 Good morning, and a very warm welcome to the 16th meeting of the Constitution, Europe, Excellent Affairs and Culture Committee in 2023. Our first agenda item is a decision on taking business in private, and our members' content to consider draft of the committee's annual report in private at future meetings. Our second agenda item is to take evidence on our culture in communities inquiry, which is focused on taking a place-based approach to culture. This morning, we are joined by Craig McLaren, director of Scotland, Ireland and English regions' Royal Town Planning Institute, Joanna Boyd, chief executive of Planning Aid Scotland, and Ailsa McFarland, director of built environment forum Scotland. Welcome to you all. We have also received apologies from Ewan Leitch, chief executive of South Scotland's regeneration forum. We are going to move straight to questions this morning, so if I could open by asking about the extent to which culture and heritage is currently prioritised within planning across Scotland, and how can culture and heritage become more embedded within the planning process? Ms McFarlane, if I could start with you. Thank you very much. Good morning to the committee. I would say that obviously there is a planning policy within NPF4 that does relate to culture, but it speaks very much of that culture being sustainable if there is a threat to it. It is one of those areas where we know that communities perhaps have less and less resource to take part in culture. Therefore, the threats around sustainability are not fully represented within planning. I would draw attention to it. It says that development proposals, whether they would be a loss to an arts or cultural venue, are only supported where there is no longer a sustainable demand. We really have to consider what sustainable demand is within a lot of communities currently. There are obviously protections around heritage specifically, which is fairly well protected within planning, but I would say that the sustainability is the issue that we have to consider. With that, there are also challenges around asset condition, which I know that many responses to the committee reference that. I would say that those are the main considerations. Thank you, Mr McFarlane. McLaren, sorry, I beg your pardon. I will answer to anything. I thank you very much for the invitation to speak today. As Ailsa says, the fourth national planning framework has a policy on planning for culture, policy 21, I think it is. It is useful that it is in there, it shows the priority that it has. It is embedded. The important thing about the national planning framework and the policies that it contains is that they are now part of local development plans. That policy applies at a local level as well as a national level. Ailsa's concerns about how things are resourced is a good one. One of the issues that we have with planning in general is that planners provide that vision of what that place can look like. Very often, the resources to deliver that or to maintain the services within that area are held elsewhere. There is a need to try and bridge that implementation gap, which is difficult. One of the things that may help with that, which has been a trend that we have been trying to establish across Scotland, is linking the spatial planning framework and spatial planning policy with community planning and local outcome agreements, where a lot of the resources are. That is something that should be explored even more. There is now an obligation for planning authorities through the planning act to take account of community plans and local outcome improvement plans as well. We need to try and make sure that that connection works much more effectively if we could. The other thing that is important about culture, which is a key theme of the national planning framework, is the role that it has in helping to regenerate our town centres. The town centre policy that we have within the national planning framework is a good one. It is fairly strong in trying to make sure that we get mixed uses within our town centres. We use them as a basis for not just retailing but for a lot of other uses, including cultural facilities. I think that, as has already been said, policy 31 sits in MPF4 and that clearly deals with culture. It might be helpful just to flag up what the policy says in terms of the intent of the policy, which is to encourage, promote and facilitate development, which reflects our diverse culture and creativity and to support our culture and creative industries. The policy intent is very clear. LDP's local development plans are encouraged through policy 31 to recognise and support opportunities for jobs and investment in the creative sector, culture heritage and the arts. I think that the policy directive is quite clear. I think that the question of how much awareness there is around it is something that may be key for this committee, so how is awareness raised in relation to policy 31. As I think that Craig mentioned, local place plans have to have regard to MPF4. The reason I want to mention LDP's straight off the bat, and of course you may well know them as community led plans previously prior to LDP's coming in through the planning act of 2019. These are not new things, but the LDP's are specifically related to land use and development use. The LDP's created by communities, so what is the vision for the development of land and use of buildings in our community? They have to have regard to MPF4, so that means they have to have regard to that policy 31. Whilst LDP's are at a very early stage, I think that there is again a question over how much awareness there is of the ability for communities to really flag culture heritage, the arts within their LDP's. I will drill down on that a little bit. When you say that there is awareness, is that within the local government elected members, the officers or the communities in general and the ones that might be feeding into an LPP to develop it? I think that in all those places, convener, yes. I think that there is certainly we are being approached in terms of training for elected members on MPF4, which of course we are very keen to provide as an educational charity. Community groups, we are also involved in projects where we are working alongside councils capacity building in communities, so what that means is going out, sharing, and often actually what we have discovered is the first training session is often around just what is the planning system, how does it work, because we should not assume that such a complex system is understood easily by anyone. Of course, I think that as Craig touched on that, that interaction between community planning, local outcome improvement plans, that is a complex or a structure in and of itself, and then we have planning. I think that yes, there is training and sharing knowledge around MPF4, what is in it, particularly in relation to culture, and how that can be embedded into local place plans. I think that that also raises a question which I know the committee has already been addressed on around good community engagement. We are community engagement specialists in planning and I think that that is absolutely crucial, so getting culture embedded right at the very start of an LPP process. If that is done