gordon MacDonald? I'm trying to understand the situation. We've heard that Scotland's probably slipped down the league from second to fourth or fifth and yet at the same time we're being told by BBC that they're increasing their spend in Scotland from 7.6 per cent in 2012 to 10.9 per cent in 2013. We heard that, as you said a minute ago, channel 4 is going to be rolling out the share of expenditure for 3.89 per cent. Where are the difficulties if we're now spending a lot more of the network spend within Scotland? The biggest danger for us as an independent sector in Scotland is the lift and shift policy that the broadcasters have used. For example, the BBC have reached their quota, there's no doubt about that, but by displacing production companies or asking them to come and produce programmes in Scotland, although it's good for short-term employment, it frustrates the whole idea of building sustainable businesses in Scotland because the IP and the revenue remains out with Scotland in the south. I think that one of the biggest examples recently is Shed with Waterloo Road, which is now very sadly, Waterloo Road is gone and now Shed has shut up shop in Scotland. What we have to focus on is the indigenous production companies in Scotland and how we get them more market-ready so that we are ready to take advantage of the quotas. We absolutely support indigenous companies in Scotland. There's a bit of a legend around lift and shift that deserves to be challenged here. Lift and shift was and is a short-term mechanism. It's not a perfect mechanism by any manner of means, but what it did allow was for us to accelerate the investment. The actual targets that we were set were for 2016 and we have already exceeded them. When we are talking about 10.9 per cent investment of eligible network spend in 2013, that is way ahead of where we would be had we taken a more incremental approach to it. I think that it's worth saying that there are some very good examples where lift and shift has worked well for the sector in Scotland. If you take a series like Homes under the Hammer that's made by Lion TV in Scotland, for example, over a period of time that entire production has migrated to Scotland. You also need to consider this in the context of the fact that different skillsets are required to make different types of programmes. In this case, what we're talking about is a very high volume, tightly formatted piece that the production base in Scotland at the time of moving that was not necessarily equipped to make. What has happened over time is that we have now got a position where there are people in Scotland, there are companies in Scotland who are supplying into the daytime market in a way that they didn't previously. Alan's own company, STV, has benefited from that with Anteach's road trip and we've also seen as a result of it that some commissioning power has come to Scotland in the shape of Joe Street, who is actually working out of Glasgow but now acting controller for daytime at the moment. It's not true to say that this has been in any sense an overwhelmingly negative thing very far from it. I think that there have been some great positives to be taken out of it. What we do need to do now is to ensure that the companies that are based in Scotland are also winning entirely new business and making sure that they're drawing from the local population and local talent base. It's also a good thing when people come in from outside of Scotland and generally share their skills and expertise and perspective because we can't, on the one hand, celebrate our achievements when Scots go abroad, whether that's abroad or down south, whether that's Stephen Moffitt, writer and producer of Dr Who or whether it's Kevin MacDonald, the director. We applaud people who go elsewhere and take their skills out into the world so I think that we also have to be very welcoming of companies and individuals that want to come and base themselves in Scotland and add to the overall purpose of what we're trying to do here. I know some of my other colleagues who were asking about the reason why I was asking the question was that Scottish Enterprise in 2009 set themselves a target under the report growing the television broadcast to increase the scale of independent production companies in Scotland, with a turnover of over £10 million from 1 to 6 by 2013. So the reason for asking the question was with the increased spend, why Scottish Enterprise failed. Is it because of the lifting shift? Nobody knows. It was maybe a slight misunderstanding because I think that the Scottish sector has done well and, if you like, increased arathmetically has improved, but proportionally to other areas of the UK it hasn't done as well as them. The lead positions of your football fan at all is not just how you're doing, it's how the other teams are doing as well. I don't think that there's a failure in Scotland, it's just not been as successful as other areas. We're not saying that lifting shift was completely a bad thing, but I think that it's now time to move on from that and see what we can do with the companies that are here and the indigenous companies. Dennis Robinson wants to ask about lifting shift. We'll probably just explore it a wee bit further, and I'll probably direct my question initially to you, Jane. We seem to have quite a number of submissions, which is indicating that lifting shift is a bad thing. It's not a good thing. It's not a good thing because it doesn't permit the growth of the industry for stability in some respects. With regard to the independent broadcasters and producers, do you agree with that? Is it a perception or is it just somewhere in between? Lifting shift has been important in some ways in that it has got a skill base that is grown in Scotland, but the skill base is actually here now. There are a lot of companies that are delivering into daytime. We do, STV and many other companies as well. However, if we're talking about building a sustainable industry, we have to look at the companies that are here already. If we're looking at the companies that are here already, is the practice that is going on—I don't think that it's just a perceived perception—a negative influence? Sorry, is lifting shift a negative influence? I think that if it's an on-going strategy, I think that it would be, yes. Jane referenced Channel 4's commitment to nation spending up to 2020. I think that it's worth looking at that and looking at that being a target that's going forward. One of the reasons for that in our extensive conversations with both industry and with Ofcom in coming to an agreement on that was the sustainable approach. Absolutely, what you are saying about lifting shift being something that can benefit in the short term is true, but one of the issues is that the indigenous companies are the ones who will be here when they are not being commissioned because they have invested in their business in this part of the world, they've invested their lives in this part of the world. It's not necessarily purely a business opportunity, it's a little bit more complex than that. Channel 4, indeed, in its written submission, said that the way that we are going to get to that target on a stepped basis and on a sustainable basis is by supporting the indigenous companies. That's true, I think that Ewan makes a good point about the skills gap and it certainly has, there's no question that it's helped to close the skills gap when we make antiques road trip, we make the question of the link and part of that was drawing on the skills that come up when the weakest link was a lifting shift production to Scotland. It's really important that we don't make it a war between inward investment and indigenous companies because the truth is that we need both. I don't think that we should make it, it's got to be about Scotland, it's coming from Scotland, it has to be about Scotland, I think that that would be a really dangerous path for us to go down, particularly because the real focus is building up network across all the UK networks and indeed what we haven't really talked about, building up international production from a Scottish base, that's what really has to be our ambition. I'm wondering in terms of just, we've heard at least, I think, two have said a memorandum of understanding as well. With regard to that, how does that impact on the skills sector that we have and does it impact within the sort of lifting shift aspect? Is there anything there within your memorandum of understanding that impacts on that lifting shift? From a channel 4 perspective, I referenced it earlier and said I'd maybe come back to the example that we had was actually with a documentary production that was initially a one-off programme but the ambition always with that as a pitch to channel 4 was that if it's successful it goes to series. Now what can often happen is on documentary commissions certain directors are seen as the people who will be able to steer that to success. The company approach does, the company in question is IWC media who are best known in Scotland for location, location, location and I think it's worth pointing out that not just from a daytime perspective but from features lifestyle programming perspective, Glasgow is arguably without equal as a creative city outside of London in terms of the skill set that exists in that particular type of programming. IWC have had success elsewhere from channel 4 in documentaries but up until recently I hadn't had much success. What we were able to do with that memorandum of understanding with Creative Scotland was invest specifically in an emergent director who the company rated but my colleague in channel 4 had said, I would like this steady pair of hands to see this documentary through but in us supporting that extra young director working on it what we've seen is for the follow-up series she will be directing one of the episodes what I think that points towards it is only a pilot project but what it points towards is a way of retaining talent that we rate in Scotland and a way of actually allowing them to learn on the job and this is and I stress this is somebody with a very good track record already who's quite high up in production and you have to be able to apply that model at different levels of production not just to somebody who will be directing a documentary but for us that was something that we would look to replicate again given the opportunity with Creative Scotland. I wouldn't link at all our partnerships with other agencies and other bodies with with the whole issue of lift and shift other than to say that particularly say our understanding with with the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland or with Creative Scotland that what it's about is about equipping people with the right skills to be placed in the right jobs that are available in Scotland and and with Creative Scotland in particular we co-fund the creative skillset drama training programme which which obviously is aimed at equipping people to work on high-end dramas in Scotland in the years to come and our MOU with STV is actually more about how we can be more efficient as organisations, how we can share and pool resources and how we can provide a better service to our audiences. For us fairly obvious as a trade union looks after actors I'm glad that you brought in the link with the drama school but the bottom line is what we actually need is high-end television drama in a rolling basis happening here in Scotland because the demise of Shed and the the talent base the demise of the talent base that will follow on from that will have a greater impact on our members than more homes under the hammer more location location location more antiques social with the greatest respect to the producers and the technicians who work on that but the biggest income generator for Scotland will be high-end television drama and that's where you attract the international interest as well. Why is it that we can have programmes like Borgen and Welland are spiral are high-end drama in producing countries in the case of Borgen smaller than Scotland? What is different is that have we lost or do we not understand where the emphasis needs to be? Are we internationalising the industry properly? Well, I think they are quicker off the mark. Even to spend per her a population in Denmark is £10 per person in terms of film spending where in Scotland the figure that is quoted as a pound in Ireland is £2 but there's a whole history of that that you would need to look into and when we talk when we talk about a sound studio for instance I mean people have been asking for a sound studio here in Scotland since the 1930s. One of my predecessors, the organisers, Alec McRindall, was quoted in the Herald in 1956 about the need for a Scottish film studio and we're still having that debate. The reason why Denmark and Sweden are producing high-end television drama that everybody likes is because all that infrastructure has taken place well before now while we're still talking about it, while the public bodies are still talking about it. So we need to look at starting to move and put our money where our mouths is quite frankly because our members are leaving Scotland and going elsewhere because the high-end television drama is elsewhere. The recent production of the fall, I'm not going to harp on about Northern Ireland all the time but frankly the recent, I should do shouldn't I, but the thing about the fall was more folk watched that particular piece of drama than any other drama on television and that was because of the BBC coming together with the lead agency coming together with the politicians with the the department of creative industries and making sure that happened there. Now when you think about it we have been calling for an infrastructure here in Scotland for the best part of 80, 90 years in various spits and bursts. In Northern Ireland they've had the so-called troubles inverted commas, they've had decades of neglect and all of a sudden since 1994 when the Good Friday agreement took place we've seen a huge rebirth in the film and television and I mean it's an unknown phenomenon elsewhere and everybody from the from the First Minister to the Deputy First Minister who've all went over to LA and I've no doubt they've enjoyed their trips etc etc but they seem to have a concerted approach from the politicians to the public bodies to the broadcasters to to the lead industry body which is Northern Ireland screen and it's all aimed at bringing high-end television drama to the screen which not only brings in high tech high skills jobs but it also meets the aspirations of all the young folk who are at the Royal Conservatoire over here etc etc who want to work within this industry. If they can do it Northern Ireland and be shaking a few heads surely they can happen here. It's depressing if there's two public bodies who charge with the responsibility of driving this and actually they're a break on what's happening it seems to me and I don't know is it because people think somehow the creative industries are not an industry and therefore they're treated differently so I mean I just reflect that I'm interested in this whole question of lift and shift or whatever it's called and just to make the point that actually it strikes me in the submissions degree of cynicism about whether actually we're meeting the policy aspiration and it's not that people are closing down and only looking at Scotland and aren't interested in that sharing and enrichment it is that they believe that a box has been ticked by looking as if this has been done but when the productions go there is nothing left behind so I wonder whether how do we make sure that one of the submissions talks about how yes you may get lower level technical jobs out of it in the short term but everything else folk are coming in working and then going away again and I mean I don't know whether from the trade union point of view you have a view on that as was the last question I would ask us since you mentioned it why do you think we haven't got a film studio yet and where should it be and what needs to happen to make that happen? Lots of questions. I'll start with the lift and shift I mean there's no there the BBC had for a while had this policy right we're going to start moving production away from the the London centric areas out into the nations and regions and in fits and starts it did do that but what we saw from our point of view from a trade union who's looking after actors who work in the industry was that what they did was they moved a production into a national area or a regional area moved up all the actors I mean some of the productions I've seen I mean there was a production called fairy tales which kept me in Northern Ireland all of it was cast in around the M25 in London and they even brought the camera crews and technicians over I think maybe the local caring companies and the taxi drivers and a few other industries managed to get a few bob out of it but so when a lift and shift policy is all about