Fy berdwyd i gael ichonwyr y mae'r ddishwytofau. Felly, y gallwn i'n gwanfaith tîm i ddim yn gwych eich ddwylai i dddi Sorrywyr mewn cyfnoddau, a fyddwn ni'n gweithio'r ddylock edrych i gychydigodau y troffent honi ar gyfer. Felly, rwy'n gwych eich gwaith i'n gweithio i'ch gael, gan Ross Greer i Fylliad 정wyr, ac i gael Andy Wightman, rydych chi gfustigwadwyr i'r ddweud i'r mewn cyfnwysgfroedd a gweithio i maelodau rylech. Rydyn ni'n ddweud i'r ffordd. Rydyn ni'n ddweud i'r ffordd. Yn rhaid i ti'n gweithio i ddweud i ddweud, ym mhag iawn, fel y maelodau, rydyn ni'n mewn gweithio i ddweud. Yn rhaid i ti'n gweithio i ddweud i ddweud i ddweud i ddweud, pobl adigydd yma ym gyfnodau a'r cyfnodol yn gwybod i gwybod i gyfnodol. Rwy'n rhaid i ddweud i'n mynd i'w gweithio i'r Gwyrddon Cymru, Rosie Ellison, ysgolion yng Nghymru, Jim O'Donnell, ysgolion yng Nghymru, ysgolion yng Nghymru, Tieran in Kelly, ysgolion yng Nghymru, David Brown, ysgolion yng Nghymru, LBD, ac Amy Moorement, ysgolion yng nghymru, LLS. I'm going to give evidence for us today. I would like to begin by asking questions on the film studio delivery group. This is something that's set up by government in 2013. You'll all be very aware and you have direct involvement in the whole issue of film studio delivery in Scotland, and it's obviously been a topic of debate in Scotland for a long time. So, Felly, rydw i'n ddigon cyd-doedd na chael hwn i chi ein cyd-doedd gwybodaeth i'r unig sy'n gweld chi ddullun cyrfu'r cimbrudd Cymru nad oedd hynny na'r cyd-doedd gwybodaeth i'r cimbrudd Cymru i'r unig a'r cyd-doedd gyda ei wedi'i mynd i'i gafodd ffordd yn gystechffordd. Felly, rydw i'n ddigon cyd-doedd cyrfwyr, ar waith Metodyr, yng Nghymru, byddwn i'n rhaid i'n ddigon cyfwyr, â ymhwynoeddiad nid oetrei o'r mwyntaeth Hadn't we delivered anything in five years, have we done our job properly? That's maybe the big question, but can we flip that and say, Have they given the tools to deliver what they've been asked to do? Crate Scotland is heavily involved, they don't have a capital budget to speak of, so all they can do is lobby and be advocates for the studio. Scottish Enterprise would argue that their remit is not really to invest in speculative projects, yn dŵr, dŵr, dŵr, dŵr. Wnaeth yn gallu gyllidol, dŵr.  Faidgofwn i mewn cyfle i gael i'u prysau lleol wahanol, ddweud i gael i gael i gael i gael i gael, sydd no ddweud i gael i gael i gael. Yr wyf yn cael ei gael i gael. Although I don't have direct governance with them, my awareness is in the industry. It seems to me that although gained investment and investigations in Park Studios, I think that it is from many people who have submitted evidence that it is not about having one solution for Dwi'r ffordd o'i gyflym yn niwn oeddon gyda niChristmas, o'r ffordd wedi gyn nhw, a gallai gyn nhw fydd ymweld yn gynghwyllus cyfr달�u ac cyflogfyrdd cyfrwyrd cyffredig gyda niwn, ac yn celfwyrdd cyfrwyrd cyffredig gyfrwyrd cyffredig. Rwy'n rhan ffruit ar gyfer cyfrwyrd cyfwyrdd cyfrwyrd cyfrwyrd cyffredig. Felly am y myd, dyfi ymweld, mae gyn nhw hefyd wedi bod ni wedi cyfrwyrd cyfrwyrd cyffredig ac dwi'n medch nhw'n ddweud yn y llifскиеeitio bwysig, sy'n wych chi'n edrych i'r llan? Rwy'n meddwl i'n gweithio, ac mae hynny'n gweithio gジfford iawn. Felly byddai wedi'n rhoi am wentliadol, ac mae mai amlwg fod yn gweithio mewn gweithredu gynhyrchu sydd wedi'i ei awl彎 o gweithredu hefyd. Mae'r gweithredu hefyd yn gweithredu gweithredu sefyllionngol mewn gweithredu hefyd i thain. Mae'r genellan ddan�odd, DWP'r gweithgדיws yn ein venueau, a sawl yn rhyfyrafu wrth y economiaid, wrth hynny sydd gennym yn gw monstersu gyrtu'r eich wirthym keyboard. Felly, rydyn ni wedi gweld cael ei officialsiwr ac yn yn cael ei gweithg identifyr years ago, two conversations after that and two meetings with Scottish Enterprise. On all occasions, they would not engage with us until we had planning consent. Therefore, we have progressed with no input whatsoever from them. I add that what you are asking them to do is to describe other types of studio development ond rwynt o'r rhaid i'n gwybodaeth i'r gennych honno, ond hefyd, fel Nôrden i Lland ac i North Fforshawr i'r tytanic, sy'n teimlo i ddechrau cyrraffaeth private sector, sy'n gwybodaeth ymddill o'r ddechrau cyrraffaeth strategiol yn ddiwedd yn yr edrych. Mae'n cyrraffaeth y nesaf, ond, byddw i'n gweithio i ddiagynnum, a'i ddim yn ddigon Caerdydd i'r ddiagynnum i ddiagynnum i gyfer cyfrannu. eu llwyddoedd. Mae cyhoeddwch ei bwysig o'i 500 newithau ar hyn y prysau London i fod 550 mili bhwysig o'r ffordd. Oni yn dweudio'r troffaeth gyda'r Cymru i'r gwylliant hynny a cael dweudio'r troffaeth o'r troffaeth i gwyllgor i lŷ oes bai. Ond mae'n i'n pan gwylltydd o'r tar competaeth yn eu tarredig yn adroddau'i troffaeth ar y bwysig yma.  Mar fel y gwasanaeth, eich par sle facts anticipatedd wide y popr хот o beth? Ellas· vegetables have the трав of the centre of which the Pirtlain knelt a mix ofpanes in which Egypt is at their centre. The Worship� could tell all of us a little bit about where the project is and what delivery times are. Is the business model right for Scotland? In summary, the deadline was yesterday for To natural, there will come a reduction to Grant planning and principal. Hi, so that deadline passed yesterday another deadline that we have had to wait for. On Monday we started the survey work on the site, which was three days before the deadline but we felt that it was reasonable because of programming to go on with that. And these are the surveys, these are the intrusive surveys on the below ground issues that we will experience on the site. We have appointed Robertsons and Construction as our construction-preferred Mae'r adaptio yn i gafodd ar gyfer eu cyfnodau a'r cyfnodau gwaith a ddiwrsau i dd widthwyr, a ddiwrsiau ac argymwy yn gweithio'r cyfreithio ac yn i gwybodd lliwyr yawn i fynd dadwc drwy ysgrifio dynial gol angen i gweithio o gynt mångol ac i ddefnyddoi grwsio Merthyr decentwnol considernyd Cardiwg deargol. nerdd yn ddigwyddillion a ad belongol eu golynyddu yn symud ei mereg lleolion? Gerchad yn amser nifer 29 o gracgiau? Rwy'n deall, bobl. No. Crem Deusieol a'i cyff Brooklyn y Yri? Rydw i amser infroz yma wrth d mentallyried yn teimlo naceid ymwrthoding. Dwi ondengesunchingery ycton llênol? Maen nhw'nbod o ddim yn gweithio'r ddigit i'w ddim yn gwneud y syniadau sy'n bod niferthau'r ddigitai, i ddigitio'r ddigit i'w ddim yn dweud fel sydd adeiladau yn gyfwyrdiol yn ei wneud. Ond oedd gweithdoedd y byddai nhw'n amser rydw i ar draws y stag iawn. you've always said about the project is that it's very much a private sector led project. Does that remain the case, or will you be looking for a public sector support? Absolutely, it's a private sector led. You see, my experience is as property developer and construction. I don't make movies. I was invited to go and gain the experience to work at that warners at Leavisden. Having identified the opportunity that was here in Scotland, we have acted as developers. Therefore we have engaged with the AFTPS, with ROSE and all of these other people to give us more or less the evidence that has developed the size and scale of the studio and the buildings Over the next two to three year period, we will create the buildings. After that, it's more important about the sector, which is the training, the product, the crews who will manage where the clients are, how inviting it is for the people, the production companies to come and actually be in Scotland. That's the most important part of it. The delivery group has had 10 years to deliver a studio. I'm not critical of them. I actually endorse, I agree, that partly, but from my investigations, there wasn't anyone really that had built a studio. Therefore, the grounds and criterion that they used to develop and evolve, evolve where even to the scale of it is, wasn't apparent. The problem that one of the problems that we've seen is that Scotland over the last 15 years has not had the faith in the sector. They haven't had the faith in the sector to say that they're going to be here in five years. It's always been, it's feasting famine. We'll do very well for two or three years, and then we won't do very well. That long range hasn't been there. It's been apparent in the fact that all of the offers to the market have been refurbished factory units. Warpark is an exceptional job that David and his team have done, but it's a conversion of a factory. By the way, I was the project manager. I built it when it was I Solar, so I know the factory inside out. Govind Butterhalls to get Glasgow Film City. These are all make-do. There was no, to me, vision of where it was going to be. 20 years ago, one of the guys that I respect most in this whole industry, Dan Dack at Warner Brothers, was in Scotland looking at Scotland. He came away. One of his comments to me was, as a Scotsman, went back from working there to come here, you never make it happen, because there wasn't the appetite for it, but it was this long, it wasn't, it was the short-sightedness. The one fit suits all is not what we are putting forward. Our studio complex should be complemented by the likes of Cumbernauld, Glasgow Film City. There should be a sped. If, for example, Government takes on and supports it by making it a welcome place, you could have two of our sizes of studios in Scotland. Sorry, you said that if Government takes on and supports it, but you said a few minutes ago that you were looking for Government support. I don't mean that, but that's not supporting the construction of a studio, it's constructing the support of the sector by way of taxation, by way of making it attractive for the production companies to come and use, by training the crews, all of that investment. That's what, in my opinion, is. The investment should be. Thank you very much. Did you want to come in there, David, because obviously you are doing it. I think that the thing about, you know, a lot of what Jim says is absolutely spot on. I think that the issue is that we have at the moment, we have this extraordinary growth in content demand out there, not just in Britain, not just in the US, in the world, big by virtue of the revolution in streaming. The amount of TV that is required out there is now extraordinary. It's never been like this at all. So what's happened here with Ward Park and with Outlander is that, first of all, driven by this demand, but also driven by a desire to be in Scotland, we've seen an enormous amount of investment into that building coming through the show, coming through Outlander. And that now has created a legacy. It is not one-off. The partnership that we've created with our landlord will go on and move and create another one of these studios that Jim is talking about. It is an issue here, guys, of political will. The evidence is here. You've had it all from everybody else, from various parties across the board, coming through various meetings, various paperwork. There's no question that the Outlander effect has worked. Look at our impact on tourism. We're employing 250 people 10 months a year. We train 20 people a year. We're putting and delivering for you. If you attract more of these shows, the knock-on effect is incremental. At the moment, the issue of someone like Dan Dark coming up, as Jim was mentioning, saying it can't work, is about, we have to look at ourselves as being an offshoot, inevitably, unfortunately, from the main centre, which is London. The political will is about shifting that gear, changing that perspective and saying, yes, we want to, as a nation and as a country, build that industry. It's our choice. You can let it continue as a kind of a victim industry that's always got its hands out, always saying we need more, we need special breaks. Or you can shift the gear and attract businesses