well, culture can be used as a methodology for creating a really powerful LPP with culture in the mix. Thank you very much. I am going to move to questions from the committee. If you could thank Mr Cameron, who is joining us online, and unfortunately it has to leave the committee fairly early, but Donald, welcome this morning. The committee has heard from previous witnesses of the difficulty of knowing what exists in terms of cultural opportunities, if I could put it like that, and of difficulties of getting information about venues that are available, etc. In that vein, I was very interested to read in planning aid Scotland's submission of your work in helping communities to create community plans or now LPPs. In so doing, people often discover underutilised assets that can then be used. I just wondered about how we can improve data and information for local communities to their benefit, whether you had any wider observations on that. Can I start with Joanna Boyd, please? Thank you very much for the question. It is absolutely on point in terms of the last point that I raised, which relates to that question of inclusive engagement. Inclusivity is absolutely at the heart of what we do. We are always keen to engage with seldom-heard groups. That might be children and young people engaging with marginalised communities, whether deprivation and poverty exist. What is really important is when you are thinking about preparing, planning those engagement processes that you are ensuring that it is inclusive right from the start so that the data and the information that you have when you go into the plan creation part of the process is as good as it can be. I should say that there are very good hard reasons for doing that, as well as just having a really reliable persuasive plan at the end of it. That is because that plan will then be used for delivery. So, if you have a good broad range of community groups, elected members are on board, you have your planners, town and country planners, you have your community planners, then you have a very good base for taking that plan forward to bid for a cultural project, a heritage project, an arts project. Yes, there is more I could say about that, but perhaps I will just pause there. Mr McClearn is as good as me. Mr McClearn, do you want to come in on that? Yes, there are just many ways to echo what Joanna has said. One of the things that we have been advocating for the planning system and the planning approach is that we have much more front-loaded engagement and much more front-loaded discussion about what you want a place to look like. It is about trying to create that place of vision and an important element of that and an important way to take that forward is through proceeding to the past single insurance. Will you bring together as many of your different stakeholders as possible to have a discussion? At that process you can map your assets, you can identify what the opportunities are on that area, you can identify the constraints to delivering that vision as well. One of the things that we talk about is having the vision and then developing a route map to try and deliver that vision, so you have milestones and you look at where the resources are coming from. From there you can have, hopefully, a continuous dialogue between all those different stakeholders as part of the delivery plan, which is put out at the end of that process. I think that that is a means of trying to identify what assets are there and keeping a sort of watching eye on what that could look like as well as it evolves over time. I wonder if Mr Cameron is pointing towards an aim within the culture strategy around gathering the data around our cultural assets and our cultural places, which I believe is work that is yet to be completed. I hope that it has started, but it is definitely yet to be completed. I appreciate that Paz and the evidence touched on that in written evidence, but the co-ordination around the data around all of our assets, cultural or otherwise, co-ordination around that, I think, will be increasingly important when we are considering the potential of the transfer of assets into community hands. We are well aware that there will be local authorities divesting of sites. We also know that there are churches that will potentially be becoming into community use, and those that are still publicly accessible will really need to have sustainable purposes for the future. Even the most enthusiastic local community cannot currently support sort of multiple cultural centres and that sort of thing, so that underpinning data will really help to make sound investments for the future. I would also say that, with regard to sort of culture having a place, within the culture strategy a lot is put into community planning partnerships. That is mentioned many times within the culture strategy as part of the place-based approach. It is one of those things where this is, as planning is, an area with lots of competing demands and how culture finds its voice within that when there is sort of health education, all sorts of other asks that communities may have in terms of local place plans as well. It is like we need to be dealing with community priorities and therefore I think there is an even greater threat to culture and cultural assets from within that. Thank you very much for those answers. In fact, Alison MacFarlane's point about community assets brings me very neatly on to my next question, which is how do we rocket boost community asset transfer in a sustainable way? As we all know, community ownership has been steadily increasing over the past 15-20 years, but last week we heard from Volunteer Scotland a warning that people in some communities feel forced to take on responsibilities and liabilities associated with the venue for fear of it being lost to the community. There are a number of challenges around community asset transfer, not least funding, I should say, but I just wondered what witnesses felt, what further assistance can be given to community groups, either who want to take on a community asset or already have a community asset but need to maintain it? Do they have any views about other avenues short of community ownership that could also be utilised? If I start with Mr McLaren, please. I think that this is obviously a thorny issue. It is one that we have been talking about for a number of years. For me, one of the key things about this is that it is not often getting the asset. I think that the asset is something that can be done fairly easily. The issue after it is management and maintenance. I think that there are a number of well-informed communities out there who have done this, but there are also a number of communities who do not have the knowledge or the skills to do that. I think that there is a need to try to see how we can allow those communities to build that capacity as much as we can. Joanna mentioned the concept of local place plans, which could be an opportunity to try and do that to map it and to see what assets there are that could be transferred. I think that one of the issues that we have with local place plans is that the concept behind them is really good, and it is good to encourage communities to try to think about what the place could look like. However, there is a need