 Good morning, and a very warm welcome to the second meeting of the Constitution, Europe, Excellent and Affairs and Culture Committee in 2022. Our first round item today is budget scrutiny. On 9 December, the Scottish Government published Scottish budget for 2022-23. This morning, we will take evidence on the budget in relation to recommendations made in the committee's pre-budget scrutiny report. I welcome to committee this morning Angus Robertson NSP, Cabinet Secretary for Constitution, External Affairs and Culture, Scott Whiteman, director of external affairs with the Scottish Government and Bettina Sisland, deputy director for tourism and major events in the Scottish Government. I welcome you all this morning, and Cabinet Secretary, I invite you to make a brief opening statement. Billeted happy new year to you and all other committee members. It's a pleasure to have the opportunity to appear before the committee. I think it's the fourth time since my appointment, and on this occasion I'm just working on scrutinising the Government's proposed budget for my portfolio area for 2022-23. At £370.5 million budget for constitution, external affairs and culture represents less than 0.7 per cent of the Scottish Government's budget, and it is excellent value for money. Committee members are well aware of the fiscal pressures that are resulting from Covid and the impacts of Brexit. Despite those, my budget will increase by £21.7 million in the next financial year, and that will enable us to fully fund, as well as other things, the 2022 census at £3.3 million. I give you the opportunity early in the session to put on record my appreciation to my Cabinet Secretary, Collin Kate Forbes, as well as the First Minister and other cabinet colleagues, who during the recent budgetary process were extremely supportive of protecting the position, especially of culture, in the budget round. What at the beginning might have seen a real challenge to protect our spending on culture, I am content that we have managed to secure an excellent deal for the area of constitution, external affairs and culture that we will go into in some greater detail with your questions. Just some headline figures for the committee's benefit. We are investing £277 million in culture and heritage in 2022-23. That includes an increase of £13.7 million in funding to ensure that Historic Environment Scotland can continue to protect and care for our heritage and communities. We continue to support Scotland's regularly funded organisations, including providing £6.6 million in additional funding to enable Creative Scotland to maintain support for the regular funding programme. That is in the face of a significant decline in lotteria receipts. We are also providing £9.25 million for Screen Scotland, which is an increase of £700,000. We will, during the next financial year, be expanding our network of international offices by opening a new Scottish Government office in Copenhagen and increasing opportunities for policy exchange for Scotland's economic and cultural visibility in the Nordic region. We will support EU citizens to ensure that those who have chosen to make Scotland their home can do so. We will be investing £18.2 million in major events and themed years, including £9 million to enable Scotland to host the first-ever cycling world championships in 2023. The pre-budget scrutiny from the committee has highlighted the importance of a strong cultural recovery from the pandemic. I am pleased to be able to confirm to the committee that we are directing our spend to protect and maintain existing cultural provision, including continued support for Scotland's regularly funded organisations, for the Scottish Libraries Information Council, museums, galleries Scotland and five national performing companies. We will increase the international development fund by £1.5 million as a first step towards the commitment in the programme for Government to increase the fund from £10 million to £15 million during this Parliament, and that at a time when the UK Government has slashed its international development budget by a third. The finance secretary and I are acutely conscious of the impact that Covid has had on the cultural and major events sector. That is why we are committing an additional £65 million this financial year in support for the cultural events sector due to the impact of physical distancing and caps on attendance, and that is despite the continuing uncertainty over whether the UK Treasury will transfer the outstanding culture consequentials as it should. The budget for 2022-23 will enable us to continue to support the sector's recovery. The budgets for major events and external affairs will also contribute to recovery from Covid, transition, set zero and to delivering on our commitment that Scotland will be a good global citizen. I know that in your committee papers and in the letter that I wrote to you and committee members, I outlined a lot of the headline numbers. What has emerged since then has been the £65 million funding support package, which I am happy to go into greater detail. I think that committee members are aware of the breakdown of the funds on which point I will end, but it is important to put on record that £31.5 million additional support is going to cultural businesses, organisations, venues and independent cinema support. £10 million is going to create a freelancers, £19.8 million to support the events sector and £2 million for the national performing companies. That is for Christmas losses during fund repurpose, £1.7 million for museums, galleries and heritage. That is over and above previously announced commitments. I am sure that colleagues will want to know about the dispersal of the funds and the speed of how that is all happening. I am happy to follow up with greater detail. Where I do not have the information to hand, I am delighted to be joined as you mentioned by Bettina Sizlund and Scott Whiteman. If between the three of us we are not in a position to answer immediately, of course, we will be happy to reply in writing to any specific questions that we do not have the answer immediately to hand. Thank you very much. Thank you very much Cabinet Secretary. It certainly seems a happier new year, knowing that indoor events are due to continue in Scotland from next week, and we can see the culture sector starting to recover a little bit. Thank you very much for that. If I could open with a question about the mainstreaming of culture, which was a main thrust of our pre-budget report, before Christmas you said that you were starting a series of conversations with Cabinet colleagues to identify areas of joint collaboration and to inform the multi-year resource spending review. Are you able to update us on that and let us know of any outcomes that may be forthcoming? It is a very timely question. In recent weeks, this is indeed what I have been spending quite a lot of my time on. The background to this, of course, is the commitment by the First Minister in the culture strategy for Scotland that culture is a cross-government priority. It is one for all ministerial portfolios in the Scottish Government that we all have to contribute towards it, something that you, as your previous committee in 2019, drew attention to. In a recovery strategy that I proposed to the Scottish Government Cabinet in November, at the heart of that was an agreement across government by all Cabinet secretaries that we should be working together to mainstream the importance of culture in our recovery from Covid. To make good on that principle and commitment during the past week or so, I have met Cabinet secretaries for finance and the economy, net zero for health and social care and for education and skills, together with officials from our directorates to begin this process discussing ahead of the spending review later this year about how we can work together to deliver joined up cross-government responses to supporting culture and recovery from the pandemic in a way that can accelerate progress against all the national outcomes. We are being very mindful that cultural recovery is not something that is top down, that is something simply for the Scottish Government to come up with ideas and for that to trickle down. That is not the approach that we are taking. Yesterday, for example, we were involved in discussions about the partnership with local government, for example, with government agencies that have responsibility in the culture scene, Creator Scotland, Screen Scotland and so on. Really critically, particularly in areas such as health, is the voluntary sector. We have initiated the conversations. In addition to this work, we have the national partnership for culture, which has existed for some time, which brings in practitioners, people on the front line in the cultural world. They have been meeting throughout the pandemic and we are looking forward to having their recommendations early this year, which will help to inform the process that you have drawn attention to. It is going to be really important that we do everything that we can to prioritise culture as playing a role in all that Government does. At the very same time as we try to recover from the pandemic, we must marshal all the resources that we have, material and otherwise, not all about money, although money is important, to ensure that we can help the culture and arts scene to recover