taking what we're already doing here and we'll move it up into job land for a wee while to tick a box then that's not really doing anything for the film and television industry and it's certainly not doing anything for our members now that there could be infrastructure problems like skills base eh but here's another example actually it just came in my head there we were down campaigning with Ofcom because in Ofcom Ofcom stipulates when you do a production in the nations in the regions that a certain percentage of local technicians have to be engaged in a production they don't specify the same with the other talent-based actors and we were fed up with the cough in a spit part going to the odds actor who's based up here and we asked Ofcom can that definition be changed they shoot their heads and they they they they run the details and they said we'll look at it but really we can really do that and what we're know what what we weren't asking was every part has to be cast to a scotish actor every part has to be cast to a northern island actor what we were looking for was in a similar way without putting an exact figure on it that at least some of the local talent base should get meaningful jobs in a production in the same way that technicians had still no happening why is it taking so long I just can't I just can't seem to grasp that one because that really does need somebody to say look hey stop stop discussing this ad infinitum let's just do it it has to it has to take a wee bit of lead from well I tell you it has to take a wee bit of lead from the politicians well because they can't go off scot free either somebody should be saying look this is an income generator it's not about it's not a subsidy who do we talk to and let's make it happen and if I do you know who do you know how do you know how the paint shed took off in northern island it took off from an agent who was barb because she spent the actor's money and when she first gave me northern island I thought oh no Joe Gilbert new much much to my maybe I shouldn't named her but but anyway too late too late as they say but the bottom the bottom line she engaged with all the local politicians she engaged with the national politicians within the devolved government and she also engaged with northern island screen they all jumped on board and obviously the paint shed that Harlan Wolff wasn't a paint in ships anymore so the space was available and when I first when I first saw it because we got two of it as well you thought great idea but can you see it happen and it did happen and when she went out of business it was the politicians and northern island screen that jumped in and made sure it happened and then came films like city of ember the tom hanks production company his majesty the the urinus sorry it's called same thing but anyway so it was everybody involved in it it was the lead bodies the politicians the local the local policies because they had the foresight to see an economy which is much the same as scotland and belfast much the same as glasgo that our old skilled bases are changing here's a high tech high skilled industry in which all the aspirations of our young people want to work in let's try and make it ham so the politicians have got to do their bit as well where should it be well hey i'm a glasweagian but uh and you know I wouldn't I wouldn't say should be in glasgo but but it doesn't matter whether it's in glasgo or edinburgh because both have got the networks both have got the infrastructure in terms of transport and links et cetera et cetera but it should happen somewhere in the central belt the idea by getting up to him for an s don't think so can i just follow up that me obviously as a local politician from glasgo i'm more than happy to see that the studio should come to glasgo and glasgo's got a proud record in sporting you know making the long-term decisions which allowed us to have the commonwealth games frankly and that was a council being courageous but there's an issue about local politicians but do you not think the cabinet secretary should just make a decision putting it right onto it yeah sure right why not issues being raised i mean i think in terms of the film studio i'm interested to get other views on the panel about do we need a film studio who should deliver it and where should it be i am speaking on behalf of my colleagues in film four to some extent when answering that particular question when I did speak to them about coming to today to give evidence what they did say was they would absolutely welcome it i think the only note of caution that they would say is actually a lot whether you're an indigenously based film production company or indeed are looking to potentially come and make your film in scotland scotland is the envy of many parts of the world because of the amazing locations but the point that they were making about that is that quite a lot of films that end up being made from scotland are on a locations basis they're not necessarily studio films that's not to say of course that once a studio is in place that doesn't change over time from a television perspective channel forward always welcomes something that addresses the fact that studio space is actually in relatively short supply in scotland if that allows bigger productions to happen from here it's something we would welcome excuse me from an sdv perspective we would welcome a studio and an early decision on it but i think it's also about the work because i think this is a first time and it's benefit being somewhat older that i can remember in all the networks of the UK there is not a major returnable drama brand based in scotland and no one misses tiger and rebus more than us trust me but i mean there's great work going on with shetland in case histories but they're more episodic and they don't have that 10 12 episodes every year that sustained the actors as well as the technicians so it's not just about the infrastructure we have to get Scottish based ideas back on on on network television that are not lifted and shifted but are actually they don't have to be little scotlander the same way they fall hardly mentioned the troubles at all it was just a fantastic drama based in northern island with great northern irish talent it i would agree with with what allam was saying there i think there's certainly a shared aspiration for there to be a significant increase particularly in higher end drama out of out of scotland and in particular i think we do need to have at least one long running returnable series i think that should be set in the context you know particularly waterloo road was referred to earlier it is not unusual for a drama project from the point of early discussion about it to when it actually appears on television to take as long as three years so waterloo road in coming here under that lift and shift did absolutely serve a purpose in some ways it was quite a bold move to try and to try and uproot a program that was established in one geographical location and try and put it into another and take the audience with you it might have worked it didn't in the end ultimately work as well as we would have liked and the thing is that when you're making popular drama if it is not popular enough then at some point it you know it will inevitably have to be called and waterloo road was a very well made series it had a loyal audience but unfortunately that audience just wasn't big enough and i know that my colleagues at bbc scotland drama are looking very very hard at coming up with ideas that you know for programs that could be made in the sort of volume that waterloo road was made in and comfortably sit in in the peak part of the schedule for the bbc you know i've listened intently and i've also welcomed the comments of drew McFarlane actually maybe it's one of your members that have emailed me but would you you may want to comment on that and see if i'm getting the right scotland is being significantly left behind by other nations creative scotland was a mistake basically what a big mistake the chart says scottish enterprise is continually doing feasibility studies about feasibility studies and wales and northern ireland are getting the builders in while we are doing feasibility studies and basically at the end of the week i could go on in for item but it's too long an email um he basically suggests that we should and this straddles into the other panel also we should look at the film and tv model of other countries set up a dedicated film and tv commission possibly angames commission that is detached from arts funding that has a significant budget set up with partners a state of the art studio complex in the central belt i would go for Glasgow but also i'm quite happy for it to be in in Edinburgh we also have some beautiful locations throughout the whole of scotland which means that overseas filmmakers need to come and split you know need to split countries and most just don't bother to come here for that same same reason because we don't have a studio so basically you know i'd be interested in that i know you've made it very very clear in the last couple of minutes but you know what would your members want in scotland i think i might have wrote that no i don't know who who sent you that you know but i couldn't concur i couldn't concur less than the sentiments that's expressed in there absolutely and nobody's mentioned the games industry the games industry is now taken off in a big way for our members we're struggling to get any grips with it by the way because the games industry employers i'm used to collective agreements and don't want to speak to trade unions and that's a difficult area for us but all of that they are they're all symbiotic in the sense that they all use the similar techniques and i've said before i keep repeating it they're all a high-end highly skilled techniques the things that when folk talk about jobs for young people jobs and in the future they also where are we going to get the high end high tech high skilled jobs they're all there in the film and television and games industry and we should be doing it we should be doing it here i couldn't agree more with the email just wonder who it was any other comments in regards to it at you know creative scotland let's split it again you know created four years ago basically um i bet i'm not read out what he says about creative scotland because he may get sued um but basically uh i may get sued um you know what is what's the problem what is the problem i think if the idea is just to get on with it i think the idea of then going through a whole breakup of creative scotland and rethinking new public agencies is not going to really help us get on with it in my honest view and i think it's about giving somebody the clear remit to do it as i say if you go on northern irish screens website it's the number one thing they've got to do and that we don't have anywhere that clarity in scotland give it somebody's job to do make it someone's responsibility have someone own it have an agency or even better a person own it who is then accountable to the Scottish parliament the Scottish government for for their ability to do that job or not you were keen to come in early on i i i didn't let you in i've you know i've probably lost what my point was um was to do with the film studio probably yeah yeah it was but it was just to see that that pact and the the the pact film members in scotland obviously broadly support the idea for film studio as well and would like to see one up and running as soon as possible to see the details about why it's not happened yeah yeah it's incredible okay um right i think louis big old again i just wanted to follow up a point that jamie urhead has made in our submission which was around around bbc charter renewal and i know un will want to comment on that and around the issue of um what more can be done with public sector all the public sector broadcasters indeed um with stv as well to encourage and enable more independent production in scotland over the next 18 months in particular and jane you've highlighted the charter renewal and the opportunities that might be for uh production of programmes that are currently made in house now some of those obviously are made very well in the house but there are opportunities there be interested to know to hear a bit more about your view on that but also to hear the response of others of broadcasters uh to to is that a real is that a reasonable way in which to stimulate independent production or is that uh simply uh manipulating the market well i think it's interesting days for television there's a lot of big things coming down the line there's the psb review there's charter renewal for the team for uh bbc um i think that the other thing is really really important to remember that that when we're talking about film and we're talking about tv production and also the games industries they're all very very different business models but at the heart of television production for the independent sector it's actually ownership of ip and the one thing that that is enshrined in our industry is the terms of trade that are in place with the public service broadcasters and the other thing just to make everyone aware here that we have to look at protecting these going forward i think there are different business models being muted for the bbc going forward i don't know i think this would probably maybe a good time for you and to come in first of all for us to open up the discussion but again anything that opens up opportunity for independent producers is always a good thing i think i also have to just come back on that one and again bring up the lift and shift that again when we talk about waterloo road that i am sorry to say that shed did close their office here and retreated back to london and that is always the difficulty when you lift and shift productions is that that what actually happens is you still have london speaking to london is london commissioner speaking to london companies so i just had to get that point in as well thank you can i before you in comes in can i just supplement that we've had a submission saying that off-com or some other body needs to verify that what appeared to be scottish-based production companies really are scottish-based production companies is that something that pact would sympathise with or is that an overreaction to instances like shed i've looked at the out of london register and you probably could ask questions about about some of the productions but they do have to meet three criteria and generally speaking there there may be one or two that are questionable but in the main maybe not i mean we are extremely rigorous in applying the off-com criteria to ensure that companies that come here do to meet it but as i said before mobility and inward investment of of talent and skills is not in itself by any manner of means a bad thing for for the scottish market but but we do absolutely support indigenous companies in in the year 2013 that we based our submission around we dealt with 60 independent production companies for across radio television and online so and and of the 90 million pounds of of eligible networks spend 80 percent of that went to independent production companies as opposed to as opposed to in-house bvc scotland so i don't think there is any sense in which we do not absolutely fully support the independent production sector in scotland but ultimately what it is all about is about the best ideas getting made by the best people and ensuring that we deliver absolute value from money to our licence pairs and give them the high quality programming that they expect from us. We need to get more scottish based ideas on television and jane you said something along the lines that there was a difficulty with london commissioners some of the written submissions we've received one in particular says scottish based indies struggle to get meetings have calls and emails applied to and be generally taken seriously by commissioners down south so you know how easy it is to get access to commissioners are they london-centric as somebody else said in their written submission and are there actually any commissioners based in scotland and how effective are they i mean the busy flying back and forward to london all day. There's lots of good ideas but you've got to get them through the london commissioners and that's the difficult I just want to touch on the public broadcast that we really need to retain the public broadcast of the BBC and the licence fee that's our union's policy because the vast majority of our members work on the basis of the BBC either making programmes or commissioning drama programmes getting that out the road though when you lobby and we've had a campaign here making Scotland with a campaign in northern island make it here we'll make it everywhere we have these campaigns because of the lack of indigenous television production here or we've seen it fall away we've seen it fall away here in scotland and allen's already said he'd love to be still making