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I agree with Mr Brown that we should aspire to have funded organisations and venues in every single local government area. I want to better understand why some parts of the country have more supported organisations and venues than others, especially when some local authorities have none, and others are in single digits. For me, that is one of the big takeaways from the Creative Scotland review, which pointed to information that can inform us all—the committee included—as to why that is the case in different local authority areas.

10:30

Mr Brown, you will have a much better idea than I do about the lie of the land. Did venues and organisations in Clackmannanshire apply—yes or no? Did they put in unsuccessful applications, and if so, what is happening with those applications and were they potentially viable? If they were potentially viable but for some reason failed to pass the initial round of adjudication, what has been done to help and support those venues and organisations?

As I mentioned, such a development phase was undertaken by Creative Scotland as part of the initial round. A range of venues and organisations that were not successful were deemed worthy of support to help them into a position where they would be successful. Therefore, it is absolutely right to ask why Clackmannanshire and the three other local authority areas were not successful. We should now have the data that can help explain the reasons for that. If it is because there is a lack of infrastructure but the application is on the cusp of being successful, what support do we need to provide to ensure that there is that level of cultural support in every local authority area?

I agree with Mr Brown on the premise of his question. I agree that both the Government and Creative Scotland need to look at the issue. It is an area of the Creative Scotland report that the Government has not formally responded to yet. However, I have already signalled to the committee that it is an area where data can be used. Creative Scotland will have a lot of data, for example, on who all the applicants were; where the applications were from; what projects had been supported in the past; and whether, in Clackmannanshire, there are arts workers, venues or organisations that apply for support through other funding streams and might aspire to become multiyear-funded organisations. If there are not, we should be asking why not and what can be done about it. That is one part of the equation.

The different attitudes of our enterprise companies towards the culture and arts sector were signalled to me, through the Creative Scotland review, as another area that we need to think about. There is a significant difference between the approach of Highlands and Islands Enterprise or South of Scotland Enterprise and that of Scottish Enterprise to the organisations and venues in the areas that they cover. I am not suggesting that Scottish Enterprise must become a vehicle for cultural funding. However, I think that we all understand that culture in itself has intrinsic value but that it is also a part of the economy, so why is it treated as a priority by Highlands and Islands Enterprise and South of Scotland Enterprise, but not by Scottish Enterprise, which covers Clackmannanshire? Questions need to be asked of a number of organisations that have responsibility in this area. The Scottish Government has a role in that through its conversations with Creative Scotland, Scottish Enterprise and others.

I am—and I am sure the committee would also be—keen to see the data in order to understand where there might be an underprovision of culture and the arts and what can be done about it. To my mind, doing nothing is not an option.

Again, I agree with Mr Brown. It is good to hear that Creative Scotland will produce those statistics, and I think that more data can be provided beyond that specific 16-year period. We need more information. What then follows is to ask why that situation is so, and to understand whether it is because the institutional memories of organisations are, unfortunately, marked by a lack of success—although that is not a reason not to support cultural organisations and venues.

In fairness to Creative Scotland, it did exactly that with a number of organisations that did not make the initial multiyear-funding round. The fact that there is experience of helping organisations and venues to get to a place at which they can apply successfully is a sign that there is a willingness to do it. I do not think that the situation is because there is no willingness to intervene and make it happen. However, Mr Brown is absolutely right to put a marker down to say that, if there is nothing or next to nothing in four local authority areas, we need to understand why, what will happen as a result and when, within a reasonable timescale, people in Clackmannanshire, West Dunbartonshire and wherever else can have confidence that local organisations or venues will be funded through those streams.

However, as I have mentioned, there are other funding streams through which organisations are supported, and one has to look across the piece at all of those. I wanted to satisfy myself on whether that had been the case in relation to Culture Collective and the creative communities programme. However, if Mr Brown were to raise that point, I would have to say to him that I am not aware that any projects in Clackmannanshire had been funded through those routes.

Having that overview points to the fact that there is no support through multiyear funding, Culture Collective or the creative communities programme. To me, that looks like the beginnings of a flashing light to ask, “why not”?

Yes. Those edits were undertaken by civil servants. I was unaware of the necessity for the edits to take place. They took place, and the numbers and the detail were restored.

Would I have wished that that was not necessary? Yes, because members such as Mr Kerr quite rightly ask why. That was done for an administrative reason, however; it is nothing to do with the allocation of resources through the other arts budget line, which totals just over £16 million.

On the question of artistic and cultural judgment, it is not the place for me, as cabinet secretary, to involve myself in the work of Creative Scotland and its responsibility around the funding of organisations. It is for Creative Scotland to make such decisions—and that is what it does.

