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That is a great question. I have to be absolutely clear that, as somebody who has been in the Scottish Parliament only since May and who has been a cabinet secretary for only a few short months, I do not have personal insight into the 10-year horizon that Mr Cameron talked about. However, I spend probably more than half of my working day on Teams calls with colleagues across Government discussing how Government is joined up, and I certainly get the impression that there is a genuine effort across Government to try to make that work, whether it is in relation to the economy or elsewhere.

We are about to embark on that in the cultural sphere. I can reflect on the fact that there is a sincere effort to make that approach work in other areas. I give Mr Cameron the assurance that I am keen to ensure that it works, and he will want to be sure that it is working. Only when we can come back and he can interrogate the extent to which it is taking place will I be able to answer that question. However, I can say that my intention is to try to make it work, and perhaps bringing the insights of a relative newcomer will be helpful in that.

It bodes well that everybody who I speak to seems to think that it is a tremendously good idea. If people were not aware that there are benefits in working beyond the culture and arts silo, we would be in difficulty. The fact that people recognise the health and education benefits as well as the possible benefits for the justice system in certain settings makes me optimistic that, if we can harness the awareness and willingness to do something, we can really make that approach deliver. However, the member will need to satisfy himself that that is what will actually happen once we have launched the strategy and we are getting on with delivering it.

I again go back to the symbiotic relationship between the committee and the Government. Perhaps I am a hopelessly idealistic newcomer in this regard, but you need to know that the work that you do influences people like me and my civil service colleagues. Your considerations are important because we have different time constraints and time limitations. For example, the thoughtful approach that you were able to take recently in your focus group work was absolutely invaluable. I leave that thought with the convener and deputy convener. It is a way in which you can influence the Government and ensure that it delivers. I am keen to work with you on that as we jointly try to deliver a joined-up approach.

I would add to that, because another little yellow Post-it note for us to take away in relation to our cultural recovery and renewal strategy is about exactly the point that Mr Golden makes: co-operation. It would obviously be a good thing that, right across the Scottish Government, we think about how culture and the arts is mainstreamed in all our thinking. However, there is absolutely no reason why we would not encourage that broader understanding to also involve local authorities, which have a delivery responsibility and which, as my colleague has just pointed out, spend a significant amount of money on culture.

The short answer is yes. Expanding on that, it behoves us all to support those who are delivering this—whether that is the management of museums or other cultural organisations—to reimagine the cultural recovery that we are all in favour of. We should not simply seek to go back to where we were pre-Covid; we should realise that much has changed. You made the point that we are enjoying and consuming culture in ways that we did not do before, and that should make a difference to our thinking about our policy and budgetary approach. We are alive to that and in the middle of that process. When we come back to the committee at the stage when budgets have been agreed and processes have been gone through, I will be more than content to share with you and reflect on the extent to which we have been guided by an awareness of those changes.

In passing, I note that I have been keen to say to civil service colleagues and cultural organisations that we are not the only people in the cultural and arts world who are going through this. Every other country in the world is having to grapple with the impact of the pandemic and many countries have experienced a similar impact, with a lack of public access to facilities, a drop in income and concern about how one recovers or intends to recover. I have been keen to impress on everybody who is involved that we should be trying to learn lessons from elsewhere as well as from here. There is not a monopoly on common sense in Scotland, so I am keen to work out the best way in which we can learn and emulate best practice from elsewhere. Given that we are in this process, I will be happy to feed back to the committee on what we have and have not learned, to ensure that we can do this as well as we can.

That is a well-timed question. I welcome Mr Ruskell to the committee. I think that he is aware of the announcement that the Scottish Government made this week on funding for Sistema, which has been warmly welcomed by that organisation. I am sure that all members know intimately what Sistema does and how it literally transforms the learning experience of young people but, for anybody who is watching the proceedings, I note that it is an excellent example of a primarily culturally focused intervention that indisputably has an impact on the more general quality of people’s lives and, hopefully, as a knock-on consequence, on their opportunities in life.

Mr Ruskell’s point is, in its own way, an optimal example of the point that I made in my sneak preview, which you have kindly invited me to give even more insight on—forgive me, but I will have to resist that. I reiterate the point, because Sistema is a good example of a project that has an impact across Government responsibility. I am keen that the benefits are understood among colleagues whose primary responsibility might be health, education or justice. I am sure that many of the benefits are understood, because we are parliamentarians representing a constituency or a region, so we are aware of the impact that some projects have. However, I genuinely hope that mainstreaming that thinking across Government will help to deliver on the aspirations that we have in the culture strategy and the programme for government. Sistema is possibly one of the best examples of that.

Forgive me, but I am not going to show any more leg on the creative recovery strategy. I am sure that we will come back to that and I hope that it will be worthy of the ambition, because it should be.

I should first declare an interest, having attended Broughton high school, which is a specialist music school in Scotland’s state system. I was a normal school pupil and not in the music unit, but I had the benefit of being around people who were. In general, the school had a tremendous musical aspect in the education of pupils, which encouraged some of us, me included, to play for the Edinburgh secondary schools orchestra. I do not claim to have been a tremendous violin player—I was at the back of the second violins—but it was great to be part of that.

I am sharing with you my personal experience to show that I understand how transformational music in the broadest sense is for young people and the importance of encouraging music tuition and its take-up. I am delighted that, in its programme for government, the Scottish Government included commitments on that, and that those have been and are being taken forward.

That is another example of the cross-Government approach between culture and education. The committee needs to know that I am keen on supporting that. My officials know that I am keen to understand how the commitments on which the Scottish Government was elected are delivered. I want music tuition to go from strength to strength. I want take-up to be possible for kids everywhere, and not just for those who have the good fortune, as I happened to have, of being in a school with a particularly strong musical tradition. There are places where that is less the case. We have good organisations such as El Sistema that deliver among the most deprived communities, but there are other communities that perhaps fall between those positions. We have to try to ensure that we impact on young people’s lives as best we can right across the country.

