Chamber and committees

I have two or three questions for Jayne Jones. You have indicated, I think—I do not want to put words in your mouth—a wariness about local authorities spending too much time on reporting on their activities in connection with the plans. Does that also indicate a wariness about targets?

Is the continued existence of Gaelic-speaking communities among the aims of the framework?

Is having Gaelic-speaking communities in the future one of the aims and objectives that you have set yourself in the framework?

I thank the cabinet secretary for his opening remarks.

I do not know whether you heard the evidence from the previous panel about the benefit that our international offices provide. There is quite an interest in having more of those offices. What ambitions are there for further countries to benefit from a Scottish presence around the world?

Professor Nolan, you have talked about some of the stresses that the academic sector has faced in coping with events, let us say, post-Brexit. You mentioned the Northern Ireland protocol. Will you give us a picture of how much academic time or university time is being devoted to trying to resolve some of those problems? How are universities coping with that and working together to overcome the problems by trying to recreate things that used to exist or to find new opportunities?

We heard from the previous panel of witnesses that there is an opportunity now to draw together policies and activities in different strands of the Government’s work. That might be cultural activity, economic development and education. In thinking about where future offices might be, do you factor in how those offices could draw together different strands of Government activity and what the universities are saying about where they would like further activity?

You raised the subject of online learning and the opportunities that undoubtedly exist around that, but you also mentioned the aim of attracting people to Scotland. Are there any tensions between those things? Are there any potential threats, or are you confident that you can manage the new landscape? Many of us do not know quite what the new landscape of online learning looks like. Perhaps you could say a bit about that.

Mr Hampson, in relation to Professor Nolan’s last point, but also in relation to a point that you made about how you unify international strategy and policy, one of the traditional ways of doing that is through diplomacy. You touched on Scotland’s offices abroad. How do cultural organisations get the most out of those offices? Should we have more of them?

I turn to international development, which is another area that is your responsibility, although you have a new Minister for Culture, Europe and International Development in Neil Gray. There is a lot of reciprocity in the relationships that exist between Scotland and the countries in which we work—most famously Malawi, but also others, including Zambia. There has been a review of our international development policy and a keenness on the part of Government to challenge our assumptions about how international development is done. For example, there has been talk about removing the white gaze from the way in which we do international development. Will you say a bit about what is changing so that the committee can understand that?

I begin by thanking Rona MacKay, Angus Campbell and Naomi Bremner for the work that they have done in my constituency on behalf of the Uist economic task force to bring the petition to the committee.

Island communities are all reliant on lifeline transport links. They are vital to every aspect of our lives. However, the organisations that are tasked with delivering those services have virtually no one with experience of living in the communities that they serve on their boards. The petitioners’ submission rightly states that community and place should be at the heart of good government.

Given that the principal mission of organisations such as David MacBrayne Ltd, Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd and Highlands and Islands Airports Ltd is to serve island communities, it is not in the interests of good governance of the boards of those organisations to be as remote from their service users as they currently are. I say that as no criticism of existing board members, but I do not think that any of them probably faces the experience that I, fairly enough, face of hearing people’s views about CalMac Ferries every time I go to buy a pint of milk.

Since the committee last considered the petition in early September, I led a members’ business debate in the chamber on reserving seats for islanders on the board of CalMac. There was a large degree of cross-party consensus on the need for more representation of islanders. The then transport minister, Graeme Dey, signalled that the Scottish Government is open to changes, and in responding to a recent parliamentary question of mine the minister also stated that he had tasked the newly appointed chair of David MacBrayne to look at ways of getting an island-based presence on the boards.

Briefly, one other development that is relevant to a petition that you have just considered is that HIAL has recently confirmed that it will be taking a different approach to its ATMS plans on air traffic control jobs. The issue with HIAL also partly motivated the petition that we are presently discussing. The announcement comes after five years of bitter dispute with the affected communities and the air traffic controllers trade union. It is fair to speculate on whether the process would have been as long, acrimonious and protracted if more board members of that organisation had been based in island communities.

In closing, I will borrow a point that Rona MacKay from Uist made to me. Last year, Uist and Lewis both won titles of social enterprise places of the year. That is a testament to the large number of social enterprises on the islands, which each have unpaid boards of islanders. Islanders are not strangers to boards and nor, relevantly, is there any shortage of islanders who know about seafaring. There exists a large and healthy degree of involvement in public life in the islands. It would be in everyone’s interests if that could be utilised on the boards of the organisations that deliver lifeline services to them.

I urge the committee to keep the petition open and to push for changes in the criteria for board appointments in the organisations that we have discussed to give much more prominence to the experience of living in an island community.