 Good morning, and a very warm welcome to the 22nd meeting of the Constitution, Europe, external affairs and culture committee in 2022. This morning, we have received apologies from Morris Golden and Sarah Boyack. Claire Baker, MSP, is here to substitute for Ms Boyack, although Ms Baker will have to leave to attend for other parliamentary duties during the course of the meeting, but hopefully we will be able to return later. I ask Ms Baker if she has any relevant interests to declare. Thank you very much. Our first agenda item is the decision on taking business in private and members content to take agenda item 3 in private. Our second agenda item is our evidence session on our pre-budget scrutiny on the culture spending portfolio, and we have two evidence sessions this morning. I welcome the committee, Ian Monroe, Executive Executive of Creative Scotland, and Councillor Stephen Heddle, vice-president of COSLA, who is joining us remotely from Orkney, and Martin Booth, Executive Director of Finance, Glasgow City Council, who is attending on behalf of the directors of finance. A warm welcome to committee this morning. If I can be open question to Mr Monroe on Creative Scotland plans for a new multi-year funding programme. We have had very profound evidence from the sector on the importance of multi-year funding, as well as the pressures that are under it at the moment. You have outlined a greater number of organisations that require funding on a multi-year basis beyond the current network of regularly funded organisations, but we know how precious that is. Do you let the committee know about your considerations in this regard and your assessment of the impact of funding for fewer organisations on a multi-year basis and what impact that might have on the sector? Good morning to the committee, thank you for inviting me to give evidence. On multi-year funding, this is borne out of a funding review that we conducted a few years ago now. We were planning to move forward on addressing the feedback from that funding review when the pandemic hit. We naturally swung behind delivery of emergency support at that point, but we have now returned to the multi-year and future funding framework arrangements. There are a number of elements to that. I know that there is a lot of interest in the multi-year funding, but it is important to recognise that some of the feedback from that funding review that is part of our plans for response are already being enacted. Some of it was accelerated through the period of the pandemic, such as moving much more of our funding offer online and being clear about priorities, strategic priorities and so on. That all continues to build, but the multi-year arrangements in particular are of enormous interest, as you have said, forward planning horizons and the confidence and stability that that enables is fundamental to the best quality outcomes in the work that the sectors deliver. However, in this environment, we provided an update last August, a public update that sets out the broad timelines, so we are continuing to move forward on that basis. I think that there is in that update a note that also acknowledges that the forward planning confidence that we need as Creative Scotland around our budgets in particular is quite fundamental to enabling the best delivery of that new funding framework. We are keeping it all under review because, in the perfect storm that I have set out and the written submission to the committee, which is a combination of rising costs and falling income and a very positive drive forward on policy implementation around fair work and net zero, for example. That is a never-reconsilable equation in the current financial environment, and I think that we are very concerned about budgets in the year, future year and so on. Particularly in the light of the outcome of the resource spending review, which shows a profile provisional at the time and yet to be set. However, I think that all of the perfect storm of factors at the moment means that we are very keen to understand what planning confidence we can get and when we can expect it, particularly the multi-year arrangements and a multi-year budget horizon, to give us the confidence to make sure that we are not doing anything that is going to add to the risks or uncertainties or further destabilisation of the sector when ultimately it is fighting for survival in many quarters. I am very concerned about that perfect storm at the moment and I do not want us to do anything that is going to add to the challenges of that. The fragilities that existed in the sector that predate the pandemic, sorry, are back and manifest again and probably tenfold in certain quarters. The very thin budgets that organisations in particular work on, but also employment within the sector for individual artists and practitioners and so on. There is a terrible squeeze at the moment on those. I am very concerned about that perfect storm leading to a crisis that appears to be looming large in the current trajectory that we have. We are moving forward positively to do our very best with our available resources. We are keeping under review how we enact all the elements of that funding framework, particularly in that multi-year arrangement, but it is so fundamental and important for the stability and confidence in the sector in getting the best artistic and creative outcomes. In the submissions to the committee, I thank you all for your submissions. Council heads on Mr Booth, you have done a joint submission. You have indicated that there are tensions with some of the requests regarding wellbeing and a whole system approach, which is not recognised within the resource spending review. I wonder if you could give us a bit more meat in the bones as to what your concerns are and what you would like to see changed if you could go to councillor Heddle first. Thanks again for the opportunity to give evidence to the committee. I should say that I am standing in for our community wellbeing spokesperson, councillor Maureen Chalmers, who has recently been unwell. I apologise if there is any short coming to my evidence. I am sure that we can press that with written follow-up. Regarding the whole systems approach, we have been very aware that the resource spending review does not really paint an optimistic picture for local government. We have long been advocates of a multi-year settlement, but we need a multi-year settlement that allows us to build back from the pandemic and to be able to adequately support sectors such as culture. The trajectory for revenue and capital in the resource spending review is not good for local government. The resource spending review explicitly speaks of priorities towards health, social care and social security, which are undoubtedly important. However, the implications for the remaining parts of the local government pie are obviously bleak, and that is why we advocate a whole systems approach. The feeling is that the direct and the resources towards these sectors were tackling the symptoms rather than the causes of the problems. We are not really taking the preventative approach that was put forward 10 years ago in Campbell Christie's submission. We need to look at the wider determinants of health and the approach and investment that we are going to put towards that. That is why we advocate an additional priority in the resource spending review, so that we ensure that everyone can live well locally. We still advocate that. The fundamental answer to your question is yes. We need the whole system approach to investment in the determinants of health. That is not just the national health service, and it is not just addressing the problems that are being caused by poverty, but it is looking at investing in the services that we will be able to prevent leasing in Sartman. We need to put a move back towards the increase in life expectancy, addressing the causes of poverty, including child poverty. We feel that the importance of culture in our schools is a good way to engage the children in learning for their own prospects and to aid our economy. The whole systems approach is adopting the different perspective and having a more place-based community will be in focus, but it recognises the wider contribution to all aspects of the public sector. Mr Booth, do you want to come in? Just to add to the comments that Councillor Heddles made, it is not just on the focus on health and social care and social security within the resource spending review, but also how that flows through into local government budgets. With the protection that has been provided to social care over the past few years within the budget and the additional resources that have been provided to education costs, the bit that is left, the core services that are left, are coming under ever-increasing pressure, and cultural leisure is one of those major services that is left. From people's health and wellbeing point, all the pressure in recent years has fallen on, if we simplify it, to bins and libraries, but it is the kind of refuse collection services and environmental services and cultural leisure that have had to bear the brunt of that pressure for quite a number of years. That has been really challenging to continue to deliver those services, so it is not just at the macro level, it is at a very local level as well. I want to put two questions from the committee and come back, Mr Cameron. Thank you, convener, and good morning to the panel. I would like to develop the question that the convener asked initially about funding. To ask about the importance of flexibility of funding, which I think was a message that many of the people who gave evidence to this committee broadcast to us. We did hear quite bleak evidence, as you have already alluded to, Mr Munro, about the current state of morale and the reality facing our cultural organisations, some of whom have no option but to consider reducing their offer, whatever it might be. The convener mentioned multi-year funding, but other things have been mentioned to us, such as the ability of building up reserves over the years, the spend to save approach, et cetera. If I can ask you all that, as funders, what can you do to facilitate greater flexibility of funding? If I could start with Mr Munro. We did this during the pandemic when it hit as well, but in this current crisis, we have, with existing funding relationships, signalled, particularly for those 121 regularly funded organisations, that we understand those pressures and want to be able to support them to survive. If that means taking business decisions that see them adjust what they feel they are able to deliver while sustaining themselves with the contribution that we are able to make alongside others, then we would rather have that conversation rather than stay wedded to the plans that they set out at the beginning of the year that we have contracted against. That flexibility is there for those who are in receipt of existing funding. Our on-going funding programmes remain open and are able to see applicants coming in at any point to apply for costs that are relevant at the time at which they apply. Some of those funding pressures are translating where funding into increased demand and levels of requests through those funding programmes, but none the less the decisions that we are then able to take mean that the resource levels are more appropriate to the time at which those applications are approved. Nonetheless, the pressures are still there and it is quite a volatile environment in terms of inflation, energy costs, audience behaviours generated from income and so on. Even material supply costs and supply costs in the supply chains are fluctuating. We are doing our very best with the current funding that is available, both commitment already and those that we will be applying, to accommodate the context. However, there are no financial safety nets there. My point that I made earlier about the financial resilience challenges that predated the pandemic coming back again and being even more challenging is that there are no financial resilience left or very low levels of financial resilience left in the sector. We did provide an opportunity in the final round of emergency support to enable organisations to look at how they could uplift their unrestricted reserves into a period of recovery. The total of all our emergency support, as per the written submission, has been £151 million through 18,000 additional grants over the two years of that pandemic. Even with that last measure, which was not just about reactivating activity, but the uplifting opportunity for unrestricted reserves, that is evaporating rapidly. I think that we are in a situation where, with that all gone, no new financial safety nets on the table. People are left with very stark hard choices about curtailing programme, but I fear that those with high fixed costs such as those that are in buildings may not even be able to sustain themselves to keep the building wind and water tight heated and basic provision in place to enable them to come back at an appropriate moment. As I say, the risks are very high in terms of the funding pressures, and we may see some collapse of some of those core organisations. Our own analysis, if I can give you some stark illustrations of this, based on the financial information that we hold at the moment, and we keep this up to date as and when we can, but of the 121 organisations that are regularly funded, even in a standstill funding scenario from us, because of those other pressures, it could be up to a quarter that are insolvent in the next few months. Those beyond that are risk-given solvency. Together those two could be up to a third of those organisations in the next few months at risk. It is a very precarious position and concern that we have about the realities of the situation. We will do what we can and continue to do what we can within the flexibilities of existing budgets, but our own budgets are under scrutiny and review. We do not yet have the forward planning figures for next year or the years beyond to be able to translate that for people. It is a difficult environment for us to be able to translate on as quickly and as best as we can, but we are doing our very best to be flexible. I turn to Mr Booth to give perhaps a local government perspective on that. Thank