Good morning and welcome everyone to the health, social care and sport committee's 13th meeting of 2021. I've received apologies for this meeting from Evelyn Tweed, David Torrance and Paul O'Kane, and I welcome Jackie Baillie and Mary McNair back to the meeting as substitute members.  We're agreed. And our second item today is an evidence session with stakeholders on sport and physical activity, so this is our initial session on this particular aspect of the portfolio and I'm welcome to the committee joining us online. David Ferguson, the chief executive for the Observatory for Sport in Scotland, Kim Atkinson, the chief executive of the Scottish Sports Association, Gavin McLeod, the chief executive officer for Scottish disability sport and Steve Walsh, the chief executive of High Life Highland. Welcome to you all. I guess at the start of things, everything these days revolves around the pre-Covid and during Covid and the obvious question to ask is looking at activity, in general physical activity, of the people of Scotland. I guess I'd like a summary of your view on what it was like pre-pandemic and issues around getting people moving and active and any changes that you've seen during the pandemic, particularly post lockdown, because lockdown inhibited people from being particularly active, but certainly since we've come out of the lockdown periods and things have started to open up. Members will be asking questions and generally identifying who they want to ask questions to, but if I can go around everyone for their opening remarks on what I've just outlined there. David Ferguson. Thank you, convener. I thank you for the opportunity to provide evidence to you today and I hope that that proves to be something that the Parliament really builds on as we go forward. Just if I may, a quick introduction to the Observatory for Sport for committee members who maybe don't know us. We were created five years ago to bring together research and evidence around sport's wider connection to health and wellbeing, education and communities, and to support more effective policy and practice in Scotland. We now have over 50 researchers with all kinds of experience and expertise from Scottish universities and institutions across the UK and globally helping us to do that. Does that research institute Think Tank, the OSS, likes to base our work on fact, and so it's using research and evidence? What we found in terms of Covid impact in Scotland—a research lead on this was Nick Row, who was Sport England's head of research strategy for many years and is well versed in UK data and trends. I'll share some of the findings with you now then. Firstly, there's not been a lot of research carried out in Scotland. There is a lot in England and across Europe and we're involved in quite a bit of that, but not a lot here. We've offered that and that's something that we've proposed to the committee today. It's not yet been taken up, but we hope that we can do that going forward. To give us some insight in Scotland, the OSS surveyed a national cross-section of adults as a starting point. Equally split between men and women aged between 18 and over 80. We've found that 47 per cent of the adult population in Scotland felt that their participation in sport and exercise activity was a lot or a little less than before Covid arrived. Just 14 per cent said that they had taken part in more activity. Men dropped off slightly more, but generally they start from a 10 per cent higher level of participation in women in Scotland. We've got a gender gap there, so we take that into account and actually women held on to their activity slightly more than men. It was similar across indoor and outdoor activity. Walking was a main positive that we saw. 45 per cent of adults said that they were walking more during the pandemic compared with the 12 months previously. 33 per cent said that they were walking the same and 20 per cent walking less, so around 53-54 per cent hadn't changed or were doing less. Geographically, the Lothians topped the scales here, with Central Region and the West of Scotland also noting high walking levels. Sadly, that walking rise didn't compensate for the declines in sport and exercise elsewhere. Research tells us that sitting brings a greater risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes, so we had a look at that. We found that 56 per cent of adults reported sitting more every day through that first year of the pandemic. The biggest group here was young adults aged 18 to 24, followed by 25 to 34-year-olds. We've also seen evidence globally on the impact of Covid on social anxiety, on loneliness, depression and self-harm among young people, panic attacks and a loss of motivation. We asked questions about that. In Scotland, we found that between 47 and 53 per cent of adults across different areas reported a negative impact of the loss of sport and exercise on their physical and mental health and or happiness that we asked about. The group that reported the biggest mental health impact was the 25 to 34-year-old cohort over 60 per cent of young adults, telling us that they felt that their mental health had suffered, with 18 to 24-year-olds and 35 to 44-year-olds close behind. We also asked how motivated they felt about getting back to hobbies and sport activities, and we saw a similar pattern here. Those aged 18 to 44 were less motivated now than people aged 45 and over. If I can share with you a final stat from the work that we did as we look ahead, we asked about what people wanted going ahead and how important sport activity was to them. Nearly two thirds of Scots told us that they felt that it was important that opportunities to take part to regularly in sport and exercise were available in their communities after lockdown was lifted. That was evenly split across men and women, but, again, people aged 18 to 44 were the strongest in their call for more opportunities to be available. That is a summary of some of the research that we have done so far. That is really interesting. Can I come to Kim Atkinson for your views on that initial question? Thanks, convener. It is a real pleasure to be here today. Thank you very much for the time. Just very briefly, the Scottish Sports Association is the membership body for the governing bodies for the different sports in Scotland. We are their independent voice. Their members are 13,000 sports clubs, whose members are 900,000 members of the sports club. From that point of view, the pre-Covid time was a period in which we knew that there were challenges, but we were in a progressing position across quite a number of sports. I think that we are in a position that we still are. We certainly were in a position where sport presented a great number of opportunities and physical activity the same, where we felt that more could be done and that there is a collective effort behind that. We know that, if people are physically active, there is a third reduction in all causes of mortality. We know that there is a 30 per cent increase in wellbeing for people who are active, but physical inactivity costs the Scottish Government about £91 million annually. We know that there is a 20 per cent pre-Covid difference between the most active and the least active in society. We knew that there were challenges, but at the same time we know that Scotland is a world-leading country in the policy environment for sport and physical activity. There are opportunities on behalf of our members to more greatly put that into practice, and I should say that the views that we are sharing are those that we have gathered from our members as a membership organisation. We were in a strong position from a policy point of view but with opportunities practically and knowing that a lot of governing bodies were really cutting edge in delivering new opportunities for their members to keep the active active and to get the inactive to enable them to be more active. The challenge with lockdown in that pre-lockdown period, as you say, convener, is that it has brought some new challenges. It has exacerbated existing challenges, and I think that that is some of the significant challenge within that. However, I do consider that our members have agreed that there is the potential that Covid has brought new opportunities. I think that predominantly those are around removal of barriers, where our members would see opportunities moving forward. I guess that that is probably where we would like to focus on today in terms of practically what we can do and hopefully where the committee can help us with that. The three barriers that we see real opportunity in moving forward to remove are some of the main reasons that people say that they are not active because they do not have time, and the premise of flexible working. We see a lot of people doing active commutes. There is a way, holistically, as a nation, our members believe that, as employers and educators, we can look at things differently. The cost of facilities has reportedly, consistently reported by our members, been a challenge. Again, that is not just a sport issue, I would argue, convener. I think that in conversations that we have had with colleagues across the wider sector, that we have had with colleagues across youth work, across culture, across heritage, across a number of areas, access to community facilities is one of the key challenges that people face, not just sports facilities but community groups accessing community facilities. Sports clubs are a third of all voluntary organisations. By the time we add those groups that I have mentioned together, convener, that is two thirds. One of the biggest challenges that they face is access to community facilities. I think that the third opportunity is around equality, so reducing that challenge of inequality. I think that equality's gap has probably grown. I am sure that that is a priority that all members see, but I think that there is a particularly pressing action around support for benefits, for people who have a disability to participate in sport and to volunteer. I am sure that Gavin, who is our expert on this and the amazing work that SDS does, will tell you more about that, but that is a real opportunity, we think, convener. As things stand at the moment and as powers for social security come to Scotland, we really need to be ahead of the game with this. The fourth opportunity is to look at the environment that we work in, around funding, what we measure and making sure that we minimise as much bureaucracy as possible and that we are focusing as much delivery as we can on delivering activities and not monitoring. We have seen progress in a number of those areas through Covid and through the programme for government in relation to that last aspect, but we think that there is opportunity to do more, convener, and we are really looking forward to that discussion today. Thank you, lots to unpack in what you have said, and I will bring in other members as well. Gavin, from SDS, from your perspective. Thank you, convener, for the opportunity to present today. Thanks to Kim for sitting this up so nicely in her pace around equality and inclusion. Just as a background, Scottish Disability Sports, the recognised governing body for Scotland for pan-disability and multi-sport, we work across the impairment groups of physical, sensory and sexual impairments. Our remit is about changing culture. It is about embedding inclusion in physical support right across Scotland. Pre-Covid, what did we know? We knew that almost a quarter of the population considered themselves to have a disability or a long term limiting health condition. We know that the benefits of physical activity and sport are proven in terms of quality of life, physically, socially and psychologically. For some of the athletes, we work with prolonging their lives. We know that there is a latent demand out there. We know that four out of five disabled people want to be more physically active. We also know that there are some substantial barriers there. We know about transport, we know about perceptual issues, and we know around cost. The one that Kim teed up there for me quite nicely was the one around benefits, which we came across in 2019. A piece of research showed that almost half of disabled people questioned and were fearful of becoming more physically active because of the potential loss of their benefits and being judged to be more able. That is where we are. In terms of pre-Covid participation, disabled people were way behind in meeting the physical activity targets. 