like Outlander. If you have two or three Outlanders a year, the amount of investment is staggering. It's not just, but it's not just about the building. The building has been an annoying, frustrating, tedious thing. I was on committees 20 years ago talking about a studio in Scotland, and it just ain't coming about. It has to be about you and government saying, no, we want to change it. We want an industry. We don't want it to be an offshoot from London. We don't want our people and our best of our creatives going to London and being sucked into the Indian National Industry industry. We, as a nation, see it's important. We want to build the infrastructure, build the training, build the industry, encourage entrepreneurial producers and shift the gear. Because Jim's building, with that enormous investment, requires a huge amount of product to come in and pay for it. Warpark, the building he's paid for, Sony have invested it. Warpark will always pick up business, but Jim's building, in my opinion, needs that kind of instrumental push coming from government and the government. She's well funded out there in the world saying, we will get you into Scotland. We will bribe you into Scotland in the same way that Northern Ireland did. Northern Ireland made a positive decision to say we will build an industry and they attacked it on all areas, training, infrastructure, reputation, marketing, to bring people in. When I started out in London, all I said was to the agency that's gone, I want you to match Northern Ireland. I want you to prove to Sony and the studios in the States that we are open for business and that we will do what it takes to bring companies in and bring this kind of 300, 400 million dollar investments into Scotland. Nobody's thinking about it. It promises termed to frustration, termed to actually annoyance and irritation. I won't have them in the building now because I don't have the time for it and I don't see them actually in any way adding to the business or my business. So it's just that, it's just like making a decision because we've been talking about it for too long. If it isn't a game that the government wants to be in, let us get on with our jobs. Okay, thanks very much. I should say that the committee is not government, the committee is a cross-party committee and we— I do appreciate that. But we do scrutinise government as a result of our everything's gathering. I guess what I'm saying is it's up to you to scrutinise government, perhaps, to tell them what that is for time. The only way government should be involved is in gap funding. When there is a shortfall, now in our particular business case, there is no shortfall. So, therefore, we would not merit involvement from the government. And we made that very clear at the outset. There was no dependency. Personally, I'm tired of people holding their hand out to government and expecting government to pay for them to perpetuate it. Allow the market to decide. Rosie, I just wanted to say also that another thing that Outlander has done is raise the profile of Scotland internationally amongst the film community. We've had more high-value inquiries from international productions than we ever used to in the past. Filmmakers who've seen Outlander or heard about Outlander and are now recognised at Scotland can accommodate that level of production, which we haven't been able to in the past. Unfortunately, of course, we still don't have a facility to put them in at this point, but it's great news to hear that the survey has started on Pentlands. Let's hope that that fills the timetable, we can start planning ahead and hopefully get some big projects booked in to that, because the business is definitely there. People do want to come here. They're recognising that we have more crews here. We will, of course, need a lot more, and you've pointed out the training requirements, but also good news that the NFTS is set up in an out branch in Scotland now, in Glasgow. I think that opens its doors in April, so next week, I imagine. That will lead to a lot more trained craftspeople skilled workforce. When the studio at Pentlands is open as an academy there, which I hope will train more skilled workforce as well, there's a high demand for that, and that is very much something that the Government, the public sector, can work to support. We have a few members who are specifically interested in asking supplementary questions about the Pentlands studio, so I'll take some quick supplementaries on that, but I'm not taking them unless they're about the Pentlands studio. Jackson Carlaw. I should say, convener, that I've been an advocate for the Pentlands position. I'm an enthusiast about it, and I've really been more excited than I am at the moment at the prospect that it's coming about, in spite of the establishment, rather than because of the establishment, if I can put it that way. I see the detailed, submitted plan that you now have. The first thing that I'm noting is that it's for a film studio, because, of course, there were lots of people who advocated that the minute there was a planning consent, what we were going to get was a housing development and not a film studio, so I'm very pleased to see that they've all been proved wrong. But you've got quite an ambitious timescale for this. You would have the whole project complete before Network Rail will have the new Glasgow Queen Street station building put up, and they started construction 18 months ago. Are you confident about the timescale for all of that, because it's a lot to have in place by 2020, Jim? Those are not complicated buildings. The statements of architecture are basically in the academy, and on the reception of the main administration building. The rest of them are not complicated whatsoever, but they're repetitive. We are confident, yes, that the supply chain is there. What's a water studio at one? Is that gone on the plans now? There was a water stage in there. There's a water stage. It may come back. Can I ask specifically about the academy, because one of the things that I felt when we visited Ward Park—and I fully expect David Brown, given that he's giving evidence today, to give us all the spoilers for the next season and his evidence—was the way in which crafts had been built up on-site. There was the carpentry department, there was the wardrobe department, there was the whole decorating department. Clearly, the intention of the academy is with all the production that's coming, and we've heard about it. We're only at the beginning of the streaming revolution. There could be even more content coming from all new streamers that we don't know about yet. The film academy is designed to create opportunities for people in that sector to be employed, but that will take time to come through. What was interesting was the number of Scots that were employed at Ward Park in the production of Outlander at every level. Initially, how do you see the film studio bringing in talent that can be deployed from day one? Is that something that you think will build up? Are the skills there initially to satisfy the film making demand that you will be satisfied? Hopefully, there's going to be a repatriation of expat Scots that are working in Ireland, working in England, Australia and New Zealand. We have 84 people that have contacted us asking to be updated and who are fairly highly respected as technicians in the industry. On-job training is one of the most important things. As far as the dealings with the academy, the academy first of all was a real estate and profit-driven idea. We looked to the world marketplace to say, where is there a hook? Where could we find a university that was adjacent to a film studio that there wasn't one? That was our first incentive, so it was driven by the profit and the real estate side. We approached Edinburgh and Napier University because they had been identified as the Scottish Film Academy. We had been working with Edinburgh and Napier University to evolve the scale of the academy that is there, to fit into their estates, to fit into their curriculum. I can identify one in particular. We are working with them to have a degree in special effects that there is not one in the UK. If they can develop that, they will then bring in the students, the training. It is a very broad base, the understanding of the training and the requirements for the crews. Once the studio is built, crews will be required and the majority of the crews will be imported. They may even be stolen from what is happening there, but that is what the market will be. One of the things that David Brown has identified and which Visit Scotland has now put together a whole tour programme are around the locations of Outland. There is the huge consequential boost to sectors well out with the film and television sector and Scotland tourism, particularly coming from seven-year television series cycles of some of these international productions as opposed to individual movies. I noticed that the film studio also has a film studio tours facility. Do you see the establishment of the film studios here as potentially initiating a whole potential tourist opportunity on the back of the productions that potentially find their home here, in the same way that they have with Warner Brothers elsewhere? There is the potential for that, but if you look at Warner Brothers that leaves them, the Warner Brothers visitor attraction is the Harry Potter. I mean, leaves them is built on Potter. Pinewood has a very limited visitor regime that goes there and that has been built on Bond and is about to be completely rebuilt on Disney. I do not think that we will have a strong visitor attraction aspect of our studio because of the operational side, the security side. It is going to be more that we would have to consider that in detail. It is not part of our plan just now to have a lot of tourists going through what is a factory. Scotland could benefit from the location work associated with the productions that are being filmed in and around as well as in the studio itself. We also have an agreement with the Abercair new estate in Persia where we will be pushing that estate to provide different sets, different scenes, different opportunities for production. It is not just about where we are in Pentland. Okay, well good luck, thank you. Thank you. Andy Wightman, did you have specific questions about Pentland? Yes, thanks very much, convener. You said that you want the sound stage to be open autumn 2019, but the master plan here talks about a 64-week build and a 40-week handover, which means that you needed to have started last September. The detail design and we have started that, yes. The construction on site periods are being negotiated with our contractor at the present time, and that is Robertson construction.  