you, Mr Cameron. It is a very similar position. I will refer to Glasgow more gently, but I think that it equates across all 32 local authorities. Our principal investment into the culture and leisure service is through our own provision and through our allios. In Glasgow's position, pre-pandemic Glasgow life, which is our culture and leisure trust, had an operating budget of roughly £120 million, of which £40 million was earned income and £80 million was funding from the local authority. The £40 million fell off a club virtually overnight. The pace of recovery for that has been slow but steady, is probably a fair way to put it. The council has had to provide additional support and certainly the Covid resources that were provided by the Scottish Government were a significant help with that when that eventually came. We have a four-year programme of support to help get Glasgow life back to where they were, but we could not provide them. We did not have the resources to provide them with £40 million, so we had to meet in the middle and provide that resourcing. That is on-going, but we are now in the position, as Ian has alluded to there, where the pressures from inflation and all of those services are really quite significant. Pay inflation and utilities inflation are really significant as we go forward. The resilience to manage through that, even for an organisation of the size of Glasgow life, is really challenging, but for some of the smaller arts organisations and cultural organisations that are vital to our communities, that pressure is multiplied from that. The other thing that we have been able to do in Glasgow to help, and again this is pretty marginal, but we have a Glasgow communities fund where we have committed a three-year programme, so they get a three-year award. The last batch runs out next March, but the council is committed to a three-year programme going forward. That is flat cash, but flat cash is a pretty big commitment for local government at this precise point in time when we are dealing with all our own inflationary pressures. That helps smaller organisations that at least have sustainability of funding over that three-year period when they are trying to pay wages quite often out of that money, but it is very challenging and we are not kidding on that we have dealt with all the problems, but it is a little help. Councillor Hiddle, would you like to add anything? Yes, thank you very much. I am just providing some of the wider context around the flexibilities and reserves. Every day you will see in the local government information update the start position from ideal councils that are spilling out what they need to save in the coming years and the lack of reserves that they have to do it. The recent Audit Scotland Accounts Commission overview of local government presented that very clearly and startly. In the context of underfunding local government, we have made clear that local governments have seen a real-term reduction of 15 per cent since 2013-14 and that the 7 per cent real-term reduction that is prognosticated for local government in the resource spending review means that there is going to be £743 million less in real-term suspend on services equating to a reduction of 20,000 local government jobs. I am saying this quickly, but I do not want to understate how catastrophic this is for local government and the services that it provides. In this context, flexibilities around policy commitments are essential because the situation in which we are in, where two thirds of our budget is directed spend, means that there remain a third of which culture is part, inevitably has to be in the front line for any savings that have to be made. We know that this has been happening already, the local government benchmark and framework, and I think that the SPICE report, which was part of the papers for this meeting, shows how, even prior to the pandemic, local government had had to reduce spending on culture by approximately a quarter. The impact is real, and to be able to mitigate that, we need to be able to find flexibilities around the policy commitments and to reduce the ring-fen scene, to be able to manage our budgets in a way that respects the local democratic priorities that are set by our electorates. I am happy to say that we are having discussions around this, not least in respect of being able to fund the local government pay settlement. We need to find £140 million year on year in terms of flexibilities just to pay our staff. It is a problem that is going to get worse rather than better. The punchline is that this has a real impact on what we are trying to address today, protect culture and all the benefits that flow from it in terms of wellbeing and providing simply warm places for people to go in terms of the cost crisis. If we are having to look at reducing our library services, that has been recently highlighted as a place for people to go and simply to keep warm, clearly there is an impact that will flow from that as well. Thank you. I have just got one other rather short question, specific question to Mr Munray, which is just that you will obviously be aware about the youth music initiative and the reports around the funding of that. I would like to give you the opportunity to clarify the position there just for the committee, please. If I can set this in context, a wider context, I think that we know that we have very strong support from the Scottish Government. It translates in terms of the year on year budgets that we get and the £151 million of emergency support through the pandemic. We are very grateful to know of that support. There was a wider cross-governmental exercise that started mid-June that recognised the financial pressures as they were emerging at that time and are continuing to understand where our uncommitted budgets lay. That was down to technical definitions around contracted spend, as it were, as opposed to moral commitments or processes that were entrained. The Scottish Government has been scrutinising our budgets like many others across the public sector to understand what that picture looks like. We are in the 20th year of the YMI—it is an important year to mark that anniversary—as an enormously successful programme. Despite it being the 20th year and the cycle of the formula fund having been processed, we have not been at that point at the point of contract, despite that being the normal process. At the point that those questions are being asked, it was still under review by the Scottish Government. We, in August, were concerned about that still being the case and wrote to local authorities on the formula fund to make them aware that we were not able to contract at that point and that there was a hold on the formula fund progressing. It had not been picked up by as many people in the local authorities at that point in the summer period. We became aware of that subsequent to that and wrote again what was picked up and reported in the press. Thankfully, the Scottish Government has been able to confirm that that funding is secure and that it is contracted and progressing and so on. It has caused problems in terms of the flow of business and the uncertainty for employment, as well as the direct impacts for children and the disruption that has caused. I am sorry that that has happened, but we were part of a wider governmental exercise that prevented us from being able to proceed in the normal flow of business that we have normally had at that point. Thank you very much, convener. Just to follow on the questions about the Youth Music Initiative, were there any other projects or organisations that are funded by Creative Scotland that came under the same issue around non-contracted work being taken forward? The conversations that are on-going, the full and final budget settlement for us, is not yet determined, so there are on-going conversations about other elements of uncommitted, uncontracted spend at this point that we are trying to get closure on to understand whether it is going to be there or not going to be there to enable us to translate that in the business flow. It is on-going, I am afraid, and unfortunately it is becoming harder and harder to manage that position. Are you at the stage because you described the Youth Music Initiative that you wrote to local authorities at an early stage to indicate that there could be a change in that funding and any other funding streams that are under the same kind of scrutiny in that situation at the moment, or are still discussions or organisations still expecting to get funding that might not arrive? A second round of an open access fund under YMI that relies on Scottish Government YMI funding that is planned. It is a couple of weeks over due. We made a round of decisions earlier in the year that the Government have enabled us to commit resource against. We want to run that second round, but we are not in the position to be able to do that currently because there is still a question mark over that element of the YMI budget. I have another question that I want to ask. You said at the beginning that there was a risk of collapse. You said that the emergency support that was received for Covid was £151 million and lots of resources are put in by the Scottish Government and the UK Government to support the cultural sector through a difficult time. We are now facing cost of living and cost of doing business crisis. The support so far is not compatible, but would you say that the situation is as significant as what we have faced with the pandemic for the sector? I think that the risks of this perfect storm are greater than anything that we have seen in the pandemic. I think that it is way beyond the challenges of the pandemic, which were deeply challenging enough. We have in that perfect storm a real risk of contraction of the sector. All that means in terms of employment, audiences, participation and business failure, as well as what it means for tourism and the wider economy. The ripple effect is quite deep and long. There may be some decisions that are beyond our ability to respond to, with no financial measures in place beyond the current budgets, which, as we have just noted, continue to be under not just pressure but potential reductions themselves, both in-year and indeed for future years. I think that the combination of all of that is something that we will do our best to try and navigate, but we are in a position where we do not have the tools that we have in the pandemic to be able to more meaningfully respond to that. I think that that is very concerning. You said about buildings being core to this, so would it tend to be that the organisations that are most at risk are the ones that have infrastructure and buildings, such as the major theatres and things, or is it across the sector? I do not know if you want to respond, but if Martin, because local authorities in many cases have theatres and all the venues as well, is those the ones that are at greater risk because of rising energy costs and those types of factors? They will tend to be because of the higher levels of fixed costs, but it is not just contained to them. I think that there are fragilities across the spectrum of the organisations that we support, both through regular funding and through other funding routes. There are many organisations that are very small in terms of their human resource and capacity that is under five people, so their ability to manage and navigate that when they are fighting for survival is part of the challenge, not just the support that is available to them. We have close relationships with and across the sector, people and organisations, but those that have the higher levels of fixed costs, particularly theatres and galleries and so on, are under enormous pressures, particularly not just because of inflation, but because of the energy costs that we have noted. Already, pre-UK Government decisions on the energy price guarantee through to March, organisations were sitting at 100%, 200%, sometimes up to 300% above the norm. If there is nothing beyond March and market forces return, it could see them projecting up to four or five, even 600% above. That alone is a tipping point in the financial equation for organisations. For those building-based organisations particularly, that will be one of the defining measures. It is not just the building-based organisations, but they will be at a serious risk because of the nature of their business. Is it time for Martin Booth to respond to that as well, if you want to move on? I will try to do it very briefly. I agree with everything that Ian said. The buildings that we are talking about are quite high-energy uses. They are big spaces. Those services that are provided free will come under increased pressure to be open for longer and welcoming places or warm places, but those that are charging because of the pressure on household budgets, such as being able to afford to go to the theatre or to go to the gym or whatever, are going to become ever-increasing. The pressure on income budgets, as well as the pressure on expenditure budgets, is really what is creating, as Ian referred to as a perfect storm. I want to ask a supplementary question about the youth music initiative and what happened with the announcement and the impact that it had. It exposed the precarious position of a lot of people working in the sector in terms of contracting, and it also dispointingly conflated the youth music initiative with core education funding and curriculum activity, which, of course, was not under any consideration at all from the whole part of it. It is really for Mr Booth and for Councillor Heddle. If you have reflected on the impact that it had and whether local government is in a position to offer instead of project-based short-term contracting, if you have considered trying to build in a sustainability to the people who are working in that area, I will come to Mr Booth first. Again, our funding is under so much pressure that doing any more than we are doing just now is incredibly challenging. Without certainty of funding to provide more security is really challenging, so it is not something that we have been able to progress with. Councillor Heddle, do you want to make a comment? Yeah, I mean, both Martin and Ian are spilling out the diarmysg of the situation and the difficulty in