Committee
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee 11 January 2024
11 Jan 2024 · S6 · Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Item of business
Budget Scrutiny 2024-25
Anne Lyden
Watch on SPTV
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 and then it is being taken away with the other hand. That is why it is challenging to arrive at a balanced budget. That does not take into account the second year of the pay policy award and, as I mentioned, it does not include the increase in pension contributions. Salaries are a real challenge. Various processes are in place—one of which is non-compulsory redundancy—and we are being asked about efficiency savings and reductions, but we are not able to control how we might manage the rising salary costs without getting the adequate funding to support them. We find ourselves stuck between a rock and a hard place. As I mentioned, we look to support what is, in effect, left over—the 5 per cent for all the other activity—through philanthropic gifting and self-generated income, but that cannot go towards salary or the sustainable costs that are needed to operate. That situation will only escalate, and the issue of how we arrive at a solution needs to be addressed. With regard to your question about the £100 million pledge, as I think was already mentioned, longer-term plans, which many of us are engaged in, start now. We are working on a public programme that is already two, three, four or five years out, so we need to know what budget is available for then. The situation is similar to what Simon Hunt said. If you want to get the best artists to come to Scotland, you have to be able to go forward with confidence and to secure that. It is the same for the display of art and our exhibitions programme. The £100 million is very much needed now. Clarity is absolutely needed. It sounds like a lot of money, but when you divide it up over five years, you are basically talking about £20 million each year, which then spreads thinly. Innovative solutions need to be found now for how that money is applied and shared. I know that the public sector reform clusters are doing on-going work on that, but that is happening almost out of sync with the budget allocation.
In the same item of business
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...