and bounce back as strongly as I know that everybody on the committee is massively committed to the cultural sector. It is going to be a team effort that helps us to do that, but in terms of Government, we are beginning this process that I mentioned in my previous evidence session to the committee. Now that we are fingers crossed coming out from underneath the Covid cloud, we are going to be able to accelerate a lot of that in the months ahead. Thank you very much, cabinet secretary. I now move to questions from committee members. I invite Dr Allan. Thank you very much and welcome again to the committee, cabinet secretary. I think that we have spoken in the past, or certainly that the committee has taken an interest in the past in the issue of mainstream cultural spend. I just wonder if you can say any more about what you have managed to do on that front in terms of interesting other parts of Government and the public sector in the importance of culture. I am thinking, for example, particularly of NHS and of town planning, and whether you have been able to advance the arguments that this is spending to save in the longer term in many other areas. I think that the good news is that I have yet to come across anybody who does not appreciate the opportunity that we have in this area. I have not picked up any institutional or intellectual resistance the notion that culture in its broadest sense can have a transformative impact in different parts of the work of Government. In the conversations that I have had with cabinet secretary and colleagues, they have been the first to volunteer whether it is in terms of prescribing in the national health, whether it is talking about physical, but also very important in mental health. If we are talking about education and the value that culture can bring in its broadest sense, we know how much weight the Scottish Government has put on supporting, for example, music and hard-to-reach communities with the likes of Sistema, who has just had increased funding from the Scottish Government and is able to reach into communities. What is really encouraging is that we are not doing this from a standing start, we are not doing this from a position of having to persuade anybody that this is worth while doing it. What we are having to do is do something that maybe does not come easily to Government anywhere, which is how you make the different bits of Government work optimally together and bring everybody together. As I mentioned in my previous answer to the convener around the other important actors out there who are already doing great things, there are some amazing things happening at a local Government level, there are some great things that are happening in the voluntary sector. One area that I mentioned in a previous evidence session was where are their best examples. Scotland is not just thinking about doing all of those things, it has already been thought about in other countries as well. I am really keen to learn how does that work in other countries, how are they managing to deliver, there may be examples where they are further down the track or further behind, but I am really keen that we can work together. One of my priorities for this year is using the convening power and the events that are already taking place. The culture summit, for example, has taken place in Scotland this year, becoming the ability to meet face-to-face and not just in online conversations with colleagues. Within the last few weeks, I was speaking with my French opposite number, the French culture minister. We were talking about the areas of cultural recovery as well. How do we get best practice from other places that are doing it as well, and then it is about getting on with it, but a lot of that is happening already. It is just how do we scale it up, how do we make it deliver across Government, and everything that I have heard so far from colleagues is that they are enthusiastic about it. It is just a case of harnessing the best ideas and delivering as widely as we can so that the benefits are felt right across Scotland. You have also mentioned the challenges that the culture sector has faced throughout Covid. Have those challenges changed? At an earlier stage, the committee would have been hearing about how to shift much of the culture sector online and to do things in a different way. Perhaps now the demand is how to move things back offline again and how to get people back into events and live performances. Does the budget have to be agile enough to cope with that changing situation? How does it manage those changing priorities around culture coming through Covid? The most immediate response, and we have shown ourselves to be agile, is how did we manage the latest Omicron variant and the impact that it had on the cultural and arts sector in Scotland, which was possibly the worst time of the year for many of them, December being a really important month for many. The Scottish Government worked extremely hard firstly to find the resources and the scale of the resources that were required for both the Scottish Government and Creative Scotland in particular to be agile enough to work out how we can disperse the funds as quickly as possible with the due diligence that everybody would expect. We need to have when disperseing taxpayers money on this scale. We are in the process of doing that right now, and it gives me the opportunity to put on record my appreciation, because a lot of that happened during the festive period, where civil servants in the Scottish Government and officials in Creative Scotland were burning the midnight oil and have continued to do so to make sure that our creative sector, the events, the venues, are able to remain solvent and are not losing out without support, so that, as we begin to see things reopen, they are in a position to reopen. That is why we have had these different funding pots to try to make sure that we are reaching the whole part of the affected cultural sector in Scotland. We have got the cancellation fund for cultural organisations. That £31.5 million was allocated towards that. That is opening for applications on 26 January. The guidelines to the fund were published yesterday, and, if there are any organisations that are having immediate solvency issues, Creative Scotland is prioritising those on an organisation or on a personal level. We were responsive to concerns in the cultural community about the position of freelancers, many of whom did not make a lot of money, but a significant number would be losing out because of the public health safeguards that were initiated over the festive period. That opened up on 6 January for those. As of close at play yesterday, there have been 1,728 applications for that fund, a totaling £2.95 million. My interest committee members that the majority of those applications are from music freelancers, more than 60 per cent. Creative Scotland has so far paid out just over £1 million to 602 of the applications that were received. That underlines the speed with which one has tried to allocate the funding as soon as it has been made available. In addition to that, there is the event sector for which £19.8 million has been made available. Event Scotland is going to be dealing directly with the relevant businesses because we know who they are because of the previous funding challenges. In addition, there is a national performing company that receives £2 million and museums and galleries at £1.7 million. You asked Dr Allan about the ability to be responsive. The Scottish Government has been extremely responsive. We have had an excellent collaborative relationship with the creative and arts sector. We have been meeting all the time to discuss their needs, their interests, concerns and expectations and how that can be delivered on as quickly as possible. As you say, there is a sort of curiosity about in the past seeking to support arts and culture, getting online and embracing the new technologies to make their art available for as many people as possible. Now we are just yearning to get back to theatres, galleries, cinemas and all the rest of it. We are having to go with the circumstances that we find ourselves in. We also have a society dichotomy. We are now, as we emerge from a period in which we are telling people to act responsibly in relation to the pandemic of trying to give people confidence to go back to public spaces. That is going to be one of the challenges that we have in the weeks and the months ahead to help people to have the confidence to be able to go back to theatres, cinemas and gigs. However, I am confident that, knowing what I have heard from people involved in the sector, they are very, very alive to all of that. If anybody needs any encouragement, please let us do what we can to help to encourage people to attend events so that they can bounce back from the pandemic. Finally, convener, you also mentioned that one of the challenges that you are facing was trying to establish the UK Government's intentions around consequentials in this area. Can you say a bit more about that and how it is affecting what you are doing? I can answer that on two levels. One, we keep on asking the UK Government where are the consequentials in it. I am not entirely sure what the rationale is in the Treasury or on Whitehall on not being clear and delivering on what is supposed to be delivered on. We will continue to press that