a target and rebus and it's and it's a sad sad fact that our commercial broadcasers don't seem to make the same amount of drama as they once did and by and large i think sdv do do very little hopefully that that will change but getting those ideas past the commissioners is very difficult and when we speak to the head of drama at BBC scotland or the head of drama at BBC northern island it's the same old same old story we we have lots of ideas but we can't seem to get it by that brick wall down in london and any help any help that you can do drew and we've been down to white city with her uh had a film and tv and the all the senior apparatchics in equity uh talking to them talk to offcom but we're still having that the the the might know be completely blocked the pipeline but it's certainly well jammed up because there's no a lot happening yeah i'll go allen first on that yeah firstly on the on the previous question thankfully i've been accused of the many things in my life but being insufficiently scotish has never been one of them and i think our commitment to the the scotish production industries is there for all to see to just to clarify on drew's point we're not opposed here target and rebus were i tv network commissions made in scotland they weren't sdv commissions but sdv does an incredible incredible amount obviously there's been the launch of sdv glasgo and and just last week the launch of sdv edinard these are not clearly drama jobs but they are jobs in scotland and to give you a sense of where we stand our core staff is maybe around 23 25 people but we employ between 200 and 400 freelances every year some in scotland some across the the UK and and that work is i think in incredibly valuable but i don't think we would comment directly on BBC charter renewal i don't think that's for us but i would echo that we we need to up production in scotland yes is commissioning london based and london focused absolutely is is there interest in scotland first thing they think about in the morning no it's not and where commissioners actually base themselves in scotland a new and used example of joe street it is no accident that bbc day time commissions have rocketed since she was based out of scotland have rocketed since she was based out of glasgo so it has a huge effect yeah i mean it is all about maximising investment maximising opportunity but i think it's i would just take exception with what drew was saying drama is is a very competitive genre and it requires massive amounts of investment so people want to make the right decisions and you know understandably so but over the last i would say two three years we've been working very closely with with drama commissioning in london and that has resulted in a raft of programmes from from castles in the sky to field of blood to shetland katie morag for the children's drama and also at the moment we're in post production with a two-part adaptation of anion banks novel stone mouth and those have all come about as a result of collaborative working between myself as a commissioner in scotland and the commissioner in london so you know that there has been a definite shift in that area over the last week while and to the general point of course we would always support greater devolution of commissioning and i think it would be helpful to have to have more commissioners commissioning for the uk based in scotland okay i know patrick and joe haven't just asked anything yet so i have the brief follow-up Dennis all yeah very big is it really from a union's perspective you mentioned the audience earlier and you mentioned investment it with regard to that obviously the audience is extremely important because you want the viewer but is the problem that we're actually commissioning or we're not commissioning we're actually buying in too many programmes from say overseas the the audience are switching on to rather than the home indigenous programmes there's sort of like ncis or whatever you know that that kind of pro program that we're actually buying in from the states say for instance is that not the issue there is no doubt that it is a much more diverse marketplace with far far more choices that are available to be made by our audience and that's that's a challenge for us but for me that's a good thing because what that does is up everybody's game but but there's no doubt that imports from america the kind of activity that was seen from netflix etc and you know the importation and and other than putting the investment into indigenous programs not necessarily but i think the model that we will see more of in the future is is heavily co-produced pieces where where money will be found from various parties to come together and create as as impactful pieces of drama as possible okay i'm trying to draw together a few different strands here um there's been a lot of emphasis on the high end big budget productions and that's clearly always going to be a major part of the industry but i i wonder whether you could whether i could ask you to look a little bit speculative of the ahead you know the the clarity about the just get on with it message is is being very clearly expressed here so that's that's great but thinking about you know into the 2020s what the the structure of the industry is is likely to be there were some comparisons with the games industry a few minutes ago and um yes the the high end production is is still important but what we heard last week in in taking evidence from the games industry was a massive growth of the smaller scale productions partly driven by the change of platforms now obviously that happens more quickly in the games industry than it does in film and television but we are seeing that change of platforms mostly so far changing the way people consume but i wonder if i can ask you what you think it's going to do in terms of the way content is produced and the the likely implications for the structure of the industry are we going to see as platforms continue to merge as linear consumption disappears are we going to see an expansion of the role for small scale kind of cheaper entry level production where technology is more available and more affordable for for small scale companies that technology that might only have been available to the very very high end production kind of companies 10 15 20 years ago what does that do for the structure of the industry and what do we need to be aware of in terms of what's coming rather than just get better at what we're doing now or start doing what we're not doing now i can give a submission from channel 4's perspective there and i think drawing back to the point you were making at the top there with emphasis on high end i think it is an important point to raise that we're talking about this from a scotish perspective in meetings that because in my role in channel 4 we're meeting with people from northern island from wales from the english regions you look at something like holly oaks which is happening in the northwest of england fantastic for the company involved but the factual producers in that particular part of the world have have struggled to get the same kind of traction whereas you could sort of make a comparison with the scotish sector and show that there's a good diversity of companies who are in commissioned work with channel 4 so getting the ecology right of and the mix of companies i think is really important but to go to your point about shorter form content that's something that channel 4 are already looking into as part of 4 on demand which was actually the first video on demand service to launch in the UK we're undergoing an extensive refresh of that at the moment and what that's looking at is origination on that platform because what channel 4 have learned like quite a lot of partners have learned the hard way with the likes of youtube is that it's not necessarily the best platform to control the outcome to the benefit of the public service broadcaster or indeed for the companies there are huge success stories from youtube but they are the they are the one in the million and i think what's important is channel 4 need to look at new ways of drawing advertising revenue as well that's how we fund our programming and we're looking to that as being something that we roll out and continue over time the only other point i might make is that whilst linear viewing is often sort of the death of linear viewing is often sort of pronounced a lot of research shows that actually it's in relatively good health it's actually that people choose to consume on more devices and i think i'm right in saying actually just consume more content than they ever did so it's really about us as a broadcaster offering people the widest choice and serving the audience the best way we possibly can and the good thing about that is that that does offer an opportunity to a wider range of creative companies i think it's absolutely incumbent upon us as broadcasters to try and drive entrepreneurial activity in terms of of capture about how people go about trying to create content and i think i think we've seen that over the years but the trick of the trick is to ensure that the audience doesn't notice a deterioration in quality as a result of that it's all about being more cost effective i think particularly to take one particular area CGI for example has come down massively in cost we're able to do things within documentary material documentary programmes that we wouldn't have been able to look at a couple of years back and i think it's important to bear that in mind but but you know although we've been talking about high-end drama we actually have in Scotland as well an example of an extremely efficiently produced continuing drama which is River City which i would say is you know the production values are very high and and that is made at a very realistic price i'm not trying to suggest that the the growth of smaller scale or perhaps even you know a blurring of the line between professional and amateur production i'm not saying that's going to displace the the high-end professional and the big budget productions but it surely does change the kind of infrastructure that we should be putting in place if we're trying to encourage people to come through in the structure of the industry that's going to exist in 10 years time 15 years time rather than thinking it's we're just going to be better at doing it the way it's done now i absolutely agree with that i think i think we will we will see all sorts of different models about how content can be created and i think one of the other exciting things about it is that we will find and engage with interesting talent in different ways in the years to come perhaps you know in very different ways from those that we have historically a number of interesting points and i think we've focused a lot on high-end particularly high-end drama but i think the it's really important to see that the the returning productions like location location location or antics road trip or the link are really really important to the to the Scottish industry as well even though they're lower cost and high volume there are different ways to get to the same amount in terms of the i think the the issue in terms of new platforms splits into long form and short form i think if you look at something at house of cards on netflix i'm sure as politicians everybody's enjoyed it enormously and though it's on a different yeah indeed though it's on a different platform it's actually quite a traditional very high-end brilliant drama but it's actually quite a traditional drama it's just delivered differently i think for short form there are going to be great opportunities on channel four and bbc's three move online if it's approved by the trust again will open new opportunities but with short form the issue is how do you monetise it there you know there are lots of kind of crazy cat videos on youtube but how do you actually make money from from a company perspective and that the final point of her name as chairman is to say that actually when you look at the Scottish industry and I'm sure Jane would echo this a lot of the companies are subscale and under capitalised and even in comparison with the Welsh industry you know a smaller population if you look at company like tenopolis or boom they're acquiring companies in London as opposed to being bought by companies in London tenopolis out of north wales is a massive international company and we really don't have anything of that scale in scotland sorry that's a number of answers but i think you've raised a number of distinct points okay thank you jill mculton thank you very much and i apologize for me being delayed this morning it's yourself as well convener and quite understandably the discussion today has has revolved around you know the economics of the industry and how we build capacity and infrastructure and you know sale commercially viable products i wanted to sort of approach things from a slightly different angle in the in the last few decades i think we'd all agreed that there's been an incredible flourishing of Scottish culture generally we've seen the rise of the national theater and and the whole renaissance of literature that's actually not reflected in particularly in film and screen i wondered if you agreed with that and also then there's the whole issue of the canon of Scottish literature if you like which i you know going right back you know whether it's scot or 784 or whatever that's not particularly reflected in in screen and yet that's how most people actually consume a lot of culture i wondered if you agreed with that and whether you thought there was any viable way to solve that problem for a small country like ours i think there's probably two aspects of that you specifically talking about dramatisations adaptations of of Scottish literature yes i would be talking about that and also you know like some of the more recent you know like the plays from the national theater that kind of thing and also i was actually going to go on to talk about the submissions from the Scottish documentary institute where they basically see you know they're ambassadors for the country but they get very little subsidy and is it really possible to make that kind of stuff without a large subsidy there's a few things in there as i said to you as i mentioned earlier we are involved in making an adaptation at the moment of the in banks novel stonemouth and when you're looking at period pieces you're obviously talking about you know much more expensive productions to mount and but i do agree with you that that's something that we should and could be looking at and we have actually invested in in the current adaptation of sunset song that the term stavis has made in which is in post production at the moment so where there are opportunities for us to get involved with that we absolutely would do and i think what what we have been good at is is reflecting the broader importance of of scotish culture through our through our arts output we produced a series last year fronted by andrew mar that that was called the scots who the men who invented scotland and it's it's something that we would constantly be looking at as far as the national theater of scotland goes we are actually talking to them at the moment about a potential project and of course we we produced a documentary and covered the performance of black watch two or three years back just touching that chair i mean the actors are the same actors who are in theater who are also in film and television because you move from one medium to the other that's that's the life of the actor most of the actors who work in theater however would say well we'd like a better chance to work in film and television because the wages are better i mean the that's the bottom line i have to say i mean the national theater national theater for us by the way has been a great success no just no just just no just from scotland and sending a message out there but from for us and our members has been a great success uh there was an occasion there uh no this no this year i have to say but it was an occasion to start the last year that i did a cast meeting where we tend to do cast meetings we actors and rehearsals cast meeting one week uh for a national theater production different cast meeting the next week with a national theater production and a different cast meeting the week after the national theater was just eating and producing theater on a scale that we had any witness before feed into that what was happening within the rest of the theaters but i'll tell you the thing about the national theater was it took a long time for it to go off the ground a lot of lobbying a lot of campaigning and then it was the political will the same needs to happen with the film and television industry and that's where that's where the link is really cogent because if you don't have that political will people will continue to talk about it creative scotland i've been talking about it for for for a number of years now they'll probably still talk about