Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the eighth meeting of the Education and Culture Committee in 2016. Can I remind everybody present that all electronic devices should be switched off at all times when the committee is in session? Our first item is to decide whether to consider our legacy report and annual report in private at our next meeting. Is that agreed? Yes. Great. Thank you. Our next item is to take evidence on the national performing companies focusing on the main challenges and opportunities facing the companies as they look ahead to the 10th anniversary of being directly funded by the Scottish Government. Can I welcome to committee this morning Chris Hampson, Scottish Bally, Roy McEwen, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Alex Riddick, Scottish Opera, Laurie Sansham, National Theatre of Scotland and Dr Krishna Teherishin, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Welcome, everybody. I know that you have to leave about 10.45, I believe, and I believe that Anne-Marie Freese will step in to your place. There will be a swap there at around 10.45, so thank you very much to Anne for stepping in. We will start off straight away with questions from members. I believe that Mary Scanlon wants to start. Yes. I want to just go to the main issue of the day, which is funding and just come on to performances. I want to just open up the questioning, really just how direct funding is impacted on your operation, creativity, your independence and indeed your autonomy. Just if you could lump in the concern about the Scottish Government being the main funder and obviously the financial constraints that we are facing just now, is there a risk depending on the Government as your main funder? I was looking at other sources of funding and I appreciate the difficulties there, but the figure that I have for sponsorship and fundraising is 9.3 per cent in 2007-08, and that has gone up to 11.7 in 2013-14, so 2.4 per cent in seven years. It is just as an opening statement about, is it difficult, the sponsorship and the fundraising, are there risks depending on a main funder in difficult financial times and how does that impact on your operation, creativity, independence and your autonomy? A simple question to start with. I am trying to lump a few things together just to get a general discussion. Who wants to kick us off? Alex? Thank you for the good question. I shall do my best to address as much of it as possible. First of all, I just wanted to note that in fact, in my view, having run other national companies in other parts of the world, the model that we have here is extremely good. The link between the five national performing companies and the Scottish Government has been extremely strong. When I first came here 10 years ago, it was about to be enacted and I had a moment of thinking, crikey, you should never wish for something because you might get it. Once we got over the initial six to 12 months settling in period, I would say that it has been an exemplar of relations and working model. I think that we have benefited from the stability of having the same minister in place for a good period of time. She has got to know the kind of cultural estate really well and has been particularly effective at supporting through the international touring fund the aims and aspirations, the international aims and aspirations of the five national companies. There has been a lovely jalling together and indeed that is the reason for my early departure today is because Scottish Opera is making its North American debut in Toronto later this week. I would also say that I am speaking for all of us that we do not live work or breathe in isolation, so we are acutely aware of the pressure that both local and central, if you like, Scottish Government is under. As our funding has both risen and fallen, we have all risen and fallen in funding terms of the same tide, if you like, and we rose to a peak in 2008-09. As I recall, we have all quietly declined. Since then, we have all done our very best to be aware of and operate in constrained circumstances and equally done our best to find new and other sources of earned income, including lifting box office, all sorts of entrepreneurial ideas and, of course, fundraising and sponsorship. Curiously, much as the need has come on us to find other sources of earned income, so many of the trusts we turn to have also had their income reduced or their funds available to disperse reduced. I think that we are doing quite a good job of stemming the tide, but I do not think that one should be under any illusions about how difficult it is to find other sources of earned income. I am happy to. Well, I would also like to second Alex's comments. I think one person, in fact, is that we do all work together as a national portfolio. That is of enormous strength when we face challenges with budget cuts. As Alex has mentioned, there is a balance in place where, as budget cuts start to impinge on what we are able to achieve in the future, as we look towards trust foundations, private funding and commerciality, we see that this squeezes in those areas, too. As a national portfolio, we are able to share intelligence on that and to work together to help to mitigate some of those financial cuts. I agree with my colleagues that the relationship with Government, I think, over time has been extremely good. We have developed relationships with ministers, and it has given us a closeness to ministers that we did not have before. We have a very good relationship with the officials who have a real understanding of the way the companies work. I am not sure whether there is a weakness in the Government being such a substantial funder of the companies, but it makes us vulnerable if there are major reductions. However, that has happened following a period of economic recession in which some of the sources of private money have come under intense pressure, whether they are corporate or trust foundations or individuals. It is thrown into contrast now that, if you look at the point at which we have changed from Scottish Arts Council funding to Government, there had been a history of 15 or 20 years of real financial crisis in the national companies. That was partly stabilised by an uplift in funding from the last year of Arts Council to the first year of Scottish Government. If you look at our grants for 16 or 17 coming up, in cash terms, they are lower than the last year of Arts Council funding and therefore significantly lower than the first year of Scottish Government funding. That is cash terms not taking into account inflation. One of the major benefits is being squeezed significantly. Having said that, I think that the on-going close relationship that we have with Government, the international touring support that we have had, has been tremendous. That has done a lot to give the companies a higher profile and a greater recognition of our contribution as national companies to the country. The area of private sector income is an important one to look at. As Government funding has gone down with pressure on public funding over the past few years, the areas that we have all been reasonably successful at is increasing private sector funding and, mainly individual giving in the case of the SCO, that has been a real development area. It has been under pressure but, in many ways, it has been quite a good news story so far. I would like to reiterate some of the comments. We have only ever known direct funding because we are 10 years old this year, so it has only ever been direct funding from the Government. I want to address some of your questions about autonomy. We all share the sense that we have a very good working relationship in terms of both sharing goals with the Government and how that is evaluated and how we report against them without ever feeling that content of artistic programme is ever being influenced at all. In terms of autonomy of what we make and what we do, I certainly feel that we are entirely autonomous in terms of the work that we do, but we have shared goals that we evaluate together, so that seems to work very well from our point of view. In terms of funding, I think that the pressures recently and looking ahead give us all pause for thought, I think, on what point further cuts might make us review our programming and our models of activity? At what point do we fail to fulfil the remit of national companies if our ability to take work to the whole of the country, for example, is at risk? It is definitely a question that we all are asking ourselves. Of course, that means that we are looking at how we diversify our income streams, and I think that is becoming necessary for all of us. We are all searching after the same individual private givers in some respects. That is one area that we are aware that we are in competition with each other. I think that we are all doing very well increasing that. Corporate sponsorship and business sponsorship has been slow over recent years. I think that there is an upturn now. It is looking better. It looks like we are in a better position. Certainly businesses are more open to those conversations now, but it is yet to achieve any big wins from our point of view. However, I think that there are green shoots on the horizon to make some metaphor. There are cases for optimism on that front and cases for us to be cautious about what the future might hold, knowing that we are expecting a settlement not until the autumn for 2017 through to 2020. The uncertainty of that puts us in a tricky position about future activity and future planning. We discuss that quite a lot together and our approaches to it. Thank you. First of all, thank you to this committee for having us here this morning and giving us the opportunity to speak about these very important issues. I am very honoured to be here. I am probably the newest face on this side of the table. I only joined the RSNO in August. I actually came here because of this type of funding model. You are of course correct in pointing out the risk that if there is a single funder that has a certain percentage that there is a significant risk if there are changes in that. However, I think that in our case, by having the Government be so invested and frankly proud of its national arts companies, it also allows for us to have greater public participation and public buy-in of what we do, which is something that I think is incredibly important for all of us. The funding model that we currently have allows for stability, not just financially, but also stability in creative planning. If you are allowed to plan years in advance, you actually have a beneficial effect on excellence on stage. It allows the Scottish arts companies and the entire Scottish arts scene to punch significantly above its weight internationally, which I think is a very, very good thing. With regard to where we are in terms of contributed income and earned income as opposed to Government support, the RSNO is trying right now to get to a place where we are about 56 per cent Government and the remaining split equally in 22 earned and 22 contributed. As my colleagues mentioned, we are all friends at this table, but when it comes to the contributed income, we are actually all competitors, because there is a certain finite amount of philanthropic money available in Scotland. We have some figures here, and it is just a comparison between 2012-13 and 2013-14. Having looked at the sponsorship and at the funding, it is a varying figure, obviously, but the national theatre, for example, was down by about 25 per cent of performances in Scotland over that one year. Across the UK, it was fairly similar—135, 136. Internationally, it went down from 215 to 94. Scottish ballet in the United Kingdom was half, and Scottish opera, if I may say, went from 3 to 40 across the United Kingdom. It is just a varied figure, but probably the one that would stand out to me would be the national theatre. The other figure was again the national theatre, and it was a number of education events down from 834 to 493, just in one year. That is within Scotland and internationally down from 96 to 5. I am just wondering how those are figures that we have got from our Parliament's information centre, but I have no reason to