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Yes, that is certainly part of the consideration. Committee members will realise that all our institutions that have a high throughput—a high number of visitors—have in recent years seen that income fall off a cliff. I do not have the HES numbers at the forefront of my mind, but I can share an example that I can remember. Yesterday, I was at the national museum of Scotland. Before Covid, its annual visitor numbers were 3 million, and in the past year, it managed to recover that figure to 1.5 million.

That is an illustration of the fact that there is still a way to go, but there is a huge opportunity if we—I say “we” in the royal sense, meaning the institutions, Government and everybody else that is involved in the culture and arts sector—can give people confidence to go back to museums, galleries and events. We should do what the convener highlighted, which is to make the most of the untapped and thus far not-included parts of the population who have not been able to make best use of things. Doing that will have an impact. I hope that for those whom the sector is an income stream, doing that will put them in a better financial position than they would have otherwise been.

I think that all the work on and thinking about the national care service give us a very exciting opportunity for this to be a priority right at the inception. As things are being put in place, the considerations about how things should come together and should work form part of our thinking right at the start. We will not have to add it on later; it is right there at the beginning. The timing is very opportune.

I will share where I think the challenge for all of us is. We agree with the concept, we understand that there is already good work going on and we know that there are nationally known organisations that are doing things in the culture space. That is one thing and, of course, it is a good thing. The example that Jenni Minto has given is the classic challenge. First, how do we ensure that there is an awareness of much that goes on out there in Scottish society that happens anyway? It is not necessarily funded by anybody. It could be voluntary or in the third sector, which are very good things. How do we make sure that there is an awareness that that is happening and how do we then make sure that those who are prescribing are also aware of that good work that is going on?

In a previous evidence session, we discussed how we can match up those sort of examples with those who will be socially prescribing. I do not think that we are there yet in working out how we can capture that information and make sure that the people who are in a position to socially prescribe, for example, participation in a scheme in Argyll can do that. I think that it will be much easier in the culture space to ask, “What is Scottish Ballet doing; what are other performing companies doing; what is National Museums Scotland doing; what is Historic Environment Scotland doing?” That is one thing. That will be quite easy to identify, because the memo will go out from culture central asking, “What is happening here?” but in the cultural part of Scottish Government and Creative Scotland and so on, how do we know what is happening in Argyll? How do we work through that? We will have to make sure that we are capturing that.

I have said this to the committee before: politicians do not do culture, nor should we. It is for people who do culture and the arts to have the support that they need, and therein, yes, let a thousand flowers bloom, but we are trying to work out how we can incorporate all of the great practice that is going on out there and match that up with what we are trying to do in, in this example, health and social care. I am not sure that I have the answer to Jenni Minto’s question. I have ideas. I am not sure that there is an answer but, as long as we are asking the question, I think that we have a better chance of getting there.

It is a pleasure, as always—it seems like I am here every week—to be back before the committee. I welcome the opportunity to discuss the resource spending review for the constitution, external affairs and culture portfolio and, in particular, the important synergies between the culture side of the portfolio and the health and social care portfolio.

As the resource spending review proceeds, we want to hear about the experiences and views of the people who use public services and those who help us deliver them. It is helpful to have the committee’s views, drawing on the evidence that you have received. In addition, there is, as you know, a public consultation that closes on 27 March.

The review is an opportunity to bring about longer-term financial planning to March 2026 for bodies that are funded directly by the Government and organisations that are funded through those bodies. That is what the culture sector, in particular, has been seeking, through evidence to your committee and its predecessor, for some time.

The committee is a champion for securing more resources for the portfolio that it oversees, which is understandable for any subject committee. You will not be surprised to hear, however, that I and my cabinet colleagues will face some difficult choices to live within the total resources, without borrowing powers at our disposal and as the pressure on public services continues to grow.

To finish on a more positive note, the review gives us the opportunity to be discussing joint approaches at a strategic level, given the positive potential of culture to contribute to health and wellbeing outcomes. We are agreed about how vital the contribution of culture is to our shared goals. Our culture strategy was published in February 2020, right before the start of the pandemic, which has disrupted its implementation. However, we have still made significant progress.

We have launched three innovative programmes: the Culture Collective, Arts Alive and creative communities. Together, those programmes are working to empower communities to develop cultural activities, bring creative residencies to education settings in areas of multiple deprivation and use cultural projects as a positive diversion away from crime. We have also launched the national partnership for culture, which recently provided recommendations to ministers on the sector’s recovery and renewal.

The pandemic has shown us that the key message of the culture strategy—that culture and creativity are valuable in their own right and that everyone in Scotland has the right to a cultural life no matter where they live—is more important than ever. Culture is at the heart of who we are and underpins our economic, social and even environmental prosperity. Culture is, therefore, something that all parts of Government have a stake in. On that basis, we have been working to develop closer cross-portfolio relationships, including with health and social care services, and we will continue to prioritise that.