It is a good kind of question. We could probably come up with a list of questions like it, against which a joined-up approach could be measured. I am not trying to introduce a whole series of new metrics—I am looking at the speed with which my civil service colleagues here are writing notes about my suggestion. However, the issue that Donald Cameron raises is a case in point. I suspect that, if people furth of the culture and arts world are encouraged to open up pathways so that people can get the benefits of our cultural institutions, some will be quicker than others to do that. To what extent does one have to pull and to what extent does one have to push for that to succeed?

We are talking about a cultural change—in the small c sense—in how we see culture. With hand on heart, I cannot honestly say that I know exactly how that will turn out. However, I know that we do not have an alternative, because we need to encourage kids, particularly those from deprived communities, to learn that cultural institutions and offerings are for them as much as they are for anybody else.

Creative Scotland has deduced from some of its research a statistic that only 30 per cent of people know how to access information on cultural events. That is probably surprising for those of us who go to such events and who know where to look. If we take that at face value, we have to accept the profound disconnect with a significant part of society. That is why we need a joined-up approach, with doctors prescribing or encouraging such activity, or schools helping kids to go to places that they would never normally go, instilling in them the sense that it is worth going back, and encouraging them to go with their parents. As I said, there is no alternative. That is another example of where good thinking on the committee’s part will encourage us to think about how we can deliver that across Government.

I am delighted to have been joined by David Seers, head of sponsorship and funding, and Bettina Sizeland, deputy director for tourism and major events, who are very much involved in such considerations at a technical level in the civil service.

A degree of at least medium-term financial security seems an obvious and understandable demand from organisations. It allows people to concentrate on their core cultural roles instead of having to spend what many might feel, when measured against their wish to deliver culture, to be a disproportionate amount of time securing funding. As a result, our three-year approach will be hugely beneficial to the organisations that will be impacted by the change.

This is very much work in progress, and I do not know whether the colleagues who have joined me have anything to add. I should also say that this is the first time that I have taken part in pre-budget proceedings at a Scottish Parliament committee. I will endeavour to answer every question that you have, but we might hit areas where I do not have specialist knowledge. If so, I will defer to civil service colleagues. I will also be happy to write to the committee to fill in any gaps and I will, of course, be happy to come back to the committee at any stage.

Understood. The last time that I gave evidence to the committee, I had benefited from the experience of having recently visited the Postcode Lottery. I was interested to note that that organisation has regular community-accessible events, at which people who are interested in drawing down funding can learn about the process and get an understanding of the best ways to apply. They are almost helped through the process. The default position is, “We wish to support community organisations.”

Another lesson that we can look at is how bodies furth of Government do the work that they do. Obviously, we are the Government, so it is public money that we disburse. Therefore, we are in a quite different position. If we lowered our standards for financial compliance, transparency and so on, the committee would, rightly, be the first to say, “Hold on a second.” I would not want to do that, but I am seized of the opportunity that we have to learn lessons of best practice, and not just from within Government.

I have widened the scope, convener.

I am not going to give a lengthy answer to Sarah Boyack, but her point is well timed and well made. In my circle of friends, there is at least one person who works in the cultural scene as a freelancer in the arts environment. He delivers his work to younger people, to older people in care settings and in other environments. What we are able to do to allow freelancers to take part fully in the cultural recovery and renewal process should definitely be part of our considerations. I say this with a smile on my face, but I should probably declare that any such decisions that I would make would not be for the benefit of any friend of mine who might be active on the scene.

The general point is well made. What we found at the beginning of the Covid experience was that freelancers were not covered by Government support measures, which is another reason for our taking the issue away and thinking as best we can about them, what they do and what they offer.

I will reflect on the focus group evidence that the committee took, which I have read in full. There were some helpful insights from those who took part in the process, particularly on the approach to budgeting and drawing down Scottish Government funds. There are definitely lessons to be learned.

Members will understand that there is a balance to be struck between ensuring that funds are disbursed on an equitable and logical basis—so that the organisations that are in charge of disbursal can then satisfy people such as you as to how that operates—and at the same time trying to do that in a way that is not disadvantageous to smaller groups.

I am cognisant of the fact that, the larger an organisation gets, the more capacity and experience it will have to enable it to satisfy the criteria for financial applications. Sarah Boyack mentioned smaller organisations that do not have comparable capacity to apply for funds. There was some feedback in the focus group evidence about people having to make multiple applications and being turned down, then finally being accepted and receiving lesser sums than they had applied for. It is helpful to understand that that is the reality for many people in the process.

Examples were also given in evidence to the committee in which people said that the system that they were involved in worked well, so I do not take the view that the system is not working; I think that it is working. However, as we move forward, I am keen to discuss the issue with colleagues. The paper that Bettina Sizeland described is, at its heart, about how we help the cultural sector to bounce back. If people are finding it difficult to access funds, they will find it incredibly difficult to bounce back. I want to discuss that with officials as part of the wider cultural recovery approach that we will take in the months ahead.

We should definitely listen to the voices of those who have given evidence to the committee. To my mind, that is a really good example of the symbiotic relationship that I hope we have with you as a Scottish Parliament committee. You can identify the lived reality in cultural organisations so that we as the Government can listen to them and work out whether the systems that we have in place are as fit for purpose as we can make them.

It is a two-part answer to your two-part question. I am aware of the issue and I thank you for the evidence on it. I am considering the issue together with colleagues as part of the cultural strategy that we are considering right now. Our work has to be guided by continuous improvement and, if we can make improvements, we should do so.