to build capacity in some communities to make that happen, and there are no limited resources to do that as well. We have been calling for funding to support local communities to develop the local place plans through PAS and others, but that is not forthcoming. I hear from a number of local authorities who say that this is something that they would really like to do, to work with communities to build their capacity, but they do not have the time to do that, because we have seen cuts in planning services. We have lost 25 per cent of staff in the past since 2009, so they have to concentrate on the rules of things that have to be done, which the statutory has to undertake. I think that I need to try to free that up and to free up some of the local authority time through some resources as well. Planners are generally really keen to work with communities, and around 20 per cent of our members volunteer for PAS. There is an appetite to try to make that work. In order for community asset transfer to be successful, I think that the absolutely crucial thing is working with those communities right from the outset. That might sound like an obvious point, but it is really important to identify who has the capacity, who has the skillset within those communities to make sure that, once that asset is transferred, it has a long-term sustainable future. I think that there is a willingness to become involved in many communities, but, as Craig touched on, the question of capacity or when people move on from those communities or there is a change, suddenly you can find that a lot of the goodwill or the support, the actual hours that have been put in, just disappear. I think that capacity building is absolutely key, not just in terms of, for example, in terms of producing a local place plan, but understanding that community planning framework is again, as I have already mentioned, another completely separate and very complex legal system to understand in terms of all the obligations and the whole process that members will be well aware of that has to be gone through by those communities. I think that one or the other thing that I would like to flag, what we are seeing in terms of communities coming forward with interest in creating local place plans, where those assets you would expect them all to be discussed, is that communities with resource, because local place plans will cost time and money to deliver, are much more ready to step forward to deliver those plans. They may have wind farm development funding that they can draw and they may have money sitting in trust. As I have already said, we have a strong interest in working with marginalised communities, so a real concern that we have at PAS is that those communities where there is that financial and capacity resource will be in a position to push forward, produce an LPP. That LPP has to be taken into account by the council in the LDP process, so they might actually be influencing that LDP. The LPP does not form part of the LDP, but it has to be taken into account. Therefore, it could be influencing that broader planning picture. It is important to say that, as someone already has, MPF4 now sits within that statutory framework. They are having all this influence in terms of when a planning application comes along and a decision has to be made because they had that initial resource right at the start. The real concern is how we make sure that we are not worsening inequality through this process and not empowering those communities that we need to be empowering through what is a well-meaning, engaging communities and empowering communities. I do not think that anyone would disagree with that, but the ultimate outcome is that we need to be mindful of that. I think that some of that goes back to the earlier point that we were discussing around that co-ordination. Communities also need to know what might be coming onto the market rather than being a knee-jerk reaction as soon as something comes into place. Whether the intent is very well-meaning to save that asset for the community does not necessarily mean that it is the right asset in the right place. With that, there was some research done called Bridging the Gap, which was a cross-border project around barriers to sustainable community ownership of churches. Yes, finance was an issue, but the biggest problem that all communities mentioned was finding people to answer their questions, to do the work, to be part of the voluntary group, because very often that time in itself has also been diminishing. It was one of those things where everything has been taking longer, whether it is finding the volunteers, whether it is reduction in local authority staffing. Everything takes more and more capacity from the local community. That is another aspect to be borne in mind. Specifically, other mechanisms. I know that Development Trust Association Scotland is also keen to see the introduction of compulsory sail-loaders, which is something that has a potential to be a powerful tool to help particularly around vacant and derelict land in particular, but that is something that I know could be another avenue. If I could just ask a supplementary question around community asset transfer. I am struggling to think of an example in my own community. I represent a Motherwell-Mushaw constituency. Are there demographic issues or geographic issues? Just some local authorities embrace that more than others. Are there other examples of good practice out there of engagement with communities? I can think of one very recently that Paz was involved with prior to me starting with Paz, Heart of New Haven. That was where the primary school was transferred to a community group that has a focus on intergenerational work within that community. I have been around the school. It is an old Victorian school, so you can imagine. There are lots of things to consider, from energy to roofs to insurance. Paz was involved in engaging with the community prior to that community asset being transferred. My understanding is that because there was a very good thorough inclusive engagement process at the start, that assisted in the transfer of that community asset. There are probably a couple of historical ones of asset transfer that I have come across, which I remember. Both of them were cinemas. One was in Bones and one was in the Birk Cinema in Aberfeldy. The communities were well informed and knew what they were doing. I think that they had some people who had an experience in some of the idea of proper development and property management, which helped them in some way to make things happen. There will be others—I have taken a bit of a blank to be honest with you—but I think that there are some examples. Again, it depends very much on the capacity within the community, both in terms of the skills and the knowledge and the time to do it. That feeds into the inequality that you mentioned earlier on, Ms Wood. Ms Fett-Familine, do you want to comment on that? No, I have no particular further comment. I know that Heart of New Haven well being the constituency MSP, and I wondered if you had any further reflections. Of course, that has been a very successful community asset transfer, and I pay tribute to all those who were involved in making it happen. Several of them did have