We are the developers, yes. So you do not own the land? We will own the land and we will own the studio. When are you going to acquire the land? As soon as we have vacant possession. And what is stopping that? At the present time, as you are very much aware, Mr Wightman, it is the small holding farmer who is in the land court agreeing with the Gibson estate and the compensation for the vacant possession of the site. And do you have any sense of how long a land court, potentially court of session, Supreme Court case on eviction might take? We have been advised that it is this June that the decision will be taken, but you may not be aware that adjudication and mediation with the small holding farmer has been completed. Fine, but no eviction notice has been yet served. No. Where is the money coming from to build these studios? That is confidential. We are quite prepared to advise where our funding will come from as part of our detailed planning application. That has always been the agreement with Midlodian Cairnson. And if the statutory small holder decides to defend himself in the court of session and ultimately in the Supreme Court, that could take two or three years. That is his choice. Are you still in the game for building the studio in those circumstances? Do you think that after the last four years if I knew there was a better site that I would be sitting here waiting to go through the process that we have went through? Four years it has taken us to get to this stage. This is the best site for a studio in Scotland. Why is it the best site for a studio in Scotland? There are many, many criterions, the selection criterion that we use to identify. Does the committee want me to spend the time and go through and explain it all? No, just very briefly. Why did you PSL land limit it? I am a bit confused about the various organisations involved here. I have got an advert that was on the Edinburgh Council investment website from Pentland Studios Ltd advertising our... The operational group. Pentland Studios will operate the studio. PSL land will develop and own the studio. Okay, so this is for a hotel for practical completion in late 2017? That's now passed. Did you look at the documents in front of you? You'll see that they've been involved and developed to suit the studio. The condition of the planning consent has always been that the studio has to be finished and complete before any of the other parts of the development can take place. There is no residential, there is no retail. This is a film studio. We have two sites, site A and site B. Therefore, the delivery dates and the focus is on the studio and the academy. I would have to... We are really 100 per cent behind your project, Jim, but I would have to disagree with the comment about letting the market decide. I mean, that's maybe a philosophical question because no one's built a studio in Scotland proper, you know, since we've been involved in it and going back forever. And using terms like having their hand out, I don't, I guess, perpetuates a myth of, you know, the creative industries always having their hand out. I think they're...  So, I think there's a place for both, maybe? Yeah. Okay. Well, Manchester, they spent £40 million in developing 135,000 square foot studios and ancillary space. Manchester are probably, I don't have to agree to their assessment, they're probably equipped. They're probably the right people in place, whereas Scotland doesn't. Okay, well that's... Scotland doesn't have the people in place. If the appropriate people are in place, you would have done it 10 years ago. Yeah, so just to clarify, I think there is a place for the public sector in this. Okay, thank you very much, Mr Kelly. I think Claire Baker wants to ask you. More about that. Thank you, convener. That's a helpful introduction to the questions that I have around the screen unit. The convener asked about the film studio delivery group. What I'd like to move on is to the screen unit, which is due to be established on 1 April, and, as I understand it, it will launch in the summer. Their proposal states that a business case and used studio capacity will be secured within 12 months. So there's kind of three issues around that I want to raise. The first is about capacity, how the panel sees the additional capacity, what the requirement for that is. I know that Aimee has described the need for a kind of variety, and we have the Pentland studio possibly coming down the line in a few years. Where does the role of the screen unit and their additional capacity fit in? Also, the business case, Tiernan talked about different funding models. You mentioned Dagenham, you mentioned Manchester. What do you think the screen unit's business case should look like, and do people think that the 12-month timescale is an achievable timescale? I'm not exactly clear where the 12-month starts, given that we've got a first date, first of April, and not a launch till the summer. We're looking at the next maybe 18 months, but 12 is what they say. The point that I was trying to make earlier was that, as I was saying, the film studio delivery group seemed to think that there was a one solution, and that once we had one studio—for example, a lot of people do talk about having World Park—of course we do, and it's brilliant, and it's great to have it, and it will leave a legacy for the future, but when there's a production in it, it's not available for other productions. What we would encourage is a variety of spaces. Obviously, the Pentland studio is going to be a fantastic asset to Scotland, but for me as well, and for the various different levels of production, obviously, high-end TV drama, high-end film is an excellent goal to have, and I would welcome as many high-end dramas and TV films coming to shoot in Scotland as possible. But there are always a variety of productions looking for studio space, whether that's more mid-level features or lower-budget features. Obviously, I myself work a lot in advertising. We're always looking for studio space. There's a wide variety of productions out there that are looking for studio space at various sizes, at various different finishes. Some people have investment to make to get studio space up to scratch, and obviously that is brilliant. However, there are productions that just want to walk into spaces that have already had that level of work completed, that have the production office space, that have the parking, that have the facilities that they're looking for, so that they can just come in and get the job done effectively. That's what the role of the scheme unit is, to provide a more all-sing and all-dance in the facility. Rather than having examples sent to us of the facilities that are on offer at the moment, they tend to be warehouses. There seems to be quite a need to have to take quite a lot of facilities in when you go to production there. Do you see the scheme unit as providing something that is more comprehensive? I don't think that I see them as exclusively providing something like that personally. I think that I see them as having an overarching view of the wide-ranging spaces that are available. Obviously, if there is the option to have a space that is funded and developed by the Government or the councils that we've seen in Manchester, that would be excellent. I'd be keen to hear more about that. However, my point about the scheme unit would be that they need to have a view over lots of different spaces that could be available, whether that is spaces that are privately invested or warehouse spaces that have owners or landlords that are keen to work with production companies to effectively do what has been done on Outlander and turn them into creative hubs for production. There are some spaces that are purely studio spaces, but it is also about making creative hubs within Scotland that have the facilities, the training programmes and the studio space in a hub of creativity to drive the industry forward. It is all good and well having the spaces. However, if we do not have the training and the real high level of crew in place that are willing to stay in Scotland and have the work to keep their career going in Scotland and the facilities, then what we are trying to do will not work, in my opinion. The way that you have to do is to have an appropriately funded film fund. It is not just about a box. We have to be wary that it is about just a box. The Outlander situation is lovely that Scotland is embraced here, but we have to be clear that it is not part of Scotland now. It does not belong to Scotland. So many have taken that building and, by virtue of its need to produce this show, have made it into what it is. However, they could move out. Fortunately, we have a landlord that will now take that on as a legacy and is reinvesting the rent back into the building. However, unless there is a coherent strategy that takes on board this need for crew, I think that Jim's point earlier about poaching, stealing and grabbing crew is well made. We do have a higher attention of our crew, but we are having to go to not simply the rest of the UK to get crew, but we brought in electricians from Hungary. We brought in art directors from the US. I have people from New Zealand. It is about having a strategy that realises—the screening unit should be responsible for this—that is feeding that need for a crew, is registering that and putting much more money into training and more prescribed and more defined training. I know that that is on the agenda. The other side is about marketing. The three things go together. Scotland will never be happy—I know enough about the film magazine, Scotland—they will never be happy with the box. They are not happy with Outlander. We are successful. We have a box that is full, and they will be complaining about it. The issue of success—you just have to keep on growing it, but it has to be balanced and it has to be directed and being very well aware of what is going on with the industry and that there is this incessant demand at the moment for content and that we need a screening unit to grab that demand and turn it and focus it to Scotland. At the moment, Scotland is just the location of Outlander and Brave. It is not a hub for filmmaking. It is not Budapest. It is not Prague. It is not Cape Town. It is not London. That again is when I was talking earlier about the notion of political will and changing that perspective, but it is not just about a box. I think that the clamour for the box and all the controversy around it is one that is maybe distracting us slightly from the main goal. That goes back to the question of the tools. Crate Scotland, the new screen unit, they can lobby and advocate for our studio, but they do not have the funding to do it. They do not have the okay from the Scottish Government to proceed. I will give you an example. We looked at the Pallamas building in Leith, which is 160,000 sqft. We got quite far down the line with it. We even registered the name of the film City Edinburgh as a limited company. We brought on what we thought were really good design consultants and came up with a plan. Crate Scotland is really excited about it, but the old issue of state aid reared its head again. That is the philosophical difference about should the market decide or not, but we are talking sums of 180,000. It stopped us moving forward with that project. Other people might raise questions more specifically around state aid, but do you think that the Government has looked in more detail? As you have provided before examples where it could be argued that state aid has been employed with it's been Manchester or other European cities, why do you think that we have been cautious around that and is that caution justified? I was thinking about what would happen after the session. You will write to the film studio delivery group or the Scottish Government and ask why can't we do what Manchester is doing? They will say that our solicitors have advises due to state aid that we cannot do it. You then push back and say that Manchester has done it and they will say that we cannot comment on other local authorities and the legality of their thing. It is clear from the evidence that I put forward that Manchester, through acquiring and developing and building from scratch, has created more than 135,000 sqft of a ladder of accommodation, which Amy was talking about. From 1,000 sqft greenscreens all the way up to a brand new state of the art, 12m high, 30,000 sqft stage, how have they done that? Why can't we probe that a bit further rather than my submission as a PDF sitting on a server somewhere and nothing getting done about it? This is back to political world. I need a champion. I had the same argument delivered to me five years ago when we were setting up our land and trying to pull all part together. It was the same