being able to be able to provide extra support. I mean, the problems that we are facing are extremely stark. We put 200 million pound reduction in income from our culture and leisure facilities, projected increased costs of £100 million, and the situation was the first question, but we are in one-year settlements, so it is difficult to plan ahead and provide the certainty that we would like to do. I suppose that I would just like to add that we are discussing these pressures, and it is easy to think of them as revenue pressures, but there are also capital pressures as well, as well as the problems that we are facing in being able to retain our staff or recruit our staff even. We are also facing problems in being able to maintain our buildings or replace our buildings, which is important in the case of energy and efficient buildings when we are trying to move towards net zero. To describe all this is a perfect storm, it is just absolutely correct. Thank you, convener, and thank you for coming, joining us today, and also for your written evidence. Mr Monroe, if I could ask, first of all, in your evidence, you talked about trying to declutter the landscape for funding, and a group that you have set up or are part of with High and South of Scotland Development and Scottish Enterprise. Can you maybe elaborate a bit on what benefits that is and how you have been progressing with that work? Sure. It is not a group that we set up, we were part of it, but it is a partnership across the business support network, in effect, recognising the role of creative Scotland reaches beyond just the subsidised sector into the commercial market driven end of the creative economy. What we are endeavouring to do through that group, and it has been established during the course of the pandemic and is still planning its shared work, is absolutely to try to ensure that the business support opportunities that people are looking for from whatever sector, in our case the interest in the cultural sector and the creative sector, has an ease of navigation on the entry, and that the partners will work together to co-ordinate that to better effect. Some of that is through an online portal and a triage approach, but it is still emerging in terms of what the models for that are. However, in this environment, what I would say is that we want to work with or we need to, anyway, work with and through partners to unlock their resources, be they human or financial, in support of creative businesses and the creative economy more widely. We do not ourselves have dedicated resources in that regard sufficiently to enable the growth potential that is alive in the creative economy, which is one of those growth sectors that, even in those challenging times, has proven itself and can continue to do. If you take screen alone as one element of the creative economy, it is on a growth trajectory. We want to be able to find models that continue to sustain and enable that despite the challenges. We will keep the conversations with the partners in the business support partnership group going and making sure that we are co-ordinating and making it as easy as possible for people to access that support. It is helpful that I was driving past Stirling and I noticed that there was a big film base there. Clearly, the film industry is busy. Last week, I attended the cross-party group with India and it was specifically on trade, but it was also highlighted the importance that culture plays when you are beginning trade relationships and maintaining them. I was interested in any of the work that you are doing with the partnership with the development agencies. If you are feeding in the culture side to the business expansion, I do not know whether, Martin, I noticed that you were nodding there if you want to add anything to that as well. Probably nothing to add to the team's comments, but, again, with Inglasgow, we worked very closely with our film unit to bring films. We filmed a Bollywood film quite recently in Inglasgow. Culture is a strong calling card in and of itself, but it is part of a cultural diplomacy strategy that is under development by the Scottish Government and the soft power elements that are attached to that. It is a strong economic force for itself, but it is a door opener, particularly the strength of Scotland's very internationally renowned cultural identity. It enables us to open doors. I think that we are keen to explore how that can continue to evolve and develop and increase those opportunities for cultural and creative development, but also what it means in relation to the wider economy beyond the creative economy itself. I think that you have got your hand up. You are sitting in Orkney, which has probably got more brown signs at road ends than the head of population in the rest of Scotland, so absolutely in the centre of culture. I am sitting in Orkney, and I feel that I am sitting in the bridge of a throller today, the way that the wind in the rain is going to lash in against my house. I am very briefly on the collaborative work with the Business Support Partnership. I mean, I am a former coastal environment and economy spokesperson and chair of the Business Gateway board, so I am very aware of the work of the Business Support Partnership and very supportive of it. I think that it is an exemplary example of partnership, and the various partners who are pulling their strategies and looking at their individual resources to see what can be done. Absolutely, the collaboration is something that we are rooted in in local government. We were approaches to community planning and we are close in relationship with the third sector. Building up this collaborative approach, as we speak about a whole systems approach, I think that it is very important. I think that it might be the Business Support Partnerships, a fine example of what can be achieved. Thank you. I absolutely recognise the collaboration between local authorities and the third sector across lots of different areas, including the health and wellbeing side of things. We heard a bit from Mr Booth about Glasgow coming from a smaller local authority. Council Heidel, is there anything from a collaborative and learning perspective that you smaller councils, such as Orkney, can bring to the table in learning about the way that they operate in embedding culture into different areas? I think that, undoubtedly, we can. I think that a positive approach to culture is embedded in the local authority. We have always prioritised, for instance, instrumental tuition, free instrumental tuition, even before the funding for that came in. We are certainly aware of promoting our own cultural activities, and we are aware of the plethoral archaeology that is in Orkney. We support that through things such as providing a museum store, which is full of all the artifacts that are gathered from the various archaeological sites. We are also custodians of the public buildings. We are one of the few councils that has a cathedral, which we look after. I think that, in different ways, this has replicated across the whole of local government. I think that Martin could rightly point out the £1.4 billion in artifacts that are held in the Kelvin Grove collection and others. It is important to be able to make the point that we all contribute to culture in less tangible ways than the funding of services. It is a custodian of culture as well. Thank you. I have made just one very quick question. Mr Monroe, you mentioned in your submission or in the SPICE report about the varying amount of income that comes from the Heritage Lottery Fund or the National Lottery Fund. Do you have any comment as to that? I think that it was at a high in 2016-17, over £32 million, and then it has fluctuated a bit. Do you have any comment on that as to why that is and the impact that that has? The income from the national lottery is set through a formula. I should not mention that the National Lottery Act passed in 1993. Next year it will be the 30th anniversary of the national lottery. It is there to add value beyond co-government spend, but it is reliant on ticket sales and scratch card sales and so on. It is audience buying patterns and behaviours that determine the actual final numbers. Our proportionate share will have 12 distributors across communities, heritage, arts, screen and sports, and we channel national lottery resources for the arts and screen in Scotland. We have a planning figure that we set based on an understanding of projections that come from the national lottery family. It is only at the end of the year that we close the books that we know what the actual numbers are. We are reasonably confident in those planning figures, but there is a degree of fluctuation in them. There is an interesting phenomenon that can happen in gambling as a whole, which is that when people are financially stretched, the income levels sustain themselves because they are gambling more. There is a fairly reliable income stream. There is about a third of our overall budget that is the proportion that it represents, with the other two thirds from the Scottish Government. There are new licence arrangements coming in and there is a new operator from Spring 24, and the transition process for that is under way now. The intention will be that there are no unnecessary fluctuations that create risks for national lottery income that we are able to channel. However, we channel 1.78 per cent of the overall total. It is fairly reliable and steady. It dropped markedly in earlier years, at the point at which we made our last round of regular funding decisions in 2018. The Government stepped forward and has, year on year, since committed to the backfill of the level of that drop at £6.6 million. However, it is not written into our budgets for the longer term, so it is still an additional element within the overall financial equation. However, it is part of our granted aid cover that we get. However, the planning level for national lottery at the moment is a fairly stable figure at around £30 million or £31 million. We have had quite a lot of evidence from cultural organisations about the potential use of the transient visitor levy going forward. All of you present quite a stark picture, particularly the potential for up to a quarter of these cultural organisations, many of the anchor institutions and communities to go under. Can I ask you about what your thoughts are on the transient visitor levy? Is this being built into council planning, council projections for income going forward? Is there appetite across all of Scotland's councils to introduce that? Or is it just for the Edinburgh's? Can I start with the councillor Heddle on that one, please? Yeah, thanks, Mr Russell. It's a good question. The local government's position on the transient attacks, local visitor levy, is that this is an example of discretionary local taxation. That's one of the powers that would be useful for local government to have, to rebalance the funding that we face, which is predominantly from the Scottish Government, very little taxation that's under our control. As such, it would be a power that would be in the discretion of the local authorities to use or not use and then to use as they see fit in terms of the revenues accrued. Are you asking specifically whether every local authority wishes to make use of this? I don't know the answer to that question. I would suspect that the answer would be no, not every local authority would wish to make use of that. I don't think that it will be simply based around the Edinburgh's or the large local authorities. I know that my own local authority has an interest in this. We have, say, 120,000 visitors to our islands, which have a population of 22,000 in terms of people that come for longer stays. We have a greater number in terms of people coming off visiting cruise liners. Undoubtedly, this has an impact on our area in terms of maintaining the assets that we have and stopping them being damaged by the increased footfall. From my own local authority's perspective, we would probably look at directing that towards supporting the tourism industry and supporting perhaps our own local industries that they might find detriment from mass tourism. However, that should be in the discretion of the local authorities to decide how that is applied to match the aspirations of the people who elect us as councillors. It should be under local democratic control to address local priorities. Do you think that there should be an expectation that where councils are raising funds in this way, that a proportion of that should go to supporting cultural institutions? Or do you think that there should be a pure discretion around how councils use it? I think that there is a two-stage answer to that question. I think that absolutely there will be an expectation and I think that there is a likelihood that it will be applied in that way. However, I think that it should be within the discretion of the local authorities to determine that according to their own priorities. Just backing up what Councillor Hedle said, it will come as additional discretionary spend to support the tourism economy of which supporting culture and arts is an important element, particularly in somewhere like Glasgow. There is a working group that has been set up between Scottish Government, COSLA and local authorities to take that forward, but it is unlikely to be a significant amount of money for quite a number of authorities. For the big cities and for the more tourist-based local authorities, it could potentially be quite significant sums of money, but for lots of other areas, it is unlikely to have any impact at all. Therefore, it does not help with the core funding problem, but it is absolutely something that we should be looking to add to help with a very challenging area and to support tourism. Iain, from a creative Scotland's point of view, how would you seek to work with this? I mean, the application of the TVL is a sort of political matter at local government level, and what I would make is a general point that any opportunity to see resources made available by whatever mechanism, in this case TVL, to enhance the resources for cultural activity that we would want to support. As long as it is protected in a way that ensures that at least some of it is channeled towards cultural support and