8 per cent of sports club membership was disability and people with a disability. Only 2 per cent of the qualified coaching workforce. We know that there were still big gaps, despite some great work happening out there. For us, Covid was a pretty bleak picture, as you can imagine. Lockdown happened very early for a lot of the individuals that we worked with. We picked up on very early some quite worrying mental health issues with some of our athletes and participants. We did a lot of work in putting all of our programmes online, doing a lot of work with SAMH to support our athletes through that lockdown period. Coming out of lockdown, we are seeing a real hesitation from a lot of individuals with disabilities in terms of coming back to physical activity and sport. We are seeing probably 50 per cent that are really came chomping at the bit and are back already, but there are still a big number still not coming back. The reasons behind that are real lack of confidence and some issues around care and care packages being reduced or taken away. Issues just around access to sports clubs and transport, things like that. Our event programme, which we have been back up and running since September, is seen between 14 per cent return rates to those events. It is those societal issues that are sitting behind that are really causing the problems. Goals are not sending individuals or teams along yet. Social care packages are not sending individuals either. That whole lack of confidence is sitting behind that as well. For us, the next 12 months will be about supporting those reluctant returners to find the confidence to come back and to get back to the figures that we had pre-COVID without even pushing things forward. There is a lot of work to do in the next 12 months. Thank you, Gavin. There are lots of people who are furiously making notes about things to ask you, but some of the things that you have said there. I come finally to Steve Walsh before I bring other members in. Thank you, convener, and thank you for the invitation to speak at your committee. Very briefly, High Life Highland is a sport leisure and culture trust. We sit at Armsland from the Highland Council. We clearly occupy one of the biggest regions in Scotland. With that comes the challenges of remote and rural communities. The geography of barriers transport is one of the biggest barriers that we encounter. I have the benefit of taking notes, as others have spoken, in terms of returning to sporting activities from a leisure perspective. Across our organisations, returners sit at about 60 per cent to 80 per cent. There are a few outliers, but that is generally where we are. My membership is 75 per cent. The reasons for non-returns—it goes back to what Gavin said—is confidence. Many of those who were shielding have not returned to physical activity. We sit with quite a few frozen members who do not have the confidence to come back to a leisure centre. On the return as well, it is quite difficult to establish what we are benchmarking against. My question would be, are we benchmarking against pre-pandemic or are we looking at something completely different as we move forward? The outdoor sporting activities have increased, particularly golf and tennis. There has been a massive uplift, but other sports have struggled. Part of the reason for that is that I do not think that it has been picked up by others. There is a big reduction in the cohort of volunteers across the sector. I will give you one figure from the Highlands. We had more than 1,600 volunteers. That is across not just leisure, but across youth work, libraries and all the other things that we deliver. We had 1,600 volunteers. That is down to less than 1,000 now. Much of that is down to lifestyle choices as we have come out of lockdown and a little bit of volunteer fatigue as well as people have suffered the impact of the pandemic. Just a couple of other things that I would like to cover. Kim spoke about access. I absolutely agree that sports organisations should be entitled to, if we could make it free, that would be fantastic, but affordable access to public facilities. The challenge that someone like myself has, I have almost classes in the squeezed middle here, is that if we do not charge for access to facilities, the potential is that we would have to look at closures as we move forward. I do not say that lightly. As we come out of the pandemic, we are all in recovery, and we have all struggled financially. That is a great aspiration, but we really have to think about the consequence of doing something like that. I would, in terms of being supportive of it. With respect to participation at an affordable price, I would probably try to pitch the high-life model here. Our model is based on maximising participation at an affordable price. Our all-inclusive family membership in the Highlands is less than £35. That includes swimming lessons, all classes. In terms of elasticity, we have a high number of members. About 17,000 at the moment, pre-pandemic, we have about 21,000 members within High-Life Highland, which compares quite favourably against the rest of the country. We also have a 50p rate, so any family who is hard-pressed to our income support can access any of our facilities for 50p. Care experience young people enjoy free access to our facilities, as do most of families. That is just a couple of the things that we do to try to break down some of the barriers. Straight after this gathering, East City of my office is just now down the road number S. We have an inclusion forum for disability sport as we try to recover that. Across the region, as we move out of the pandemic and bring more young disabled people, we are trying to give them opportunities in the sporting field. That has been a great opener. I am going to go to colleagues, just a bit of meeting management here, because our panellists are all online. Members are going to direct their questions on the whole to individuals, but if you feel that you want to add panellists, just use the chat box on the platform. I want to speak on that or whatever, just catch my attention. I am logged on so that I can see that. The structure that we are going with is that we are looking at the Act of Scotland delivery plan. I guess that we are looking at the outcomes. We will go through all those outcomes and get your feedback on those as we go. On picking up on some of the things that you have mentioned, I will go to Gillian Mackay. In a previous evidence session, I asked the Minister for Mental Well-being and Social Care about the impact of the pandemic on social prescribing. He said that the Government was monitoring this very closely but did not have the evidence to hand on the impact. Does the panel have a sense of this? Is there a feeling that people have less time to engage with social prescribing and, in particular, exercise referrals? I put that to David Ferguson, please. That is a good question. I would guess that perhaps some of the other panellists might be better placed. We had an event on this with the Royal College of Physicians and GPs recently when we were looking at social prescribing. As you note, it is an area that has not really brought enough research and evidence. It is something that we have been looking at, but we have not been in a position to be able to develop the facts and the evidence yet that we would like in that area. We have made an offer to the Government about developing research in key areas that, as I said earlier, are happening in England and across Europe. Children and young people are using social prescribing in a different way in being innovative. There are some great examples in Scotland. Glasgow Life is one of several leisure trusts that are working with the health board and looking at co-location of services and how they bring sport and health together to help them to develop in communities that are accessible. As you heard from Steve, one of the things that he maybe did not mention was that one of the reasons people are not coming back to sport and leisure is because some facilities are closed. A lot of facilities that are allowed to open through Covid regulations have not yet been opened because they are not able to financially or they do not have enough staff to operate. That is a big concern for how we get people coming back. I will probably pass on to the other panel members, because I know that we are working both with Gavin very closely at the moment on research and disability. We are working with Steve, as well, in Highliff, Helendon research, and I know that they have got perhaps a wee bit more insight into what the current situation is. We will just unmute your microphone, Gavin. Hi there. Thanks for the question as well. From our point of view, what we are finding is that we have physio-referral schemes in place across the country, largely paediatric physios. That relationship has been really good. It has been built on person-to-person relationships, unfortunately, not as strategic as I would like it to be. I think that that referral system should be more strategic and built in. What we saw during lockdown is that it has stopped completely, for obvious reasons, but we are starting to see that pick up again. From the physio and the OT point of view, yes, that has worked, but it could be stronger. We are doing a piece of work at the moment in Tayside, with NHS Tayside Get Out, Get Active, funded by Spirit of 2012 and the London Martin Charitable Trust. That has been running since it just started as Covid kicked in, as chance had it. However, what we did was move to everything online, a bit like our own programmes during lockdown. We actually got a huge response. A lot of those were ferals from NHS practitioners. A lot of that was level physical activity and support with mental health. We ran those right the way through the lockdown period. We have now started to return to face-to-face. On what we are seeing a little bit of what I said earlier, there is a bit of a split between those who are keen to try and engage in face-to-face activity. We are probably 50 per cent that are still quite happy to stay online because they still have that nervousness and that lack of confidence to do the face-to-face bit. However, the Goga programme in Tayside is brilliant because it is now being built into an activity pathway as part of the NHS programme. We are delivering education and training into all the clinical practitioners in Tayside and we are creating all the links into physical activity output locally on the ground. As a model, it is great. There is an awful lot of monitoring and evaluation that is being built around it and learning that is coming out. The UK-wide programme, but the Scottish leg of it, is focusing on the NHS. Three-year programme, by then, if it will have a lot of learning, it will be delighted to come back and talk to you about it in terms of what has come out of the back end. I think that it is a super question. It is certainly an opportunity that has been recognised across sport and physical activity for many years. We are now 10-plus years on from Christy commission. That type of question gets absolutely to the heart of prevention, and the work that Gavin and the team are doing with the Goga model is ground-breaking and sector-leading, but we need to look at additional opportunities for that. Again, we know that 2,500 people die every year in Scotland because they are not active enough. 