Seòmar agus comataidhean

You touched on local community planning; I want to ask a follow-on question about Scottish Government planning at the national level. The themes of the inquiry have been very cross-cutting, and many of the issues that we have considered do not sit in your portfolio. For example, local government budgets and funding have a huge impact, as does public transport availability, which has been raised on a number of occasions. In particular, young people in Dumfries raised the importance of getting around and accessing cultural opportunities. How do you and your department engage with other ministers and departments to address the issues, so that there is joined-up thinking not just at local community level but at national level?

Thank you very much.

Thank you for those answers. I agree that that comes across as being a bit vague.

On being better connected, we have talked about the importance of attracting international visitors and I hear what the panel said about value not volume. However, there is also an issue to do with being connected and how people get here. I know that the evidence has mentioned route development and not just for tourism but for investment and trade. I am not saying that everything is bad in that regard. There have been some positive developments recently, such as a new flight from Edinburgh to the US. However, on getting the basics of being connected right, do you agree that more direct flights between Scotland and the rest of the world would be beneficial for tourism, trade and investment? That should be an indicator of the international work national outcomes that we are looking at.

Good morning, panel. I very much agree with the point about Scotland going up a gear in order to remain competitive. The Scottish Government has said that it wants Scotland to be better connected, and I think that that view is shared across the Parliament, but we have also heard about difficulties with measuring outcomes as well as concerns about a lack of indicators.

Do you think that we are getting the basics right with regard to which aspects of our international work we are monitoring and measuring? I am thinking, for example, of the number of visitors coming to Scotland. I was struck by Ms Miller’s point about the spend of international visitors being four times that of domestic visitors, and I was really encouraged by the tourism minister Richard Lochhead’s recent remark that visitor numbers have almost come back to pre-Covid pandemic levels. However, if we want to be better connected, if we want more people to come here and if we want this to remain an attractive place to come to, should we not have specific targets and outcomes for the number of visitors?

Does any of the other witnesses have any thoughts on that?

We are mainly looking at getting the basics right. The example that I thought of was the number of tourists.

Thank you for all those answers. My last question is specifically for VisitScotland. We have been talking about the limited resources from Government and the need to be competitive with other countries, specifically Ireland, but on the outcome of bringing in more international high-value visitors, how do you balance what you spend on advertising and marketing Scotland domestically in Scotland and across the rest of the UK—which I know was a particular issue during and post the pandemic—and what you spend on international marketing and advertising?

Good morning to the panel. Ms Dick, in response to Mr Cameron, you said that you do not have a capital programme. I hear what you say about other funding sources being available for capital funds but, given the scale of the existing challenges for cultural venues, which Mr Cameron outlined, should Creative Scotland not have a cultural capital programme? Has that been considered? Is it being considered now—or will it be?

As we have just discussed, concerns have been raised with us about the unfairness of funding distribution. I am aware of a specific concern about the disparity between the areas where most national lottery tickets are sold and the areas that receive the most national lottery funding. That concern was reinforced last week by community organisations from areas of multiple deprivation.

Do you recognise that? What analysis has been done of the disparity between the areas where most national lottery tickets are sold and those that get the most national lottery funding? You mentioned a number of factors that you take into account when you allocate funding, including geography. Do you factor that in?

I, too, welcome the establishment of the Scottish Council on Global Affairs. The committee has heard that the Scottish and UK Governments share many priorities for international working and diplomacy. Does the panel agree with that? Professor Kaarbo said in her submission that a measure of the Scottish Government’s international policy is its influence on UK foreign policy. That is a positive, but how do we measure it, particularly if many priorities are shared to begin with?