doubt them. It seems quite a drastic increase just over one year, and I wonder if the funding had any impact. Sorry, I am putting it all in the national theatre here. The first question, and I did ask about operation, etc. It was really just to look at those figures. I do not think that any of us would want to see reduction in performances, and it is an education. None of my colleagues, I am sure, would want a reduction in the education events. Although most companies were up, the national theatre was down significantly. I am happy to speak to that in general terms, which is to say that it might be worth taking another look at the figures over a five or seven-year arc, because inevitably the numbers go up, particularly outside of Scotland, and the numbers fluctuate according to opportunities. For example, we have had a major fluctuation from three to 40, because in the summer of 2013, we were able to take the Pirates of Penzance on tour around the rest of the UK, so that gave us 40 performances outside of Scotland. However, those touring opportunities do not always present themselves on an annual basis. I think that that would be a general reason for the fluctuation. I think that it also does not necessarily explain what the event is, because some of those events can actually be capturing a considerable amount of people. An event could be a workshop, but it could be a performance that is working with 60,000. I am sorry, I do not have any further information, but I am just doing my duty to highlight it. Is it fair to say that you are on your fluctuation, and if you have a new production that you are taking internationally or taking around the UK, you have just said that you can see a sudden spike in the numbers in the following year, you are not doing that in the year, but next year you can go back up again. It has to be taken over a longer period of time. It sets something that is very typical of us, because our model is a theatre without walls. We do not have a set model over a year of how many performances, how many education events every year is bespoke and every year is different. I think that that is one of the reasons why our figures tend to fluctuate extremely. Our international audience attendance can suddenly skyrocket, because we have the James Plays playing at the Olivier Theatre in London for three months. Suddenly, our percentage of work outside Scotland seems to bias that, but it masks the fact that that is because of the success of that production. It needs a little bit more analysis of what those events are. I am more than happy to provide further information for the committee around qualitative analysis of what those figures represent, if that would be useful. I had a couple of questions on funding and fundrais and just to ask how successful the companies have been in attracting funding from outside Scotland, particularly overseas, and what have been the costs of really getting out and seeking those funders overseas. Outside Scotland, there was some difficulty in the run-up to the referendum. I do not know whether it was a real fear or an opportunity taken by quite a large number of the major trusts that are based in London to not invest in Scotland because they felt that they needed to be sure as to whether they were investing in the UK on the long-term. That has been a problem, as Chris said earlier. The trusts and foundations have suffered through their own investments, losing value and, therefore, the income that they have on an annual basis is much more difficult. For the SCO, we found that, outside the UK, fundraising tends to be very specific to particular tours. If we were in the Far East, we were in the Far East a couple of years ago and we managed to get funding from an Australian bank. We went to India and we got funding from oddly enough in India, a drinks distribution company for a tour in India. Private funding or corporate funding from outside the UK tends to be very specific to activities outside the country. The main effort that we have put in has been in the UK itself and in Scotland in particular in developing individual giving. That has actually been a real growth area. With international touring and raising our profile internationally and that of Scotland too, which is something that all five of us are proud to do, one area that can be a little complex is tapping into that Scottish diaspora, if you like, especially in the United States or in the Far East. There are complexities around the level of giving that can come back and setting up friends or associates in those countries can be quite complex. What we have concentrated on strategically is making sure that we are partnering with companies that have a strong Scottish brand that are based in Scotland that are able to help us achieve some international touring and thereby raising their own profile as well. I will share two small examples from Scottish Opera, one of which is that when the company was first founded just over 50 years ago, an American friend of Scottish Opera was formed that morphed into a Caledonian foundation and was for the first 10 to 15 years enormously successful in providing funds from North America to Scottish Opera. Interestingly, as the participants of that foundation have aged, most of them are in their 80s or 90s. The contributions from North America have pretty much ceased. Secondly, we found that when we were engaged in our capital project for the Theatre Royal to do the new foyers for the Theatre Royal, we had very little difficulty raising funding from trusts and foundations south of the border because it was a capital project as opposed to for revenue-related activity. Other questions that I had were no members of the panel have talked about the difficulty with basically all companies fishing in the same pond for private, financing private support. Are there any opportunities or any examples of all the companies working together to attract private funding on a shared basis? In some ways, I think that the instinct has been that we are likely to get more out people if we hit them several times from each company than from doing it here. I think that if we did it collectively, it would probably have to be for a collective project. I think that perhaps there is more potential internationally to gather together and make an impact in international territories. We have had some success in New York, and there is potential about the territories that we all go together. I think that one of the places where we add value to the organisations is the fees that are certainly from international history of Scotland—the fees that we attract to the major arts festivals. We have just returned from—in fact, we have the James Plays playing in Auckland at the moment. We are just in Adelaide and we will go to Toronto in June. The fees that we get from those arts festivals allow us to remount the productions in Scotland. There is a direct financial benefit to the company and to the Scottish taxpayer, to those fees that we get. We have a US board based in New York, and we are just now exploring how we utilise that more to be a fundraising board on behalf of the company. We have two performances of the Prudencia Heart in April at the New York Public Library, which is particularly to a cultivation event around individuals in New York who might end up being substantial givers to the company. I will say that a much less visible but important source of revenue for us is the rental of our productions offshore. For example, we have got Don Pascuali on its way to Miami, which will bring revenue back into the business, which helps to sustain other productions. We have also finished in Madrid and another production off to Cardiff. That is discreet, and it is hard to spot, but it brings significant six-figure sums back into our business every year, which then supports new productions. I apologise to go in about half an hour. It is very encouraging hearing that, but you have physical presence across the world, but what are you doing in terms of internationally trying to screen and stream some of your performances? If I go and watch some classical music, I find very little of SNO, for example, and I am sure you will change that. What do we do to get to the virtual audience? Actually, digital broadcasting and digitalisation of art forms is something that is just starting certainly for Scottish Ball. I am sure that my colleagues are looking at it as well. There are complexities in terms of intellectual property and grand rights when it comes to broadcasting and live streaming. However, there are opportunities to be on the front foot as well. Scottish Ball is the first ballet company to live stream from its studios, and it is something that we continue to do. Our digital audience is building year on year. One of our biggest audiences for our digital output is the USA, not Scotland, which is quite fascinating when we have our presence in Scotland in the USA. We are able to tap into that digital market as well. However, there is plenty of scope in the future for further engagement with digital media. Because you mentioned the SNO and the RSNO, we are looking very carefully, especially with the new building now in Glasgow, at streaming some of our concerts, but we are looking more in the area of educational concerts, for instance, school concerts. If I cannot get to the Shetlands in the Orkneys, what I would like to do is at least to stream it live to an auditorium. We have spent some time in the last few months talking with organisations about their success of live streaming and especially their perceived success of revenue live streaming. Berlin Philharmonic is one of those organisations. While I think that they have been very successful in tackling the technological side of it, they have not actually been successful in making it a revenue earner in that the development of the technology is still more expensive than anything that you can realise by people paying fees back into the system. With the SNO and RSNO, we are in a fortunate situation. We have more than 200 recordings out in the field. At any given time, whether you are in Cologne listening on WDR or whether you are in New York listening to WQXR or my brother currently in Los Angeles, he just texted me last night that he heard the SNO with WC, you can hear us worldwide on radio stations roughly at least twice a week in any major market. For us, therefore, we feel that that traditional media is still the delivery point that connects us to roughly five million listeners in the UK through our association with Classic FM and BBC3 and probably another five or six million listeners worldwide through syndication. We are undergoing a strategic review at the moment of all our digital work and looking at digital broadcast opportunities within that. We have also used digital technology more as a way of distributing to further afield. It is a model that I am keen for us to look at in terms of how we reach the whole of the country on a more regular basis, rather than necessarily being a source of revenue. As Christian has said, while there are a couple of notable successes, such as NT Live, normally that is a star-led vehicle that is being monetised. That is not necessarily the work that we make. There might occasionally be a piece of work that happens to have a star name, but that is not our bread and butter. Those models do not necessarily suit us, but there is definitely untapped potential in reaching a wider audience through digital and broadcast. We are in a similar position to the RSNO, and our international profile at the moment is mainly through recordings and extensive catalogue. There are a few obstacles with streaming and so on to crack. It is largely a resource issue. In the case of the SCO, where we have an orchestra of self-employed musicians, there is a payment required and on top of that there is equipment and everything else that goes with it and the skills, the technical backup. At the moment, we do not have the resources to go down that route, but it is a pretty critical one, particularly in a place such as Scotland, where the population distribution, if you have people in remote areas that can hear live performances from major centres, that is an access question. If the resources can be found, it