position. We are frustrated by this. We cannot do that. If we want to move forward, we have to break through it. In terms of what is happening in Wales, the Welsh Government has bought premises and leased it back to bad will for productions. Bad will for about to start filming the Philip Pullman books is £7 million per episode. Of course we can rent and lease a space for 10 years, no problem. There you go. That could have happened with outlander, brilliant outlander, eight series. We will buy the building and we will rent it back to you. We will do it up. It is a crying shame. Why didn't anyone do that? Why didn't Scream Scotland have the money to do that? Do you think that the screen unit will make any difference to that? You are pointing to previous examples and the Government could have taken a different model. Do you think that the screen unit will change? You look at the head of the screen commission whose job it is to sell Scotland internationally. Her job should be to sell Scotland internationally. Probably most of her time now is trying to get some sort of facility off the ground, and it is a kind shame. Her job remits are exactly the same regardless of where she is now and where she transitions into the screen unit. However, she does not have access to the money to do what we have just talked about, buy a facility and invest in a facility. For the avoidance of doubt, you could build a 200,000 sqft refurb in Edinburgh, a 200,000 sqft in Glasgow, you could have Jim's project, you could have Film City and they would all be full. I think that that is the number there. I would say that if I may, there would be full as long as that screen unit comes changes its perspective a little bit and not continues the practice that it has done for the last 20, 30 years in its various formats. It says that our remit is something else now. Our remit is to really sell Scotland, is to bring in international productions. Our game is to bring in in with investment. Once that happens, there will be a tipping point. If it goes forward whereby these facilities are put forward, the training happens and Indigenous production and that Indigenous creativity can happen and get triggered off by that. It is about reaching for something that I do not think that anybody has reached for yet. When Creative Scotland turned around to me and said, you have got to send an email right to Parliament to get them, to put the pressure on them to give us more funding or give us more facility or give us more leeway in terms of our development, I think that it is indicative of a situation where those bodies are really frustrated in their goals and their tasks and they are not really equipped to progress the industry in the way that we see as practitioners and I think that the evidence is out internationally that there is the potential for that. Again, as I said before, I am not going to go on it once more, we just want to go on it. It is that political will thing. Do we want it or not? The panel, as was just one other question about screen unit, the panel are all very busy people so I appreciate it if you have not been scrutinised in the screen unit, proposed as they have been coming along. We had a panel of the partner organisations before us a few weeks ago, which included Scottish Enterprise, Creative Scotland, Skills Development Scotland and one other partner. And Highlands and Islands Enterprise. The committee questioned, we did have some concerns about the ability of the screen unit to be responsive enough, to be flexible enough, to be able to make decisions quick enough. I do not know how you did mention what the remit of the screen unit should look like and if the panel has any further questions on the screen unit going forward. Yeah, delivering something in a year. I felt at the time that that was said that that was somewhat unrealistic. I cannot see... Maybe just a concept rather than a... Perhaps a concept, yeah. The screen unit, I think it just needs to be beefed up, it needs to remit, it needs to be thoroughly examined and its end goal needs to be questioned. It was one final question because some of the members talked about they felt that government or Scottish Enterprise had not engaged enough and I suppose the question is about the role of intervention, what you see the role of government in trying to grow the Scottish industry. What the screen unit has a commitment to work with, to encourage private sector-led environment into studio infrastructure. From the evidence that we have heard from the panel, it seems like that has not been happening so far. Do you think that that should be their focus? I know that others have talked about the focus is about developing the sector roundabout, so it is about skills, it is about the attractiveness of coming here and where does financial incentives and levers play into that? Where what do you think the role of government going forward really should be, but the focus should be going forward? Relating support, it shouldn't be to take control. It should be in dealing with Scottish Enterprise as a property developer. Scottish Enterprise are more than capable of dealing once they know the parameters that have to deal with it. Now they will fill a gap, but if your business case is robust enough that says that you don't merit state aid, you shouldn't receive it. That's the fact. Unless you change those parameters that Scottish Enterprise have to work under, they cannot respond to the sector. They are operating rules that don't apply to the game that they are in, and that's one of the main problems with it. Secondly, they don't have the right people in place. They don't have people in place that understand the sector and can communicate with the sector. Creative Scotland should be, in my opinion, on the aspects of the creativity. It should not be involved in buildings, utilities and creating facilities. That should actually be left to Scottish Enterprise. That's what they're good at or they profess to be good at. I'd like to put a slightly different take on that. I think that, in the particular case of Scotland, I think that James Fiend Darwin is well taken and well made in environments such as London, where there is a consistent history of a multiple number of studios in excess of 80 or 90 stages in that area, if you like. The situation in Scotland is somewhat different. The development of the screen sector in all its aspects is what is required if we want that industry to grow. Involvement in investment in buildings, involvement in investment in training and into marketing and to encouraging in investment in indigenous productions is, to me, a wider remit that that screen unit should be responsible for. It's not simply a matter of buildings, but I do think that it needs to happen. It should happen, it should help, because our geographical and economic environment is susceptible to talent drain, to concept drain, to intellectual property drain, all those things leaving Scotland. We have to fight or we have to have strategy in order to pull that back in and to let that grow. Obviously, in our opinion, it feels to be that it's something that we want to do and it's worth doing, because I don't think that the economic numbers say that. They tell us that it's worth it. Smith said in his presentation that, for example, the Netflix of the world. Offering Netflix £100,000 of incentive to come to Scotland is peanuts, but it is there that it's incentive. That is what will trigger these major productions coming to Scotland. The facilities are required and will be required to be there, but they have to be made welcome by these production companies to come here. That is a business. Tommy Gornley set up as well. Tommy Gornley said that he gets up in the morning within 15 minutes, he either drives the leaves then or he drives to Pinewood and he works in professional studios of a scale that allows him to do his job. That has to be created, and there has to be a broader base of offer to these companies to get them there. The Golden Triangle in London is going to be very difficult to unravel. Therefore, the target that Scotland should be going back again to guys like Ian Smith is saying is why are companies in the UK going to Budapest? They should be coming to Scotland, so make it attractive for them to come to Scotland. The attractiveness is in the business case. Give the film fund or create a film fund of 20 million plus, and then arm the people in that film fund, people like Rosie, to provide the incentives to get them here and to stay here. We need pre- and post-production, not just the short-lived a year higher of a sound stage in Pentlands. That has to be sustained. I would like to ask Tainan in particular how he thinks that Manchester managed to circumvent the state-aid rules. Personally, I think that they did it because they stated that they wanted Manchester to be Europe's leading digital city by 2020, and they wrapped the whole of the creative industries and their digital presence around that statement. They acquired the sharp electronics building, built the sharp project, they clustered digital companies, tech companies, film and TV companies, and probably through certain deputy, they had old warehouses at the back that lent themselves to filming television news. On the success of that, they developed the space studios, which again took over the Fujitsu Siemens factory in another part of Manchester. That is all within a two-mail radius of Manchester city centre. They built 55,000 square feet of studios. That was a success, and then they built not as a refurb from scratch, as I mentioned earlier, a brand new 30,000 square feet of studio. Plus, they have also acquired another 80,000 square foot property that is specific for creative and digital tech, and all those companies fall under a company called Manchester Creative Digital Assets Limited, which is 100 per cent owned by Manchester City Council. It is acquiring sites and it is building brand new buildings, all framed around—no one there was talking about building film studios or TV studios—a much more sense of what the creative industries can add to the city's economy. One interesting start, if you look at—the recent DCMS figures showed that, between 2010 and 2016, Scotland had the highest growth in the creative industries. I am going to tie that to a report that Oldsbird did and said that filming TV is the greatest contributor to the creative industries. If we tie those things together, we are the fastest growing sector nation region in the UK for creative industries. Filming TV is driving that. Why can't we bring those two together? By 2025, there are going to be more creative jobs than STEM jobs. It is clear that they have grasped that creative industries concept and ran with it. It is not where I think in Scotland we have been so tired to this concept of a film studio and maybe the state aid. Probably by stealth as well. The likes of Pinewood and our studios have not really complained about the Sharpen space, because it is what we try to do at Pacific Key. It is in iterations. Small iterations have now built up 135,000 square foot of studio space across three sites. I do not know what the answer is in terms of pure legislation. You have led quite nicely to the next question that I had broadly for the panel, which was about the statement that Manchester City Council made about being a global digital city by 2020. I would like to ask the panel, because David Brown, when we visited the ireland at the Ward Park Studios, had said that the local council had been incredibly supportive. I wondered what role you felt that the local council and the regional authorities have within delivering the screen sector ambitions. The local council was supportive in everything but material, so they voiced support. There was no financial