significant time having stopped working, and were very knowledgeable about how to make the system work for the benefit of the community. That created a good outcome. However, I wondered if you had any further reflections on how critical it is that you have those individuals with the enthusiasm, the knowledge and the determination, and the foresight, because that project came about because there was an awareness early in the community that the asset was coming on stream as the primary school moved into another part of New Haven. I think that those are absolutely the key points, and it goes right back to that question of inclusivity and good communication from the outset. As we have touched on capacity within those communities and where people might move on and where people might pass away, or gain other interests, we know that post Covid volunteering has taken a hit from Covid. If resources are tight, we need to be very selective about where we direct those resources, whether it is in relation to community asset transfer or the delivery of an LPP. Some communities, in my experience, are very well resourced both in terms of their expertise and perhaps in terms of resource as well. Those communities, it is still incredibly important that they have good engagement processes so that they are inclusive, so that what comes out of it at the end, whether it is an actual physical building or a plan, really has all of the community buy-in. When I say all community, I mean the council and community groups and so on, but I think that where that resource is not there, those skills, that expertise, is not there, that is where we should be putting that resource. In those considerations, just as a wider point, when it comes to community asset transfers, of course, sometimes that is led by specific groups of individuals, like in the case of the heart of New Haven, but often individuals within community councils are also important in terms of their general considerations as community councillors can be involved in the community group and the community council. I just wondered whether the considerations are still on-going around the local governance review. How important do you see community councils in those wider considerations? Yes, I think that both in terms of asset transfer and in terms of the delivery of plans, community councils, certainly from what we see at PAS, often it is the community councils that are driving the request for assistance, not PASs that we do not deal with community asset transfers, but to often we will be asked about them and direct people to other organisations, but in terms of LPPs, often yes, it is community councils. I should say another point about community councils, and of course Covid had a huge impact on the ability of community councils to do their important business. They also need trained, they also need trained, and we also go out and support community councils with training, and we are just seeing that coming back, but I think that that is absolutely critical, because so much of that goodwill and the volunteering and the time does come from our community councils. I am happy to comment on that in terms of community councils. I think that community councils have a very important role to play in this, and in the broader planning of their area as well. They are consulted just now on planning applications. What I would like to see is community councils working in a way where they perhaps tell us what they want for their area rather than what they do not want. Too much of the discussion and planning is about what people do not want, and we need to try and flip that, because we do not just want to be objections, although that is absolutely a right you have, I would rather have a discussion about what people want to do. That early engagement of community councils in visioning and that can include visioning, which includes asset transfer, I think would be a much more effective use of their time as well. Making that change and that shift, I think, is really important. That is a cultural shift that we have to work with, and there is also a bit of resourcing in how we do that and train people up to try and think that way as well. I think that that gives just add value that community councils bring to the process. Just briefly, you touched on the issue of the capacity that exists in communities and the stress, if you like, that there is for communities taking on an asset that has been transferred. We could probably all see in our constituency that one of the biggest stresses of that kind and one of the biggest pressures on capacity is when somebody takes on an asset and then has to apply for funding from multiple organisations to actually make something of that asset and then has to juggle multiple different deadlines with the continual risk of having to retender in the current climate. I mean, I have no idea what the answer to this is or if there is one, but is there anything that we can all do to try and simplify that burden of competing deadlines that organisations suddenly face when they take on an asset? I don't know if other places or other countries do that differently. I have no idea what the answer is, but I'm just curious to know if you think there's some way that that particular burden could be lessened. I'm aware that there are, particularly within Soda Cultural Heritage, there are funders bodies that meet regularly to try and ensure that, as best as possible, things can be aligned to ensure that it's as easy as it can be for applicants, but obviously every individual funder has its own mechanisms, has its own outcomes to meet and everything else. I appreciate that that is part of the complexity of taking on any particular asset, but funders working together is always something that I think is supported to help communities. I think one of the ambitions of community planning was to join things up more. I'm not quite sure we've done that as yet. I think we are, there's progress being made, but I think more has to be done. This more outcomes-based approach should allow people to think about what role they play, what their funds play in trying to deliver that outcome. I think that as a public sector in many ways and in another third sector, we're still trying to get your grips with that. I think everyone sees the benefit in it, but if it does work, when it does work, it will provide a much more streamlined, I think. I say streamlined, but it'll be complicated because it's quite murky territory in terms of everybody having to work together, but I think that it should provide a better idea of how things can be joined up to try to achieve that outcome, and that should include funding streams. On the issue of church closures that were mentioned earlier, obviously, that's something that's been raised with me by community groups, but I've also heard at the committee as well concern about the scale of current proposed closures in churches. Number of churches are converted into flats, but they are used by a lot of community groups, a lot of cultural groups, as well as their congregations. One of the points that was made is the very good acoustics that there are in churches and church halls, so it would be really unfortunate if we lose those assets. Given that there appears to be a significant number