it there's a paper due out uh this week uh from from from the from the new director but the but the issue has has to be it needs to be seized by the right political will for things to to to make it happen bring in the industry experts bring in people from abroad go over to northern island by the way i would highly recommend it talk to the people at northern island screen go and visit the studio where they produce game game of thrones at the harland wolf shipyards the link has always been there but the national theater only came about with the right political will and that's what we need with the film and tv industry i think the answer to your question is yes but not enough so with the scotland documentary institute we're putting two of their films on this year on sdv we've been working with them so they get the they get exposure on television i think in in drama if the absolute perfect storm for us the best of all worlds is if you have a scotish story that has international resonance with a scotish writer and scotish cast i don't think that's impossible gregory bark who wrote that watch we're sitting down next week with him to brainstorm ideas for television he's just the big success with 71 the film so but yes we could always do more on that but to the question of the london commissioners it has to be people who are aware of those books of of those movements in order to get through those are the gatekeepers of the cash and that's the circumstance we find ourselves in but that is definitely in a perfect world that's what we would be doing yeah and very quickly i think from a channel four perspective we would welcome that if that's something that is pitched more often certainly from a dramatic perspective it's something we would look at i think the only the only complexity that comes in with channel four as a pan uk broadcaster is seeking to appeal to as broad an audience as possible across the uk and to allen's point that's what you're always looking for in the source materials is something that is going to appeal to a broad audience across the uk ideally a global audience what one example unfortunately not made by a scottish production company but a brilliant example of an amazing story unfolding here in scotland was the murder trial which was made by windfall west multiple award-winning feature length documentary but what it was able to do was cast a sort of i suppose a bit of an outsider's eye on the uniqueness of the scottish legal system which actually just allowed cameras into the murder trial of nat Fraser we'd love to see there are stories going on in scotland all the time and sometimes i think what's important is people do look to the doorstep and think how does this story sell to the uk network it's it's always possible but it needs to be thought along those lines certainly for it to work for channel four disagree with anything that my colleagues have said at all however i'm not a commissioner and it's always down to the person who's buying up on Ian's point um yeah i mean i've heard people say that before it's it's very commercially driven it's got to have wider appeal um can you see the difficulty that will you know like if something is completely unknown as allen said if you don't know that author you don't know those books you don't know the importance of it um there comes a point perhaps commercial considerations need to be um i mean you can't overrule commercial considerations but there's there need to be another mechanism like to get that because there is obviously stuff on network television that isn't you know commercially driven but in terms of you know like Scottish output does there need to be a new mechanism or where we're actually promoting stuff which is culturally important even if a commissioner in london does it think so specifics of a mechanism or maybe difficult for me to comment on at this point but i think i think what it comes down to across any genre but perhaps drama has its own unique challenges and and a drama commissioning editor sitting in a pitch meeting wants to know who the writer is so or who the source material is but then they also want to know who's going to adapt it for the screen but that also needs to come from a production company and i think what's key is how well the production companies are able to take those source ideas and then sell them and a lot of that is about building the relationship with the commissioning it just as it is across any other genre in terms of a mechanism that might better expose the brilliant source material particularly actually from a channel 4 perspective the more contemporary source material that you refer to because that 10 channel 4 whilst you say something and then you're contradicted a week later in the schedule because we are doing a period piece but ordinarily most of channel 4's drama output tends towards more contemporary setting so i think anything that would allow us to build better links with the likes of theatre groups and writers who are producing this fantastic source material and better link that then to the production companies who have to pitch it then yes we should do that. Just one example of the the role reversal in terms of a really successful television series that then became phenomenal success in theatre that was still game see if the idea is right and by the way it's Scottish culture if the idea is right it it will happen so there we had classic brilliant piece of BBC comedy then make it on stage. We've talked about the need for high-level drama fully support that they need to get focused into making decisions. One of the biggest and certainly most successful programmes and this land is produced in Glasgow has been Mrs Brown's boys what criteria do you apply in terms of reinvesting some of the huge monies that have come to the BBC as a result of that programme? The money comes back obviously through BBC worldwide and gets invested into the BBC in general that's the simple answer to that one. It comes back to Scotland by way of a dividend pot that that Scottish producers can bid into in the same way that producers elsewhere in the UK can bid into it and actually we've been very successful in recent times quite a lot of for example historical series such as the Stuart's or Clyde built the ships that made the commonwealth they both had investment from worldwide into them as a result of this dividend pot that can be bid into and the way that that pot the reason that pot exists is because we also make these massively popular shows whether it's Mrs Brown's boys or talk gear or strictly come dancing that money does flow back in and there is a mechanism for that to come back to Scotland. What is the mechanism? The mechanism is that you bid on the basis of ideas and if those ideas are good enough then the investment will follow. Okay thank you we're out of time it's been a very interesting session I'm very grateful to you all for coming along and giving us reviews and the committee will take these away and digest them and we'll producing a report in due course and at this point we will have a short suspension to allow a change over and for the next panel to join us thank you very good we can reconvene thank you I'd like to welcome our second panel joining us this morning I'll just introduce them all starting on my left we have Ken Hay, chief executive for the centre for the moving image, John Archer producer of hopscotch films and chair of the independent producer Scotland, Arabella Page Croft producer of black camel pictures, Ian Smith producer and chair of the British film commission and Bob Blast independent producer so thank you all for coming along and I'm sure you will have heard at least some of the previous discussion with the first panel and I suspect quite a number of the issues that were discussed there will also come up in this session but there will also be other areas more specific to film that members will be keen to explore and I intend to run this session for about 90 minutes or so and I would ask members if they would just to keep the question short and to the point and similarly ask with the first panel ask yourselves keep your questions as your answers rather as short as possible I would ask members to direct their questions initially to one member of the panel if you would like to come in and respond to a question that somebody else has answered just catch my eye I know I'll bring you in as time allows can I maybe just start off by raising an issue that I raised with it with the first panel on which generated quite a lot of discussion and that's the whole question of the role of the public agencies and there was a sense from the written submissions some of which I quoted from earlier and also from the evidence we heard verbally this morning from the first panel about a lack of leadership from the public agencies that the industry was rather falling between the two stools of Creative Scotland and Scottish Enterprise and there wasn't really a proper public sector focus on support. I might start with you Arabella Pagecroft because I know you've said some things about this both in your written submission and in public I just get your perspective on this question as to is there a lack of focus on leadership from the public sector I definitely believe there is a lack of focus I think it has become very clear that our industry is suffering from market failure as evidenced in the film sector review in January 2014 there are only a handful of producers working in Scotland today who are continually you know who are making regular work and I'm really talking about film producers at this point since the that publication there has been 26 meetings between Creative Scotland, Scottish Enterprise, we've had meetings with the government and obviously we've had a number of our own IPS meetings and nothing has happened for our sector there has been no you know there just hasn't been any intervention where we have addressed this systemic issue of market failure you know we believe that we require a task force and government intervention at this point Scottish Enterprise I'm afraid to say our businesses do not fit their criteria we don't hit their turnover requirements and I you know if you know all this please tell me but the way we operate as film producers we often tend to run very very small companies which have to expand very quickly very rapidly and so our turnovers can be very small in development but then our production and economic imprint in Scotland or wherever we're making our film can be obviously significant can go up to you know 10 million or however big your budget is of your film so you know we are pretty depressed pretty disillusioned we are we would really ask at this moment that the consideration by Scottish Enterprise for our sector is actually removed from Scottish Enterprise I'm also on the board of IPS and you know we represent 40 producers and it is our conclusion at IPS that Scottish Enterprise is not fit for purpose for looking after our film sector at this juncture I also you know believe that Creative Scotland is you know they are very under resourced when it comes to our when it comes to film I think I've said in my evidence that you know in my own experience my company has had vital public funding for development and one of the things I would like to say is I would really like that to not be considered a subsidy because it really is investment and I've paid that back to Scotland in spades over the over the course of my own productions over the last year but you know we you know I probably early on in my career I was very grateful for that little bit of development money but now I'm afraid it just isn't enough you know I have been successful with slate funding from Creative Scotland but I have these caps on me so I'm being asked to develop projects for the international market with a cap of an overhead of £10,000 and that's Creative Scotland's requirement and over here I've got Scottish Enterprise saying well unless you've got a turnover of £400,000 you know how yeah you don't fit my criteria and by the way we can only give you 30% and you know I'm just not in a position where I can develop my company, where I can develop my staff, where I can you know try and move you know get more films moving, take on people, be able to move into returnable drama a lot of what has just been said so I mean you know some of those are very specific to me but I also know that I speak for an awful lot of producers who are in my in my particular field and in the film area so I mean you know we would really call for government intervention and you know as soon as possible we would like a task force that is answerable to government working alongside government to rectify this crisis and this market failure thank you. Mike says it's quite a strong work but I'm interested to see if anybody else in the panel has got a view, all blessed? Yeah I and I recognise the the problems that Arabella speaks of but I think if it's a crisis it's a crisis that has been going on for 30 years so and I think that kind of means it's not a crisis I do recognise the situation that's described but I think it's been like this for quite a while and Scottish Enterprise do loom large as a challenge in this but I make quite significant sized films that have a high cultural content and I think one of the things in thinking about this is an overarching way before one can get too specific about given agencies is that film in particular is unusual because it involves both cultural and commercial parameters and often in the same piece of content and actually the market I don't think is in quite such a state of failure in that there is a market that recognises the commercial element of the given production and there is a market of soft money that recognises the cultural element and sometime part of the challenges that the sector faces are its own fault for not articulating clearly enough the combination and synergy between the cultural and commercial and when you're going out to finance something as a producer one needs to be very clear about the the commercial versus the cultural element of the production and it varies every time that you set out to make some content but as a result of that that's a very sophisticated and distinct model which it is extremely difficult for public agencies to engage with effectively. Enter the event, anybody else on the panel briefly wants to comment on this. Just going back to the question about the lack of leadership I think it's from the public sector I think the challenges and it goes back to the earlier panel which is there is a requirement for a genuine commitment from the politicians to say this is what we're trying to achieve. There have been all kinds of configurations over that 30 year period of different bits of public sector, different bits of public policy, different bits of public intervention. There's been very little in the way of joined upness across any of it. I was just reflecting that it was nine years ago this week that Scotland's culture, the main policy document that brought about the creation of Creative Scotland was published and I think just briefly it said there is a current lack of clarity about the roles that central government, Scottish Enterprise, high cultural organisations, local government schools, HEFE and so on and so forth have in relation to assisting the creative industries in Scotland to thrive and I think what's happened, what we've managed to achieve over the last nine years is nothing. It's as bad as it was at that point. Creative Scotland was supposed to sort that, one of the reasons it made sense when it was being developed for Scottish Screen and Arts Council to come together was that it was made very clear that the enterprise responsibility should become responsibility of Creative Scotland but that money should come alongside that and the money didn't come, the responsibility did and so Creative Scotland are in an impossible position so they're trying to juggle with too many responsibilities. Scottish Enterprise have an impossible position because they've been tasked with developing high growth, high value companies and as our bell has spelled out the challenge for most tv and film production companies in Scotland is that they don't reach that correct level of threshold to benefit from that support so until that recognition that film in this part of the conversation is both cultural and industrial and needs to be looked at differently to other both cultural forms and other industrial forms then we're going to be having the same conversation in another nine years with probably a slightly different panel, increasingly grey, increasingly middle aged going, we still haven't achieved what we set out to do. I'm grey enough to have set up Scottish Screen and that wasn't coming together for the screen industries, we didn't have the enterprise role although we did at the time manage to work with Scottish Enterprise on a few projects to assist company growth in Scotland across television and film that's not possible at the