support in any way. Building on that, the other models throughout Europe have been successful because of the council obligation, and they have met with land and assets. Can we have a discussion about that? In my submission, I said that there are two elements to it. You have a central Government, who is the majority Government in the big two cities, Glasgow and Edinburgh. In my opinion, it should be the Government that is enabling local authorities to do so. Do you know what? We live in uncertain times, we have Brexit, austerity and so on. If the local authorities do not have the money to do that, that is good, but what really frustrates me at the moment is that everyone in the public sector is hiding behind this state aid issue. It is either an economic one and we cannot afford to do it and that is fine, but if it is a legislative one, we need to dig a bit deeper. I do not think that it is a legislative one. I think that it has been used and excused myself. That is our perception of it. I do not think that there is enough evidence elsewhere around Europe, and it is to be mentioned in Manchester, to suggest that if you want to get around it, you will find a way. It is back into that. I am rather quite afraid of political issues. That sits alongside Salford and the BBC and all the pie factory and all the commercial developments down at Salford. There is an ecosystem there now. We are missing that, but at this time of growth and streaming of investment from Sony just on one show of $400 million, we are missing it. We could have three of them, four of them. I think that those questions had to be asked in terms of a strategy about the film unit, about what is it, and where does it really want to go? Has it got that ambition to build this sector in all areas, not just filming TV or whatever it may be, but all the creative sectors? I think that that is worth it. That is really the question. What is standing in the way? Personally, when you read around the subject and look at a lot of the different companies involved, there are, as you were saying, you had the panel of them here not long ago. There are a lot of companies involved in a lot of different elements of the industry, whether it is training or funding, whatever it might be. For me, the most important thing for the screen unit would be accountability and an overarching view of all those things. An organisation that, no matter what other organisations are involved, has a view of everything that is going on, everything that is available to people who live and work in Scotland, to incoming productions, to ingenious productions, so that they can have a really good view of what is available to people and pushing that industry forward. At the moment, I know that, as someone who lives and works here, I often—it is slightly confusing for me about who do you go to for what element of what you require. I think that if you have a screen unit that has the time, that has the accountability and has the funding to really progress the industry forward here because not only are we looking at catching up with other areas of the UK, with Northern Ireland, Wales, with certain areas of England, we are now at a point where not only do we need to catch up with them, but we need to really establish ourselves as something different and try to surpass them as well because I agree with a lot of the panel here as fantastic as it is to have studio spaces. It is not just about that, it is about everything else that comes along with it, to really establish Scotland as this amazing creative hub to come and bring your production that is producing indigenous content, international productions. I think that it is quite clear at the moment that it is missing an organisation that is solely accountable for driving that, I would say. If we look at Bristol and Liverpool, well, Bristol now has the bottle yard, which local authority was very supportive about the development of that, but it was owned by the council. They were in a position to be able to make that offer to the production community and get that off the ground. Liverpool at the moment is in the process of developing its own film studio in what was the Little Woods factory, but again, the council owned the land. I think that that is a crucial difference up here. The slight difference with Liverpool, I think that this is what any local authority in the UK would have done. The private developer, Captain Centric, I have come in and said, do you know what, if you buy that land for us, we will develop out 250,000 square foot of space. I think that the council bought the land for 1.8 million and said, there you go, developing that jobs economy, GVA brilliant. It is a no-brainer. Any local authority in the UK would do that and develop that. It is like Dagonham, of course. They bought the land in Dagonham and said, there you go, they are building a studio, but they are building 500 houses, a travel lodge, a cost of coffee. It is the 500 houses, the travel lodge that is paying for the studio. I think that this is not rocket science. What you are doing is going into areas, to answer the question, three years to get through planning, 18 months to get through Parliament, to the Government for a planning consent, that shows you how much we have went through to try to get to the position that we are in just now, so no, we did not receive what we felt was appropriate support. Where everyone else said that it was a good enough project, and that is just a fact. Could it have been made better? Yes, it could have been streamlined, it could have been looked at, but we still have to work with Midlothian Council. We still have to now do the detail. What people should realise is that this studio is going to be there for the next 25 to 30 years. It is not just a refurbished factory unit that will go back to being a factory unit if it does not get production. What is wrong with a refurbished factory unit? In its case and form, it is absolutely excellent for what it is doing. If your landlord decides that I have made enough money and I am going to turn it back into what I originally bought it for, that would close. Common sense would say that having Sony invested probably £7 million to get it there, that the legacy that they are leaving there, the guys had a fantastic leg-up to continue as a studio and so he should. There must be different offers other than just painting. The incentive, and I think that it is the elephant in the room, these councils broke the rules. Scottish Enterprise were not prepared and are still not prepared to bend the rules. The Welsh broke the rules, the Irish broke the rules. Go and speak to your own people in Scottish Enterprise and give them a support. Where would you say that Ireland broke the rules? Exactly the same way that you have just described that Manchester did. They bought, they mis-presented it. They mis-presented it as being an IT hub, a media hub, such big descriptions. It was a Trojan horse, it was a film studio. It was always going to be a film studio, but they bent the rules and they were brazen enough to do it. Now what happens is that people come along and say, look what Ireland has done and they say, so sue me. We have got the jobs, we have got the creation. Scotland has never done it. I am not talking about Titanic, I am talking about any in the studios or anything else. Scotland should have had all of these big shows. I am trying to avoid the fact, but the people that were in the groups that you have been representing and talking about have failed, they have summarily failed in representing and getting it there and delivering it for Scotland. I agree with you that they fail because they may not have the right tools. They might not even be the right people to use the right tools, but they have failed. It is the same old snake oil. Smell the coffee, get on with it, invest in the people, the appropriate people under a film fund that can take it forward, but do not try and say that Scotland or Glasgow or Edinburgh or anyone else should bend the rules away that these other people have. The model that you should be looking at is not Ireland, it is Atlanta. Look at that model, that is the future. Do not do what we are doing here. Guys like Ian Smith, listen to them, they are the guys that matter. I was not saying that anyone was bending the rules, my perception of Ireland was— You did just say that. You said that Manchester bent the rules. We need to have the committee members questioning the witnesses as opposed to the witnesses questioning each other. Rachel, have you finished your line of questioning? We have other members keen to get in. Stuart McMillan Thank you, convener. Good morning, panel. I found this session to be hugely fascinating, to be honest. It is fair to say that if we just focus on the past, we will never progress, we will never go forward. However, one of the best pieces of evidence that I have ever heard in any committee was from a couple of weeks ago. Mr Dornan quoted him a few moments ago. Mr Thielan mentioned that, in terms of the film industry, we should consider it to be like the shipbuilding industry. Instead of launching a ship, you are launching a film. If we can get to having that type of understanding of the sector, we will have a better sector and a better product. I will encourage more people to come and film in this area. Digital media is not just filming TV production. Digital media is what these facilities will induce all of those sorts of businesses. I do not know if anyone else wants to. If you are using that analogy, going back to what we were saying earlier, it is not just about having the spaces in the analogy of shipbuilding. You do not just have the building where you build the ship and expect people to come to you. It is about having the right staff that are trained in the right ways to build world-class products. In that example, that is what it is all about for us here. We need a world-class crew, and we need to have enough opportunity here that they will stay and live and work here. We see more and more often that, unfortunately, we have a highly talented crew, but they do not have the level and volume of work here to enable them to live and work in Scotland. I know many people who are currently working down in London, in all corners of the world, who would love to come back and live and work in Scotland if we had the industry there that they feel that they need. We cannot just look at it in terms of having the studio spaces as brilliant as they are. What the screen unit really needs to look at is the facilities that come along with the studios, creating world-class facilities, post-production facilities, facility companies. We also need the training programmes in the same way that productions such as Outlander have done. Obviously, the national film and television school is a great addition to the Scottish landscape. We need more to bring people up through the industry so that we can sit here in 15 or 20 years' time with a bank of productions under our belt—indigenous and international—with highly trained crew that are making a living here and launching those films out into the world, as you say. I think that Jim's project will certainly meet that remit. That is where your high-end projects will go. Even what we do at Film City is our refurbished old town hall. In the past six months, we have done a £3 million budget film, a CBB show and an upcoming BBC children's show, all modest set bills. At the lower end of the market, you need fit-for-purpose space, because you have visited. We made things happen there, but it is not really fit-for-purpose, so that term of ladder of accommodation is really what—through the high-end stuff, through the refurbished stuff—is what we really need in Scotland to create that ladder of accommodation. By having a