2,500 people for a developed world nation is surely something that needs to be addressed. It gets to the heart of that connect between sport and physical activity and healthcare. How do those really work and how can those really come together? I know that Public Health Scotland has been doing some increasing work in this area, which is refreshing. However, we still need to be very clear that sport and physical activity needs to be prioritised within healthcare more than it has ever been. Sir Harry Burns, the former chief medical officer, called sport and physical activity the best buy in public health. Yet we do not really see sport and physical activity recognised in the national performance framework when we talk about the importance of healthcare at the highest level. It is also the key indicator of life expectancy. Again, Sir Harry Burns said that how active you are will determine how long you live more than any other indicator. You look at life expectancy and we do not talk about sport and physical activity as being a priority. Within that yet again, the research says that it needs to be. We really need to look at that opportunity and prioritisation of sport and physical activity within healthcare. There are some really good examples as well. I am sure that Steve Will will have more as well. The model that High Life Highland works through is absolutely unique. I am delighted that Steve Will is on the call here to really be showing what sector-leading trust work can do. There is also a really interesting model that the committee, in a previous iteration, went to view at Atlantis Leisure, where, over and open, they have a really strong connect with the local GP surgeries. A sport and physical activity co-ordinator sits there as part of the referral process. However, I am not aware that we have ever seen that roll-out yet. Every time we talk about that, we talk about those types of examples. Our members are really, really clear that social prescribing is a huge opportunity. It was part of the manifesto that our members worked with us on in advance of the elections. Their ask is for a clear and resourced strategy for social prescribing, which recognises and embraces the breadth of opportunities for people to try different activities and different sporting opportunities and for community clubs to be at the heart of that, because at the end of the day they are closest to their communities. That is a great question, Gillian. It is another huge opportunity. Gillian, your question has excited many members who want to come in on social prescribing. Have you got a supplementary question to that? No, no, I had a different question. I will come back to you. Emma, do you want to ask something on social prescribing if you can direct it to somebody, please? Sure. Thank you, convener. Good morning, everybody to the panel. I am not sure what TV I am supposed to be looking at at the moment. In the last session of Parliament, we as a health committee, I was a member, we did an inquiry and the report came out called physical activity is an investment, not a cost, and it was or social prescribing. We did an evidence gathering and sessions around that, so I suppose my question goes to David Ferguson. You were asking about evidence and what further evidence we need in order to do more in order to support social prescribing programmes. I know that there are GP practices that are doing a fantastic job in signposting people, but community link workers will help to play a part in that. I am just wondering about any reflections on the health committee's previous report and how that can feed in to develop further evidence about the benefits of social prescribing for physical activity. Thank you for the question, Ms Halper. It is definitely a good—it is an area that the committee has to focus on and the Government has to focus on more and I would echo what we have heard from Kim there from the sports world. There is a lot of talk that goes on within committees in Parliament. Quite often it is not followed up in terms of really pulling together the evidence on a national basis. That is what we are finding. It is interesting. I speak a lot of the time with colleagues at Sport England, in the Netherlands, in Denmark and New Zealand, who are used where they are using sport. The Governments are now using sport as a tool to address health and wellbeing challenges. It is not about investing in sport to improve sport. It is about seeing sport as part of the wider society. We have not really done that yet. We tend to throw a bit of money at sport and we hope that sport will solve that. Sport cannot do that. It can only go so far. It has to be pulled out of that basket to support proper support given across the network. If we are going to do social prescribing well, which we can, and I echo what Kim says, the evidence that we have seen across Scotland is that there are some really good examples. Kim has given one there from Argyll. We have seen them in Aberdeen, in the Highlands, in Berclid, in a really good system of social prescribing, GP referral. There are good pockets. What we would like to do is pull all that together. We have offered that before, to pull that together to do a proper bit of research that looks at where it is working and where it is not, why that is the case and to be able to give the proper national picture. That is the concern that we have that we have not had that focus up to now. We have that discussion at committees. We have that discussion in lots of forums across Scotland. Everyone says that it is great social prescribing. We should be doing that, more of that, but actually nobody is taken abool by the horns and saying, okay, let's invest a bit in that and let's properly understand what the picture is telling us so that we can help every part of Scotland to use that properly, to learn from where it works and where it doesn't. We also bring in a bit of international learning, which we have seen out there, which is some of it could work in Scotland, some maybe not. But we need to start to do that, to take some action, to step forward and actually make it happen. See sport and physical activity, not as being an end in its own, a little luxury at the side, but actually part of Covid recovery now, but part of strengthening our communities, rebuilding and creating the resilience that we need in communities to help every age of person to recover and be healthier. I have a long list of people who want to come in as social prescribing. We probably could end up using the whole 90 minutes on it and that's fine, if members want to do that. But Steve Walsh wants to come in, Steve? Yes, thank you. Just very briefly, two things that might be of interest to committee, but on a very practical level. First one is the work that we do on cardiac rehab, on Parkinson's sufferers and falls prevention. We don't just take referrals from GP practices, but also from social health professionals from self-referos as well. Pre-pandemic, we have about 250 people on those preventative courses and we pivoted those to online as well. We have a hybrid offer now as we move forward. That works particularly well on the GP referral side. That really hasn't expanded as much as perhaps we would have liked. In the Highlands, I spoke to our healthcare professionals yesterday in NHS Highland and we speak. I think that we've got about 60 odd GP practices here and only a handful have really moved forward in a progressive way with social prescribing. In fairness, that's about time and space and training. The GP practices that we work really well with tend to be practices where we've got GPs who have an interest in this area and really focus on it. I think that there's a bit of work to do there. I know that we've got community link officers who will be going around GP practices to try to upscale it, but my final point is whether it's on cardiac rehab or social prescribing from GPs. It's all very scalable, but we tend to be scrambling around for little pockets of money here and there to do it, but it is absolutely scalable if the correct resource was put in place and we could work collectively to do it in a grander, more joined-up scale. Thanks, convener, and I completely agree with what Steve was saying there. Thanks to the question, Emma. I think that it was a direct quote from us in our submission and in that evidence session that sport needs to be an investment and not a cost. One of the biggest things we need to change as society is that culture, where exactly as Steve was saying, we know what the ambition is and I completely agree with what you said, Steve, about access to facilities and the challenge that that would be placed on local authority and leisure trust budgets. However, we need to not see that as a cost and I don't say that to Steve, I think that that's a wider principle, that if we saw sport and physical activity as an investment, an investment in our physical health and investment in our mental health and investment in the education of our young people, we know that you get enhanced immunity systems, we know your greater potency of vaccinations. There is not a better time to be having this conversation. However, I lied to that for the committee's reference, 90 per cent of investment in sport in Scotland goes through local authorities. 90 per cent. Steve's point about why this is such a challenge in cash strap times for local authorities and leisure trusts is absolutely fundamental. None of that money is ring fence, so personally I'd be surprised if all of that 90 per cent actually ends up in sport and physical activity, which I think then further adds challenge to the work that Steve and colleagues are doing. Our members, when we looked at previous sets of programme for governments and in conversations that we've had with previous ministers, have identified link workers as being again that huge opportunity. At the current programme for government, our members see exactly that same opportunity with the commitment that's been made to health boards, the £650 million, which includes physical activity for under five. We need to be ahead of the game in having that conversation about how sport and physical activity is involved in that, so not things that are done to sport and physical activity, but things where governing bodies, local authorities and other key partners are involved in that for those that understand it best. I think that the fundamental thing in response to your question, Emma, is actually about what are the gaps? In routine conversations that we have, can you provide a case study? We have phenomenal case studies. Gavin could bring a tear to any eye with the case studies that he can talk about, about lives being saved, not just changed. We have any case study that you require, but there is also a huge amount of evidence. Yes, maybe some of it could be pulled together differently, but we know that sport and physical activity is a phenomenal thing across Government agendas. What evidence is it that we are missing? What I think we need is an action plan to come together and say, okay, here is what needs to be done and here is the bill for it, but this is why it's an investment. I feel that that's the argument that we've never quite got to you. It's a spend, it's a spend. If we're true sticking to prevention, we need to consider our language and we need to change that culture. I think that there is an opportunity for a group to come together in sport and physical activity at a strategic level to have a different dialogue. Sport doesn't come together strategically. It comes together with Government and with physical activity and with wider colleagues, yes, but sport and its own entity doesn't come together. I think that there's an opportunity—I've had this conversation previously—for ourselves representing governing bodies, for the representatives of leisure trusts, for local authorities and for Sport Scotland and, potentially, for some other partners to come together and say, look, what is it that we need to do and collectively can do together? That's a gap. The other one that I suggest, Emma, and convener, if that's okay, is that maybe we need to really raise this higher within the Scottish Government agendas. Active Scotland divisions do phenomenal work, but can we work with them to say, well, actually, maybe we need a cross ministerial group to look at the role and contribution of sport and physical activity, because it touches probably every agenda and it touches every national outcome? So what can we have across Cabinet or across ministerial working group that helps to talk about this? Thank you. Again, still on social book subscribing, Carol, you wanted to ask something, if you can direct it to someone in particular, because we have a lot of members wanting to come in. Yeah, I mean obviously—Oh, Danny and I, I'm on. Sorry, thanks very much, thanks to everyone. I mean, there just is so much that we could pick up on. The point that I'm going to pick up on is this notion that we need to go from talking to action. That's very clear. We need to actually get some things done. My question just very quickly on this is, are there any good examples that we should be looking at where other countries perhaps have done that? So we know the evidence is there. It's very clear what we need to do. Are there some good examples of where they actually have gone to action and can now start to see the outcomes? Possibly David, or Kim, possibly? Yeah, I'm happy to—Carol, thanks very much. I know that—and it's really encouraging that we have the support. We know we've got support from members of you in this committee, so I know that you understand some of these issues and we have talked with many of you before. What Kim has said there is really important. It's important to understand that we don't have a set-up where all the partners are around the table and looking at how sport is used. We had a really positive meeting with the Deputy First Minister, John Swinney, obviously now Cabinet Secretary for Covid Recovery recently, and his Covid Recovery team. It was interesting how much they perhaps didn't realise about how sport came together and the silo operation that we sometimes have in Scotland, but it was really encouraging how he said, okay, we have to bring this together. We have to make sport and physical activity part of Covid recovery. I was encouraged by that. I shared with him the same example that I'll pick out to share with you, Carol, at the moment. The Netherlands created a national sport agreement five years