moment and I think it's a great shame that Scottish Enterprise and Creative Scotland can't work together they have to spend a lot of time talking to each other as our bell has said we've had over 26 meetings with them and with government trying to sort this out over the last 18 months Scottish Enterprise have instructed by John Swinney to sort things out for the film industry last March really nothing has changed the film sector review that came out a year ago highlighted all the problems that are still still exist none of them have been addressed we've been trying as IPS to address them with Creative Scotland what we'd really like to see is that the Scottish Government sets film policy in Scotland or sets screen policy to put it broader so that informed by producers by the agencies suggestions are made and then the government as they do in Denmark says this is what we expect this is what we expect of you over the next three years and then that can be debated and can be judged at the moment Creative Scotland set the policy and they have to act on it it's you were talking earlier in the previous session about should Scottish screen or something like it be recreated well the change as kens pointed out takes a long time and it's not bureaucratic change we're looking for we want leadership just as they have in northern Ireland where they have said they will be the strongest screen agency outside London and have the strongest industry outside London in the next 10 years their plan and strategy is very clear we need to see Scotland doing better thank you i'm a Glasgow boy when i applied to the Scottish education department to get a support to go to film school in London i was sent a very nice letter which i've still got somewhere saying we turning you down because film is not an academic subject so that was my introduction to Scottish political life they then worked for 10 years in scotland and finally ran out of steam i couldn't sustain it and moved south but my heart is here i find myself in a leadership position in the UK film industry i chair the British film commission i also chair the film skills council and the film industry training board and the function of the British film commission is very specific it's there to promote and sell team UK and it is a UK wide opportunity the stats that will be coming out in the end of january from the bfi are probably going to show that film has an inward investment export of goods and services is worth over one billion pounds in this last year it is a failure of scotland not to be competing for its proper share of that one billion pound market that's not speak of the other opportunity which sits alongside which is the whole question of high end tv drama the chancellor in his wisdom saw fit to create film tax relief in 2007 and to bring in tv tax relief in 2013 since then inward investment in television has topped 300 million a year and is likely to grow on that in fact the growth potential on the high end tv side of things is is very high indeed whereas the film the film side i think is probably plateauing out although there are many investments happening in film particularly pinewood studios are doubling in size they they are building now and hopefully within a year they'll come on stream but the demand is very definitely there and the reason for the demand is the hook is the film tax reliefs and television tax reliefs that's what brings the the full attention of the particularly united states for other countries as well to the UK the bit that really brings them back is the skills agenda that we have and the skills agenda has been built up over 20 30 years in the southeast it's been very carefully engendered by bringing the industry together by speaking when they're very clear one voice to government and making clear to government that we're not just simply talking about the very important issue of creativity and culture but we're also talking about the system within which that can grow and flourish which is the commercial industrial side so there are two businesses that sit alongside each other there's the film industry which i think of as the indigenous british film industry and then there's the film production industry which is a completely separate thing but it is cross connected and there's a symbiosis between the two of these which is that by engendering our strong share of the international market in the film production industry we are able to sustain our businesses we're able to build up our skills we're able to protect our talents and as a result we move forward that that god willing will continue we've been very successful in that and the treasury and the UKTI who we work with are so far very very pleased with what we're doing we're contributing to the economic landscape of Britain now if you look at what i do look at the UK as the offer that the UK is making 20 years ago Scotland was the biggest production cluster outside of the southeast of england now it's probably somewhere around fourth or fifth when you look at the clusters that are growing up particularly in south wales and bristol obviously northern ireland you've heard a lot of that but there's also manchester and leeds are building up scotland is lagging badly behind just on this economic basis the game of thrones example game of thrones wanted actually wanted to come to scotland they knew that scotland was bigger had lots of locations but the thing that stopped that was the fact that there was no adequate shooting space for them to hedge they have to hedge you can't make these tv series entirely on location it just doesn't work so if there's no shooting space then forget it they move and richard williams in northern ireland jumped up and said look at us and they had the titanic studios and the rest of history that's worth somewhere in the region to the northern island economy somewhere in the region of 35 to 40 million per year another aspect of this is the link with tourism is very strong if you bring in i produced the 24 series that we shot in london earlier last year that was not set to come to london but the fact that the tax credit existed the fact that we had the skills to deliver what we promised existed brought that and that was 62 million dollars spent within the space of nine months that could easily have come to scotland but the lack of a shooting space and the lack of a proper infrastructure both technical infrastructure and skills infrastructure has meant that people are shying away the two issues of skills and a studio i think we want to come on to but i was going to stick on this issue of the public sector support because i know i've got a couple of members want to come in and start with richard lyon again i'm quoting from an email i got from a constituent uk is quite an international competitive tax incentive only one percent of that incentive is used for films shot in scotland not very good for a country that's 8.4 percent of the population of the uk in 32 percent of the landmass we've also gone to you talking about tourist bodies visit scotland gave walk disney corporation seven million pounds for a co-production of the animated film brave they they say that this will benefit scotland by 140 million brave heart as we all know we're we're on to mrs brown boys earlier but we're going to brave heart which everyone loved and tell me that was shot in ireland you know and basically because of their tax incentive because scotland didn't have a a studio the point i was on to earlier on would you agree and i enjoyed anabelle anabelle's crofts initial statement but would you agree that the scottish film and industry has been severe all that down by the agencies that it's meant to support it put both to you and uh arabelle arabelle so i think that because we're only making six films a year you know we are so far behind the denmark sweden norway uh you know the the funds that are available in wales nor nile and you know i think that in itself shows that we've been badly let down but by the agencies but i also you know we need government support so i have to also point the finger back and say actually can we have more resources because you know we can sort out the skills we can you know if we can have a studio you know we can create it we can build it but we need resources resources create production production creates hits you know and the cycle goes on that's that's what we're looking for coming back to the british film commission and all of that there's no doubt that without westminster intervention strategic intervention we would not have been able to achieve these things obviously tax credits are the most important but there's also things like the skills investment fund levies that we make private public relationship between industry and government so we perfectly understand in the industry the need for austerity and increasingly the need for austerity but some very carefully placed strategic intervention can make all the difference when it comes to the to the private investment there's no doubt that in scotland i mean i was on the joint committee that moved a scottish screen towards the creator scotland and i chose to step away from that because i realised at that point that what was being intended would not be fit for purpose which is coming back to this difficult thing that filmmaking and television is a battleground between art and money as a producer that's what i deal with every day i'm always looking at these two things competing with each other and the problem that we've got in this in in in in scotland is that creator scotland to do their best by coming they do their best but they're not systemically set up to deal with the configurations of this particular business i'd just like to reiterate early what Ian was saying there that um you know there's a lot of blame as it were a portion to these agencies but they have been set up to fail it is not possible in the current landscape for them to succeed or certainly not to succeed efficiently because the issue uh i would also agree what Ian's saying we you know we need to understand austerity there is not a you know a wave of public support for handing out a lot more taxpayers' money to filmmakers but it's how you spend it it's not necessarily about how much it's how and structurally there is a role for a big gain here in terms of government unlocking that overarching structure and one other element of that i mean we've talked about the the art and money and that is what a producer does every day every conversation every email is about managing art versus money but it's a very dynamic and exciting process you know that's not the enemy of great film that's what film is about but i think there's another overarching issue which needs at least to be recognised which is the current devolved settlement is actually quite confused around film specifically because for example the bfi in my practical relationship my relationship with the bfi in london is more important to me than my relationship with creative Scotland because the bfi clearly have a national remit uh i i love the bfi they shovel money at me and i'm very grateful for it um but um it it is it does make the landscape here more complex for anyone to work with an effective focus and the same thing applies around broadcasting some of those smaller nations that people have talked about here where they have a vibrant local film industry it is always the case that there is a national broadcaster who is deeply engaged and charged with engaging with that film industry and it's a little bit different here so there are elements of the current devolved settlement that further complicate having really effective focus for example with bbc scotland um from whom you know i believe before i arrived in the earlier session i think you and angus was talking about sunset song which has been the beneficiary of very substantial commitment from bbc scotland and it's something i've talked to him about over a decade but bbc scotland does not have a structure that allows it from a regulatory point of view to make an equity investment in a film it can't do it even if it wanted to um bbc films does but so you know that's another example of a way in which there are things that government might want to look at in the in in a global sense um that would enable these agencies to be more effective the more i hear the more concerning i think some of the evidence sounds annie griffin on scotland tonight yesterday evening said that um she's been trying to make films or making films in scotland since 1997 and this is the worst it's been and and when when ian smith said he stepped away from the process of creating create of scotland and it's not fit for purpose and arabella page cross says scottish enterprise is not fit for purpose i mean that uh that raises some really serious questions and i think arabella's evidence went a step beyond what we heard in the first panel where people from tv said scottish enterprise and create scotland are it's not clear who's in charge or who's giving a lead but i think your evidence just now is that actually the criteria they apply contradict each other and you can't conform to both and be successful i wonder is it as bad as that is is is the i i think ken hae is right we don't need bureaucratic solutions but is there a way forward given the bureaucratic structures that exist just now and and when john arser mentions john swinney is it for the economy minister or is it for the culture minister to give a political lead and and i wonder if we're talking about leadership where's that leadership going to come from to be fair we met them both together and that was the first time i think that that had been possible and that felt like a major breakthrough for us because they were talking to each other about this culture and commerce industry and if you if you look at creative scotland and you look at the national theatre what we'd like to see is something like the national theatre but for film so you don't need a whole big new structure but something which is able to drive forward the development of the film industry in scotland and has a remit for seeing that scotland is a successful place to come and make films and also is growing indigenous production and is growing film culture there's nothing better than a a good film like sunshine on leaf to take scotish culture around the world it's far easier than moving a theatre company around the world and it strikes a chord it makes people want to come here and it's a good expression of scotish culture that's what's that's what's missing in our view in the south east context we've managed to bring together the almost unholy alliance of UKTI in one side DCMS on the other and we very much deal with governments through these two very separate departments in a conjoined way because the commonality of interests is served by the other side if you see what I mean without the other side UKTI doesn't function without the UKTI DCMS can't function in this particular sector so particularly UKTI looking at new areas of penetration particularly China and in China they're fascinated by our ability to tell stories if they lack anything they lack content and the ability to create content so there's an opportunity for us to again symbiotically deal with the huge amounts of cash that are available in China and the need by being exporters of not just goods and services but also intellectual property so UKTI and CMS works effectively as a partnership why is it John Swinney and Fiona Hyslip are on top and why is it that there isn't an effective partnership in scot? I raised the issue a few years ago of the Scottish studio because I could see it with the touch release coming in from tv that there was an opportunity that didn't quite exist on the film side it was more on the television and we engaged with Scottish Enterprise and I tried to put the Pinewood group together with Scottish Enterprise to actually facilitate this and I think the problem is that there's a lot of good will within Scottish Enterprise but they seem to be set up on the basis of property development and thinking of assets as permanencies rather than as project based opportunities so there's an inherent nature in the film and television business that Scottish Enterprise perhaps have never encountered before and they don't have the specialised thinking within the building to be able to understand quantify and measure that and I think that that is what's needed it needs a very specialised I mean I just on Monday I was in at the UKTI and I was talking with the senior civil servants and they're explaining some of the particularities of how the business works at the end of the day film and television is so much about relationships of trust and so it becomes very very particular and on the basis of that large sums of money can flow and large opportunities for talent can flow okay what's missing in those the meetings that we've had with John Swinney Fiona Hyslop is the person that's able to then take it forward because it's not really up to IPS so we're discussing a