the added value that it delivers and not a substitute for or otherwise cut, I think is another important point that I would make, but we would certainly be supportive if it means that there is more resource available within the overall equation. Firstly, perhaps for Mr Unrhyw, you have reflected on some of the budget pressures that undoubtedly exist on the whole public sector, including, of course, the Scottish Government, who has seen £1.7 billion disappear out of their budget as a result of inflation. I do not want to take away from the pressures that you have described, but I am just curious to know if you feel there is anything that can be learned from the experience of the pandemic. You rightly said that the situation is a very different one and that the pressures are perhaps even greater, but I think that we have had some evidence or comment about how during the pandemic Creative Scotland went to some length to try to, for instance, make its application process perhaps more streamlined. I realise that we cannot make direct comparisons here, but is there anything that can be learned from that experience to bring into the current inflationary emergency? That is back to one of the earliest points that I made in this evidence session about the funding framework and the multi-year arrangements question that the convener had about the extent to which we will continue to build improvements into our funding offer and the way that we deliver that is simpler, clearer, streamlined, more transparent than accountable and proportionate to the level of ask that people have from small grants through to the much larger grants. That is all being built into and baked into the ways of working for Creative Scotland as we go forward, particularly the digital component of that so that people have got their funding opportunity through online resources where it is appropriate and if their accessibility needs them, we have alternatives. Those kinds of operational lessons are part of what we are continuing with undoubtedly. I do want to make a wider point if I may, which is allied to that, but we are talking in an awful lot about the pressures of the current environment. I want to acknowledge the Scottish Government's support in recognition of the fact that there are wider pressures. There is still budget available, but what we are keen to make sure is that we are able to advocate as strongly as possible for direct culture budgets to the greatest level possible at the same time as working to continue to pursue those cross-portfolio conversations that unlock greater opportunity around health and wellbeing, education and the environment, for example. I think that it is twin tracks in understanding the money within the system and there is money within the system. It may not be to the same extent and the greatest degree that we would want. There are always going to be challenges on demand after all, but if the money is reduced, I think that it will inevitably lead to contraction. However, the direct culture budgets are conversations that are with the culture division. Those cross-portfolio conversations, which everybody is keen to pursue, are longer and take time to unlock wider opportunities. When we are in this financial environment of pressures, there is a danger on cross-portfolio work that people retreat into protecting their own areas. What we need to do is to continue to pursue those avenues for the longer term in terms of the collaboration that will unlock wider opportunities to the greater good for everybody, not just in terms of culture but for those other policy areas. My other question was about a subject that we have touched on regularly in the committee, and you have alluded to it there, Mr Monroe, but I might address it perhaps to Councillor Heddle and to Mr Booth. That is about the wellbeing issue. You have touched to some of you on warm spaces. I do not pretend that the function of culture as practised or promoted by local government or by other agencies is simply to provide warm spaces, but you have acknowledged that the pressure that will exist on you to provide facilities of that kind. I wonder if either you could say a bit more about how that is going to be worked into what you do. I think that lots of the services already provide that service, and I just think that there will be more demand. It is a long time since libraries have been seen just as somewhere to issue books. That is still a core function of them, but they provide a much broader service than that. We have delivered a Macmillan support service for people who are suffering with cancer and other long-term conditions, employability support, homework clubs and a whole variety of community engagement activities from within libraries. It has always been the case that lots of people use a library as their principal social contact. I go back to a comment that Ian made about accessibility and things being available online. I am sure that reading a book online does have some societal benefits for individuals, but actually going into a library and seeing people for people who maybe do not have a lot of other contact is a really important part of lots of people's health and wellbeing. Maintaining that is going to be really important going forward. I think that the demand for that and the ability for libraries and other community facilities to provide that space where people can go and maybe spend a bit more time than they would have done historically because it is a warm place is going to be a vital part of going forward. Glasgow is not alone. I think that most authorities are looking to try to protect their opening hours as much as possible and maybe providing some additional resources within their libraries over this winter to help people with that. It has always been a key element of lots of our service delivery. Can I come in? Can you hear me? Yes. Sorry, I do not think that I do not know if you can hear us. Yes, please do. Yes, thanks very much. I mean that happens again to the very good points there. I suppose just to build on that. It is a statement that absolutely local government recognises the value that culture plays in so many of our shared policy objectives with the Scottish Government. The poverty is clearly one that we are focusing on at present in terms of the cost of living crisis. Child poverty is clearly a thing that plays into our consideration of education and how to engage children in education coming from the poor backgrounds. We have great examples of lessons being provided in Doric and Aberdeenshire in a way to engage children from all backgrounds in their overall living. There are the wider issues around addressing climate change, the economic benefits of culture and health and wellbeing that are factored into all our strategies that we develop at a service level and will undoubtedly play into our budget setting considerations. Whenever we set a budget this year, I appreciate that there is some doubt about that. The thing that pervades all the idea of the sense of place in which Matt was speaking about libraries, not just being places where you get books, that move towards being a community hub and information centre, a place where you can access, a place where you can use a 3D printer. That is a place into the wider policy areas or the place principle that we develop jointly with the Scottish Government and the community wellbeing. Going back to the resource spending review, we regret that those things do not play into it and we feel that it would be better if it did. I appreciate the resource spending review as a starting point. However, to bring a sense of place and to bring community wellbeing and to bring the priority that we are titulated, everybody can live well locally. I think that we will be to the benefit of that review and we are shared strategic goals. I just wanted to clarify the point that I made about digital, to Dr Allan's questions earlier. It was about our operational delivery. I was referring to no programmes offered, created programmes offered digitally, because there was a time and a place during the pandemic where that was prevalent, but it is no substitute for live, in-person arts experiences that people want to return to. There is a role for digital in terms of the way in which people can access cultural programmes and so on, but that is not the point that I was necessarily making. On warm spaces, I know from speaking with sector development bodies that we regularly are keen to find mechanisms to co-ordinate how the physical resources that are particularly building-based resources are warm welcoming spaces during the winter period. However, of course, we have to be able to get them there. If you take my point earlier about the cost pressures, we may not enable them to be able to open their doors. There is a desire to do the right thing as community resources, but we have to make sure that we are able to support them as best we can across the spectrum of funding support to enable that to happen. I saw a note yesterday that came across my desk that I believe that Aberdeen is quite advanced in the way that it is co-ordinating the warm spaces initiative, so it might be something that can be looked at further in terms of how that is being planned. Having a cultural offering in the warm spaces is a draw and makes it less stigmatising for people who want to be there, so culture again becomes, whether it is book bug clubs or dementia choirs or whatever in those spaces will make a huge difference. Given all the evidence that we have heard and that you have seen that, do you think that there is a wish to goodness in the next year's budget? Do you think that we will see any progress towards wellbeing being better embedded into the cross-portfolio work streams or do you think that at this stage the pressures are just too high to see any kind of measurable or identifiable progress in those areas? I think that we must proceed in a determined way to continue to pursue those conversations and opportunities but, as I say, the current environment, let alone better as a financial environment, it takes time to enable those conversations to come to fruition and open up those opportunities. It is incumbent on us to continue to pursue that for all the right reasons about the value and benefits, not just culturally but socially and economically. I definitely would want us to pursue that but, if I can leave the final answer to this question with something that is worth exploring, it is about wellbeing economies and Wales as a country is pursuing a wellbeing economy like Scotland is. One of the things that they did in 2015 through the Welsh Parliament was to put in place legislation, which is about the wellbeing of future generations. It includes culture written into that act that means that listed public bodies need to work with people and communities and together to ensure that they have culture as a consideration within the delivery of their services and a greater contribution through culture to the wellbeing economy. If something similar was to happen in Scotland, that is not easy or quick to deliver, but it is definitely for the longer term something that would unlock the true potential of culture's contribution to that wider cross-policy agenda in the wellbeing economy. Mr Booth, I will fully endorse Ian's comments. We need to do this to go forward, but it is very challenging and survival is probably our highest priority at the moment, but we need to have some hope that we can make things better. I am delighted by Ian's comment on the Welsh example. I think that a commitment to our future generations is probably the most important thing that we can do. If we can get to a stage where we are doing that, that will be excellent. The embedding of wellbeing approaches to our policies is absolutely worth it. We will reflect that back to the Scottish Government to work with us on this. Individual local authorities such as North Ayrshire have done excellent work on advancing a community wellbeing agenda in Scotland. The adaptation of the local government benchmarking framework towards wellbeing economy will be steps in this direction, but this is a shared endeavour, so we are up for working with our partners and with the national government on this. I am looking. I do not think that there are any further questions from the committee members this morning. I thank you all for your attendance and again for your submissions, which are really helpful. I will suspend briefly for a couple of minutes to allow witnesses to change over. I welcome everyone back to a second panel this morning on our pre-budget scrutiny. I welcome to committee Angus Robertson MSP, Cabinet Secretary for the Constitution, External Affairs and Culture, and Lisa Baird, Deputy Director of Culture and Historic Environments at the Scottish Government. I invite the cabinet secretary to make a brief opening statement. Thank you very much, convener. Good morning to you and thanks for the opportunity to make some opening remarks. This evidence session for the pre-budget scrutiny is an important part of the normal process for setting annual Scottish budgets, but we can all agree that circumstances facing us today are everything but normal. Our public finances are under huge pressure from soaring inflation at a 40-year high and from the cost of living crisis. Uncertainties increased with the negative market reaction to the UK Government tax announcements two weeks ago. The combination of the on-going cost of living crisis, high inflation and the forecast recession has increased the demand for government funding. Not surprisingly, this has been a consistent theme that the committee has heard from witnesses in the culture sector. The limited cash funding that the Scottish Government can make available for public services is being eroded by rising inflation. Our budget, as I think you know, for this year is worth around £1.7 billion less than when it was announced in December with inflation having risen from 4 to 9.9 per cent. In the meantime, our cash plans in the resource spending review announced little more than four months ago are similarly being eroded by greater inflation. This is a challenge facing public services in all Government portfolios. However, I am acutely conscious of how the economic circumstances are affecting the culture sector in particular. Building-based organisations in particular face steeply rising costs. Everyone who works in the sector is rightly concerned about their pay as living costs rise so steeply. Added to that is the mixed picture of post-Covid recovery and visitor and audience numbers. I hear some positive reports of recovering visitor numbers in museums and galleries, heritage attractions on the one hand, on the other a more tentative picture for audience figures in performing arts and cinema. Most of all, there is continuing uncertainty as the rising cost of living means that people are undoubtedly cutting back on leisure spending. As the committee has heard from its witnesses so we are hearing from our own discussions with our culture public bodies and the broader sector, to address these economic challenges the Scottish Government is making hard choices to prioritise spending through savings announced by the Deputy First Minister on the 7th of September and the emergency budget review due later this month. While none of this is a surprise to the committee this morning, I think it's worth repeating as a context to what will be a difficult decisions in the forthcoming 2324 budget. The resource spending review envelope for a culture major events next financial year is £172.8 million. That's a cash reduction of £4.2 million or 2.3 per cent and that doesn't include the impact of inflation. That's already a challenge before you factor in inflation and indeed the possible further public spending cuts being trailed by UK ministers. I'll continue to argue, as you might imagine, for the most public funding that we can afford for the culture sector. I'm also keen to conclude some work on multi-year funding, even if economic uncertainty means that the later years can be at most only indicative. I know that multi-year figures would help the sector to plan ahead. Convener, I know that the committee wishes to concentrate on the culture budget and its pre-budget discussions, but I'd also be happy to answer any questions on other areas of the portfolio and if there are any which I cannot answer today, I'll of course write to the committee. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. If I can maybe open Mr Robertson on what you were saying about the recovery in numbers for museums, because we had evidence session last week and we heard that while the museums are free to the public, they are making their additional funding through special exhibitions and the discussions spend in the cafes and in museum shops. In terms of visitor numbers, how are they capturing whether the discussions spend of visitors is falling, even though the numbers might be up if that makes sense in a convoluted way? The first thing that I would say is that probably the galleries and museums are in a better position to understand the trends in their visitor attendance and spend. I think that we know the headline numbers in terms of percentages of who are going, and to be frank, a lot of that is encouraging, isn't it, that people are going? That is one of the reasons why we are committed, as we are, to free public access and the hope, obviously. For those viewing evidence sessions like this to take every opportunity to encourage people to visit our amazing galleries, museums and public cultural institutions as they can, I would take a stab on discretionary spending, reflecting how people are feeling about how much money they have in their wallets, and so, while they might go and enjoy seeing great works of art, they may be economising on other things, so choosing perhaps to use the cafes less or the amazing high-quality shops that there are in our galleries and museums, that would be my best stab at answering that question. As I say, I have no doubt that those in charge of galleries and museums will be looking at all of that, but notwithstanding that, I would want to take the opportunity to encourage people to be aware that these facilities are still free and open to the public to attend. They are warm spaces as well as we enter the winter months, which is a consideration as well. As we emerge from Covid, remind ourselves that we perhaps have not been to see some of our galleries and museums for a while and take the opportunity to do so. Thank you very much. If I could ask another question around our focus has been on the wellbeing economy and the ambitions of the Government in terms of wellbeing and how that might impact on culture across portfolios, but the evidence from this morning from Cate of Scotland and from COSLA would indicate that they feel that there is a disconnect between the resource spending review priorities and that aspect of wellbeing. I wonder if you had time to consider and reflect on that and whether you think that everything is in order for people to be able to make decisions to move towards more wellbeing issues. I would always want to be very mindful of that and try to ensure that that wasn't the case, wellbeing matters. At the same time, there is a general recognition that, given the very difficult budgetary situation that we find ourselves in and the emergency process that the Deputy First Minister is currently going through, and my apologies to the committee because I am sure that you appreciate that we are in a live budgetary process, so there are probably things that you would want to probe and ask and better understand that there is a part of the process that unfortunately hasn't been decided and is kind of subject to consideration at the present time, but not with standing that. We in culture, and I know my colleagues across government, when making these very difficult decisions will be trying to make perhaps sometimes impossible decisions, but at all times trying to minimise the impact that it will have on people, but as I've already mentioned in terms of galleries and museums, for example, we know about the health benefits, the mental health benefits that culture can offer. If people are still able to access, and they are, these facilities are free of charge, then that is a reflection that this is an important priority for us, and that is a wellbeing priority, as well as a statement of the importance of culture, but the additional point that I was making about being warm spaces is also a reflection of the fact that that's a wellbeing, has a wellbeing dimension to it, where let's be frank, there are literally people who are making decisions about heating or eating, and if there are places that people can go and visit where it's warm, where one can have great enjoyment in appreciating the art and artifacts, the living culture that we see in our museums and galleries and elsewhere, then I think that that is in itself a reflection of the importance of wellbeing, but I do appreciate that when there is uncertainty about the continuity of funding for different projects that provide positive support for initiatives that have a wellbeing dimension, I appreciate that that is a challenge for people who are impacted or fear that it may impact on them. All I can say is that we are taking all of that seriously as we go through the process of the emergency budget, and as you will appreciate, I will be arguing, and I'm arguing as strongly as I can for the maintenance of the maximum possible budget for culture. Good morning to the cabinet secretary. This isn't specifically on a budgetary matter, but it did come up in evidence last week. It's about Historic Environment Scotland and the closure of historic sites to the public. Alex Paterson of Historic Environment Scotland said that there are currently around 60 historic sites closed or restricted to the public, and I think that we'll all have examples of that in the regions or constituencies that we represent. There's also been talk of managed decline, the policy of managed decline. We all understand that those sites clearly must be safe for both visitors and staff, but what action is the Scottish Government taking to help HES to accelerate the inspection, fixing and reopening of those sites? First, I want to general a point to the observation about the challenge to heritage buildings in particular in Scotland, and to reflect back to the committee on the visit that I've been making this week to Paris where yesterday I was at UNESCO, the United Nations Organization for Education, Scientific Research and Culture. Much of the discussion yesterday that I held was around this issue of the heritage estate in Scotland, but the heritage estate globally. The fact that we have a shared challenge in this because the difficulty that we have in a country that is so full of castles and historic buildings and of great age and often in an advanced state of decline without roofs and built with stone that is eroding and so on and so on, is a feature that is common across the world because of the changing climatic situation that we find ourselves in. My first point is that the challenge that we face here is not a unique one, Observation 1. Observation 2, unfortunately, is not going to get better in as much as the challenge isn't getting any better. A third observation to this is that we quite rightly want to uphold the highest health and safety standards when people go and visit amazing places like, I don't know, Linlithgow Palace or any number of castles, which have high walls but don't have roofs and have masonry, which is not always secure. There's just this general point of ongoing challenge. To your specific point about historic environment at Scotland, the first thing I'd like to say is, just as an organisation, we have a world-class organisation that is trying to deal with all of that. Managed decline, it's not a phrase that I'm comfortable with, but taken at face value, one is trying to manage an estate and that estate is declining. It is just a statement of fact that masonry is falling down, these buildings are, I mean it would say, incidentally, the masonry has been falling down for hundreds of years. It's just because of circumstances now that we have much higher standards of what is acceptable to let people in to be able to enjoy these facilities. Historic Environment Scotland is going through the process of trying to ameliorate particular circumstances and particular sites that you've highlighted, and then there's a more general point of the places that are perhaps less well-visited as well. Then you have to match that, frankly, against the resources that exist, which is a responsibility of Historic Environment Scotland. We need to do everything that we can to try and ensure that they have the resources to be able to deal with this, because I think that everybody appreciates that. This is about our national heritage. So far, so good or so far, so challenging, there's a little bit of silver lining, I think, which is the recovery of visitor numbers to heritage sites. Again, use the opportunity, because members of the public do watch proceedings of committees like this to encourage people to go and visit our castles, our palaces, our historic sites. Please join Historic Environment Scotland, get yourself a card, go along and visit and support our heritage sites. I would be the first to acknowledge, Mr Cameron, that when you're talking about finite resources, but you're talking about an ever-growing scale of financial challenge, though one isn't going to be able to manage to do everything. There isn't a simple fix to this, and I wouldn't want to pretend that there is, but we have to work in partnership as a Government through the agencies that are charged to get on with this. If it's something that we need to come back to, then I'm fully prepared to do that, but it's not my job to micromanage or to manage at all the arms-length organisations that have responsibility in this area. But no doubt this is something that we are going to come back to and come back to because the threat remains and it will endure, as will the aspiration to try and protect as much of our built heritage as we can. We heard some very interesting evidence from Kirsty Cumming of Community Leisure UK who called for a move away from what she described as initiative-driven funding, and she said, and I quote her, "...there are lots of little pots of money out there, but lots of time and effort are required to put in applications for them. Indeed, there are often things that are seen as new, despite the fact that there might be programmes that are already delivering something similar across Scotland." I just wondered for your reflections on that and whether you thought that it was time to end a kind of initiative-led approach and move towards a different system of funding. I thank them to that question, as you don't mind. Donald, we also had evidence from organisations that say that very similar projects from the same artists can be funded from two different pots of those money and some of the joined-up think isn't there in some of these ways as well. I am sure those who are charged with making some of these project funding decisions will be looking very closely at the evidence that has been given and you've taken evidence from Creative Scotland before I've sat in this chair. I'm sure that they will be thinking about this, because I know that they will be thinking about it anyway. I think that this is going to be an eternal question, if I'm entirely honest. We want new and innovative projects, don't we? We want to learn the best from elsewhere. We want to try and improve things, so there's always an attraction for all of us, regardless of where we are politically, to say that this is a good and a new thing, and we need this new thing to help to address this shortcoming or this challenge or this opportunity. At the same time, we have a whole series of established projects that are supported, which there may be a feeling that they are hollies of hollies and so can never be challenged, and there's a tension in that, isn't there? I don't think that there's a simple answer to this, but I just think that being on the ball with that particular dynamic is what needs to happen, because we do need innovation, we do need projects, but we also need to protect that which is good and that that works. That's one aspect of the challenge, but the second is about different funding pots. Again, it was always thus, was it not? It doesn't just involve the Scottish Government and Scottish Government agencies that are charged with supporting