ago, which brought all the stakeholders on to the same page. On a national level, they had government, they had health, education, criminal justice, because we've done lots of great examples of Police Scotland talking about the advantages of local sports clubs in tackling antisocial behaviour and things like that. They're important as well. Private business and, of course, the research was part of that whole equation. They've now replicated that at local level. I speak with my colleagues in the Netherlands quite often. Over 360 municipalities that they have, they're ensuring that there's the same investment into communities there from national government to ensure a consistent approach to health and wellbeing in communities. It's not an approach to sport, it's an approach to improving health and wellbeing. How each other does that, how each area does it, how the partners come together, the local council, the schools, clubs, health, business, is up to each area. They make it fit for their area, fit to their area. The key is that they're all involved, they're all contributing to that community activity and they all understand their roles in delivering against health and wellbeing and education and social cohesion objectives. That's how they're coming together to help plot the way out of Covid. They did that, they invested more in post austerity in Scotland. Our investment in community sports started to decline post 2008. It's interesting to note that the Netherlands saw sport and physical activity as a route to tackling things such as unemployment, depression and mental health off the back of austerity and they have kept with that. Now they're using it again to tackle Covid. Another example I'll throw in briefly is the New Zealand one, where they took a sort of three category approach. They talked about their first approach being about reset and rebuild and again they pulled all the key stakeholders together and that's a population of over four million, not a bit closer to us than the Netherlands, to help sport and recreation to get through that initial impact of Covid. Their next phase was called strengthen and adapt, where they looked at support to rebuild in the medium term but they started to look at how they could change operating models, again with collaboration to develop post pandemic. They also have the third one, which I think is really intriguing and we need to be looking at. They called it different and better. Recognising that a lot of the sport delivery and the physical activity and the way they delivered that and developed it was quite dated and that some of the structures were no longer sustainable and they've started to look at piloting innovative approaches to delivering play, recreation and sport to get to. In Scotland we have an example of close to 50 per cent of our population now are not engaged in any regular sport activity so they were looking at how they could innovate to get to these people. We need to do the same in Scotland and I would echo what Kim said, that it starts with a national coming together but we could replicate that locally as well. We only have 32 regional areas, a lot less than we have in the Netherlands. It's not difficult to do if we can pull those partners together and start thinking strategically rather than the sort of government looking just to active Scotland and sport Scotland saying you go and solve that, you go and deal with sport. Again, I go back to the encouragement we had Mr Swinney. We asked him then and we said then that we could help to deliver that and I make that offer again today but it has to have all the sectors coming together. The engagement that we have as I say with the GPs, with physicians, talking about social procurement, there's a real enthusiasm there to do that now. We have to act quite quickly because, as you've heard from Steve and others, we have real pressures on our facilities and when you lose community facilities you're going to tell MSPs that they don't come back so we're under real pressure over the next year to do that. I think that now is a good time for us to take that action and start to look at how we come out healthier and more positive to what went into the pandemic.  Yes, so just on something a little bit different, during lockdown we heard about how people with access to green space were more likely to get out and spend time outdoors than those who didn't. Do we know what the impact of this disparity has been on activity levels and how it's linked to, for example, socioeconomic status? Gavin, on that one, please. Yes, we don't have enough evidence to back it up but, from what we saw in terms of the recovery from the lockdown and the shielding period, the outdoor activities, the green spaces, were a bit of a lifeline for disabled people where access allowed. Access is always a big problem with the outdoors when it comes to many disabled people. Certainly, we saw a huge rise in walking groups, particularly in cycling programmes. What it comes back to is the social aspect of it. It was getting out, having been locked up for so long, being able to socialise, going for a walk, going through a cycle, having a cup of tea and just being able to feel normal again was the feedback that we were getting. I don't have enough evidence to back that up, but it played a big part in the recovery from Covid from our point of view. Briefly, to build on what Gavin said, I'm not aware that there's a huge amount of evidence, but the anecdotal feedback that we've had from members is that there have been a number of factors that have highlighted the priority that people placed within that. My lifetime, the idea of wellbeing has never been more important. For the first time, I think that wellbeing was almost higher than the economy at one point. Obviously, the economy will rise and rightly so, but we need to hold on to wellbeing being really important. Both wellbeing as a society but our individual wellbeing. I think that that focus on social health, as Gavin was saying, that particular role of sport and physical activity in being out, being active. We saw people walking with friends and that being the social gathering in the way that it's never been before. I think that we've also seen the really important role of local clubs. Those of us that are involved in sport and physical activity know that clubs are the heart of so many societies. Through Covid, we've seen so many different sports clubs reaching out into their communities, then becoming community facilities where people come and get food, where they meet people, where clubs have been outreaching into local communities. Nothing to do with sport, but just because they're that trusted partner within the community. I think that that's a really important part. However, the factors that we've seen have been local facilities, they've been people having more time and more flexibility with their time, and we've seen it being about reduced access, reduced cost to being able to do things where cost isn't a barrier because you're able to use the outdoors in that environment. I think that they're the principles that we need to remember as we move forward with new opportunities. I totally agree with what David was saying about this. This isn't about more of the same, but about making this a real opportunity for change. I think that the committee has such an important role in that. Thank you, Gendina. Good morning, panel, and thanks for your time this morning. I'm going to put my questions to Gavin. I was interested to hear in your submission about the reduced participation in volunteering by disabled people because of the potential impact that you might have regarding PwP benefits. You've referenced that again this morning. Can you say a bit more about that in the experiences that you've been made aware of? Given the transfer of disability benefits to Scotland, what engagement do you plan to look at the barriers with the Scottish Government and Social Security Scotland? Obviously, universal credit will still remain with PwP capability assessments. In terms of what we've seen, the research that was in the submission was English research, but from our experience up here, we've seen some of our athletes have their mobility taken away. We've seen the benefits being cut. We recently had a volunteer with a disability. We paid expenses and he had his benefits stopped. Now, we were able to fight to get them reinstated, but we shouldn't really be happy to do those fights to support them to do that. It's undoubtedly an issue. We speak to our participants and they're all nervous about that assessment and their benefits being cut. We've got a apprentice programme just now, which is about focusing on athletes retiring and keeping them in the sport and getting them involved as coaches. All of the athletes that we spoke to were reluctant to get involved because of the potential impacts on their benefits. If we're trying to keep athletes in the sport and trying to keep them engaged, those are the things that are real tangible societal barriers that are there. We would love to be engaged. We haven't had any engagement yet, but we can bring some experienced and lived experience from the participants and athletes that we're working with. We can bring that into the fold. The opportunity that you're right is here to do something significant because it's a disincentive at the moment, and we need to turn that round. It needs to be an incentive. We need to incentivise people to become more physically active, particularly those with disabilities. I'm looking at the chat box and have a couple of other panellists who want to respond to you. Can I come to David Ferguson and then I'll come to Kim Atkinson? That is an important issue. It has to be addressed. We're working with Gavin and the Scottish disability sport team. We've also got disability equality Scotland involved in that research that's on going at the moment. We hope that, as Gavin said, a lot of the research around disability is having to use research that was done in England with either no cohort or a very small cohort from Scotland. The first research that's been done in 20 years in disability in Scotland, in disability sport, so we hope to come up with some answers there and some real experiences within that project over the next few months. Thanks, convener. I was just hoping to pick up on the volunteering aspect to the question, if that's okay. We know that volunteering, as Steve said earlier, has been a real challenge through the pandemic. We know that fewer volunteers are returning, in particular reluctance, understandably, around older adults. We've got a lot of young people who want to volunteer, but providing that support network has been harder. As indeed has been people returning to volunteering just generally who are looking for a bit more support, so those people involved in supporting volunteers throughout the wider voluntary sector are finding this more time consuming. So never is there a more important time to recognise that volunteering isn't free, but it's absolutely fundamental to not just how sport operates. So a sixth of all adults, that volunteer, volunteer in sport, and half of all young people who want to volunteer, want to volunteer in sport. From a policy point of view, the issue with DWP is in relation to their guidance, so as people are asked and assessed for their benefits, they are asked if they volunteer. The research across the voluntary sector has shown that people are reluctant to volunteer on the basis that they fear that their benefits will be cut. It's a conversation that our colleagues in the Scottish volunteering forum have been progressing with DWP. My understanding is that we're now at a position where there is a statement of guidance that outlines that you are able to volunteer and your benefits won't be cut, but it can't be published, it can't be put online and it can't be shared electronically, which doesn't strike me. Personally, convener is being a very transparent way of working, and we know that volunteering reduces all causes of mortality by 20 per cent. Surely, we need to be encouraging more people to volunteer. From our point of view, we had a chat fairly recently with Joe FitzPatrick, the convener of the Equalities Committee, and again striving for support from them in how we move this forward and trying to say, a, we need a serious conversation with DWP, which I know that the Sports Minister is very keen to have, and secondly, we also need serious conversations before Social Security powers transfer to Scotland about how we can make sure that this issue is not replicated. So there's addressing now and protecting for the future, please, convener. Let's go to show what came back to what Kim said earlier about things being cross-portfolio. We've got planning considerations and Gillian's question, and