well-resourced film fund that can go on and do this, that can bring on the Scottish talent, bring on the writers, the storytellers and the producers, that is where the investment should be. At the moment, the film and TV sector in Scotland is hit and miss, really. We have done very well with Outlander. Last year, we had a terrific year in the Edinburgh City region with Avengers Infinity War for seven weeks of filming, which took over Palartmas building to do their builds in, but filmed largely well on the streets, as I am sure you are all aware with the various traffic management regulations that we brought in. We also had Mary Queen of Scots, and we brought in £16 million of investment into the city region through having these productions, which were not based in Scotland. They came in, they shot what they needed on locations, they hired some local crew, they used our hotels and then they went away again, not leaving legacy, which we would have liked, because we didn't have the tools. Having more studios in Scotland is like having the knives and the cutlery in your cutlery drawer. It's what we need to create content regularly, to give people regular work here. The fact that £170 million came to Scotland could have been £450 million to £500 million. Why? Because it didn't have the facilities. It's going to have the facilities. That's a foregone conclusion. The studios, the earth studio and the other renovations will happen. It's how it's going to be sustained that is more important. We went on that notion of industry and the shipbuilding and launching a film, and I don't want to make it too simplistic. It is the issue of, do we want an industry? The way that Scotland has been before, which is struggling against the loss of talent to all the productions that have been dragged to London. If we want that industry, it inevitably has many facets to it, and it requires lots of different aspects to grow it. I think, again, what's here and the research that everybody has put into here has shown the value of it. I feel that that task about building an industry in the film unit is perhaps hitting the right node. We know it's not about the box, if we've said all that. It is about what is our desire to build this industry and how do we do that? The industry itself will grow it. We will grow it if you guys, whether you know whoever it may be, if the government agencies, if the government itself will make a choice to say, this industry is worth supporting, because the shipbuilding is gone. We know all that. It's gone. We know all that. It's now about saying, how do we want this industry to grow? Now's the time to do it. Let's find a way. Find a way to get around state aid restrictions, find a way to get around the London centrality of it, find a way to get around the crew aspect of it, and work on those things. But if we pursue this notion of a box, we will be sitting here ten years, because there's too many different voices, too many different qualifications. We've shown it. We've seen it. Build the industry. It certainly does start with a studio. I know, watching some previous sessions, Tommy Gormley put it really well when he said in the same place that Parliament is a place of work, and people come here and you come here to meet and talk and work. That's what a studio effectively is for people that work in the film industry. You need a starting place, but then it's everything that comes in. We need projects. We need projects. The building will find, the issue is getting the business into the country. If you don't have that in the first place, it's saying that if there's no space where productions can actually base, what you're getting at the moment is productions that are coming up here and actually for maybe a month up to maybe four, five, six months at a time. Doing everything else that they need to do in London or other parts of the world where there are studio spaces where they have this place of work, then they're coming up here for the essential locations that they can't cheat anywhere else, if you like, that you can't cheat Edinburgh anywhere else, you can't cheat the Carang anywhere else, Glencoe. They're coming up here to get those bits, and then they're leaving again, and that's what's not leaving a legacy here. Because there's no studio, they're not basing here, then crew aren't being trained up, facilities companies aren't developing, post-production houses aren't developing, it's sort of stagnant, and I think that's what we need to really focus on, is all the other elements. If he calls up in Scotland and says, I want to produce a film in Scotland, who does he call? That question was not answered. When he calls up, he gets referred to three or four different people, and there are four different departments, all of whom have no authority. So that's the first thing, get the right people in place, and the right people under a focused screen or a media sector if it's going to be within Creative Scotland. So it's a routine branch change that's got to happen. You've got to get the right people, you've got to give them the tools, you've got to give them the incentive, you've got to give them the targets, and you've got to give them the support that they need to perpetuate the business. The facilities are only a small part of that. Actually, in terms of a supplementary, the screen unit is obviously bringing people from Creative Scotland and Scottish Enterprise and other agencies together, and one of the focuses of our enquiries is to judge whether that screen unit will work cohesively together. If I could go to film city submission, which I thought hit the nail in the head when they talked about Creative Scotland, do you not currently manage or administer large-scale capital funds? Other than advocacy and lobbying are limited on this issue. Equally, Scottish Enterprise are not tasked with investing speculatively in businesses that do not meet their growth criteria. I just wondered about that. Do you think that the screen unit will overcome those historical problems with those two key agencies? In broadie, who's ahead of the screen commission, is like busting a gut to try to find a way forward to make this happen. You have to empower those staff with decision-making powers to say, we think that that will work, we've done the business plan, we've done who's better placed. When someone wants to film in Scotland, broadie will probably be the first person to call and say, what have you got? Who's better placed to be right to the heart of decision making about what kind of funding they need to make a studio happen? If I was in Government and we could get a weight around the state aid issues, I would say, there's £10 million, you've identified the site, we can refurbish, let's just get on and do it. You're going back to where the public is paying for the tools and the toys for the preparation of the industry. The industry should be paying for it. Well, that's where I feel... Exactly, so when your approach is sponsor us and we'll do well, just do well. But it's a clean deal. What's a clean deal? They give the money to develop a building, then they use the profits on that building to create even more stuff. How do you guarantee it when they write it? That's the problem. Scottish Enterprise would love to do that, but how do you prove the criterion that they have to as the guardians of the public purse to say that there's going to be a guaranteed return? There isn't a guaranteed return. Therefore, it's too... What's the word I'm looking for? It's not predictable enough. It's too mercurial, so you have to change the model. Don't keep trying to reproduce what's been produced in the past. I would argue that GVA and economic impact are more important than a financial return on a straight-head property. I would argue that the studio there will be a call. I would argue that the GVA and economic impact of a facility like that is more important than an economic return, so I would invest it on that basis. That is what the industry has supported your proposal, but the industry in Scotland is crying out for a facility to be built into the Scottish Government or the local authority to intervene and get on and build it. And what they've done, you know, again back to Manchester, you look at Manchester in terms of a business case, they've just built a brand new 30,000 square foot studio. Right next door, the stage, sorry, okay, stage, there is a 17,000 square foot unit just been acquired by a camera company moving in on site. There will be other creative companies moving in site, so the case is there, extrapolation of what we do in the film city. You've got a modest studio space, but what's really creating the sort of income is all the creative tenants around it. Michael Greed said about Pinewood, he said, what defined Pinewood is our media hub? There are more than 200 tenants there that are creating a huge amount of income, so in my opinion, I don't think you'll get that, Perlin. I don't think you'll get these big commercial units occupied by supply companies. You won't get production companies going there because it's where it is, but if you base that in Glasgow or Edinburgh, your bread and butter business model is all those creative tenants creating income, so if there's a cyclical demand in the studio space, it doesn't really matter. Why wouldn't you have a supplementary? Some questions on state aids. Right, no, I'm going to go, you've already had an opportunity to question the witnesses, so I'm going to go to Mary Gusion. Thank you, convener. It was really just to go back to questions about training, and that's where I was interested in reading about some of the evidence in the written submissions that you put forward to the committee. It was just about some of the general education or the general courses that people can go into, but the lack of training for very specific roles within the area. It was really just to tease that out a bit more. Is it fair to say that I suppose there's probably a general lack of awareness as to the wide variety of roles that can sometimes be available in the industry? Can you tell us a bit more about what the relationship is like between industry and education? Is there feedback either way as to if there's a specific need for specific roles? How that ties in? Are we making sure that we're getting people into the correct training for that, so that our training is modified to allow us to produce what we need? Starting the process, I think that there's still a long way to go. Our experience is that we are now working with other training bodies that exist within the industry in a more specific and targeted way, and we look at our own workforce and say, well, what are our missing elements of it, and we try to feed those areas. I'm not sure that there's the link between education and the industry is well enough to develop. I think that that can still go on, but news like the National Film School standing up in Scotland and all those things help. I think now it is getting targeted, but it needs to be accelerated and the focus needs to be kept going on it. Again, it is scale dependent. Outlanders, I think the first show in Scotland, for example, where we're starting to make, for example, where it fibres plaster, that was hardly used in Scotland before in terms of industry. As the industry grows, demand increases into more specific and, if you like, more very disparate roles. We're trying to identify those and fill them. It's the same across the industry, not just in Scotland. For example, the lack of accountants within the film business, film TV business in Britain is woeful. We target it, we've just got to increase it, and again, I think that that screen unit has to have that under its wing as well. The one thing that is missing perhaps in training area at the moment is a more coherent