Chamber and committees

There is one other point that I want to raise. It is not something that I have formally raised with the BBC before. It relates to Scottish content—specifically, to the coverage of the Scottish Parliament on the BBC Parliament channel from time to time, when the House of Commons is not sitting. I know that there is also coverage at weekends and so on, but it seems to me that we need more live coverage of proceedings in this Parliament—in both committees and the chamber—as and when they happen.

The BBC Parliament channel can show only one programme at a time, unless there is a red-button function, but we also have the BBC Scotland channel, which does not show any coverage during the day. I think that there is merit in looking at whether we can increase the coverage of proceedings in this Parliament to inform the people of Scotland about what is going on. I appreciate that you cover First Minister’s question time and various other things from time to time, and I welcome that. However, would you consider looking into how we can increase live coverage of Scottish Parliament proceedings in committees and the chamber, particularly when the BBC Scotland channel is there and does not currently have live content during the day?

My point was that, up until now, there was talk of a minimum of an extra £25 million coming online, but I understand that it is £25 million.

Yes, but previously the indication was that it would be a minimum of £25 million—

It is a very small question. The cabinet secretary said that he had not heard any suggestions from Opposition MSPs about how money could be better spent in order to reallocate money into the culture portfolio. He will be aware of the concerns of Opposition MSPs in relation to the amount of money his department is spending on independence white papers, which are not even convincing the Scottish National Party of the case for independence. I remind him of that alternative proposal for money which has been made to him.

You said that you had not had any suggestions.

On that, the Government has pointed to an increase in this budget, as it has done on a number of occasions. However, we know that the culture budget was cut last year, and we also know that the culture budget is 6 per cent smaller in real terms than it was in 2022-23.

We heard concerns last week about the future of organisations in the current funding crisis—you will have heard that as well. We have also heard time and again about cultural provision having to be cut back. I think that there has been a mixed response to the budget as a result of those figures. Sam Dunkley of the Musicians Union said:

“Unfortunately, I am not sure that the additional funding announced in the budget—as welcome as it is—will have the impact that we need it to have.”—[Official Report, Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee, 11 January 2024; c 11.]

The Scottish household survey talks about a reduction in cultural participation and cultural activity. You have rightly talked about the importance of equal access to culture and of sustaining cultural provision. Again, I agree with those points. We are hearing concerns from the sector that cultural provision will not be sustained at current levels. You are talking about the importance of sustaining it at current levels, and I agree with that. The question is, will this budget sustain cultural activities and participation at current levels?

On the matter of responding to audiences, the “Ofcom Annual Report on the BBC 2022-23” found that

“Audiences from D and E socio-economic groups remain less satisfied with the BBC’s performance than those from other groups”.

Do you have any indication as to why that is the case? What is being done to address that?

I have no relevant interests to declare.

Good morning to the panel. We have heard a lot about the on-going crisis in funding and we have previously discussed the perfect storm that is affecting funding for the culture sector. We like to talk about outcomes and what Government spending achieves. The 2022 Scottish household survey showed that 74 per cent of adults attended a culture event or place of culture, which was a decrease from 81 per cent in 2019. If we exclude cinema, it was 65 per cent in 2022, which is down from 74 per cent in 2019. Access to culture opportunities has therefore declined.

The pandemic undoubtedly had an impact, and there were some light restrictions at the start of 2022. We have heard from Francesca Hegyi about reducing shows and capacity, so to what extent can we put that decline down to a depletion of cultural resource and infrastructure? Given the current levels of funding, do you expect us to go back to pre-Covid levels any time soon? Will we see that decline in cultural opportunities and reduction in activity being reversed?

Thank you for those answers. A number of you mentioned the local context and local government funding. We have talked about the national budget, and Culture Counts talked in its submission about the crisis in funding for local councils.

From the national organisations, we have heard that one of the main concerns is standstill funding and the lack of resource that is needed to meet the current challenges. Is there a danger of a double whammy, with national funding not what it should be and local council funding also being cut? That would mean that cultural provision would be affected by both national and local funding decisions.

A related question, which is not for this year’s budget, concerns the proposed visitor levy. The Visitor Levy (Scotland) Bill is going through Parliament; the stage 1 debate takes place next Tuesday. Are there any thoughts on that?

I appreciate that a number of you made the point that private investment will not plug the funding gap. Your organisations are accessing as much private investment as they can, and there is a lot of wishful thinking about how the gap can be plugged by alternative means, but any thoughts on the use of the visitor levy in that regard would be welcome.