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Sorry, convener, I was not aware that you had asked for a previous indication of desire to ask questions.

My question is not about reserved or devolved competence and the requirement for an LCM but about the content of the provision that the LCM covers. Cabinet secretary, are you confident that the provision will apply only to what would commonly be understood as advertising and would not prohibit the publication of, for example, arguments about the policy merits of the legislation or how services should be delivered or the provision of factual information regarding the service?

Do other witnesses want to comment on whether that approach to the uplift in funding results in the butter being spread too thin, if you like, or whether a more flexible and balanced approach would be more beneficial?

Is there a systematic approach to measuring or assessing the extent to which fair work principles are being met or failed in the sector?

The second issue that I want to explore is about the more general approaches to funding, which might also have a greater relevance to the wider range of organisations that are with us.

In your submission, you make a point about siloed funding decisions and organisations being asked, for example:

“Is your project an arts project or an environmental project or a health project or a just transition project?”

The other point, which is at the top of your written submission, is about the indication from Government that it wants the uplift in funding to result in more organisations getting funding rather than existing organisations being more substantially funded, so the uplift in funding would go to more organisations rather than increase the amount of funding for fewer organisations. How strict an application of that indication are you anticipating? Do you expect that application to be quite rigid or do you expect a more balanced approach to emerge? You have said that, if that were the approach, a number of organisations that you need to work with would be severely challenged. You mentioned Creative Scotland. Are there other organisations that have a sector-wide approach for whom it would be a real difficulty to provide a service to a wider range of organisations, if they themselves are not getting an uplift in their individual funding?

Good morning. I start with a question specifically for Culture for Climate Scotland. It covers two issues, both of which might be of interest to all the witnesses.

First, I will pick up on some of the travel issues that you discussed earlier. The wider agenda around climate and sustainability in the culture sector is huge—for example, looking at buildings and at trying to achieve a circular economy through approaches to materials, reuse and so on. All that is a huge challenge. However, towards the end of your written submission, you mention that some of the figures that are presented do

“not include audience travel data which, based on trial data collection instances, is likely to be around three times higher than all other emissions combined.”

That is pretty stark.

Quite a number of years ago, I was on the board of a fairly small arts festival. Something that shocked me, but which was familiar to the other board members, who had been involved for longer, was that a lot of funders were not really testing us against the quality of the work that we were presenting or even against overall audience numbers. They wanted us to show how many hotel beds the festival was going to fill and, in particular, whether it was going to attract audiences from countries such as America, on the basis that those visitors were expected to spend more money in the local economy.

Is that type of pressure still being felt in the culture sector? It is basically about trying to push unsustainable approaches and objectives, rather than thinking about not only how the culture sector might act sustainably itself, but how it might serve a domestic audience more prominently or address some of the wider impacts of audience travel and how that connects to tourism policy.

There are two elements in what you have suggested. One involves being honest about the data, collecting that data and reporting on it, including the impact of audience travel. Secondly, you say that there has been some loosening up, in the approach to funding decisions, by making the international element discretionary, rather than mandatory. Forgive me—were you talking about Creative Scotland there? Are there other such changes that you think could help to ensure that our culture sector can continue to thrive, but by refocusing on a domestic market rather than the international market?

From the Artists Union’s perspective, if there is too rigid an approach to funding more organisations rather than funding organisations more, will that be a big barrier to addressing the very significant fair work challenges that the sector faces?

Thank you.

This is day 2 of our taking evidence on the same topic. I want to explore the same territory that I did previously, on the prevention aspect.

First, I will set out the current state of affairs. The Mental Health Foundation’s evidence says that

“the policy dial has yet to shift decisively towards primary prevention”,

but that

“there is clear evidence of preventative spending activities in relation to mental health.”

I suggest that we are seeing some positive evidence about what we might call discrete preventative activities—in particular, those provided for individuals who are known to have challenges or issues in their lives, which aim to prevent them from becoming more seriously detrimental to their mental health. However, we are not yet seeing the avoidance of decision making that can create such detriment in a wider sense.

We have all spoken about the pressures on IJBs and other parts of the public sector. In my own area alone, I have recently had to raise issues about cuts to community mental health teams, specialist services for people with acute needs caused by trauma, and counselling for survivors of sexual violence. Glasgow MSPs have recently been briefed that there will be a withdrawal of assessments for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in adults in our area. I am constantly being contacted by people who are waiting for gender-related healthcare, who are being told that they will have to wait for many years even to begin to access the process.

Therefore, although some positive preventative activity is happening, a great deal of the decision making that is going on actively undermines people’s mental health. We are firefighting while setting fires. Is that a fair analogy?

Thank you. Would anyone else like to come in on that point?