path for it. I think that all the groups that are involved with it do work well together, but I think that it could just be pushed on more. It's just growth more and more, pushing that on a little bit more, if that helps. My experience of, certainly, younger people that are trying to come up through the industry is that they have perhaps studied film and TV, or perhaps they haven't. If they have, it's generally quite a broad training that they've received with quite a focus on perhaps directing or screenwriting, which is absolutely brilliant, and if you can make it as one of those things, that's excellent. I think that what we certainly miss is very specific training courses. As we've said in the national film and television school coming in, I was having a look at some of their courses last night. It looks like they are going to really specify introductions to certain departments, which is great. I know that larger productions have started taking on people and bringing them up through the ranks, if you like, but certainly at the moment for us, when we are hiring and crewing up for productions, we do notice that there is a gap for certain departments, certain positions that we're looking to feel because people aren't coming up as much through the industry here as they are perhaps in other areas of the UK. Perhaps it is because there is confusion about whether you've studied film and TV or media or not. Where do you begin? How do you start to get into this industry? What points of access are there for you? I don't envy people who are trying to make it in the industry here and work their place in the industry out. I would personally welcome more training programmes whether they are working directly on productions or more theoretical training programmes that give people the specific training and experience of what they need to make it in certain departments in the industry. Unfortunately, although we will always try and hire a Scottish crew first, we inevitably then have to start to look at other areas of the UK for people that we can bring in on certain productions, particularly if there are one or two big features or TV dramas shooting in Scotland at the same time, because then all that crew is soaked up and we're suddenly having to look elsewhere for other talented crew. Is it that one thing that strikes me is obviously going through a school and education myself? It's only really been through this inquiry and speaking to a variety of different people involved in the industry, you realise the sheer scale and number of roles that are involved. I feel that there's maybe a general lack of awareness, but I think also that what's been important about this inquiry is that it puts a focus on how much this could be worth to Scotland and the potential that it's there. I think that there needs to be a greater awareness of the value of the industry as a whole and more importance placed on that. The comments that you made there, Amy, touched on some of the evidence that we received from the likes of Tayscreen Scotland where they said that they lack a very specific specialist crew, such as studio operators. Is that a skill base that needs to be brought in from elsewhere in that case? How can an increase in infrastructure support that training in Scotland? Can I come back to the education aspect? Screen unit proposals include an additional £1 million for training. There is a question as to whether that will be enough. It doesn't strike me as an awful lot. There was an announcement yesterday by the UK Government that there's another £150 million being invested. GEMA outlander cost us £250,000 a year, of which outlander pays for half of that, or more than half of that. So there's further money made available yesterday, some of which was earmarked specifically for education. I think that your point about awareness of the huge variety of different roles at a school level is something that is lacking. I know that it has come up in events with creative skillsets, and they are aware of that. You don't go through school thinking, oh, I want to be a set painter. You don't know that those jobs exist, and yet within the film industry such as The Army, there are hundreds at least of different types of very specific jobs with different kinds of skillsets. I think that awareness in schools these days is still very much about I want to be a director, I want to be an actor, and that's about it. You might enjoy cooking, and there are jobs for you as a cook within the film industry, or perhaps you're interested in hair and makeup. Again, it's not something that I think school children are aware of, and yet it's something that really needs to be grasped, and I think creative skillset is beginning to look at this. It's really important. Just anecdotally, we can have out on days, we can want 60 make-up and hair artists on Outlander, of which we might have to bring up half of them from the south of England. Just because you go and do hair and make-up training and maybe work in a salon, it's not the same. There are very specific skill levels that are applied to the film industry in particular, and, therefore, it is something that school leavers need to have in their minds as a possibility that they could go and train specifically for the film industry. I have one aspect of a very broad approach if we want to grow this industry. Andy Wightman, do you want to come back on something? I just want to ask a few questions about the state aids. Can we get back to state aids? There seems to be quite a bit of confusion around those, which is not really helping the conversation. The Manchester project is run by the city council, the sole shareholder, it's a municipal enterprise. Municipal enterprises are common, the city of Edinburgh council runs a very successful bus business. The state aid problems that were identified by the Government to the previous Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee back in 2016 were focused on two things. One, the state providing assistance to the private sector, and that's not what Manchester is. The second was where the state and the public sector invest in a project like a film studio that it should operate according to the market economy operator principle, in other words, it should be a business. If the money is available, if the finance is available, if the investors are available to build a film studio, that's one thing. If we want the public sector involved, it seems pretty clear that the model to adopt is a municipal enterprise wholly owned company of city of Edinburgh council or Glasgow city council. It's not for the Government to get involved in that. The Government owns Prestwick airport, it's a sole shareholder in Caledonia and McBrain, it's a sole shareholder in Scottish Water, but those are different beasts altogether. Would you agree that the choice really is that a municipal enterprise leads on this, operates within the market, totally compliant, or it's the private sector on its own, and that we put to one side the question of whether the state provides public support to the private sector, because that's what got Valencian to problems? I was just being maybe over-optimistic that, and this has not been particularly political, is that the central Government is the SNP, the SNP of the majority in Glasgow and Edinburgh councils. From my outsider's point of view, there was some common sense or chain of command that could make this happen at local authority level, and that's just my personal view on it. There was maybe that joined up thinking. I'm not here to have a go at Edinburgh city council, Glasgow city council, Glasgow city council being brilliant with film city. Edinburgh city council helped us a lot when we're trying to get polyamys off the ground, but times are tough, they don't have the money. Manchester does, that's a fact, but all my point of contention is that there is a way to do it, so why do we keep talking about state? I appreciate that there's a difference between Government and municipal level, but you would think that from an outsider's point of view there was a conversation to be had to enable a local authority to do this. Are you not the enablers to allow this to happen? Again, from an outsider's point of view, is there not some extraordinary activity or money that you can give to a local authority to do that? There is money that Government is giving specifically to local government in the city region deals. I'm not aware of any proposition through the city region deals anywhere in Scotland that involves building a film studio. Have there been conversations? Maybe it's time to have that conversation. Maybe now and part of the remit of this screen unit is to try and facilitate that conversation, to direct it. One of the city authorities can take that task, but it has been assisted and directed by a central body. Different cities have different priorities. Manchester has got this real focus on the huge legacy of Manchester and the creative industries. That's its focus. Other local authorities might have different focuses on whatever reason. From our dealings with Edinburgh and Palamys, I didn't get the impression that they had that sort of money to spend on that type of project. Glasgow has invested in the film city, but the Commonwealth Games etc. I don't believe that they would have that kind of money either. My view is that they should be investing in the production companies and the product, not the facilities. The facilities do not merit state aid. What merit state aid is the product? That's what's needed. There is no state aid in the Manchester project, first, I'm aware. It's a business that's run as a business that Manchester has decided to invest in. So, what of Edinburgh or Glasgow? They've decided not to. Move on. You're right, Andy. There's no state aid. They've taken a decision as a local authority to do that. My comment was that it's just baffling that a Government in power can't influence a local authority of the same party to make something happen. That's my outsider's point of view. Whether there's a process to do that or not is another thing, but as a citizen of Scotland, I find that baffling. Local government is autonomous. It makes its own decisions. There may be commonalities in the parties that are in control, and that's up to those parties what they do. This comes up with the screen unit and the screen set to leadership group requirements that data is really key here. The local authorities know where Edinburgh was looking at whether they could take the risk and run a film studio, but the data wasn't sufficient. They just didn't have the data, and the council is not property developers. They're not film studio operators. The call for accurate data and the numbers that demonstrate exactly what was going to come back from investing over a 10-year period or longer was lacking. We haven't got this infrastructure in Scotland, other than Wod Park. Can I just challenge the idea that the city's not up? I'm going to have to stop you there. You've had quite a bit of time already. Can I ask members—I know that we've gone over time with witnesses—if you've got another 10 minutes or you're okay? Mr McMillan, do you have another question that you want to ask on this subject? Yes. It's not on Mr Wightman's area, but just one more question. One of the things that struck me undertaking this piece of work in this committee has been the level of engagement that people outside of Parliament have taken in this. I'm not talking about people involved in the industry, but it's actually normal members of the public. Going back to where we've been over the course of the last 15, 20 years and beyond having this discussion about what type of sector should we have, does the panel think that the wider public—the wider members of the public—the general public