Chamber and committees

Dr Hill and Professor Jafry, do you want to comment briefly on that? We are now very tight for time.

We are very tight for time and two members still wish to ask questions. I will bring in Mr Golden first.

I thank Mr Nhlema, Professor Jafry and Dr Hill very much for their contributions this morning. We will now move into private session. I thank everyone for their attendance.

I move to questions from Mr Cameron.

I want to ask some supplementaries on the back of that theme. A wellbeing economy and its meeting expectations in local communities is one of the Scottish Government’s stated goals. We have also heard a lot of evidence about placemaking, the importance of culture being relevant to the community, and its being in every community and area. Responding to the audience and what people choose to spend their leisure time doing is also important.

It is not unusual for Creative Scotland’s funding models to come under scrutiny and to be controversial, but two particular areas have been highlighted during Covid: what we might call the night-time economy and, in particular, comedy club and music venue performance spaces. We have heard that, independent as they are, they got Government support for the first time ever, because of Covid. However, the funding model might lead to Creative Scotland grants being outwith the capacity of a lot of those organisations, and a smaller funding model or grant might be available to support smaller projects. That has a geographic and rural element, as well. Will consideration be given to how the money is developed and the level of support that can be given to change that placemaking in communities?

That is a positive note on which to end. I thank Mr Munro and Ms Davis for their attendance this morning. We will now move into private session.

I will bring in Ms Casot at this point and then go to Ms Reeves for a comment about the wellbeing work.

Sorry, Ms Reeves—we lost your feed for a moment. Can you start again?

I do not see anyone else indicating that they wish to contribute. The concerns from the different areas of the sector have been well voiced this morning. Thank you very much for your contributions. I suspend the meeting while we have a changeover of witnesses.

We move to evidence from our second panel. I welcome Iain Munro, who is chief executive of Creative Scotland, and Isabel Davis, who is executive director of Screen Scotland. I remind everybody to try to be succinct, as we want to get in as many opportunities for questions as possible. I invite Donald Cameron to start.