Seòmar agus comataidhean

I have a final question. In response to quite a few of our comments, all our witnesses have spoken about the need for cross-governmental approaches and for not seeing the issue as relating to health budgets in isolation.

Also there has been a heavy emphasis on having a more systematic approach to gathering data and evidence to show that preventative approaches work. If I might play devil’s advocate a little, I suggest that perhaps we need to be less focused on that data and evidence. Let us imagine that, somewhere out there, there is a parallel world in which Scotland has already got to grips with the issue and has deeply embedded a preventative approach to health, including mental health, right across Government. I suggest that, in that world, in economic policy, transport policy, food policy and all sorts of other areas, decisions would routinely be made in the knowledge that their health effects would not be felt for many years. Therefore, the least-cost or quickest options would often be set aside; the policy choices that would boost economic growth—or whatever the other immediate Government objectives might be—would not be prioritised; and the Government would accept that evidence for any health impact would be felt over a much longer period than it is realistic to measure.

Brian Whittle is right about the effect of the short-term political cycle, which runs for five years. However, there is a much longer-term cycle—which runs across decades of people’s lives—over which the impact of genuinely preventative approaches to health problems will be felt. Do we not need to be just a little bit less rigorous about saying that preventative approaches must be able to show the same robust data as would be provided for, say, a vaccine programme?

Good morning. Still on prevention, as I did with the last panel I would like to ask two questions, one about the current state of affairs and one about how we would be doing things differently if we were really serious about this.

Before I ask the question about the current state of affairs, it is important to acknowledge the point that has been made that this is not about berating your organisations for the position that you are in. Some of the decisions that you are having to make are the result of a shared responsibility. It is important that we acknowledge that. Some of it is about legislative decisions that the Parliament has made; some of it is about budget decisions that the Government has made; some of it is about the United Kingdom’s approach to setting budgets late and having no multiyear funding for Scotland, which has a knock-on effect; and some of it is about wider circumstances, whether it is 15 years of austerity, the pandemic, the cost of living crisis, overpriced, insecure housing or underpaid and insecure work. All those circumstances face us and we have a shared responsibility for it. I want to acknowledge that before I come on to the decisions that some of your organisations are making in that context and are maybe unable to avoid making.

Is it fair to say that we are seeing prevention being put into the Government’s strategies, plans and policies but decisions being made routinely to cut really important services that act in the interests of preventing poor health and mental health outcomes? I mentioned in the earlier session community mental health teams, specialist trauma support, counselling for survivors of sexual violence, employability support and ADHD assessments for adults. All those things have been subject to cuts just in my own area alone, and there will be similar stuff happening around the country. I said that we are firefighting while we are setting fires. To torture another metaphor, we are forcing people to try to run up the down escalator to get anything done. Is that a fair and accurate assessment of the current situation?

In short, when we see the Scottish Government’s budget—this is pre-budget scrutiny; we have not seen the budget yet—how should we judge whether it will continue to put your organisations and others in that invidious position or whether it will be adequate to start to allow us to take prevention commitments from policy into reality? What is the test?

I am not sure that any of us will want to comment on it in that case, even when we see the budget.

Finally, if we were already taking a much deeper approach to prevention for mental health and the other challenges that we are facing in how we do cross-governmental working, how we shift within budgets and how we prevent some of the bad actors in the private sector from making decisions that impact negatively on people’s health and wellbeing, is it reasonable to say that we would still be holding some of these preventative health investment decisions to the same evidential standard? Some of these decisions are, by definition, really long term, and they will have a pay-off only over many years, potentially even decades. How do we get to a point where people can make and justify such decisions, which really cannot be evidenced in the way that a short-term decision can be?

Good morning. A couple of you have touched on the challenges of climate and net zero, but I want to focus on the issue a little more.

Obviously, we face hugely significant challenges around older buildings, newer buildings or, indeed, investment in replacements. Anne Lyden, you might want to talk a little bit about the Granton project, which has still not been given construction funding, unless there has been a change since you raised that issue in your submission.

The argument that is put around multiyear funding is relevant to pretty much every aspect of this topic, and capital investment, in particular, is difficult even to plan for in the absence of that long-term certainty. The lack of a capital funding stream specifically from Creative Scotland has been flagged up.

Can you tell us a little bit about how your organisations, or the wider sector, can even begin to grapple with the challenges of climate and sustainability in the absence of that long-term certainty? What kind of delivery model would be effective in giving you the ability to do that, particularly in light of the argument that the National Galleries submission makes that delaying decisions on projects such as the Granton one increases costs?

You would expect me, as a Green politician, to be a big fan of things such as Passivhaus building projects that will massively reduce carbon emissions and energy costs. However, reducing energy costs is also a good business choice for the long term. Such projects require capital investment, but as well as reducing carbon emissions, they will save money, particularly for energy-hungry buildings.

You have made the case that the Granton project is a multi-disciplinary and cross-portfolio project, as it meets health, education, culture and climate objectives. However, I think that a lot of committees would reflect on the difficulty, in good times and bad economically, of getting joined-up decision making for projects that will deliver multiple objectives for the Government, and that that can be a barrier to getting projects over the line. Has that been a major issue?

Do you think that the sector more broadly—beyond the areas where it is just a person with a mic—could tolerate the idea of some conditionality around public funding to drive up the use of circular economy approaches, so that they become the norm?

I think I feel a local visit in Glasgow coming on.

I will put my final question on this theme to Tony Lankester, because it is perhaps more relevant to the Edinburgh festival fringe and to other aspects of performance arts.

There are challenges around the approach of productions to the circular economy and to achieving sustainability by reusing resources. Many productions have a bad track record of repeatedly buying new and throwing away. Whether it is stage or screen, a great many productions in the sector could do a great deal better with regard to embedding circular economy approaches.

I recently met ReSet Scenery, which is doing its best to try to get people throughout the sector to reuse materials. However, that kind of activity is going on at a low level. Is there any element of conditionality on culture funding, as there is in some other sectors of the economy, whereby, if the Government is going to support something, it sets environmental standards and conditions and drives those up over time, so that something like the circular economy becomes the norm rather than the exception?

Can the other witnesses add anything about how your organisations and the sector are dealing with the net zero challenge, or what needs to change to enable you to do it better?