projects. There are other places that provide funds that go towards cultural projects, whether that is, in some cases, a UK Government. In the past, we had the European Union, and beyond that, there are different national and international pots, and there's a dimension to this which also is worthy of consideration, which is how much time are organisations going to spend trying to identify where they can get funding from, then the consideration that one has to be of a certain size to be able to do that efficiently and effectively, and have the expertise to be able to draw down the funds. Again, I think that it's an eternal observation. I'm not being critical of it, but it is a statement of fact. One of the things that I would be concerned about if it were so is if people felt that they didn't know where they could turn to draw down funds. That is as relevant for the public sector, as in Government, as it is for other organisations. There are some very important funding sources beyond Government, Heritage Lottery Fund, the Postcode Lottery, Headquartered Incidently in Edinburgh, that supports a lot of small and medium-sized community and cultural projects. I think that there is a lot in all of that, but if the committee has evidence that people are finding it difficult to know where they can turn to, potential criticism 1, or 2, that they are not being treated fairly when they are seeking to get support, I would like to understand that better, because I understand that the context in all of that is with constrained budgets, and that won't just be with Government, that will be with some of these other funding organisations, both private and public sector. I should also mention philanthropy, because it's also in the context of philanthropy. There are also issues of constrained spending from people who have been extraordinarily generous in supporting culture and the arts, so there is something in all of that. I do take it upon myself, I do have some responsibility in terms of my convening power, if we want to call it that, to be able to help different areas of funding, whether that's national government, local government, philanthropy, private sector, and I am doing some of that already, and maybe there's more than I can do. I'm open to encouragement, Mr Cameron. Thank you for that. I'm glad that you mentioned philanthropy and the private sector, because, as you said, there's a panoply of different funding potential, including some businesses that directly fund cultural organisations. It's not an area that we've really explored much in the last month or so, but thank you very much, thank you, convener. I think all members, Alasdair, do you have a supplementary or a new question? I'll bring Alasdair and then Jenny in the market on those. Sorry, was there something I said that something suddenly held up? I'll resist the temptation, cabinet secretary, to talk about a specific building, because we've corresponded about it, but on a more general point around the issues you're raising about Historic Environment Scotland, I wonder if you could say something about what the expectation is that you have of the extent to which communities to which historic buildings, which may not be open or important, are involved and kept aware of what's going on? 100 per cent. Local communities need to know what's happening with local buildings or cultural attractions. For a number of reasons, people want to access them, they want to have some understanding of when things might open, but here's another thought, which is that there are some places that may want to support the maintenance, restoration and reopening of facilities. One might similarly say that there may be philanthropists, there may be other funding organisations who have a particular geographical interest or historical connection or one may have a name that connects one to a place or a building. We think of people around the world who feel like that. North America is full of people with Scottish surnames and they feel a very genuine connection to a place because of their name. It struck me for a while that I think there is potential in helping to join people's connection with a place, with a name, with a building, with a cultural site as a potential funding stream. It's definitely something that I'm keen to explore because if I meet people from the United States who feel that they come from a particular part of Scotland and they want to make a contribution to that part of Scotland, it may well be that there's a potential for matching people's interest and support with the challenge that, in this context, we were talking about in relation to Historic Environment Scotland. I'd be very interested in the thoughts of the committee—I'm not fishing for reflections on it right now—but I definitely think that there is something in us being able to match up community interest in local buildings, historic sites and so on, but also others who are too. It might be a way of supplementing the projects that are under way to protect our historic infrastructure. Anything that might secure additional funding streams or public support would be a good thing. Folling up on Don Cameron's question, your reflections on that eternal question around short-term funding, or I think it's called projectism, is a question that needs an answer, because what I see is a lot of public money being wasted on projects having to eternally reinvent themselves, wasting core staff time, putting in for funding applications, trying to develop new projects on the back of it when what they really need is that multi-year long-term funding to then enable them to get to the place where they may well innovate after that into a different space, but in the meantime, they need a space just to grow into that. You mentioned power convening. How do you answer that question? How do you crack this issue? It's been there for years and years and years, and it is grinding the entire voluntary sector down, not just in the culture space but in many other spaces as well. There's official nodding at that. If Ms Baird wants to jump in, she's free to at any stage. There's a couple of reflections about this that I would make. One, in terms of multi-year certainty, I've given evidence to the committee before and said that we appreciate in government that having maximum medium and longer-term certainty about budgetary projections, whether that is necessarily the happiest news that people get or not, but just having some sense of planning horizon is absolutely understood. I would hope that people will appreciate that, given where the economy currently is and this is not of our making, that this is making our life more difficult and being able to satisfy that perfectly reasonable demand. However, we're still aiming to try and give maximum longer-term understanding of the financial outlook for people's projects, organisations and so on. That's point one. There's another dimension to Mr Ruskell's observation that he didn't mention, which I think is important to consider in this context. There are many projects that are supported for them to start up, for them to grow, for them to find their feet, because they believe that once they are up and they are running that they will either be self-funding or significantly self-funding. Within that context, there is also attention, because it's not always the case that they do reach a position where they are as self-funding or totally funded as they initially plan to be. Herein lies a challenge for funding bodies, whether that's Creative Scotland or any other, which is wanting to make sure that one is using funds to help 1,000 flowers bloom, but to not always be the ultimate paymaster for everything forever. It takes the wisdom of Solomon to be able to work out how one can get that always right. As with our budgetary challenge at the present time, there are those kinds of challenges but others that organisations that are trying to set up and are trying to become as financially successful as they can be suddenly find themselves buffeted by circumstances. We don't need to go into Covid as the most recent example of something that very few people saw coming as a challenge of the scale that it was. I'm just adding another dimension to Mr Ruskell's point and agreeing with him that the intention is, for obvious reasons, to give people maximum potential understanding of where funding support is and will be over a number of years. However, the issue of sustainability of funding as well is that it also has this added dimension that not all projects are supported with a view to being funded forever. It is for them to start up or they are time limited or they are doing a particular job. I do understand that there are a whole load of organisations out there who are funded regularly and deserve to be funded regularly and are assessed as being good value for money and worthy of support. We need to do that as well as we can in constrained times. I'm just being absolutely frank with committee. It is not easy. It's not easy for them and it's not easy for colleagues either in government or agencies like Creative Scotland and others to be able to match the ambition of maintaining public support for cultural institutions. However, we are going to have to try and do our best to get through the very bumpy period that we are going into where we are not even in the eye of the storm yet. Is there anything from your side? I wonder if I could just ask a final supplementary around this area, cabinet secretary. A lot of the third sector voluntary type organisations that we took evidence from were one really thankful for the support that was given through Covid, which helped most of them to keep afloat, but also expressed to us how dynamic the funding landscape became at that time and that all of a sudden, instead of having to feel as if they were jumping through hoops and lots of red tape to achieve a pocket of money, the funders were looking at them as trusted partners and we know what you do. Here's the money, go and do it during this really difficult time. A lot of them said that that was such a relief to be able to just not have that effort involved in actually getting the money. It's certainly a significant worry and a significant impact on organisations to have to keep doing that. While I absolutely recognise that it's public money and it has to be accounted for and outcomes have to be achieved, I think that they feel now that the red tape barriers have gone back up. One of the specific things that was mentioned by more than one organisation was the felt—for those who had been, as they sought, ffiscally prudent and had built up reserves—all of a sudden that became a barrier to access some of the emergency funding and they felt a little bit hard done to because they feel as if there's no real guidance from the Scottish Government about what kind of levels of reserves would be expected from that kind of organisation. I don't know if that is something you can influence or it should be the Charities Commission or whatever, but it's these kind of inconsistencies and some of the challenges that they faced that I feel they would want us to raise with you today in our last session. I'm very alive to the points that you're making. As I think you all know, the Covid challenge led to an unsurpassed level of dialogue between Government Creative Scotland and the creative sector. It was because we were dealing with an existential crisis for the entire sector. We were in the fortunate position that we had the funds to dispense in that emergency situation. We tried our best—Creative Scotland tried its best—to get funding out where it was needed in different phases of the intense Covid period to deal with the particular aspects of the challenges to the cultural sector because we were being so well advised as to what they were. Undoubtedly, having the funding in place to then be able to dispense, distribute those funds did make it a lot easier than when you don't have the funds, Observation 1. Observation 2—I think it's worthy of note and Creative Scotland deserve public recognition for this—when one is dispensing such significant levels of funds, there is always a risk, is there not, that there may be fraudulent applications for financial support. We know that from other areas during the Covid period, the PPE and the like. I am not aware of any significant parallel development in terms of cultural funding. In significant part, that is because of the experience of Creative Scotland as a funding organisation, but we should not take that for granted. The point that you made, convener, about public money here is really, really important. People need to have confidence, whether we are in the cultural sector itself or whether we are in the public agency that is supporting it, whether we are in Government and Parliament overseeing it and making strategic decisions around all of that. We should never take that for granted. I think that Creative Scotland deserves to be recognised for having managed that process. On to the substantive point about cultural organisations now post the most extreme phase of Covid, I completely understand that when there is not the same amount of money going out the door that is helping to support cultural organisations as was during the height of the Covid period, that is a tremendous challenge. People are trying to balance books, people are trying to recover from Covid, people are trying to recover visitor numbers or numbers of people who are paying coming through the door, whether it is a theatre or a cinema or whatever else. In many respects, I hear the warning that things are going to get more difficult. Even looking to the comparison between festivals right across Scotland this summer, being very successful in comparative terms, the feeling though that next year is going to be the one that is going to be the more difficult one, not least because of added inflation and all sorts of reasons. On to the specific point, which I will take away and I will be happy to write to the committee about, is how are organisations advised in relation to funds that they may hold and then funding decisions that may or may not be made on the basis of, well you have x amount of money in reserve, which means that we will only be prepared to give you y amount of public funding when organisations may have made very, very