Seòmar agus comataidhean

I am going to have to call things to a halt. I know that Mr Bibby had questions around fair work, so I suggest that the committee pursues those in writing—I think that he particularly wanted to speak to Caroline Sewel on the matter.

You have put a smile on my face, too, Caroline, because I was the convener of the committee that did the report and the inquiry into music tuition, so it was lovely to hear your comments—I just wanted to put that on the record.

We will suspend for a very short comfort break and to allow for a change of witnesses.

I was just coming to that. Are there rooms that you would like to be in that you are not in? Should you be speaking to health boards, local councils and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities? What are the barriers to embedding more of that work?

You have all mentioned the £100 million that was promised by 2028-29, with £25 million of that intended to be added into the culture budget for 2025-26.

What would your priorities be, and what would maximise the impact on the culture sector for that spend?

Welcome back. We now move to our second evidence session. We are joined by Iain Munro, who is the chief executive of Creative Scotland, and Alastair Evans, who is the director of strategy and planning at Creative Scotland. I wish a warm welcome to you both.

I will open with a question about the closure of the open fund for individuals. The cabinet secretary said:

“It is disappointing that Creative Scotland took the decision about the open fund before the Scottish Government could complete due diligence to release funding, as is normal practice.”—[Official Report, 3 September 2024; c 5.]

What were the circumstances around the decision to close the open fund, and what engagement did you have with the Government at that time?

I am conscious that we are talking a lot about areas that might not be familiar to people who are watching, so I want to clarify a couple of things before we move on.

When we talk about the percentage for the arts scheme, we are referring to the use of 1 per cent of the Scottish budget for the arts. That commitment was raised in the session 5 culture committee—the Culture, Tourism, Europe and External Relations Committee—and was mentioned in its legacy paper, but we have not done detailed work on that this session. The percentage for the arts has also been raised by Culture Counts in relation to sources other than the budget—for example, it has talked about a capital contribution that is based on major developments, such as house building, and that would be delivered in the local area.

We talked about the visitor levy, which is now available to councils to apply. The City of Edinburgh Council has been the first to do so and has applied it to hotels, B and Bs and other accommodation in the city. Edinburgh has laid out that a percentage of that revenue would go to culture, but not the full amount.

The ticket levy proposal, which is mainly from the Music Venue Trust, is a UK campaign. The levy would be on stadium tickets and other areas.

We are tight for time, but we have a couple of questions left.

There has been a lot of discussion about a wellbeing society and the role that culture will play in that—that has been a recurring theme in the committee’s work, certainly in this session—but also about getting people in the right rooms to have those discussions. Given that it is such an important principle, has much progress been made, as far as you can see, in embedding wellbeing in the other portfolio areas?

Good morning, and a warm welcome to the 20th meeting in 2024 of the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee. Our first agenda item is to continue to take evidence as part of our pre-budget scrutiny on funding for culture.

We have two evidence sessions this morning. For our first session, we are joined by Lori Anderson, who is the director of Culture Counts; Lyndsey Jackson, who is the deputy chief executive of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society; Liam Sinclair, who is the executive director of Dundee Rep and Scottish Dance Theatre; and Caroline Sewell, who is a regional organiser with the Musicians Union. I will begin with a couple of questions and then move to questions from the committee.

In our pre-budget report last year, the committee said that

“there was an urgent need for the Scottish Government to restore the confidence of the culture sector.”

In your view, to what extent has confidence been restored? I will start with Lori.

We have exhausted our questions, so I thank our witnesses very much for attending. Our next evidence session as part of our pre-budget scrutiny will be on 3 October, when the cabinet secretary will appear before the committee.

Good morning and welcome the 19th meeting of the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee in 2024.

Our first agenda item is to begin taking evidence as part of our pre-budget scrutiny of funding for culture. I am delighted that we are joined today by Lucy Casot, chief executive, Museums Galleries Scotland; Susan Deighan, chief executive, Glasgow Life; Leonie Bell, director, V&A Dundee; and Anne Lyden, director general, National Galleries of Scotland. I welcome you warmly.

I have an opening question before we move to questions from members. In last year’s pre-budget scrutiny report, the committee said that there was

“an urgent need for the Scottish Government to restore the confidence of the culture sector”.

In your view, has there been any progress? Who wants to jump in first? Perhaps we could start with you, Lucy—I am sorry to put you on the spot.

Thank you. [Interruption.] Sorry—I am losing my voice. I will bring in Meghan Gallacher.