Hansard

The Convener (Clare Adamson) SNP

I wish you a good morning and a warm welcome to the first meeting in 2024 of the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee. Happy new year...

Lori Anderson (Culture Counts)

Thank you for inviting Culture Counts to return to the committee to provide post-budget evidence. I thank the committee for its work on pre-budget scrutiny a...

The Convener SNP

Thank you. I invite Anne Lyden to make some comments.

Anne Lyden (National Galleries of Scotland)

Thank you for inviting me along this morning. This is my first week in my new role, and I am very happy to be here, representing National Galleries of Scotla...

The Convener SNP

I welcome Leonie Bell to the meeting. Our opening questions were about whether the Scottish Government’s budget and the new strategy meet the committee’s rec...

Leonie Bell (V&A Dundee)

I apologise for being slightly late. Thank you for having V&A Dundee here this morning. As people have probably seen, V&A Dundee’s budget settlement...

Fiona Sturgeon Shea (Federation of Scottish Theatre)

I thank the committee for inviting me here. This is my second time at a committee meeting, but the first time was during the Covid pandemic. Meeting online w...

The Convener SNP

Thank you very much, Fiona. I will move to Sam, who joins us online.

Sam Dunkley (Musicians Union)

Good morning. Thanks for the invitation to join you today. Reflecting on the budget that was announced, the feeling among our members and colleagues is that...

The Convener SNP

Shona McCarthy, would you like to come in next?

Shona McCarthy (Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society)

I thank the committee for having the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society here this morning—it is great to be here. I promised myself that I would approach this...

Simon Hunt (Scottish Opera)

Thank you for inviting us. My colleagues around the table have made a lot of the points that I wanted to make, so I will focus on the issues that are specifi...

The Convener SNP

Thank you very much. I now call Francesca Hegyi.

Francesca Hegyi OBE (Edinburgh International Festival)

Thank you for inviting me back. Because I have the privilege of speaking last, you can almost guarantee that everything that I was going to say has already b...

The Convener SNP

Thank you all for your opening contributions. I am now going to move to questions from members. We do not have a lot of time this morning, as we have a secon...

Neil Bibby (West Scotland) (Lab) Lab

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 fund...

Francesca Hegyi

It is sad to see those levels of participation drop off. There are probably two main reasons for that, and you have alighted on the first one, which is that ...

Simon Hunt

We certainly experienced a big drop-off as a result of Covid. There has been a change to audience behaviour and, quite markedly, the quickest to return was o...

Fiona Sturgeon Shea

I want to feed back from the conversations that we have been having recently. The majority of members are saying that there is no doubt that they are having ...

Leonie Bell

We have to analyse it beyond just the culture funding levels and what the culture sector does. We operate in and are deeply attuned to the wider local, natio...

Shona McCarthy

I was going to say pretty much what Leonie Bell has said. It is about people’s disposable income. The impact of the cost of living crisis makes people much c...

Neil Bibby Lab

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 ...

The Convener SNP

Shona McCarthy mentioned the visitor levy. Do you want to expand on your thoughts on that?

Shona McCarthy

We welcome the visitor levy, as a concept. However, so far, I have mostly seen an ever-growing list of what gaps the levy income might be used to plug. That ...

Lori Anderson

To pick up on Neil Bibby’s point about local authorities, they are another important backbone of the investment in local and regional cultural services and v...

Simon Hunt

I note that this week, south of the border—I have not heard of anything quite so alarming in Scotland—Suffolk County Council announced a 100 per cent reducti...

Sam Dunkley

I have a couple of points. We have had contact from our members to say that they are starting to see local councils revisiting the idea of cutting or vastly ...

Donald Cameron (Highlands and Islands) (Con) Con

I thank all the panel members for their candid evidence. I have two questions. The first is about salary costs, and particularly public sector pay awards, wh...

Anne Lyden

To answer that point, yes, the efficiency saving in effect cancels out that money. It feels as though we are being handed a perceived uplift with one hand an...

Francesca Hegyi

On the question about salaries, we are not governed by the same public sector salary requirements. In practice, that means that we often do not pay at the sa...