Chamber and committees

I move on to our final area of interest, which is place-based cultural policy. Mark Ruskell has some questions on that area.

Thank you for that.

Our second agenda item is a decision on taking business in private. Are members content to take items involving the consideration of evidence in private at this meeting and future meetings?

Members indicated agreement.

Before I bring in Billy Garrett, I just want to ask a very quick supplementary about what Rebecca Coggins and Katie Nicoll have been talking about. One of the things that we are trying to examine is the disparity in the offering between urban and rural areas. Katie Nicoll mentioned the book festival and when I think of your area, Rebecca, I think of the Wigtown book festival, the Stranraer oyster festival and the Portpatrick folk festival. Is Dumfries and Galloway Council engaged with those festivals as they happen across your region?

We have certainly moved into the second theme of unmet cultural need. Katie Nicoll, you mentioned that, with your partnership, you have been able to reach some of the really hard-to-reach areas. Will you say a bit more about how that works?

My local YMCA in North Lanarkshire has recently been engaging with people through a thing called future Friday when the schools finish early and activities are put on. They have set up an e-sports club, which is a proper league, and it has brought in young people who are isolated from other activities to be part of the community. That is quite an interesting example.

Under our third agenda item, we will begin to take evidence as part of our culture in communities inquiry, which is focused on taking a place-based approach to culture. Our first evidence session is a round-table discussion with local authorities and cultural trusts. We are joined by Kirsty Cumming, chief executive of Community Leisure UK; Billy Garrett, director of culture, tourism and events at Glasgow Life; Katie Nicoll, cultural regeneration lead officer at Renfrewshire Council; Rebecca Coggins, principal officer for arts and museums at Dumfries and Galloway Council; and Kim Slater, sport and culture service manager at Moray Council, who joins us remotely. Heather Stuart, chief executive of OnFife, has been slightly delayed but hopes to join us, as does our committee colleague Alasdair Allan, who might join us in the next little while.

The committee is interested in three themes. I will try to stick to those themes, but I know that that can be difficult in a round-table discussion, which can be free flowing. Initially, we will consider local and national government issues. The second theme is unmet cultural need, and the third is place-based cultural policy.

To what extent does the Scottish Government’s culture strategy influence cultural policy at the local level?

We want the discussion to be as free flowing as possible, so if you want to come in on a question or come back with further comment, please indicate to me or the clerks and we will try to include everyone as much as possible.

I move to questions from committee members, and I introduce Sarah Boyack.

Does Billy Garrett want to go next? If any of you wants to come in, you can put up your hand and I will come to you. Go ahead, Billy.

Billy Garrett wants to come in; I will then bring in Kirsty Cumming. However, first, I have a quick question for Katie Nicoll. Obviously, the project that you talked about was big, and it involved a considerable amount of time and complexity. What was the driver for putting it in place? Where did the policy driver come from?