Seòmar agus comataidhean

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.

Good morning to you, convener, and to committee members, especially any new or substitute members. It is nice to see you all.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to open our discussion with some reflections on what I have heard from the organisations that gave further evidence to the committee last week and from colleagues, particularly from members who took part in Tuesday’s debate on valuing culture. I have listened to and read those responses with great interest and have also listened to the views of the many and varied culture stakeholders that I have had the opportunity to meet since the Scottish Government’s draft budget for 2025-26 was published in December.

It is clear to me that, although the proposed significant increase of an additional £34 million for Scotland’s culture sector in 2025-26 has been warmly welcomed by many across the sector and underlines this Government’s on-going commitment to strengthening it, we will not achieve all that we want to achieve together for culture in a single year. However, the budget is a significant milestone and, if supported by parliamentary colleagues, will take the Scottish Government halfway towards meeting our forward commitment of at least an additional £100 million annually for culture by 2028-29.

I would add that our aim for 2026-27, subject to the normal budget processes, is to deliver a further £20 million increase for the sector. I hope that my opening remarks will provide a level of confidence for the committee as well as the sector with regard to the longer-term trajectory of the Scottish Government’s commitment to invest in culture.

The Scottish Government’s budget is transformational for the culture sector in Scotland and could not be clearer about our steadfast support for Scotland’s arts and culture. It will enable us to continue funding initiatives such as the youth music initiative and Sistema. The additional funding will provide a package of support to the culture sector as a whole, including a significant funding uplift and multiyear settlement for Creative Scotland, giving it the means to offer regular funding to the biggest ever number of cultural organisations across Scotland.

The draft budget will enable the development of a culture and heritage capacity fund for the organisations that would benefit most from tailored supportive funding and guidance to help build their capacity and develop their future resilience. There will be increased funding for our national collections, the centre for design and the national performing companies to support their work, which is so important to our local communities, as well as being of international significance.

The draft budget will also double the funding available for Scotland’s festivals and ensure that more festivals beyond the central belt receive the support that they need to reach their full potential. There will also be an increase for Screen Scotland’s successful production growth fund, which will help attract international investment and encourage large-scale productions to choose Scotland because of our incredible locations, our studio and post-production facilities and our talented crews.

If passed, the draft budget for 2025-26 will support other important of areas of work, such as community access to culture, improving Scotland’s cultural exports and exchange and improving access to Scotland’s vital public libraries. Those plans for increased investment will be delivered alongside a commitment to reform the funding mechanisms for the culture and arts sector. We want to help the culture sector maximise the impact of every penny of public funding and to support it to work more closely with the private and third sectors to grow the overall funding pot for culture, diversify funding streams and become more sustainable and resilient.

In the recent programme for government, we announced a review of Creative Scotland as part of wider considerations of how the culture sector is supported. That review will ensure that the additional funding coming to the culture sector can be used to best effect.

I recognise that it is essential that the culture sector has an opportunity to input into the review, and at the start of the week, the Scottish Government launched a short survey to inform its scope. Members will know that, during the debate on culture in the chamber on Tuesday, I invited colleagues to take part, and I would encourage as many people who work across the culture sector as possible to respond. I should also say that the Scottish Government announced this week that Dame Sue Bruce will be appointed as the chair of the independent review of Creative Scotland, with a view to providing recommendations at the end of the summer.

I know that the pressures of meeting what are often significant capital infrastructure needs, along with pay settlements and inflationary pressures, have not gone away, and that many of our publicly funded culture bodies are continuing to grapple with those issues. Through our on-going work on public service reform, we are supporting our national culture bodies to work collaboratively and think creatively to come up with solutions to some of those challenges.

That approach has already yielded some positive outcomes. For example, we have agreed a revised framework document with Historic Environment Scotland that provides it with greater financial freedom to manage its commercial income. As part of that agreement, HES will reduce its dependency on public funding for its operational budget as commercial income continues to grow. This is the first year of that agreement, with a £2 million reduction in public funding as part of a five-year plan to reduce public funding by £10 million. Those greater freedoms will mean that HES will for the first time be able to invest every penny of its commercial income in protecting our historic environment for future generations, mitigating the impact of climate change, improving visitor experiences and delivering for Scotland.