There is a parallel point to this, of course, which is that it is not just about health boards; where are local authorities as part of this conversation about being joined up? There are some outstanding examples of local authorities and their arts officers, for example, who are already doing a lot of the work in the area that we are talking about. How are we pulling together all this best practice as we go forward with things? We all know that different local authorities have their own local priorities, and that is quite right and proper. Some will view the likes of arts officers as being a priority; in other places, they will not.

There is a conversation to be had and I am very careful not to be steering and instructing local government colleagues on this front, but if we are agreeing that it is a national priority—I count some of the local arts officers as personal friends of mine, so I know exactly the value that they bring and especially in the areas that we have been talking about—how do we bring all this together to make sure that we are delivering across the piece and across government? Bringing people into this at a local level, as well as national Government and then local authorities on a national level through the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, is definitely one of the pieces that make up the jigsaw puzzle of getting us to where we want to get to in this area.

There is so much in those questions; thank you for asking them.

On the recovery plan, we have already discussed the most important thing from a Government perspective, which is getting the Government to understand that culture is important across the Government—in other words, mainstreaming that thinking about an approach across Government. This is an example and is what we are talking about today. We have identified that and we are doing it and trying our best to work our way through it.

We have received the recommendations that you mentioned, which will be published shortly. We should look closely at the recommendations and take them seriously. I am happy to come back when we are at that stage.

I go back to your question about where we will be in a year’s time, which is exactly the right question. I know where you all will be and I know where I will be, because I will be sitting in this chair and you will be saying, “We are year on from you saying that the Government was starting to do this and that.” We are not beginning from a position where progress has not been made since Christie. Progress has been made, but how do we scale it up, and how do we get it delivered right across the country? That is the challenge. We will have to play our part in making sure that we are delivering, bearing in mind the constraints that you identified.

However, I am optimistic. For one thing, I think that there is consensus that this is what needs to happen. I am not sure that you have heard any evidence that our approach is not the way that we should be taking things forward, so there is consensus. The issue is how we make that happen—and happen consistently. I am optimistic that there will be considerable change and improvement. I am excited about playing a part in making that happen, because I think that it will be transformational for people. We just need to make sure that we are doing it in a way that reaches as many people as possible.

I will be back, but I am not waiting a year.

Before she took up her responsibilities for transport, Jenny Gilruth was in dialogue with local authorities about this very area. As we might imagine, her successor Neil Gray is now very focused on supporting the refugees from Ukraine—and we wish him well in that work—but this dialogue definitely needs to continue to ensure that we better understand where things are with local authority partners. We can do more on this in partnership with local authority colleagues, and I am very keen that we do so.

My first reflection is that this is very much work in progress. The deputy convener’s illustration about different preferences for how one might seek synergies or different funding arrangements is a good example of the fact that people have very different views on the matter. Finding the appropriate way into Government, and through different parts of it, is part of the challenge that we are trying to pick our way through.

We are being very well advised. I made reference in my opening statement to a number of ways in which we are being advised to think about how we can mainstream, in my area, culture and the arts in other parts of the Government. Obviously, there is a particular focus today on the broader health area.

The challenge for the Government is to work out how we can remain flexible and adapt to the various potential ways in which culture and the arts can deliver in partnership with health. The health secretary and I have already met to discuss the matter, and we are both extremely open minded about how we do that.

There are already some really good examples of things working. I take heart from the fact that we are not trying to reinvent the wheel. We are trying to work out, on the basis of a lot of advice in recent years, particularly on health, mental health and wellbeing, how we can deliver across the piece. That is the challenge for us all.

We are not at an end point, but we are definitely at a stage at which we are keen to hear people’s priorities—I know that our civil service colleagues who are attending this meeting are also extremely keen to learn from different stakeholders—to make sure that we remain flexible and think about different ways in which we can deliver. We are doing much of that already, but if there is evidence that we should be thinking about things in new ways, we will consider that. We are not set in old ways. We are keen to adopt best practice if we can.

I keep saying this to the committee, but it is a genuinely held view: I am keen to hear the committee’s advice on the issue. We are in a sweet spot at the moment, as we are thinking about all this and trying to find the mechanisms to make it work, and we very much look forward to the examples that you might give through your questions or in your report.

Indeed. This is not just a social prescribing issue. For example, mental health outcomes, as worthy as they are, and as important as they are in the Government’s priorities, also present a huge opportunity to address other priorities, such as dealing with social deprivation. I think that, as you outlined, much more can be done to ensure greater accessibility in relation to our natural environment and built heritage. I have been talking with colleagues in culture about what we can do to bridge that gap. There are a number of imaginative ways in which we can do that, and there are some encouraging ways in which we can scale that up quite quickly.

You are asking the right question. We are still at the stage of working out how we can bridge that gap. However, this all needs to be seen within the context of the spending constraints that we are operating under. The Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy sits virtually in my mind, because we are having to be extremely thoughtful about what we are able to do to make bridging that gap happen within those constraints, for example by finding imaginative ways of doing so that might not cost money, or by identifying other funding streams. However, for me the key point is that we have to make it happen. How, then, do we do that? That is where the discussion is. Again, if the committee has views on that, I am very keen to hear them because I think that there are ways of finding and marshalling resources that should make it possible. I am very keen to make sure that it happens.