point and we will continue to encourage those who have any influence over the Treasury to do so. However, in the meantime, we have had to get on with finding the resources to deal with the scale of the challenge that we have. We have a twin-track approach, one of which is to try and get the Treasury to deliver on its consequentials. We are just having to do what we can do within the limited powers of devolution, and that is exactly what we have done. However, I do not know if your committee or others are ever going to be taking evidence from UK Government ministers who have any responsibility for consequentials. I would be delighted to learn why it is that it takes months and months and months to have any clarity whatsoever on what is happening. I would like to hear the answer to that. I have not heard it yet. I am going to move to questions from Mr Ruskell to be followed by Ms Boyack. I think that this year's budget remains pretty challenging for local government, and we know the reasons why that is the case. I think that particularly in the area of discretionary spend, it is difficult to see how councils are not going to be looking at how they can make savings. I hope that those don't fall in the culture sector, but there is a risk that they do. I wonder to what extent you have discussed that with Shona Robison and Ben Macpherson. The flip side of the good news of the budget is that it will result in increased funding for local government, particularly in areas such as health, social care and education. Do you see immediate opportunities in the next year for mainstreaming some of the excellent work that the culture organisations do to support mental health wellbeing, for example, through that increased budget, or is that increase of that budget effectively allocated to other priorities that are not immediately going to be available for cultural organisations who are doing that important work in terms of wellbeing? Your question underlines both the opportunity and the challenge of getting this right, because there are a number of actors involved in it. My colleague Jenny Gilruth, if memory serves me correctly, in December held meetings with local government colleagues on cultural questions. As we go forward with the development of the plans that we are discussing within government, it is to do those in partnership with colleagues in local government and with the voluntary sector. I am not wanting to prejudge that. I have yet to meet people in local government who do not wish for the cultural sector in their part of Scotland to do badly or do not get the advantages that culture can bring for the services that they provide in many cases. However, it is true to say that there are nuances and differences between local government and different parts of the country. That opens up the question of local democracy and priorities versus a centralised top-down direction on priorities. That is why I am keen to try to make sure that we have as much buy-in and common ownership of all of that. Yes, money is very important. Yes, planning and frameworks and priorities and all that is very important. However, I would also like to draw attention to the myriad of third sector organisations who, in many ways, will be at the front line, particularly in the point that you raised. I know that you have raised in previous meetings as well. I know that that is important for you. In terms of the prescribing element, much of that will be recommendations for people to take part in services that are provided by voluntary organisations, not even by local government or by the Scottish Government or anybody else. It will be local groups of the community level who do all kinds of things that people, if they were able to take part, would help with mental health challenges and so on. I am not wanting to prejudge that, but I think that working together with both umbrella organisations for the voluntary sector, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, any local government areas or voluntary organisations who have a particular locust and experience in all that, by working together, we will be able to build an approach to that which gets maximum value out of that. That also happens at a time of cultural change. How do we make sure that there is early adoption for those as pathways to treatment? I do not know how long that will take. That will be new for many who will be prescribing those services, but we want to be able to give them the maximum assurance and reassurance that what they are referring to will have the beneficial advantages that we think they will do. I finish where I start. I have yet to have a conversation with anybody at any level that gives me the feeling that they are not keen to try and make that work. I think that everybody knows that it is a good idea, but it is how to pin that down into long-term core budgets that are not necessarily coming out of discretionary spend, which councils are struggling with at the moment. That is the bit that I am interested in. I am wondering to what extent the national partnership for culture is looking in-depth at that type of funding. I noticed that you have got NHS 24 on the partnership, and I am sure that that is welcome, but where is the discussion with health and social care partnerships or COSLA about absolutely nailing that to ensure that where the Government is prepared to increase investment in councils under very difficult circumstances—I understand that—but where we are prepared to really invest in local government in a way that you could call as ring fence, how do we make sure that the value of that really is being shared with the cultural sector and that the cultural sector is able to deliver on those objectives? We always think that that is a great idea, but we do not know how it is actually going to work in terms of core funding. You have put your finger in one of the areas where we will either get that right and succeed or we do not. We will be back here in a year or five years time talking about how we are not quite there yet. I cannot pre-judge that, and I do not want to pre-judge that, but I acknowledge entirely that the point that you are making is at the heart of being able to deliver across Scotland. If there is a danger, there would be different council areas that, because of the priorities that they set, decide that that is not a priority for them, and then you might find that, in some parts of the country, you are seeing excellent pathways and the prescribing of services in this area, but not in others. That would be a great shame. Having said that, I happen to think that, when people see that that is happening and that it is best practice and that it fits within budgets, people will realise the value of it and, if they do not do it already, they will be persuaded that they should be getting on with it. I do not want to stick up in lights because it is such a good idea that, if we can, if we can, working in partnership with the organisations that you and I have both identified, that between us all, we should be able to begin the process of this taking place. By keeping us all on our toes, as the likes of yourselves as a committee, we will be doing, you will make sure that this gets out of discussions and strategies and frameworks and policies and is actually delivered on the ground so that people are having the benefit of the things that we know will make a benefit to people's lives. Okay, here is hoping. Can I ask you a couple of specifics around the budget? One is about Historic Environment Scotland. Obviously, it is challenging in terms of reduction visits that are happening at the moment. I mean, hopefully that is going to recover, but I wonder if there are any projections for how that is going to recover that a crystal ball perhaps required there. The second question was really just about the opening of the Copenhagen office, which you mentioned in your introductory remarks, and just how that is progressing. I noticed that the budget has been allocated for the next year for that. Can we expect to see an office open this year? Are there any details that you can share at this point, which I think you are going to agree with? I will start off with Historic Environment Scotland, and I will give Scott Whiteman, who is on this call, the heads up that I am going to ask him to add on to my contribution. I know that we were talking about this yesterday about how things are actually progressing. I will say what I have to say about it, and he will add some more detail on that. To the first part of your question on Historic Environment Scotland, in budgetary terms, we are providing £70.1 million for Historic Environment Scotland, which is an increase of £14.2 million on this financial year. 60.6 million of that is a resource allocation, £3 million for depreciation and £6.5 million for capital funding. The reason why most people in the committee are aware of that is that uplift has been required, although we should not take it for granted, because at one stage we were looking at the potential of budgets being squeezed, but we have managed to secure an uplift for the budget because of the drastic reduction in commercial income for Historic Environment as a result of the pandemic. Essentially, what that means is that we have not been able to go out for many periods over the past few years, so we have not been able to visit the properties that Historic