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Pat Togher made the point that, initially, people might not say exactly what their circumstances are, so this is about how we connect with them afterwards and having translation capacity. Hazel, how are you moving ahead with that? I presume that it will be quite a challenge.

It has been really good hearing the answers to the questions thus far from members of the panel.

I will ask about support for people who have made it to Scotland. It is complicated for many people to arrive here. As one of the witnesses said, we have 18,000 expressions of interest from people who are prepared to host refugees from Ukraine. I am conscious that a lot of the people who have been in touch have already improved or decorated their housing and bought new furniture to be ready for people.

One of the witnesses said that there is an issue with what happens when the match is not right. I want to explore that. It will not be easy for everybody to do the work of hosting a family once they have arrived. What follow-up work is being done to check that matches have worked? If they do not work for whatever reason, the family or person does not automatically become homeless. I have spoken to Afghan and Syrian refugees recently, some of whom are still homeless years after arriving, particularly Syrian refugees.

I ask Gayle Findlay to pick up that question from an overall COSLA perspective first.

It is really useful to get feedback on that. It needs to happen because, as you say, it is not necessarily about people falling out. It is just a reality check. It could be about the food that is eaten if somebody is vegan, for example, and all the other things that cannot necessarily be predicted before people arrive.

The other issue that I wanted to ask about was safeguarding, not just for an initial matching process but for follow-ups. What support will be there for families? I am thinking particularly about people who have come from Ukraine having experienced sexual abuse, or who have had contact with traffickers because of the length of time that it has taken for them to get to safety. What follow-up work is being done to provide support—for example, mental health support—as well as making sure that there are not just checks carried out once by Disclosure Scotland but a follow-up process for people?

If you want to keep going on that one, Gayle Findlay—

On one level, that is very heartening—the cabinet secretaries are saying the kind of things that we like to hear. However, in a year’s time, post-pandemic, what will you be able to show us that has changed? As the convener said, Mr Yousaf, we are 11 years on from the Christie commission and we have not seen transformative change. We can all quote brilliant local projects, but they are facing massive post-pandemic pressure, and the evidence that we heard earlier in the meeting was that local authorities have had a decade of cuts and that culture is not core funded.

In 2026, GP access will be a real issue—that is 15 years on from Christie—and both of you have basically said that preventative spending is not just good but very important for pandemic recovery. What is the kick-start approach to delivery on the ground?

It feels like we lobby the cabinet secretary for culture weekly, but you have the big budget that has the potential to cut right across our communities. What can happen in the health budget that is transformative? It is not just about link workers, but about them working with local projects on the ground so that those projects are still there in a year’s time.

I will kick off with a question about whether we need core funding for community and cultural facilities, which are clearly integral to successful outcomes and the delivery of wider mental health and wellbeing benefits. The evidence that we have received shows that the financial pressures on councils over the past decade have particularly impacted on libraries, which are a key service for young people to be able to read, overcome educational inequalities and gain confidence. They are also important for older people and people accessing digital services.

The Accounts Commission said that funding for cultural services is not statutory, so they face “budget reductions” when local authorities face pressures. Is there an issue about core funding for local authorities? Should that be part of the process and do the heavy lifting—mentioned by lots of our witnesses during budget evidence—at community level to make the interconnections that some of you have talked about? I will start with Carol Calder from Audit Scotland.

That is helpful and clear evidence. It is 10 years since the Christie commission report, which basically said that we need more investment in such services to deliver on health and wellbeing and to support people with mental health issues. Given the pressures from the pandemic, should there not be more of a focus on those services as we come out of it to enable community investment to deliver on the transformative change that Christie recommended? Both the Auditor General and the interim chair of the Accounts Commission were very strong on that. What needs to change in capacity for local government to have the expenditure to put directly into Christie commission priorities, which would then take pressure off immediate front-line challenges?

The Auditor General for Scotland published a blog entitled “Christie’s clarion call can’t wait another decade”, and, in October, the interim chair of the Accounts Commission published “Christie—it really is now or never”. Those are the representations that we are trying to get to centre stage.

We have had evidence from SENScot, Creative Scotland, Audit Scotland and COSLA that highlights the massive pressures arising from the pandemic. The cabinet secretary for culture will know about those—we have talked about them. The issue is what the recovery strategy will look like and what will change.

I am particularly interested in your views, cabinet secretary, on the recommendations from the national partnership for culture. Where will the funding come from? It could come from the culture budget, the health budget or the local government budget, but the question is what those funding streams will look like as part of a recovery plan. I am thinking about not just the short term but the long-term, multiyear funding that we have had calls for.

I was being a bit facetious, cabinet secretary.

Just to clarify, I did not say there had been no progress since Christie.