number of things with them we were discussing whether Scotland couldn't apply for ERDF funding just as they have in Northern Ireland so that we get European funding in in for production we don't know what's happened to that because it was left to Creative Scotland to pursue it with various parts of government and we were also discussing the possibility which may have been seemed different a year ago perhaps and it does now but of being able to use some VAT revenue from the sale of cinema tickets for creating a film fund even allowing some of the VAT to be left with a government we could build up quite easily a fund of 20 million a year which takes us halfway to the Danish position and we also had an idea from John Swinney of another way financial mechanism that might work that we've been investigating of financial transactions so it's the kind of imaginative leadership and vision that I feel we're missing at the moment. Just to add on that I mean I think the challenge comes with the the instructions that the public bodies have been given and they are quite simply conflicted they can't reconcile those different instructions because one is geared entirely to a particular kind of economic development and I understand the the resource limitations that Scottish Enterprise have so inevitably they have to prioritise in a very particular way and likewise Creative Scotland is very clear that on the whole it is an arts funder and it's funding the culture and how you reconcile those two things unless you have an alternative approach unless you have a more creative approach to dealing with it and that just hasn't been achieved not just in the last four and a half years of Creative Scotland but for a number of years before 30 years according to you. Okay sorry just one thing on this leadership issue I sat on a thing called the creative industries framework agreement implementation group which was a part of the predecessor of the creation of Creative Scotland and I this is I think a matter of public record but I refused to sign up to its final report because the word leadership had been excised from it by the various partners. I was the only independent on the group everyone else with a various public bodies and my goal was to create a landscape in which Creative Scotland could be effective and so I refused to sign up to report and it was delayed because I think there was a political recognition that removing the word leadership was not going to reflect well on the creative industries framework agreement implementation group. The eventual compromise that was proposed to me at a weekend I got a call on Sunday and said would you sign up to Creative Scotland having the responsibility to coordinate the leadership and I was told that that was as good as it was going to get and I mistakenly actually I took the view that I would sign up rather than bring the process to an embarrassing public close but so these are deep you know it's a deep everyone could see this problem that everyone from different perspectives here is talking about coming and in that sense you the politicians do have a real opportunity to make a huge difference which isn't about more money it isn't about setting up new organisations it's just can you please give some sensible instructions to these public sector agencies. Was that government or was that industry people on the group? It certainly wasn't industry people on the group. Okay, I'll page prof you'd like your answer. Yeah, no I just want to comment on that leadership question I was just you know I was really interested by Dr Inga Sorison's evidence that she gave where she talked about film for league which is where the you know the Danish it's the Danish film law and I do think that's something that we need to examine for leadership which is where the industry do you know negotiate with or talk with the politicians and come up with the Danish film law which is then invested in through the aid to the agencies and also I think in Northern Ireland the I think it's called the driving global growth policy that they had I understand that was a government led initiative and I think you know since we are all talking about Northern Ireland so so much we must be looking at how they achieved it and the leadership that they had. Thank you. Okay, Chick Brody and then John Lomont to Chick. Yes, good morning. Just a couple of quick questions. One, we have this clash between the power between enterprise and creativity. Where do you think the emphasis should lie which might help leadership question and that's a general question. The second question is skills development Scotland. We've talked about skills development Scotland about to produce a publication on skills in the industry. Can you tell me if you've been involved in any discussions or is there anyone known to you that's been involved in the preparation of that document? Can I answer the first part of the question which as Ian has pointed out that the commercial and industrial and the cultural are distinct but symbiotic elements and there isn't a solution, there isn't a fixed point. Actually what's required at government if you want to energise the sector and if you want to compete globally what's required is an ongoing management of that balance which is exactly what we as producers do within you you need to model that and so it's really important to understand that you will not arrive at a fixed solution you need to have the structure and system in place that can look at each proposition and constantly rebalance because the other thing also to be aware of is that you're operating in a global there's a globally competitive market of governments who really want to make this work so you need something that's a little fleet of foot. I understand thank you for that answer but at the end of the day we're talking about leadership and making decisions now somebody has to make a decision and I'm asking what your input is in terms of where you think the predominance lies is it in the enterprise or is it in culture? Well Scottish Green was set up to solve that problem because to recognise that the answer lied in effectively managing the two. The answer for me anyway cannot lie in a fixed prioritising of one or the other because they don't neither will work effectively without the other. Reiterating that it's not a either or it's a both and scenario and it's how you balance it and whoever is taking the decision needs to be sensitive to both sides of that equation and not just for individual projects but across a portfolio of projects coming to them and what Scottish Green was set up to do was to recognise that this was an area that Scottish Enterprise and Scottish Arts Council historically and the other film funding body Scottish Fund Production Fund and so on couldn't do with their existing structures and therefore you needed a different body that could have that broad view. The SDS question I had an interview with their consultant I think it was two years ago but that's the last communication I've had with it. The question I'd like to ask back into the pool if you like is given that Creative Scotland has I can't remember Bob's exact phrase around has the responsibility for leading the co-ordination co-ordinating leadership something like that for the creative industries is in some ways why is Skills Development Scotland producing a creative industry strategy in isolation from a strategy that Creative Scotland might be producing in isolation from a strategy that Scottish Funding Council might be producing from Scottish Enterprise high etc etc it just seems that despite everyone's grand plan to work together they're working in beautiful isolation at the moment. In the UK model the BFI is the lead organisation in the film and increasingly in the television industries when it comes to relating to government and so I think the answer is that there has to be either a very specialised department within Creative Scotland that crosses these two sides or a separate agency there's no doubt that for all its issues and problems Scottish Queen was actually on the right path it needed to go further down the path that it was intended. In London we had the film council which existed for 10 years and the film council was a very dedicated crossover between the two hemispheres of the business so Ken is absolutely right, but I think that government in and of itself cannot simply give leadership without being properly stimulated and informed from the front end. It's struck that if you have to have 26 meetings to sort something you're never going to sort it because you're having meetings for their own sake. I can't imagine what you can possibly be talking about at 26 meetings and still not able to work out that one agency is saying one thing and the other agency is saying something contradictory. I suppose I'm interested in, I think the danger, it sounds similar to complete paralysis and there's always organisations doing their own thing, the quangos are agents of government so it's the government's responsibility to find a remit, there's nowhere to hide in that and I think sometimes the danger is all looks so complicated that nothing happens so I wonder if you could indicate what would be the small things that could be done immediately that we don't have to wait forever to have a fantastic strategy in order for that to happen so what should happen about the remit, what should happen about the studio, where should it go and when and what Arbel spoke very eloquently I think about some of the challenges, do the rest of the panel agree that we need a task force not a blah blah blah implementation group that meets for seven years and then decides you don't like the word leadership but that could start now with a remit that would drive what the government, the the government ministers have indicated they want to happen. I think priority is a film task force, I'd like to see Scottish Enterprise instructed to give Creative Scotland £1 million a year for the film industry and then for Creative Scotland before anything else is there to spend that on film production in Scotland whether it's in supporting businesses and growing the sector but that's what we need something of that size but we don't need them to keep talking to each other we need them one person to be talking to us and we need producers to be involved in how that money is allocated and spent because without that it's going to be irrelevant as to the film studio as many people have said before well Glasgow is very suitable as a place for film studio and next to it we can have a national film school and we can have a place where producers can coalesce and thrive together but it's probably better in a city centre than in the wilds next to great locations but away from where facilities companies are where people actually live and work. Any idea why such a small decision hasn't been taken? I think people are scared and also once you start getting property companies involved they're looking at building houses alongside it and hedging their bets that way and so it becomes a much bigger project than it needs to be. Very simple shed in a place like Pacific Key would do wonders for Scotland. Who should be public sector or private sector? What does it matter? I think Scottish Enterprise's plan was that if the private sector weren't going to build it then the public sector could. I'm going to abstain on the studio point but I wish I've never heard the term that we have to sort our house we have to get a house in order about this overarching management of intervention and aspiration and we shouldn't even be thinking about building a studio until we sorted that out. If we build a studio into the muddled situation we have now that studio at best will limp along and be ineffectively targeted. We are not in a state to do that properly unless we sort out the overarching issue. I'm taking from what's been said that actually the issue of sorting out the overarching is relatively simple. Change the remits of the organisations tell them to work together to the direction and instruction of the Government. That would be my opinion but having sat on the blah blah blah committee I'm aware that those things seem very simple to us but when it gets over to you folks they seem to get less simple but it should be very simple. If you were looking for a concrete thing there are many things that I work with many of my colleagues in IPS as much about IPS that I am not on side with in terms of the solutions they asked for in the short term. However I think we share this view about the overarching situation and if you were looking for a specific simple win in the short term I think that an assignment of funds from Scottish Enterprise to a beefed up department within Creative Scotland so that that department was handling both the enterprise and the cultural element would probably be effective and could in theory be done much more quickly and I suspect I mean I have many conversations there's a lot of good will in Scottish Enterprise but the fact is Scottish Enterprise the way it's set up its parameters do not permit it to do what the sector needs because as Arabella said and have it right at the beginning but reject what a successful film or TV company looks like doesn't fit Scottish Enterprise's model let alone a struggling one or an aspiring one it just doesn't fit I mean I'm still functioning because I know how to downsize very quickly a lesson I learned bitterly early you know cost me a house because they didn't downsize quickly enough between big projects you know a couple of months after that I was bringing 10 million pounds into the Scottish economy but of course that may be a reflection of my own incompetence that is so up and down but you look around and many people have that similar experience Scottish Enterprise is not set up for that kind of model perfectly fine so it should give its money to a beefed up creative scotland that would be a good simple short term win which might improve things. The infighting that must happen behind the scenes would be perhaps worthy of a series or two of Borgan within Scottish Enterprise but I think when we talk about a film studio what we also need is the funding to go with it there's no point just having a studio you need the incentives to attract the production so it's part of a bigger a bigger plan. The problem that you've perceived I mean it's the point that makes about the balance between creativity and enterprise that in fact while the artist negarrett has to always be supported I mean some art can never be commercial and good societies support people to do really creative things that your problem is that somehow people imagine the film industry is required subsidy when in fact what you're talking about is something that's hugely commercial the reason we're going down the ratings is because commercially other people are coming in and competing for the work so how do you if Scottish Enterprise doesn't define enterprise in terms of the creative industry properly then clearly it's something wrong with your remit rather than something wrong with the commercial capacities of the of the screen industry in particular. The success of Denmark is from a commitment over 20 years into into training and into funding people and growing the commitment to grow the business there uh and get their product around the world sometimes the things you do which are most cultural turn out to be um really turn out to be in a good industrial decision the biggest thing we've made is 15 hour story of film which took us six hours six years to make it takes 15 hours to watch um and uh that was really a bit of a hobby project and we got a little bit of money from Creative Scotland a lot of money from the BFI and it's now uh gone from essentially three of us making it in Scotland it's gone to 30 countries around the world and returned all its money to the BFI um that to me was very much a cultural project but actually was very worthwhile as we look at some kind of task force or whatever for next steps I think one of the things that's put out there is the need that the industry isn't just about production it's about all the different facets so it includes exhibition it includes distribution includes education both in terms of academic education skills but also film education in schools and for wider communities um it includes the archive includes festivals to make sure that all of those are wrapped up in the discussion because they all have an inter-relationship interlinked role to play in developing that sustainable film industry the second part of it is to seek clarity of the BFI's role in Scotland because currently the BFI yes has the lead responsibility at a UK level and develops strategies for talent development film education audience development and so on and we're partnering up on developing a talent development programme which is looking to find the next generation first time film directors which on one hand sounds great but it's to feed the BFI system not to feed the Scottish system um and it's how far you