It is that spirit of innovation, confidence and self-determination that is at the heart of the planned budget increase for culture in the next financial year. Facilitating an expanded multiyear funding offer from Creative Scotland will enable more of our creative people to worry less about funding and focus more on their creative practice. I look forward to working with the committee and members across all parties to make our collective ambition for a flourishing culture sector in Scotland a reality through support for the budget bill in the coming weeks.

Again, there is quite a lot in that question.

As I think Jackie Dunbar knows, I lived in Aberdeen for four years when I was a student. Shona Riach, my senior official here, is from Aberdeen as well. We both understand how important the Belmont cinema is for cultural life. Yesterday, I met for the second time the team who are working on the Belmont cinema project. Hugely encouraging progress has been made so far. Public money has gone towards that, which is absolutely the right thing to do. A lot of thinking is going into what needs to happen now when it comes to capital for the project, and what needs to happen after—fingers crossed—the cinema opens. We had a discussion about both those things.

There has been a lot less focus on the issue of capital spending on culture than there has been on revenue. I was discussing that only this morning. When the budget is passed, as we hope that it will be, and we begin to get in place the revenue changes, we will all have to take a much closer view on dealing with the challenge of the limited capital that is at our disposal. In recent years, the capital allocation to the Scottish Government has been hugely problematic. Consequently, that has an impact on different areas of Government spend.

We have done our best. I am sure that colleagues will have noticed that, in the budget, we are contributing an additional £8 million in capital costs towards the Citizens Theatre project in Glasgow. I have previously given evidence to the committee that, when projects have run the risk of failure, a significant part of my and officials’ work in recent years has been to keep open cultural organisations and venues. In significant part, that has related to capital challenges. The increased cost of restoration, building, rebuilding and reopening has made the situation very challenging.

There is no magic wand when it comes to capital. You have heard evidence from other organisations that have significant buildings and maintenance programmes and would wish to have a bigger capital allocation. I, too, would wish to have a much bigger capital allocation for culture. However, we have secured significantly more funding this year than last year, which, in largest part, is going to the Citizens Theatre.

There are other calls on that money. I want to be as supportive as I can, but I do not have a magic wand, and there are other significant projects. The art works project in Granton is the biggest of those—in effect, it is the arts and culture repository of the nation. We need to get that right. There has already been significant investment from the Scottish Government, but there needs to be much more.

I am very interested in being as supportive as I can to the Belmont cinema. If I might abuse my position in having the microphone, convener, I say to any significant economic actors in the north-east that, if they wish to support a very worthy cultural project in the city of Aberdeen, they might support the Belmont cinema in its efforts; they will have our undying thanks for their involvement. I have committed to continuing work on that.

The second question was about what happens if the budget does not pass. If a new budget is not in place by the next financial year, the finances will roll forward every month on the basis of one twelfth of what they were during the previous financial year. The biggest consequence of that would be that there would not be funds for multiyear funding.

The consequences of not passing the budget would be pretty severe. I am working very hard to get agreement, and I have been inviting colleagues from all parties to ensure that they vote for the budget so that we do not get into that territory. I would rather spend my time and effort encouraging colleagues to understand why I think that what is being proposed has been welcomed across Government, particularly in my area of responsibility. In the debate in the chamber on Tuesday, members welcomed the increase in culture funding. Fantastic: let us pass the budget, and let us not have to confront what would happen if the budget was not passed. That is particularly important because of the sequencing and timing of multiyear funding.

The committee is aware that Creative Scotland’s board will be meeting this month, with a view to making an announcement before the end of the month on what it wishes to do at the beginning of the next financial year in April. If we do not have a budget, it will not have the money, so how can we launch one of the biggest-ever changes in funding for Scottish culture? I would rather not have to deal with those circumstances. I have made my point, and I hope that colleagues of all parties realise the consequences. The Government in Scotland is a minority, so it behoves members of other parties to realise that their votes matter, and that it is important to pass the budget.

—and I agree that those pressures are felt across the piece, which is why, among other interventions, we are raising the amount of funding for local government, because the issue is not just the responsibility of the Scottish Government.

Well, I would—

Convener, do you require me to say for a third time that the remit of—

I have always acted.