is certainly a route to go down. Over the past year, most public bodies have been having to make efficiency savings and I am having to also meet the cuts and demands. I do notice that the private national performing companies, could you perhaps advise me what kind of staff structure you have in place in relation to the funding that you receive? If I might start with Scottish Opera, we have a small core team and I am keeping it as straightforward as possible. We have a small core administration and inverted commons team. Our orchestra is on fixed term contracts of about 28 weeks a year, our chorus of freelance and soloists and our touring teams are all seasonal according to the workload, so we have definitely stripped everything back in inverted commons to being as lean and flexible as possible, so that when there is work, people are working, as opposed to other models where everybody is employed all year round. We have definitely moved to a kind of inverted commons seasonal workforce culture. Chris, come on to the rest, convener, but just to go back to yourself, Alex. During this period then of austerity, have you made any cutbacks on any of your staff? We have not made any cutbacks but we have on occasion chosen not to fill posts. So, likewise, we are a very lean company. We are 36 full-time dancers. However, our Scottish Ballets Orchestra is brought in on a need-for-need basis. If the production requires an orchestra, we will bring them in for that, so they are not on full-time pay. We have a very small technical team, which has in it a great deal of expertise that has been learnt over the last 46 years of touring, a very important team that keeps and makes sure that our touring is as efficient as it can be. Compared to the other similar size, well, we are actually the smallest ballet company in the rest of the UK, and yet we do take on probably far bigger productions than other companies of a similar size. So, I think we are about as lean as we can be in terms of making efficiencies within the staff. All of the staff pretty much have two, maybe three responsibilities. There are few people there that have one sole responsibility concerning senior management and heads of departments. Diamond Chris, how much, from the core funding, goes on staff wages? I do not have that figure on me, but it is something that I can provide after this. I have probably referred that same question to Alex Thomas. We can provide that. Roy. We are the smallest of the national companies. We have 20 staff. As I mentioned earlier, we have an orchestra of 37, all of whom are self-employed. The flexibility that that gives us is that we do not undertake work if we do not have the money to do it, but, of course, that has a direct impact on the earnings of the players. We have not reduced our staff complement in the past few years. We feel that we are working on the absolute minimum to sustain the programme of work that we are doing. We have the lowest paid staff across the national company sector. I will come back to you in a moment about percentage. I think that I can work it out. We have 48 full-time members of staff. There has been a couple of posts that we have chosen not to fill, but we recently had an organisational review conducted by an external consultant who actually advised us what we knew already, which was that everyone was working at capacity and we were understaffed for the level of activity that we were taking place. There was precious little saving we could make there in reducing staff size without reducing activity. In any given year, we will, in 2014-15, employ 700 people over that year in terms of the freelance artists and crew and production staff who were making the work. We go from 48 core staff to up to 700 people we employ over a given year. Perhaps, again, Laurie might be able to provide us with the figures that are being made. I will do that. I can only speak for the RSNO for the last six months. I have anecdotal data behind it. We are basically working, I would say, on the office staff side at the absolute minimum of what we can do, but we have had for the last two and a half years a policy in place where we replace positions only on an absolute need basis that's both in the office and on stage. We fluctuate between about 28 and 30 full-time staff members in the office and it can be up to four part-time members in the office, but we're currently below that. On stage, we should probably be somewhere between 92 and 96 full-time employed musicians, but we're currently having a few open positions there, which does create efficiencies, but we don't keep them open because we want the efficiency. We're actually just basically very carefully in a process of finding out who are the best people to join us, but that said, we're at about 18 musicians on stage right now, so we're not at full complement and we have to use substitute players to do that. It's difficult to give you the exact percentages that you ask for because there are different ways to measure it, but basically speaking, we try to keep the office, so the non-performing musicians, at about 12 to 15% of budget. Obviously, that fluctuation is whether we have a large touring year or not a large touring year that increases the budget artificially. At this point, the government support of the RSN no longer covers the direct operating expenses of the RSN no, so we're already relying on contributed income and earned income to make up for that gap. I can tell you if I've got this horribly wrong, but I'm estimating between 12 and 15% is administrative salaries. One final question, and it's something that Chris had mentioned earlier on there, that he's going to have this close relationship that he's working under the RSN portfolio, and that being the case, do you think that perhaps somewhere down the line we could be moving to a national performing company, rather than national performing companies? Maybe we'll only need one chief executive. There's a very simple answer to that in my opinion now, because what we're able to do together as we are now is far stronger. We're able to supply Scotland's audiences with a very rich cultural diet and engagement as well, and that's to remember the amount of work we do beyond the stage in terms of education initiatives and outreach. I think all of the components that go together to make the national portfolio are absolutely vital. We do from time to time work together as companies on projects where we know that we can marry up skills and come up with some innovative ideas, but as one whole company, I think scheduling is already a major issue that we try and overcome whenever we work together. I can see that becoming more and more complex in the future, probably. Can I make an assumption that you all agree with that? We went from arts council to direct government funding. There was a year when it was quite rigorous to look at not necessarily the merger of the companies but whether there were areas for shared services and so on. The restructuring was going to cost a lot more than the benefits in the first few years. It was fairly minimal, so we haven't gone down that road. Before I bring in Gordon, I have a couple of questions. I know that you have to go some conscious of the time. I didn't want you to stand up and lead mid-questions, so to avoid that, is there anything that you would like to say just in general terms before you have to go on or on is going to replace you? Is there anything in general that you want to just say to the committee before you have to go? No, I would like to go back and re-emphasise a little part of my own remark, which is that, compared with other worlds that I have inhabited with other national companies and other parts of the world, I think that this is a pretty good model of how certainly an opera company can work. Despite what you might read in the media occasionally about Scottish Opera, all I would say is that I think that in time there will be plenty of other opera companies in the UK who will look to us as being a good example, if not a great example of the best practice. Thank you very much, and I'll let you go on and welcome to the committee. Gordon. It's a quick supplementary on the funding. My understanding is the under the criteria for being a national performing company has to demonstrate a year-on-year increase in private sponsorship and other non-public income. Looking, as I did last night through the annual accounts of each of your bodies, I happen to notice a couple of comments. One was the National Theatre of Scotland total incoming resources increased again in year from £7.2 million to £7.9 million. And Scottish Bally said, box office income overall remaining strong, targets were exceeded across the year by 30 per cent, income from fundraising and sponsorship increased by 48 per cent on the previous year. I'm just wondering, bearing in mind that you've got this obligation and it would appear to be successful, can you bearing in mind your competitors, is there anything you would like to say about what your strategy is in growing private sponsorship and non-public income? Pick up on that. Actually going back to the question that Mary asked me about the reduction in performances actually, but I was a little taken aback because my experience of 1415 was that there was a great increase and I just wanted to start at the committee's attention to the actual total audience participation levels for 1314 and 1415, which actually greatly went up. So we go from 69,000 in Scotland in 1314 to 90,000 in 1415 and internationally 29,000 to 38,000 internationally and in the UK 21203. That's on the basis of some large-scale pieces of work where we attracted that additional income through making pieces of work that attracted additional income from the National Theatre of Great Britain and the Edinburgh International Festival. So there's something about us actually creating projects which attract income, which are often quite large-scale, high-profile pieces of work. So we need the resource to actually take the risk to make those pieces, to attract additional investment. The other major event, the major piece of work that we made was the Tin Forest, which was in Glasgow and was a nine-month community engagement project with its outcome at the Commonwealth Games. Actually, we were able to attract 800,000 of additional income from agencies, from private sponsors because of the scale and profile of the work. So it's just an interesting thing to note, I think, is that we can increase by 0.2 million our income. We are spending it on its ring fence around particular projects and actually the larger scale of those pieces of work, the more chance you get to attract that additional funding. I'd also like to add, Gordon, that with those statistics, again, it's looking strategically over a period of time. Prior to 2012, basically our winter season, our Christmas season, is our most successful. As you can well imagine, lots of people are going to the ballet at Christmas. We'd actually seen audience numbers starting to fall, and so the figures of the box office having a resurgence was to do with two projects. One was Hansel and Gretel, which was derived by an education initiative, and the second was bringing back Scottish Ballet's Nutcracker, and that hadn't been performed for many years. So that surge of audience numbers is really what gave us a 30 per cent, but coming from a position that had started to decrease. The same with the funding. The funding for those particular projects was very healthy. There was a lot of enthusiasm for those projects, especially with regards to Hansel and Gretel, where the initiative came from an education perspective and outreach, but future years didn't attract such private funds, so you'll have seen a drop off after that. So over the course of a three to five year period, you'll see this ebb and flow in trust and foundations. Probably over time what you do see is the trust and foundations, even on the significant gifts starting to be getting less and less. I think one of the other challenges is that trust and foundations start to tighten the criteria around how money is used. We're finding that it's very strongly ring-fenced, especially towards outreach and education. So again, you'll often see quite a lot of money coming in from trust and foundations and private sponsorship, but I'm seeing more and more very specialised projects that perhaps only run for a year or two years, so don't actually impact on the longevity of the business, if you like. The strategy to increase contributions is actually a strategy that's two-fold. It concentrates initially on earned income. Give you an example, we want to bring new audiences to the orchestra, people that may not have heard us at all. One of those concerts that does that for us is the recent John Williams concert that we were very successful in producing both in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Most people don't realise that John Williams is classical music, even though it's also movie music, it's very good music. 