Cofnod y
Trafodion
The
Record of Proceedings
Y Pwyllgor Diwylliant, y Gymraeg a Chyfathrebu
The Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee
Agenda’r Cyfarfod
Meeting
Agenda
Trawsgrifiadau’r Pwyllgor
Committee
Transcripts
Cynnwys
Contents
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5....... Cyllid ar gyfer Addysg Cerddoriaeth a Mynediad at yr Addysg Honno: Sesiwn Dystiolaeth 9
........... Funding for and Access to Music Education: Evidence Session 9
43..... Adolygiad S4C—Sesiwn Dystiolaeth 4
S4C
Review—Evidence Session 4
85..... Papurau i’w Nodi
Papers to
Note
Cofnodir y trafodion yn yr iaith y llefarwyd hwy ynddi yn y pwyllgor. Yn ogystal, cynhwysir trawsgrifiad o’r cyfieithu ar y pryd. Lle y mae cyfranwyr wedi darparu cywiriadau i’w tystiolaeth, nodir y rheini yn y trawsgrifiad.
The proceedings are reported in the language in which they were spoken in the committee. In addition, a transcription of the simultaneous interpretation is included. Where contributors have supplied corrections to their evidence, these are noted in the transcript.
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Aelodau’r pwyllgor yn
bresennol
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Hannah Blythyn |
Llafur
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Dawn Bowden |
Llafur
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Suzy Davies |
Ceidwadwyr Cymreig
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Neil Hamilton |
UKIP Cymru
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Bethan Jenkins |
Plaid Cymru (Cadeirydd y Pwyllgor)
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Dai Lloyd |
Plaid Cymru
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Jeremy Miles |
Llafur
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Lee Waters |
Llafur
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Eraill yn bresennol
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David Barnard |
Swyddog Addysg, Undeb y Cerddorion Education Official, Musicians’ Union
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Iestyn Garlick |
Cadeirydd TAC Chair of TAC
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Tim Rhys-Evans |
Sylfaenydd a Chyfarwyddwr Artistig, Elusen Aloud Founder and Artistic Director, The Aloud Charity
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Gareth Williams |
Aelod o Gyngor TAC Council Member for TAC
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Swyddogion Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru yn
bresennol
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Steve George |
Clerc Clerk
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Adam Vaughan |
Dirprwy Glerc Deputy Clerk
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Robin Wilkinson |
Y Gwasanaeth Ymchwil Research Service
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Dechreuodd y cyfarfod am 09:17.
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Cyflwyniad, Ymddiheuriadau, Dirprwyon a Datgan
Buddiannau
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[1] Bethan Jenkins: Croeso, Aelodau, i’r pwyllgor. Os bydd larwm tân, dylai pawb adael yr ystafell drwy’r allanfeydd tân penodol a dilyn cyfarwyddiadau’r tywyswyr a’r staff. Ni ddisgwylir prawf heddiw. Dylai pawb droi eu ffonau symudol i fod yn dawel. Mae’r Cynulliad Cenedlaethol yn gweithredu’n ddwyieithog, ac mae clustffonau ar gael i glywed y cyfieithiad ar y pryd ac i addasu’r sain ar gyfer pobl sy’n drwm eu clyw. Mae’r cyfieithu ar y pryd ar sianel 1, a gellir chwyddo’r sain ar sianel 0. Peidiwch â chyffwrdd â’r botymau ar y meicroffonau, gan y gall hyn amharu ar y system, a gofalwch bod y golau coch ymlaen cyn dechrau siarad.
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Bethan Jenkins: Welcome to members of the committee. If there is a fire alarm, people should leave the room through the fire exits and follow the instructions of the ushers and staff. We’re not expecting a test today. Everybody should turn their phones to silent. The National Assembly for Wales operates bilingually, and headsets are available to hear the simultaneous translation and to amplify the sound. The interpretation is on channel 1 and amplification is available on channel 0. Don’t touch the microphones, as this can affect the system, and please ensure that the red light is on before you start speaking.
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[2] A oes gan unrhyw Aelod rywbeth i’w ddatgan ar hyn o bryd? Na. Nid wyf wedi cael unrhyw ymddiheuriadau ar hyn o bryd.
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Are there any declarations of interest? No. I haven’t received any apologies at the moment.
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09:18
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Cyllid ar gyfer Addysg Cerddoriaeth a Mynediad at yr Addysg Honno: Sesiwn Dystiolaeth 9 Funding for and
Access to Music Education:
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[3] Bethan Jenkins: Felly, rydym yn symud ymlaen i eitem 2, sef cyllid ar gyfer addysg cerddoriaeth a mynediad at yr addysg honno—sesiwn dystiolaeth 9. Rydym yn diolch yn fawr iawn i David Barnard, swyddog addysg, Undeb y Cerddorion, am ddod i mewn atom ni heddiw. Nid wyf yn siŵr os ydych chi wedi bod yn dilyn yr hyn yr ydym wedi bod yn ei wneud fel pwyllgor ar addysg cerddoriaeth, ond diolch am eich tystiolaeth ysgrifenedig. Felly, a gaf i jest gofyn i chi yn fras: beth ydych chi yn ei wneud fel rhan o’r system yma, a sut ydych chi’n meddwl y gellir gwneud newidiadau i wella’r sefyllfa sydd ohoni? Diolch.
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Bethan Jenkins: So, we’ll move on to item 2, which is funding for and access to music education. This is evidence session 9. We thank David Barnard, the education official of the Musicians’ Union, for coming in today. I’m not sure if you’ve been following what we’ve been doing as a committee on music education, but thank you for your written evidence. I just want to ask you: what are you doing as part of this system, and how do you think changes can be made to improve the situation that exists at present? Thank you. |
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[4] Mr Barnard: By means of introduction, I’ve worked in music education for many years as a teacher, head of music service, conductor, and worked in the commercial sector with Roland in Swansea. So, I’ve been around for a long time, and I think that we are at the moment facing quite unprecedented problems with music education, not just in Wales but also in England and also in Scotland. I was up in Scotland not long ago to hear about some of their problems as well. So, we have a national crisis, I think, developing, which I think has a generational impact. And it is of a deep concern to us, particularly in the Musicians’ Union, because we support roughly about 20,000 teachers across the country.
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[5] The important thing about music is its impact on education, and the value that it brings to the education process—it’s significant. It’s not just about the musical enjoyment and the pleasure you get from learning a musical instrument. It’s a benefit that includes literacy, numeracy, personal development, and emotional intelligence—all of those other soft skills that employers are talking about all the time. And so, I think it plays a really important role in the development of young people. But it also plays an important part in the economy as well. The economy last year for the UK was £4.1 billion through music. And the exports were about £2.1 billion. So, this is also a thriving industry, serving a real public demand. And if you look at the growth in music festivals alone, there was a 31 per cent growth in music festivals across the country. It is a thriving business, so what happens in the classroom and what happens in instrumental teaching has a direct impact on what happens in the economy as well. Even though it’s a small part, in many ways some people would argue that the music industry is bigger than the steel industry. So, it is thriving and it’s a great exporter.
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[6] Bethan Jenkins: A allwch chi jest dweud wrthym ni yn fras pam rydych chi’n disgrifio hyn fel creisis, achos roedd Owain Arwel Hughes wedi dod i mewn a dweud yr un peth? A allwch chi esbonio pam rydych yn dweud geiriau eithaf cryf fel yna?
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Bethan Jenkins: Can you just explain briefly to us why you describe it as a crisis, because Owain Arwel Hughes came in and said the same thing? Can you explain why you’re using such strong words? |
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[7] Mr Barnard: Of course. It’s a crisis on multiple levels. So, if you think about it from the point of view of when I was a young child and having lessons at school, the lessons were free, and every child who wanted to learn to play a musical instrument could have access to learning a musical instrument for free. That is not the case now. In many cases, schools are being charged anywhere between £30 and £46—this is in Wales—and in many cases, those charges are passed on to parents. Now, if there isn’t a remission budget, or a budget to help those low-income families, then there is no access to learning a musical instrument. So, that’s that on the one hand.
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[8] The other thing that’s happening is the gradual erosion of teachers’ employment. I’ll give you an example: when I was at teacher training college, many years ago, every Friday The Times Educational Supplement would have at least 20 jobs a week for instrumental music teachers. It was seen as a career path, and that is very, very rare now. Most employment is in zero-hours contracts, or self-employment, and there’s a real gradual push in that direction. So, as a viable career option, a lot of musicians are considering, ‘Well, this is maybe not a career option for me anymore.’ So, that diminution of the workforce involved in supporting music is also eroding, and that’s part of that dual crisis. And, of course, that’s where funding comes in, and the funding has been reduced. There are announcements that funding is secure, but when that is put into the context of other cuts that are going on, music often suffers.
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[9] I think the other element of crisis, particularly looking at what is happening in England, is that, with the introduction of the English baccalaureate, music has got pushed off the agenda. It is no longer part of those—. It’s not a science, technology, engineering and mathematics subject that is assessed in terms of the school’s performance. It’s not assessed on the basis of that, and it’s getting pushed out of the curriculum. And that’s a danger. That’s real danger.
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[10] Bethan Jenkins: Byddwn ni’n dod at rai o’r cwestiynau am ariannu mewn ychydig, ond mae Dai Lloyd yn mynd i ofyn cwestiynau i chi nawr. Diolch yn fawr iawn.
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Bethan Jenkins: We will come to questions on funding in time, but Dai Lloyd is now going to ask you questions. Thank you. |
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[11] Dai Lloyd: Diolch yn fawr, Gadeirydd, a diolch yn fawr iawn i chi am eich papur yn y lle cyntaf, Mr Barnard. Ond i fynd ar ôl rhai o’r themâu, ac rydych chi wedi cyffwrdd ag ambell un eisoes, a allaf i ofyn i chi yn gyntaf: ydy materion ariannu yn cael effaith ar grwpiau penodol o ddysgwyr, fel dysgwyr o deuluoedd ar incwm isel, er enghraifft, neu fathau penodol o gerddoriaeth?
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Dai Lloyd: Thank you very much, Chair, and thank you very much for your paper, Mr Barnard. But to follow up on some of the themes, and you’ve touched on this already, could I ask you, first of all, whether funding issues have any impact on particular groups of learners, such as those from low-income families, for example, or particular types of music? |
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[12] Mr Barnard: It very much depends on—. I think what we have is a very inconsistent picture with regard to the charging of instrumental lessons. And this is not just in Wales, but across the whole country. Some schools will choose to subsidise those lessons. Some will choose—a very small number—to make those lessons still free, but the majority are charging for those lessons. So, that is one of the immediate barriers. If you can’t afford to pay for the lesson, that is a barrier. And if there is no provision set aside within the school budget, or the local authority budget, to get access to funding, to pay for those lessons, then children from low-income families are just denied that opportunity.
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[13] And as far as genre is concerned, everybody wants to be in a rock band, so the growth in guitar lessons and drum lessons is very good. But we do have an issue with regard to some of those minority instruments, like tuba and trombone, French horn, bassoon, which often take a longer time to develop. So, there is a crisis there developing as well. So, when we look at the constitution of a youth orchestra, they will always struggle for the double basses and violas. That sometimes is market-led, but it’s also led by the point of view of access to quality instruments as well.
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[14] Dai Lloyd: Efallai bydd gan y Cadeirydd rhywbeth i’w ddweud am fiolas, ond af ymlaen i ofyn fy nghwestiwn nesaf: a yw disgyblion mwy abl a dawnus yn cael anawsterau penodol o ran manteisio ar wasanaethau cerddoriaeth a beth fydd yr effaith ar ensemblau cenedlaethol?
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Dai Lloyd: Perhaps the Chair might have a comment to make on violas, but I will move on to my next question: are the more able and talented pupils having particular difficulties in accessing music services and what will the impact be on national ensembles? |
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[15] Mr Barnard: In some ways, they’re affected in the same way as children from low-income families because to get to that, when you’ve gifted and talented pupils, they require extended lessons and more access to group ensembles, and so, if they’re—. Again, from a schools’ point of view, if they have a budget to support that, then those children get access to that.
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[16] In England, through the arts council funding, there is a resource available for gifted and talented students and they can apply for that support. The provision set aside for national youth orchestras and national ensembles is funded through the arts council in England. I’m not sure what the situation is here. I think there is funding there. But I think that the identification of that talent and allowing that talent to come forward and then having that personal learning plan to give that child the opportunity to develop their skills is really quite random and inconsistent, I would say.
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[17] Dai Lloyd: Oce. Diolch yn fawr.
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Dai Lloyd: Okay. Thank you very much.
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[18] Bethan Jenkins: Rwy jest eisiau sôn am hynny, achos wnes i ddechrau ar y ffidil ac wedyn newid i’r fiola. Efallai mai gweld gagendor yn y farchnad gerddorfaol oeddwn i ar y pryd. Nid wyf yn siŵr os yw hwn yn rhywbeth y gallwch chi ddangos arbenigedd ynddo, ond i ni, yng Nghymru, yn amlwg, mae yna faterion o ran dwyieithrwydd, ac efallai fod pobl am gael mynediad at wasanaethau trwy gyfrwng y Gymraeg neu oherwydd bod yna sefyllfaoedd lle mae pobl yn byw mewn ardaloedd gwledig nad ydyn nhw’n gallu cael gafael ar yr un math o gyfleusterau. A oes barn gyda chi, fel undeb, ar hynny? Beth rydych wedi’i weld yng ngweddill Prydain sydd yn efallai hwyluso rhai o’r problemau hynny?
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Bethan Jenkins: I just want to ask about that, because I actually started on the violin and then changed to the viola. Maybe I saw a gap in the orchestral market at the time. I’m not sure whether this is something that you can show expertise in, but, in Wales, obviously there are issues relating to bilingualism and perhaps people want access to services through the medium of Welsh or because there are situations where people live in rural areas and can’t access the same sort of facilities. As a union, do you have a view on this? Is there anything that you’ve seen in the rest of the UK that can facilitate these issues in Wales? |
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[19] Mr Barnard: The difficulty in provision for rural schools and the rural areas is economically driven in many cases because, if the music service doesn’t have the resource and the finance to send a teacher out to a rural school, often it’s then up to the school to try and make their own provision. There are examples in England where that is the case. There’s an example of a research project done by Manchester Metropolitan University in the Yorkshire Dales, where there were schools not getting access to music provision and what was set up was a live video-conferencing system, which meant that the music teacher could be in one place and then would deliver the lessons to the school via video-conferencing, with the support of the teacher—with mixed results, but it is a problem.
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[20] When I first started teaching in Bedfordshire, I was the trombone teacher, and I would travel all over the place and it didn’t matter whether the school was in the wilds of Leighton Buzzard or in Bedford—the service was provided and funded for. So, every school and every child got access to that. It’s an economic issue, I’m afraid. It then depends on the headteacher and their spending priorities and whether they can afford it and whether they want to afford it.
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[21] Bethan Jenkins: Gyda’r astudiaeth honno ym Manceinion, a ydy’n dal i ddigwydd nawr, lle mae’r ysgolion yn cael y gwasanaeth trwy gyfrwng Skype neu drwy gyfrwng y cyfrifiadur? A ydy hwnnw’n dal i ddigwydd neu a oedd jest ar gyfer y peilot penodol hwnnw? Rŷch chi’n dweud fod yna mixed results—a ydy felly yn gallu bod yn rhywbeth i’w rholio mas? Nid wyf yn credu y buaswn i’n ei hoffi, ond rwy’n credu y byddai rhai pobl, os nad oedd dim byd arall ar gael, yn gallu gweld bod rhywun arall yn eu tiwtora nhw yn help, os nad oedd unrhyw beth arall yno.
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Bethan Jenkins: With that study in Manchester, is it still happening now, where schools have the service through Skype or through the computer? Is that still happening or was it just for that specific pilot? You said there were mixed results—can it therefore be something to be rolled out? I don’t think I’d like it, but perhaps some people, if nothing else was available, could see someone tutoring them as being of assistance, if nothing else were there? |
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09:30
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[22] Mr Barnard: It was a pilot scheme and therefore it had a beginning and an end. I think, in my view, the plan was to develop that further. I’m not sure if it’s gone any further, but I certainly think it is worth exploring. Though I think that what’s crucial to that exercise working is that the school makes provision for a teacher to learn with the pupils, and then there is continued access to practising during that week with the teacher. That often helps in making that a success. As we’ve often also seen in England, where there is whole-class teaching going on, if the pupils are not getting that support, and regular support, during the week following that session, then little progress is made.
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[23] Bethan Jenkins: Os medrwch chi roi’r linc i ni ar gyfer hynny—linc i ni at yr adolygiad, at y peilot—byddai hynny’n grêt.
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Bethan Jenkins: If you could provide us with a link to that—a link for us to the review, to the pilot—that to be great.
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[24] Mr Barnard: Yes, indeed.
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[25] Bethan Jenkins: Jest er mwyn inni allu gweld yr hyn yr ydych chi’n siarad amdano mewn mwy o fanylder.
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Bethan Jenkins: Just for us to see what you’re talking about in more detail. |
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[26] Mae cwestiynau nawr ar ariannu, ac mae Jeremy Miles yn mynd i’w ofyn i chi.
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We now move on to questions on funding, and Jeremy Miles is going to ask those questions. |
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[27] Jeremy Miles: Others are going to ask you about the impact on the workforce, which will obviously be top of your list of concerns, I would imagine. But I’ve got some questions on the funding situation and the structural implications of that. If you look at the position in Wales to start with, most challenges have a mix of organisational and funding routes, if you like. What would you describe the mix as being in Wales, in terms of the cause of what you describe as a crisis?
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[28] Mr Barnard: Well, if I look back at some of the research I’ve done, you know, we’ve got some areas of Wales where there is no funding at all from the local authority, and other areas where there is some element of funding. There is a lack of a consistent policy, I feel. In England, there is a formula that is used for the allocation of funding, and I’m not sure if there is a formula here, so it’s locally determined, and if there’s been a long period of supporting music, then that is continued, but I think that, when I go looking around the country, we’ve got Conwy, for example, with a very uncertain future—it’s funding has been cut from £0.25 million to £95,000—and Gwent has zero funding. Neath Port Talbot is possibly losing £100,000. These are substantial losses in the core funding of the service. So, what happens as a consequence is that the cost of that service gets passed on to schools, and then you get varying formulas used by different schools. So, you may find the school down the road is charging £25 a lesson, and the other school down the road is charging £30 a lesson.
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[29] Jeremy Miles: But, essentially, from your perspective, it’s principally a funding issue.
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[30] Mr Barnard: I think it is a funding issue.
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[31] Jeremy Miles: Okay.
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[32] Mr Barnard: And, as far as the workforce is concerned, if you’re going to work in an area that is predominantly rural, it’s very hard to do that if you’re self-employed, and what we’ve seen in the UK, in England, is a real swinging towards zero-hours contracts and self-employment. So, those teachers are likely to gravitate around the major urban centres, which means that the rural centres miss out.
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[33] Jeremy Miles: And so, do you think that—? Would you advocate the ring-fencing of music budgets at local authority level, to ensure that they end up funding the services? Is that something you would advocate?
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[34] Mr Barnard: I would do, yes.
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[35] Jeremy Miles: Okay. Do you think there is a case, from an organisational point of view, in the context of reduced funding overall, in terms of the cuts you’ve already alluded to—do you think there’s a case for a bigger footprint for the delivery of the service, either a kind of regional footprint, or indeed a national footprint? Would you regard that as a step forward?
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[36] Mr Barnard: I would see that as a very positive step forward.
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[37] Jeremy Miles: You would.
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[38] Mr Barnard: Yes.
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[39] Jeremy Miles: Why is that?
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[40] Mr Barnard: Well, I think you’ve got the economies of scale. It means that, as far as access to instruments, instruments can be moved around wherever the need might be. It also means that you’ve got a consistency in delivering consistency in pricing. Everybody gets the same; you’ve got the equality of access. So, somebody who might be down in Swansea knows that they’re paying the same charges someone who lives in Conwy. And I think that it also means that, as far as quality of control, there is a way of monitoring the quality of the teaching that’s being delivered. And there is just the sharing of resources and the administration that goes with that.