Environment Scotland has responsibility for, so they have not been getting the income. You asked whether I have a crystal ball. I have a crystal ball in terms of what is Scottish Government funding. What I do not have a crystal ball for is the public response to the opportunity to revisit or to visit after the reopening of facilities. Here is something that I am keen that we can do the most that we can do, which is to encourage people to support cultural organisations in the broadest of senses, but specifically those areas that have been exceptionally challenged and Historic Environment Scotland is one of them. So, if I can use the platform of the committee to appeal to anybody who is interested in culture and heritage, please sign up, please go, please visit when you have weekend opportunities or days off, take the family and by going and by paying to visit sites, we will be doing everything that we can to help Historic Environment Scotland find its feet again. That is the crystal ball that I cannot make any accurate predictions on, but it will take time. We are going to have to do the best that we can possibly do to help Historic Environment Scotland recover, and that is what we are going to do. On Copenhagen, there is a new budget line in our budgeting for the next financial year, because we are setting up an office in Copenhagen in the spring of 2022, so that is this year. We have an indicative budget of £598,000, which includes a contribution of £148,000 towards corporate running costs. Once staff are appointed in the offices open, they will be clearer on the full year running costs required for the location. I am hugely encouraged about having an office in Copenhagen. Having a direct link in northern Europe is a great thing. For culture in particular, and it is a point that I have made to the committee before, there are great things that we can learn, particularly from Denmark when it comes to public service broadcasting and their screen and television sector. That is one of my hopes that the office in Copenhagen will help us in our transformational situation in Scotland for filming and production. The Copenhagen Scotland House will be opening this year. Yes, we have allocated budget for it. Scott Whiteman, is there anything that you want to add to what I have said for Mr Roskell? Thank you, cabinet secretary. Perhaps one additional point is that we are in the process at the moment of appointing the head of the office so that the recruitment exercise is under way and should be completed very shortly. I expect that we will be in a position to formalise the appointment very soon. Excellent. I am going to move to questions from Ms Boyack to be followed by Mr Golden. Thank you very much, convener. Good morning to the cabinet secretary. I would like to focus on the challenge and recovery, which you have mentioned a couple of times in your comments, and the importance of enabling people to access culture in terms of the health and mental wellbeing that we need in a social park of who we are. Focusing on the challenge and recovery, particularly as you acknowledged in your opening remarks about effectively not being able to have Christmas and hope many, which for many venues and for many cultural organisations is our key income generator. I wonder if you could say a bit more about that, in particular the issue of retaining people in the sector. I have certainly had case work and people getting in touch who have either left the sector because they cannot afford it because of the bills or because the uncertain nature of funding. I would like to link that into the community side of culture, because we had some really good examples at the cross-party group that we have on culture communities last night, where, with individual projects employing people locally in the cultural sector and giving them that opportunity of much more certainty in terms of income generation. I wonder if you could focus on that in terms of retaining people in the sector, but also changing the way that people work to give them the opportunity of more work in communities and how we could bring that about, just like some initial thoughts on that from the cabinet secretary. We could probably discuss that for the whole of the evidence session. The first point relates at the moment in my thinking about the financial support package that we have secured and making sure that that covers all the areas of where there has been financial loss in the culture and arts sector. That is not the same thing as saying one will be able to cover every single lost bit of income, but because of the scale of the funding that has been secured and the way in which the funds have been constructed, it is being constructed in a way that is trying to have the maximum impact on people whether they have a smaller income or whether they are larger or organised significant outgoings, especially during this last lockdown, and we are going to lose a lot. One of the things that I have been keen to stress to officials through this whole process is the requirement, as I see it, for us to have flex in our funding response to the problem. I will give an example of the £10 million allocation towards freelancer funding. I use the opportunity with a public audience to say to anybody out there who knows that they lost money and they work in the cultural and arts sector, please make sure that you apply for the funding because it will make a difference to your financial situation. It is also for the reasons that Ms Boyack said that we are not wanting to lose people from the cultural sector for whom it has become increasingly difficult for them to make financial ends meet. Going back to the flex point, we have a number of limits on spending allocations and freelancers. It has been £2,000. I have said that if we have gone through the initial funding allocation round and I gave the numbers at the beginning of the evidence session about how many applications there have been and how much there has been first, that if we find that we have resource within those particular funds, that we, if we can, should be in a position to act sympathetically towards further loss that people may have had. I am absolutely seized on us making sure that we do everything that we possibly can to deal with people's personal or business financial loss in the cultural and arts sector. I acknowledge that the whole period of Covid lockdowns has had a hugely detrimental impact on a lot of people's—not in general terms because we know about that, but specifically in culture and the arts—to people on low incomes, to people who are just at the start of their career. It is always difficult to establish oneself in the cultural scene. The difficulty, the absence of the ability to tour, the impact that Brexit has had on people's ability to tour on the continent. As we know, there are a great many Scottish artists for whom that is where they are most successful. Not all of that is solved by funding support mechanisms for the Covid circumstances that we found ourselves in. There are other things that we are going to need to look at and are looking at to support touring arrangements. That is a good example of that, working with the music sector on that. There are other areas to make sure that, as we recover, that people who might have been beginning to think, I do not think that that is sustainable, I do not think that I can carry on, get the feeling that there is support out there for them to get back into the cultural sector and to hopefully establish themselves. There are, incidentally, there are also some straws in the wind about changing visa arrangements, for example. Countries such as Spain are live to the challenges that we have been stressing with them that have come about through Brexit. That is my answer to the first part of Ms Boyack's question. I am happy to come back on any of that. On the second part of people wanting to go into the culture sector and wanting to start doing constructive things at a community level, I am so pleased that we have been able to secure the funding allocation in culture that we had in previous years. Through organisations such as Creative Scotland, the funds are there for a whole series of different projects that deliver in different ways. I am happy to write to Ms Boyack about those on a community level, but that is where there is crossover with Mr Ruskell's earlier point about local government and community workers, community outreach workers, where there is a crossover with culture and with the voluntary sector. We know that that works very well in some places, and in some places it is less established. That is one of the areas for me where the cultural recovery process and working with local government and the voluntary sector will get a much better handle on what will be a mixed picture throughout Scotland and try to establish it as much support as we possibly can, so that the whole of Scotland has the benefit offered. I would be interested in that follow-up offer of information that you just gave me there, Cabinet Secretary, about culture and communities. One of the things that is really striking to fall on from Mark Ruskell's point is that culture is not a requirement, but it is critical to people's health and wellbeing and to our communities. Having that funding available at local level is critical, and we have taken evidence in the committee on that before. The benefits