Chamber and committees

You said that you had not had any suggestions.

Good morning, cabinet secretary. Following on from Donald Cameron’s question, I note that, last week, we heard about the need for urgency as well as clarity. Iain Munro of Creative Scotland said that the focus at the moment is

“to—literally—keep the show on the road and keep the lights on.”

He went on to say:

“Much is at risk, but in the light of the indications from the Scottish Government about the £100 million—as I said, we could spend that several times over, and we want the Government to go further and faster ... —it feels as though we are on the cusp of being able to turn a corner if there is more urgency in how that money is deployed.”—[Official Report, Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee, 11 January 2024; c 39.]

The key phrase there is

“if there is more urgency”.

However, you have not indicated that you are going to go any further in this budget with regard to providing that urgency.

We also heard last week about the need for clarity. Up to now, we have heard that, in 2025-26, the funding will be £25 million as a minimum. However, this morning, you did not mention that the £25 million would be a minimum; you just confirmed that £25 million would be the figure in 2025-26. Can you clarify that?

The point that I was going to make is that it would have been a minimum of £40 million if it was more than £25 million.

In terms of the clarity that you are seeking to provide—and which is being called for—you have announced £100 million over the next five years. When can people expect clarity on the amount of money that will be available in 2026-27?

On the one hand, you are saying that you cannot provide clarity on multiyear budgets, but on the other hand, you have announced £100 million over five years, so there is a need for that clarity, at least for 2026-27.

If we want to sustain culture and cultural activity and participation, it is important that we ensure that the right resource—whatever that is—is in place. I am interested to know whether the Government has carried out an assessment of this budget and how it will impact jobs, venues and cultural participation and activity. I say that because the committee heard evidence last week from Fran Hegyi of the Edinburgh International Festival about the need for levels of investment to

“match the level of ambition”.

The cabinet secretary will be aware that the committee has carried out a culture in communities inquiry. Lori Anderson from Culture Counts told us that

“Since the committee conducted its pre-budget scrutiny, Community Leisure UK has conducted a survey of its membership. It reported that 60 per cent of Scottish members are facing a budget deficit”

and that

“29 per cent of members are preparing for closures”.—[Official Report, Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee, 11 January 2024; c 19, 23.]

At a local level, we know that 83 community facilities, including dozens of libraries, have closed between 2009 and 2020 and that, for example, there has been a 16 per cent cut in funding over that period in library spend by local councils, and we know how significant that is. Earlier, you said that you want to speak with COSLA to ensure that it understands the important role that culture plays. I am sure that it is well aware of that important role, but its funding has been cut and cut and its core revenue funding is set to be cut again, by £63 million.

Therefore, in the important interests of sustaining cultural services, in addition to the national organisations sustaining their culture services under the current settlement, how do you expect councils to sustain cultural venues and keep them open, when so many are at threat of closure and when councils’ funding is being cut?

I have no relevant interests to declare.

You have talked about the importance of multiyear funding—you have been consistent in highlighting the need for that. The cabinet secretary’s indication of £25 million of funding for 2025-26 is significant in that regard. I appreciate that you are looking for more detail on this year, never mind next year. However, it is significant that the Government has previously said that it cannot make multiyear funding announcements but has then gone on to indicate what we can expect to see in 2025-26. We have seen a pledge to provide £100 million over the next five years. Would you agree that it is significant that the Government has said that? Should the cabinet secretary go further and, as a minimum, give an indication for 2026-27, to allow for further planning, to give the clarity that we have heard is needed and to provide an envelope for the multiyear funding that you have previously called for?

Good morning to the panel. We have heard a lot about the on-going crisis in funding and we have previously discussed the perfect storm that is affecting funding for the culture sector. We like to talk about outcomes and what Government spending achieves. The 2022 Scottish household survey showed that 74 per cent of adults attended a culture event or place of culture, which was a decrease from 81 per cent in 2019. If we exclude cinema, it was 65 per cent in 2022, which is down from 74 per cent in 2019. Access to culture opportunities has therefore declined.

The pandemic undoubtedly had an impact, and there were some light restrictions at the start of 2022. We have heard from Francesca Hegyi about reducing shows and capacity, so to what extent can we put that decline down to a depletion of cultural resource and infrastructure? Given the current levels of funding, do you expect us to go back to pre-Covid levels any time soon? Will we see that decline in cultural opportunities and reduction in activity being reversed?

Thank you for those answers. A number of you mentioned the local context and local government funding. We have talked about the national budget, and Culture Counts talked in its submission about the crisis in funding for local councils.

From the national organisations, we have heard that one of the main concerns is standstill funding and the lack of resource that is needed to meet the current challenges. Is there a danger of a double whammy, with national funding not what it should be and local council funding also being cut? That would mean that cultural provision would be affected by both national and local funding decisions.

A related question, which is not for this year’s budget, concerns the proposed visitor levy. The Visitor Levy (Scotland) Bill is going through Parliament; the stage 1 debate takes place next Tuesday. Are there any thoughts on that?

I appreciate that a number of you made the point that private investment will not plug the funding gap. Your organisations are accessing as much private investment as they can, and there is a lot of wishful thinking about how the gap can be plugged by alternative means, but any thoughts on the use of the visitor levy in that regard would be welcome.

I welcome that. We need to understand more about the shortfalls that exist as regards skills and the investment that is required, so I look forward to receiving details on that.

It is clear that we need greater investment in skills, and the evidence that we have received backs that up. I welcome the meetings that you are having with Mr Dey—that is positive. However, people in the sector and more widely are probably looking for more details, targets and specifics on how we will address the problems. I appreciate that you are saying that nothing has been agreed yet. Clearly, we have skills investment shortages in stonemasonry, but we are also short of traditional joiners, line plasterers, historic gardeners, surveyors and archaeologists. We hear that we need more investment in skills, but we also need more clarity from the Government about where we are going in relation to that. Earlier, you talked about the number of apprenticeships in stonemasonry. If we accept that there is a skills shortage, what analysis has the Government done of that shortage and what targets will it set to address it?