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[41] Jeremy Miles: So, you’d go beyond even a regional footprint; you’d be talking about a national footprint.
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[42] Mr Barnard: I think a national service could work very well, but perhaps with four regional centres, so that they’re able to give that local, focused support, but then there’s a national—. It doesn’t need to be particularly high at this level here, but it’s about co-ordination and consistency.
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[43] Jeremy Miles: And where have you seen that model work elsewhere?
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[44] Mr Barnard: Well, I know they’re talking about it in Northern Ireland at the moment; they’re looking at a similar kind of issue. There, they’ve worked very closely as a group of authorities. The idea of moving forward and forming a united service makes a lot of sense. I know that, in Scotland, they’re doing the same thing because they’re facing some financial challenges there. They’re looking at, ‘Well, how can we maintain a quality and consistent and fair service across the country’, and having some kind of national overreach could actually be effective in that respect.
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[45] Jeremy Miles: In the paper you provided, for which thank you, you talk about—I think in Denbighshire, there’s a music co-operative that you’ve mentioned there. Do you feel that part of the way forward may be different ways of structuring these, if it were to remain at a local level, if you like? Rather than going down the national path, which you’re describing, would you see any merit in different ways of delivering that on the ground organisationally? Do you think the Denbighshire music co-op has a model that works, basically?
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[46] Mr Barnard: I’ve been involved in co-operatives for many years. I formed a co-operative in Swindon when all of our funding was cut and the choice was to make all of the staff—well, all of the staff were made redundant and they became self-employed. The option there was to allow the teachers to just go off and do their own thing and charge schools at their own rate, or to bring the teachers together into the form of a co-operative. It’s a consortia co-operative. So, essentially, they’re still self-employed, but they work together and central administration costs are covered by a central office. That model is seen in a lot of other organisations. Doctors’ surgeries operate on a similar basis and taxi companies work on a similar basis. At that time, it was driven by financial need because there was a certain market rate that schools could afford and parents could afford. It meant that self-employment was the ideal option.
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[47] The most recent co-operative formed is in Bedford in England. They started in September last year with about 30 teachers and it’s working very well. Denbighshire has been a great example and a great model. What they’ve achieved up there is quite phenomenal. One of the big challenges of forming co-operatives is that a lot of teachers have never actually run their own business before. They’ve been employees. They’ve come straight from college/university and then straight into an employed arrangement. So, this can be quite a scary environment to work in when you have to be responsible for your own tax and national insurance.
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[48] Jeremy Miles: Not to trespass on the questions on the workforce that you’re about to get, but you’ve described already that there’s a move towards self-employment as a result of some of these changes anyway. So, in a sense, that’s part of the landscape already.
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[49] Mr Barnard: Indeed, but, bringing those teachers together, rather than having just a free—it’s a much more effective system. The challenge in many ways is then finding the people with the right skills to provide the leadership in that context. So far, Denbighshire has been immensely successful in that respect, as have other co-operatives. Swindon, for example, is now coming up for its twentieth year. The first co-operative was formed in Newcastle, which has just passed its twenty-first birthday. They’re working very effectively.
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[50] Jeremy Miles: Just as a final question, on a different angle, if you like, a different perspective, some have suggested that there’s a case for Estyn, the schools inspectorate, inspecting schools for provision of music services. Do you think that would be a positive thing?
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[51] Mr Barnard: Absolutely.
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[52] Jeremy Miles: Thank you.
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[53] Bethan Jenkins: Rwyf jest eisiau gofyn, jest i gario ymlaen ychydig ar beth roedd Jeremy yn ei ofyn, nid wyf i’n deall os ydych yn dweud bod trefnu co-op yn rhywbeth y dylai gael ei wneud neu os yw’n cael ei wneud oherwydd nad oes rhywbeth arall yn y system, a bod yr arian wedi cael ei dorri. A ydych chi’n argymell y dylid sefydlu’r rheini, oherwydd rydych chi’n dweud bod Newcastle a Swindon wedi bod mor llwyddiannus, neu a ddylid trio ei gadw o fewn rheolaeth y cyngor a llywodraeth leol tra bod hynny’n bosibl?
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Bethan Jenkins: I just want to ask, to continue from what Jeremy was saying, I don’t understand if you’re saying that arranging a co-operative is something that should be done or whether it’s being done because there’s nothing else in the system, and the money has been cut. Are you recommending that these should be established, because you say that Newcastle and Swindon have been so successful, or should it be kept within the management of the council while that’s possible?
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[54] Mr Barnard: The formation of co-operatives is, in many ways, when you’ve reached crisis point and there is nothing left other than teachers just going off independently and doing their own thing. I think, from our perspective, teachers should be on proper teachers’ terms and conditions and should be employed, like everybody else enjoys. With that then comes all the benefits that everybody else enjoys from an employed arrangement. So, that is the model I would be advocating. But, if we are in the worst-case scenario, then a co-operative is a way in which we can actually at least hold things together. But I would ideally say that the phoenix rising from the ashes is that we are able to get teachers back on to permanent full-time contracts or part-time contracts. But, you know, they deserve to be treated like professional employees, like everybody else.
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[55] Bethan Jenkins: Cytuno. Mae yna gwestiynau nawr ar y gweithlu. Mae Hannah yn mynd i ofyn cwestiynau ichi ar hynny. Diolch. |
Bethan Jenkins: I agree. There are now questions on the workforce that Hannah is going to lead on. Thank you.
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[56] Hannah Blythyn: I would like to touch on slightly what you just said in response to the Chair then about the goal being to get teachers back on to permanent, full-time contracts like everybody else. In your written evidence, you said that the committee should consider how we could provide better support to music teachers to deal with that erosion of terms and conditions. I wonder if you could just start by elaborating on perhaps how we could do that.
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[57] Mr Barnard: On how we could support music teachers? Well, I think the first thing—first and foremost—is that we need to get the funding right. I think that it is a funding formula. It is a combination of what can be available through the Welsh Assembly, what could be available from local authorities, what schools are prepared to contribute, and what parents are prepared to contribute. I think that parents, certainly in England, are used to paying, in many cases, the full amount. I think there is that economic mix of contribution. But I think that there needs to be—. Coming back to my point about the value that music brings—not only to the children’s development and what it brings to the community, but also what it brings to the economy—the actual word for what the Welsh Assembly could do and what local government could do is ‘investment’. We are investing in our young people as part of this lifelong journey and this lifelong love of music. The returns on that investment are quite significant. So, I think that first and foremost, we have got to get the funding right.
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[58] Then, there is the mechanism by which it is delivered. If we want to have consistency across the board, I think it would make sense to have some kind of regionalised service, so there is consistency there, and so we know that equality of access is the same across Wales. I think I’ve answered your question.
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[59] Hannah Blythyn: If, as you said, we address those issues around how to get the funding right, do you think we would then be able to move back to where more potential music teachers—or some might return to the profession—might go back to seeing it as an actual career path?
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[60] Mr Barnard: That would be the perfect model. I think the other thing that needs to be borne in mind is that good instrumental teaching in schools is, in most cases, borne out of—and dependent on—good music teaching within the curriculum. So, I think there needs to be a consistent—and maybe a Welsh—music plan that embraces what is happening in the classroom, what is happening in the community, what the music service does as part of that, but also how the music service works with other providers, like orchestras. Wales has got the world champion brass band: The Cory Band. It is amazing that you have got this resource here. So, they should be working with their music—. I mean, they probably are, but that kind of collaboration is essential, I think.
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[61] In England, we have the hub system, and it is variable as to how effective that has been. In some authorities it has worked extremely well, but that’s often on the back of an established and very well operating music service. I think there’s an opportunity here in Wales to look at what’s been happening in England, pick out the best bits, but do your own thing. A co-ordinated plan, I think, would be best.
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[62] Bethan Jenkins: Nid ydym wedi gofyn unrhyw gwestiynau ar hyn o bryd ynglŷn â’r system byramid sy’n bodoli yng Nghymru, a’ch barn chi ynghylch—os oes crisis, fel yr ydych yn ei ddisgrifio, yn y system ar lawr gwlad—sut mae hynny wedyn yn effeithio ar y system genedlaethol. Er enghraifft, mae’r gerddorfa wedi dweud wrthym ni, ar y record, fod llai o bobl wedi ymgeisio ar gyfer y gerddorfa. Mi wnes i gwrdd â rhai pobl yn anffurfiol yr wythnos diwethaf ac fe wnaethon nhw ddweud efallai na fydd yna gerddorfa genedlaethol ieuenctid yn y dyfodol os yw’r system fel y mae’n sefyll yn parhau. Mae hynny’n rhywbeth sy’n fy mhoenydio fi a nifer fawr o bobl. Roeddwn eisiau clywed eich barn chi ar hynny, ac ar sut yr ydych chi fel undeb, efallai, yn gallu helpu yn hyn o beth a rhoi cymorth o ran yr hyn sy’n digwydd yma yng Nghymru ar hyn o bryd.
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Bethan Jenkins: We haven’t yet asked any questions on the pyramid system that exists in Wales and what your view is—if there is a crisis, as you describe it, on the ground—as to how that impacts on the national system. For example, the orchestra have told us on the record that fewer people had applied for the orchestra. I met with some people informally last week and they said that perhaps there will be no national youth orchestra in the future if the system as it currently exists continues for the future. That is something that worries me and very many other people. I just wanted to hear your views on that and on how you as a union can perhaps assist in this area and provide support in terms of what’s happening in Wales. |
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[63] Mr Barnard: I would completely agree with that assessment, and I can give you an example from my own experience, when I used to run the Wiltshire youth orchestra. We were struggling to find violas and bassoons because there was no provision going through, and that radically changes the viability of that ensemble. When you think about how long it takes to learn a musical instrument and to get to the right standard to play in that youth orchestra, you’re probably looking at 10 years. So, that means having started in primary school and had a consistent programme of learning all the way through for you then to take the opportunity that a county youth orchestra gives. In the various work that I have done in the past—I’ve been abroad and I’ve worked in Japan, Singapore and other countries—they’ve looked at what we’ve had in the UK with immense pride and said, ‘You’ve got a great music education system, with the network of county orchestras and the whole feeder system that leads into that’. We are losing that. We are definitely losing that, and I think that there is a real concern that these organisations will gradually disappear. They’re getting smaller and smaller, and we’ll look back, not far from now, and think, ‘Didn’t we use to have all these county youth orchestras and bands, where have they gone?’ It’s that exact pyramid: you’ve got to have a lot of children learning at the bottom for the gifted and talented to come through. If we lose that—. I think we have become—we’re certainly more of a vertical arrangement and we may well even be reversing the pyramid.
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[64] Bethan Jenkins: Tybed a oes gennych chi ystadegau ar faint o bobl o Gymru sydd yn ceisio ar gyfer yr ensemblau cenedlaethol Prydeinig, fel yr NCO, er enghraifft. Nid ydym wedi cael y drafodaeth yma o gwbl ar y pwyllgor yma. Rydym wedi bod yn siarad am gerddorfa cenedlaethol Cymru, ond rydw i’n gwybod o’m profiad i bod rhaid pobl wedi bod yn ddigon llwyddiannus i allu mynd i’r gerddorfa Brydeinig. A oes yna ystadegau gennych chi ar hynny?
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Bethan Jenkins: I wonder whether you have any statistics on how many people from Wales apply for the national British ensembles, such as the NCO, for example. We haven’t had this discussion at all as a committee. We’ve been talking about the Welsh national orchestra, but I know from my own experience that some people have actually managed to take a step up into the British orchestra. Do you have any statistics on that?
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[65] Mr Barnard: No, I’m afraid not. I think you’d have to ask those organisations, really. I just remembered that I hadn’t told you what the MU intends to do about this. What we are trying to do is to make people aware of what is really going on, and we have that national perspective. So, we regularly publish a national hubs report as to what is happening in the hubs.
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[66] Bethan Jenkins: That’s for England, is it?
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[67] Mr Barnard: That’s for England, yes.
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[68] Bethan Jenkins: So, do you do it for Wales?
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[69] Mr Barnard: Well, we have representatives from Wales who play a part of that. They have a slightly different model because they’re not hubs, but they feed into that. Hence why we know the Denbighshire model very well, because we’ve given them various support in the past. But I think, from the union’s point of view, we need to make people aware and we need to lobby, but also to do our best to support the teachers who are currently in that work, hence our work and support in professional development, and also in helping co-operatives.
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[70] Bethan Jenkins: Would there be an argument then, if you’ve helped Denbighshire, and if you’ve been so successful with the other two in England, that you could say, ‘Well, could we not expand to Wales?’? Would that not be an option: that you could say, ‘Well, why not help out in Wales if we can see that there’s a crisis?’, and not just potentially stand back and say, ‘Oh—’?
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[71] Mr Barnard: That help is there. It’s been there all the time.
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[72] Bethan Jenkins: Okay. Is everybody aware of that?
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[73] Mr Barnard: They should be. If they’re members of the union, they’re always here. We have a Cardiff office, and they are regularly being contacted by teachers who are going through redundancies or through issues regarding their employment. So, we’re here. We’re banging the drum as loud as we can.
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[74] Bethan Jenkins: Ocê. Roeddwn i jest eisiau cadarnhau. Rwy’n siŵr y bydd pobl yn dod atoch chi nawr, ar ôl hynny.
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Bethan Jenkins: Okay, I just wanted to confirm that. I’m sure that people will be approaching you, following that.
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[75] Mr Barnard: Yes. Good.
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[76] Bethan Jenkins: Os nad oes cwestiynau eraill gan Aelodau—. A ydych chi eisiau gofyn cwestiwn? Lee Waters.
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Bethan Jenkins: If there are no further questions from Members—. Did you have a question? Lee Waters.
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[77] Lee Waters: Thank you. You mentioned that there’s a changing ecosystem. We’ve heard that there’s a fairly vibrant private sector and voluntary sector involvement in teaching in schools, especially in the Cardiff area. I wondered whether you had a view about the merits or demerits of that approach.
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[78] Mr Barnard: It depends—. If you’ve got private teachers coming into your school, the first thing that I would be concerned by, as a parent, would be the quality of the teaching, and I would be looking to the school to be sure that the quality of the teaching is properly monitored. It depends on the school whether that is monitored or not. In some cases—and we’ve got various examples—it isn’t. Not necessarily in Wales, but just across the UK, the quality of teaching isn’t seen to be an issue that the head considers to be an important part of the school provision, because it’s seen as an additional add-on. When you provide that service from a co-ordinated music service, then the headteacher can be assured that that teaching is properly monitored, that there is professional development and that there is ongoing support if that teacher needs it. So, there is a consistent support. And I think a lot of schools who continue to buy in services value that co-ordinated approach.
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[79] Lee Waters: I can see the advantage from a teacher’s point of view of being part of a professional network. I’m not sure why you’d assume that because somebody’s self-employed of from the private sector that the quality of teaching would be more inferior than somebody in the public sector.
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[80] Mr Barnard: No, and indeed many of them are probably outstanding teachers, so I’m not suggesting that. What I’m suggesting—
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[81] Lee Waters: But you said your primary concern as a parent would be the quality of teaching, which implies that there’s an automatic doubt.
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[82] Mr Barnard: Not necessarily. If I’m paying good money, I’d want to make sure that I’m getting good value for money, and what I would want to see is that there is a mechanism that gives me that reassurance. So, the first port of call would be, ‘Is the school monitoring that teaching?’ Now, in a very good school, that would be happening. Somebody would go in and observe that teaching, and if it wasn’t a good enough standard, they would do something about it. So, I think, if you’ve got a school that has got lots of different private teachers coming in, then it’s important that that school operates quality control and professional development so that, as a parent, I can be sure that—
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[83] Lee Waters: That applies to teachers too. I don’t know if you’ve read the most recent Estyn report, but certainly the variability in the quality of teaching is something very distressing. So, I’m not sure, necessarily, you can make an equivalence there. You’re assuming that the standard of teachers is properly monitored and the quality is consistently good, and the evidence doesn’t suggest that at all.
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[84] Mr Barnard: Are you saying this is teachers employed through music services?
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[85] Lee Waters: Well, teaching generally in Wales. There’s a huge variability in quality; Estyn consistently points this out.
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[86] Me Barnard: And I think that one of the causes of that is that the systems for monitoring and supporting that teaching have disappeared.
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[87] Lee Waters: Okay. Thank you.
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[88] Bethan Jenkins: Neil Hamilton.
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[89] Neil Hamilton: You mentioned a bleak situation in Scotland, and also in England. Could you make a comparison between Wales, England and Scotland, and possibly Northern Ireland as well, in terms of the effectiveness of the current system in providing adequate tuition? The evidence we’ve received on money is that, in England there’s about £75 million that is provided to music hubs. In Scotland, there are 25 local authorities that get £26 million, there’s £10 million in addition on the youth music initiative. It looks to me that this is massively a better situation than we’ve got in Wales, but you’ve said there are problems in Scotland and there are also problems of variability between hubs in England. So, could you give us a kind of overview on how comparable the system of music provision in Wales is?
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[90] Mr Barnard: Well, I think your assessment is spot on in that Wales is the poorer of those, against England and Scotland. In Scotland, they are under threat of cuts, and there are cuts, but I know that is being lobbied very heavily now. They are looking at an uncertain future, but they are working very hard to maintain what they have. Charging is consistent across Scotland now, but it’s highly variable, so if you live in Glasgow, your children will still have free lessons and if you live in Edinburgh your children will still have free lessons, but in the rest of Scotland there is a charging policy, which is variable. In England, every service and every hub is very different. That lack of consistency means that you could live in one part of England where there is no provision at all, which seems to be contrary to what the whole plan was about. Where there are good hubs, it’s usually been because there was a very good music service that was well funded there before—so that infrastructure is there, the resources are there, the instruments are there—and where there are hubs that are struggling, it’s because the service was already struggling and the funding, it could be argued, is not enough to bring those services up to the standard of the others. So, I do think that there’s work to be done across the whole UK on this if we want to maintain it. Wales is not alone in the sense that there is a crisis, but I think it’s worse off—it’s got a bigger crisis, I feel. |
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[91] Neil Hamilton: The other question I have, prompted by what you said in response to Bethan’s question about the pyramid structure in Wales, is that you’ve said that this is breaking down—the system of county orchestras, et cetera, is not what it was—but is that a judgment you make in respect of the whole of the UK, or was that specific to Wales?
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[92] Mr Barnard: No, that’s a whole-UK issue. The contributions to that, some would argue that they’re economic, because children are not getting access to lessons—we’ve lost that sheer volume at the bottom of the pyramid. And others would argue that a contributory factor is that children are accessing music in different ways now. So, there are lots of different factors in there. But I certainly felt, when I ran a youth orchestra, that there would be parts of the county where nobody would be gaining access, because the route, the stepping stones to getting into the county orchestra had disappeared. And then there’s the implication of that for the countrywide orchestras.
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[93] Neil Hamilton: Thank you.
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[94] Bethan Jenkins: Jest un cwestiwn clou i orffen, rydym ni wedi’i gael ar ddeall nad yw Powys yn cynnig unrhyw fath o wasanaeth drwy’r system addysg, drwy’r cyngor sir, fel sydd yn digwydd ar draws Cymru mewn llefydd eraill. A ydych chi wedi clywed am hynny hefyd, ac a ydyn nhw wedi dod atoch chi gydag unrhyw fath o fodel arall, neu ryw ffordd arall o weithredu? A ydych chi wedi clywed ganddyn nhw?
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Bethan Jenkins: Just one brief question to conclude, we’ve been given to understand that Powys don’t provide any service through the education system, through the council, as occurs across Wales in other areas. Have you heard about those concerns and have they approached you with any alternative proposal or model, or some other modus operandi? Have you heard any of those concerns? |
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[95] Mr Barnard: Yes, I did hear about it. This was before I was actually involved in the union, and I was aware of things going on. I think the decision was that the teachers are now self-employed and they set up their own arrangements, and that’s fairly well established, now, I think. We did make approaches to people about forming a co-operative. There is an optimum period when you do this, which is at the time when a decision is made to close a service down or to make teachers redundant; that’s the point when you can come to the teachers and say, ‘There is an alternative here to help you keep together.’ Once that’s broken away, then it’s hard to pull it back in, because people establish their routines and it’s very hard then, in that respect.