go well what's in the best interest of Scotland if we are going to be spending money and spending time investing in that next generation of talent presumably we want them to stay for as long as possible in this country and so they're not faced with the situation Ian was in 30 years ago thank you um to answer your question about what where is the reluctance to to get involved on on the side of public agencies and government I think to speak candidly I think film makers are very often viewed as being self-indulgent they want to do their own thing and put it out there and it's going to be brilliant and boom boom you know um and that's not entirely true of course but it does reveal what I think is the major problem here which is the lack of a system and the system if you think about you have the creative cultural which is the art side of things what's missing here are two other sides which is the commercial which is the building of of intellectual property and the exploiting of intellectual property i.e. making content and selling content that's a very very important core business and the third part of it is is the industrial side of it which is the whole skills building up of infrastructure and being able to be fit for purpose to exploit the opportunities that are growing in the world I mean the demand for entertainment is growing massively it's the one curve that keeps on rising around the world and particularly content in the English language now I see that as the reason why a film studio not a big shiny thing with glass windows and aluminium but something that is again able to look after significant production will only help the Scottish system to build itself up some people see that as a threat to indigenous filmmaking while strangely enough the stats in the UK as a whole show that with the influx of inward investment films the number of British films that are being made has increased so there is some sort of stimulant effect and I think it's something to do with people getting earning a living able to put the kids through school able to feed themselves and get and that means that companies are more prepared to take a risk because they're making a bit of money on the big film that came in but they're going to help the local film so all over the world I've seen the double economies running where a country is making big money on the stuff coming in and it's feeding its indigenous industries so I think there needs to be a strategic task force set up to look at the system as Ken says there's a lot of crossover that's not being faced up to at the moment okay thanks on the same issue Jonah on would that be okay well I'll take jump first and then Gordon yeah on bfi you've all been very complimentary about bfi obviously you work for bfi um but you're particularly complimentary bob um if bfi is is such a prestigious organisation it's performing so well why isn't it working for scotland if it's got a UK wide remit it's it is attempting to work for scotland and I access it as a scotish producer um and um I mean I'm here as an independent producer I'm also chairman of the centre of the moving image but I'm not here speaking is that because I'd have to be more measured in what I said if I was wearing that hat um but cmi is a partner as ken said with with talent development which is intended to focus on talent in scotland so they are attempting to but of course it's complex for them and complex for creative scotland because there's this other organisation which has apparently the same and overlapping remit and when you have overlapping remits in quangos sadly what you get is blah blah blah um it just is it seems to be the nature of the thing so it creates noise I think it's understandable it creates some noise in the system um but also the bfi is um it's london centric you know it is you live in london and it's like it's a little bit like like hollywood you know when I love LA when I go to LA I forget that there's anyone else in the world and you slip into that hollywood thing um and you know I actually live in Dunbar and in in in in london I tell people Dunbar is a bit of a northern line they've never been to you know um it's just it's it's it's a cultural reality which needs active balancing so I think again you've got that slight confusion in the current devolved settlement as I hope you can imagine as scot working in the south-east of london I very often have to hold my breath while somebody basically disinclines towards scotland now that's not a conspiracy what I'm seeing is it's partly a respect it's a respect for the fact that the scots need to be themselves you need to have what they have and that's all fine and dandy you know but at the end of the day no in the film and television industry nobody's an island you cannot be an island you can own your your power is gained through networking so I think what's happening with the bfi and with the other agencies and I include by the way the bfc in that is that there's a sense of kind of well leads are chasing us to do this and wheels are chasing us to this and there's a silence I would say from anecdotal but I think it could probably be measured there's a silence in the sense coming from scotland and what scotland should be doing in its journey to do whatever self-determination it's going to have is that scotland should be seizing the opportunity that's presented by these agencies no one will resist that they're there to be attacked and taken just as Bob said like Hollywood I went out of Hollywood completely insignificant and I went in and I attacked as best I could and I made a career out of it that's what has to happen they cannot expect the bfi even though it should be much more uh interplaying with Scotland I think there's a strange silence between scotland and the rest of the UK and it's not benefiting scotland I wasn't aware I was being hugely complimentary about the bfi but at least they're doing something I think the challenge for the bfi is that they're as with bbc and as with channel 4 they are UK institutions based in london taking a london centric view of the universe and the the panel you had earlier talking about broadcast commissioning you have to have the relationships on the ground in london with the commissioning editors for the tv side in exactly the same way you have to have the relationships on the ground in london with all the key decision makers and policy makers if you're wanting to make things and get programs and projects off the ground if you're based in Edinburgh Glasgow there's a relatively okay train and plane service if you're anywhere else in scotland it's it's much more of a nightmare and turn television one of the prime examples we've managed to survive despite having an office space in Aberdeen until that until the decision making and the money with the decision making is more centred in scotland then this conversation again will be happening over and over again both on the broadcast side and on the film side so in terms of picking up your your question about what can we do well is there an opportunity as the the debate around the smith commission report and so on continues to look at how proper elements of bbc channel 4 and bfi commissioning budgets production budgets can be devolved to scotland with appropriate levels of commissioning power to go alongside it okay i think it's easy to ask how much money the bfi invests in scotland we partner with cmi on that talent development initiative and last year when we were running it with another company um produced a couple of films one of which made it to sundance and one of which is then the final for this year's BAFTAs um we're very proud of that but bfi for me is a producer is another place to go and in fact i've been successful in getting more finance for production from them than i have from creative scotland so you know it's variety can sometimes play well but at the same time i think if the government is taking an interest in film production and seeing what happens then it's reasonable to expect that the bfi could be accountable for how much they spend in scotland and for that to be public knowledge okay okay gordon with all the right one more thing which i think is a very simple solution until you know decision making is further devolved as you know i've uh jillian berry and i've said to creative scotland look can we just have you know an office in london where you know you've we've got to go to london to go and find more money bring more money back to scotland there's only some you know the funds that we've talked about to go around but if there's a place where we can have a hub where we can brand ourselves accordingly as you know as we could but you know let's help ourselves go to them um until the decision making is brought back home okay okay gordon my question is actually about the studios um yes sure so what i want to ask was we've heard from this panel and the previous panel um that we do require a studio but any idea what's at a size because the example we've been given is titanic studios in northern island but understand in my hometown of cumbernauld is 140 000 square foot studio word park studios i mean is that what we want is that what we need to replicate um or is it something smaller than that or indeed larger and how was that funded what where did the funding come for the word park studios and is there any way that that is that dedicated to one production or is that something that can be shared by other producers i mean i visited the cumbernauld facility and i think it's excellent and is in a spiritual sense is exactly the kind of thing that we should be considering rather than necessarily spending a lot of money building from the ground up i would say the problem there is two problems one is that it's actually not big enough um and and also one has to look at and plan for success and not for failure so there has to be an expansion potential in terms of land area to be able to build um the second problem key problem is that it once once a thing like outlander comes in and that's it it's to exist to anyone else which is good news because the economy is benefiting but the bad news in terms of the facility so i think a country like scotland a nation like scotland has to have more space than that the problem with warehousing in those countries is very few of them are actually sufficient for the purpose of for film and television there needs to be at least a five feet height to the ceiling needs to be an engineered gantry there needs to be associated spaces like offices workshops parking all of that kind of stuff but above all that there needs to be the ability to expand there needs to be you have to believe in success if you believe in success then that infinitesimally makes success more possible and another point i would see coming back if i may just i think the industry itself has to be energized and supported for the industry practitioners to go out to the world whether that's the bfi or further beyond you know london isn't the be all and end all london's not having the easiest time it's very busy at the moment but it's an extremely perilous business even there and i see i see models in scotland a just larger in in the UK but the same basic issues apply so i think it's very important that the practitioners are encouraged to continue to do what they do unassisted at the moment in order to grow the business it can't just simply rely on public support just wanted to reiterate something that i think is really important that ian touched on there which is that scotland the brand is incredibly valuable internationally and although we've talked about london centric infrastructures and and quangos we get a welcome as Scottish producers anywhere you go in the world and it's important that we don't focus too much on that london issue in in terms of the studio i think ian is i was in montreal recently doing some preparatory work for a feature of English you there i hope next winter and i was looking at studio space there and they are much bigger but you know that i'm not sure what the total square footage in montreal but it's probably between a number of studios it's three or four and that's what you're up against but now they're getting x men is coming back there to the biggest studio for example but what's very interesting and i want there's an elephant in a room in the studio here and i'm going to stick my head above the parapet you know and talk about film city film city has played an interesting and valuable role but it is in no way can it deliver what ian's talking about what was very interesting to me in in montreal recently is that there are a couple of smaller studios which were built in improvised spaces they did not in fact have the height i couldn't use them because they didn't have the height and so on but it was very interesting to see that they were incredibly busy so as a result of these huge productions coming into the massive facility i did see exactly what ian talked about so for example were there to be another studio in scotland um then it does not necessarily mean that initiatives i film city or cumbernauld will suffer as a result of that i mean i think there may be difficult transitional periods but there is a potential that it can energise all of these facilities okay i would say um it should representing IPS you know we do believe it should be a city-based studio um personally i'll prefer it to be in glasgo uh you know accessible infrastructure um the like but i think we've also got to focus on the indigenous um have a hub around the studio and if that can be something where you can have very low rents or know it you know you've got to get your producers there working sharing ideas and there'll be a lot of work can be generated from that you know that would be a big advocate from the indigenous production side i would say but please make a decision soon okay all right thank you okay i'm going to bring in uh Dennis Robinson thank you convener um i may become the ken first uh i just want to explore a wee bit around about this skill sector because it obviously you know when we're looking at you know um production of films and we probably need to look at do we have the infrastructure there um for the making of that infrastructure i mean by the the skill sector now we've got this london-centric aspect that we're talking about and i'm just wondering if some of our people within who have the skills within scotland at the moment are are moving to london because that's where the work is but are we doing enough and are we linking our our education sector within our college and university sector to produce the skills that we actually need to ensure that the industry does survive for the future so we've got our sound engineers lighting technicians everyone else that actually helps build up that infrastructure because in an earlier report we did actually was was under employment and when we had people there talking about the fact that it was a bit sort of piecemeal in some respects they had a job for you know a couple of months and then that was them they were finished again and then maybe later on they were getting an opportunity so do we do enough do we have that infrastructure for a skill sector here and are we linking it with our education sector to ensure that we're producing the right sort of skills maybe ken what a very big question and a very good one i mean i think that the the challenge with it is there is a lot going on there's clearly a lot of courses covering all aspects of film and tv and video games and broader creative industries going on in colleges universities across the country nine years ago schenic academy scotland was set up to be scotland's national film school but it was set up in the context of funding arrangements that exist for their existing programs of activity so they didn't actually receive a huge amount more money to at the headline level deliver the next generation of writers directors producers into the film and tv industry so they've been hamstrung because they are operating in a very standard uh he funding system unlike the national film and television school which has an international status as being one of the best places you can go to to learn your craft and whether it's the creative craft or the technical craft until scotland has a national film school that is properly funded in that way and and nfts is paid for or funded directly through dcms as opposed to the part for education it scotland will not achieve what it wants to do so yes there are lots of people coming out with some of the skills and some of the talent they're coming out without necessarily the work readiness and so their experience of what it's actually like to make a film it will be they'll know how to do the college project the university project and they'll be assessed on that basis though relatively small number will actually be ready to move directly into an industry role so over the years there have all been all kinds of interventions most notably the new entrance training scheme which ran for 30 years as standalone