Chamber and committees

David Thomson joins us remotely. Do you have anything to add to that, with regard to how your sector is coping with the increases in the cost of doing business?

Please can we have Mr Thomson’s mic on?

I suppose that I am thinking about both, actually. The expert panel was advising the Government on the budget review, so have you had an input to that process?

This morning, Iain Munro gave us quite a bleak picture of the cultural sector, highlighting a real risk of contraction and concerns over closures, particularly for those organisations with buildings and infrastructure. During the pandemic, £151 million was put into the sector, and real efforts were made to support it through that crisis. Now, we are facing a second crisis, which, we were told earlier, is more significant than the crisis that we thought was so life changing for everybody. We are actually in a more difficult situation.

I know that the Government is under extreme financial pressure and that the budget review is all about looking for savings in order to invest in key areas. I think that we would all share the same view of what those key areas are, but the concern for cultural organisations, which make a huge contribution to tourism and our economy, is that, after everything that we have gone through, and when the country has already invested significant sums of public money in them, they could still collapse. I recognise how challenging that is for the Government to resolve, but is it also making the link with the fact that, two years ago, we spent a lot of public money in that area and that we cannot really let those organisations fail now?

I am sorry, convener—I know that we are pressed for time. However, one of the things highlighted in last year’s programme for government was a scheme that related to the percentage of Government spend going into culture, which is something that the Culture, Tourism, Europe and External Affairs Committee in the previous parliamentary session argued for and which might well be one solution for the Government. Is the Government making the link between the public money that went into the sector two years ago and what needs to happen now?

The scale of the challenge is immense and it is not going to be resolved through smaller projects. However, I again point out that, in the 2021-22 programme for government, the Government mentioned establishing a percentage for the arts scheme. Has any progress been made on that?

I have no relevant interests to declare.

You mentioned buildings as being core to this issue. Are the organisations that are most at risk the ones that have infrastructure and buildings, such as the major theatres, or does that problem go across the sector? Ian Munro may want to respond but Martin Booth might too, because many local authorities also have theatres and venues. Are they at greater risk because of factors such as rising energy costs?

Martin Booth, do you want to respond?

On the youth music initiative, you wrote to local authorities at an early stage to indicate that there could be a change in that funding. Are any of the other funding streams that are under the same kind of scrutiny still in that situation? Are organisations still expecting to get funding that might not materialise?

At the beginning of the meeting, you said that there was a risk of collapse. I think that you said that the Covid emergency support funding was £151 million, and lots of resources were provided by the Scottish Government and the United Kingdom Government to support the cultural sector through a difficult time. We are now facing crises with the cost of living and the cost of doing business. So far, the support is not comparable, but is the current situation as significant for the sector as the pandemic was?

My first question relates to something that we heard from the previous panel. We asked Iain Munro about the youth music initiative and he explained the situation with that. He said that other funding streams are being reviewed and that discussions are on-going. Do you know when those discussions are likely to conclude? Organisations will be waiting to hear what will happen to those funds.