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[96] Bethan Jenkins: Diolch yn fawr am hynny. Rydym yn dod at ddiwedd y sesiwn gyda chi yma heddiw. Rwy’n gobeithio eich bod chi wedi ffeindio’r sesiwn yn ddiddorol ac y gallwch anfon unrhyw wybodaeth ychwanegol atom ni rydych chi’n meddwl y bydd yn ein helpu ni fel pwyllgor. Felly, diolch am eich tystiolaeth yma heddiw. Rydym yn mynd i gael seibiant clou, er bod pobl wedi dod i mewn i weld y pwyllgor, rydym yn mynd i gael seibiant clou nes bod y person nesaf yn dod i roi tystiolaeth. Diolch.
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Bethan Jenkins: Thank you very much for that. We are coming to the end of the session with you today. I hope that you’ve found it interesting and if there’s any further information that you think would assist us as a committee, then please do send it to us. So, thank you for your evidence today. We’re now going to take a quick a break, although we do have an audience now, we will take a brief break until our next witness appears. Thank you. |
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Gohiriwyd y cyfarfod rhwng 09:58 a 10:08.
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Cyllid ar gyfer Addysg Cerddoriaeth a Mynediad at yr Addysg Honno—Sesiwn Dystiolaeth 10 Funding for and
Access to Music Education—Evidence Session 10 |
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[97] Bethan Jenkins: Bore da. Grêt, rydym ni’n symud ymlaen at eitem 3 ar yr agenda, sef cyllid ar gyfer addysg cerddoriaeth a mynediad at yr addysg honno, sesiwn dystiolaeth 10. Croeso i Tim Rhys-Evans, sydd yn sylfaenydd a chyfarwyddwr artistig elusen Aloud. Diolch yn fawr iawn ichi am ddod.
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Bethan Jenkins: Good morning. Great, we move on to item 3 on the agenda, which is funding for and access to music education. This is evidence session 10, and welcome to Tim Rhys-Evans, who is the founder and artistic director of the Aloud charity. Thank you very much for coming in. |
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[98] Mr Rhys-Evans: Diolch yn fawr iawn. Pleser.
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Mr Rhys-Evans: Thank you very much. A pleasure. |
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[99] Bethan Jenkins: Rwy’n disgwyl eich bod chi’n mynd i ganu eich ymatebion. [Chwerthin.]
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Bethan Jenkins: I expect you’re going to sing your responses today. [Laughter.] |
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[100] Mr Rhys-Evans: Nid y bore yma.
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Mr Rhys-Evans: Not this morning. |
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[101] Bethan Jenkins: Rydym ni eisiau mwy o bobl i wylio’r pwyllgor, felly rwy’n credu ar y diwedd, efallai.
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Bethan Jenkins: We want more people to watch the committee’s activities, so perhaps at the end. |
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[102] Mr Rhys-Evans: Wel, pwy a ŵyr?
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Mr Rhys-Evans: Who knows? |
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[103] Bethan Jenkins: Ond diolch ichi am ddod i mewn heddiw, ac yn sicr, cyd-destun yr ymchwiliad yw ceisio deall beth rydych chi wedi ei wneud fel elusen, pam ydych chi’n credu bod addysg gerddorol mewn ysgolion mor bwysig, eich barn chi ar sut gellir newid y sefyllfa a gwella’r sefyllfa, ac os ydych chi’n cytuno ag Owain Arwel Hughes a thystion eraill sydd wedi dweud ei bod wedi cyrraedd pwynt creisis ar hyn o bryd yng Nghymru. Felly, jest cychwyn y drafodaeth a diolch yn fawr iawn am ddod heddiw.
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Bethan Jenkins: So, thank you for coming in today, and, certainly, the context of the inquiry is to try and understand what you’ve done as a charity, why you think music education in schools is so important, your views on how the situation could be changed and improved, and if you agree with Owain Arwel Hughes and other witnesses who have said that it’s reached a crisis point at the moment in Wales. Therefore, we’ll just start the discussion, and thank you very much for coming today.
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[104] Mr Rhys-Evans: Mae’n bleser. Diolch am y cyfle i siarad y bore yma. Rwy’n mynd i siarad yn Saesneg achos rwy’n ddysgwr.
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Mr Rhys-Evans: It’s a pleasure. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you this morning. I will turn to English, because I am a Welsh learner.
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[105] So, the areas I would like to talk about this morning are the depletion or demise of the county music system; the reduced funding and its consequent undermining of music in schools; access to music provision for the most vulnerable young people in Wales; and singing and its place in our collective identity in Wales. I would then like to talk about the role we have and the reason why I believe we exist, actually.
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[106] Just putting a little bit of context, which I did put in my letter to the committee, is that I was a painfully shy, introverted boy who received a lot of bullying in school. I found solace in music, and I was lucky, because my parents saw the value of that, and were able to provide music lessons for me, even though it wasn’t a privileged upbringing. Being a pianist—as anyone here who’s tried to master a musical instrument will know—it’s a long, frustrating process, and it’s a solitary one. So, I was going to school on the school bus every morning, terrified that I was going to get a kicking or what sort of mental bullying I was going to be subjected to, but on a Saturday morning I got on a free bus that took me from my village, New Tredegar, at the top of the Rhymney valley—a very deprived ex-mining community—to Pontypridd to be with the Mid Glamorgan Youth Brass Band, and then the Mid Glamorgan Youth Choir. What that provided me with was the opportunity to be on a school bus without feeling any sense of fear. It enabled me to talk to people who weren’t going to laugh at me, who weren’t going to subject me to bullying. It enabled me to find a voice, to feel valued, and to find a sense of belonging where I wasn’t some oddity that was just to be belittled. Actually, had I not had both of these things, my parental support and the support of the county music system, I would not be doing what I do today. I doubt I would even be able to come in here and speak with any authority, because I was in such a dark place.
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[107] So, when I see the young boys that we’re working with today, I am them. They are me now. I was afforded amazing opportunities. I was a recipient of free school meals, so I was able to access a lot of things free of charge. Had I not been able to, I wouldn’t have had those opportunities—opportunities to travel the world. As I said in my letter to the committee, at the age of 15 I sang the whole of Messiah with the Mid Glamorgan Youth Choir—a huge orchestra of pupils, a choir of about 150, all singing Handel. The following year, I sang Verdi’s Requiem in Llandaff Cathedral with an orchestra of pupils and a choir of students, and all the soloists came from within the choir. I just really worry about the complete lack of that provision for our young people nowadays. There is nowhere in Wales where that would happen today. Okay, I’m 44, but I’m not 144. We’re not talking about that long ago.
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[108] I really feel very strongly that there are two things that have contributed to this demise: one is the dumbing down of music in the classroom. I had to learn, as I’m sure you all did, ‘Every good boy deserves football’, and I had to learn the notes of the stave as part of my primary school education, because of recorders, which were used then, and because of singing. My classmates, who didn’t have private lessons, that was their only access to being able to read music. We wouldn’t expect 11-year-old children in a secondary school to just put a random collection of elements in a test tube and see what happens, just for the best. Yet we do this with musicians all the time. I’m all for freedom of expression and improvisation, but we are really disadvantaging young people. We’ve actually—and I feel this very strongly—created an elitist society of music in Wales, where the only people who have access to being able to discover their talent, to being able to discover their voice, like I was, are those whose parents (a) give a damn, and (b) are financially able to provide that.
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[109] I see on a daily basis young, often very vulnerable young people, lads with additional learning needs, children who are really struggling with their sense of identity, with their sense of poor mental health, which I think is horrific in young people, and yet I see the difference that being part of something does to them. This isn’t just about us being a ‘gwlad beirdd a chantorion’, although I am absolutely passionate about our role in the world as a land of song. But I think we need to be called ‘the land that we’ve got a bloody cheek to call ourselves the land of song’ at the moment—I really do, and I’m sorry to speak so strongly, because—
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10:15
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[110] Bethan Jenkins: We need a bleeping system now as well. [Laughter.]
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[111] Mr Rhys-Evans: Oh, it gets a lot worse. I’ll try—
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[112] Bethan Jenkins: Not today, if that’s all right.
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[113] Mr Rhys-Evans: I’ll try not to. [Laughter.] It’s because we are undermining it and seeing this happen at every level to a degree that it makes me wonder are we going to have—of course, this is important to me, probably less important to others—but are we going to have professional musicians coming from deprived backgrounds in Wales, as we have a huge track record? I have a number of testimonies here that I asked my freelance staff who deliver our workshops to explain what they see. Some of them are music teachers, and, because we’re a pan-Wales organisation and because we are a bilingual organisation, this is not only something that is happening in Merthyr; this is something that is happening in much more—well, what are perceived as much more well-heeled communities. And I do think there is a discrepancy between the access to music provision between Welsh-medium education and English-medium education; I’m a product of an English comprehensive school. And because you have the Urdd and because you have the National Eisteddfod and things like this, there is much greater emphasis in Welsh-medium education on the importance of singing and the importance of the arts. But it’s really interesting that the testimonies I’ve brought with me today aren’t unique to English-medium education, and they’re not unique to south Wales. Would you mind if I just—
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[114] Bethan Jenkins: If you read us a short piece, yes.
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[115] Mr Rhys-Evans: Yes, absolutely. So, the first person that I’d like to quote is one of our team captains, as we call them, who is head of music in a school in the Caerphilly borough, and she says, ‘As a head of music in a Valleys comprehensive school, I see first hand the positive effects of music participation on young people. I teach in an area of deprivation, the Communities First area of upper Rhymney. However, the reduced funding for music and its consequent undermining of music in the classroom is denying access to music provision for some of the most vulnerable young people in Wales. Three years ago, my school introduced a charge for peripatetic music lessons, to which I am vehemently opposed. I have seen pupils give up instruments due to financial pressures at home, and experienced pupils crying at my desk because of this. Why should a music education be only for those from a privileged background?’
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[116] Nia Wyn Jones, who is head of music in a Welsh language school in Flintshire, says, ‘I am now at a point in my teaching career where I’m witnessing the most horrendous pressure on teachers to deliver results that increase year on year and, in turn, that pressure is then passed on to the students and their parents. With that comes the inevitable withdrawing from music peripatetic lessons. The pressure on teachers to have literacy and numeracy evidence within their music books is ridiculous, and I really wish that somebody somewhere would have the foresight to realise that pupils don’t have to write everything down in order to garner skills that can be a massive help to them as they leave school for higher education or employment’.
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[117] The last teacher I’d like to quote is Liz Williams, who is head of music in a comprehensive school in the town of Caerphilly, and currently working as a music head of department in a comprehensive school that has previously had an excellent longstanding tradition of music education. She said, ‘However, due to lack of funding, pressures to achieve high grades in core subjects and fulfil the requirements of literacy policies, my department’s music hours have been cut, and music is now on the bottom of the pile when decisions are made’. She goes on to say that she doesn’t know a music teacher in Wales that hasn’t had to miss school due to stress, because, in the majority of schools, the music teacher is just one person. I know this inquiry isn’t looking specifically into music in the curriculum.
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[118] However, it is this package that we used to—. It’s never been perfect, of course, but I just wouldn’t be doing what I do today had I not had the influences from all of those sources. And I’m just one person, but I am one person who has made this my life’s work, and, because of my upbringing and because of where I come from, and realising that not everyone is privileged to have a loving family, I have then created an organisation that has, over the last seven years, helped over 650 teenage boys, plus thousands of kids through our Only Kids Aloud initiative. So, if I hadn’t had that, somebody else would have done it, I’m sure, but this thing of paying it forward—. And I have to say, people have been saying this for decades, and it has been ignored, and eroded and eroded and eroded, and I really feel that in 10, 20 years’ time, when I’m retired, I just worry for the state of our musical nation, as Dylan Thomas called us.
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[119] Bethan Jenkins: Thanks, and thank you for your initial words.
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[120] Mr Rhys-Evans: Sorry, that was supposed to be brief.
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[121] Bethan Jenkins: We feel your passion. It’s good to have that view, and, obviously, we’re very disappointed that some of the things you’ve said, from a teaching point of view, are quite stark. But we have more questions on different aspects.
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[122] Mr Rhys-Evans: Of course.
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[123] Bethan Jenkins: I’ll bring in some of the Assembly Members now, and Dai Lloyd is going to start.
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[124] Dai Lloyd: Diolch yn fawr, Gadeirydd, a diolch yn fawr i chi am dystiolaeth bwerus iawn, yn ysgrifenedig yn y lle cyntaf, ac, wrth gwrs, y bore yma.
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Dai Lloyd: Thank you very much, Chair, and thank you very much for that very powerful evidence, in written form first of all, but also this morning.
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[125] Mr Rhys-Evans: Pleser.
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Mr Rhys-Evans: Pleasure.
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[126] Dai Lloyd: Perfformiad o’r radd flaenaf. Diolch yn fawr iawn i chi. Roeddwn jest eisiau gwthio ychydig bach o fanylder ar ambell beth, ynglŷn â’r sefyllfa bresennol o ran gwasanaethau cerddoriaeth awdurdodau lleol felly. Jest i rhoi’r llwyfan i chi ymhelaethu bach yn rhagor ar y sefyllfa echrydus rydym ni wedi clywed wrth dystion eraill ynglŷn â’r gwasanaethau cerddoriaeth sy’n dod o dan adain awdurdodau lleol ein siroedd ni.
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Dai Lloyd: An excellent performance, if I may say so. Thank you. I just want to look in some detail at a few issues, in terms of the current situation with regard to music services provided by local authorities. I just wanted to give you a platform to expand a little more on the appalling situation that we’ve heard described by other witnesses in terms of the music services provided by local authorities in our counties. |
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[127] Mr Rhys-Evans: I don’t work in the education system, but my understanding is that most local authorities across Wales have severely cut their music provision through their music services. And this is not only having an impact on the individuals. I think the pressure on, and the requirement that music should facilitate other core subjects—. I understand this, of course. How many of us learned to sing the alphabet? We know that music can be a tool for educating and improving literacy and numeracy. However, what I worry about is the forcing music to be, ‘How has this music lesson improved your literacy? How have you developed your numeracy skills through this?’ And, without the music services, without the peripatetic nature of lessons, we are already witnessing hugely reduced numbers. Liz Williams, the teacher I quote from Caerphilly—in that particular school, there is no orchestra, where there once was a thriving orchestra; I think there were two. And we’re seeing this right across the board.
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[128] Dai Lloyd: Diolch am hynny. Ac ymhellach i hynny, rwy’n cymryd taw’r pryder yna wnaeth eich sbarduno chi i greu eich elusen, Aloud, yn y lle cyntaf, ie? Eto, rwyf i jest am roi’r llwyfan i chi ymhelaethu ynglŷn â beth wnaeth eich gwthio chi i greu yr elusen Aloud.
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Dai Lloyd: Thank you for that. And further to that, I assume that it’s that concern that encouraged you to create the Aloud Charity in the first place. Again, I just want to give you a platform to expand on what inspired you to create the Aloud Charity. |
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[129] Mr Rhys-Evans: I started Only Boys Aloud back in 2000. Well, actually, I need to go back before that. I started Only Men Aloud in the year 2000, because I was concerned about—no disrespect to anyone with grey hair—but the amount of grey hair that you see in—. Believe me, I have got grey coming myself; in fact, I wish I had a bit more on top. [Laughter.] Just the ageing nature of the male choir. The male choir grew up because men that worked together in these impossibly physical jobs needed a relatively inexpensive way of socialising together. The male choir sprang out of that, and, of course, the strength of non-conformism and religion in Wales at the time was a huge part of this, but I do think that it’s unbelievably moving that these men, who spent hours and hours underground, sweating and hewing rock, chose to come together and sing about love and sing about God and sing about nature—things that they would never talk about, but they chose to take this very masculine role and do something that was very, almost, feminine; it had a softness to it. So, Only Men Aloud was me trying to take a different look at the male choir. There were three words that I was adamant I wasn’t going to have in the title of the group and they are: ‘Welsh’, ‘male’ and ‘choir’. That is not because I am not fiercely passionate about my Welsh heritage—I wouldn’t be doing it if I hadn’t come from where I come from—but we needed to just do something different.
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[130] In 2008, we won a reality TV programme and that gave us a national profile. What I realised then was that we had an opportunity to convert this profile into something that was going to have a meaningful impact on the life of Wales and, hopefully, on male choirs to come. I had no idea when I went to Peter Griffiths, the then chief executive of the Principality Building Society—thanks in no small part to Arts & Business Cymru, which facilitated that introduction—. The Principality Building Society have, over the last seven years, given us—. I should have had the exact figures with me, but it’s not far off £1 million. When I went to them, we didn’t have a single boy. I didn’t know if this was going to work and, believe me, I had enough people saying, ‘Well, you’ll never get boys interested in singing; they just don’t want to sing.’ The reason why it is Only Boys Aloud is (a) the Welsh male choir tradition, but (b) if a girl wants to sing, if a girl wants to dance, if a girl wants to act, that’s fine, but if a boy wants to do the same thing in this land of song—if a boy wants to sing and be involved in the creative arts, then he’s probably going to get a lot of stick for that and it takes guts.
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[131] So, we wanted to start something that was in the heart of the communities where the tradition was at its strongest. So, initially it was a Valleys initiative. We set up 10 choirs in rugby clubs and football clubs, and the reason behind that is that when I was getting stick going to choir practice or if I was staying back at school and I was being called a swot, it was because the people in my village could see me going into the church or my chapel. I wanted to provide an opportunity for boys to go to a rugby club, where, if you’re a teenage lad and you’re trying to find your place in the world, then it’s fine if your mates see you go into a rugby club on a Thursday night—in fact, it’s quite cool. We don’t call our workshop leaders ‘conductors’; we call them ‘team captains’. We try and follow a much more sporting activity.
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[132] Absolutely central to our ethos is our determination to not charge our members. Nobody pays a penny to be part of Only Boys Aloud and we don’t audition. So, any 13-year-old to 19-year-old boy is welcome to just rock up at one of our, now, 14 rehearsal centres across Wales. Those centres are—. The multiple index of mass deprivation that the Welsh Government produced, I think, in 2015—we have boys from all of those areas and we are in the communities where those boys are.
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[133] It was absolutely fundamental that we didn’t just say, ‘Okay, Only Men Aloud is looking for the next generation of singers: everyone come to Cardiff on a Saturday and we’ll—’. Because what I’d seen, growing up, was the way that a choir in that village or that community engendered a sense of pride in the wider community and that ‘cythraul y canu’ as they say in Welsh, this ‘cut-throat singing’, this healthy rivalry: ‘The Mynyddislwyn choir is better than Rhymney Silurian choir’, and all of that kind of thing, and we see it. When our boys were on Britain’s Got Talent, you’d drive around the Valleys and you’d see, hanging out of windows, sheets with ‘Good luck, boys’ on them. You know, there’s a real pride in the wider community, and it’s an absolute joy now to be able to have four choirs in north Wales, and we’re seeing a much greater cross-pollination of really good practice. I’d never worked with people from north Wales; most of my work was in Cardiff or in London. Now, we’re bringing practitioners together from right across Wales, and also, we are now training up the conductors and the choral trainers of the future. Two of our current team members were members of Only Boys Aloud. One of our board members on the Aloud charity board was a former boy. All three of these cite Only Boys Aloud as being seminal in their development, and the two who are now workshop leaders both say they wouldn’t be conducting choirs if it hadn’t been for this provision.
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10:30
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[134] Bethan Jenkins: I think some members of your Only Men Aloud came from the national youth orchestra and choir service as well.
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[135] Mr Rhys-Evans: Yes.
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[136] Bethan Jenkins: Knowing some of them personally. So, it’s a good way of progression through—
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[137] Mr Rhys-Evans: Absolutely, and that was my progression. You know, I was with Mid Glamorgan youth choir, then the National Youth Choir of Wales, then that gave me the belief that I was good enough to do this at university, and then, you know, pretty much—
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[138] Bethan Jenkins: Here we are now.
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[139] Mr Rhys-Evans: Yes.
