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There is so much in those questions; thank you for asking them.

On the recovery plan, we have already discussed the most important thing from a Government perspective, which is getting the Government to understand that culture is important across the Government—in other words, mainstreaming that thinking about an approach across Government. This is an example and is what we are talking about today. We have identified that and we are doing it and trying our best to work our way through it.

We have received the recommendations that you mentioned, which will be published shortly. We should look closely at the recommendations and take them seriously. I am happy to come back when we are at that stage.

I go back to your question about where we will be in a year’s time, which is exactly the right question. I know where you all will be and I know where I will be, because I will be sitting in this chair and you will be saying, “We are year on from you saying that the Government was starting to do this and that.” We are not beginning from a position where progress has not been made since Christie. Progress has been made, but how do we scale it up, and how do we get it delivered right across the country? That is the challenge. We will have to play our part in making sure that we are delivering, bearing in mind the constraints that you identified.

However, I am optimistic. For one thing, I think that there is consensus that this is what needs to happen. I am not sure that you have heard any evidence that our approach is not the way that we should be taking things forward, so there is consensus. The issue is how we make that happen—and happen consistently. I am optimistic that there will be considerable change and improvement. I am excited about playing a part in making that happen, because I think that it will be transformational for people. We just need to make sure that we are doing it in a way that reaches as many people as possible.

I will be back, but I am not waiting a year.

Before she took up her responsibilities for transport, Jenny Gilruth was in dialogue with local authorities about this very area. As we might imagine, her successor Neil Gray is now very focused on supporting the refugees from Ukraine—and we wish him well in that work—but this dialogue definitely needs to continue to ensure that we better understand where things are with local authority partners. We can do more on this in partnership with local authority colleagues, and I am very keen that we do so.

My first reflection is that this is very much work in progress. The deputy convener’s illustration about different preferences for how one might seek synergies or different funding arrangements is a good example of the fact that people have very different views on the matter. Finding the appropriate way into Government, and through different parts of it, is part of the challenge that we are trying to pick our way through.

We are being very well advised. I made reference in my opening statement to a number of ways in which we are being advised to think about how we can mainstream, in my area, culture and the arts in other parts of the Government. Obviously, there is a particular focus today on the broader health area.

The challenge for the Government is to work out how we can remain flexible and adapt to the various potential ways in which culture and the arts can deliver in partnership with health. The health secretary and I have already met to discuss the matter, and we are both extremely open minded about how we do that.

There are already some really good examples of things working. I take heart from the fact that we are not trying to reinvent the wheel. We are trying to work out, on the basis of a lot of advice in recent years, particularly on health, mental health and wellbeing, how we can deliver across the piece. That is the challenge for us all.

We are not at an end point, but we are definitely at a stage at which we are keen to hear people’s priorities—I know that our civil service colleagues who are attending this meeting are also extremely keen to learn from different stakeholders—to make sure that we remain flexible and think about different ways in which we can deliver. We are doing much of that already, but if there is evidence that we should be thinking about things in new ways, we will consider that. We are not set in old ways. We are keen to adopt best practice if we can.

I keep saying this to the committee, but it is a genuinely held view: I am keen to hear the committee’s advice on the issue. We are in a sweet spot at the moment, as we are thinking about all this and trying to find the mechanisms to make it work, and we very much look forward to the examples that you might give through your questions or in your report.

Indeed. This is not just a social prescribing issue. For example, mental health outcomes, as worthy as they are, and as important as they are in the Government’s priorities, also present a huge opportunity to address other priorities, such as dealing with social deprivation. I think that, as you outlined, much more can be done to ensure greater accessibility in relation to our natural environment and built heritage. I have been talking with colleagues in culture about what we can do to bridge that gap. There are a number of imaginative ways in which we can do that, and there are some encouraging ways in which we can scale that up quite quickly.

You are asking the right question. We are still at the stage of working out how we can bridge that gap. However, this all needs to be seen within the context of the spending constraints that we are operating under. The Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy sits virtually in my mind, because we are having to be extremely thoughtful about what we are able to do to make bridging that gap happen within those constraints, for example by finding imaginative ways of doing so that might not cost money, or by identifying other funding streams. However, for me the key point is that we have to make it happen. How, then, do we do that? That is where the discussion is. Again, if the committee has views on that, I am very keen to hear them because I think that there are ways of finding and marshalling resources that should make it possible. I am very keen to make sure that it happens.