of closures proposed at the moment, does that not reinforce the need, as you said earlier, for the to-be, that practical support and that funding in place to ensure that we preserve these existing cultural assets? A range of thoughts on what we should do specifically in relation to churches, because if community assets, transfers of public assets, are hard enough, that suggests that it's going to be even more difficult to retain those assets. I think that it is going to be incredibly difficult. The numbers that are being spoken about are... There is a very large number of churches that we know, particularly the Church of Scotland is considering its estate very broadly. However, they are a private owner, and they are a charity. Obviously, what they do with those buildings is that there is a social outcome and there is a civic need for those buildings to be part of our places and our community, but I'm not sure, unless people are considering legislation, there is anything that we can do to force what happens to those buildings, which I don't think is what you're considering. However, in terms of support, there are a number of organisations that I'm working with. Beth runs the Places of Worship Forum, where organisations with a strategic interest in the future of places of worship gather to discuss and hope to impact the positive future for those places as they move beyond worship. The resource for communities themselves will always be one of the hardest things, because it does depend on the geography. There are rural versus urban arguments as to what sustainable uses for those places will be, but I know that within project work, Historic Environment Scotland is considering support in policy advice for those places, so that appropriate decisions can be made regarding their sort of cultural and heritage significance. However, I would say that that is an area that hasn't fully been supported yet. Places of worship is an area where people don't want to get involved with faith quite often. It can be a very specific challenge, so the funding that is needed can be considered to be faith-based and that can be a challenge to some organisations. It has been to the Scottish Government in the past, because it is an area that we have known has been coming to our head for many years. I don't have any answers, but I have three points to mention to put into the discussion. A lot of our churches are particularly costly to maintain, a lot of them are listed buildings and are designed in a certain way, which did not put bainton's at the heart of it as well. A lot of them are very large as well, so there is an issue with that. I think that a lot of them are also quite difficult to convert. If you are trying to convert it into housing, sometimes it is quite an awkward thing to try and do, just given the shape of the buildings. The third thing to bear in mind in this is going back to the national planning framework and planning policy around it. It was mentioned at the start, but the idea of the viability and the sustainable demand for that as a cultural asset is part of the decision-making process. It is not there, it is less protection as well, so we just need to bear that in mind. First of all, in relation to a local place plan, so if the church was identified as being a key cultural asset that was done through a good engagement process, I think that it would put the community in a more powerful position with an LPP, a vision for that community, which includes that church, that cultural asset. If the LPP forms part of the LDP, depending on the position that the council has taken, I think that it would be much more difficult for a developer to then come along and say, well, we want to change that, we want to change a view into flats, please, because the community's position would have been stated very clearly. If it has been taken into account and influenced the LDP, then I think that that is giving you that front-loading that Craig mentioned in terms of protecting an asset within a community. That is the first thing. The second thing, I was just looking again at policy 31, which, of course, will form part of the LDP. Under section C, it talks about development proposals that would result in the loss of an arts or cultural venue will only be supported where. It would be for a developer to come along and say, well, there is no longer a sustainable need, and here is all my evidence. The other part to that bit of the policy is that the venue, as evidenced by consultation, no longer meets the needs of users, so the developer would have had to have gone off and done a whole consultation as to why it may or may not meet those needs. Again, that is all to be tested. I am not saying that this is a correct interpretation. I am just saying that there is an argument there that through the LPP or through the policy and NPF4, a community could go about trying to very clearly state what its position is in relation to the value that a church brings to its community. Planning is always a balance. I think that what is interesting about that is to what extent are we really going to have a plan-led system, plan-led being through the LDP and through the LPPs, to what extent are other material considerations going to be able to outwey that very clear plan position that is being taken across the council area or in a particular community. I also wanted to ask you about regeneration and culture. My own region, Paisley, bidded for the UK city of culture in 2021. That was a catalyst for cultural participation in the area, but also regeneration in terms of assets. I am seeing investment in the town hall and the museum as well. The Scottish Government has, although ultimately unsuccessful, unfortunately, the bid, but there has been some real benefits in terms of regeneration. The Scottish Government has mentioned doing a national towns of culture programme in Scotland as well. I just wanted to see your thoughts on what lessons you think can be learned from the Paisley example, but also about the role of competitions in driving for that regeneration and catalyst for change in participation in Scotland. I think that accolades and campaigns in regeneration have seen it through, as you say, what's happened in Paisley and other parts of Scotland as well. I think that they can be useful catalysts, absolutely. They bring attention to an area, they bring attention to the things that the area wants to do. They often bring funding attached to that as well, because it's got that badge. I think that the issue has always been, certainly in my experience, working regeneration in the past is the legacy that comes from that. I don't think that this is any news to anyone, but we really need to try and embed that legacy in from the beginning of the process. I know, for example, Commonwealth Games in Glasgow was something that was looked at, there were some physical legacy things such as some of the stadiums, such as the Commonwealth Games village, which is now housing in East Ender Glasgow. We really need to try and embed that. It also has to be looked at in terms of the cultural approach to things and the way in which people are engaged in news facilities as well. I think that that's often been the harder bit, because that's a much more complex thing that has to be done