difficult decisions to try and have some reserve funding in place to keep one's head above water when one doesn't know what the situation is going to be like in three months or six months or 12 months at times. I am content to go away and have a look and try to get best guidance on that because I would want organisations to feel that they are treated fairly. Again, it behoves me to say that we are also looking at dispensing taxpayers' resource during a cost crisis. People are having to make decisions on the basis of who has funds full stop. All I am trying to say with that is that it's not easy. I want things to be as sympathetic as they can be, but I also want people to be as best advised as they possibly can be. There is an additional dimension to this convener. I have had this conversation with members of the cultural sector who are looking at next year's festivals or the year after's tour or whatever it is, where they are having to make medium and longer term financial plans for things. It is extraordinarily difficult for them to work out how that is going to add up. We will try and be as helpful as we can. Unfortunately, I don't have the magic wand that is going to be able to answer all of those queries, but I want things to be fair. I want people to be well advised. I don't want people to feel that they are being penalised for running effective organisations or feel that they are being hard done by compared to others. I should say, incidentally, if you have information on circumstances that I and my officials may or may not know about, we look at the public evidence sessions and the evidence that you are given very closely. However, if there is any information that may not have been in public or you may have picked up in visits and so on, please let us know so that we can be as best informed as we can be. I could add one further point. Along with the excellent work that Creative Scotland did to get funds out the door, Historic Environment Scotland also distributed about £1.9 million worth of funding for the Historic Environment Recovery Fund, which went to about 40 area-based organisations, some of which were community groups. That should be recognised, too. It answers a part of Mr Allan's question. That is helpful. Thank you very much, Cabinet Secretary. I will add to that as well. The List Museums Gallery Scotland did an amazing job in getting funding out. It made a decision that it is looking at organisations to have three months of reserves to keep them going. That was very helpful. Local authorities, too, helped. I want to change the topic slightly. We have just taken evidence, as you know, from Ian Monroe of Creative Scotland. He talked about the importance of having the culture budget, but he also highlighted the importance of cross-part portfolio conversations. I, for example, attended a cross-party group on India, where we were talking about trade, but culture was a really important part of that, which Minister Ivan McKee recognised. We also talked about wellbeing. You were joined, Cabinet Secretary, with the Cabinet Secretary for Health last year. We talked a bit about social prescribing and how perhaps the culture portfolio can help that. Just to say that Ian Monroe finished his evidence saying that we must proceed with this in a determined way, so I am interested in knowing what the Scottish Government is doing in that area. Thank you. I think that this is probably, I may get this wrong, the third or fourth evidence session where we have touched on this as an emerging, as an on-going and, hopefully, as an initiative which will be making concrete strides. I am glad that the issue has been brought up again. Just as a concrete update to the committee since I have given evidence, I gave evidence together with the Health Secretary, Humza Yousaf. This is specifically on health. We have set up a short-life working group with health colleagues to agree a clear set of actions for collaboration. The terms of reference are being drawn up in all the things that you would expect to happen to try and have a productive process involving health and wellbeing colleagues for comment. That includes colleagues with a particular expertise and policy interests regarding social prescribing. It is going to have a broader remit than just that. We are covering a range of policy that crosses over from different bits of government. We are going to provide more information on the work of this group in our culture strategy action plan, which is being refreshed before the end of the year. This is in government. I certainly do not want to give the impression that it has gone off to somewhere where it is either going to take a very long time to come back or we are not going to hear anything because people are away thinking great thoughts for far too long. It needs to be something that is on-going. Be assured that we are seized of the matter. I am not sure that the circumstances make it any easier because it does not take very long before people ask questions about additional funding. We are back to our new initiatives. How do you make a new initiative happen? At some point, the M money comes into the equation. Then you also have the additional challenge to which I do not have the answer yet, but I am just signalling this and no doubt you would be asking questions about this if I was here with Humza Yousaf again. If there is a growing cultural dimension as there should be for health and wellbeing, is that something that health is funding, or is that something that is being funded from the culture portfolio? Those are bridges that we are going to have to cross. I know that we have a very strong focus with health, and I think that it was very helpful if I can say so that both I and Humza Yousaf were sitting next to one another publicly declaring that we were wanting to make progress in this. I am keen that it is wider than that. I have made the point that I have reported to the committee before that it was a cabinet decision that culture would be mainstreamed across the whole of Government. I am keen because I can see significant areas of positive impact that I have mentioned before, such as justice, where you can see that culture and different cultural organisations, and many do already play a significant role in helping with rehabilitation and mental health of people in the justice system, but I think that there is much more that can be done. Similar questions arise about the funding of that, but that should not deter us from making progress with all of that. I have given concrete answer to Ms Minto's question about the administrative governmental progress that is being driven across the department, and it is the eternal challenge. Is it not in Government? I am sure everywhere to try and make sure that we are not stuck in our silos, and we will all have to work to try and help our colleagues who have a responsibility for health, education, justice and so on to realise that the culture and much that the cultural sector can offer should be integral to the thinking of a lot more, or perhaps more consciously, than has been the case up until now. Again, that was part of the subject of the conversations that I was having with UNESCO in Paris yesterday, and I was very frank about the stage that we are. We have an understanding, we have an aspiration, we are committed to making progress, we are trying to make progress, and the doubt some will say that we should be doing more or quicker or whatever. It is good to have that encouragement, but a pull and a push is good in this context. I have to say that the UNESCO colleagues were extremely impressed that we are at the stage that we are at, and are very keen for us to engage with them, with a view to us being able to share what it is that we are doing here with other countries, with other cultural organisations, not because we have the perfect solutions or we have all of the practical applications of how to make things work, but we are perhaps slightly further down the track than other places are, and that is a good thing. This is not just something that is relevant, although it is extremely relevant here in Scotland, that is our responsibility, but we should do our best to work with colleagues elsewhere, not just to help those who want to emulate, follow and work in parallel with us, but I am very keen to try and better understand where there are countries who might be further down the road. Sorry, I know that I am digressing slightly, convener, but just another point of update that I met last week with the head of the British Council, and it was a subject of conversation for me with him about how is it that we are best informed, and I think that this is relevant for parliamentary committees as well as Government and Ministers, about where are there particular initiatives in other parts of the world that are further ahead, better, doing things in different ways to help us to appreciate what we might want to do, might encourage us to do, might help us not to take a wrong turn somewhere along the way. I am not sure that we have the mechanism in place for that yet, this was something that was discussed during the Edinburgh culture summit about how we would do all that. I am keen that we do that as well as we can, because it will help us to get there quicker than if we are just trying to test our own approach to things without learning from others on all of this. Again, I think that the committee will, no doubt, but I would strongly like to encourage you to work in partnership with ourselves to ensure that we are best informed about where works. I know that there are some committee members who have a very strong interest in this, as Ms Boyack is not here, but I know that she is another example of somebody together with Mr Ruskell, who repeatedly, of course, others—sorry, I have now started to mention committee members. I am going to get a big trouble by not mentioning everyone. Let us just keep it as the committee is seized with this, commend its interest and we would want to hear any suggestions and feedback that they have. I would just say that Cabinet Secretary Clare Baker and I are both involved in the culture and communities cross-party group. T-Side Health Arts Trust spoke a lot about the importance of arts and culture, supporting people through illness and chronic conditions, so that was very helpful. Through you, convener, just say—and forgive me that I have not mentioned this—that there are obviously cross-party groups in Parliament that do a lot of work in parallel to the formal subject committees of the Parliament. I would hugely welcome feedback. Unfortunately, I am not able to go to as many cross-party groups as I might want to, but if one is learning important lessons, meeting important people that you may feel that we need to be hearing more from or understanding better, please do get in touch, because we are very keen to be as best informed as we can be. Earlier this week, I visited Campbelltown Grammar School and it was interesting to see some of the importance that that school puts on art and music throughout their learning. That tied in with quite a lot of the discussions that were happening in the culture summit, as well as the Parliament and Clare hosted some sessions, specifically Clare hosted a session on Ukraine. You have talked about the usefulness of your trip to Paris to UNESCO and hearing what other countries are doing and learning from them and them learning from Scotland. I am just interested to get your thoughts on how Scotland can support Ukraine from the culture perspective as well. We did not talk about this before the evidence session, because I feel like you have been reading my mind on this very point. Those of you at the culture summit will know, because I mentioned it when I addressed it, that I think that we have an opportunity to take twinning a lot more seriously. This was something that I raised with UNESCO yesterday, because it seems to me that they are ideally placed to help drive this together with Ukrainian authorities who, of course, would have to be at the heart of making such an approach work. For those of you who did not hear me make the point before, it is a simple one and it is as follows. After previous conflagrations, after the Second World War, we decided that, for a number of reasons, twinning arrangements are a very useful way of being able to help rebuild, come together and emerge from conflict. If you look at the twinning arrangements in Scotland, largely with French and German towns and cities, that purpose was very clear. Yes, there was an exchange of people, especially between France and Germany, which was very important after both the First and Second World War. I think that there is an added dimension to this. UNESCO told me yesterday that there are, I think that I am right in saying, 198 cultural sites of particular cultural importance in Ukraine that have already been totally or significantly destroyed. UNESCO is using satellite imagery and they are logging the damage to cultural sites in real time. This is something new for them. They have not done this in the past. They were not able to do that in Syria, for example, and they were not able to do the preparatory work, but they are now involved, for example, in the rebuilding in parts of Mosul. UNESCO is very keen to do a lot of the preparatory work during this conflict so that, when it ends, and pray God, it ends as soon as possible with a victory for Ukraine at the restoration of peace and justice, but that cultural organisations like UNESCO will be able to work in partnership with the likes of the Ukrainian Culture Ministry to know exactly where one should intervene to help to rebuild the already being very high profile commitments to rebuild the theatre in Mariupol, for example. But there are countless hamlets, villages, towns for whom their church or synagogue has been destroyed or other sites of particular importance. To my point about twinning, it is great that we have cities like Edinburgh, which is twinned with Kiev. It is great that cities like Glasgow have been looking at twinning arrangements themselves. However, would it not be all the more effective if small towns, villages, towns as well as cities would twin with communities in Ukraine? From here, yes, but internationally too, and that was my point with UNESCO. They are in an ideal