Chamber and committees

Cabinet secretary, Ms Baker has been at another committee. I am minded to allow her to ask some questions, but we do not want you to repeat previous answers. If necessary, you can direct Ms Baker to the Official Report.

I thank the cabinet secretary and Ms Baird for their attendance. I ask people to clear the room quickly, as we have another agenda item to deal with and are now very pressed for time.

I close the public part of the meeting.

Thank you all for your submissions to the committee. I note that the joint submission made by Councillor Heddle and Mr Booth highlights tensions with regard to some of the requests in respect of wellbeing and “a whole system approach” not being recognised in the resource spending review. Will you give us a bit more meat on the bones about your concerns in that respect? What would you like to be changed?

Our focus has been on the wellbeing economy and the Government’s ambitions on wellbeing, and I want to explore how that might impact on culture across portfolios. The evidence that we heard this morning from Creative Scotland and COSLA indicates that those bodies feel that there is a disconnect between the priorities in the resource spending review and wellbeing. Have you had time to consider and reflect on that? Do you think that everything is in order to allow people to make decisions with a greater focus on wellbeing?

Thank you, Mr Robertson. I will open by asking about what you said about the recovery in museum visitor numbers. During our evidence session last week, we heard that, although visiting museums is free to the public, additional funding is made through special exhibitions and discretionary spend in cafes and museum shops. In terms of visitor numbers, how are they capturing whether visitors’ discretionary spend is falling, even though visitor numbers might be up? I have asked the question in a convoluted way, but could you reflect on that?

If you do not mind, Donald, I will make an addendum to that question. We also heard evidence from organisations that very similar projects from the same artist can be funded from two different pots of money and that the thinking is not always joined up in that regard.

That concludes questions from the committee. I will be very cheeky by saying that I hope to see you all again next year for Eurovision in Glasgow, which I know is one of your areas of interest. Thank you very much for your attendance this morning. I will suspend the meeting briefly.

That concludes questions. I thank our witnesses for their attendance. We have a final evidence session on the budget next week, followed by a session with the cabinet secretary on the evidence that we have taken.

Thank you. We will move to questions from the committee.

Our second item is to continue taking evidence as part of our pre-budget scrutiny of the culture spending portfolio. I welcome Sir John Leighton, director general of the National Galleries of Scotland; Lucy Casot, chief executive officer, Museums Galleries Scotland; and Alex Paterson, chief executive, Historic Environment Scotland. A very warm welcome to you.

I will start with questions about the financial outlook for your sectors. Last week, we heard that cultural organisations are experiencing a “perfect storm” of rapidly, and in some cases unexpectedly, increasing costs and reducing income. Your submissions would reflect that to us today. I will ask each of you in turn to provide an overview of the impact of the pandemic, the costs crisis and other financial pressures on your budgets and the impact that that will have be on the levels of service that you can provide.