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[140] Bethan Jenkins: You’ve arrived. [Laughter.] We’ve got some questions from Lee Waters now.
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[141] Lee Waters: Yes, thank you. Just to say how impressive the charity you’ve built up this—I know how difficult it is to sustain—and just to thank and congratulate you on that work.
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[142] Mr Rhys-Evans: Thank you, Lee.
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[143] Lee Waters: We’ve primarily heard in this inquiry so far from the public sector, from the schools service, and this is the first testimony we’ve had from the voluntary sector. Can you tell us a little bit about what added value the voluntary sector approach brings, and whether you think you’re able to engage with young people in a way that maybe the traditional formal music service may not, or is that a fallacy?
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[144] Mr Rhys-Evans: No, I think there is certainly—. I’m not sure that we would get—. I think Only Boys Aloud is slightly different. Because we don’t audition and we actively try and encourage lads who maybe don’t have the greatest experience in school, or boys who are kind of on the wrong side of the tracks, I’m not sure that they would be the type of lads that would have wanted to have sung in the county youth choir. I’m not saying that we’re better, but I do think the fact that we are removed from the education system is a positive for some of our boys, and, actually, it’s a positive for some of our parents, who might not have had a good experience in school and might have a very negative view of education. So, I think it can bring—. Also, we don’t have to only work with practitioners who are trained teachers. So, I think we can have a broad base of people we work with.
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[145] Lee Waters: And in the work that you do, do you work alongside the music services at all, or is it entirely separate?
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[146] Mr Rhys-Evans: No, it’s entirely separate. When we started, it came out of Only Men Aloud, which was a commercial organisation, and then, when we saw the take-up—in the first concert we gave, we had 144 boys on stage—we saw that, actually, it wasn’t going to be possible to run this as a subsidiary, which is why we established the charity and why I now solely work for the Aloud charity.
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[147] Lee Waters: Is there potential to work with the state sector, do you think?
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[148] Mr Rhys-Evans: I would love to. I mean, I do find it galling—maybe that’s the wrong word, but I’ll say it anyway—that, with the—. It costs around £0.5 million to run our 14 choirs across Wales every year, and in the seven years that we’ve been in existence, £100,000 of that has come from the public sector, and we recently were turned down in our application to become a revenue-funded client of the arts council. However, we weren’t after complete dependence on the public sector. We were just after a higher percentage than the very, very small percentage—
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[149] Lee Waters: What was the reason given for that restriction?
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[150] Mr Rhys-Evans: I just have a few more quotes from the arts council decision:
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[151] ‘We entirely understand the genesis of the company and focus on boys through Only Boys Aloud. Indeed, it’s one of the aspects of your work that we’ve previously funded. However, the lesser offer for girls, especially those in the older age group, does cause some issues.’
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[152] As long as I’ve been involved in music and as long as I’ve been involved in choirs, people have lamented the fact that you can’t engage with boys. We have set our stall out to—. When I was in the National Youth Choir of Wales there were 70 sopranos and 10 tenors. So, it was our raison d’être to do something about this. We now have some experience and some success in that fact. So, I found that difficult.
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[153] The other reason we were given was that they felt we needed a clearer focus in our artistic work:
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[154] ‘Aloud has been very successful in attracting media attention for the different aspects of its activities. We know that this is important in terms of profiling the groups and in helping with your fundraising. There is, however, a careful balance to be struck between capitalising on this strong (perhaps even fashionable) presence in the media, and the real graft and delivery involved in the idea that lies at the heart of Only Boys Aloud and Only Kids Aloud.’
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[155] We were also told:
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[156] ‘In our assessment of your application, we looked at the pattern of your current activity and the nature of your plans for the future. We were looking for an approach that demonstrated an in-depth engagement with young people that grew and developed incrementally. In our view, your future programme still felt like the build-up of a series of specific projects.’
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[157] That was said. However, we were told that we couldn’t have funding for our core but we should apply for project funding. We have a really broad base of different funding streams in our fundraising portfolio. We’ve taken the big step of employing a full-time fundraiser. So, we’re not complacent in this issue. We’re not after handouts. But when we go to trusts and foundations they say, ‘Well, we don’t want to support core activity; we don’t want to create a dependency on trusts and foundations.’ Yet, without us delivering 14 choirs every week free of charge, we wouldn’t be able to do the projects. This coming November, we’re taking all our boys to Ypres to commemorate the centenary of the battle of Ypres. We’re involved in a very busy fundraising campaign, and if any of you want to donate to our crowdfunding campaign—
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[158] Bethan Jenkins: You’ll get more out of us than the arts council. [Laughter.] Anyway, carry on.
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[159] Mr Rhys-Evans: It’s just very, very difficult, because we couldn’t do that—we couldn’t provide that opportunity for the boys to experience that. Some of our boys have never been abroad. Some of our boys have never been outside Wales. They’re over the moon at the prospect of going on this trip and singing together, because they love it. So, it is difficult, because although we now have a robust business structure—we have a fantastic board of trustees, we have a great chief executive and artistic director, we have a team—I would be lying if I said our financial structure was secure. We are finding it increasingly difficult. Trusts and foundations that have funded our core activity in the past are now saying, ‘I’m sorry, we’ve done this for three years, we can’t do it anymore.’ Thank God for the Principality Building Society and thank God for Arts & Business and our access to the private sector in that way, because we wouldn’t be here.
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[160] Bethan Jenkins: Lee has another question then I’ll go on to Dawn Bowden.
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[161] Lee Waters: Just briefly in terms of the sustainability of the model, because obviously the funding of the ensembles is going to be shifted to be more akin to the model that you’re currently on, and an expectation that you will be able to generate funding from trusts and foundations—your experience, just to be clear, is that they may be willing to give initial funding, but in terms of keeping that going over many years, that’s a difficult model to sustain.
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[162] Mr Rhys-Evans: That is an accurate assessment of what we have experienced, yes.
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[163] Lee Waters: Okay, thank you.
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[164] Bethan Jenkins: Dawn.
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[165] Dawn Bowden: Thank you, Chair. I wanted to take you back, actually, to one of the earlier questions that Lee asked. What I was very interested in was what you were saying in the beginning about the impact that getting boys involved in something like this can have. It resonates with me. I mean, I represent Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney, and the kind of thing you were talking about—hard-to-reach boys of that age—absolutely resonates. Interestingly, you were just talking about boys not leaving Wales or even the country. I was at White Rose Primary School recently and they were talking about—
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[166] Mr Rhys-Evans: That’s where I went.
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[167] Dawn Bowden: Well, there we are. They were talking about kids that had not even left New Tredegar.
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[168] Mr Rhys-Evans: Yes.
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[169] Dawn Bowden: The point I was trying to get to was—
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[170] Mr Rhys-Evans: Actually, sorry, that was another thing that the Mid Glamorgan youth choir did for me: I met people from as far abroad as Bridgend—[Laughter.]—and realised that—. That’s what we are doing with—. The Valleys: all roads lead to Cardiff. You’d never go over the mountain to go to Ebbw Vale or something like that, so it was really important. Sorry.
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[171] Dawn Bowden: No problem. The point I was trying to get to was that we have heard previous evidence about music in schools, which I know is not what you are talking about, but I just wondered whether you’ve experienced this: what that brings to a child’s education is more than just learning to play music. It is teamwork and all that kind of thing. Have you experienced all of that with the boys that you work with? Have you noticed—or are there examples of—some of these kids where it impacts on their education and the way that they learn? |
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[172] Mr Rhys-Evans: Because of our open-access policy, we attract boys from every kind of background, from one of our lads who is now in the third year of his medical degree at Oxford, to lads who have severe additional learning needs. I can think of one boy in particular, and we have lots of evidence of this in case studies, which I would be very happy to share with you—. One lad in our Cardiff group has very high levels of ADHD and Asperger’s. He is an Egyptian, Muslim young lad, which I think is a really important thing for us in our incredibly divisive society—that we are celebrating difference. When he joined, he couldn’t sing in tune and he couldn’t sit still for the duration of a rehearsal. The idea of him performing with us in concert was just beyond him. He joined last September. Recently, he gave his first performance with the boys. He said it was the best experience of his life. He’s singing in tune, and he auditioned for a solo. This is a boy who finds it difficult to even say ‘hello’ and have very, very basic interaction. The difference in him in seven months is extraordinary. So, yes, and we are seeing this time and time again.
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[173] Bethan Jenkins: Thanks. Jeremy.
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[174] Jeremy Miles: It’s a similar question to Dawn’s, actually, but from a different angle. I’m interested in your reflections on—. You discussed your experience of music education outside school, and some of that resonates with my own experience, but that’s at a very different level, if I may say, just to be clear. [Laughter.]
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[175] Dai Lloyd: Which level—[Inaudible.] [Laughter.]
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[176] Bethan Jenkins: Order, order.
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[177] Jeremy Miles: An education that had social justice and wanted to create rounded individuals would have that at its heart, wouldn’t it, obviously? But how do we capture some of the real benefits of that system in a way that doesn’t depend on articulate, passionate individuals coming and telling their own story? There’s only a certain amount of that that gets through. How do we capture those benefits that are real?
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[178] Mr Rees-Evans: In data? Well, one of the things that we’ve always done is ask our boys to fill in questionnaires and things like that, right the way through the existence of Only Boys Aloud. However, we’ve just taken, again, a major financial step to employ an evaluation company to do a year’s worth of evaluation, which is not cheap, about proving that social return on investment is absolutely fundamental. Again, I could point to countless individuals where we’ve had letters from headmasters saying, ‘Are you aware that this organisation has saved this boy’s life?’ One lad whose siblings are all substance abusers, from a background of being on the wrong side of the law, just became a different boy in realising that he had something to contribute. Actually, the inevitable acceptance of dependency on a life on benefits, which is a prevalent attitude in the areas that we work with, challenging that—. I don’t know whether we will ever be able to fully capture all of the effects of these ripples, but it goes way, way beyond the noise that they make when they sing together. |
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10:45
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[179] Jeremy Miles: I’m sure that there would be a very interested audience for that information when it—
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[180] Bethan Jenkins: Yes, if you could send that to us when it’s done, that would be great.
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[181] Mr Rhys-Evans: Certainly.
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[182] Bethan Jenkins: Suzy Davies has some questions.
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[183] Suzy Davies: It’s the same question area but a different angle again. Obviously, what we’ve heard today is complete inspiration, and I’m glad it’s had the effect on the boys that you say it’s had. That’s really a big ‘thank you’ from me on that as well. But I’m wondering whether part of your success comes from the fact that, actually, you’re not in the school. I’m wondering, working with some of the boys you’ve mentioned, whether, for them, the whole school environment is something that’s not a positive experience. And then, how difficult would it be to replicate—I’m not saying replicating Aloud—the sorts of strategies that Aloud has used? Is it feasible to bring that back to school, or is that a job potentially for the music service, which stands apart slightly?
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[184] Mr Rhys-Evans: Certainly, as I’ve said to Lee, we have boys who would not be part of a choir, probably, in school. We have teachers who work for us whose pupils in their school are in Only Boys Aloud but they’re not in the school choir; and try as they might, they will not join the school choir. So, yes, I think there is a perception. Whether this is possible to replicate, I absolutely think it is. I think we are where we are, and we’re not going to magically have teenagers across Wales all singing Messiah, as much as I wish we did. But yes, I think we could all benefit from training together. That’s one thing we do as an organisation: we put, every term, a training session in for our staff. So, we’re learning new ideas. I think if this does create a scenario where people want to maybe think again about the methods that they use, then great. Does that answer the question?
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[185] Suzy Davies: Yes, it does. Thank you.
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[186] Bethan Jenkins: Hannah.
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[187] Hannah Blythyn: Yes, just to come in, I think you’ve covered a lot of what I wanted to ask about in terms of the boys who are involved and why you’ve gone for that specific catchment, but I was interested to hear that you started in the Valleys and now it’s spread out across Wales, and even gone as far as north Wales, which, for some people, is a different country. [Laughter.] I can get away with saying that. You said about community venues from Holyhead to Cwmbran, and I was thinking that you’ve said before that perhaps the decisions behind picking certain communities is actually based on the deprivation index; but once you go into a community, how do you then engage with the boys? Is the demand there already, or how do you create that demand?
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[188] Mr Rhys-Evans: We have the recruitment strategy and, as of about six months ago, we now have a diversity and inclusion strategy as well. So, our recruitment methods vary from going into schools and holding an open workshop—we’ve held Big Sing days where we invite anyone to just come along, and we tell teachers. Some heads of music are very, very pro this and will bring their kids to one of our Big Sing days. We’re about to do an initiative in Merthyr, actually, and we’re talking with Lee Davies who, if you don’t know—and I don’t know if you do—works in the 3Gs community initiative in the Gurnos. It’s a recruitment exercise, but we’re doing this in the form of a song-writing workshop, where we’re taking Amy Wadge, who has written Ed Sheeran’s Thinking Out Loud and won a Grammy—
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[189] Bethan Jenkins: She’s got her own stuff as well.
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[190] Mr Rhys-Evans: She has. Absolutely. [Laughter.]
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[191] Bethan Jenkins: I’m saying it for the women.
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[192] Mr Rhys-Evans: Oh, absolutely. She’s brilliant, and she’s also got a really passionate social conscience. When I said to her, ‘Would you be interested in coming to Merthyr with us?’ she jumped on this. So, we’ll be running workshops in Merthyr college and in all the comprehensive schools in the Merthyr borough to just tell people about what we’re going to do. We’re having to cap the numbers at 30, but we’re holding these two consecutive weekends in the 3Gs community centre on the Gurnos, so we have a number of ways of attracting boys. A lot of people see the successful Only Boys Aloud, the 21 million views of our clip of Calon Lân on YouTube—that was a shameless plug, sorry about that—and they assume that (a) we’re well-off, and (b) that we have no trouble recruiting, but we do constantly have issues of recruitment. We’ve recently had to stop activity of our choir in Neath, or postpone activity of our choir in Neath, because we had two boys coming to the rehearsals. We are doing all we can to resume that activity, but yes, we have to put a lot of energy into making sure that the message is out there that this is free, and you can just turn up.
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[193] Bethan Jenkins: There are plenty of us that represent Neath here.
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[194] Mr Rhys-Evans: Great.
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[195] Bethan Jenkins: We’re all scribbling it down now—
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[196] Mr Rhys-Evans: I will hold you to that. [Laughter.]
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[197] Bethan Jenkins: Hannah, do you have anything else? Neil Hamilton, have you got anything additional to add?
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[198] Neil Hamilton: Yes. What you said about the arts council, I think, neatly illustrates the sterility of the bureaucratic mind and the absurd box-ticking mentality—
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[199] Mr Rhys-Evans: I’d like to go on record as saying, ‘I didn’t say that.’ [Laughter.]
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[200] Dai Lloyd: Are you sitting on the fence here?
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[201] Neil Hamilton: I haven’t got where I am today by not saying things like that. But, I think it does, actually. Clearly, you are a hugely charismatic figure, and an inspiring entrepreneur, and I’m wondering whether you are the funding model for your charity, in a sense, and to what extent we could translate your evident success in creating this model. Raising £0.5 million is not easy for a single individual; it’s quite the opposite.
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[202] Mr Rhys-Evans: I must say that it’s not a single individual.
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[203] Neil Hamilton: No, I realise that you are a team and you’ve got a fundraiser and all the rest of it.
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[204] Mr Rhys-Evans: Yes.
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[205] Neil Hamilton: But, fundamentally, as you said somewhere in your great operatic performance earlier on, when you first went to the Principality Building Society you had nothing but an idea, and you sold it to them. So, you make it look as though it’s very easy, but obviously it isn’t.
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[206] Mr Rhys-Evans: No, it’s not.
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[207] Neil Hamilton: What we’ve been analysing, or trying to, in the course of the weeks that we’ve been conducting this inquiry is a slow decline for funding for music services centrally, but nothing very much seems to fill the gap, and certainly not from the private sector. So, I’m wondering if you could say whether there are any lessons from your own experience that we could apply to music provision in Wales, more generally, where local authorities are concerned.
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[208] Mr Rhys-Evans: We’ve learned so many lessons, and one of the lessons I would like to tell people is: ‘Please don’t do it like I did it’. I think it’s taken us so long to have a robust business structure. When I was practicing my Bach preludes and fugues as a kid, I wasn’t dreaming of being a businessman one day.
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[209] Neil Hamilton: Music is very mathematical, in a sense.
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[210] Mr Rhys-Evans: Well, Pythagoras was nothing to do with me, even though he was the father of music. I think what we need to try and allow people to do is to turn a musical idea—if we’re serious about creating these opportunities for people—into a sustainable and robust business model. That is one of the biggest lessons. I think we all have a huge job of work to do in turning around attitudes that music is somehow something that is peripheral, and is not at the core. It’s all very well—I can’t tell you the number of people who have told me over the years ‘What about getting a proper job?’—
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[211] Neil Hamilton: None of us here has ever done that.
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[212] Mr Rhys-Evans: —or, ‘Why are you doing music at university? Do law or something’. I think we need to all work hard to ensure that the attitude—. If we are serious about the creative industries in Wales and unlocking the massive potential of the creative industries in Wales, then we need to do that at a primary school level and take it right the way through.
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[213] Neil Hamilton: As regards the fundraising aspect of your charity, you’ve only recently taken on a fundraiser. Otherwise, you have principally been—
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[214] Mr Rhys-Evans: We employed a part-time fundraiser for a number of years from about 2012. Certainly, I took a very active role in the fundraising, and ever since our chief executive has been in post, which is three years, she has led on all of that. I’d like to, again, put a big advert out for Arts & Business, because I had no idea about how we were going to—. You know, I used to think that if you’re working with business, they put their logo on a poster and that was it, but actually, you’re creating a meaningful relationship with a business to ensure that you’re developing and you’re servicing their needs as well as your own. I was very, very grateful that I had the support of Arts & Business to facilitate the introduction and support us all the way through.
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[215] So, I think, if we are going to be less dependent on the public sector—and I say that as an organisation that has never been in any way dependent on the public sector—we need to equip our young musicians and our young musical and creative entrepreneurs with an understanding; they have to understand fundraising and they have to get to grips with working in new ways. Because, actually, what we’ve learned about working with business has massively impacted on our model, and I’ve learned so much out of the experience. So, I think that’s—. It’s fine to say, ‘We require less dependency’, but we therefore have to enable greater independence.
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[216] Neil Hamilton: How do we contribute to your crowdfunding model that you mentioned earlier on?
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[217] Mr Rhys-Evans: Well, if you just follow the Aloud charity on Twitter—[Laughter.]
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[218] Bethan Jenkins: I’m sure they’ll welcome the donation that you’ll give after this committee meeting, Neil.
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[219] Neil Hamilton: Indeed.
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[220] Bethan Jenkins: Thank you very much for coming in to give evidence.
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[221] Diolch yn fawr iawn am ddod i mewn heddiw.
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Thank you very much for coming in today. |
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[222] I’m sure you’ll follow what we’re doing as a committee, and if there are any activities that, potentially, Assembly Members can come and visit and see on the ground, I’m sure I not only speak for myself, but I’m sure others will want to hear about different activities in their respective areas and we’ll obviously help as much as we can. Diolch yn fawr iawn.
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[223] Mr Rhys-Evans: Diolch yn fawr. Thank you for having this inquiry and for realising the importance of music to us.
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[224] Bethan Jenkins: It was the public who voted for us to have this inquiry, so thank the public for it.
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[225] Mr Rhys-Evans: I understand. Diolch i chi i gyd. Thank you very much. Cheers.
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[226] Bethan Jenkins: Rydym yn mynd i gael seibiant am bum munud cyn symud ymlaen at y sesiwn dystiolaeth nesaf. Diolch yn fawr.
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Bethan Jenkins: We’re going to take a five-minute break before we move on to our next evidence session. Thank you. |
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Gohiriwyd y cyfarfod rhwng 10:58 ac 11:07. The meeting adjourned between 10:58 and 11:07.
