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I turn back to the macroeconomic environment. As you know, consumer price inflation was at 9.1 per cent in May 2022, and we anticipate that it will peak considerably higher. In terms of supply chain issues, we have had Brexit and the pandemic, and as you know, the committee did an inquiry into those. How might the UK macroeconomic environment have an impact on rising costs for delivery or the timelines for our existing programmes?

David, what is your view, from a council perspective?

Matthew Sweeney, do you have any final comments?

A lot of the areas that I might have covered have already been asked about. I have a final question that extends across the whole gamut of areas that we have discussed. Knowing what we know now, with the benefit of hindsight, what would you do differently next time to implement this national policy?

We have covered a lot of the issues around data collection. Nobody knew that the pandemic was coming, but we have touched on other issues as well. It is not just about implementation of the policy; it is also about outcomes, and we have to look at financial effectiveness. What would you do differently next time, Sarah?

Earlier, you mentioned the NPF. If you were reflecting on it again, would you reflect on the need for it to flow through at the start rather than with hindsight?

Good morning. I would like to pick up on that last point. While you were talking earlier, I had a quick look at the Scottish Government spreadsheet to find out the number of CPOs. I picked an arbitrary year—2021—and found 10 CPOs, of which four were retail units of the type that was described by Colin Smyth earlier, which is quite a low number. The other six seemed to be to do with road building. It would be useful for the committee to understand more about the number, the rationale, the process and so on, in general terms.

Before I move on to my main area of questioning, I want to address a point that Fiona Hyslop raised earlier. I would like to better understand why we cannot get registration of the beneficial owner or the legal owner of a property at the point of purchase, and why we cannot have a process that is similar to the one that we have implemented with regard to the register of persons holding controlled interests in land, given that it is such a big issue. Again, it might be that you are unable to answer that just now, but the feedback that we have heard during the inquiry has consistently raised that as an issue. Do you have any comments on that, before I move on to my main area?

That would be helpful—thank you.

I appreciate that that was a hard question to ask you. I revisited the culture strategy that Fiona Hyslop did, which is an excellent piece of work, but we need to get culture at the heart of all the Scottish Government’s different arms and activities, because of the importance of place.

I heard an interesting comment from Alistair Mackie, who is the chief executive of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. He said that any public moneys that are given should be seen not as subsidy but as seed capital, because of the gross value added that they bring. That is an effective way of looking at the matter.

I am happy for you to come back to the committee, because I appreciate that that was a hard question. I am interested in what interventions you could make in relation to town centres that use the concept of culture being at the heart of place building, growth and all the touch points that we have covered.

Yes. I would like you to think about how we would do that, if we wanted to do it. It is clearly an issue, although I fully accept the complexity around it.

I want to cover our shared interest in culture at the heart of place in relation to town centres. We have heard evidence during the inquiry that culture must be at the table, and we have heard discussions about the extent to which culture can be involved in business improvement districts and so on. We have even heard commentary that bodies such as Creative Scotland should be made statutory consultees. Do you see culture as being at the heart of town centres? What is the Government’s thinking on how it might be able to assist that to be the case as we come out of the pandemic and deal with all the issues that we have covered today?

I totally agree with you about key stakeholders being at the table.

That takes us back to a point that Maggie Chapman made and on which you picked up, minister, about community entrepreneurialism. Arguably, musicians and artists are entrepreneurs. Perhaps we need to start to think about them in that way.

I will not press you for an answer, but I am interested in whether the Scottish Government has considered or is considering ideas that would practically support people who are in culture when we think of it as being at the heart of place. I refer, for example, to targeted rates relief, to go back to some of the points that John Mason made. Rather than thinking about it as a broad brush across the top—culture is good and it contributes to society—are we thinking of it as being at the heart of town centre regeneration and enablement, because it brings in many other things and supports many other types of business as well?