I think that all the work on and thinking about the national care service give us a very exciting opportunity for this to be a priority right at the inception. As things are being put in place, the considerations about how things should come together and should work form part of our thinking right at the start. We will not have to add it on later; it is right there at the beginning. The timing is very opportune.

I will share where I think the challenge for all of us is. We agree with the concept, we understand that there is already good work going on and we know that there are nationally known organisations that are doing things in the culture space. That is one thing and, of course, it is a good thing. The example that Jenni Minto has given is the classic challenge. First, how do we ensure that there is an awareness of much that goes on out there in Scottish society that happens anyway? It is not necessarily funded by anybody. It could be voluntary or in the third sector, which are very good things. How do we make sure that there is an awareness that that is happening and how do we then make sure that those who are prescribing are also aware of that good work that is going on?

In a previous evidence session, we discussed how we can match up those sort of examples with those who will be socially prescribing. I do not think that we are there yet in working out how we can capture that information and make sure that the people who are in a position to socially prescribe, for example, participation in a scheme in Argyll can do that. I think that it will be much easier in the culture space to ask, “What is Scottish Ballet doing; what are other performing companies doing; what is National Museums Scotland doing; what is Historic Environment Scotland doing?” That is one thing. That will be quite easy to identify, because the memo will go out from culture central asking, “What is happening here?” but in the cultural part of Scottish Government and Creative Scotland and so on, how do we know what is happening in Argyll? How do we work through that? We will have to make sure that we are capturing that.

I have said this to the committee before: politicians do not do culture, nor should we. It is for people who do culture and the arts to have the support that they need, and therein, yes, let a thousand flowers bloom, but we are trying to work out how we can incorporate all of the great practice that is going on out there and match that up with what we are trying to do in, in this example, health and social care. I am not sure that I have the answer to Jenni Minto’s question. I have ideas. I am not sure that there is an answer but, as long as we are asking the question, I think that we have a better chance of getting there.

It is a pleasure, as always—it seems like I am here every week—to be back before the committee. I welcome the opportunity to discuss the resource spending review for the constitution, external affairs and culture portfolio and, in particular, the important synergies between the culture side of the portfolio and the health and social care portfolio.

As the resource spending review proceeds, we want to hear about the experiences and views of the people who use public services and those who help us deliver them. It is helpful to have the committee’s views, drawing on the evidence that you have received. In addition, there is, as you know, a public consultation that closes on 27 March.

The review is an opportunity to bring about longer-term financial planning to March 2026 for bodies that are funded directly by the Government and organisations that are funded through those bodies. That is what the culture sector, in particular, has been seeking, through evidence to your committee and its predecessor, for some time.

The committee is a champion for securing more resources for the portfolio that it oversees, which is understandable for any subject committee. You will not be surprised to hear, however, that I and my cabinet colleagues will face some difficult choices to live within the total resources, without borrowing powers at our disposal and as the pressure on public services continues to grow.

To finish on a more positive note, the review gives us the opportunity to be discussing joint approaches at a strategic level, given the positive potential of culture to contribute to health and wellbeing outcomes. We are agreed about how vital the contribution of culture is to our shared goals. Our culture strategy was published in February 2020, right before the start of the pandemic, which has disrupted its implementation. However, we have still made significant progress.

We have launched three innovative programmes: the Culture Collective, Arts Alive and creative communities. Together, those programmes are working to empower communities to develop cultural activities, bring creative residencies to education settings in areas of multiple deprivation and use cultural projects as a positive diversion away from crime. We have also launched the national partnership for culture, which recently provided recommendations to ministers on the sector’s recovery and renewal.

The pandemic has shown us that the key message of the culture strategy—that culture and creativity are valuable in their own right and that everyone in Scotland has the right to a cultural life no matter where they live—is more important than ever. Culture is at the heart of who we are and underpins our economic, social and even environmental prosperity. Culture is, therefore, something that all parts of Government have a stake in. On that basis, we have been working to develop closer cross-portfolio relationships, including with health and social care services, and we will continue to prioritise that.

