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I have looked at Robert Wilson’s quote. To quote to Mr Kerr the evidence that Robert Wilson gave to the committee, he said:

“The point of the review is that it will cover the whole culture sector”.—[Official Report, Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee, 9 January 2025; c 30.]

The review that we have announced will examine Creative Scotland’s remit, its functions and how it can best support the culture sector’s ambitions. It will be for Dame Sue Bruce to agree with ministers the review’s remit. That will be informed by the responses to the surveys that we have launched this week.

I am telling the committee that the position is as follows: the review will examine Creative Scotland’s remit, its functions and how it can best support the culture sector’s ambitions, and it will be for Dame Sue to agree the remit of the review. I will repeat what the chair of Creative Scotland said to the committee, which was:

“The point of the review is that it will cover the whole culture sector”.—[Official Report, Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee, 9 January 2025 c 30.]

I can think of other examples. Often, they are not in the public realm because of the commercial sensitivities for some organisations, so I hope that Mr Kerr appreciates that dynamic as part of my answer. However, whenever organisations are suffering distress, I would wish the Scottish Government to know about that. We are aware of the organisations that have given evidence to the committee and outlined the constraints under which they are operating, and there is constant discussion between officials and those organisations. However, if committee members are aware of other organisations in that situation, I would wish them to raise that with me.

If the history is ever written of the nature of the challenge to the culture sector here, elsewhere in these islands and internationally, during and since Covid especially, one of the things that we can be very appreciative of is the work that has gone on, mostly behind the scenes, with a significant number of organisations that we view as part of our cultural firmament. We have done everything that we possibly can to ensure that those organisations have been able to continue. My great hope is that, now, we are beginning to see significant change—this goes back to the point about foundational change—in the nature of funding for culture and the arts, which includes, among other things, our national galleries, national libraries and national museums.

However, Mr Kerr could, equally, say to me that there are challenges with regard to other parts of the cultural estate, including local museums and libraries—

The first thing to reflect on is that Screen Scotland is part of Creative Scotland. As Mr Adam has just pointed out, Screen Scotland has shown itself to be extremely successful at using the resources that it has to leverage in additional resources for co-production and so on. One reason why we have been keen to give it some more resource is so that it can do even more of that.

We need to reflect on the fact that there are bits of artistic creation that will never make money or be profitable, but are as intrinsically important to our cultural life as those that are commercially viable and successful. That is the eternal tension: it will never go away. We have to try to get the balance right for our cultural life—between the commercial and the non-commercial and the conventional and the less conventional. Some things are not necessarily everybody’s taste or priority, which is why we have an arm’s-length organisation to deal with those things. Mr Adam is right to say that there is a tension.

It is my hope that, in her review, Dame Sue Bruce will be able to point us in the right direction to share understanding from the bits of the cultural ecosystem that are early adopters and forward looking in securing commercial income. We should ensure that organisations that are very good at philanthropy are more widely understood. I think that we can grow the cake.

It is not just that certain institutions are very good at things, so they should just be left to get on with it—we all have an interest in the entire sector thriving. I hope that the review will help us through this period of change, both by signposting different ways of doing things and by providing capacity and support.

We have not talked about skills yet. We must ensure that part of the wider thinking—it is—is about the next generation of people who want to become creatives or work in trades within the culture sector, and their getting the traditional and modern skills to enable them to do so.

That is why this is a really exciting time for us to be getting the funding to where it needs to be, as well as getting in place the architecture around how we administer, fund, educate, skill and promote the entire sector so that all that can be done in the best way possible. This is going to be a very good year with regard to all those aspects.

Yes—currently.

That is a big subject. We need to understand the cultural forces that are leading to changes in use of cultural venues. Cultural venues, high streets and churches—though not exclusively those—are three particular areas where we have seen massively accelerating factors at play that make our public authorities and agencies reflect on what that means for venues.

I am not sure that we have yet got to grips with how we make sure that we retain cultural venues at the level that all communities wish for, or how we make sure that high streets are as vibrant as people wish them to be. The church estate, which has been an important part of community life and history, is being sold off at an accelerating rate.

Those three things were the subject of a conversation that I had yesterday with the new chief executive of Historic Environment Scotland. The conversation was about with whom we need to work and talk about those three things—there will, no doubt, be others—to make sure that there is coherence in dealing with such societal change. With three minutes left in this evidence session, I suspect that we will have to come back to all that, but Ms Mackay can rest assured that I believe that the matter is definitely something that we need to be thinking about.

On accessibility, our having significantly more regularly funded organisations being part of the multi-annual funding programme, the Cultural Collective operating right across Scotland, and the community collective operating as part of a wider offer, will mean that, throughout the country, cultural organisations will have funding so that they can rehearse, perform, have open days, work with schools, work with groups of retirees and so on.

I think that that funding will go some way—I hope it will go a significant way—in relation to the accessibility of culture in localities across Scotland, and that it will also be felt positively by venues across Scotland, whether they are headline culture venues, repurposed public venues or church venues. That is part of what I hope will emerge this year, in relation both to funding and working together with other bodies to make that so.

Yes.

I will go back to Mr Bibby’s point briefly. His question is a really good one. I will give him an example of a very current area that he knows about, because I have spoken to him this week.

Let us take broadcasting as an example from the creative sector. We have worked on a cross-party basis to make sure that public service broadcasters are commissioning everything that they can and should in Scotland, given that we pay a licence fee. In recent weeks, we should all have been given reason to question whether the system is working. Is television commissioning in Scotland’s screen sector supported in the way that we have been told it should be, and does it have safeguards for supporting jobs in the sector?

A good example of why there has been a difference in employment levels is the massive concentration of screen and TV in London and the south-east of England, although there have been moves to correct that. The Governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland agreed, the English regions agreed and the BBC has agreed. That is why the BBC moved to Salford and why it says that it is trying to commission elsewhere.

I know that the committee is looking at that issue, but that is a good example of why there is a differential, and why there is a real prize in getting it right so that there is a smaller differential and so that we grow the creative sector as much as possible.

I have said to Mr Bibby that I will write to him, because I know that it is an important subject.

I agree with Mr Kerr that it is important that we appreciate how important philanthropy and corporate sponsorship are to culture and the arts in Scotland, as they are elsewhere. There are recent examples that should give us all cause for concern. For example, I am concerned that children from deprived backgrounds might not be able to take part in the likes of the Edinburgh book festival, as they were previously, because funding has been reduced.

This is all a matter of public record, but Mr Kerr has asked me specifically about what can be done. There are things that can be done and I am keen to explore some of them this year. We might get some helpful insights and advice on the area from the forthcoming review. I will certainly share my views with Dame Sue Bruce.

It is not illegitimate for people to want to know that the financial support for events is contributed by ethical providers and to ask how companies make their money. At the same time, it is important that we are protective, helpful and supportive of the arts sector so that its income is not undermined, as it has been. The challenge is in striking a balance between those two things.

I am happy to discuss that further with Mr Kerr, because I already have some ideas, but now is not the time to share them. I am seized of the issue and it cannot go on like this. A lot of the commercial organisations that have been tremendous supporters of arts and culture, such as Baillie Gifford, want to be able to support culture and the arts, and I want them to be able to do it. At the same time, I also want to make sure that, if there are ethical considerations that we should reflect on, we find ways of doing that without undermining culture and the arts. There is no doubt that the conversation is to be continued.