involving a lot of different players, but we really need to feel outward to try and do things like that. We really need to try and embed things from the start. In terms of competition, particularly in regeneration, I'm never a big fan of competitions. We should be looking at things that are more needs-based and trying to direct resources to that. However, how that works in terms of an accolade, I'm not 100 per cent sure, but I think that the badge that accolade can be a really useful catalyst. I very much agree with what Craig has just said. I think that even when regeneration has been very successful, particularly around cultural assets, I think that we're now potentially talking about a different economic climate. I'm aware that Museums Gallery Scotland has been very clear in their evidence that it is really a perfect storm for some sites, particularly civic museums, and it's one of those things that, even with the successes and perhaps accolades, obviously sustainability is something that keeps returning as an issue for culture. I'm aware that the Accounts Commission report recently released. Culture and leisure services are in the at-risk or declining category, and there's a very clear statement that just says, with little resilience, those services owing to long-term funding reductions, future challenges are now significant, and a recent survey of leisure trusts suggests high risk of closures as a result of inflationary cost pressures. I think that it's one of those things where it's like, yes, the accolades and retention are a very good thing that can highlight both the civic and societal importance of cultural facilities in particular, but the challenge is currently really very severe. A couple of comments. I agree with everything that's been said. I think that the benefit of them is not just the galvanising of community spirit, and I think that that was very obvious in the previous evidence session that I watched in relation to Paisley and everything that had come out of that bid, and the thing that really struck me about that was the collaboration. We talk about not being siloed, working with community planning, but I think that what I was hearing in that evidence session was lots of examples of where that collaboration, because of the bid, was continuing on between health and social care with culture and education. I think that that's the power of it, how you then sustain it is where the real benefit can lie. I was interested in your views on how the dial has shifted post Covid and perhaps what some of the challenges and opportunities are. I suppose that looking around some communities that are close to me, high streets look very different now, shops are opening up, sorry, shop spaces are opening up, more to say. Also, during Covid, there was more of a discussion about the value of green space. We were starting to think about how streets look different as well and how civic spaces can open up. I guess there are some positive opportunities there, but there are some headwinds as well that cultural organisations are facing. It would be interesting to get your views on that and how the post Covid world perhaps looks a little different and what the implications are. I would like to go first. I think that it is absolutely clear that the changing nature of the high street, the focus on and some of the benefits around that in terms of wanting to shop local, keep money invested in your local area and support independent traders. I have seen that in my media area and lots of micro businesses growing up. That is all to be supported in the planning system. Specifically, it is talked a lot now as an enabler, so planning as an enabler. How are we using planning? Yes, it can be seen as something to stop bad things happening, but how do we use it once we have a vision for a community to allow good things to happen? I think that there are clear challenges there, but I think that the new policy framework that we have in front of us now has opportunities like the local place plans, like having culture and creativity in clear links to the culture strategy. I think that there are clearly challenges around 20-minute neighbourhoods and so on, but I think that there are strong opportunities as well and that planning can be used to deliver on that, but I think that it does require quite a shift within councils as well in terms of what the role of planning is. It is a challenge, but there are certainly opportunities there. For me, one of the key things that has come out from Covid is that there is a greater appreciation of people's place and where they live or where they work. It is more anchored on how they feel about things, and I think that that is a good thing. It is part of that. It is an appreciation of the quality of the place as well. We have seen much more attention given to things such as active travel to green spaces, as you have mentioned. The idea that town centres and city centres are just a bit retailing any more is much more of a mix of different uses, be that culture, be it some retailing, or other things that provide more of an experiential experience for the person rather than just a transactional approach. I think that that has been really useful. Joanna mentioned 20-minute neighbourhoods. In some ways it came from post-Covid. It was around before that, but Covid was given at Wings, so to speak, and I think that that is a really interesting concept. For me, the 20-minute neighbourhood and the concept of living locally can actually provide some really great opportunities for demand for certain functions. If you have a community that is of a higher density, there are more people in it that expand your customer base in very simple terms. I think that we can try to use the 20-minute neighbourhood as a mechanism for doing that. A lot of the discussion about 20-minute neighbourhoods is about how it is getting your daily needs within a 10-minute walk there and back. However, I think that it is a broader application for generally in terms of how people will be located and close to other things that they can use and benefit from them being close at hand. I absolutely agree with what the other members of the panel have said. That appreciation of place is one of the keyness things. I know that within the heritage sector that appreciation of what is around you has been something that has very strongly come out. I would add that appreciation is not the same as resource. There is definitely there for an element of no matter how strongly people appreciate things if they are still under resourced. I agree that the 20-minute neighbourhood has a lot of potential for culture, but I will also say that there is draft guidance published that is out of consultation at the moment. Within that, health very understandably gets—57 mentions—culture gets four. One of which is in relation to the place standard and one of which is referring to different cultural backgrounds. Again, it is a marketplace of competing needs. There is an issue in the way that we define culture or the creative sector. I think of an example from Stirling, where we have creative Stirling that is now a very creative organisation. It is working in a cultural space. It is also working in a regeneration space, but its physical space is in an abandoned high street