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To be clear, it is not an either/or: you need continued capital investment in buildings and a bit of flexibility. The short-termism of funding is coming across really strongly, given the impact that that has on the whole of our heritage. I will come on to museums and galleries in a second.

Okay; thank you. I want to put that same issue to Sir John Leighton and Lucy Casot. In your written submissions, you both talk about short-termism. I think that the word “projectism” was used—that is, one-off annual spending.

One of the things that we have been taking evidence on is the contribution of culture to health and wellbeing. Both your submissions make quite powerful points in that regard. Will you say a bit more about that? Sir John, your organisation’s submission mentions the need for

“determined leadership from the Scottish Government.”

We have asked cabinet secretaries about that and their response has been to say, “It is coming at some point”. What leadership and investment would be needed to transform what you could deliver?

It was good to read the report. I have a couple of questions about how you effectively market the BBC to people in Scotland. The “Ofcom Annual Report on the BBC 2020-2021” highlighted that

“some audience groups have lower satisfaction with the BBC, such as disabled audiences, those in Scotland and those from less-well-off backgrounds.”

To what extent are you reaching out to those audiences? We have talked a little about different ways to access TV. I am interested in future viewers, and younger people in particular. What is your strategy to address those issues in a Scottish context and the diversity issue in audience ratings?

The other side of that is career opportunities for young people. You have talked a bit about production in Scotland. Can you give me a sense of production across Scotland? Obviously, a lot of the production is in Glasgow, but what about the rest of the country?

I want to pick up the particular issue of BBC News. To what extent is that focused across the country or mainly on Glasgow? What are the opportunities for young people to get into the sector—into journalism or behind the camera?

It would be good to get that feedback to compare with the stats that your team gave me earlier. Thank you.

Thanks. That is really clear. Given the comments that Jenni Minto made about the situation being “sobering”, your answer reinforces the need for money now and clarity going forward.

Lucy Casot, it was striking that you referenced 440 museums in Scotland and those organisations’ capacity to cope with the cost of living crisis and keep the doors open. Do you want to say a bit about multiyear funding and the need for more funding generally to get through this?

I thank everyone for their answers. That last discussion really reinforces the need to think about how we get the cross-government working that Kirsty Cumming referred to very powerfully. We have had discussions about health, wellbeing and culture and the potential benefits. With the budget coming up this year, we need to think about how we make that more explicit. Witnesses have given the committee powerful information about how to make processes and KPIs more straightforward, given the differences between very big organisations and smaller, lighter-foot, community-based organisations.

A couple of witnesses have mentioned staff changes over Covid, which is also mentioned in the submissions. We took evidence about that when we talked to venues about Covid earlier in the year and I think that it is in Prospect’s evidence. The loss of young people from the sector because they do not see it as providing a long-term career seems significant. Is the sector doing work to try to retain people and their skills and to make it a continuing career option for young people?

Thank you for those responses. It is clear that the issue has arisen in much lower-income areas. On communications with those communities, I asked about lessons from across the UK on numbers and outputs. People were surprised by the lower response rates. What lessons about communications for the future does the cabinet secretary draw from the census? Do we need education and stronger communications before the census, so that people are aware of it and prioritise it, given that important decisions are subsequently made on the basis of returns?

Cabinet secretary, you refer to changes in society’s attitude, which you also referenced in your ministerial statement. How much work have you done on that issue? You just flagged that other countries delayed their censuses, but what are the comparative differences with the 2021 census in the rest of the UK in terms of low-turnout areas, and what lessons do you draw from those differences? What will the issues be going forward, because we have not had the same level of lower turnout rates historically?

It has been good to hear your powerful evidence today in addition to the submissions that we have had from lots of organisations. I cannot think of a committee meeting when we have had phrases such as “a perfect storm”, “dire financial situation” and “crisis” being mentioned by so many witnesses, not just here but in written evidence. Therefore, I am thinking about how we fix it and what evidence we need to take back to the Parliament. Quite a lot of comments have been made about the percent for art scheme and the transient visitor levy as potentially important new additional moneys. However, they tend not to be something that you could guarantee everywhere at the same time. Therefore, they might be important, but what about the overall status of culture?

In their joint submission to the committee, COSLA and the local government directors of finance said that funding in the collective cultural area in local authorities had been cut by nearly a quarter in the eight years pre Covid. Therefore, there is an issue with a reduction in funding at the local level. The committee also heard the comments about the challenge of flat funding at a time when all your costs are rocketing. Do you have thoughts on the equivalence of culture spending? It is not statutory, so should the committee recommend something on the status of funding for culture, given the complexity on the ground and all the evidence that we have seen in our work on social prescribing about the wider benefits of culture? There are benefits for health, wellbeing and the economy. How do we capture that in order to say that culture is important and needs proper funding? Does anyone have thoughts on how we ensure that it is ranked properly?