Chamber and committees

Yes, but I do not know whether you can hear us. Please come in.

I think that providing a cultural offering as part of the warm spaces initiative is a draw and makes it less stigmatising for people who want to be there. Having bookbug clubs, dementia choirs or whatever else in those spaces will make a huge difference.

Given all the evidence that we have heard, and bearing in mind that we are scrutinising next year’s budget, will wellbeing be further embedded in cross-portfolio workstreams, or are the current pressures too high to allow any measurable or identifiable progress in that area?

For our second panel on pre-budget scrutiny, I welcome Angus Robertson, Cabinet Secretary for the Constitution, External Affairs and Culture, and Lisa Baird, deputy director of culture and historic environments at the Scottish Government. I invite the cabinet secretary to make a brief opening statement.

Alasdair Allan has a supplementary on this, and then I will bring in Jenni Minto and Mark Ruskell.

Thank you for your attendance at this morning’s meeting, cabinet secretary—[Interruption.] Did you want to come in, Mr Ruskell? You will need to be very quick.

Our next item is a decision on taking business in private. Are members content to take item 4 in private?

Members indicated agreement.

Good morning and a very warm welcome to the 22nd meeting in 2022 of the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee. We have received apologies from Maurice Golden and also from Sarah Boyack, for whom Claire Baker MSP is here as substitute. Ms Baker will have to leave to attend to other parliamentary duties during the course of the meeting, but she hopes to be able to return later.

I ask Ms Baker to declare any relevant interests.

I have a supplementary question about the impact of the announcement on the youth music initiative. It exposed the precarious contract position for a lot of people who work in the sector. It is disappointing that the youth music initiative was conflated with core education funding and curriculum activity, which had not been under consideration.

My question is for Mr Booth and Councillor Heddle. Have you reflected on the impact that that had? Is local government in a position to offer sustainability, rather than project-based and short-term contracts, to people working in that area?

As there are no further questions, I thank you all for attending and for your helpful written submissions to the committee. We will now have a brief suspension for a changeover of witnesses.

I will ask a final supplementary question. Many third sector and voluntary organisations that we have taken evidence from were really thankful for the support that was given through Covid, which helped most of them to keep afloat, but they also expressed to us how dynamic the funding landscape became at that time. Instead of those organisations feeling as though they had to jump through hoops and get through lots of red tape to get to a pocket of money, the funders looked on them as trusted partners and said, “We know what you do, so here’s the money. Go and do it during this really difficult time.” A lot of organisations said that not having to make so much effort to get money was such a relief. It is certainly a significant worry for organisations that they have now to continue making that effort. I recognise that it is public money that has to be accounted for, and that outcomes have to be achieved, but organisations feel that the red-tape barriers have gone back up.

One specific thing that was mentioned by more than one organisation was that it was felt that having been fiscally prudent and building up reserves became, all of a sudden, a barrier to accessing emergency funding. Organisations felt a little hard done by because there was no guidance from the Scottish Government about what levels of reserves they were expected to have. I do not know whether that is something that you or the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator could influence. There were inconsistencies in respect of the challenges that organisations faced, and they would want us to raise that with you.