to people are critical, so it is to come back to that point about health prescribing. We have had some very good evidence presented directly. Art and healthcare came to Parliament before Christmas. There is the work that was done in different communities to support people through the pandemic, but, as we recover, that work will need to continue, so it is not a tick the box move on. It is how did the experience of those community projects, which have helped to employ artists and people in the cultural sector, where they have critically supported communities? How do we increase that? As we are living in an era in which inflation is rocketing, how do we support people to afford to access culture? I saw an excellent paper from Scottish Opera that showed what it is doing in terms of touring around the country. Festival fringe is attempting to encourage people to get into the festival or to take the festival fringe out to them, but that affordability for culture is going to be absolutely massive. In practical terms, what is going to be available for community groups and councils to ensure that venues are there and we can see that happening going forward? You are absolutely right. Everything that you say there is on the money with what is needed to happen. As you pointed out, there are some really good examples, and they are not the only ones. About harder-to-reach communities, about younger people who might live in more peripheral areas and being able to take part in the cultural offering. It is then also about culture not just taking place where certain venues are. In bigger cities, for example, it is about getting out and getting to different parts of Scotland—Scotland Opera, but the other national performing companies, too. The funding being there for others to get to right across Scotland. At that point, absolutely, it cannot just be happening in some isolated parts of the country that are particularly well served by cultural infrastructure. Point 2 about affordability. We all are aware now about what is going on with the level of inflation and need to be alive to the fact about how disproportionate the cost for certain things might be for people, which would put them off attending cultural events. I know that many of the cultural organisations are extremely alive to all of this. You mentioned the festival fringe. There is a lot of work that goes on there in reaching different parts of the city, different social demographic groups and having different approaches to admission. We need to encourage the best practice from somewhere like that to be shared right across the cultural sector. That will be a constant challenge to try to make sure that it can deliver. I am never tired of saying to my officials and people in the cultural sector that I am very keen to learn about best practice, whether that is best practice here. I will be very keen for my officials to learn the lessons from the evidence that you have heard as a committee, written in oral. I am very keen that we do that, but I am also very keen to learn what other countries are doing at the present time, what are the policies that they are doing that are innovative, that deal with access, that deal with cross-government experience, that deal with protecting people coming into the cultural sector as well. We do not have a monopoly of common sense or good ideas, and wherever those might be, I am keen that we road test whether those are applicable here as well. Again, if you are part of your work in the committee, and I said this from the outset, I am very keen to have a collaborative working approach with yourselves. If you are taking evidence and learning about things, I am very keen that we hear and see those and make sure that those influences are thinking of what we do as Government, working together with yourselves and doing the job that you do in the committee. Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. I think that, particularly the health prescribing issue, there is innovation in the rest of the UK that we could definitely learn from, that would actually retain people in the sector but also make that impact in the communities that we are all after. I think that it is quite an appetite for hearing more about that going forward and about looking for innovation. If the committee convener will indulge me, I have one final question. I noted the national event in the budget in your letter, and you have highlighted the UCI cycling event that is happening next year. £9 billion or £10 billion—any chance of getting that mainstreamed into the budget so that some of the things that you have just been talking about, but health prescribing, we could actually have the resources when the policy gets developed. I am going to give Bettina Seisland a heads up to follow up on the question that you have asked, so she can put a little bit more detail into the generality that I am about to share with you. Of all the things that have crossed my desk since becoming Cabinet Secretary, especially in the event space, the scale and opportunity from the world cycling championships is the one that is so striking in its scale and the potential that it offers. Not just because people will be able to attend and see high-level cycling events right across the gamut of different cycling sports, or the fact that the venues are right across Scotland, which is a good thing, but it provides an opportunity for a cultural change as well in terms of how we see cycling as a mode of transport and of living, and by extension health as well. I think that you are absolutely right to ask the question of what is the net benefit of this above and beyond the core parts of the championship itself? I chaired a Cabinet meeting of the Cycling World Championships where there was extensive discussion about all of this and of making sure that the benefits of an event like this are not just for the period of the event and that they reach into the entire country. It would probably be helpful for you and colleagues to have people from the organising side of the event to let you know about all of that. Is it certainly impressed me? In terms of the budgetary allocation for the event, Bettina Wedge comes from the event side of things of the Scottish Government, which she can probably fill in. If there is anything around which budget line this is allocated from, it has a practical impact on any of that. I am happy to learn what that might be. My experience is that, Fodd mi i'n gweld radd, yna ddigus fel Blylydddr gan — of Funds Testament, tourismplantsau, mewn caeth, yn y ddiolch yn ddechrau, sy'n hollwch cyr Babexonau. O'r hanbun o hyn a dyna'r newid, sef�ith hospitals according to thefallen geff nonprofits of fund survival, ychydig i'r gwarion cyflennu newid i'r Gwyrdianfryd? Of course, Mr Robertson. Mae'n fawr i chi i gweld o gyfer i diamonds. Mae'n gair i yn sirwad cyflennu newid i y Gwyrdianfryd i'r gardd, mae eich gwaith edy goinghau tirion, mae eich gweithio a'i gwaith cyflennu newid i'r gweithio. 13 ysgoleth yng Nghymru yn Glasgo. Mae'r afael ymellodau ymellodau yn y Cynulliadau Fy oedd yn cyd-dwylliant i'r centau. Fy oedd amddai'r event yn cyd-dwylliant i ffwrdd ymlaen nhw, ond ynddo i'r ffordd ymlaen nhw ymlaen nhw'n gyffredinol gyfrifolau ymlaen nhw. R birdschiffle ac y gallwn dod yn cael i'r pandemorol yn gweithio'r cynghorfod arlai iawn. Fe ydych chi'n dgnach i gactivau agor a Llywodraeth. Mae'r ddechrau eigylcheddau foeithio a phaithfodol, ychydig i gactivau a ffordd ac o'r hyn o gyffredinol a oeddiogelwch the community in the local areas to develop that interest and improve the health and well being. So that policy is very much at the heart of it. In terms of the Budget, the budget overall for the event is 50 million of that 8 million is for the cycling facilities fund and that is about making sure that there are facilities in the local areas so that not just children ond toeth bwysig tarfwysig, ychydig i'r bwysig a cableswyr eu cyfnod, a olw i'r bwysig ar galeidio. Ie, mae angen i chi'n rhai i'r cynyddiant i dda, Llyfró Dmitrieוט wedi ei cofnwysiaid i'r byffernadau, oedd john eich 12. Aelodd i chi ei ddefnyddio yn gwneud i'n gwyllidol i'ch 12. I have a brief supplementary on Mr Ruskell, which I think is on the world championships, and then I'll move to Mr Golden. I think that it's going to have a massive impact. I think that the improvement in facilities that will probably come to areas like Tweed Valley, Fort William as well are going to be incredible, but I think that in terms of cycling governance, this might still be seen as a GB event, and I'm just wondering if that is the case. Has there been any commitment from the UK Government to support the world champs in 2023? On Governments, a special purpose vehicle has been set up as a wholly owned subsidiary of Visit Scotland to co-ordinate the delivery of the event. The SPV 2023 cycling world champions limited is accountable to the Visit Scotland board and to the SPV 2023 cycling world championship cabinet, which I chair. As has already been mentioned, we are providing £30 million over five years of the planning and the delivery of the event. Glasgow City Council is providing up to £12 million of funding and UK sport is providing up to £4.5 million. There is funding from different places, but those are the Government's arrangements in relation to the event. I'm trying to remember when I chaired the cabinet. I don't think that