65% of those attendees are first-timers to the RSNO, so that gives you an idea of why this is successful with sold-out concerts. We sold about 6,500 tickets over that weekend. The point is to introduce you to the organisation to make you fall in love with the organisation and when you're at a point in your personal life situation where you can actually afford to also contribute to us, then we obviously want to invite you to do that, but it's not simply finding somebody and saying, hey, I need some money. We need to make the case that we as an organisation are relevant to your lives. Roy, did you want to add something? Erwin Criss, the trust and foundations and corporates tend to be project-driven or they tend to be targeted at particular things. We've made most progress in individual giving, which is, if you like, creating a community of support around the organisation and individuals giving everything from £50 up to several thousand pounds. The one thing to remember about that in terms of administration is that that generation of income is much more labour intensive. It requires a lot of hard work to get them and cultivate them and keep hold of them. We, at Scottish Opera, have just had success in raising funds towards the capital project at Theatre Royal. A project like that attracts attention and, in a way, nothing is easy in terms of generating money, but it is an easier and very concrete project for people to give towards. In terms of other education projects, as Christopher was saying, anything that people can hook on to tends to generate money with the trust and foundations. That can mean that it is year on year rather than having a longevity, which, for some projects, is preferable. It is finding a balance between those. Did you have a small supplementary? Very small, convener, for a point of clarity. It is just to say that the figures that I used were 2012-13 to 13-14, and the national theatre audiences were down by, by a third in Scotland, UK and international, but Laurie's figures were the following year, which proves the point that it is better to look at the trend. I just wanted to make that point of clarity that we are both right. Or both wrong, I am not sure. Or both wrong, yes, but that is how important trends are. Can we draw together the issue of funding that we have been concentrating on? In response to a number of questions, there has been an inference to the expansion of audiences, the access, the outreach work that the national companies do. Orkney and Shetland, I was pleased to hear, were mentioned. The slight concern there was that there was, again, almost an inference that with funding pressures, digital and other means may be a way of almost supplementing the work that is going on. I was going to complement the national companies on the extent to which you have gone out. The community that I represent in Orkney has been rather blessed with the presence of the national companies on numerous occasions. I remember sitting and watching Caucifantuti fairly recently, but beyond that, a production from Scottish Opera in the island of Sandy, which is a population of about 500. The concern would be if digital was seen as a way of supplanting that. What you lose is the physical connection with the national companies, which I think is absolutely imperative. In a sense, I am seeking a reassurance that, while digital and other options need to be explored for broadening the audience, it is not seen as a replacement for some of excellent work that has been done by the national companies. I think that the live event is completely a premium here. We are always looking first at how we can be in more of Scotland more often, because I think that is the question for me. We are looking at models whereby we can be in more places more often, but we were in Orkney as well doing a six-month long engagement project, resulting in the ignition when I first arrived. For me, it is how often can we be there, because it is one thing to arrive and bring a performance or make something with a community. However, if you are not there for another three years, then are we sustaining and building and developing an audience in particular communities? For me, I have a question of how often we can be in certain places. I think that it is something that we need to look at. It is the thing that is most revenue intensive. It is the most costly thing, from our point of view. That does not mean that that is how we judge whether we should do it or not, but we will be under pressure to sustain it because it is per head. It is much more costly, but it still remains right at the heart of our remit, and I am sure that the Government will remain there. In the sense that the reassurance there, what Chris was saying earlier about the trusts and foundations are tending to ring-fence funding for that outreach work. Therefore, while it is more costly—and it will be costly, I suspect, for all of you in similar ways—the trusts and foundations are recognising that and, in order to sustain it, are ring-fencing the funding that they provide for specific at that point. They are definitely more interested in supporting that work than other work. That is true, but I am not just talking about the outreach and participation, but I am also talking about taking performances as far afield as possible. Our small-scale touring is what is most costly to us. On the point about sustaining the effort and building the audience and the participation, what evidence have you got as national companies as to how well you are doing that? Clearly, there is always going to be more that you could be doing, but is there anything to show that, because of the collaborative effort that you have been able to put in, you have had some traction with that? I certainly state that, with our up-close tours, which are our tours that go from Orkney to Gallashield and everywhere in-between, what is incredibly gratifying about those tours is seeing the impact on the community, seeing the fact that our presence there on the stage, we know we are high achievers on the stage, but it is within the community as well, so we always tie in education outreach projects to where we are. In terms of our impact nationally, it is something to note that, when we are present in Inverness, the average journey time for an audience member is anywhere between 90 minutes and two hours, and certainly for our Christmas seasons, we know that people do come from the Highlands and Islands and will stay overnight in Inverness just to see a production, so I think audiences are being built and I think there is a requirement from all of us, and I am sure my colleagues will agree to make sure that we continue to commit to service those audiences as best we can. It is costly, it does put great pressure in terms of our tour planning, but I would reiterate our absolute commitment to making sure that we are present physically in those communities. I think that the digital aspect is just something that it enhances what we are able to do, it also enhances our creativity, so it is not just about putting out there something that you might see on stage digitally, we can also create works that can only be viewed digitally, so it is not about giving those people a lesser performance experience, it is absolutely about enhancing the performance experience to as many people as possible. In terms of broadening that access, that is broadening the access geographically, in terms of broadening the access socially, what efforts have been made in that regard, I mean, I think in particular of ticket pricing will have a real impact on take-up and access, something that you can say in that regard. One thing we talk about actually quite regularly, which is actually ticket yield, in other words, how much you can get per ticket in Scotland is much lower than the rest of the UK. Although that hides a more complex picture, it is not something that we should feel concerned about. In fact, it is something that we should welcome, I think, because I think that in Scotland, unlike some of the rest of the UK, certainly in terms of a theatre going, it prevents it from being such an elitist activity, but that does mean that our earned income from work is much lower than it can be in other places. We look at touring to the UK internationally to subsidise the work that we are touring in Scotland. It is imperative that we keep ticket prices low, so we are opening access, but we are encouraging first-time attenders through particular schemes. We have a first nights project where we give free tickets to young people who have never been to the theatre before to come to a first performance and we make it a social event. We introduce them to some of the artists involved. It is initiatives like that and targeting certain groups who are perhaps underrepresented in our audiences, which I think that we all do, to quite a large extent, to make sure that we are diversifying who is accessing the work. You captured and you report back on how you track it over time in terms of the engagement of those demographics. Perhaps a few concrete examples from the RSNO. Our lowest entry ticket price is £6. That is for anyone under 26. Anyone under 16 can come for free. We also have even a scheme in place that, if you have recently become unemployed, there is a bursary so that you can continue to be connected with your orchestra. When we are talking about people who have difficulty coming to the hall, we also should mention that we all have an aging population that we have to be mindful of. One of the things that we have recently instituted were lunchtime concerts, because it is very difficult for some people to be out and about at night. They just do not feel comfortable doing that. I think that all of these measures are imperative, but it starts with the work that we do with the young population. It starts with the schools, it starts with the primary school concerts, where we are now targeting 22 schools in underserved areas around Glasgow. If that is successful, we want to take it across the country. Going all the way as early as nursery concerts, the CD ASTAR that the RSNO created, which was distributed now to roughly about 180,000 newborns and their families. The idea is that, again, we have to be relevant in people's lives. I would like to very briefly, though, come back to your concern about us being present in the geographical sense in the outer regions of Scotland. As you rightly mentioned, there is an expense associated with that. You have to get a 100-piece orchestra all the way up there with the cargo and so on and so forth. The digital media is a way to be in touch for those off years. I think it's unrealistic to expect that we can be everywhere all the time. Yet, over the last three years, the RSNO has been in all 32 districts in Scotland. Our last actual residency in Shetland was in 2012. It's been far too long and we'd like to go back. What we have to do is create strategies that we have on and off years, so every two years, every three years, but actually try and incorporate it in the budget so you're raising for it so you know it's coming. I think the risk in all of this when we're talking about funding and when we're talking about government funding possibly being reduced is that it forces all the companies to become more entrepreneurially focused. What that means is that you are trying to get paid work and what happens is that the more paid work that you have to accept, it clashes with the weeks that you could go