we've now got social security issues as well. Can I come to Sue Webber once to ask some questions around older people, I believe? It was on funding now. On funding, and then you can move on to older people first. Okay, that's fine. Thank you. Steve, to yourself first, you mentioned that scrambling around for little pockets of money, and Kim also has mentioned that 90 per cent of the funding is cascaded through local authorities, and I should declare myself as a councillor in the city of Edinburgh for this question. We all know the pressure that local authorities are under, so given that we've got a letter here from Marie Todd that states that the investment in sport and active living is being doubled to £100 million a year by the end of the Parliament, which, given some of your comments today, perhaps might not be enough. So I want to ask about that level of investment specifically, and what confidence do you have that it is reaching the intended recipients, given that it's controlled via local authorities in that distribution? Well, thank you. That's a really good question. It's one of those questions that, for me, I have to tread quite carefully when I answer, because nobody in my shoes wants to bite the hand that feeds you, but if you were asking me and my colleagues in community leisure UK across leisure trusts, we would very much welcome ring fence funding for sport and leisure. Just over the past two years, in terms of Scottish Government funding, leisure trust alloys haven't qualified directly for any funding, apart from the loss of income recovery fund, which went through, clearly, through COSLA and local government, and that was delivered to sport and leisure trust in a variety of ways, depending on how the local government authority decided to distribute it. I'll sit here and say that we are well supported in the highlands by the local authority. Do I have enough revenue to do everything that I want to do to support our communities? Absolutely not. Do I have challenges year on year to make efficiencies? Yes, I do. Somewhere between 3 and 5 per cent efficiencies every year from a 30 million turnover, so it is significant. One of the things that there is a big challenge from a leisure trust perspective is that most of the services that I deliver are non-income generating. Libraries, museums, youth work, adult learning and music tuition are all non-income generating. There is an argument that the revenue that I generate from leisure goes towards keeping a lot of those facilities going as well. As a part of a paradox, it is difficult for us all to finish. I do not think that we are at a culminating point yet, but as you rightly say, as local government finances become more and more acute, that inevitably will be transferred across to sport and leisure trusts unless we do something differently. So could you move on to your next question? Is it an outcome to you that you would like me to move on to? Yes, please. On older people, please. Yes, I suppose that this is probably directed more towards Gavin McCloud regarding the disability element. The report and the presentation that you gave us speaks quite acutely of how over-impacted they have been relative to other groups. What one thing can you see that we might be able to do to try and bring that back quicker than perhaps the other groups that are less disadvantaged? You spoke about how we can support the reluctant returners to the sport. I think that what has become very clear is that personal support that is required. I think that the prospect of, if you build it, they will come, it is not going to work. I think that what we found from the Goga programme and I think that it is applying to these reluctant returners is that there is a real nervousness about coming into and returning to physical activity. There is a huge gulf, a quantum leapt from being inactive and joining a sports club. That low-level physical activity and what we have learned is that it has to be supported, it has to be friendly, it has to be local, and it has to be fun. It has really got to be fun because if not, people will disengage. From our point of view, it is going to be about trying to put that support through our regional managers, through our local branches across the country, to support people in their local areas to get back to somewhere that they know with people that they know with people like them. It is going to take time because we see on the news every day a new variant that has arisen potential new lockdowns. That sits in the psyche of those people and makes it even more difficult for them to take that leap to come back to sport. It is going to be a long, hard slog to get those people back. Conversly, young people, Stephanie, you had some questions about that outcome 3 about physical confidence and competence from the earliest age. Over to you, Stephanie. Okay. Thanks very much, convener. Thanks for being here today, panel. I wanted to ask you if you can tell me a wee bit about what you think the impact of that early activities with young people. If we are really getting young people active from a very, very early age, what impact does that have on their future activities and on their health right into the future? I feel that I have to declare our interests as a councillor here as well, but sometimes we put quite a bit of funding into getting older people out, et cetera, whereas we maybe do not look at those younger children getting them into healthy early patterns that will hopefully continue through their lives. I wonder what evidence there is to back that up. Kim, first of all. Thanks. It's a great question, Stephanie. If that's okay, convener, just a couple of quick thoughts on the question from Sue, if that's okay. So a quick reminder that, as I'm sure Sue well knows, sport isn't statutory, so that obviously means that there are budget questions in there. We know that the last Audit Scotland report showed that the increase, the investment from local authorities into trusts was decreasing on an annual basis, and I suspect that that's continued. I think that we routinely hear language about biting the hand that feeds them, which I think is a real challenge. We're probably one of the few independent organisations that doesn't sit with that as a challenge. We also need to remember that culture is free and sport and physical activity aren't, and that always strikes me as a challenge. I think that there are a few programme for government questions that our members have identified. What is the definition of active living? In the £100 million budget, I don't know what that is. That would be good to understand. How can we work with health boards and identify the physical activity opportunities, which ties really neatly with Stephanie's question? About your point about is the money reaching the right groups, Sue? Well, this premise that active schools will be free is great, but that money needs to get to the community clubs who are supporting the volunteers and the coaches that are making that difference. So not tied up in bureaucracy, not tied up in other systems, but to make sure that we get to the individuals who are making that difference. I love Steve's point about funding being ring-fenced. Fundamentally, I think, for not just sport and physical activity but volunteering more broad or the voluntary sector funding more broadly, what is this multi-year funding agreement that's proposed in the programme for government? Is sport included in that? For sport, as in governing bodies, sport Scotland needs to be included in that in order that they can pass that funding on to members. In terms of Stephanie's question on young people, this is always a favourite topic of our members, Stephanie. If you put a couple of our chief execs together for more than about five minutes, they will talk about PE and physical literacy, which is one of their key phrases. The ask of our members for a very long period of time remains in terms of two hours of quality PE for all young people. Two hours ideally in secondary schools as well—I know that it's two periods at the moment—but two hours of quality PE. I think that we're at 98 per cent of young people getting the two hours or two periods of PE. We don't have that for S4 and S5, so arguably the most stressful time of a young person's life. We need to remember that S4 to S6 would be a priority. We need to remember that transitions in education in its more holistic environment—our colleagues at Scottish Student Sport do a huge amount of work—that transition period is critical. We need to remember that young people with a disability are not reaching that 98 per cent and Gavin will be better placed to pick up on that than we are, and their incredibly world-leading disability inclusion training is a priority. However, in the youngest age group, it is supporting that physical literacy, so in the simplest terms for us, run, jump, throw, catch and swim. For every young person to have that quality experience, in my mind, it needs to go back to primary school teaching. When we do the initial teacher training, every teacher comes out with the confidence and the competence to teach those skills. In some institutions that do post-grad primary school teaching, some students get six hours of PE—six hours. For the rest of their life, you have to deliver two hours of PE. For the only subject that has a mandated minimum number of hours and you have to deliver two hours a week, you may get three weeks' worth of training of that yourself, as in you might get those six hours. We really need to look at the initial teacher training, but we also need to look at supporting young parents in what the physical activity opportunities are for them to support preschoolers. Indeed, in terms of individuals that support care activities, again, physical activity and physical literacy is part of their training in order that all young people preschoolers can also be trained in those core activities. Thank you very much, convener. I have to go back to Sue's question again. At Sue's perspective, I understand that the leisure trusts manage around £400 million of investment in community sport and leisure. Education investors are considerable on-ride in sport and physical activity. Health and social care spends on physical activity and community groups, funded by a wealth of different sources, including charitable trusts and foundations. They also spend quite a lot on community sport, so we do not have a total figure in Scotland for spend on sport and physical activity because it is spread quite wide, but it is clearly somewhere between £500 million and £1 billion. While welcome, the Government's offer of £50 million across areas of active living over the next five years is welcome. It is great, but that is not expected to change anything. To come to your question about impacting young people, we have done quite a bit of research in this. One of our research associates, Vatini Vassilopoulos, recently published a worksheet that looked at 4,000 children, which I found really interesting. It found a clear correlation between sport activity within the school environment and the ability of children to regulate emotions and behaviour in school. It is now looking at more depth at how that relates to educational attainment, but that is an example of why we think that it is so important. We know that opportunities were declining prior to Covid, and access was becoming an issue. Ives shared some detail on that. We are doing some work at the moment with the data for children collaborative. We are working with them and the partners UNICEF and the University of Edinburgh. Again, we have invited the Scottish Government to be part of that, because we are hearing from teachers and parents that there is a real gap developing over the past couple of years, and it was there pre-Covid, between independent and state school activity levels. Abilities are also very different now. Globally, our international research partners are speaking of around 40 per cent of children, and 40 per cent are not yet returning to pre-Covid levels of activity. As I said, New Zealand has done things a bit differently, but we are not alone in Scotland. In Scotland, we are coming from a lower base in many European countries, which is why it is a concern for us. Up to the age of about 10, our research shows that our children are as active as the most active countries around Europe, so we compare very well up to 10-years-olds. The children in primary level seem to be accessing plenty of sport activity. Where we have a real problem is from 11-12-years-old on, and the research that we produced, again, that was published a year or so ago, is looking at Scottish household figures and Scottish health survey, showing that our decline is a lot steeper from 11-12-years-old than it is in most other countries. It becomes greater