There are. Ireland is 2 per cent of the European Union’s population and uses that as a rough rule of thumb for the consequences of what that means financially and in other ways. Ireland is working on the expectation of taking in up to 80,000 Ukrainians. That process has just begun.

At Dublin airport, there are welcome tables from the Irish public authorities that take people’s details. The whole problem with the UK scheme is that it is the wrong way around. The Irish do all the due diligence when people arrive from Ukraine. They take people’s details and then make sure that they can be matched to health provision and local government support. Ireland makes sure that people’s positions are effectively regularised from the moment that they get off the plane.

Ireland is working hard to make sure of being able to provide the housing that will be required. I have already made the point that early indications are that, among the first arrivals are people who have friends, family and relations who they can stay with, but a proportion do not and, in Ireland’s case, those people will have to be matched with local authorities and also religious institutions and other places where accommodation is available. Ireland runs a national portal where people can indicate their willingness and ability to take people in. In addition to people who are friends and family from Ukraine, there are obviously people in Ireland, as there are elsewhere in Europe, and here too, who want to help and take people in. Ireland has a system for that matching process and is expecting numbers to go up quite dramatically.

There is a lot in that question. I, too, have been discussing that with the acting consul general. There are two specific aspects to the Ukrainian community in Scotland.

First, there is a long-settled and long-established Ukrainian community in Scotland that largely goes back to the 1870s and post second world war. In that case, we are already talking about a second or third generation of Ukrainian Scots. They live right across Scotland. There is no geographical concentration beyond the conurbations that we are aware of. For example, there are Ukrainian community facilities in Edinburgh and Glasgow, but Ukrainian Scots are also established right across Scotland. The consul general told me that he thought there were probably up to 5,000 of them.

Secondly, we could add up to a maximum of another 5,000 seasonal workers. Therefore, the figure of 7,000 that Mr Ruskell gave speaks to that 5,000 plus 2,000 seasonal workers. Yes, there will be concentrations of those people in certain parts of the country, and we have to think about that.

During my conversations with Ireland’s foreign minister, Simon Coveney, yesterday, I was interested to hear that the majority of people who are arriving in Dublin are heading towards the address of a family member, a friend or somebody who they know. Again, given the point that I made earlier, unless somebody can tell me that there is a profound difference between people arriving in Ireland and those arriving in Scotland, I suspect that the first wave of people will arrive knowing where their people are. They might well be working in the seasonal industries, but they might also have connections with the established Scottish Ukrainian community as well as people who have been working here for a number of years and also form part of the community, but who do not traditionally move back and forward every year. We need to be aware of that as a phenomenon.

That shows why the Scottish Government has been keen to work on the resettlement scheme that has emerged from the Syrian scheme of which we have good experience at local government level, to make sure that we are able to match public service support for people who are arriving in situ in localities with the levels of demand.

Mark Ruskell might well be right that a significant number of refugees might head to certain parts of the country because of the nature of work that they do. We do not know that yet, which is why we are still keen to make sure that we are working hand in hand with our colleagues in the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, who have been doing a great job in making sure that there is co-ordination right across the 32 local authorities so that we can be aware of what might be coming.

What might be coming are people in their hour of need and I have no doubt that the response that we will see in this country will be the same as we have seen right across Europe—people wanting to be helpful and wanting to be supportive.

I also draw attention to the fact that—I am sure that members also saw this on their televisions—when people arrive on trains in different parts of Poland or different parts of Germany and even across to France, there are people standing in the stations saying, “I will take in two people,” “I will take in four people,” or “I will take in eight people.”. On a human level, that is extremely moving, and I am sure that those who do not have family here would want to feel that they can live in safety with people who can help and support them. Having said that, though, we have to consider safeguarding and be aware of who is arriving and where they are going, primarily for the reasons of matching the social service support that we want to offer.

That all underlines the reason why we want a resettlement scheme that has local government and the provision of local services at its heart. We are ready to do that, our colleagues in local government are ready to do that and we are just trying to impress on the UK Government that, regardless of the route that it opens up and the preferences that it might have for how it operates in other parts of the UK, we are clear that we have good experience and we want to apply that good practice to do the best that we can do.

Do my colleagues want to add to that? In a nutshell, that is our approach thus far. I know that the situation is fast moving, but that is still where our preference lies.