and do this kind of work that we think is equally or perhaps more important but isn't supported financially. Again, at Scottish Opera, which can be perceived to be an expensive art form, but in Scotland it's much cheaper than it is elsewhere. Our philosophy is to keep a broad range of prices, so either through discounts or just having a very low price as the cheapest price and the high price. Certainly when we're out on the road in the more remote parts, we keep our prices as low as we possibly can to make that an access point. We see that very much as getting to people who love opera but live far away from where it's normally given, but also getting to a community and making an offer to them that they may know nothing about, so making it a very low-risk entry point level to experience opera and hopefully grow their love of doing it. I agree with my colleagues in terms of digital. We see that as being a way of fulfilling our supply in those years where we tend to go to about 40 or 50 towns and villages around Scotland in a year. There are obviously a lot more towns and villages than around Scotland, so we can only go every second or third years, but we want to maintain that relationship. That might hopefully offer us an opportunity to fulfil that and to build that relationship, keep that relationship going. It's certainly not anything that we would want to ever stop doing. It's a very important part of the company's work. I was in Mark Inch at the weekend and I'm a marketer, so I talk to the audience and that's what I want to do. They are so delighted to have that happening on their doorstep in their space, a space that is part of their community. I don't think that anyone can take away from the value of doing that work and what that brings to people. In a number of years ago I went to a lunchtime in Edinburgh—I'll grant you that—and it wasn't anywhere remote, but that lunchtime offering seemed to be very popular at the time. I'm going to have to research that. I'm relatively new to the company, so that predates me, but I will have to look into that. Again, Christian has said that night time doesn't always suit everyone—some people and operas tend to be quite long. It was a very cut-down version for lunchtime audience, so effectively you could leave your office and go have your sandwich, watch and go back to your office in that space of a lunchtime, which seemed to be fairly popular. We offer what's called opera unwrapped, which is now early evening. It may have been the same thing—it's early evening, which has the full orchestra singers. It's basically a talk through the opera as an easy introduction to the plot and some of the secrets of how things work backstage. It wasn't that kind of thing, but, Laurie. I think that one of the points that's coming out is that pricing is not the only area where making work accessible needs to focus. Sometimes it's about the time of day, sometimes it's about the needs of particular audience members. I think that we all look at accessibility in terms of we do audio described performances for those with impaired sight, and we obviously do signed and captioned performances, but we even have started doing relaxed performances, which are for people with profound additional needs, such as being somewhere on the autistic spectrum. There's quite a lot of areas where we're always trying to innovate in terms of how we reach the broadest population in Scotland to make work accessible, which is not just about pricing, it's also about how we distribute it and how we produce it. I would like to build on some of the questions that were already asked by Liam and the convener about the access point. I can remember the first time that my dad took me to a football match, but I don't remember that it was actually an adult before I went to any of your own organisations. What are you doing in the educational? I know that you've mentioned some of it, so set up to make sure that you get that access point from a young stage where a young person can engage with the company and that becomes part of their life, and, as you said, be relevant to them. What type of access points I take on board that you mentioned about the RSNO with regard to the John Williams night, any Star Wars fan, Superman fans, you're going to kid them on, they're not going to know it's classical music because it's stuff that they've been actually lived with throughout their generations of their family. Where do we get more of that type of thing? Where we're using the populist route to try and get an annoying ballet in opera that you've obviously mentioned in ballet? The Nutcracker was a classic example of everybody wanting to go at Christmas time to go and see that. Where are we doing more of this to try and use them as the access point and the stuff that people understand and know to get in there and fill basically your audience and build the audience? If I may start and then I'll turn it over to my colleagues, we have at the RSNO, we have a music for life strategy, which, as I mentioned, starts with when you're born and there should be at least one touch point through your entire growing up. Student tickets complement that and then obviously you become hopefully engaged with the organisation and we even have things intergenerational access points where we had absent friends programme, which actually dealt with hospice care and the issues arising out of that and how it can be creatively coped with. We also have young ambassadors and this is, by the way, a way for us to get young ambassadors from the Shetlands and the Orkneys to come to the RSNO if we can't come to them. These are young people who come and work with us over a period of time. In that vein, what we also have is a takeover. We actually allow for one day every year a group of young students, I think they're in the age group 15, 16, 17, so people who are thinking about what they might want to be when they graduate come into our offices and takeover running the RSNO, where we become their interns and they actually get to see how the whole thing works. We were in fact in final stages of doing something with Paisley. I'm not quite sure where that sits right now. It's been a little bit difficult to put it together so you might have some... I would never do that sir. That's not my style. Is it a Paisley Pat on Tire? Is that what's going on with me? I think the difficulties that you can always do more, but I feel very comfortable that we're within our means doing as much as we can. I mentioned the primary school concerts are coming back online because of our new building. We now have a different kind of cost control in place inside the new RSNO center, which is very good and allows us to have up to 600 people come and experience the orchestra very close up. John Williams is a particular example I cited because we continue to perform up to six of these types of concerts a year. We will bring them to the audiences as the demand increases, but I think it's also really important not to create what I would call a shadow economy. What we want to have happen is we want to have people that then transition from these very popular concerts also to the mainstream regular concerts. Here the RSNO, I think, has been very successful because on average we have a ticket sales event for each concert of about 1,400 tickets and we run up to three concerts a weekend. It highlights the difficulty and that's why going back to the opening question I think this model is so good and frankly speaking is so very necessary to have government support. None of our organizations here are only concerned with one market and one city. We are all concerned with the entire country and I think you will agree with me that Glasgow and Edinburgh have very distinct interests as to what they think is good or not good or mediocre or bad. In fact, Glasgow and Paisley will have very distinct ideas of what they really want and then we're going out into Dundee and Perth and in fact there's a collaboration between all the major orchestras in Scotland including the one that's not at this table today, the BBC Scottish Chamber Orchestra and RSNO jointly run and actually subsidize a series in Perth at the horse cross which wouldn't be possible for Perth to have that and if you think about the size of the city of Perth and you look at other comparable cities in Europe or in the United States, forget the United States, there's nobody in the United States that will have three world-class orchestra coming to do a six series concert but in Scotland we have that so I think that that highlights just how well this actually works. Can you respect the kind of pattern of work that Krishna's just outlined is very similar to ours? It is in some respects a cradle to grave strategy of lifelong learning and we have concerts called Big Ears Little Ears which are actually tolerant spaces for parents to bring young children. We also do a series called Masterworks which is taking major works from the repertoire into the school's audience, taking the piece apart, bringing it back together and playing it right through so if you like there's a demystifying of the music and we also then track those people through to special offers for coming to main concerts in our main series and we go into schools, we've just been doing a very interesting project on Westerhales so there's a variety of ways in which I suppose it's bringing young children right into direct contact with musicians and creating a spark which you then hope you can track through for the rest of their lives and into live performances and an appreciation of music so I think that that live experience just going back to what you were saying Liam it's all about we're all about a live experience and creating that direct contact with people at all ages I think the access point is absolutely essential I think we've all probably got in our organisations created great programmes if you like well none particularly proud of with Scottish Ballets we developed we performances so they're bite-sized performances of the full length productions and there is a time of day where you know carers can come with the people they're caring for parents can come guardians can come it's an hour out of the day rather than a two and a half hour it's a convenient time of day and with that we've also developed the relaxed performance I know Laurie was speaking about those two it's something we just we've just taken on board in the last year and that gives an amazing access point to those with you know really very very strong needs and not just for those individuals but also for the people that care for them and to be able to do that in a very safe environment you cannot have 2000 people in a theatre you've got to have 200 people in a theatre maximum so and that's really important that we start to develop those understandings beginning to understand what it is that our audiences need to be able to access the particular art form we've got some amazing education initiatives we've been working with some children that have been marginalised from mainstream education normally through behavioral difficulties and we closely link those projects with what's happening on stage and in the background we're training our own dancers of the dancers education group to be able to deliver projects with our education team so that those young people they're not just learning about the art form and how to express themselves through art but they're also seeing those people that they've seen on stage they're engaging with you know in front of them having face-to-face engagement with them I think there's nothing more inspiring for young people than to actually meet people that have blazed a trail in one art form or another because they'll have all have come from very different backgrounds and being able to share that experience I think is a really inspiring mysticism of the art form in itself makes it real to the individual yeah I think that's you know one of the most gratifying things actually for the performers is to hear that the audience members also have their own stories as well and I think you know vice versa that these young people can can hear that a lot of these performers have had their own particular journey and that they're from across the world and I think