there was anybody there from the UK Government. There was from Glasgow City Council, from ourselves, from the cycling organisations, and from the special purpose vehicle who are managing the event. I have to say, extremely proficiently, from what I was able to see. Thank you, Mr Golden, to be followed by Ms Minto. Thank you, convener. Cabinet Secretary, Nick Hobart said that the Government was working on a cultural recovery plan. Can you give an update on the timeline on when that might be published? That is the paper that I presented to the Scottish Government Cabinet in the beginning of November. That was the document where the key takeaway was, as we discussed at the beginning of this evidence session, trying to ensure that culture and the arts are seen as a cross-Government responsibility and opportunity. So far, so good. I started to work on that. I don't need to rehearse the fact that the conversations are under way and all that side of things. Obviously, we had the latest Covid variant that came along in the meantime, which obviously had a huge impact on everything. Has that had an impact on cultural recovery? Absolutely, because it meant that so many things needed to be cancelled in December, run into January. We should not lose sight of the fact that events have also been cancelled in February and March, and people have been putting off decisions until they have a greater sense of confidence about the health picture and about the risk of public health measures reoccurring. We are all trying to do our best in understanding where we are in terms of our recovery from the latest variant. I do not need to rehearse all that, but we should be pleased that we have done so well with the booster programme. Obviously, we had the announcement of the First Minister this week, and we will see the reopening of venues from next Monday, which is hugely encouraging. What was presented in November remains true, but we will now be able to action more seeing that things have reopened. However, we have not been losing the opportunity—if you can call it that—of the circumstances in recent weeks in which we were not able to see events take place, of making sure that the Government's approach continues to be developed. That is exactly where I am at, which is to try to make sure that we are at pace doing everything that we can to help on the recovery side of things. Going back to the question, I think that it was to Ms Boyack in relation to flex in the budget. I am very keen that the resources that we have allocated for remediation are, importantly, also for recovery. Once we know the scale of drop-down of various funds for the events, for things that were cancelled, for venues and for freelancers, if we have any headroom remaining, we are able to use that to springboard into a recovery phase. I am open to suggestions about how we can give people maximum confidence just as we have come out of the back of appealing to the public to be as cautious as possible. It is not lost on anybody. We are not unique in this challenge. How is it that we can, one week, say to people, please only meet x groups of people in certain circumstances and not others and then move to the next week and instantly say that you can go and do a whole lot of things that you were not able to do before? Some people will jump at the opportunity and the overwhelming majority of them will have no doubt be sensitive and will be careful about how they are in the company of other people. There will still be a group, though, on some of them because of their personal health circumstances will be such that they will be very cautious about wanting to go out for a while, perhaps. I am not sure that I have the answer to all of that. Some of the area has become politicised in a way that things were less politicised at the start of the pandemic. Maybe that is just inevitable and it reflects the fact that some people think that certain things should be happening faster than other people also reflect that some people are getting the advice from our official advisers and some are not. I do not doubt that everybody wants the best public health outcomes. I do not doubt that for a second. However, at the same time, there is a conundrum, is there not, about how can we now say that you have been cautious and now please go out and support culture and the arts by going to events? We are just going to have to navigate our way through that and we are going to have to appeal for people to be as responsible as they can be. I know that the events organisers are hugely seized off of all of that. We already see, if we look at Celtic Connections, a really good example of an event that had circumstances not changed, had an entire festival in place to run in person, then we had the latest variant, so they had to be imaginative about how much they could put as an online offering. Now they are able to have at least part of the programme be in person again. I take my hats off to everybody in the culture sector who has been having to plan for any and every eventuality. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude. For us, as supporters of the arts and culture, it is over to us. It is now up to us to support the events and venues that we would traditionally have gone to, but maybe more than that. Maybe we need to be better about going to the things that we have not gone to in the past. There is a role for all of us, as MSPs, as figures in the communities that we represent, to help to give confidence to people, to help to promote events that are taking place. Some collaborative working on that will make a huge difference. I am keen to work with colleagues across political parties to work out how to do that. Over to you. If you have any great ideas about what we need to be doing more off or less off or better, I am very happy to hear that. Thank you, cabinet secretary. I think that it is important, as you have recognised, the challenges of Covid. In a previous submission to the committee, the VNA Dundee said that a multi-year funding settlement would be the single most important commitment that the Scottish Government could make. I think that you have recognised that, but I wonder if you could give me an update, and the committee an update, on the timetable for that implementation. I will signal again to Bettina Saizla that I am about to call on her after I give you the first half of the answer and then the second half of the answer. You are absolutely right. The VNA, and they are not alone, is something that many organisations across the cultural community have said. If we could have multi-year certainty of income, it would just help enormously in planning. I think that anybody who has had any dealings with natural management issues for an organisation will appreciate why that would be hugely advantageous. We understand that, we agree, and Creative Scotland is working on that. There will be further information forthcoming because that is something that is being worked on at the present time. Are we committed to doing it? Yes, we are. Is it being worked on? Yes, it is. Are we wanting to do it as quickly as we can deliver this through Creative Scotland? Absolutely. At that point, I will hand over to Bettina Saizla, but your fingers are on the pulse with this. We are on it and it is happening. Good morning again. In terms of the multi-year spending review, we are looking at that currently, and we are going through an initial exercise to review what is required. In terms of the time scales for delivery, we are intending that we conclude the review by mid-May, so that is the time scales currently. Clearly, we then need to look at Creative Scotland's budget and work with it alongside, but until we know what the overall settlement is, we might be able to see what it should be allocated to organisations like the RFA's. Thank you Bettina. Back to you, convener. Thank you very much, Mr Golden. I move to questions from Ms Minto to be followed by Mr Cameron. Thank you for coming to our committee cabinet secretary and your team. In previous evidence sessions and previous meetings with you, cabinet secretary, we have heard about the success and vibrancy of the film and television industry in Scotland, not only the scenery, but also the increased studio capacity, the skilled people who work in it and the incillary businesses around it. I wonder if the cabinet secretary could let us know how he sees this budget continuing to support an increased production in this very valuable industry to Scotland. Thank you very much for the question and thank you for asking it towards the end of the evidence session, because if you would ask me about it at the start, I would probably have spoken for the entire session on this. As I have shared with you, I am absolutely passionate about what is going on at the moment with Scottish Screen and TV production. There is a genuine revolution going on, if anybody has not noticed this. I am sure that people, especially those in Glasgow, at this very time will have noticed it, given that Warner Brothers are filming Batgirl in the heart of Scotland's biggest city. We are seeing unprecedented growth in the key building blocks of being able to aspire to being a significant centre of excellence for screen and TV production. The biggest single change that there has been relates to the opening of studios, which has allowed commissioning organisations from UK television, from