However, the Scottish Government quite properly undertakes a range of other directly funded interventions that impact on all sorts of cultural areas. There is a balancing act. One gets advice from officials on what is required and then considers whether one feels that the balance is right to ensure that we are covering all the areas that we want to cover. Then, no doubt, there will be a view that there is too much in one area or not enough somewhere else but—

Forgive me, convener, but, with your permission, I want to answer part of Mr Kerr’s question that I did not answer. He asked about the festivals expo fund, which supports Scottish artists to showcase their work and develop international connections through Scottish festivals. Creative Scotland has distributed more than £30 million through the festivals expo fund. Since its inception in 2007, that has been to festivals in Edinburgh and, from 2018 onwards, to festivals in Glasgow.

It is, no doubt, the view of the former chairman of the board, but it would also be fair to point out—and this goes to the heart of the difficulty that the HES leadership had got itself into—

This may be helpful to Mr Harvie, because he is trying to understand where things were at that point and what that led to in terms of how we should act in such circumstances. Bearing in mind that the accountable officer has to be an employee of Historic Environment Scotland, after our first priority, which was the return to work of the chief executive officer after periods of illness, the second option was to consider whether any other senior staff member of HES—an employee of HES, because that was a requirement for being an accountable officer—could have been the acting accountable officer with those responsibilities. If a permanent finance director had been in post, or if a chief operating officer role had existed at the time, the Scottish Government could have considered that person as an acting accountable officer. However, that was not the case so it was not possible. That is a very important fact.

Neither were other senior staff members of Historic Environment Scotland available to be appointed as accountable officer, because of their own involvement in on-going internal processes. Ultimately, therefore, no suitable internal candidates were identified by either the HES board or the Scottish Government. That route, therefore, would not satisfy the wish of the Scottish Government, as identified by the Auditor General in his report. Efforts were undertaken to consider external candidates, and interviews also took place for a fourth external candidate, who was recommended by the HES board as an acting accountable officer.

My point in sharing this information is that there has been a suggestion or implication that efforts were not undertaken to find an accountable officer, given the then suspension of the chief executive; however, I assure Mr Harvie and the committee that the Scottish Government made such efforts.

My first reflection is that I am unaware of a similarly complex situation that has thrown up significant issues in relation to HR and potential legal challenge. How does one help an operationally independent organisation to find its way through such difficulties? That will no doubt be a doctoral thesis at some time by someone, but, in the meantime, it is good that we have somebody of the experience of David Martin looking at it right now.

Regardless of the exact circumstances of what happened, beginning with the chief executive’s absence and then the new phase with the board not allowing her to return to work, it caused the Scottish Government and the board of Historic Environment Scotland to act. It is very important for there to be an understanding that efforts were made to identify somebody who might be able to fulfil the responsibilities of chief executive officer and accountable officer.

I think that Mr Brown is correct, and that is why the Scottish Government has changed the constraints under which Historic Environment Scotland previously operated, thereby freeing it up to find new income streams, because the estate—and everything that it is responsible for—is very popular and has the potential to be even more popular. No doubt all of us who visit sites that are run by Historic Environment Scotland recognise that there is more potential that can be reached. The first thing is that the Government has already made that change.

09:30

In many respects, it is groundbreaking for Historic Environment Scotland, and other organisations have been knocking on my door asking for similar freedom to make income in more ways and have an entrepreneurial approach to their operations.

I reflect that we now have a chairman of the board and a chief executive officer who have come with such a background from the National Trust for Scotland. The freedom that they, together with new board members, have been granted by the Scottish Government is very much the direction in which the leadership of Historic Environment Scotland wants to go.

Keith Brown mentioned the detriment to an organisation because of what has been going on in the leadership. That has taken up a significant amount of my time as well as that of civil service colleagues. We should never lose sight of the fact that Historic Environment Scotland, and the many people who work for it throughout Scotland, do a tremendous job. As an organisation per se, it has, in many ways, been an early adopter of change in this space and others. I will be delighted when it emerges with an understanding of the difficulties in which it found itself, the lessons that have to be learned and any changes that the Government may need to make to ensure that such things cannot happen again in the future.

I have asked for it to be so, and I have no reason to doubt that it will be the case.

The record will show that Mr Halcro Johnston said that I “should” have been having a meeting with the board. I totally disagree—we can have a difference of view on that.

I have been forthcoming in explaining the serious nature of the investigations that were under way at that stage, involving the chairman of the board and other board members. Unequivocally, it would have been totally inappropriate for me to have met the board in that context. Had I been aware of invitations for me to attend a board meeting in that context, I would have declined, for those reasons.

I do not think that any minister, from any political party, in the situation that I found myself in, and find myself in now, would have acceded to that request. It would have been totally inappropriate.