that's really important to note that the companies are attracting people from beyond Scotland which is also really important and then another access point that we've alluded to is we are facing an aging population and actually another access point is we operate regenerate which is it's actually titled for the over 50s but it goes quite far beyond that and it's been so successful that we've actually formed a very small company so that those individuals have an outlet to perform and an outlet to express themselves as well and we're just noticing that that all feeds into those different parts of society that are going to engage with us more and more it's absolutely vital to everything we do it's one we've talked about a lot of the models that we use in terms of our participation and outreach work and some of those that we use as something like Transform where we worked with 20 schools across the country alongside the curriculum for excellence and actually some of the anecdotal evidence of how that changes people's lives is some of the most powerful evidence I think we have so the head teacher of pork Glasgow high school attributed a 14% increase in attainment across one particular age group with their participation in this transform project and I don't think we can underestimate how certainly young people need unconventional ways of exploring the world and I think the arts companies can provide that one thing that we're about to launch is the schools touring network we identified with the leading children's theatre companies across Scotland who are world class by the way I mean that Scotland has some of the best children and families companies in the world but they were reporting that their work was not getting to schools any longer and this was partly because the cultural coordinators were no longer operating in local authorities and the infrastructure had just vanished so we've been working with Imaginate who's one of the leading companies and we're doing a two-year pilot scheme to take two of these pieces across Scotland and trying to get them to as many local authorities as possible as a pilot scheme to see what kind of infrastructure will be needed to get that work into every school in Scotland that's the long-term ambition that's a big ambition and would need resourcing but I think it's essential that we take the children of every age regularly seeing the world class work that's being made in this country because I don't think we can underestimate the increase in wellbeing and academic attainment and then that will be our audiences for tomorrow we've been already talking to creative Scotland about it and it's clear that it could be a model that works for other art forms too but it's about breaking down those barriers which are stopping schools from booking regularly booking work of excellence which exists we have it but we're not necessarily joining it creating the infrastructure where it's easily rolled out so that's something that we're piloting over the next two years and looking at what how we create that model to try and get that work into every school is a passion of mine particular passion of mine when we're talking about the attainment you know issue you can't under-emphasise the importance that arts has on getting a young person back on the right track again in order to do something I think we should develop more here ourselves as a committee and discuss more within the Parliament because I think it's an important crucial part of the debate sorry perspective similarly we have generationals covered through the generation starting from baby o and kiddo and primary school twos which we try to tie in with the curriculum for excellence and time with other themes such as health issues or healthy eating or this year we've got a time with the festival of architecture and looking at protecting our built heritage so working together with partners in getting other messages across to to children while they're they're still quite young and we then tend to move on to developing young professionals so people in their teens who maybe want to aspire to to work within the arts we have a whole programme of connect which involves a chorus and orchestra and stage management so we bring those young people together to work and create their own works but under the supervision and help and guidance of the expertise that we have within the company to present their own work and get used to working on a stage finding a place to to show what they can do build their confidence for for the future we do also offer schools unwraps which is this very basic introduction to opera which is free so bringing along classes of school kids to to see what opera can do and again giving away a few secrets of stage craft opening up opportunities in terms of future professions and we also offer an emerging artists programme so once people are on that first rung of their professional career giving them an opportunity to to be immersed within the company and take advantage of the various opportunities within that and go on from that to build their careers so people like Karen Cargill have been come through the company in that way and going on to international stardom so there are there are processes for doing that and projects in place to try and interact at every level similarly we have a project which we've been working on for a number of years called memory spinners which works again with very small groups but people with dementia and their carers which allows the carer a bit of respite and a bit of freedom to express themselves and and gives the dementia sufferers some time to the voice and singing it seems to have been found a place within caring for dementia that something that stays with people they will remember lyrics to songs when they may not remember anything else so just working with them in a very relaxed environment small groups and to give people confidence and just a bit of a break from that from their routine to find a new and new outlet for their creativity. Can I ask one final question? Basically it's just on opportunities. You've talked about how positive it is working within the environment here in Scotland as national companies is there anything internationally that you think that you're aware of that could be brought and used here because obviously there's other ideas elsewhere is there anything you can think of that we could possibly look at? Interesting question. I think in terms of participatory theatre work Scotland's a world leader actually but we're doing a festival in the in October at Tramway called Home Away where we're bringing five international companies over with five Scottish companies to actually explore what models are going on in other parts of the world so from Jamaica, from India, from New Zealand there's companies all coming to Scotland to actually have a focus and a symposium on excellence and models of reaching particularly hard-to-reach groups so what we can learn from our international partners and what they have already looking to take from us is actually becoming more important actually in this in this work and outreach work. The area that Scotland leads in terms of dance is actually with integrated companies those living with disabilities and that's something we've started to work with independence group based in Glasgow about looking at that but actually from across the pond over in the USA we've been partnering with the Mark Morris Dance Company and looking at working with people living with Parkinson's that's a project that we're just starting a pilot 18 month pilot this year so there are initiatives in other countries that I think we can learn from but I think we're probably pretty on the front foot about bringing those in and making sure those partnerships are not just brought in and delivered that they're actually brought in and we grow them and we make them our own. Of an orchestra the RSNO is one of the leading companies in the UK and it's actually perceived also to be one of the leading companies worldwide which brings me to a curious thing of what we can bring from the rest of the world to Scotland and I think to Scotland in general which is that we should be very quietly confident that we're actually extremely extremely good. Not usual I treat you expect from scots. The other thing is that because an orchestra brings conductors and guest soloists from across the world to Scotland by doing so we're actually bringing their philosophy of art making into Scottish concert halls on a regular basis so I feel that we have a really nice give and take between what we have to offer as a Scottish national company and what they bring to us from their background as well. Okay thank you. Did you have a supplementary more a brief plug actually in terms of what Laurie was suggesting in the symposium. I think ahead of the children and young people or as part of the children and young people's bill scrutiny here we were very focused on the issues around care leavers and actually what was interesting is that one of the introductions we had to young people going through care was through the medium of theatre which allowed them to give expression to their experience etc. So I think in terms of what you're doing to look at how you get harder to reach groups I'm sure we can share the details of that with you. That would be great. One of the things that has been a success for us was a project that we did in Glasgow in Fife called Jump which was working with young teenage boys just before they were at risk of entering the criminal justice system and identified as such and actually our model is always about empowering them to tell their stories and we used a free running parkour as a means of doing it. It was so successful in these boys who sometimes hadn't expressed what their frustrations were and their lack of opportunity and what their future might be that it was picked up by the British Council and we've just been making it in in Jamaica with young boys who have a different set of issues and in some ways more extreme but that was one of those models where you see the transformative effect it has in individual lives and that would be great to talk to you about those care leavers because I think that we could do as much of that work as we have the results to do to be honest because there's a huge need for it. I suppose that it's inevitable where public money is involved that the first thing you want to do is start measuring things and I would start by saying how do you actually yourself measure success as a national performing company? We use part of it as the coverage of the country. There's entirely quantitative targets such as audiences, participants, the subsidy per sheet, the efficiency in terms of lowering the subsidy per sheet and also beyond that in terms of our education and outreach work that tends to be assessed per project have that worked and assessed by feedback from those who've taken part. The Government itself of course has a number of peer assessors who write reports on our work. They are open to us as well subsequently. I suppose that the critical, perhaps above all, the critical response of the audience and the music profession and the music press about the quality of our work and the standing of the company internationally and against our peers. In different qualitative and quantitative ways I think that we look at all of those.  