position, they are membership organisations, they are United Nations organisations, so they have national delegations, but if they could push that down through their organisation to encourage multiple twinning arrangements to particular small villages and towns that have lost their hospital, lost their library, lost public services as a way of rebuilding those communities and their cultural sites as a priority as we emerge from conflict as soon as that may come, I think that that is the best way forward. There may well be other ways of doing it, but it just strikes me as a particularly attractive solution. I have raised it at the Culture Summit, I have raised it in the European Parliament with colleagues in different political groups to try and get them to adopt it and push it down through the system. I was speaking about it with the British ambassador to UNESCO to encourage through her the Department of Culture, Media and Sport in England to think about this as well. If there is any best practice that we can establish in that respect here, let us do it, because I know that having spoken to the Ukrainian consul general in Edinburgh about this, the Ukrainians are extremely keen on the idea, so why don't we have a look at seeing what we can do and encourage others to do likewise? We'd imagine historic environment Scotland as well, the knowledge that they have, as Mr Cameron asked earlier about the buildings and restoring them. Absolutely, but there's a wider point than this. Yes, it's the cultural organisations that can give particular specific advice in relation to the built heritage buildings, whether that is churches, synagogues and the like, but there's a wider point about municipal reconstruction, because we've seen the wholesale destruction of towns. Literally all that is left is the roads and the sewage system, so there are communities right across Ukraine who are going to need expertise and that would be something that our local authorities could perhaps play a role in. They have excellent road departments and housing departments and maybe something for our colleagues in the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to look at. There may be ways that we can be helping in a broader sense and I think it would be excellent that we would aspire to that. Thank you. Cabinet Secretary, Ms Baker has been at another committee. I'm minded to allow questions, but if I feel they've already been answered, we're not going to repeat and you can direct Ms Baker to the official report, but Ms Baker would just like to ask you a question. Thank you, convener. Apologies, I had to attend a corporate body. I have had a member's staff been watching the session, so hopefully I won't repeat prior questions, but apologies. If it's a really difficult question, I'll say I've answered it already. The first to relate to the previous panel we had this morning, so when Ian Monroe was in, we did ask him about the Youth Music Initiative. He explained the situation with that, but he did say that other funding streams are being reviewed currently and discussions are on-going. Do you know when those discussions are likely to conclude as there will be organisations waiting to hear what happens to those funds? So I wasn't being serious when I said I wouldn't answer difficult questions and this is a difficult question. The reason why it's a difficult question is it's part of the emergency budget process that we're currently in. All of our funding decisions are part of the review process. I don't want to misquote the Deputy First Minister, so I brought along what he had to say in terms of the timelines of things, because I think it's quite important. He was making the point, which is understandable, that we're in a difficult circumstance because of the impact of the recent UK-mini budget and we're aware of the problems that that has brought with it, but we have the added challenge that that has not been informed by independent forecasts, by the Office of Budget Responsibility and that's why I think all colleagues know this. Deputy First Minister has announced that he now has an advisory panel that is helping to advise him during this emergency budget process that we're having to go through in Scotland as a result of what's gone on elsewhere. So I quote from him giving evidence to the Finance and Public Administration Committee. This is the Deputy First Minister speaking. I'm expecting to conclude the Scottish Government's emergency budget review in late October. As part of this work, I've established an expert panel of economists who will assess the impact on Scotland of the UK Chancellor's fiscal approach. Now, I imagine that Ms Baker may already have a supplementary which may go along the lines of there are cultural organisations who wish to have best clarity about their financial situation and that's something that I was making, a point I was making to Mr Ruskell in general terms, because we have, as a Government, and I know that the committee shares this as an aspiration, having a much more multi-annual approach to funding decisions and an understanding of what the financial horizon might be for all kinds of organisations. I appreciate at the present time that there are some who do not have that. Firstly, there is still the aspiration to try and give maximum understanding over more than one financial year. Point two, I recognise the fact that we're in the middle of a budget process where decisions are having to be made and that people will want to have certainty as quickly as they can. I'm really not in a position to go further than say, I appreciate the point that's being made, I understand the question that's been made, I'm not in a position to answer in detail. Save to say that is an absolute priority for me, that if there is any organisation that is needing urgent clarification, I would want to seek to be able to provide that. If there are any specific cases that Ms Baker has in mind that she would want my officials to be aware of, please do that. However, I've pointed out the process that the Deputy First Minister is engaged in. I am very actively involved in my vocal support of protecting maximum spending capability in the culture portfolio. That also is on-going, so I would hope to be able to report back in person or in writing, if that were more expeditious, as soon as we're able to confirm the details of what that means in general terms, but also if there are any specific cultural organisations that are needing clarity, that they have that as quickly as possible. However, I hope that Ms Baker appreciates that I can't go further than that given that it's just the unfortunate timing of circumstances that we are trying to talk about, the budgetary process, while it's still on-going in the middle of a financial crisis. I will try and get back as quickly as I can to give the detail both to members of the committee but also any organisations who feel that they're in that very acute situation. The budget statement when we return after recess, so it might be an opportunity after that for Creator Scotland to receive more clarity over which funds they can progress with and which might have to be... I hope to be, I hope that all organisations, whether they're agencies and then cultural organisations that flow from that, can have maximum clarity as quickly as possible for the very obvious reasons that we are talking about. I also heard from Ian Monroe this morning quite a bleak picture for the cultural sector, a real risk of contraction within the sector, concerns over closures, particular organisations that had buildings and infrastructure. Compared to the pandemic, where £151 million was put in and real efforts were made to support the sector through that crisis, we are now facing a second crisis that they this morning have said they feel is more significant than the crisis we thought was so life changing for everybody when in a more difficult situation. I know that the Government is under extreme financial pressure. The budget review is about looking for savings in order to make investment in key areas that we share where the key areas are. I suppose that there is a concern for these types of sectors, which have huge contributions to tourism and to our economy, that as a country we invested significant amounts of public sums in already to the risk of them collapsing at this point after everything we've gone through. I recognise how challenging that is for the Government to resolve, but does the Government recognise that, as the link has been made that two years ago we spent a lot of public money in those areas, we can't really let them fail now? I know that the Cabinet press for time. One of the things that was in the programme for government last year was the percentage of government spend from projects going into culture. That was something that the culture committee in the previous Parliament did argue for. That would be one proposal that the Government could see as a solution in this. However, as the Government made the link between the public money that went in two years ago, what needs to happen now? Yes, yes and yes. We have covered some of this ground whilst you were at the corporate body meeting in general terms, making the point that additional funding was made available during Covid to provide funding for the Scottish Government to decide how it would dispense to deal with the Covid emergency. Very significant additional support was provided to the cultural sector for the reasons that Ms Baker quite rightly points out. It's also important to put on record that we do not have additional funding to deal with the circumstances in which we find ourselves at the present time. Unless there is additional funding or additional powers for the Scottish Parliament to have the funding, as we know, we are pretty much unique in world governance terms and not being able to borrow in the times of an emergency. We are having to manage our finances within the constrained devolution settlement that we find ourselves in. Would I feel better, as an organisation supported throughout Covid, to try and emerge from Covid and find myself in constrained financial circumstances with much diminished support? No doubt I would. We are doing everything that we can to try and use the resources that we have whilst being absolutely frank, both with cultural organisations and with yourselves, about the scale of the challenge. Unless somebody is able to come along and say to me, here is additional funding as there was during Covid, there is not going to be additional funding in general. We are in an unenviable situation and for some organisations it is going to be extremely difficult because there is not the same scale of additional funding that there was during Covid, just at a time as we are trying to recover. I understand the point that Ms Baker is trying to make very well. I draw attention to the point that she was making and it is one that I make regularly, which is that there is a significant part of spending in the cultural sector from the Scottish Government through Creative Scotland and Screen Scotland, for example, which is key to unlocking additional resources on the wider economy. I am extremely keen to make sure that, as we are having to make difficult decisions, we are not losing sight of the fact that we are talking about an important part, yes, of the nation's cultural life but also the economy and different economic sectors. I am making that case very loud and clear within Government. I know that people are listening to it but, as I have made the point a number of times, colleagues are having to make very difficult decisions on the basis of constrained financial circumstances with the additional problem of inflation, which, as this committee has heard, in many parts of the creative sector is running significantly higher than the 10 per cent in the general economy, 30 per cent was a number that I was hearing a lot from certain cultural organisations. The scale of the challenge is immense and it is not going to be resolved by smaller projects but the Government mentioned the percentage for the art scheme and programme for government in 2021-22. Has any progress been made on taking that forward? Ms Baker is drawing me into an exchange on the on-going emergency budget process within the Scottish Government. Her point is being made. I hear it and I hope that she is hearing that I am saying that I am being as vocal and outspoken and constructive as she and the committee would expect me to be during an internal budget process to make sure that we have the best possible settlement and the circumstances to support the cultural sector. Unfortunately, I cannot say more than that. Thank you. Cabinet Secretary, Ms Beard, thank you very much for your attendance at the committee this morning. We do have another agenda. Sorry, Mark, did you want that? Sorry. It will need to be very quick. You are looking at me when you said quick. I did. I was reflecting on your points about short life working group and about the mainstreaming of cultural work across other colleagues' departments. How transparent will that be in the forthcoming budget? Will we be able to look at the health budget, look at the budget for justice and actually see a thread of cultural and wellbeing work with numbers on it, ideally, that may or may not add up to 1%, but regardless, will actually show the impact of that work in the forthcoming year and where the spend is working across the departmental way, or are we too early for that kind of transparency within the budget? My answer to that will be the same as it was to Ms Baker. We are in the middle of a process. Mr Ruskell's point is very well made. I will be taking it away. I will be discussing with officials about how we can satisfy transparency, because, as I have often said to the committee before, I understand how important that is to your work and for us to be able to collegially make progress with something that is a shared endeavour. I will take that away and, no doubt, as we emerge from the budget process, there is greater certainty about things and you will no doubt have wider questions than that point that we are able to answer directly. If I can leave it there. Thank you, cabinet secretary. If I can ask people to clear the room quickly, as we do have another agenda item, we are now very pressed for time.