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Adolygiad S4C—Sesiwn
Dystiolaeth 4 |
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[227] Bethan Jenkins: Diolch. Rydym ni’n symud ymlaen nawr at eitem 4 ar yr agenda, sef adolygiad S4C, sesiwn dystiolaeth 4. Diolch i Iestyn Garlick, sef cadeirydd TAC, am ddod i mewn atom ni heddiw a hefyd i Gareth Williams, sef aelod cyngor TAC. Rydw i’n gwybod eich bod chi wedi dod i mewn o’r blaen yn y Cynulliad diwethaf, ond diolch am ddod mewn yn benodol i drafod S4C. Yn gyntaf, a allwch chi jest roi eich barn ynglŷn â sut mae S4C, yn eich barn chi, yn perfformio ar hyn o bryd, sut mae’n ymdopi â’r newidiadau yn yr hinsawdd sydd ohoni o ran darlledu a pha fath o newidiadau, yn fras, y byddech chi’n hoffi eu gweld achos mae yna lot o gwestiynau gan Aelodau Cynulliad eraill? Diolch yn fawr iawn.
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Bethan Jenkins: Thank you. We move on to item 4 on the agenda, which is the S4C review, evidence session 4. Thank you to Iestyn Garlick, chair of TAC, for coming in today and also to Gareth Williams, who is a council member for TAC. I know that you have attended previously in the last Assembly, and thank you for coming in specifically to discuss S4C. First of all, could you just give your view on how S4C, in your view, is performing at the moment, how it’s coping with the changes in the current climate relating to broadcasting, and what sort of changes, broadly, would you like to see, because Members have many questions? Thank you. |
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[228] Mr Garlick: Wel, diolch yn fawr iawn ichi am y gwahoddiad, i ddechrau. Rydym ni’n gwerthfawrogi’r cyfle i gael rhoi ein safbwynt. Hefyd, a allaf i ar y pwynt yma ddweud os ŷch chi’n teimlo nad ydym ni’n ateb eich cwestiynau chi yn gyflawn, mi wnawn ni, yn hapus iawn, ysgrifennu atoch? Roedd hwnnw’n gwestiwn sylweddol ar y cychwyn fel hyn—
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Mr Garlick: Well, thank you very much for the invitation, first of all. We appreciate the opportunity to express our views. May I, at this point, say that if you feel that we’re not answering your questions comprehensively, then we’d be more than happy to provide further written evidence too? That was a substantial, broad-ranging question at the outset—
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[229] Bethan Jenkins: Sori.
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Bethan Jenkins: I do apologise. |
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[230] Mr Garlick: Na, dim o gwbl. Yn amlwg, rydym ni i gyd yn gwybod beth yw’r ffeithiau ynglŷn â’r arian sydd wedi diflannu dros y blynyddoedd yn S4C. Hefyd, rwy’n meddwl bod yn rhaid dweud bod S4C wedi ymdopi yn arbennig o dda efo’r cwtogi rhyfeddol sydd wedi bod. Mae costau rhedeg y busnes wedi dod i lawr yn sylweddol, ac, wrth gwrs, yn rhannol, rydym ni fel sector wedi bod yn gyfrifol hefyd am gymryd y baich yna. Mae yna nifer o resymau pam fod hynny wedi gweithio. Yn amlwg, mae’r dechnoleg wedi mynd yn rhatach ac mae hynny wedi ein helpu ni dros y blynyddoedd.
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Mr Garlick: No, no need to apologise. But, clearly, we all know what the facts are in terms of the funding that has been lost over the years to S4C. I also believe that we must say that S4C has coped particularly well with the substantial cuts that it’s experienced. Its running costs in terms of the business have been significantly reduced and, partially, we as a sector have been responsible for taking on that burden. There are a number of reasons why that has worked. Clearly, technology has got cheaper and that has assisted us over the years. |
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[231] Ond rwy’n credu—ac mae’n rhaid gwneud y pwynt yma’n gryf iawn—rydym ni wedi cyrraedd rhyw plateau lle nid yw’r arian—ni all e fynd i lawr dim mwy. Ni allwn ni gwtogi, ni allwn ni wneud rhaglenni yn rhatach nag yr ŷm ni’n eu gwneud nhw ar hyn o bryd.
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But I do believe—and I do need to make this point most strongly—that we have now reached a plateau where the funding can’t be cut anymore. We can’t make more cuts; we can’t make programmes more cheaply than we are currently doing. |
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[232] Ar ben hynny, mae S4C mewn sefyllfa lle maen nhw’n gorfod ailddarlledu talp sylweddol o’u cynnwys, sydd yn dderbyniol neu yn annerbyniol—mae’n dibynnu fel ŷch chi’n edrych arno fo. I ni fel sector, mae o’n annerbyniol achos mae’r ganran yna o ailddarllediadau yn waith nid ydym ni yn ei wneud, oherwydd nid yw’r arian yna. Ond, at ei gilydd, rydw i’n credu bod y perthynas rhyngom ni a S4C yn berthynas dda. Mae’n berthynas sydd yn gweithio. Rydym ni’n ystyried ein hunain yn ffrindiau—critical friends, rydw i’n credu, yr ŷm ni’n ystyried ein gilydd.
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On top of that, S4C is in a situation where they have to repeat a great number of their programmes, which may be acceptable or unacceptable, depending on your point of view. For us as a sector, it is unacceptable, because that percentage of repeats is work that we’re not doing, because the funding simply isn’t there. But, generally speaking, I think the relationship between ourselves and S4C is a positive one. It’s one that works. We consider ourselves to be critical friends. I think that’s how we see each other.
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[233] Bethan Jenkins: Diolch. Gareth.
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Bethan Jenkins: Thanks. Gareth. |
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[234] Mr Williams: Bore da. Os ydych chi’n edrych yn ôl ar Ddeddf Gyfathrebu 2003, y diffiniad o beth mae S4C yn statudol, fel rhan o’i bwrpas, yn ei wneud yw darparu rhaglenni teledu. Wel, mae’r byd erbyn hyn wedi newid siẁd gymaint. Ystyriwch, nôl yn 2003, nid oedd yna ddim Facebook, nid oedd yna ddim Twitter. Mi oedd yna Netflix, ond roedd Netflix yn bennaf yn gwneud ei fusnes allan o DVD rentals a ffilmiau. Erbyn nawr, maen nhw’n cynhyrchu cyfresi sydd yn fwy drud na’r ffilmiau yr oedden nhw’n eu dosbarthu trwy’r post adeg hynny. YouTube—nid oedd yn bodoli bryd hynny, ond erbyn nawr rwy’n credu bod yna 1 biliwn o oriau bob dydd o gynnwys yn cael ei wylio ar y platfform yna. Yn naturiol, mae S4C eisiau gallu arbrofi mwy a dangos mwy o’i chynnwys ar y platfformau yna. Mae’n eithriadol o braf i weld yn yr adroddiad blynyddol fod yna 46 y cant o gynnydd o sesiynau gwylio ar lein. Mae’r iPlayer wedi bod o fudd, wrth gwrs—iPlayer y BBC. Mae’r gwasanaeth yna wedi bod o fudd o ran cael mwy o sylw i gynnwys S4C.
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Mr Williams: Good morning. If you look back to the Communications Act 2003, the definition of S4C and its statutory purpose is to provide television programmes. Well, the world now has changed so much. Consider that, in 2003, there was no Facebook, there was no Twitter. There was Netflix, but Netflix mainly did its business from DVD rentals and films. Now they’re producing series that are more expensive than the films they were distributing through the post at that time. YouTube didn’t exist then; now, I think there are 1 billion hours of content being watched on that platform every day. Naturally, S4C wants to be able to experiment more and show more of its content on those platforms. I was very pleased to see in its annual report a 46 per cent increase in viewing sessions online. The iPlayer has been beneficial, of course—the BBC’s iPlayer. That service has been beneficial in terms of getting more attention to S4C.
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[235] Ond mae’r rhagdybiaeth yma fod yr ariannu yn iawn, oherwydd bod yr ariannu yn dod o ffi’r drwydded yn bennaf a’r grant oddi wrth DCMS ar hyn o bryd, nid yw hynny mewn gwirionedd yn gywir, achos hyd yn oed o fewn cyfnod y cytundeb gweithredol rhwng y BBC a S4C, mae yna doriad wedi bod yn y ddwy neu dair blynedd o hyd y cytundeb yna o £2 miliwn. Felly, mae yna dorri sylweddol parhaus wedi bod i gyllideb S4C, ac mae hynny yn naturiol yn effeithio arnom ni fel cynhyrchwyr. Rydw i’n credu bod Ofcom wedi cydnabod, fel yr oedd Iestyn yn dweud, fod yr arbedion sydd yn deillio o arbedion ar gynnwys wedi digwydd. Rwy’n gweld hyn gyda BBC Cymru hefyd. Mae yna gyhoeddiadau diweddar wedi bod fod yna gynnydd yn y lwfans oriau ar gyfer comisiynau BBC Cymru. Mae hynny i’w groesawu, wrth reswm, ond hyd yn oed fwy yw’r anghydraddoldeb yna gyda beth yw cost yr awr S4C a’r ailddarllediadau yma, sydd yn 57 y cant ar hyn o bryd.
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But I think the assumptions that the funding is fine because the funding comes from the licence fee, mainly, and the grant from DCMS at the moment, isn’t really correct, because even within the period of the operating agreement between the BBC and S4C, there has been a cut in the two or three years of the length of that agreement of £2 million. So, there have been significant continuous cuts in the funding of S4C, and naturally that does affect us as producers. I think Ofcom recognises, as Iestyn was saying, that the savings that stem from savings on content have happened. I see this with BBC Cymru Wales as well. Recent announcements have been made with regard to an increase in the allowance of hours for BBC Wales’s commissions. That is to be welcomed, of course, but there is that inequality between the cost per hour of S4C and these repeats, which are at 57 per cent at the moment.
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[236] Felly, o feddwl am y darlun, rydw i’n credu bod y sector wedi gweithio yn arbennig o galed ac effeithiol a llwyddiannus i gyrraedd y nod, ond mae yna ddibyn i doriadau pellach, rydw i’n meddwl.
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Therefore, given that picture, I think the sector is working very hard and effectively and successfully to reach the target, but there is an endpoint with regard to further cuts, I believe. |
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[237] Bethan Jenkins: Diolch yn fawr iawn am y cwestiynau cychwynnol hynny. Mae Suzy Davies yn mynd i gario ymlaen gyda’r cylch gwaith statudol.
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Bethan Jenkins: Thank you for those initial questions. Suzy Davies is going to continue with questions on the statutory remit. |
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[238] Suzy Davies: Diolch. Well, you’ve already mentioned that S4C is limited in its audience and limited in its platforms, as well, although it is fair to say that you can get S4C outside Wales, certainly through television, but partly through other digital platforms, even though that can be quite difficult. Bearing in mind that a considerable number of viewers are outside Wales already, I’m sure you’d agree that this limit to serve audiences wholly or mainly in Wales is redundant anyway by now. What responsibility do you think S4C should have to commission content that looks beyond that audience now—the official audience?
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[239] Mr Garlick: I think that S4C is certainly moving in that direction. They are already talking about doing things that they call short-form or digital content, and stuff that will actually be on the web rather than on television, and stuff that—I’m saying ‘stuff’; ‘content’, I should say. [Laughter.] Careful. This is my second language, after all.
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[240] Suzy Davies: Os hoffech chi—
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Suzy Davies: If you would like to—
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[241] Mr Garlick: No, I’m happy to answer the question in English. They are going to commission content for the web, which then, eventually, will be able to be re-edited and possibly put together as programming itself. The main problem with that, although the theory is wonderful, is the rights—that whole issue, especially with music. It needs discussion with the Musicians Union and the other unions. The will is there, but whether or not we will ever get to some kind of—we will get to an agreement, but it’s going to take time, and it’s going to cost. The perception that doing things digitally and for the web is cheaper than television is not necessarily true.
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[242] Suzy Davies: I was thinking more about the audiences, actually. The platforms mean that more people can access S4C at the moment. Where I’m coming to is whether there should be a responsibility, really, amongst your members to offer commissionable ideas that are beyond our usual audience.
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[243] Mr Williams: Rydw i’n meddwl, os caf i droi nôl at y Gymraeg—
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Mr Williams: I think, if I could turn back to Welsh for a second—
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[244] Suzy Davies: Ie, wrth gwrs.
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Suzy Davies: Of course. |
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11:15
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[245] Mr Williams: Rydw i’n meddwl bod yna sgôp, yn sicr, i wneud mwy o gyd-gynyrchiadau. Nid oes dim byd yn rhoi mwy o foddhad i gynhyrchydd o Gymru na gweld project sydd yn gyd-gynhyrchiad gyda gwlad arall yn cael dosbarthiad eang ar draws y byd. Mae hynny’n fodel y dylem ni fod yn anelu at wneud llawer mwy ohono fe. Fe ddylai, yn fy marn i, fod yna arian masnachol ar gael i hybu’r math yna o weithgaredd, achos mae e’n dod â chynnyrch S4C, yn llythrennol, i’r byd. Os caf i gyfeirio at un achos o gynhyrchiad a wnaethom ni yn ddiweddar gyda chwmni o Dde Korea, mae’r rhaglen honno ar y ffotograffydd rhyfel Philip Jones Griffiths nawr yn esgor ar berthynas gyda darlledwr yn Ne Korea ac yn ein galluogi ni i ddatblygu cyfresi pellach gyda nhw. Ac mae hynny yn rhywbeth rydym ni yn sicr yn anelu at ei wneud yn fwy aml, ac y mae nifer o’r partneriaid eraill a’r cwmnïoedd eraill yn edrych at y farchnad ehangach honno. Mae S4C eu hunain, rydw i’n credu, yn manteisio o fod yn gweld bod y cynnwys yma sydd yn gallu perfformio ar draws iaith hefyd, mewn sawl iaith—cynnwys chwaraeon, cynnwys digwyddiadau cenedlaethol, digwyddiadau cerddorol—yn apelio ar wylwyr di-Gymraeg ac at wylwyr tu allan i Gymru hefyd. Yn bendant fe ddylai’r remit nawr fod yn cael ei ehangu i gofleidio hynny, ac i wneud yn fawr o’r cyfleoedd mae hynny yn eu cyflwyno i ni fel cynhyrchwyr cynnwys.
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Mr Williams: I think there is certainly scope for more joint productions. Nothing gives greater joy to a Welsh producer than seeing a project that is a joint production with another nation or a co-production being distributed across the world. That is a model that we should be aiming to do far more of. In my view, there should be commercial funds available to promote that kind of activity, because it does literally bring S4C’s productions to a worldwide audience. If I can refer to one production that we were involved in recently with a company from South Korea, that programme on the war photographer Philip Jones Griffiths is now bringing forward a relationship with a broadcaster in South Korea, and enabling us to develop further series with them. And that is certainly something that we would like to do more of, and a number of other companies and partners are looking to that broader market. S4C itself, I think, does benefit from seeing that there is this content that can work in a number of different languages—including sport content, national event content and musical events—and they appeal to non-Welsh-speaking viewers and viewers outside Wales too. Certainly, that remit should be expanded in order to embrace that, and to make the most of the opportunities that that provides us with as content producers. |
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[246] Mr Garlick: Mi ydym ni eisoes hefyd yn trafod gydag S4C—. Yn y broses gychwynnol o gynnig syniad, fel rydych chi’n sôn amdani, mae gennym ni beth rydym ni’n galw ‘y briff’, ac rydych chi’n gorfod llenwi’r briff yna i mewn. Rydym ni’n trafod ar hyn o bryd efallai rhoi cwestiwn i mewn, ‘A ydych chi’n gweld y gall y syniad yma gael ei ecsbloetio ymhellach?’ Nid yw’r cwestiwn yma yna ar hyn o bryd, a beth sy’n tueddu i ddigwydd ydy fel y mae rhaglen yn cael ei gwneud neu’n cael ei gorffen, dyna pryd mae pobol yn meddwl, ‘W, fe allwn ni ecsbloetio hwn.’ Dylem ni fod yn ei wneud e ar y cychwyn, ac mae’r drafodaeth yna wedi dechrau.
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Mr Garlick: We are already discussing with S4C as well—. In the initial process of proposing ideas, as you’ve mentioned, we have what we call ‘the brief’, and you have to fill that brief in. We’re discussing at the moment perhaps adding a question, ‘Do you think that this idea could be exploited further?’ That question isn’t there at the moment, and what tends to happen is that as the programme is produced and finished, that’s when people think, ‘Ooh, we could exploit this.’ We should be doing it at the beginning, and that discussion has begun. |
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[247] Mr Williams: Po fwyaf o gyfleoedd sydd—. Mae’r Llywodraeth yma, hefyd, wedi bod yn annog cwmnïau i gydweithio gyda chwmnïau fel Sky Vision—dosbarthwyr—a Pinewood Pictures hefyd, yn cefnogi Channel 4 drwy’r cynllun Alpha Fund. Po fwyaf o gwmnïau cynhyrchu sydd yn cael cyfle i gynhyrchu i gomisiynwyr eraill hefyd, mae hynny yn cryfhau, rydw i’n meddwl, yr achos o ran yr enw sydd gan y cwmnïau cynhyrchu yna ar draws y byd, ac o ran cael mwy o gynnwys Cymraeg, sydd o bosib yn mynd i ddenu arian ychwanegol i mewn i Gymru, allan i’r farchnad ryngwladol. Gall hynny ddim ond bod yn beth da, yn fy marn i.
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Mr Williams: The more opportunities there are—. The Government here has been encouraging companies to collaborate, with companies such as Sky Vision—distributors—and Pinewood Pictures as well, supporting Channel 4 through the Alpha Fund. The more production companies have those opportunities to produce for other commissioners, then I think that strengthens the case in terms of the reputation that those companies have on a global level and in getting more Welsh content, which will perhaps bring additional funding into Wales, out into the international market. That can only be a good thing, in my view. |
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[248] Suzy Davies: Ocê. Felly, jest i fod y glir, mae’r remit yn mynd i newid—rwy’n siŵr y bydd yn ehangu cyfleoedd i gwmnïau cynhyrchu ym mhobman. A ydych chi’n gweld hyn fel bygythiad neu’n gyfle i chi?
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Suzy Davies: Okay. Therefore, just to be clear, the remit is going to change—it’s going to broaden opportunities for production companies everywhere. Do you see this as a threat, or is it an opportunity?
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[249] Mr Williams: Wel, mae elfen o gystadleuaeth yn naturiol, onid yw e, ac yn iach hefyd? Ond mae yna elfen o bartneriaeth yn bosib hefyd, ac mae yna elfen o gwmnïau Cymraeg yn cael cyfleoedd ehangach i ddosbarthu a gwerthu a chael eu cynnwys wedi’i ddangos ar draws y byd, ac mae’n rhaid bod hynny’n gyfle.
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Mr Williams: Well, an element of competition is natural and healthy, isn’t it? But there’s a possible element of partnership too, and an element of Welsh companies getting new opportunities to produce, distribute and get their content shown across the world, and that has to be seen as an opportunity. |
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[250] Mr Garlick: Rydw i’n credu ein bod ni fel sector, fel rydych chi’n ei ddweud, yn gweld unrhyw gyfle yn gyfle, yn hytrach nag yn sialens. Mae unrhyw sialens yn gyfle. Rydw i’n gweld bod yna bosibiliadau di-ri ym mhob man, ac mae’n rhaid bod yn bositif ynglŷn â phob dim.
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Mr Garlick: I think we, as a sector, as you say, see any opportunity as an opportunity rather than a challenge. Any challenge is an opportunity. I see that there are numerous possibilities everywhere and we have to be positive about everything. |
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[251] Suzy Davies: Ocê.
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Suzy Davies: Okay. |
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[252] Mr Williams: Ac mae S4C wedi bod—rydym ni’n hoffi defnyddio’r term ‘galluogwr’—yn enabler allweddol i ddatblygiad y sector annibynnol yng Nghymru. Fe welwch chi yn yr adroddiad blynyddol diwethaf, rydw i’n credu, fod yna o leiaf 50 o gwmnïau yn cael eu nodi yn fanna—cwmnïau o bob maint, o’r cwmnïau mwyaf fel Tinopolis, sydd yn gwmni byd-eang, a chwmnïau mawr fel Boom, cwmnïau llwyddiannus iawn, cwmnïau, wedi hynny, llai, a chwmnïau newydd. Mae yna ystod o gomisiynau dramâu newydd wedi mynd yn ddiweddar i gwmnïau newydd. Felly, mae yna wahanol gwmnïau yn cystadlu am fusnes, ac mae hynny yn iach, yn sicr.
