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The first thing to say is to assure Mr Halcro Johnston that work with local government is indeed on-going. Not that long ago, I met the culture conveners of local authorities—the people who are responsible for the provision of culture by local authorities, of all parties and none—and there was a shared commitment to maintaining cultural infrastructure, which is delivered currently—

Among other things, that funding is important for local government. I was able to point to the increased funding that is being delivered for local authorities. We have to work in partnership with local authorities to ensure that the entirety of the country has a provision of cultural service, which goes back to the initial question by Mr Brown.

Mr Halcro Johnston began his questioning with the youth music initiative and that is a good example of cultural intervention by the Scottish Government leading to delivery in every single local government area. I also draw Mr Halcro Johnston’s attention to the new youth arts open fund, which is based on the YMI model but is for other art forms. Not only do we have a model that the Scottish Government is delivering right across the country; we are trying to broaden its range to include other art forms.

Is there an on-going conversation with local authorities and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities about making sure that provision is retained right across the country? Yes, there is, and that will continue, but I am happy to confirm that that conversation is a positive one, with a commitment on both sides that we want to deliver across Scotland.

I think that Mr Bibby was here at the start of the evidence session when I confirmed the numbers to the committee—

I also took the opportunity to say that, in delivering the remainder of the £30 million uplift, which we are delivering in excess of the calls from those from Opposition parties, including Mr Bibby, my focus—

My focus in the next budgetary cycle is the national performing companies.

The Government does not have any plans, and it has not received any detailed proposals from any political party, including the Scottish Labour Party, for there to be a change to the budgetary process. If Mr Bibby wishes to confirm a detailed proposal, I would be happy to look at it. If Mr Bibby wants to send me his workings as to where he would wish to see cuts elsewhere in the culture budget and how it could be reallocated, I await that with keen interest.

This is the subject of correspondence that I have had with Mr Bibby—

Mr Adam is right to talk about the wider benefits that the national performing companies provide and to say that they have the commercial opportunity to grow. We have not addressed the wider benefits of culture and the arts and the national performing companies play a leading role in that. Look at what they do in education and outreach, for example. All of them are best in class in what they are aspiring to and in what they are already delivering.

I will go through a couple of examples, just so I can acknowledge them on the record: Scottish Ballet launching itself as a national centre for dance health, Scottish Opera providing long Covid resources, the RSNO’s schools programme, and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s residency in Craigmillar—we are talking about communities that might not traditionally feel that they have a connection with the national performing companies or what they perform. I should also mention the National Trust for Scotland and its schools programme.

Our national performing companies do a lot to reach out educationally, culturally, societally and in the health context. Last night, Mr Harvie and I were at a meeting about the benefit of the intervention of our cultural sector on the health of the nation. There was a contribution from an academic in London who spoke about the environmental impact that that has in terms of people feeling a bit better, as well as about metrics that demonstrate the impact of culture. Our national performing companies play a leading role in that. That is one of the reasons why I am so seized of the importance of delivering the resources, so that they are able not just to do that but to do more.

I hope that Mr Kerr will acknowledge that any cabinet secretary or portfolio goes through the budget process seeking to draw down as much as is possible. As I have already said to the committee, it would have been an absolute dream to be able to deliver a £100 million increase in the culture and arts sector in one year. That would have been tremendous, and it would mean that we would not be having this conversation.

However, we have been able to deliver year-on-year increases to the culture and arts sector. As I hope Mr Kerr will appreciate, introducing multiyear funding through Creative Scotland, for the record number of organisations that it has, is a foundational change, which has a very big ticket price. The challenge is to continue to deliver the funding for more than a year, because we have not been able to do that before. That would presume that a Parliament would vote for it and that, if people wanted me to redirect funding from one part of the culture budget to another, they would outline what they think is not worthy of support.

As I have pointed out to the committee, the biggest single item that we are delivering in the increase in this year’s culture budget is the part that is absolutely necessary to deliver multiyear funding. If we were to redirect resources towards the national performing companies in this financial year, it would most likely be at the cost of multiyear funding, and I am not prepared to do that.

10:45

Mr Kerr asked whether I acknowledge that that causes challenges to the national performing companies, and that they may have to make decisions that they consider to be disadvantageous and not do things such as touring and reaching different parts of the country that they would want to do if they had the resources in place. I accept all of that, because I am in regular dialogue with them. I understand what they do, and I am a big supporter of it. I want to be able to give them the resources that they require, to do what they want to do, to reach their full potential as quickly as possible.

I agree.