I mean some things will be better than the other. How do you bring all that together to say this company is a success? Well I suppose if we're doing high quality work and not getting ourselves into financial difficulty we're a success. That's in very broad terms but I mean I think all those factors inform whether we are a success. To some extent, the extent to which your success is in the judgment of other people as well as ourselves. I'm sure that Roy's probably summarised a lot of what we're all going to be saying because we all report back annually. There is of course critical and peer review and the independent assessors from within the sector but I think importantly a measure of success is I think knowing that we're still creating new art that we're not relying on too much on what's gone before and I think particularly with our over the last five years we've created an enormous amount of new work for Scotland and it's a mark of success that it's taken on to international touring and taken to be showcased either at the Edinburgh International Festival or for us at the Saddlers Wells in London which is the main dance house in London. So there's other probably within our own sectors some other marks of success that we can be judged by. Yes, similar answer. I mean there's other things such as awards in terms of theatre that's probably most appropriate. There's many many different awards schemes but I think there's something that we all value which is how significant we feel culture is being in public life in general. For me that's a difficult thing to measure but an important thing to measure so I think during 2014 I think that the contribution the national performing companies had and the theatre sector as a whole in a national debate was exemplary actually and I think it was we all as a theatre company we're most directly making work about specific social political topics and we we trod a very delicate line of making work that allowed artists to express their own passionate opinions without us taking a political viewpoint as a company and I think that was a mark from my point of view of a company that was thriving in that we were able to be a focus for people's dreams, hopes, aspirations, frustrations and we were a place where we could create a place for debate so for me that's a really significant part of the question of whether we're being a success over and beyond the quantifiable things we all have KPIs that we we can measure very specifically outcomes and we and the assessment meetings that we have both six months a year annually with the government also measure us against all the things that Chris and Roy have already spoken about. Inevitably, money counts, how do you measure the economic impact of your companies? Sorry can I just almost start with that and I'll call on Lizby. I'm probably not the best place for an answer this. I might just hand on to the description if he doesn't mind. Well there are multiple ways to measure it. There's the direct impact which at the RSNO if you take the fact that we have what we just mentioned to people in the office to people on stage then we have 432 junior chorus members 200 senior chorus members if you add together the guest artists and visiting artists the impact is to roughly 800 people annually that are somehow either employed by or on stage with the RSNO. Then there are government studies that depending on what project you look at the secondary impact is by a factor of 2.3 or by a factor of 7.1 it depends on which type of activity you're looking at in terms of additional pounds being generated from what you're doing.  We just heard some people actually travel for miles. We've recently had people coming to our concerts flying from the continent and from New York to go and hear our performances so that's hotel rooms in Edinburgh and Glasgow respectively. It's rather easier in some ways to measure the economic impact of that project. How difficult is it to measure the overall impact of your activities through the year and its contribution to the economy because clearly culture does have a major impact on the economy? Your question begs the answer. Yes, it is very difficult to measure it because there are lots of invisible ways in which we affect the economy. I think also in that all of us have talent development schemes and opportunities where we are actually supporting the development of artists at a much earlier part of their career who are then going on to work with other cultural organisations in the company in generating the flagship productions of tomorrow. We're all involved in that as well. The indices that Krishna mentioned are imperfect measurements but give some kind of sense of that additional impact and the employment figures speak for themselves. I'm not quite sure beyond that how we go about measuring it. I suppose I'm surprised that someone hasn't come up with a formula. Those indices are formulas that Krishna mentioned. There are actually government studies on both the financial impact and I would actually and I'm not trying to divert the conversation but I would say equally important is also the impact on wellbeing and I just happened to have right in front of me here this quote which is from Scottish Government social research in 2013. The study is called healthy attendance the impact of cultural engagement and sports participation on health and satisfaction with life in Scotland and one of the one of the important statements here is that people who were participating on a regular basis with cultural events reported 60% of those people reported to be actually living better lives feeling better about themselves. That surely translates also into a financial impact because somebody who's happy is somebody who's creative is somebody who's productive but if you'd like we can come back with those actual numbers. I can give you a relationship that I still have fresh in my head from my previous I just moved here from the United States. The arts sector in the United States is actually twice the size of the entire national football league income. So when we think about classical arts and we're thinking of arts being a marginalized form that's actually not true. If you take it in its entirety in the United States it's larger than what I would call the most profitable and larger sports franchise the world has ever seen and I'm not saying that because I'm American it's actually bigger than FIFA but the arts sector is larger. Global figures for the contribution of the arts to the economy so I suppose I'm curious about how at a company level you feed into that and contribute to that in terms of the calculation that's done for you part of the economic contribution. Very basic level we feed into it by providing people direct employment which then obviously contribute to society. On the secondary level there are entire infrastructures in our cities that would just be empty would be barren. I mean royal concert halls in Glasgow usher hall in Edinburgh horse cross in Perth Majesty's theatre up in Aberdeen. As companies we don't exist in a a vacuum we feed in through Scottish government and perhaps created Scotland reports and so on to the sort of more global or at least national impact economic impact I think economic impact of us as five companies is perhaps more difficult to define than the sectors a whole of which we are part. One of the national indicators in the Scottish government in its national outcomes is and I'll just quote it because none of you mentioned it is to increase cultural engagement which is measured by the percentage of adults who have either participated in a cultural activity or who have attended or visited a cultural event or place in the last 12 months. That's one of the measurements that you're measured against but none of you mentioned that in any of your responses there to those questions about how you measure success or how you see yourself as impacting on this in Scotland. If I can actually answer because I didn't answer the how do we measure success we have my board has five indicators one is artistic quality one is adherence to budget and that really means balancing your budget one is audience participation so that's exactly what you're quoting there and one is very important which is service to community but then the final one which I think is equally important as all of the ones above is actually internal morale of the company musician morale are the musicians feeling that we are enabling them in the right way so that they can get the art to the people because at the end of the day what we are is a conduit for an artistic process but for an actual work of art to be presented to the people but yes audience participation is essential. Well could all of you tell me how each of you have increased cultural engagement? Could anybody tell me how you increased cultural engagement? Are you looking for increased cultural engagement in terms of more people coming to hear us we had in this year? I'm looking at it sorry sorry Krishna I'm looking at it in terms of the Scottish Government indicator for its national outcomes it may not be a perfect measurement but I'm just wondering what your view is. There's a quantitative measurement I mean one of it is the audience figures you have in front of you which tells you the percentage we could work out what the percentage was of the Scottish population engaging with particular activities in the companies the other thing is what I was talking about of how significantly we're part of public life and I think that's what I was talking to there was and that's you can both put a number on it but it's also quantitative around engagement around particular subjects about particular events where we're providing that cultural engagement with with questions that people want want to discuss and think about so I think there's both measurements we do but maybe not in that by giving the bold percentage which is something perhaps we should be doing. I'm not arguing with you at all that you do qualitative and quantitative work and it's measured in many ways it's just the fact that and I'm reading out directly what is one of the Scottish Government indicators for your sector and so therefore accepting all that you've said what I'm asking directly is what is the answer to that question in terms of that indicator? It's the amount of contact we have whether it's a benefit for officials. I know what it is I'm asking you what you've done to achieve it. I think the numbers are there aren't they? All the examples we've given you about how we make the work accessible to various groups and various audiences is all feeding into that. I think that's what the body of what we've been discussing is all around that cultural engagement. It's important that we're able to demonstrate that there's audience part especially like audience members. I've got figures in front of me of 120,000 audience members in the last year but it's also the ancillary participations that happen around education outreach which can be anything in the 20 and 30 thousand and above depending on the breath and whether that's just in Scotland or whether that's international as well because we do continue our education outreach when we go offshore as well. John Lyle I think that everybody else has been taking opportunities to do a plug. I do a plug on behalf of Molo concert hall which has terrific star attractions over the next two or three weeks and I wouldn't put an offer out for you to come along and see it but it's to go back to obviously how you measure success and obviously your funding is associated with delivering obviously Scottish Government objectives and I was wondering if your success in some way is being constrained because you do have to deliver these objectives or is it something you are able to deliver in partnership or would you be able to deliver a higher degree of success if you run hunched from deliver those objectives? I think for the the objectives actually ensure that we're exercising to the broadest we possibly can it's ensuring that we're engaging not just on the stage or in the concert hall that we're engaging beyond that with the community that we're actually making a difference socially as well and that we're helping to I guess in a sense build a stronger society and that we're not resting on our laurels and just doing wonderful productions it's ensuring that we've got a sense of social responsibility that comes with the sort of support that the Government affords us. I certainly don't feel constrained by them in many ways they they actually help you articulate what we're there to do so in many ways once you get used to them they're actually quite helpful. It's described what a national company does and articulate that so I think that we all find that they're part and parcel of what we the work we do every day so I'd agree. I'm going to be very boring and just agree. I mean the natural the natural companies are I think because of these criteria are more complex but the point of it is that we're national companies and not just a city organisation. You would be doing this what can you be? Yeah. This is the kind of work that you assume is part of