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Mr Williams: We like to use the term ‘enabler’. S4C has been a crucial enabler for the development of the independent sector in Wales. You will see from the last annual report that at least 50 companies are listed there—companies off all sizes, from the largest such as Tinopolis, which is a global company, and large companies such as Boom, very successful companies, but then you have smaller companies and new companies. There’s a range of new drama commissions that have been given to new companies recently. So, there are various companies competing for business, and that’s certainly healthy. |
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[253] Suzy Davies: Ocê. Diolch yn fawr.
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Suzy Davies: Okay. Thanks very much.
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[254] Bethan Jenkins: Diolch. Yn symud ymlaen at gwestiynau ar gyllid nawr, ac mae Lee Waters am arwain ar hyn.
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Bethan Jenkins: Thank you. Moving on to questions on funding now, and Lee Waters wants to lead on this. |
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[255] Lee Waters: Diolch. Your evidence is rather predictable in that you’re saying that S4C should get more money and that a greater proportion of that should go to the commercial sector. In that sense, it’s seven pages of special pleading. In terms of trying to take the debate beyond that and in terms of the strategic challenges that the broadcasting industry faces across the piece, and S4C in particular, we’ve heard some very interesting evidence from Huw Marshall about the need to think differently about S4C’s purpose and how it delivers that. Do you have any thoughts of how, going into its next period, S4C might remodel itself beyond serving your own commercial interests?
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[256] Mr Williams: Pe byddai S4C yn gallu bod yn gartref i gynnwys ar blatfformau eraill, mi fyddai hynny o bosib hefyd yn gwahodd gwahanol fodelau, gwahanol fusnesau, gwahanol feysydd arbenigol i ddatblygu yn yr iaith Gymraeg. Ond mae yna brinder deunydd yn yr iaith Gymraeg ar gael ar y platfformau hynny beth bynnag. Felly, fe allech chi ehangu’r remit i alluogi S4C i fod yn alluogwr i gynnwys ar blatfformau eraill y tu hwnt i’r gwasanaeth craidd yna. Mi oedd Huw Marshall yn siarad am hynny, fel rŷch chi’n cyfeirio ato, sydd yn ailystyried beth yw ei pwrpas a beth mae o’n gallu ei wneud.
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[257] Mr Williams: If S4C could be a home for content on other platforms, that would possibly allow different models, different businesses, and different areas of expertise to develop in the Welsh language. But there is a shortage of material in the Welsh language available on those platforms in any case. So, you could expand the remit to enable S4C to be an enabler for content on other platforms beyond that core service. Huw Marshall mentioned that, as you referred to, which reconsiders the purpose of S4C and what it can do.
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[258] Lee Waters: He did suggest that, in order to free up resources in order to diversify to go on to those other platforms, they would need to look very much at the rights issue, but also maybe a move away from an emphasis of trying to ape the production values and the model of other traditional channels. So, perhaps less money spent on high-end drama and more on rights, so that the digital archive could be more available. He also suggested maybe having some cheaper programming with lower production values and lower tariffs, but I’d imagine instinctively you’d be against anything that just reduced the funding.
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[259] Mr Garlick: I think what you’re suggesting now is some kind of a second-class broadcaster, which, you know—. Yes, we can have the shaky phone camera on the web that you’ll watch for maybe 30 seconds or a minute, and, as I was saying earlier on, if you want to start editing all that together and you’ve got an hour and a half of shaky things, people are going to be sick all over their sofas, and that really is not what the broadcast is about.
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[260] Lee Waters: They watch it on YouTube. This is his point. The younger generations, they do want shaky cameras.
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[261] Mr Garlick: Yes, but in small, small, small bits, not put together where you’re sitting down with your family watching the television programme; they’re not going to watch it.
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[262] Lee Waters: But people don’t watch television programmes like that anymore, the younger generation—
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[263] Mr Garlick: Well, I think you’ll find they do.
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[264] Lee Waters: The Ofcom research doesn’t bear that out in terms of the younger generation.
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[265] Mr Garlick: I think S4C’s research shows that an awful lot of people actually do watch television, and it’s more than people think. It’s a perception that everybody’s watching YouTube, everybody’s watching—
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[266] Lee Waters: No, I didn’t say that; I said the younger generations.
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[267] Mr Garlick: Well, yes, okay, the younger generations are watching; I’m not arguing that they’re not, but it’s not what everybody’s watching.
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[268] Lee Waters: Well, I didn’t say that, to be fair. It would be interesting to see the research that you quote. But in terms of how S4C adapts to meeting the needs of the audience that it currently doesn’t serve—that middle-age range, and the younger age range, too—there does need to be a different attitude, and simply dismissing anything—
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[269] Mr Garlick: I’m not dismissing.
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[270] Lee Waters: —as second-class television kind of underlines the problem that we have.
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[271] Mr Garlick: No, I wouldn’t dismiss it, because my company is a company that makes programmes for youth, this exact audience that you’re talking about. Part of our contract with S4C—a new contract for this year—is to do exactly what you’re talking about, to do the extra programming around the programmes that we are making already for television broadcast, and to make small, short-form bits and pieces, and then, you know, to—. But that still has to have quality. It can’t be just any old thing. I’m sorry, maybe I misunderstood what you were saying, but we still have to have quality, and quality is important, and, unfortunately, quality costs. It doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to be cheaper, and that’s the point I was making.
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[272] Mr Williams: What I think you’ll find is some kind of convergence of content appearing on different platforms. We talked about YouTube in a previous session, and I think Suzy Davies there referred to that a lot of it is rubbish, but what is rubbish for one person is treasure for somebody else and has a huge following on the platforms you’ve referred to there. S4C needs to talk more to that generation, definitely; there’s no doubt about that. But we are still seeing very strong linear viewing patterns on the other broadcasters as well, but they are skewing towards an older age group; you’re absolutely right. But under its current remit and current financing, it’s a bit limited in what it can do to really shout out and reach those viewers and that potential growth that it has there.
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[273] Lee Waters: Absolutely, and that’s what I find interesting—to explore the argument that, rather than, as Iestyn Garlick suggests, we should stick to a universally applied level of production values to all output in order to maintain quality, as we’ve traditionally seen via terrestrial television, whether or not there’s a more nuanced approach needed, which alters those production values in order to create different types of output. Is the sector up for that, or are you just going to scream ‘funding cuts’ or ‘second-class television’ every time somebody tries to do something different?
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[274] Mr Williams: I think we’re absolutely up for it. We’re producing different types of content already. It’s not just one broad brushstroke and all the content looks the same. We’re also currently engaged with the new director of commissioning at S4C who is looking really carefully and thoroughly at audience statistics and viewing patterns, and average performances in slots, and all the rest of it. It’s really, really valuable information for us to disseminate, but we have to be mindful of not having S4C’s core viewers turn off en masse because there’s a sudden, massive gear shift overnight. These things have to work gradually, but it is currently limited, I believe, financially, in what it can do to appeal more to younger viewers. There’s more that can be done.
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[275] Mr Garlick: There are production values and things, which—. It appears that I’m old-fashioned in thinking that television should have production values. However, there are rules that we have to follow. There are Ofcom rules we have to follow, and this is what we are paid for. If those rules change, then that’s fine. Then, we’ll go down that road.
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[276] Lee Waters: There are Ofcom rules on production values.
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[277] Mr Garlick: No, what I’m saying is that there are some things that you—. You can’t just put out anything. We have to invest in Harding machines, and flashing things, all this stuff. There are rules—rules that need to be followed.
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[278] Lee Waters: And does that apply just to the television broadcast, or does that apply to the online version as well?
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[279] Mr Garlick: Well, at the moment, there is no separation, is there? Possibly, when the review is done and dusted, and there are new rules, then we might well go down that road, and things that would be acceptable on the worldwide web, or YouTube, or Facebook or wherever, would have one set of rules, but, if you want to put those things on to broadcast, then the quality would have to be where it is. And that’s the point—that’s the point that I was trying to make.
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[280] Lee Waters: That’s the point that I’m trying to suggest, that the idea of broadcast is changing dramatically, isn’t it? And it does seem to be a fixed view that broadcast looks like this. And I accept that, as a production company, you have to invest in certain kit in order to meet the regulation for different groups. But the question I’m testing is, as the landscape evolves, there may be different, and potentially cheaper, ways of broadcasting, which doesn’t lose the quality, but may result in different types of production values.
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[281] Mr Williams: Mae hynny’n sicr yn wir. Os ydych chi’n cymryd drama fel un genre, mae drama wedi gweld cwtogi eithaf sylweddol yng nghost yr awr. Ond mae yna fodd dadlau mi fyddai fe’n braf pe byddai S4C yn gallu denu incwm ychwanegol at ddrama er mwyn gwneud cyd-gynyrchiadau sydd â safonau a chost yr awr yn uwch, ac wedyn, mi fyddai yna, o bosib, cynhyrchydd sydd â syniad cwbl wahanol ynglŷn â sut i gynhyrchu drama a rhoi drama at ei gilydd, ac ar ba blatfform i ddangos y ddrama yna, sydd yn llawer, llawer, llawer rhatach. Nawr, efallai y byddai hynny yn cwrdd â’r gofynion a’r disgwyliadau, ac yn boddhau’r gynulleidfa y mae’r ddrama yna wedi apelio ati, ond mae modd i S4C wneud y ddau beth yna, yn fy marn i. Ar hyn o bryd, mae nhw’n gyfyngedig i fod yn meddwl yn nhermau ariannu ar gyfer y sianel deledu yn unig. Ac mae hynny oherwydd beth sydd yn y Ddeddf, a rhwystredigaethau ynghlwm â hynny.
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Mr Williams: That’s certainly true. If you take drama as one genre, drama has seen quite significant cuts in the per hour cost. But one could argue that it would be good if S4C could attract additional income for drama in order to carry out co-productions that have higher standards, and a per hour cost that is higher, and then there’d possibly be a producer with a totally different idea as to how you produce drama, how you distribute it, and on what platform it should be shown, which is far, far cheaper. Now that perhaps would meet the requirements and expectations, and would actually appeal to that audience, but S4C can do both those things in my view. At the moment, they are restricted to thinking in terms of funding for the TV channel alone, and that is because of what’s in the Act, and other restrictions related to that. |
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[282] Wrth gwrs, maen nhw’n gwneud cynnwys atodol i gynyrchiadau ar hyn o bryd, ac mae cynnwys atodol i gynyrchiadau yn ddefnyddiol iawn—gôls, niferoedd uchel iawn yn gwylio pethau fel yna, ac yn gwylio mwy o fanylder. Ond, os ydych chi’n meddwl am soffistigeiddrwydd rhywbeth fel Netflix ar hyn o bryd, sydd yn gallu hyd yn oed ariannu drama a gadael i’r gwyliwr nawr ddechrau penderfynu ar pa gymeriadau sy’n dod mewn, pryd maen nhw’n dod mewn, beth yw diweddglo’r bennod yna yn mynd i fod, y personoleiddio’n llawer mwy, integreiddio a defnyddio mwy gyda’r defnyddwyr, i S4C fedru arbrofi mwy yn y math yna o feysydd, mae eisiau mwy o gyllideb arnyn nhw i wneud hynny. Er bod cost model y cynnyrch yna o bosib yn wahanol i beth fyddai’r ddrama draddodiadol nos Sul am 9 o’r gloch, os hoffech chi, iddi rili allu llwyddo—. Ac, wrth fentro, nid yw pob un o’r arbrofion yna yn mynd i lwyddo, rydych chi’n mynd i gael ambell i beth sydd ddim yn gweithio, sydd ddim yn denu cynulleidfa, ond mae’n rhaid arbrofi, ac mae’n rhaid ffeindio ffyrdd mwy effeithiol o gyrraedd y gynulleidfa a gwylwyr iau.
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Of course, there is supplementary content produced, and that’s very useful—goals, a very high number of people watch things like that, and watch in greater detail. But, if you think of the sophistication of something like Netflix, which can even fund drama and let the viewer decide on what characters come in, when they come in, and what the denouement of a particular episode is going to be, and personalising and integrating far more with users, for S4C to experiment more in those kinds of areas, they need more funding. Although the cost model may be different to what traditional drama may cost in terms of its 9 o’clock on a Sunday evening slot, if they really want to succeed—. And, in taking those innovative steps, not all of those experiments are going to succeed, you’re going to have a few things that don’t succeed and don’t attract an audience, but you do have to experiment, and you have to find more effective and efficient ways of reaching those younger audiences. |
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[283] Mr Garlick: Rydych chi’n iawn, yn yr ystyr bod yr offer yn mynd i fod yn rhatach nag mae e wedi bod yn y gorffennol, achos mi ydym ni fel cwmni, ers dechrau’r flwyddyn, wedi buddsoddi yn yr iPhones diweddaraf, lle rydym ni wedyn ag offer i fynd efo’r iPhones yma, lle rydym ni wedyn yn gallu darlledu yn fyw o unrhyw le yng Nghymru—wel, efallai ddim Aberystwyth, ond y rhan fwyaf o lefydd yng Nghymru, achos mae e gyd yn dibynnu ar broadband a beth sydd ar gael. Ond, hyd yn oed wedyn, byddwn i’n dal yn dadlau bod pobl yn disgwyl safon.
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Mr Garlick: You’re right, in the sense that the equipment is going to be cheaper than it has been in the past, because, as a company, since the beginning of the year, we’ve invested in the latest iPhones, where we have the equipment that goes with those iPhones, so that we can broadcast live from anywhere in Wales—well, perhaps not Aberystwyth, but the majority of places in Wales, because it all depends on broadband and what is available. But, even then, I would still argue that people expect quality. |
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[284] Er enghraifft, jest i ddangos nad wyf yn ryw fath o dinosaur sydd ddim yn barod i symud ymlaen efo’r oes, buom ni yn ddiweddar—.Mae yna rhywbeth o’r enw ‘Gwobrau’r Selar’ yn Aberystwyth, a beth roeddem ni yn mynd i’w wneud oedd darlledu’n fyw o’r Gwobrau’r Selar a’r hyn a’r llall ac arall. Yn y diwedd, yn rhyfeddol, mewn noson o gerddoriaeth, nid oeddem ni yn gallu dangos un band yn canu achos nid oedd yr hawliau yn bod. Roeddem ni’n gallu dangos rhai oherwydd ein bod ni’n gallu dweud, ‘Mi fydd y band yna’n ymddangos yn y rhaglen deledu’. Felly, ar hyn o bryd efo’r undebau, mae rhaglenni teledu yn dal yn bwysig, ac felly mae’n rhaid i ni ddilyn y rheolau. Dyna’r pwynt roeddwn i’n trio ei wneud i ddechrau.
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For example, just to show that I’m not some sort of dinosaur that’s not willing to move with the times, we have recently—. There is something called ‘Y Selar Awards’ in Aberystwyth and what we were going to do was broadcast live from this event and so forth. In the end, amazingly, it was an evening of music, but we couldn’t show a single band playing because the rights didn’t exist. We could show some because we were able to say, 'This band will appear in the television programme.’ So, at the moment, with the unions, television programmes are still important, and therefore we have to follow the rules. That is the point I was trying to make earlier. |
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[285] Lee Waters: Ocê. Diolch.
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Lee Waters: Okay. Thank you. |
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[286] Bethan Jenkins: Symudwn ymlaen nawr at gwestiynau llywodraethau ac atebolrwydd ac y mae Neil Hamilton yn mynd i arwain ar hyn.
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Bethan Jenkins: Moving on now to questions on governance and accountability and Neil Hamilton is going to lead on this. |
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[287] Neil Hamilton: The current governance structure of S4C is clearly an anachronism because it dates back to a period of ancient history in terms of modern television entertainment and the funding structure is completely different from what it was and it’s got to change. But I wonder if you could just give us your opinion on how the system, up until now, has worked and whether it’s been an effective method of governance and ensuring accountability.
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[288] Mr Garlick: In the past, there have been historical issues and there have been differences between TAC and S4C, but I think in the last—is it five years since Ian has been there? It’s been a lot easier and we meet with Ian regularly and we meet the authority, certainly once a year, if not twice a year. That is a step forward because, before, that never used to happen. They didn’t accept that the people who were actually making the programmes that they commissioned were really important, and I didn’t—. Maybe they didn’t say as much, but that certainly was our perception. But, more recently, things are certainly better. But I would like to see a change.
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[289] I think, as TAC council, we feel that an S4C authority is probably not the way it should be. I would like to see more people on that body, like a regulatory body rather—I’d like to get rid of the word ‘authority’. I find it strange that the chief executive has to go and ask people who are not particularly media specialists whether or not he or she can do this or that. I think the chief executive should have the authority and the regulatory board should be the people who make sure that the money is spent in the right places and that the chief executive is following the remit as set out. I think that’s what we’re saying.
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[290] Mr Williams: Mae yna elfennau o’r gwaith rheoleiddio o bosib byddai’n medru cael eu gwneud gan Ofcom, sydd â’r arbenigedd rheoleiddio yn y meysydd hynny ac sydd yn rheoleiddio darlledwyr eraill. Mae’r gair ‘awdurdod’ neu ‘authority’ yn rhoi’r argraff fod y corff yma’n awdurdodi popeth oddi tano fe mewn ffordd. Rwy’n credu, weithiau, yn y maes darlledu, mae’n rhaid symud yn eithaf chwim ac eithaf cyflym a medru ymateb i bethau achos bod y diwydiant yma’n newid mor, mor sydyn nawr.
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Mr Williams: There are elements of the regulatory work that perhaps could be done by Ofcom, which has the regulatory expertise in that area and regulates other broadcasters. The word ‘authority’ gives the impression that this body is authoritarian over everything below it. I think, in broadcasting, you sometimes have to be very responsive and move very quickly because this industry does change so very, very quickly. |
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[291] Mae’r cylch gorchwyl, fel y mae’n cael ei nodi yn yr adroddiad blynyddol, yn dangos sawl is-bwyllgor, os hoffech chi—sub-committees—o fewn hwnnw sydd â gwahanol gyfrifoldebau o ran yr awdurdod a dyna le rŷch chi angen arbenigedd penodol yn union yn y math o feysydd yr oeddech chi, Lee, yn cyfeirio atyn nhw gynnau ynglŷn â chyfryngau newydd o bosib i fod ar y lefel yna—bod mwy o arbenigedd yn y meysydd ehangach yna, os yw S4C yn mynd i fuddsoddi mwy a mwy a mwy yn y meysydd hynny. O bosib, mae modd ffafrio system lle mae’r cadeirydd yn allweddol. Mae non-execs yn bwysig iawn, iawn yn fy marn i—eich bod yn cael y lleisiau allanol yna, sydd yn annibynnol o’r corff ei hun sydd â lefel o arbenigedd a phrofiad ac sydd hefyd yn gallu dod ag elfen o sgrwtini ynglŷn â sut y mae’r executive yn gweithredu.
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The remit, as is noted in the annual report, demonstrates a number of sub-committees within that structure, which have different responsibilities in terms of the authority and that is where you need specific expertise in exactly the kind of areas that you, Lee, referred to earlier in terms of new media so that they do have greater expertise in those broader areas, if S4C is to invest more and more in those areas. Perhaps one could look at a system where the chair is crucial. Non-execs are hugely important in my view—that you do get those external voices, which are independent of the organisation itself and have a level of expertise and experience and can also bring that element of scrutiny in terms of how the executive is working. |
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[292] Rŷm ni wedi gweld symudiad sylweddol yn y ffordd y mae’r BBC yn gweithredu, wrth reswm, ac y mae hyn yn bwysig iawn yng nghyd-destun S4C achos gyda Ymddiriedolaeth y BBC, y mae Awdurdod S4C wedi bod yn cyfathrebu—fel yna y mae’r cytundeb wedi bod yn gweithio hyd yma. Mae’r cytundeb hwnnw’n dod i ben diwedd mis yma—y cytundeb gweithredol—felly, mae e nawr yn cael ei drafod gyda chorff arall, sef, i bob pwrpas, bwrdd unedol newydd y BBC. Felly, mae’r perthnasau yma’n newid, ac rwy’n credu bod eisiau inni fod yn ofalus iawn ein bod ni’n cael y model rheoleiddio a llywodraethu cywir, iach i’r sianel.