are actually more understanding now in terms of what this particular sector could actually bring to the economy, in terms of jobs, in terms of opportunities, as compared to any other time we've been there before. Going back to the outland effect, I would say yes. When our landlord receives letters from local people in Cumbinold saying, thank you for what you've done with that building, you've turned this crumbling of shed that's sitting there empty into this building, which we can be proud of, I think we are seeing that shift. Again, when an outlander now rolls into town with its inordinate and large circus, we are welcome. People see the business opportunity that we bring. We do change. We have clearly had impact on various communities where suddenly business have grown up in our wake, not least our impact on the national trash properties and historic Scotland properties. I'm aware of it. I think that within that kind of social media drive now, people become more possessive of the shows they like, so they begin to think that they own them. That creates a slightly different issue, but we won't go into now. I'm aware of that very much, though. I think that there's a lot more pride taken in the fact that outland, for example, is made in Scotland. Just looking at another example, there's a show called Nashville, which was made in Tennessee a few years ago, where they have a studio. They quantified the impact that it has there. Nashville has a state sales tax, as well as a county sales tax, and they can see the amount of money that's been returned to the state as a result of film tourists from the success of that series. For instance, they made $63 million worth of state sales tax from Nashville-motivated tourists, or NMT, as they are referred to, and $20 million of county sales tax revenue from Nashville-motivated tourists, and $1.2 million worth of state sales tax from international travellers who went to Tennessee having seen the show. The show comes through hotel beds from restaurants because there's tax on everything, so they can see exactly how much is coming back in in a financial capacity from visitors who have gone to that place as a result of a hit series. We don't have the financial figures for the tourist impact from Outlander. We have numbers of visitors. We know that numbers to Dune Castle have gone up 110 per cent in four years since the series came out. Just walking down the high street this morning, what do we see? Every tour has an Outlander tour. I know that we're talking slightly against you there, Stuart, because I think that you were talking about the national pride and the national association, or a more public association with the industry. I think that that is great. It's an anecdotal one. I think that Rosie gives us the factual ones, but it's hard to put a number on that, but we feel it. The creative industries is the fastest growing sector in the UK economy. That's a fact. I can back that up. There's still a bit of work to do when you ask a parent in terms of what their child will do. It'll be doctor, lawyer, STEM. Let's enter the creative industries because it's quite a nebulous concept, but it is the fastest growing sector. Filming TV, as I've said, drives a lot of that activity. In Scotland, projects like Outlander and Jim's project will, hopefully, put that to the front-face in terms of the public's perception of it, and what Rosie said about it being a viable career. I do see the positive impact of filming. You can look at the various tourist attractions, as they say, and the local communities in a way have been transformed positively by filming. Although, for us as an organisation and me as an individual, we don't shoot on the scale of Outlander. We work in advertising, but we're lucky to shoot across all corners of Scotland and transform those communities for maybe a week, two weeks perhaps, and we are hiring locally where we can. We're hiring local accommodation. We're using local services like caterers, for example. We're casting locally. We are really engaging with that local community. Maybe we're very fortunate, but we've never had a wholly negative experience of that. For us, a huge benefit and something that enables us to work in those communities very well is our relationships with the local and regional film offices. Obviously, we have Creative Scotland. We don't largely deal with them as an organisation because we're already here and we kind of know roughly what we're doing. Where we find a huge benefit is working with regional film offices like Rosie at Film Edinburgh across the country. They really do help us when we're working out how to shoot in these potentially quite challenging areas. These areas maybe we don't know so well. I think that, from my point of view, they should be given all the tools and the funding that they need to carry on doing a great job with that because it really does make the difference when you are essentially coming into a small community to do something that's a little alien to them that they don't quite know about, but we're very fortunate that we do have positive experiences with the people that we make. The point is that it's not solely. Edinburgh or Glasgow? We're going to have to cut you off because we've got some other other members that want to come in. Thank you, convener. I think that we've had a useful discussion around the need for a skills infrastructure, all the things that we can provide in Scotland, but I wanted to ask how important the money is. Jim said that there shouldn't be Government involvement, but the UK Government does give a 25 per cent film tax relief as an incentive for companies to come here. I know that Budapest has been mentioned. I'm assuming that people go to Budapest rather than here because it's about how much it costs. We're arguing about whether the company Scotland, because it's to do with infrastructure, the skills of what we have, is it not actually just all about the money? It's because it's cheaper here. Produces is what's a tax incentive in any country and how do we get it? Is it cash, is it credit, how does it work? What do we need to qualify? That's just the way the game works. Anywhere in the world now. Any studio, any business, that's what we ask. The success of the UK industry is fundamentally based on the value of the tax credit and how successful it's been and that it outstitches everybody else. The other hubs in Europe, whether it be Prague or Budapest, are also about their tax credit coupled with local facilities and local costs there. Budapest's success, in comparison to Prague, was because Prague got on the train later. They got on the train later, they had a wonderful industry, their tax incentive wasn't put in place, their government wouldn't do it for many years and Budapest's push to head, forced to head, built more studios, increased their crew, increased their business excrementally and Prague is only now catching up. You're right, that element is significant. Then once we peel that back as producers, we then go what's next? Do we want to be there in terms of our locations? What's our crew base? What are our facilities? What help are we getting? Which countries put their hands up, or which regions put their hands up saying, me, me, me? I've got that extra little bit that can sell it to you once you've ticked those other boxes. The value of inward investment film production in the UK grew 23 per cent last year, on 2016. For high-end TV, the inward investment value grew 27 per cent. In total, the UK calculated £2.6 billion of spend from film and TV production in the UK. It's an enormous amount of money, £2.4 billion of that. We just got to get more of it. We need it, we deserve it. Let's find a way. I may, which is that, again, I work in the advertising industry. Tax incentives don't apply to advertising. For us, we are often in competition with a lot of other particularly European countries, a lot of Eastern European countries. People are making a decision about whether to come and bring the business to us in Scotland, or whether to go and shoot in multiple other countries in Europe. Tax incentives are a huge part of it. If we can have crew incentives, that's another huge part of it, incentivising the use of local crew. For us personally, the things that we're looking at is that those countries have studio spaces. We can show them warehouses that are fine, but they're not a purpose-built studio with all the home comforts that they bring with them. We're also looking at local crew. Obviously, we can't compete cost-wise with Eastern Europe. We know that. There's nothing we can do about that. For us, we're trying to prove ways that people would want to come and shoot in Scotland. It's the talent of our local crew, our amazing locations, but other European countries are wisely up to that. The more productions they have in there, the more highly trained their crew are becoming. They're really looking at the locations that they can offer and diversifying what they can offer there. That's something that we, as a company, really try to stay on the top of our game with. For us, all of those other elements are really important to try to justify where people want to come and bring their business to us in Scotland. Mr O'Donnell mentioned Georgia, which has tax incentives. Our tax incentives apply across the UK, of course. Is there anything else specific about Georgia that we should be emulating? They started from scratch. They started even further behind the Scotland. It had nothing. Georgia was not the best place to film if you speak to the people there. Relative humidity is very high. The costs are very high. What they have is that they welcome the production people to come and offer their incentives. Tommy Gormley said that, at the present time, if the Scottish Government decided to drop the tax or improve the taxation— Will they not have control over tax? Eventually, as Tommy had said, this is where the eventuality of having your own industry is, but if they could, then by changing that, that's one way to make it more attractive. My experience is—as I say, I'm guarded in this because I'm here as a property developer, but my experience is that the guys and women who make decisions to come to any country are stimulated by the bottom line. They will make do with facilities. They will make do with local areas if the bottom line is attractive enough to them. Therefore, my view is that the Government should make it attractive for them. The incentives should all be through—if I can say it. I didn't say that there shouldn't be stated—I want to say that there shouldn't be stated in the property side unless it's a gap, but what there should be is that—I'll go back on it—put a sizable film fund together behind the people that can work it to incentivise the productions to come here. It's a terrible statement. Build it and they will come. It's the old anecdote that comes with the movies, but it's going to be built anyway. Move on for that. Actually attract the folk to come and use it now and, more importantly, to keep coming back using it and to do pre- and post-production, not just to come here, do what they have to do and then they'll go back. Rosie had mentioned the Avenger movies. Go back into the films and all you would see is pine wood along every vehicle and every sign and everything else that was there was all pine wood. Where was there something for the Scottish companies? It was a very small percentage of crew that were hired. They were all brought from the Golden Triangle and brought up here. To me that's what the difference should be. I thank you all very much for your time today and also for going over time. We appreciate your very busy people so we do appreciate you coming and giving evidence today. We'll now suspend this meeting and go into private session.