My understanding is that it is not a downgrading as much as it is giving teachers the ability to choose texts and areas for focus. I definitely do not want any downgrading of Robert Burns or Scottish literature more generally; I do not want downgrading of literature or poetry from any background. Learning as much about our own culture as we do about others is a boost to our culture. Any evidence of downgrading of teaching Scotland’s literature would be of concern to me.

I have no doubt that Mr Bibby will continue to ask me about the subject, and I will be happy to correspond with him on it.

The arrangement with Historic Environment Scotland is a first. It was asked for, considered and has been agreed to, and everybody will be looking very closely at how it works. HES is confident that it will be able to grow its commercial income. Everyone understands that if organisations in the sector are better able to increase their income, it will allow us to think about the appropriate use of Government and public funding in the years ahead, and there is potential for a recalibration in our natural heritage, historic environment and cultural organisations as a result.

It is part and parcel of not only providing a funding increase for the culture sector but changing the nature of funding across the sector. We are at the beginnings of that journey. I will not rule out changing the financial arrangements for other organisations in the light of what we learn from Historic Environment Scotland.

We should be prepared to think about the broad range of ways in which we can marshal the good will of people who want to support our heritage and culture sector. On a number of occasions, including in front of this committee, I have talked about opportunities through philanthropy, working with the sector both domestically and internationally. Some organisations are very good at raising money; understandably, those are usually the larger organisations, but there is potential for cultural organisations of all types to find financial support through philanthropy.

I am very interested in working out how we do that. How do we help people who want to be helpful? How do we help them identify which projects have the greatest need? I discussed those questions with the new chief executive of Historic Environment Scotland only yesterday, and I will be having those conversations with the rest of the sector, too.

A review of Creative Scotland that also considers the wider culture sector will give us pointers in that area. The Government does not have all the answers; indeed, that is why I have made my offer to colleagues. If anyone with a particular interest in any relevant area has views on how the culture sector or, in the case of HES, our historic environment, can be better supported—that is, what we can do more of, less of or differently—I am sure that Dame Sue Bruce would welcome all of them, and I genuinely encourage colleagues in that regard. It will help steer the remit of her review, her considerations and, no doubt, her conclusions, which we will all await with great interest.

I very much hope that that is not the case. One of the great hopes across the culture sector is that multiyear funding will be able to deliver the exact opposite of what you have described.

I do not diminish the fact that there have been significant pressures and existential challenges, particularly for cultural organisations with built property and the issues that Mr Stewart has narrated as being a challenge for them. I await Creative Scotland’s confirmation of its multiyear funding decisions, in the anticipation that it will significantly improve the funding of cultural organisations across Scotland and that it will be transformational for a great many of them.

I have no doubt that we will come back to that, but it is for Creative Scotland to announce its decision and its board still has to sign off on that.

On Mr Stewart’s point about things that are causing significant problems, many of which we have already discussed in committee, a relatively new one is employer national insurance contributions. That is a real challenge, not least because the expectation is that the United Kingdom Government’s offset for its decisions to introduce the tax on jobs will not cover all the overheads. The increase in national insurance contributions for cultural organisations at scale, such as our national galleries, national museums and the National Library of Scotland, is a significant deal. It did not need to be so. We have not yet had satisfactory answers from the UK Government on funding to offset it, but we are working on that. I acknowledge that that is a significant challenge.

On the general point, I welcome the fact that Mr Stewart describes the budget funding commitments as being welcome, because I think that they are. I am perhaps generally more of a glass-half-full person than he is, but I know that he is asking pointed questions to identify whether the Scottish Government understands that things have been very challenging in the culture sector. I understand that—I have said that before and do so now again—but I think that this year will see a significant change at scale for the culture sector.

In the current year, funding for culture has increased by £15.8 million. Next year, it will increase by £34 million. That will take us halfway towards our five-year aim of raising annual funding by £100 million. We will have done that in two years. I am trying to do it as quickly as I can. Any encouragement that colleagues can give within their parties to support reaching that target is gratefully received; it will make a big difference.

Even when we get there, there is no doubt that there will be more to do, Mr Stewart. However, we are on the right course and that is why it is important that we get the budget passed.