for girls, and it is still the case, despite a lot of really good work in that area, that the decline is still sharper for children from less affluent backgrounds and children with disabilities. One of our associates, Professor Tess Kay, highlighted that poverty and inequalities was now the main barrier to sport activity in Scotland. That teenage area is the one that we are really focusing on at the moment, because it is a real problem. We are showing that, by the time we get into adulthood, going from 10-years-old, where we compare pretty well, to adulthood where we are among the lowest ranking nations for sport activity and participation, that big drop-out that we are seeing in teenage years is the real concern for us. Gavin, you wanted to come in on this, Gavin? Yes, thanks for that. I just wanted to follow up on what Kim mentioned. It is a massive, massive issue for us. Anecdotally, we were hearing from lots of young people who were coming through schools who were telling us that they had been excluded from PE or had not been fully included within the PE experience in the school. At the same time, we did a piece of research with a local authority, a single local authority in Scotland, and the result that came back from that was that from the parents and the pupils that we spoke to, only 7 per cent felt that they were getting the two hours or two periods of quality PE, 7 per cent, whereas the attainment rate was 98 per cent. That shocked us. It was a fairly low-level piece of research. At the same time, we had a conference, an education conference, 200 teachers and educationalists in the auditorium at Perriot-Watt universities, and the journalist asked the question of the audience, how confident do you feel in delivering to pupils with disabilities in your curriculum, particularly PE? One hand went up in the audience. We knew that we had something to do there and we set out an admission to embed disability inclusion training in tertiary education establishments in Scotland. It took us about six or seven years of banging on doors and convincing people to get it embedded in the curriculum, but we have now got it embedded. Just last week, over the past two weeks, we delivered nine hours of training to the fourth-year PE students at Edinburgh University who are just about to go out into the big bad world teaching. The feedback has been brilliant. It has been 98 per cent positive rate, so there has been 71 per cent using the models of inclusion within their teaching, and 63 per cent are sharing what they have learned with colleagues. It is really positive, but what we are not seeing yet is the impact of that in the schools. That will hopefully come down the line as those trained teachers empty out into the schools. The big worry for us is that because of Covid and because of the impact of Covid, we have lost the two key sponsors that were driving that training and that delivery. At the moment, we are trying to find funding sources through grant applications and approaches to try and keep that going, because we deliver that free of source. The impact is there, but we are not really just seeing it yet. That will come in terms of inclusive PE. Steve Scott wanted to come in on that. Thank you. Just a very quick one. The active schools programme is one of the best programmes that Governments have ever taken forward. One of the benefits for us is that that funding comes directly from Sport Scotland to the trusts, and we can deploy really good effect across, especially secondary schools, but across all the ASGs. One limitation that I think would help in this debate in terms of especially young girls falling off that sporting activity participation as they move from primary to secondary school is the sharing of data. The active schools delivery sometimes struggles to identify those young people with additional support needs. If there was a national policy in terms of sharing that data in a safe way that protected young people, that would be incredibly helpful, because it would allow us to deploy our assets more effectively. Kim's organisation in terms of sports groups or active schools co-ordinates. It brings a huge amount of benefit in terms of physical activity to young people. We have a leadership programme up here. By the way, Highlands active schools activity is free, it is already free, we do not charge for it. We have a leadership programme up here, which is viewed as sector leading. That is not me saying that it is Sport Scotland, but that leadership programme brings in particular young girls into volunteer. They get an SPQ qualification out of it and it is a fantastic programme. That would be something I would encourage the committee perhaps to have a look at in terms of upscaling that across the country. What supplementary knowledge good Sunday she wants to come in and then move on, Stephanie? That is great. Thank you very much, convener. David Kenner preempted me a wee bit there when he mentioned young people dropping out of school or dropping out of sport as they become teenagers. Just come back to something that Kim said earlier as well. She was talking about sport in very much, and I think all of you have done it winding in, play activities, different activities, wellbeing, et cetera. Yet, all of you have sport in your title. When I was looking at today's meeting, I was thinking, are those things going to be incorporated? I wonder if, on a wider level, that that is something that is a bit of an issue that we are seeing sport as being something really quite separate when we are talking about activities and wellbeing together. I am interested in that aspect of it. The question that I wanted to ask was, we are doing lots of stuff in the early years just now. We are doing lots of outdoor activities, lots of risky play, et cetera, there as well. I am really interested in what kind of difference that is making to our younger children, and I am also really interested in schools. I think that we are doing great with the PE, et cetera, there, but it is quite a limited range of activities on offer as well there, and we do get that drop out in the teenage years. I wonder if we feel that there is a wide enough range there, should we be looking to focus on other activities that might capture that kind of age group's interests or whatever, and introducing them early? Things like climbing, parkour, different things like that, that might be a bit more attractive, if you like, and capture young people more. I am nodding along. I am thinking about my own children who did not like competitive sport, and I do not want to obviously talk about my kids, but that whole thing, I am nodding along also thinking about my teenage years is that I enjoyed physical activity, but then it came to competitive sport around the teenage years. I was not as good as everyone else, so my interests dropped off, and I see that happening in other people, so I am nodding along. I should have mentioned Damford Theatre, which perhaps brings the discussion for us all. Any thoughts on what Stephanie has raised there? Maybe we can go to Kim first. Thanks, convener, and some great questions, Stephanie. I think that the priority for our members in terms of where the idea of the two hours of quality PE came from are two things. One is that being active is just a habit for young people. It is just what they are used to, it is a culture, it is how they have grown up, and therefore, hopefully, life-long habits you set at the youngest possible age. The second part is that young people are what, as I say, what we earlier would call physically literate. There is a third part, and it is definitely not forgetting that sport and physical activity is fun. I am not precious about what it is called. I see it all as being on a continuum, and at different ages people go into different things. For me, sport is not just competitive. A lot of our members are not competitive in what they do as a sport, but there are a number of sports that have competitive and non-competitive elements, and in fact, they almost all do. What is a priority in terms of the diversity of activities that young people are provided through PE and through school sport, is recognising that the ideal is that there is a community link opportunity, and again, where I feel that opening up the school state is a priority, that we are making sure that they are getting to try a range of activities, because they will find different activities at different stages of our lives. I am sure that everybody does exactly as you say, convener, but it is also where they get to try a sport, so they go along and play table tennis, and although there is a table tennis club in the local area, ideally it might even be within the same school environment, because again, young people have confidence about going to known environments, and therefore the school state is a huge opportunity if there are clubs based in that locality. It is making sure that we are relentless in making sure that the two periods of quality PE is achieving the outcomes that we need. The Daily Mile is an amazing policy, and it is an amazing outcome, but it does not replace two hours or two periods of quality PE. Active Schools does not replace two hours of quality PE or two periods of quality PE, so we need to be really clear that physically literate individuals are ones that have the confidence and the confidence to try a range of sports and activities throughout their lives, so for me that is the priority, and different sporting opportunities allow that to happen. Steve, and then Sandesh has a quick question, and then we're going to have to move on to a couple of other themes around infrastructure. So, Steve. Yeah, I think one thing we haven't mentioned is listening to young people, so what is it that they would like to see up here dance as one for young girls who got a movers and shakers programme? They absolutely love it, it's non-comparative, but they then lead it themselves, which is fantastic. There's also things like outdoor foraging with our countryside rangers—kind of strange things, but it's listening to the young people and I think trying to create that community hub in schools where youth workers, active school coordinators can work with educators, speak to the young people and try to bring out of them what it is they would like to see. I guess we're sitting here, a group of grown-ups, if I can class myself as one, trying to determine what young people actually want. We probably need to ask them. Thank you, convener. I want to come in on the activity level and participation level of sport by adults here in Scotland that David spoke about. I want to expand a little bit on what Stephanie Callaghan's question was and also on what you said, convener. I love sport, I play competitive sport all the way through uni and yet in adulthood that's gone. Whether in access to facilities are key factors when we're leaving school, but Norway deal with that very well and they've got worse weather than us. My question really is how can we improve this? Would anyone like to come in first? I'll just look at our panellists, just raise your hand and I'll come to you first. David. Thanks for the question, Sandesh. You're right to spotlight Norway there and we've done quite a bit of research on different parts of the world and how they've done that. A lot of it, we could talk forever this morning, we don't have the time to do that on this issue, but a lot of it comes back to what we said earlier. If you have a strategy and a proper strategy, we've got framework, someone's got corporate plans in Scotland, but we don't have a national strategy that brings everybody into the same area, onto the same page, understanding how we deliver on the national level and how we deliver on a local level. It's much easier to then develop facilities. We've heard Judy Murray on the radio and television this week explaining about the lack of tennis facilities. Again, a lot is happening in silos there. You mentioned Stephanie's question, Stephanie asked about children and Stephanie came back to that. One of the things that research shows is that if children have sport coming through their teen years—it doesn't matter what they've learned up to the age of 10 or 11—if they drop out from 11 or 12 on, they don't then have the confidence and skills to come back to it in general, that's what research tells us later on in life. If it's been part of that maelstrom that children have gone through as teenagers, but everything's changed for them, if sport has still been part of that. Again, we have got sport in our title, we deliberate with that all the time, because we're conscious that people see that as a turn-off. I understand what you're saying. We don't see it like that. We see sport in its widest sense—play, dance, cymbal talks, walking groups—we all see that as being part