department store. It does not occupy a traditional cultural venue. It is working in a very unsilowed way in terms of meeting various objectives, but it would probably go to Creative Scotland for funding. Is there something about the opportunities there with the creative sector that there is a fuzziness in terms of the way it operates and how it accesses opportunities and spaces and how it is planned? I have actually been there. I think that that sort of cross-funding, cross-disciplinary approach is more and more of what we will see, because it also makes it easier to go to different funding parts to be able to build a sort of holistic and sustainable cultural offer. I will say that there are other challenges around things like the condition of cultural sites, which is something that I know a number of pieces of evidence have mentioned to the committee. In a previous life, I used to train people how to fundraise. There is a trope that nobody will pay to fix the roof, but if you tell them what is happening underneath the roof, there is a potential that you might get some money for the activity. A lot of organisations have said that we have a fantastic cultural offer, but there are things that we need to do to our sites to make them sustainable, to make them suitable for occupants and activities for the future. That is the sort of thing that different funding mechanisms can inhibit if it is focused too narrowly. Short-term funding mechanisms will always be a challenge to project. It is perhaps not a direct answer to your question, but I think that one of the things that is happening with this fluidity from a planning perspective is that planning policy in our town centres is a bit more agile than it would have been previously. Particularly if you think about temporary uses and the idea of mean well uses, which things can happen before something permanent happens, that is now embedded in the town centres policy in the national planning framework, which is a good thing. That itself is useful. I am sure that cultural organisations and facilities can use that to a good effect. There are a lot of community-based organisations that have used that to a good effect. We have both seen some really interesting stuff in Glasgow. For example, there is such a high priority of that. Do you think that pop-up shops and pop-up facilities are creative? Before planning permission for it, we could be seen as centre-pressed for something, but as of now, the concept of mean well has been accepted. Planning authorities are open to that approach. On the question of culture and the connections with placemaking and planning, I have mentioned before that there is definitely a need for raising awareness in the planning and placemaking space of the role of culture in that area. There is policy 31. I think that it is very low key at the moment. I think that its profile could be a lot higher. In the delivery programme for MPF4, which came out towards the end of last year, culture gets six references, but it is a reference to the culture strategy. On the delivery of MPF4, what is it going to do for culture, for the creative industries? I think that there is a real question mark around that. When we were thinking about the community-led plans and the LPPs that we have been involved with at Paz, thinking about some of the outputs or the outcomes for communities that have come out of being involved in that process, things like wayfinding, public art, the co-ordination of community cultural activities taking place on the same night, for example, that came out of one community engagement exercise, the sharing of venues, does that come to light through conversations with different community groups? I think that there is a huge amount that planning and placemaking can do for culture, but at the moment the connectivity between the two is not as strong as it could be. I suppose that the question that comes out of that is what can culture do for planning and placemaking. It is really my final question that I was pondering about. You have got this local place plan process. At the heart of it, the way that you are describing it is quite a co-creative process, in which case we are creative organisations and cultural organisations in that. We look to planners on the funded perhaps planning departments to be delivering all of this, but there is a role there for creative organisations in supporting planning surets and accessing and enabling the voice of young people and other disadvantaged groups into that. I do not have examples of that where you have a creative sector or creative groups within communities that are really helping and assisting in that local place plan process and helping to create that vision of working with planners. That feels like an exciting opportunity to get. Absolutely. We could certainly provide the committee with further information about plans that Planning Aid Scotland has been involved with, where creatives have been involved in that process, if that would be of assistance to the committee. There is also, I was thinking about policy 31 and the point around public art, because I think that it is quite specific, is not it, around what it says about public art and it being supported. That is something that we have very recently been discussing with a local authority and with a developer around the creation of a public art strategy. How can we, where there might be large-scale developments going on, how do we create that policy that is then embedded within the LDP process so that public art is given a real priority in the same way that, for example, a developer might be making contributions towards affordable housing, towards other section 106 contributions that they have to make, section 75 as well. I think that 106 might be the English system, apologies. It is really important that if you want culture and particularly public art to have a key role in creating a sustainable community where culture is valued, in all its different forms, I do not just mean putting up statues, then I think that it is absolutely key that the council actually has a hook on which to hang those demands, because they simply will not make those demands if they cannot do it in terms of their own LDPs. Do you mean like civic space, green space, interconnected spaces between communities, that whole area is about creative design? Absolutely, how space is used, how it is embedded within particularly where a new community is being created and how that translates into a policy so that the council can ensure that the high standard of public art is delivered. We have discussed elements of this and I was interested in Craig's comment earlier in the session regarding cuts to planning services in local authorities, but we know that third sector and community organisations will often be looking to redevelop or refurbish historical or listed buildings in order to provide facilities for their community. In those situations, the planning process can be quite costly and certainly cumbersome for them. I just wondered what more could be done to support those organisations given the constraints in which they and we are working. Craig, do you want to start off? Absolutely, I think that we have been through a planning reform since 2016. The outputs of that have been a planning