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We have seen a significant shift in the way that the BBC operates and this is very important in the context of S4C because, with the BBC Trust, that’s with whom the S4C Authority has been communicating—that’s how the agreement has worked. That agreement comes to an end at the end of this month—the operational agreement—and it’s now being discussed with another body, namely the new unitary board of the BBC. So, these relationships are changing, and I think we need to be very careful in ensuring that we get the right regulatory model and the proper governance in place to ensure that it’s healthy for the channel. |
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[293] Mr Garlick: Byddwn i hefyd yn dymuno gweld corff sydd yn derbyn yr arian yn syth o ble bynnag y mae yn dod, yn hytrach na bod arian yn mynd i’r BBC, ac o’r BBC i—. Achos mae hynna’n parhau’r syniad taw arian y BBC ydy o. Arian y drwydded ydy o, ac mae S4C a’r BBC yn cael eu hariannu o’r un lle. Byddwn i’n licio gweld y llinell yna yn syth at S4C, ac nid via y BBC.
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Mr Garlick: I would also wish to see the body that receives the funding directly from wherever it comes, rather than money going to the BBC, and then from the BBC to—. Because that continues the idea that it’s BBC money. It’s licence fee money, and S4C and the BBC are financed from the same place. I’d like to see that line directly to S4C, not via the BBC. |
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[294] Ac rwy’n credu ein bod ni’n mynd yn ôl at beth oedd yn yr operating agreement gwreiddiol, lle roedd gan yr ymddiriedolaeth yr hawl in extremis i atal arian S4C. Nid oes dim synnwyr yn y syniad bod darlledwr arall yn cael tra-arglwyddiaethu ar ddarlledwr arall. Nid ydy’n gwneud synnwyr.
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I think we’re going back to what was in the original operating agreement, in that the trust had the right in extremis to withhold S4C funding. There is no sense in the idea that one broadcaster can dominate another broadcaster. It makes no sense. |
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[295] Mr Williams: Arian cyhoeddus yw e, onid e? Dyna’r cyfrifoldeb wedyn ar Lywodraeth y Deyrnas Unedig a Llywodraeth Cymru i ddal y darlledwyr yn gyfrifol ynglŷn â sut y mae’r arian cyhoeddus yna’n cael ei wario a bod yr adroddiadau yn cael eu gwneud i chi, wedi hynny, fel Llywodraethau.
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Mr Williams: It is public money, isn’t it? So, there’s a responsibility on the UK Government and on the Welsh Government to hold the broadcaster to account on how that public money is spent, and that the reports are provided to you afterwards as Governments. |
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[296] Bethan Jenkins: Beth fyddai’r gwahaniaeth o’i roi e i S4C yn benodol, heblaw am y pwynt sort of egwyddorol i chi y dylai fe fynd—?
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Bethan Jenkins: What difference would it make to give it directly to S4C specifically, apart from the sort of points of principle for you that it should go—?
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[297] Mr Garlick: Yr annibyniaeth, rwy’n credu, fyddai’n bwysig, yn yr un modd, rwy’n credu, y dylai’r oriau y mae’r BBC yn eu rhoi i S4C am ddim. Nid oes gydag S4C, hyd y gwelaf i—efallai fy mod i’n anghywir, ond hyd y gwelaf i—ddim awdurdod golygyddol dros y cynnwys yna. Ac rwy’n credu bod ganddyn nhw hawl i fynegi barn, yn naturiol, ond nid oes ganddyn nhw ddim o’r hawl olygyddol dros beth maen nhw’n ei gael. Mae yna le i ddadlau efallai y dylai S4C gael yr arian yna a dweud, ‘Iawn, BBC, am £20 miliwn, dewch â’ch syniadau atom.’ Mae’n bosib—cawn ni weld.
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Mr Garlick: It’s the independence; that’s the important thing, I think, just as, I believe, the hours that the BBC provides to S4C should be free of charge. S4C does not have, as far as I can see—I may be wrong, but as far as I can see—any editorial authority over that content. I think that they do have a right to express a view on the content, naturally, but they don’t have that editorial right in terms of what they receive. One could make the case that S4C should be given that funding and say, ‘Fine, BBC, for £20 million, bring us your ideas.’ That’s one possibility. Let’s see.
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[298] Bethan Jenkins: Neil, did you want to come back?
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[299] Neil Hamilton: Yes. Well, it certainly would look rather odd, I think, given the change in the funding mechanism, if the BBC were merely just a funnel through which this goes, shuffled off by DCMS on to the BBC. It is, as you rightly say, public money of one kind or another, and for S4C to be in any way accountable to the BBC, which is a competitor—or it will be, in the new dispensation, a competitor—certainly creates conflict of interest, which needs to be addressed. So, could you flesh out that point that you make in your written evidence?
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[300] Mr Williams: It’s always been a complicated relationship. It’s one that can sometimes work. It’s a competitor, but it’s also supplier. The BBC, through the statutory arrangements—520 hours a year. Under the new organisation of BBC Studios, an element of that now suddenly becomes contestable. I mean, we’ve seen a picture of your good selves in BBC Studios looking at the Pobol y Cwm set. Well, it jumped out at me, because I thought, ‘Oh, that’s Siop Sioned from Pobol y Cwm’, you know? I know that set, but it was under the headline of BBC Studios—you know, this committee visiting BBC Studios. Now, that series has moved into BBC Studios. Were that to be made open to competition, and it looks like it would be according to the guidelines of BBC Studios, that all non-news and news-related content is made available for competition over the period of the next charter—were that made for competition, how would that work? Would S4C determine that sort of process? Would they sit in on it? Currently, they don’t seem to have much editorial control over that aspect. So, that already is a question mark over what you would call as a totally independent broadcaster.
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[301] Beyond news and news-related coverage within those hours, there also sits sport, for example, which has complications to do with rights issues. So, you know, all of these need to be sort of fleshed out, and not just left to chance and kind of whittle away and think, ‘Oh, it’ll be okay, because it’s kind of a continuation of an old arrangement that we had that worked.’ The landscape is changing so quickly now, and I think any new arrangements between those two broadcasters need to define that, so that it isn’t open to misinterpretation.
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[302] I love the bit—you know, I’m all for the bit in the current operating agreement that notes the vast majority of the content is to be produced by the independent sector. If BBC Studios maintains and keeps producing Pobol y Cwm, what does it then do? Does BBC Studios compete aggressively for more Welsh language drama production? Are we looking at BBC productions as a competitor in Wales for the independent sector, and BBC Studios and BBC Wales competing against each other? It becomes quite a complicated situation and one that needs to be managed carefully, I think.
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[303] Mr Garlick: I think the whole BBC Studios issue is one where nobody really understands where it’s going to go. It’s obviously there, it’s going to happen, and I think we need to just tread carefully and not shut the shutters, really, and see what happens and go with it.
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[304] Neil Hamilton: Just to go back to the last question, you were saying about the governance of S4C in the future—that you thought maybe it should be responsible to Ofcom. Do you think that Ofcom has sufficient understanding of the world of television and the operating environment?
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[305] Mr Garlick: We see it as being a sort of co-production, as it were. Ofcom would look after compliance, content, standards, terms of trade and the things that Ofcom is good at, whereas the regulatory board would then look after making sure that the money is spent in the right way, that S4C is delivering Welsh language programmes, as is their remit, and so on and so forth, really. I think it would be a combination of both.
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[306] Mr Williams: Rwy’n meddwl bod yna gyfrifoldeb cynyddol ar Lywodraethau hefyd. Nid wy’n credu y gallwn ni jest dweud, ‘Mae hwn yn ddarlun eithaf cymhleth—fe wnaiff Ofcom sortio fe allan.’ Rydym ni’n gweld hyn ar hyn o bryd gyda rhywbeth a oedd yn destun mawr iawn adeg y Ddeddf cyfathrebu ddiwethaf, ynglŷn â phlwraliaeth a pherchnogaeth. Ac rydym yn gweld y Gweinidog ar hyn o bryd yn crafu pen a meddwl, ‘Wel, beth fyddai rôl Ofcom pe bai Fox yn prynu’r cyfran sy’n weddill o gyfranddaliadau Sky ac yn berchen yn llwyr ar y gwasanaeth hwnnw, ac a fydd gan Ofcom rôl yn hynny o beth?’ Felly, mae maes cylch gorchwyl Ofcom yn mynd yn fawr iawn.
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Mr Williams: I think there’s an increasing responsibility on Governments, too. I don't think that we can just say, ‘This is quite a complex issue—Ofcom will sort it out.’ We’re seeing this at the moment with something that was a major issue at the time of the last communications Act, in terms of plurality and ownership. And we are seeing the Minister currently scratching their head and thinking, ‘Well, what would Ofcom’s role be in terms of Fox buying the remaining shares of Sky and taking entire ownership of that, and would Ofcom have a role in that?’ So, the remit of Ofcom is growing day by day.
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[307] Nid wy’n credu y gallwn ni jest dibynnu ar Ofcom i fod yn gyfrifol am lwyddiant darlledu cyhoeddus yn cael ei reoleiddio’n gywir. Mae’n rhaid bod yna gyrff eraill yn bodoli er mwyn sicrhau bod parhad darlledu gwasanaeth cyhoeddus iach, llewyrchus ac aml-gwmni gyda ni at y dyfodol.
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I don't think that we can rely just on Ofcom to be responsible for the success of public service broadcasting regulation. There must be other bodies in existence in order to ensure that we have a continuation of public service broadcasting that is healthy, prosperous and multi-company for the future.
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[308] Neil Hamilton: The other interesting thing I drew from your written evidence was your urging caution in devolving responsibility for S4C to Wales. I couldn’t really understand what the dangers might be in that, given that we now operate in an increasingly devolved environment, and given that S4C is inevitably seen as the broadcast vision for the future of Wales, if you like, given that we’ve now got this commitment to 1 million Welsh speakers by 2050 and a bilingual nation and all the rest of it.
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[309] Mr Garlick: We’ve always felt that devolving broadcasting to this place would not be to our advantage. We feel that maybe, possibly, we could have a conversation about devolving it to Wales but not necessarily to here, because I think then there would be conflicts as to where the money is being spent and this, that and the other. The fact that the DCMS money comes from London I think works at the moment—it works for us. Probably, maybe in time, it might not be a bad idea if that money actually didn’t come from DCMS but it came via the Wales Office, because then that would stop us having to go to London every year to explain again what S4C is all about and why the language is important and why—. People in the Wales Office, one would hope, would get it. But that’s another conversation. I just think there would be too many conflicts.
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[310] Bethan Jenkins: Jeremy Miles wants to come in on this quickly. |
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[311] Jeremy Miles: I don’t quite follow the rationale for that. Why would it be better for it to be at the Wales Office rather than the Welsh Assembly?
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11:45
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[312] Mr Garlick: I’m always standing on the side that it should be from London—that the DCMS money, or the Government money or whatever money, comes from London. I think that keeps—. For me, it works. I like that idea. It works. I think that, potentially, there could be an argument about, let’s say, a hospital or somewhere in Anglesey or something—. You will get a section of society who will say, ‘Well, what is the point in S4C? What is the point in the Welsh language? It’s much more important to have the health issues sorted.’ That would be a difficult argument.
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[313] Bethan Jenkins: Okay. Lee Waters.
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[314] Lee Waters: Forgive me, but in you evidence, you say that in the current arrangements, which work so well, the reduction of funding to S4C has been approximately 96 per cent. So, you’re saying you would hate a change because—it was interesting phrase you used—it wouldn’t serve your interests. The current arrangement has resulted in a dramatic decline in S4C’s funding. So much for being inoculated from the trade-offs that happen in public spending decisions: it hasn’t delivered that at all. Surely, if it was within Wales, you wouldn’t have to make arguments about the importance of the language. That would be built into the understanding. So, I am not entirely sure your argument stand up to scrutiny over what has happened over the last five years. |
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[315] Mr Garlick: Are you saying that if this building was looking after the funding of S4C, the funding would be guaranteed for ever and would increase? I don’t understand what your point is.
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[316] Lee Waters: I am saying that perhaps we should base these judgments not on what you regard as being in your interests, but on broader interests, and that your defence for maintaining the status quo—that the funding would be protected—does not tally with the fact that there has been a 90 per cent reduction presided over by a Government in Westminster that could raid it with impunity. |
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[317] Mr Williams: Rwy’n meddwl fe wnaethpwyd y penderfyniad hwnnw heb drafodaeth o gwbl, o beth y gwelaf i, ynglŷn â symud yr ariannu pennaf hwnnw at y ffi drwydded, ac mai’r ffi drwydded, yn bennaf, fyddai’n gyfrifol am yr ariannu. Wrth i hynny ddigwydd, mae e wedi credu rhwystr o ryw fath o ran datganoli, gan mai datganoli rhannol y byddech yn ei gael—rhan o gyllideb darlledwyr yng Nghymru. Mi fyddwn i—ac mi fedraf i siarad, rwy’n siŵr, ar ran nifer o aelodau eraill—wrth fy modd yn gweld y corff yma yn cyfrannu at, ac yn cefnogi, S4C fwyfwy, fel y mae’n ei wneud gyda phob math o ddarlledwyr a phrosiectau eraill. Ond mae e’n risg, onid yw—colli’r £6.7 miliwn hwnnw hefyd, ar ben y torri parhaus sydd wedi digwydd i gyllideb S4C? Rwy’n meddwl bod y rheini yn sgyrsiau y dylech chi fel Llywodraethau eu cael gyda’ch gilydd ynglŷn â sut y gallai hynny weithio yn y tymor hir at y dyfodol.
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Mr Williams: I think that decision was taken without any discussion as far as I can see, in terms of moving that funding to the licence fee, and that the licence fee would be mainly responsible for the funding. As that has happened, it has created a block in some way for devolution, because you would get a partial devolution of a part of the budget for broadcasting in Wales. I—and I think I can speak on behalf of a number of other members—would love to see this body contributing to, and supporting S4C more and more, as it does with all sorts of other projects and broadcasters. But it is a risk, isn’t it—losing that £6.7 million on top of the continual cuts that there have been to the S4C budget? I think that those are conversations that you as Governments should be having with each other in terms of how that can work in the long term for the future. |
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[318] Rydych chi’n gwneud, fel corff, argymhellion cryf iawn mewn perthynas, er enghraifft, â darlledu Saesneg yng Nghymru. Fe’ch gwelsom yn argymell yn gryf y dylid cael £30 miliwn mewn arian ychwanegol. Fe wnaeth Tony Hall wrando, ac fe wnaeth e roi £30 miliwn i’r Alban, ond fe gafodd Cymru rhywbeth sydd, o bosibl, yn edrych yn eilradd. Pan mae arian newydd fel yna’n dod, mae’n rhaid ffactora i mewn y torri sydd wedi bod yn y gorffennol. Mae i’w groesawu bod £8.5 miliwn yn dod yn ychwanegol i gyllideb BBC Cymru, ond nid yw hynny’n gyfwerth â, er enghraifft, gwasanaeth nosweithiol sydd yn dechrau am 7 p.m. ac sy’n cwpla am hanner nos, ac sy’n cynnwys awr o newyddion. Dyna’r cyhoeddiad a ddaeth y diwrnod ar ôl y newyddion ynglŷn â’r £8.5 miliwn yna. Felly, gofid, rwy’n meddwl, sydd ar ein haelodau ni—ein bod ni’n mynd i weld y £6.7 miliwn yna’n diflannu, ac y bydd yr ariannu’n dod yn llwyr oddi wrth y ffi drwydded.
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You make very strong recommendations, as an organisation, for example, in terms of English language broadcasting in Wales. We saw you recommending strongly that there should be an additional £30 million. Tony Hall listened and gave £30 million to Scotland, and gave Wales something that may look second-rate. When new funding like that comes, you have to factor in the cuts that have happened in the past. It is to be welcomed that an additional £8.5 million will be provided to BBC Cymru Wales, but that doesn’t tally with a nightly service between 7 p.m. and midnight, including an hour of news. That’s the announcement that came the day after that announcement about the £8.5 million. So, the concern, I think, for our members is that we will see that £6.7 million disappearing, and then that the funding will be provided entirely through the licence fee. |
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[319] Lee Waters: Yes, well, I accept there’s a risk. I’m just concerned in your evidence that you’re conflating the risk with the governance arrangements, and I don’t necessarily think those two are linked. As we’ve seen from what’s already happened, the funding disappeared under the current governance arrangements. You seem to be holding on to the current governance arrangements as a future protection, and I’m not sure the evidence is there to justify that faith. |
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[320] Mr Garlick: The funding is still there, isn’t it? The funding is coming from a different place. You were saying that 96 per cent of the funding disappeared. It didn’t; it was just shifted. |
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[321] Lee Waters: There was a significant overall reduction in funding, wasn’t there?
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[322] Mr Garlick: There was. Indeed, there was.
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[323] Lee Waters: Under the system that you think safeguards the position of S4C so well.
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[324] Mr Garlick: Well, that’s what I believe.
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[325] Lee Waters: Well, excellent. It’s good to have faith-based arguments, isn’t it?
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[326] Bethan Jenkins: Iawn. Rydym ni’n mynd i symud ymlaen yn awr. Mae amser yn brin, felly rydym ni’n mynd i drio mynd drwy’r cwestiynau yn weddol glou. Rydym ni wedi dechrau ar y berthynas gyda’r BBC, ond mae Dawn yn mynd i bigo rhai o’r cwestiynau i fyny yn glou.
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Bethan Jenkins: Okay. We’re going to move on now. Time is scarce and we are going to try to get through these questions swiftly. We have started on the relationship with the BBC, but Dawn is going to pick up on some of these questions. |
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[327] Dawn Bowden: Thank you, Chair. I do think that we have probably covered quite a lot of it, particularly the stuff around the statutory 10 hours of non-news and news programmes in response to Neil’s questions; you’ve covered that. But I was interested in particular about the relationship, as opposed to the governance arrangements, with the BBC. You clearly feel that there are significant strengths in that relationship, but I guess my interest would be to find out how you think that would continue under a revised model, or certainly the revised model that you’ve been proposing. Does it pose some threats to that relationship, or do you see that there are new arrangements that could strengthen the relationship? |
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[328] Mr Williams: Rwy’n teimlo bod yna lot fawr o le i ddiolch ac i longyfarch y ddau ddarlledwr ynglŷn â’r ffordd maen nhw wedi cydweithio yn effeithiol hyd yn hyn, o feddwl am yr holl gymhlethdodau ynglŷn â’r strwythurau yma ac ynglŷn â’r elfennau ariannu. Yn y pen draw, mae’r gynulleidfa a’r defnyddwyr o’r amryw gynnwys mae’r ddau ddarlledwr yna yn gyfrifol amdanyn nhw yn allweddol, ac mae unrhyw beth sydd yn lleihau’r potensial i’r cynnwys hwnnw gyrraedd y gynulleidfa ehangaf posib yn niweidio’r sefyllfa. Rwy’n meddwl eu bod nhw wedi gweithio gyda’i gilydd yn dda o ran hyrwyddo eu cynnyrch yn fwy effeithiol. Rwy’n credu bod yna fuddiannau amlwg iawn wedi bod i gynnwys S4C i fod ar gael ar yr iPlayer. Nid yw hynny, mae’n debyg, ddim wedi canibaleiddio’n ormodol platfform S4C—‘Gwylio’ rwy’n credu mae’n cael ei alw nawr—sef y platfform o wylio eto cynnwys S4C ar wefan S4C. Felly, mae yna fwy o gydweithio yn bosibl fanna, ond rydym yn mynd nôl o hyd i’r ddau ddarlledwr yna yn galluogi cynnwys newydd i fod yn galluogi darparwyr cynnwys eraill i ddatblygu mwy o gynnwys, yn hytrach na beth rydym wedi ei weld, sydd yn mynd nôl i beth roeddech chi yn cyfeirio ato yn gynharach y sesiwn, sef dim ond ymddangos ar y sianel linear yna, a’r prif wariant yn digwydd ar gyfer oriau brig ar y sianel linear yna. Felly, mae yna le canolog i’r sector annibynnol fod yn rhan o’r trafodaethau a’r datblygiadau cyffrous hynny at y dyfodol.