the BBC, from Channel 4, from others, from STV, through to the streamers of Netflix and Amazon and then the large commercial film producers, in the case of Batgirl Warner Brothers, to look at Scotland not just as a beautiful country that has the potential backdrop for certain types of films, which was traditionally the beginning and the end of people's consideration of filming in Scotland, but having studios small, medium and large well suited for producing series, well situated for producing big budget films and everything in between. Most recently, with the Kelvin Hall announcement that we have had since I last gave evidence to you, there is a remarkable project that is happening in Glasgow at the present time, where studios are being built that will allow a certain type of television shows to be filmed there. The point is that, with all of these studios coming online, incidentally right across Scotland and there are others who are thinking of opening more, in addition to that, we are seeing a proliferation of other parts of the film and TV ecosystem spring up. That has happened with the targeted support of Screen Scotland, part of Creative Scotland, supported by the Scottish Government. We have had, for example, a production growth fund, which, since it began in 2015—I am just checking my numbers here—has a latest award of £9.9 million. That has been worked out to have generated an economic impact in Scotland of more than £140 million, so a return of £14.1 on investment. We are witnessing amazing things happening with film and TV production in Scotland. I think that there is more than we can do, in particular on the skills side of things. We need to make sure that, when somebody is thinking about producing a film in Scotland, that they know that they can draw down everybody that is required for such a production. I am in conversation with colleagues in the Scottish Government and with external organisations about the skills pipeline that is required for screen and TV. Are we doing everything that we can to make sure that that is happening as it should? I should say that, just as an ancillary point, also on the gaming side of things, for which there is an interrelationship with that as well. The question is well put. Are things being resourced from the Scottish Government to support the upswing in film and television production, to which the answer is, unambiguously, yes? We are very supportive of Screen Scotland. We have excellent people doing a great job attracting films here, attracting producers from elsewhere. Towards the end of last year, I spoke to independent European film producers, which Screen Scotland had brought to Scotland and spoke to them about the number of people who were interested in coming and doing projects in Scotland. I just think that we are now involved in a virtuous circle. I think that there are more things that we can do. Are there black clouds on the horizon? I think that there are things that we need to be concerned about. I think that we need to be concerned about threats to the BBC and Channel 4 at the present time. We have had the UK culture secretary in my opposite number, if you want to call her that. Nadine Doris announced this week gleefully the freezing of the BBC licence fee with an implicit threat that it may be cut entirely. Regardless of criticism that I, you or anybody else might have about aspects of the BBC and I do, they are a very, very important part of the commissioning ecosystem for film and TV. I would not wish to see that diminished. The same goes for Channel 4, which, as committee members will know, has opened commissioning office in Glasgow as part and parcel of ensuring that there is a greater distribution of opportunity for film and TV commissioning in the nations and regions of the UK. We have no guarantees of a privatised Channel 4. There is great news that things are on the up, but there is the potential for regressive steps if the UK Government's ideologically driven attacks on the BBC in Channel 4 continue. In any influence that you could bring to bear as a cross-party committee to try to protect public service broadcasters and commissioning of independence, especially through Channel 4, is something that we should all be working together and across parties to make sure that we are protecting as well as we can. Thank you, cabinet secretary. I have a good point that is very well made. Clearly, one of your passions is film and television. One of my passions is rural Scotland. I also, given the debate that we had earlier this week about Scottish history being taught in schools and the importance of local museums, highlighted the world cycling event that will take across Scotland. I think that Scottish Opera has been highlighted as well as a touring company. Just a wee bit more information, if possible, about how you are ensuring that all areas of Scotland are being supported by the budget next year. Is indeed a very important priority for us. I asked for a list of the regularly funded organisations to be produced during the budget round as an illustration to ourselves and to colleagues across Government that the impact of budgetary cuts in the culture sphere would have an impact right across Scotland and going down to very small communities, often in very rural and remote parts of Scotland, who are currently funded through the Scottish Government culture budget. People were extremely alive to that, but you are right to say that this is a priority because of the budget and the different ways in which the organisations that are funded through it—Creative Scotland being the best example of which—and then the regularly funded organisations for which there are touring funds and there is a promotion of trying to get around the country to different bits of Scotland—is really, really important for us. Really important for dealing with issues of rurality and the attractiveness of different parts of Scotland. We now know that we have a population challenge in Scotland again with a projected decline population, so we need to make all parts of the country as attractive as possible for people to live. Culture is an essential part of our national life. People should have access to it regardless of where they live in Scotland. We are hugely supportive of making sure that what we do reaches local communities, deals with challenges of social inclusion, education and that is hugely valuable. Funding streams through Creative Scotland allow regularly funded organisations that are geographically spread across Scotland to be funded. Core funding of the national performing companies enables them to tour the Highlands and Islands and the North East. Support from museums, galleries, Scotland and the Scottish Libraries Information Council enables museums and libraries across the whole of Scotland to bid for grant funding. Historic Environment Scotland is, of course, responsible for buildings right across Scotland—not just Edinburgh Castle, it is Urquhart Castle—and I could go on and on. Will there always be a perfect sort of matrix for the whole of Scotland? I imagine that there will be places that will say, well, we haven't had the Scottish Chamber Orchestra for a while or we haven't seen anybody from Scottish Valley and we'd really like to see some of their stuff. I know that these organisations are very keen to try to make sure that they can get to places, especially places that they haven't got to. Again, I say to you and I say to colleagues on the committee, if you have evidence of places that have not been able to benefit, if there are gaps, I want to know about it, but I want you to know and colleagues to know that Creative Scotland and ourselves pay great attention to trying to make sure that Scotland's cultural offering is available to everybody in Scotland, right across Scotland, and we will continue to do that. Anything that we can do to enhance that is very important to us. Good morning to the cabinet secretary and welcome again. You've touched on this already, you've been asked questions about it, but if I could just persist a little in it. One of the objectives for many cultural organisations, both large and small, urban and rural, will be getting the public back into museums, cinemas, galleries, theatres, live shows, etc. I entirely agree with everyone doing their bit to help to encourage that, but just in terms of funding, has the Scottish Government earmarked any specific funding for that kind of endeavour going forward? That is what I was saying to one of your colleagues just a moment ago about having budgetary flex of moving from a position where we were dealing specifically with the latest funding allocation, £65 million, a very significant amount of money, found a very short notice to deal with the immediacy of the cancellation of events, impact on cultural organisations and on individuals, including freelancers, a gap in previous rounds for some people, which we wanted to close. For me, that resource is also there to help those organisations as we rebound. We are at the start of this, because it is next week that things are going to begin to reopen. I think that there are things that clearly, from a budgetary point of view, we could look at doing and I am very open to doing that. Incidentally, again, I say to you and I say to committee members, if you have strong views on this, please share them with me. Please tell me what you think