of it. And we have a vision that, over time, we can help in this country to make sport accessible to everybody and whatever shape they want it to be. We're doing a lot of work with Steve looking at the dance project in the Highlands for that reason. But we do feel that sport needs to work harder in those areas as well. Sandesh, there's no doubt about that. It has to become more inclusive. Traditional sport has to adapt to the children of today, the environments, the expectations of today. It's different and we've posed that question to sport and others as well. It's moving away to make sure that sport is fun and to make sure that it's part of every part of society. That's what we're talking about today. It's about taking it out of that sport basket and having it part of a more mainstream part of society. They have that in Scandinavia, in different countries in Scandinavia and New Zealand, where sport is seen almost as a right. It's not statutory, but it's seen that no politician would cut funding for sport because it's seen that as part of quality of life. If you're pulling back investment in sport and communities, you're damaging your electorate's quality of life. That's how it's perceived. That's why there's a push there to make sure that every community has provision for people to be able to have low-cost access, if not free access, to sport in their community. That's really important and we don't quite have that philosophy in Scotland yet. Anyone who's ever been to Scandinavia and countries will see that straight away. Can I come to Kim Atkinson? Thanks, convener, and it's a great question to Andesh. There's probably briefly, convener, five different strands in my mind. The first is that we mentioned at the beginning that one of the key reasons people don't take part in physical activity, which ironically is also one of the key reasons people don't volunteer, is a lack of time. One of the asks from our members is the idea of a wellbeing employer and a wellbeing educator, where all employers and all educational institutions give time for their staff and pupils or students to be active within the working or school day. An employer will give them time to just go and be active each day, because time is a big barrier for people. The second is that we know that the national planning framework for consultation is pending exactly, convener, and we know that planning again is a huge part of that, people having access to local opportunities. Whether that's school facilities, sports facilities or access routes for active travel, whether it's green space, sport and physical activity need to be integral to planning, and that is an opportunity that NPF 4 presents. Community facilities, as we've mentioned, in terms of people actually knowing what is available in their local communities. There can be notice boards, where they say, look, here are all the different sports clubs that are available. How can we create that informal referral process and make that a bit easier? As part of the running of facilities, should we not expect that there are facility advisory groups? I'm sure that Steve will tell me that there are examples where that works really well, but where local communities and local sports clubs are part of deciding and guiding how the facilities are run. Is community asset transfer or is community liability transfer, as it routinely is, more involved in managing and guiding not managing community facilities? KPIs for sport and physical activity are all quite routine. We don't expect other departments and agencies to report back, so that is an opportunity as is funding. We don't have ring-fenced funding, as Steve said, but down south, they've ring-fenced the funding from the sugar tax into sport and physical activity. That would be an opportunity, as are the Barnett consequentials from the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, so a number of different opportunities, convener. Steve Smith wants to come in, and I will have to move on. We are rapidly running at times, so there are a few things that members want to ask the panel. Authorities are under huge pressure to deliver schools, roads and amenities, and I would encourage us all not to think school if we are looking at a new infrastructure, but to look at a community hub, where we bring in sports facilities and libraries and make them community hubs that become a real focus for communities to use. The other thing is just one point from me. I completely agree with everything that Kim said. Management committee fatigue has been something that we've really suffered from up here. Management committees have got a little bit older, and they've had to step down, and we've had to step in and take on an enormous amount of facilities. I think that the thought that we can hand them over to communities is an aspiration. It is something that we should try to do, but we need to question the sustainability of that, because often it can lead to fatigue. My last point is—I think that we'll talk about that question about sport. I guess that it kind of riled me a little bit. I think that we're all about well-being, and I look at the six outcomes, and I wonder why one of the outcomes just doesn't say well-being, because it goes through as a theme, right, the way through all six, but we don't say it explicitly, although it's implied. I'd rather think that what I'm about is physical and mental health and well-being rather than sport. I think that we're much more than that. Jackie, you have a quick question. Just a couple of quick questions, if I may. One of the panel, I can't remember who, identified poverty and inequality as one of the main barriers to access. I suspect that you would all do that, so let me put my question to Kim. Access to facilities for disadvantaged communities has been a perennial problem, it continues to be so, so I have, for example, a local football team disadvantaged area, and it's costing them £100 for one session on a local football pitch owned by the local authority. How do we get beyond that so that we do actually remove access? Thanks, Jackie. It's a great question, and as you say, it's a perennial question, and one which I feel we never quite get to position in moving forward. Community facilities are at the heart of how sport and physical activity happens, and community clubs are in the same way. As I say, 13,000 sports clubs, 900,000 members. The reality is that the largest cost that clubs face is in facilities. There are a number of sports clubs operate their own facilities, but the majority use those that are run by a local authority or a leisure trust. The biggest margin, as I say, or the biggest cost for them, is access to the facilities. As facility charges rise and I completely understand Steve's point, they're expected to income generate, so this isn't an issue of the trust doing something they shouldn't, this is an issue on the expectation of the trusts. They are certainly doing their best in the challenging financial times that they're facing. But as cost of facilities go up, the cost of membership goes up as well, because for most sports clubs that's the only way they bring in money. If culture is free, Jackie, it is sport-free. I have no argument to the huge role that culture plays, and I certainly don't want to charge for that, so this is definitely going as sport equaling rather than coming the other way. But it comes back to that heart of sport and physical activity as being an investment. If culture is an investment in our cultural identity and our wellbeing and in our mental health, sport and physical activity are all of those things. It's also a 30 per cent reduction in all causes of mortality, yet we expect that to make money. The culture of that and the recognition of sports clubs as really being the fabric of society is what we are losing. In the most deprived areas, Jackie, you're absolutely right, that's the biggest barrier in terms of cost and we need to break that, but we need to do that by making sure that the investment gets in the right areas, by investing in it and by making sure that Steve and his colleagues can actually do the amazing work that High Life Highland do. But that model has been very rarely replicated. I'm sure there are a few that Steve could tell us, but nobody else has taken that model. I know Steve's predecessor in High Life Highland. I remember him just very eloquently. One of his first days in post, he stood and he looked out into the car park in one of their facilities and he said, I looked out at cars that were BMWs and were IDs and he thought, what are we doing? If these are the people that are coming to our facilities, we are not fulfilling the market that we need to because these people could be affording local private facilities. We need to be providing that support and therefore, I think, we need to look at that culture, Jackie, to make that change that we all need to see. Given that we all agree, is your action plan with revenue attached the route into this? Ultimately, I think that it has to be about money to a degree, Jackie, but I think that part of it is also a principle. The school of state is a community, is a set of community facilities owned by the community, well, run on behalf of the community to enable a community, yet we charge the community clubs in order that they can charge the local community to access community facilities. I mean, it's just the strangest little, little model. We've never got to the heart of how you break the PPP PFI contracts. We've never got to the heart of the charging issues that make that happen. The last report was done by Sport Scotland in 2015. It showed that a fifth of the school of state was used within holiday time and only a third of it was used within term time. It's there. It needs managed. It needs a structure and programming that means that it can be accessed. There will be examples of great practice, but that's the last data that we have, Jackie. That cannot be that expensive to break. That will provide the home for facilities at surely an affordable rate. That is the answer, as I see it, not just for sport and physical activity, but as a key action for Covid recovery. Let's engage communities. Let's get them involved and provide them with an opportunity through a school facility, as a community hub, exactly as Steve has mentioned. Colleagues, officially we are up against our deadline. I'm going to extend it for 10 minutes, but what I need to say to all of you is that I'm going to prioritise people who have not had a chance to ask questions. I'm going to get Emma next. If anybody wants to come in and mop up any of the issues that you want to, you need to let me know and I'll put you on the list. Otherwise, we're going to completely run out of time. Emma, I'll go to you. Thanks, convener. I'll try to be as quick as possible. It's a question for David Ferguson. Looking at the infrastructure and how do we then meet our climate change, net zero, biodiversity, I guess all of the issues around having access to green space and the 20 minute neighbourhoods and things like that. When I lived in California, we got points for carpooling, walking or cycling, and we were part of a scheme where the points were then exchanged into movie theatre tickets, which was great in Los Angeles because it was a whole way to get outside and get active. I don't know if we have carpool, car sharing, walking, cycling, incentive schemes in Scotland, and I wonder if we need to do that. I'm thinking about the e-bike revolution, where it seems that e-bikes are expensive. How do we make them less expensive? Do we need to do more to encourage that? I know that the Scottish Government has e-bike grant funds, and in 2019-20, £273,000 was given out for more than 100 e-bikes on 600, I think, total so far. Just about the infrastructure and how do we support our net zero targets? Yes, that's a good question and a very tropical one, of course, at the moment. The answer to that is quite varied. We have lots of examples of that. We've worked with leisure trusts, councils and other stakeholders to look at what they're doing. There is some really innovative practice going on. The challenge that we have in Scotland, and it goes back to what we've said throughout this session, is that it's not really been pulled together. It's happening in silos, whether it's a local authority, a leisure trust or a community organisation that's doing it and leading on it. As a result, it's not really properly funded, because some of that funding can be short-term. That's quite typical, so we see quite a nice innovative project that takes off. It's doing well, but the funding isn't there long-term, and you find that if it's a community group, they're spending a lot of time on funding applications to try and maintain that. It comes back to what we said earlier. That's why the OSS