and then as part of scotland's screen for its existence for however long it was around for which took a very small number of people eight people a year to get them the right level of experience and they would have probably had some kind of qualification already but they were getting practical work experience on live film and tv productions that level of activity doesn't exist as far as i'm aware at this precise moment in time what hotscotch cmi and digiculture working on is the Scottish film talent network this programme referenced earlier and it's very much looking at how we deal with a relatively small number of producers writers and directors and how we provide them with a stepping stone into the industry give them practical experience we've just closed the call for the short film initiative which is part of that part of that and on the back of that five six short films will be produced over the next six months transferable skills that is they can work whether in the film television or theater so all those skills that they have are transferable the reality it was mentioned at the previous panel the reality is that an awful lot of people will be working across all of these different areas and whether it's actors or technicians writers directors they will be working across those different areas and obviously sunshine and lease is the prime example of a project which had all kinds of iterations over many many years originating with music production becoming a stage play before being converted really successfully into a feature film and all the people involved at different points will inevitably have had different elements different roles within that. With creative skillset we obviously look after the screen academy and make sure that they are properly resourced and so on but the most interesting area that we found in the last few years is looking at the on-the-ground provision of skills and training and that is informed by the industry will come to the film skills council and we'll say to us we're we're short on camera groups or we need more people in lighting whatever so it's very very targeted to the need as the need goes forward and it can change year on year that need depending on on what's happening but the key to it is to be sensitised to need in terms of the industry it's all very well doing a kind of we've trained somebody to be a filmmaker that's fine that's important but it's it's it's much more about specific jobs that's where job creation will come also there's another aspect to this which is business of upskilling people or a lot of people who've been in let's say work have worked in television for instance in the past who are now having to learn how to to work in the new paradigm that we're in which is very different indeed re-skilling people who've been working in to hone their their abilities to compete in a digital world so there's a lot of there's a lot of front line to this stuff but without a proper skills agenda the total business is undermined unfortunately and that skills agenda is perhaps not as as energetic as it should be in Scotland young producers emerging producers as far as i understand that the short film schemes are budgets of 10 000 is that right yeah and then you know a low budget feature can be a massive jump you know up to a million pounds there's no nursery slopes that's what we're really missing at the moment and you know i don't want to keep harking back but at Scottish Green we did have tartan shorts we did have newfound lands we had half hour films we had our first feature films you know these were all schemes that that people like me who are now producing and lots and a lot of the skilled crews that we now have all cut their teeth on and i just don't think you can expect your filmmakers to go from a 10 000 pound short film to suddenly having the wear with all and the skills to to produce and run productions like that so i'd also really advocate a middle ground and just try and get you know what we really want as ips is a joined up structure so that we can you know go from having a national film school all the way through to features and returnable drama but we've got to you know we've got to get that in place you know that that i think everybody knows that's what we're looking for here and we can we can fix that okay okay i'm just still sort of curious to somebody who leads who should be taking the lead on this and go back to sort of our leadership question i suppose in terms of ensuring that the skill set is there for the future for sustainable uh production of films whether it be the technical or indeed we've got our actors or whatever i mean you know Ian you were saying it needs lead in some respects but if you only need someone for maybe a year for one thing i mean going through the university you know it's going to take two or three years you know so you know are we are we dovetailing are we really engaging enough to ensure that we have that skill market and are we ensuring that we don't export all those with the the experience within the sector down to either london or or or further afield the creative skill set is the the sector skills council with responsibility to film and separately also for television so it has the UK responsibility within which scotland is a part on the film skills council scotland is represented and if there's any dysfunctionality then that should be taken up within creative skill set there's no doubt about that the scotland skills basically the sds here in scotland should we we um be asking them to to take a role just tell me there's a report coming out in the spring so i would imagine the answer to that is yes certainly i think it's an area that needs to be looked at as part of the holistic total in terms of exporting i think i don't think you have to always be very careful especially in these digital times of this business of this is ours it belongs to us the you know the the power in industry now comes from networking and sharing and i think the fact has been on 24 for instance a significant number of the crew came down from scotland to work on that film on that series and what they got from that was a level of experience that befits them they all returned to Glasgow but they've now had experience and applied a technical knowledge in a situation that perhaps they wouldn't have got had they remained in scotland so there is always this movement of people um northern islands has found with game of thrones a very interesting phenomenon and that as soon as game of thrones became a reality suddenly there was a lot of returnees coming back to northern island who had had to leave in order to make a living um and i think that they would absolutely apply in the case of scotland if there was a more stabilising and systemising of what the potential is here the potential here is phenomenal i mean the talent here is undoubtedly world class and that's that is at the moment not being properly exploited i'm using that word deliberately rather than indulged or protected it has to be exploited we have to look at it as an opportunity that's not just about the voice of scotland and the Scottish people but it's also about making money and sustaining lives and livelihoods and having a dimensional view of our country which includes a self-image that all of these things are joined up and i've always argued even though i'm on the producing side and on the economic side of things i've always argued that if we the inward investment initiatives worth as i say a billion a year they're worthless unless they sustain and engender the indigenous industry that's the key that symbiosis is the key all the way through the system that's the key okay okay um Patrick Horwf after this long of two sessions there's a danger of going over the familiar ground there's there's one thing that i just wanted to pick up on which hasn't really been expanded on in terms of the the the the ranking if you like of these various different factors skills training retaining attracting investment whether that's through creative scotland or any other agency infrastructure and it's distractingly easy to talk about a studio and the clarity of leadership that that we've kept coming back to alongside that there's one issue that i think ian smith is the only person on either of these two panels who's mentioned the issue of tax and that's something which is unlikely in the foreseeable future to be a policy instrument that moves from UK government to the Scottish government so that's likely to stay at UK level there is probably a role for that as an alternative way of putting public money into the industry but it has been abused it has been turned at times into a tax avoidance scam some of these schemes what is the future of of that kind of instrument and how does it rank alongside these other areas i mean if we don't get the clarity of leadership will anything else be of value from either government what's the what's the the ranking order of of this this type of instrument as you pointed me out i'll answer that the tax the tax credit system was significant in as much as it's all started 20 years ago or thereabouts moving from an attitude towards subsidising the film industry to an attitude towards incentivising so the tax credit system is deliberately designed to incentivise inward investment to come into the into the country so in that sense it's actually proving to be very very effective and the treasury as i said already are delighted with it because the multiplier benefit is one in twelve so for every pound of public money there's 12 pounds of benefit to those domestic products so aspect of it no no there's always always there's always investigation going on and fitting and changing and adjusting that's happening week in week out is it possible to have a future for these kind of schemes which isn't open to that kind of abuse and exploitation well it's certainly the the abuse that you're talking you're referring to is the abuse that Gordon Brown shut down on which was a which was a whole a completely separate system this is a system of rewarding production for coming into the country so it and what it does is it levels the playing field internationally for britain we were a very expensive economy and our costs were very high compared to say middle europe or for that matter canada so we've managed to buy by incentivising and by the way if the tax credit does appear in the british film industry we're just completely collapsed being no doubt about that and and the success of governments have have analysed that and agreed with that in terms of scotland i think rather like northern ireland i think the thing to look at again i'm speaking particularly from the economic side of things but i think you need to look at the the effectiveness sometimes of a sweetener and to encourage productions to because what happens with a production coming to a northern island or a wales or or a scotland is they have to carry with them people who need to be put up in hotels hotels and living and all of that kind of stuff so if there's some kind of a sweetener as there was in northern ireland even though it's relatively small some of money that could be the tipping point that brings the the larger sums of money into play so it's it's it's a very particular not if there isn't the hunger that you said isn't coming from scotland not if there isn't the infrastructure not if there isn't the skills it's not going to be enough on its own so you know where does it sit on the list of priorities and what the tax but i think it i think it's absolutely the other things that we're not getting right well i think one of the one of the things the way back when the irish minister for culture i think stood up when trying to remember his name but he stood up and and announced to the world that section 32 i think it was going to come into us a fund and again it wasn't a large it wasn't a huge pot of money but everyone around the world saw that not that island i'm talking about the republic of island that island wanted film to come there and the feeling at the moment through no one particular presence fault is that scotland is sort of slightly closed for business and there's a feeling of well there's a scotland when wales is hunting for work wales is incredibly efficient at harvesting the opportunities and for whatever reason scotland is not doing that at all the different levels that it has to do so that there's a big need for coordination and there is a leadership out of that and there needs to be a bringing together to maximise the opportunity both on the creative cultural side and on the commercial economic side anybody else on this but just a specific point that you are right that there are some current hmrc investigations relating to eis which is not a tax credit eion was talking about i mean i would certainly agree what you said is that a tax credit is an absolute baseline if you get rid of that you have no industry in the uk or here and in fact everybody else in that global market it's not a coincidence i was in montreal different tax credits it's going to be very difficult i mean there may be other reasons why i shoot there but you know it's very competitive we have to understand that people are handing out bigger and bigger tax credits um but the eis the current investigations of eis are just worth touching on because i do know that the scotish government made representation that i believe on on this matter um because hmrc has concluded that eis funding cannot be used in a treaty co-production which is the fundamental the fundamental EU created tool to facilitate production in europe is treaty co-productions and hrmrc has said that eis money cannot go into that and that's certainly been very unhelpful and has damaged a number of productions and has had the consequence of taking out some of the commercial money that was in the marketplace and um i've never in life had the need to explore tax avoidance sadly um but uh some of the discussions around tax avoidance are really about investors reducing their risk and actually a balanced view has to be taken because if it means we get money in from these investors that isn't 100% the taxpayers money but they get to reduce their risk then that's possibly good value overall for the taxpayer um and so that it's quite a nuanced thing it's not so much a straight thing of easily defined fraud but that specific problem is a problem and it's a problem for scotish producers you know there is less eis money available this year than there was last year as a consequence of that the tax credit is a given i think what the challenge that we've got is that other parts of the UK let alone the rest of the world have got additional monies available to incentivise a production activity on the ground so northern Ireland have got big pots of money to bring in additional business the northwest wales and at different points over the last 10 15 years east midlands east of the england attack system yes so it was a mixture of ERDF it was all kind and basically just it's money that incentivises people to come and do business on your patch and so and that's the the competitive market that we're operating in in the UK let alone internationally and so it's some figures just so that we've got the figures so in Scotland we have three and a half million for production and development in Yorkshire they have 15 million in wales they have 30 million and where else have i missed out northern Ireland they have nearly 11 million and also in northern Ireland you know they can go up to an investment into productions of 800 000 800 000 and at the moment we can go up creative Scotland can invest up to 500 000 but they've only got three and a half million for the whole year so that's what we're talking about in terms of sweeteners and incentives of you know bringing co-productions and other international productions into Scotland you know we've got to find more resource austerity or not you know we are five years behind where we need to be like money you're talking about and ERDF funding as well yeah which is why we've been advocating for you know pleased to get with us behind the hunt for ERDF let's bring that money into Scotland we've got to secure it you know we are being really left behind so we used to have an advantage in Scotland with the Glasgow film fund which was a second place to go to and that helped lots of successful productions particularly the year they put all their money into train spotting or shallow grave which one was it shallow grave okay um if there are no questions and we very neatly come to the end of our time can i thank the panel very much for their opinions it's been a very useful session thank you for being forthright the committee will be deliberating we're still to take some evidence we're seeing creative Scotland and then we're seeing the minister and then we'll be producing a report in due course and at this point the committee goes into private session and we'll have a very short suspension thank you an interest in in us thank you thank you for your thanks