act in 2019 in the new national planning framework. The other thing that has come out of that is almost a cultural shift in how the planning profession works. Many people see planning as being about regulation, which is an element of what we do. We are trying to unleash, through the new reform, as planners' roles as facilitators and enablers and to create great places and think about the outcomes of the decisions that you make and the policies that you set, rather than just the process. There is a bit there about measuring how we measure that. Rather than just the proxy for success and planning, it is how quickly a process of planning application does not tell us anything about the quality of the outcome. We have done some work on that. Because of that, in echoing what I said earlier on, others have said that planners are now trying to do front-loaded engagement to support communities to identify the opportunities and to contextualise that in the constraints that they are faced with. I said earlier on about the idea of trying to create a police vision. I think that that is how planners can work creatively with communities, with stakeholders, with funders, with cultural organisations, to try and pull together what that vision could look like and the delivery plan to make that happen as well. We will still come up against issues in terms of resources and capacity, but I think that the shift in how the system works will go some way to try and create that approach where we think, as I said earlier on, about what we want to happen, what we want the community to look like and what we need to put in place based on what assets are in that community to try and make that happen. Do you think in terms of that capacity? Because anecdotally, in my own area, I have heard of real recruitment and retention problems in planning departments, so the system may have improved, but how is the capacity? Is that stable going up or down? The planning service is still in a bad place in terms of resources. We have lost a quarter of planners since 2009, and budgets have been reduced markedly as well. I think that it is a buy, I figure somewhere, 38 per cent budgets lost since 2010. The other issue that we have is that there are competing increasing demands on planners as well. The planning act introduced 49 new duties, which were unfunded. We have estimated that that could cost up to £60 million, so we need to tackle that. The other issue that we have as a profession is that the increasing demands on the profession means an increasing need to increase the pipeline of planners coming in. Work done by Skills Development Scotland estimates that we need for 700 new planners over the next 10 to 15 years. That might not sound to hell of a lot, but in our TPI we have 2,100 members across Scotland, so that is a third that we have to try to generate again. As part of that, we are doing some work with the Scottish Government and Heads of Planning Scotland on what we are calling the Future Planners Initiative, which is looking at how we can build that pipeline. We are trying to push for a planning apprenticeship programme to open up that route. We are talking to people about that just now, but we also need to try to show that planning is a profession that gives you a real sense of achievement. Too often, people talk about the planners in a very negative way, and that makes my job a lot harder to attract people into the profession. So, if we change the narrative on planning about being working with communities and making mistakes, to deliver great places, when we talk about it that way and we use it in that way, I think that that can make a major difference. I think that planners are still above politicians in terms of public perception. Who else would like to come? I would just add a really brief comment to echo everything that Craig said. There clearly is a challenge within the profession. We often get, as Craig said, we have a network of about 400 volunteers. Many of those are planners. They often come and volunteer with us at the start of their careers or towards the end when they are retiring. Of course, it is a question of when people actually have the time, because in that bit in the middle, people become incredibly busy with caring responsibilities and so on. But we are always on the lookout for volunteers, not just planners, but we have other built environment specialists as well. We are always very keen to engage with children and young people. We go into schools, we talk about planning and place making and why it is such a great thing to be involved with. I think that the profession does, and often in lots of areas across the public sector, we have a challenge around language. What is planning? What is community planning? What is place making? What we have found in going out and speaking to people in education is that just explaining that can be a real challenge. We are about to kick off a virtual work placement with Education Scotland and developing the young workforce. That is all about getting young people who are between S4 and S6 into experience the different strands of what planning aid Scotland does. Clearly, the bigger driver there is to get young people interested in potentially becoming a planner or a landscape architect or perhaps getting involved in the third sector or understanding the work of a council better. We are very keen to do our bit in terms of finding future planners. You mentioned in your question heritage and listed buildings and some challenges around that. I would say that for anybody dealing with those sites, Historic Environment Scotland has very good guidance around managing change and making appropriate changes to buildings for community and many other uses. Bethes is also responsible for running what is very erroneously called the Conservation Officers Group, which deals with local authority and planning officers dealing with conservation and heritage matters within planning. That is a particularly under-resourced area, even within the under-resourced area of planning, but I would say that early conversations are always welcomed. It is very much a case of looking at, like, pre-application advice will be one of the most useful things that communities can consider when looking at sites. It would be remiss of me if I did not mention two other quite important areas—obviously, that being zero on new build and not on our existing buildings continues to be a challenge, depending on how any community group is constituted. Work that community groups will be looking to do to those sites and looking to do to cultural sites are obviously challenges around the traditional skills. We know that there is a skill shortage. I highly recommend what is happening outside of Parliament today, where you will be able to look at the traditional skills and hear more about the challenges, but that is also an area that communities dealing with venues can run into some challenges. That is really helpful. It also feeds into retrofitting around achieving net zero as well, so those two issues that you highlighted are very useful. Can I thank you again for your tenders? I should have said earlier, as well, for the submissions that you gave to the committee, which were very helpful. Thank you again, and we now move into private session.