would make the biggest difference. What I do know is that we are working very closely with the cultural sector. My colleagues in Creative Scotland and the Scottish Government are talking with people on a daily basis about where they find themselves, about how quickly we can get funds turned around. Part of the next stage of conversation is how we can help Springboard back to success. There is the venues and the cultural organisations side of things, and then there is the wider societal piece of how we encourage take up and support of what is going on. There is an opportunity for collaborative endeavour in that regard. Will it involve money along the way, undoubtedly? Are the things that we can do to encourage people to go to events and shows? Yes. Will some of that be paid for, I imagine, through the conventional routes of advertising and all of that? Absolutely. Should we be doing that? Yes. Can we be working, for example, with Scottish newspapers? Can we work with social influencers? Can we work across the panoply of communication opportunities to try and make sure that we are getting the message out there that people should be supporting the events as they come online? Absolutely. Is there a master plan? We are thinking great thoughts and we are working with our colleagues in the cultural sector, because, of course, they will be doing their own work promoting the Nutcracker being available to see again and Celtic Connections being back online. They are advertising themselves, but there is a wider national effort that we could and should be making to try and encourage French families, people in our communities, to support things as they come back online. Suggestions that people have about how we can be best doing that, please forward them on more than a postcard. I know where you are and you know where I am, so please let me know if there is anything that you think we should be doing more of. One issue that cropped up locally was the decision of local authorities not to allow children and school groups to visit various cultural organisations. There may well be a public health element to that, but, as that hopefully diminishes, that is an area where we can start to work with the financial sector and incentivise local authorities to work with the Scottish Government to try and change that approach. That is right. We have never really found ourselves in this position before, have we, as a society, since the Spanish flu, about how we can give people confidence as quickly as one can, while emerging from very strong public health advice that is very well founded on scientific advice on how we should interact and do so safely and be mindful of other people's safety and health concerns? How do we, at the same time, encourage people to go out and socialise and be in the company of others? Is that a thing that will come naturally to everybody immediately? I do not think so. For the simple reason that there will be some people who have underlying health concerns and so will be reluctant to be at the front of the queue to re-embrace the opening of venues and events and so on. We are going to have to do our best to try and reach as many people as possible to give people confidence, to give the organisations, to give the artists, to give the companies as much assurance as can possibly be given. If we believe that the health picture is improving because of vaccination and boosters, the risk of mortality and so on, I do not need to go through the full explanation. You and other colleagues know that on the committee. There is an extent of trying to square a circle in all that. We are just going to have to try our best to try and give people confidence. We can all play a part in that. We can ourselves be supporting local performances, local performers and local events. We can be making the point that we are going and encouraging others to do so. That is a good start, but you are right. There is a budget there, and it is not just there, although it is very important there, to deal with cancellations for lots of earnings from December and through to March incidentally. It is also having resource in place to make sure that we can help to publicise the events that are taking place in 2022. There are absolutely amazing cultural events plans for 2022. There is something there for everybody, and we should be going to as many of them as possible. I might see you there. Thank you. I hope that my family trip to the land in which the wardrobe next month may be an occasion. I will ask a totally different question. By all means, if you would like, Cabinet Secretary, to bring in your officials. It is about the budget for the national records of Scotland, which has, I think, over the past three years diminished in terms of the figures. I was just wondering why that was. I think that, looking at the budget itself, it says diminution in operating costs. I just wondered what the explanation for that would be. I am going to defer to Bettina Sizler on that. I suspect that it is something to the technical nature that it is probably best that we send you some detail in writing, Donald, which I am happy to do. Bettina, is there something that you can add? Thank you, Mr Ropson. I would agree with you. I think that it is better that we reply in writing so that we can provide the detail that is requested. That is fine with me. Thank you very much. Thank you. I am not seeing an indication of any further questions from the committee. However, they do still have an opportunity, as I have a final question, Cabinet Secretary. You mentioned libraries in your answer to Ms Minto. As Ms Boyack had said earlier, we attended the cross-party group and culture communities last night and heard from one of the cultural allios in Scotland about the support that their library gave to elderly people that they knew would be in isolation and how they were able to continue service and how they did the things that move and put back online for younger members. If you could give us a little bit of information about the support that you are giving to libraries and their future in their recovery. Okay. I am mindful of time, convener, so I will limit my contribution to say that funding has been provided to ensure that libraries continue in the vital community role that they play. I was reading, for example, in this morning's Herald newspaper about the reopening of libraries in the city, which I think is hugely heartening. This, of course, is something that has been facilitated and supported by Scottish Government funds. There is thinking that needs to be on-going about the changing opportunities for libraries as community centres, as places that bring people in. Not everybody is reading in the same way as they were reading decades ago, and people are accessing information and books in different ways. However, I believe that there is still a demand or requirement for places where people can go and that they can access books and information. The funding has been provided through this recent period to deal with the challenges that have existed, especially in some parts of the country. At the same time, I think that it behoves us all. I know that people in local government are thinking about this as well in the library service. How is it that we can provide the best library network that we can for society in the 21st century, which is consuming books and other written material in different ways? We need to be responsive to those demands. That is my answer at this stage. If you are needing more information specifically about different budget lines in relation to libraries, we are happy to provide that to you. I do see an indication of a final question from Ms Boyack. Thanks very much, convener. I will keep it swift. It was just to draw the cabinet secretary's attention to the excellent evidence that was in the last week's committee about international development expenditure, and one of the key themes that came across was the importance of wellbeing and sustainability. Legislation is coming forward, and it is basically a plea to have a much more joint-up approach to international development expenditure. I do not want to trigger a whole new conversation on that today, but it was really to say that that was something that we took evidence on last week. I hope that the cabinet secretary will be able to pick that up in going forward in terms of funding and in terms of the Scottish Government to international development funding. Just as a brief response—I know that I am taking you over your time limits, so I am sorry about that. In answer to Ms Boyack's question, you will have noted that we are increasing the funding on the international development side of things, but I am keen to draw my colleagues' attention to the evidence that you received on this issue, because we want to be as joined up as possible. I want to be as informed as possible about the evidence that you received to make sure that we are doing everything that we can in the most sustainable ways. I thank you for drawing my attention to that, and I will make sure that both my officials in this area and myself are fully sighted on the points that were raised. Thank you very much. I think that that concludes our consideration of the agenda item this morning, and I thank the cabinet secretary, Mr Wightman and Ms Sizeland, for their time this morning. I now move to agenda item 2, which is a decision on taking this