was created, really, and that's why what we are driving is the ability to pull together all that understanding and that learning. I speak to Steve Quite often, High Life Island, I speak to other chief execs, I speak to local authorities, Gavin and sports, and they're all telling me about lots of great work that's being done. We've made that offer to Government that we could pull all that together so that we can give you a better understanding of what's happening, where it's happening, where the funding is working and where it isn't, but also to help those who are delivering, understand better and share that data. You've heard quite a bit about a lack of data today in knowledge gaps. I'm pretty sure that you will agree that you've also heard a lot of enthusiasm and encouragement from people who want to change it and make it better. They're doing a good job, but I think that there's a powerful argument now for both public health and wider public good perspective for us to look at that reinvention and renewal. Net zero easily can be part of that, but to give you an example, one leisure trust that I spoke to was looking at changing its boilers over its big boilers to more green boilers system for all its swimming pools. The problem was that we didn't have enough money in the bank because it was a year-to-year management fee that it received from the local authority, so the bank wouldn't provide a loan because there wasn't a certainty over a few years of income for the leisure trust to change that system. Leisure trusts and others want to change, there's a lot of innovative practice there, but unless we properly understand how that works and how we fund it and allow them to do that, sometimes it's not about money, it's about giving some security of income. We heard earlier that we've lost volunteers. You can actually use the local community much better than we do. You might be surprised to hear that we employ more people in sport in Scotland and the UK than any European nation ahead of population, much more than in France, Germany, Scandinavian countries and Italy. We employ more, and we, as a result, have fewer volunteers involved in sport and leisure now than we had 30 or 40 years ago. There are solutions there that don't necessarily need big investment of money, but investment is necessary alongside that. The question about e-bikes and supporting, we've seen massive uptake in e-bikes and cargo bikes, even. I know that Michael Matheson has an e-bike and he's our cab sec for net zero. So what could be done or should we do more to help encourage folk to get out and use their e-bikes? Yeah, I mean that's a big question, because yes, of course, and there is research in evidence that we can share with you about the value of that, but again it's trying to move away. What I think we're trying to get a message across all of us in the panel today is it's moving away from piecemeal approaches, moving away from little pots of funding, short-term funding to say, okay, we want to invest in e-bikes, it looks good, it helps with our green efficiency. Actually, you've got to be more strategic about how we use sport and physical activity, how we get people moving. If you take cycle lessons out of schools, so some schools and deprived areas are not getting cycle lessons, but then you have an investment in lots of e-bikes, people won't use them, because they're not happy about going on the roads, they don't feel safe, they've not had the confidence built up as children and teenagers to be allowing to do that. So it has to be thought of in the round as part of a strategic approach. I would advise against little continuing with this sort of piecemeal approach. Okay, so meeting management news, we've got three members who have told me that they want to have short questions, direct to that people, that's all we have time for, I'm afraid. Can I go to Minnie McNair first? Thank you, convener. The panel will welcome the approach that wants to increase green space and improve access to it. In women's safety, when accessing green space is important, does the panel have views on how that can be maximised and do examples of good practice in this regard? If Walsh has indicated that he wants to come in, I don't know whether it is on this particularly, Mary, but can I come to Steve? I don't think that I have enough knowledge on that particular one, so what I was going to say on the previous point was just the importance of bringing intergovernment organisations together in that comprehensive approach. We were really talking about transport, I guess, there, and it's true. Transport, health, education, we found ourselves working with all those different government agencies, and it would certainly be helpful from on the shop floor, it would be helpful to have a much more joined up and co-ordinated approach. I guess that leads to outdoor spaces, use of e-bikes and all the good things that we're trying to do. Just one point on that. We've got an ARC committee screw going into the River Ness, which will power about 50 per cent of the reduced carbon emissions, about 50 per cent for our biggest leisure centre, and just to think, expeditious to the use of the salex funding, which has been absolutely brilliant, has allowed as many other trusts to reduce our carbon footprint, and we'll continue to do that. Thank you. And Kim wants to come in. Thanks, convener, and a couple of great questions there. Just in maybe some reassurance for Emma, we did run a session with our home country counterparts and Irish colleagues throughout COP26 for sports looking at different opportunities, so I think 100 per cent of people attended that call, said that they've prioritised climate change and sustainability more having been on the call, so it certainly is something people are looking at. In terms of the e-bikes question, I think it's something similar to exactly the question that Marie was just asking there about women's safety. It's about planning. Again, I know, convener, I mentioned MPF4 already, but it's about planning for the spaces. It's about providing attractive and safer spaces for people to walk and people to cycle, so they feel safe doing it, but also they want to do it. Again, for women's safety, a huge part of that is lighting. I think there are a number of parts in that. I think that some of the challenge, again, for local facilities is a cost, and that's been an issue that we've seen throughout Covid in a different way. Again, an issue that's been a lie for sport before is that sports clubs and sports organisations, very few of them, are charities, so they cannot access organisations that are grants and trusts that provide funding. Gavin mentioned earlier that they are one of the few sports organisations that are charities. A key outcome that we need, convener, is a new governance model for sport, an opportunity that our members have identified. Unless you are a charity, you don't get access to water and sewerage rates relief. You don't get access to rates relief. You don't get access to granted. You don't get access to quite a number of other opportunities through grant and trust funding, where sport and physical activity is therefore not on a level playing field with charities. We need to change that model, because, exactly as Steve was saying, sport and organisations want to do more, but they can't access the same grants without that charitable tag. That's a big problem. We have two members. I again direct your questions quickly, Sue, and then Stephanie will have to close. Thank you. My question falls on quite nicely from that, convener, so thank you. It's about equal ableism. I suppose that this is probably mostly directed towards Gavin McLeod. We've heard of a number of environmental policies there in terms of active travel and redesigning streets to make it perhaps more difficult and challenging for those with a disability to access, so I'm just asking for your feedback and thoughts on that. Do you feel included in those discussions? Access is obviously a huge issue for us and anything that impacts on to travel, either by foot or by bike or whatever it is, is an issue. We do a lot of work with paths for all recently, including access to the countryside and some training. It's incredible when we're delivering the training, and it can be in an urban environment or a rural environment, it's just how many obstacles are there, like bins being put out, cambers on pavements, potholes that aren't repaired, that people can step over, but if you're in a wheelchair, it's actually dangerous. The design of pavements to drain the water into the gutter actually means that the wheelchair is being pushed into the road and into parked cars. Some of those design things would be good to have a more inclusive approach to those and to have that consultation at the outset when they're being put in place. But at the moment, no, we don't get that consultation and it proves problematic. I'll need to move on to Stephanie, if you can direct your question. Thanks very much. My question is for Kevin. It's kind of around equality and across cutting approaches. I'm interested in either seasonal variations between summer and winter, especially with, you know, outdoors, going walking, those kind of activities there. And as well, are we really taking the wider look that we need to you? I mentioned earlier on about ac and across ministerial group, and I'm wondering about things like around equality, like in Sweden, they will clear paths and cycle paths first, then local roads and then highways, and that's all about women being able to be out and be walking around, et cetera, there as well. And obviously, that's greater access for disabilities too. And I was wondering if that was the kind of thing you were talking at, or if there's any work that's touching on that just now here. Thanks, Stephanie. Can I ask what you mean in terms of the seasonal variations? So, what I mean is, during summertime, people often seem to be more active in out and about war, whereas in winter, when it's slippy and the weather's dark and cold, et cetera, is that quite a barrier to people getting out so the activity levels drop? Sorry, so activity levels, no, that makes sense. I think a lot of it varies by sport, Stephanie. So I think we are in a position where, you know, some sports are summer sports, some sports are winter sports, much as actually I think most sports are all year round now. I think, for example, from a tennis point of view, they're very much making the call for more indoor facilities, because if you're an outdoor sport, playing through a winter period and some of the winter facilities is a challenge, but equally then some of the indoor sports report higher participation figures through the winter period. So I think it very much varies by sport. I think where there are challenges can be on the number of organisations wanting to access indoor facilities throughout the winter, and I'm sure the same for outdoor facilities. There becomes a pressure and a pinch point on market demand. I think access becomes an operational challenge and I'm sure Gavin will say the same in terms of people with disabilities, so transport and travel in that sense. I think your point about clearing pavements first is exactly the point. If somewhere it's where there's a will, there's a way, and are we genuinely prioritising sport and physical activity and seeing that cross-cutting agenda it has across all of the national outcomes? And I would argue that we're not as much as we could, but I know that's an ambition that's shared across sport and physical activity and indeed with the Active Scotland team within Scottish Government, but it's being able to challenge each portfolio, each national indicator, national outcome, each minister and each cabinet secretary and saying, what are you doing to support physical activity and sport? We know that this small 30-something million-pound pot for sport supports every other national outcome, so I'd argue that the beneficiaries aren't sport and physical activity, it is educational attainment, it is mental health, it is physical health. So how are we asking them what their KPIs and their reporting are to support the Six Active Scotland Outcomes Framework outcomes? To say, well, actually together we can do more and I think that's the opportunity, Stephanie. Really good note to end on. I want to thank you all for the time you spent this morning. This is very difficult to cover everything. We can't cover everything in 90 minutes, but you've certainly given us an awful lot of food for thought and ideas for further scrutiny, so I want to thank you for your time this morning. Our next meeting on 7 December, the committee will take evidence on perinatal mental health from two panels of stakeholders, but that does conclude the public part of our meeting today. Thank you all.