your remit anyway and I think that you described it effectively. This describes what you would do anyway. Okay sorry Liam. Perfect. I mean Alex started off describing I think that the strength is gained from the model within which you operate. We've just seen an example of the show of unity that a committee like this finds slightly unsettling. In terms of those success factors we've talked about to what extent is there a sense that one company's gain is another company's pain to what extent is there a fluctuation in terms of what you are doing you hitting your KPIs is going to mean that your funding from government is pretty much assured but that may and may expand to allow you to do more of what you've been doing so well but that will come at the expense of another company. How do you retain that sense of unity when presumably there must be a degree of challenge within your engagement with the Scottish Government? I know the same as any interest for any of us in one of the other companies not doing well. I think it's in our collective interest that we're a success. The area where I suppose the gloves come off is when it comes to fundraising and things like that where there is an element of many ways of healthy competition. Bid to the Scottish Government about how we've hit our KPIs. It's not with a view of securing additional funding. You see it in your interest to have a degree of stability across all the national companies. It depends how one looks back and how it develops in the future but since our funding levels were set in the first year of direct funding, they have gone up or down collectively. There hasn't been variations in that. The one area where we compete as well is for the international touring fund, which is a defined pot. We all have plans and we have aspirations beyond the limits of the fund but we all pitch for that and we all do well or less well from one year to the next. Can I finish on one question? We're roughly speaking at the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the national companies, or near enough anyway. I just wondered where you see the national companies going in the next 10 years. It's been an interesting 10 years and I think for those of us who have been around here a lot longer than that, it was interesting before those 10 years and I think that you mentioned Roy earlier some of the instability that went before. I remember some of the difficulties that Scottish Opera had some time ago. I was thinking that in the high streets. I remember the groups of singers in the high streets but, given the difficulties that were in the past, we've had some stability. We're in a difficult part of the economic cycle at the moment in terms of funding clearly. However, there's been much success across all the national companies over the past 10 years. Given all of that mixed history, where do you see each of your companies going over the next 10 years? I'm going to start. Chris, if you want to answer. I think that the support and the continued support is something that gives us a solid structure on which to build and I know that it gives us immense pride when we're outside of Scotland and we're asked how are we able to achieve such an amazing production, such an amazing performance to say that there is a consciousness from government to invest in the arts and in culture and to have a national portfolio. It's something that's celebrated so I think going forward it would be great to see that we're leading not following in that respect in terms of how national companies are not just funded but something that we touched on earlier, how they're accountable, how they can account for their position in society and their relevance. Thank you. Roy. I think that the last 10 years has been a real success story. Having said that, there is a danger, as I mentioned at the very beginning, that our funding, and it applies to all the companies, is nevyn cash terms less than it was 10 years ago. That was part of the origins of the problems in the 90s and the early 2000s. If the funding of the national companies continues to decline or stagnate, I think that the next 10 years will be much more difficult for it to be a success and there may have to be some hard choices made. Talking about all our education outreach work and our concerts, the potential for the five companies is almost infinite and it does come down to resources. What we've achieved over the last 10 years is really fantastic and I've been here since 1993. There's a lot to compare with, but I think that there's a dangerous time of sight ahead if money continues to decline. Although we're the biggest of the cultural companies in Scotland, we're just as fragile as the rest are. It's a fragile sector and it would be easy for it to go into crisis. Yes, I'll back that up. I think that we're making a really big impact relatively to the resource that we get. There's a fear that we won't be able to actually be ambitious about increasing the national reach, which is what I feel that we need to do at the National Theatre of Scotland, find new ways of reaching more of the country, more regularly, which would be my ambition. That would be a very difficult ambition to reach if funding was to be radically reduced. I think that we could be facing a really confident future together as a sector, but we own danger of being hit by the triple whammy of cuts to local authorities and cuts to Greater Scotland. As a company that only works in partnership with other venues, other artists and other companies, and that's the basis of the Theatre Without Walls model, we're in danger of being hit three times over. There is some uncertainty and some fear in the sector in general and for us as a national company about the future when we're poised to really capitalise on what's been for us only 10 years, but I think the impact that we've made internationally as well as nationally has been huge. I really hope that we can face the future with confidence and create and continue that. I think that the RSNO in future years will continue to be a national leader as the National Orchestra, but will also play a role internationally as an arts leader. I think the fact that we are going back to the United States in early 2017 after an absence of 30 years is testament both to what can go wrong in 30 years, which is where you sort of disappear from the world scene in large part because of funding instability and how easy it is for us to actually reconnect with the world because we're so present still in the world with our recordings that people really want to go and hear us. If I can articulate my challenges, my concerns, funding of course is always a concern, but I think that I have a bigger concern because especially the RSNO and to a certain extent of course also the SCO are international creatures. We get a lot of our talent from abroad, so funding is one issue, but the other issue that I see as a concern is insecurity as to what's going to happen regarding the next election cycles, the Brexit campaign. All of these things actually aren't helpful long term when we're thinking about being an international organisation. Regardless of how the outcome is, it's the uncertainty about them that is difficult. I don't want to unnerve you any further, but I agree with my colleagues. The last 10 years for the Scottish Opera have been very successful. The company has definitely been on an upward trajectory, and Alex had to leave to attend our North American debut. That is a work that is a culmination of almost those 10 years' work. It's a new opera written by Stuart McRae, one of Scotland's finest composers with the libretto by Louise Welsh, who is one of our finest writers. Based on a short story by Robert Louis Stevenson, it's got lots of credentials. Stuart and Louise started working with the company about eight years ago on a short 15-minute opera. They then produced a 45-minute opera a couple of years later. This is now a full-length opera, which has received fantastic acclaim, both from audiences and from critics. It has toured England and Wales and is now going to Canada. We want to see that continue. We obviously share the other's financial concerns, but we feel that our trajectory is going upwards, and that's how we would like it to continue. Thank you very much. I thank all of the witnesses who came along this morning, so generously gave their time to the committee. I appreciate that you're all busy people, but thank you for coming. I should also thank Alex, who is not here at the moment, and I don't think that I've ever had anybody who has left the committee to go to Canada before. I think that's a first. Again, thank you very much for being here this morning, and can I suspend briefly? Our final item is to consider petition PE01420 by Theresa McNally on behalf of Clack's kinship care, on recognising the real value of kinship carers and giving them parity with foster carers across Scotland. Do members have any comments on the petition? Therefore, can I ask the members what they wish to take on the petition? Clearly, we had a statutory instrument last week that dealt with kinship care from the Government, so with that in mind, I don't know whether members wish to explain what their view is about what we do with the petition. Liam Kerr, last week, when we were dealing with the statutory instrument, that appears to address the concerns that were raised with us through the petition, so on that basis, it would be appropriate to close the petition. I agree. I think that it's already been dealt with and I think that we closed the petition. That seems to be agreed by other members of the committee. I would agree that the Government has responded to the petition and, with the statutory instrument last week, it may not deal with 100 per cent of what has been asked, but it has dealt with the issue fairly well. Therefore, I agree with Liam Kerr that, in terms of the committee's view, we should close the petition at this stage. Is that agreed? Correct. That is agreed. Before I close the meeting, although we have a meeting the next week, this is the last public meeting of the committee in this session. I thank all the members of the committee who are present here today, but also those who have been members of the committee over the past five years. We have had a few changes over the years. I know that committee members have had, I think, hopefully an interesting time when this committee over the last five years has been a fascinating five years for me as convener, and I want to thank each of you individually for your support and for the work that you have done on the committee in ensuring that we have held the Government to account on legislation, but we have also examined a whole variety of different parts of the sector that we are also responsible for. Therefore, I thank you all for the work that you have put in over the years. I can also thank, I am sure, on behalf of committee members, the clerks, who have done an outstanding job in supporting the committee and representatives from SPICE, who again have done a tremendous job in supporting the committee. Also, on the work that sometimes members do not see going on behind the scenes, for example, the press releases that go out, I want to thank also the work behind the scenes that goes on that from officials to ensure that all of that takes place. Also, from all the other people who make the committee work on the day when we are hearing in Parliament, but also when we have gone out visiting here, of course, we have the official report to who I think most of us checked afterwards, not for accuracy, I have to say, but to make sure that we have not made a fool of ourselves. I thank you very much for the work that you do, but also for the broadcasting team and for the sound team who again do a great job, and also for the security people and also the other staff who provide the coffee and tea as well. I thank you very much to everybody on my behalf as convener, but also from everybody else, I am sure. It has been a very interesting five years, and I think that this committee can hold its head high in terms of the work that it has done over the whole session. Thank you very much, and with that, can I close the meeting?


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