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Mr Williams: I feel that there is a lot of room to thank and congratulate the two broadcasters on the way they have collaborated so far, given the whole complexities regarding these structures and the funding elements. Ultimately, the audience and the users of the various content that the two broadcasters are responsible for are key, and anything that reduces the potential of that content to reach the widest possible audience is damaging the situation. I think they have worked together well in terms of promoting their productions. I think there have been clear benefits for S4C’s content to be on the iPlayer. That, apparently, hasn’t overly cannibalised S4C’s platform—I believe it’s called ‘Gwylio’ now—namely the platform that has S4C’s content on S4C’s website. So, I think that more collaboration is possible there, but we go back to those two broadcasters enabling new content and enabling providers of other content to provide more content, rather than what we’ve seen, which goes back to what you were referring to earlier in the session, namely only appearing on that linear channel, and the main expenditure happening for peak hours. So, there is a central role for the independent sector to be part of those discussions and those exiting developments in the future. |
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[329] Mr Garlick: Er mai Teledwyr Annibynnol Cymru ydym ni, mae nifer fawr o’r cwmnïau sydd yn aelodau o TAC yn gwneud rhaglenni radio i’r BBC, ac mae’r berthynas yna yn adeiladu o flwyddyn i flwyddyn. Ac, wrth gwrs, oherwydd ein bod ni’n gwmnïau teledu, rydym yn gallu cynnig deunydd ychwanegol i’w roi ar y we yn gefndir i’r rhaglenni radio yma. Felly, mae hwnnw’n rhywbeth sydd yn datblygu, ac mae’n mynd yn ôl i bwynt Mr Waters yn gynharach. Mae gennym y gallu i roi deunydd ychwanegol ar y we neu ar blatfformau’r BBC, ac mae honno yn berthynas sydd yn gweithio ac yn talu’i ffordd. Ac hefyd rydym ni—yn sicr, y cwmni rwyf i yn gweithio iddo fo—yn gwneud rhaglenni i bobl ifanc ar y cyd ac mewn perthynas gydag C2, fel oedd o, i Radio Cymru. Felly, rydym yn gweithio efo’n gilydd yn symud ymlaen.
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Mr Garlick: Although we are Teledwyr Annibynnol Cymru, many companies that are members of TAC produce radio output for the BBC, and that relationship is building year on year. And because we are television companies, we can provide additional material to be provided online as background to these radio productions. That is something that is developing, and it goes back to Mr Waters’s earlier point. We have the ability to provide additional web-based material on the BBC’s platforms, and that’s a relationship that works well. And also, the company that I work for produces programing for young people jointly and in partnership with C2, as it used to be called, for Radio Cymru. So, we are working together in moving to the future. |
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[330] Dawn Bowden: So, you don’t see that relationship threatened in any way. It’s just that it will be approached slightly differently.
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[331] Mr Williams: Threatened in terms of—?
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[332] Dawn Bowden: In terms of the point that Iestyn was just making that you’re having to look at things differently. The relationship has been a positive one, both for yourselves and the BBC and the other outlets. The new arrangement doesn’t appear to—. You’re saying that the new arrangement isn’t going to threaten that relationship.
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[333] Mr Garlick: I would certainly hope not. I don’t know what the future holds, but I don’t see—
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[334] Dawn Bowden: It’s difficult, though, isn’t it, because there potentially could be different models, so that’s—
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[335] Mr Garlick: Yes, and because it’s different, certain things are bound to change—it’s inevitable. But I can’t—. I would hope that any changes will be to the good, rather than the other way.
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[336] Mr Williams: Mae yna ddau gyfle i ni fel sector, mewn rhyw ystyr. Mae yna gyfle i fod yn darparu cynnwys iaith Gymraeg a hefyd gwneud fersiynau o’r rheini sydd yn fersiynau Saesneg, neu mewn ieithoedd eraill sydd yn gallu teithio ar draws y byd. Mae hynny’n beth da i’w groesawu. Ond, ar y llaw arall, nid wyf yn credu y dylai’r darlledwyr fod yn dechrau sybsideiddio ei gilydd yn ormodol fel eu bod nhw’n creu—. Fe allech chi gael perygl lle mae yna ddrama yn bodoli dim ond ar y sail bod dau ddarlledwr wedi gallu cael yr arian ynghyd. Beth sy’n dueddol o ddigwydd weithiau wedyn yw fe gewch chi bennaeth comisiynu sy’n edrych ar y model yna a meddwl, ‘Rwy’n gallu cael drama rhatach wrth ddilyn y model yna’. Nid wyf yn erbyn bod y model yn bodoli, ond bod neb yn penderfynu mai dyna’r unig route i gael drama i Gymru. Fe ddylem ni gael cyfres ddrama gynhenid Gymraeg, efallai sydd ddim ond yn apelio at wylwyr yng Nghymru. Nid ydw i ddim yn meddwl bod angen ymddiheuro am hynny. Yn ychwanegol, fe allem ni gael drama sydd yn teithio, sydd yn apelio a sydd yn denu buddsoddiad o ddarlledwyr eraill. A ydy hynny’n ateb y cwestiwn?
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Mr Williams: There are two opportunities for us as sector, in a sense. There is an opportunity to provide Welsh-language content and also make versions of those that are in English, or other languages that can travel the world. That is a good thing to be welcomed. But, on the other hand, I don’t think that the broadcasters should start to subsidise each other too much so that they create—. There could be a danger that a drama only exists on the basis that two broadcasters have brought the money together. What tends to happen then sometimes is that you have a head of commissioning that looks at that and thinks, ‘I can have a cheaper drama following that model’. I’m not against that that model exists, but no-one should decide that that’s the only route of providing drama for Wales. We should be having an indigenous Welsh drama series that only appeals to viewers in Wales. I don’t think we have to apologise for that. In addition, we could have a drama that does travel, that does appeal, and that does attract investment from other broadcasters. Does that answer your question?
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[337] Dawn Bowden: Yes, I understand. Thank you.
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[338] Bethan Jenkins: Mae’n rhaid inni symud ymlaen nawr at amlygrwydd S4C, ac mae gyda Hannah nifer o gwestiynau.
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Bethan Jenkins: Moving on now to the visibility of S4C, Hannah has a number of questions.
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[339] Hannah Blythyn: Thank you. Diolch, Chair. In your written evidence you said about the challenges that S4C face in terms of where it’s placed on the electronic programme guide, and you referred to that link between its position there and people’s viewing habits. So, there’s a challenge there, but also there are challenges in terms of S4C’s visibility on digital platforms and on smart tvs. Priority seems to be given to the giants like Netflix and Amazon, and obviously on the iPlayer it’s in the corner of that. I think you touched on this briefly in your previous answer to my colleague here—that there’s probably room for greater collaboration with the BBC in terms of the iPlayer and S4C. But are there any other things you think could be done to overcome those challenges in terms of visibility?
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[340] Mr Garlick: I think where S4C is on the EPG is absolutely vital. As a public service broadcaster, it should be there, but there are certain smart tvs now where S4C is a long way down, and you don’t find it. I don’t think that’s right. I think the fact that, when you go to the EPG and the fourth line down is a Welsh programme, and you click on it and see what it is—I think it’s vitally important. I know of people who have found programmes they wouldn’t have found otherwise because of its position. Any viewers that we can get beyond the traditional Welsh-speaking viewers are vitally important to us.
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[341] Mr Williams: Rydym ni’n falch iawn o weld yn yr adroddiad blynyddol y ffigyrau ac ystadegau sydd yn dangos bod 46 y cant o gynnydd wedi bod o ran gwylio ar-lein. Mae popeth fel yna yn cael ei helpu gan y ffaith bod yna amlygrwydd i S4C, ac mae pobl yn gwybod lle i’w ffeindio fe a ble i weld y cynnwys.
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Mr Williams: We’re very pleased to see in the annual report the statistics that show a 46 per cent increase in watching online. Everything like that is helped by the fact that there is prominence for S4C, and people know where to find it and where to watch the content.
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[342] Y peth arall yw S4C yn galluogi cynnwys i fodoli heb, o anghenraid, bod gyd chi’r brand S4C ynghlwm â fe. Mae e’n gynnwys digidol, Cymraeg sydd yn cael ei wylio, sydd yn boblogaidd, ac mae hynny, efallai, yn gam ymhellach—bod S4C yn dod yn rhyw fath o borth cynnwys, os liciwch chi, i gynnwys newydd yn ymddangos, a chael ei rannu. Achos dyna sy’n digwydd, yn aml iawn, yn y byd yna: mae rhywbeth yn dod yn boblogaidd, ac mae’n cael ei rannu, ac mae’n mynd fel tân wedyn ac yn tyfu ac yn apelio at garfan mwy a mwy o wylwyr.
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The other thing is S4C enabling content to exist without necessarily having the S4C brand associated with it. It’s digital content, Welsh content that is watched and is popular, and that, perhaps, is a step further—for S4C to become a content portal, if you like, for new content to appear, and to be shared. Because that’s what happens very often in that world—something becomes popular and it is shared, and it spreads like fire, then, and grows and appeals to a larger proportion of viewers.
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[343] Hannah Blythyn: I think in your written evidence too you said that the opportunity’s there in terms of the digital presence of S4C, and it’s one that you need to make the most of, because they don’t have the marketing budget, perhaps, of other providers. Do you think, therefore, S4C needs to invest more in their online viewing presence?
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[344] Mr Williams: Rydw i’n meddwl ei bod hi’n allweddol, os ydych chi’n mynd i gynyddu’r cynnwys a ffeindio cynulleidfa newydd, ei bod yn cael ei marchnata yn gywir, a bod yna arian at y pwrpas o wneud hynny.
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Mr Williams: Well, I think it’s crucial, if you are going to increase content and find new audiences, that it’s marketed properly and that there’s funding available to that end.
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[345] Mr Garlick: But to create this wish to have more stuff online and this, that and the other, we have to have a budget of some sort. There are figures being bandied around, somewhere around about £6 million, as a figure, that would be necessary to get this up and running properly. Yes, everything in the end comes down to money, and that, unfortunately, is the world that we live in.
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[346] Mr Williams: Yn hynny o beth, rwy’n credu eto ei bod yn cael ei chaethiwo siwt gymaint gyda’r pwrpas fel y mae’n cael ei ddiffinio ar hyn o bryd. Achos pe byddech chi’n edrych ar fodel darlledwyr eraill, maen nhw’n wynebu’r un fath o heriau ynglŷn â sut y maen nhw’n apelio tu hwnt i’r gynulleidfa graidd, a’r math o wylwyr sydd o bosib yn tiwnio i mewn yn rheolaidd, ac maen nhw’n gallu gwneud hynny wrth greu platfformau eraill o fewn y brand sydd gyda nhw. Fe fyddech chi’n meddwl am ddarlledwyr fel Channel 4 sydd â, rwy’n meddwl, rhyw 15 is-frand, ac mae rhai o rheini, efallai—byddai rhai yn dadlau eu bod nhw’n rhy niche, ond maen nhw yn ffeindio’r gynulleidfa darged. Nid ydw i’n meddwl bod S4C yn mynd i ffeindio cynulleidfa jest wrth ei siawnsio hi ac amserlennu rhywbeth am 22:30 ar y sianel linear a gobeithio bod pobl yn mynd i ddod iddo.
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Mr Williams: And in that regard, again it is restricted so much in terms of the purpose as it’s currently defined. If you look at the model of other broadcasters, they face the same kind of challenges in terms of how they appeal before their core audiences and the types of viewers who may tune in regularly. They can do that by creating new platforms within the brands that they already have, and if you think of someone like Channel 4, which I think has some 15 sub-brands, some would argue that they are too niche, but they do find their target audience. I don’t think that S4C is going to find that audience by chance and just by timetabling something at 22:30 on the linear channel and hoping that people will come across it.
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[347] Efallai bod yn rhaid iddi gyrraedd y gynulleidfa yna ar gyfrwng sydd yn fwy cyfarwydd iddyn nhw. Ac rydym ni nôl i’r ffaith bod yna brinder deunydd Cymraeg poblogaidd apelgar ar gael yn y meysydd hynny. Mae yna le i gael mwy, ac mae yna ddarparwyr sydd eisoes yn cynhyrchu peth defnydd fel hynny—hyd yn oed y ffilmiau byrion rydym ni’n clywed amdanyn nhw mewn gwyliau. Mae ysgolion a phrifysgolion yn gweithio ar gynnwys fel yna. Liciwn i weld mwy o’r cynnwys yna ar gael i bobl gael ei wylio.
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I think we have to access that audience on a medium that is more familiar to them. And it goes back to the fact that there is a lack of popular, appealing Welsh-language material available in those areas. There is room for more, and there are providers who already produce some material of that kind, even short films that we hear about in all sorts of different festivals, and schools and universities are working on that kind of content. I’d like to see more of that content available so people can view it.
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[348] Bethan Jenkins: Diolch. Rydw i’n symud ymlaen at yr effeithiau economaidd nawr, a’r hawlfraint, ac mae Jeremy Miles yn mynd i ofyn cwestiynau yn y sesiwn diwethaf yma.
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Bethan Jenkins: Thank you. We move on now to the economic impacts and copyright, and Jeremy Miles is going to ask questions in this final session. |
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[349] Jeremy Miles: O ran ffyniant S4C fel darlledwr yn y dyfodol, os edrychwch chi ar y model mae ITV wedi ei weithredu am ddegawdau—hynny yw, cynhyrchu cymaint ag y gallan nhw o’u cynnwys eu hunain a chomisiynu cyn lleied, yn gyson â’r rheoliadau, ac mae’r BBC wedi gwneud hynny tan yn ddiweddar iawn—pam na fyddai’r model hwnnw’n gweithio i S4C?
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Jeremy Miles: In terms of the success of S4C as a broadcaster in the future, if you look at the model adopted by ITV over decades, which is producing as much as they can of their own content and commissioning as little as possible, in accordance with the regulations—and the BBC were working similarly until very recently—why wouldn’t that model work for S4C?
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[350] Mr Garlick: Mae’n rhaid imi gyfaddef nad ydw i’n llwyr yn deall y cwestiwn.
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Mr Garlick: I must admit that I don’t entirely understand the question.
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[351] Jeremy Miles: Petai S4C yn comisiynu neu yn cynhyrchu eu cynnwys eu hunain yn Gymraeg—rhywfaint ohono fe, mwy ohono fe neu’r cyfan—gan mai nhw yw’r unig gwsmer am gynnwys darlledu Cymraeg yng Nghymru a bod y model hwnnw wedi gweithio am ddegawdau i ITV ac i BBC, pam, yn y dyfodol, na ddylem ni symud i’r model hwnnw i S4C?
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Jeremy Miles: If S4C were to produce their own output in Welsh—some of it, more of it or all of it—as they are the only customer for Welsh-language output in Wales and that model has worked over a period of decades for ITV and BBC, why, in the future, shouldn’t we move to that model for S4C? |
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[352] Mr Williams: Byddwn i’n nerfus ynglŷn â model sydd yn ffafrio rhyw fath o fonopoli dros un corff yn cynhyrchu cynnwys yn unig.
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Mr Williams: I would be nervous about a model that favours a monopoly of only one organisation producing content. |
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[353] Jeremy Miles: Wel, mae monopoli ganddyn nhw fel y cwsmer yn barod.
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Jeremy Miles: Well, they have a monopoly as a customer already. |
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[354] Mr Williams: Ond ystyriwch bod y cwmnïau annibynnol fel y maen nhw. Mae yna drawstoriad ohonyn nhw ar draws gwahanol rannau o Gymru. Mae hynny’n gallu dod â phersbectifau gwahanol o ran amrywiaeth, o ran y persbectifau gwahanol ar sut mae straeon yn cael eu hadrodd a’u lleoli. Rwy’n credu bod hwnnw’n ffactor. Wrth reswm, rydym ni’n mynd i fod yn ffafrio sefyllfa lle mae cwmnïau annibynnol masnachol yn parhau i fod yn cynhyrchu’r cynnwys yna—
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Mr Williams: But consider the independent companies as they are now. There’s a cross-section of them across Wales. That can bring different perspectives in terms of variety and diversity, and the ways that stories are reported and located. I think that is a factor. Of course, we are going to be favouring a situation where independent commercial companies are going to continue to produce that content—
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[355] Jeremy Miles: Rwy’n deall eich safbwynt masnachol chi yn hollol, ac mae’n safbwynt digon teg, ond roeddwn i’n gofyn ichi edrych o safbwynt S4C, gan fod y model hwnnw wedi llwyddo mewn mannau eraill—.
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Jeremy Miles: Well, I understand your commercial stance and it’s fair enough, of course, but I was asking you to look at it from the point of view of S4C, because if that model has succeeded elsewhere—. |
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[356] Mr Williams: Ond wedyn byddwn i’n dadlau—. Ystyriwch rywbeth fel sianel 4, sydd wedi creu sector annibynnol lwyddiannus iawn y tu hwnt i Gymru—
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Mr Williams: But then I would argue—. Consider something like Channel 4, which has created an independent sector, a successful one, beyond Wales—
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[357] Jeremy Miles: Mae’r pwynt yn ddilys iawn, ond pwrpas Channel 4 oedd creu marchnad o gwsmeriaid hefyd ar gyfer cynnwys annibynnol, ac nid yw hynny’n bodoli yng Nghymru am resymau hollol amlwg. Dim ond un darlledwr Cymraeg sydd gyda ni. Felly mae’r ffactorau yna’n wahanol, onid ydyn nhw? Gallech chi fod mewn sefyllfa lle rydych chi’n gwneud arbedion mewn costau datblygu, mewn adnoddau a phob mathau o arbedion i sianel sydd o dan wasgedd ariannol.
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Jeremy Miles: That’s a most valid point, but the purpose of Channel 4 was to create a market of customers for independent output, and that doesn’t exist in Wales for very obvious reasons. We only have one Welsh-medium broadcaster. So the factors are different, aren’t they? You could be in a position where you could make savings in terms of developmental costs, in terms of resources—there are all sorts of savings for a channel that is already under financial pressures. |
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[358] Mr Garlick: Nid wyf i’n meddwl y byddai’r hyn rydych chi’n ei awgrymu—y byddem ni’n gallu gwneud mwy o arbedion drwy ddilyn rhyw fodel felly. Nid wyf i’n credu bod hynny bellach yn bosib. Rwy’n credu, fel y dywedais i ar y cychwyn, ein bod ni wedi cyrraedd rhyw fath o plateau, ac er y byddai rhywun yn dymuno gwneud—. Fel yr oeddwn i’n dweud wrthoch chi, mae’r offer yn rhatach, rydym ni wedi buddsoddi yn yr offer gorau rhesymol posibl, ac nid wyf i’n rhagweld y byddai beth rydych chi’n sôn amdano fe yn gwneud unrhyw arbedion pellach. Ond, yn sicr, os ydych chi ishio, fe wnawn ni edrych ar y peth ac fe wnawn ni ysgrifennu atoch chi—
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Mr Garlick: I don’t think that what you’re suggesting—that we would be able to make more savings through following such a model. I don’t think that now is possible. As I said at the beginning, I think we’ve reached some sort of plateau, and even though people would wish for—. As I told you earlier, the equipment is cheaper, we have invested in the best equipment that was reasonably possible, and I don’t foresee that what you’re talking about would make any further savings. However, certainly, if you want to, we’ll look at this and write to you— |
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[359] Jeremy Miles: Fel model economaidd gwahanol.
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Jeremy Miles: Like an alternative economic model. |
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[360] Mr Williams: Mi fyddai fe’n ffactor hefyd i ystyried y buddsoddiadau sylweddol mae’r cwmnïau annibynnol wedi eu gwneud a’r arbenigedd maen nhw wedi ei ddatblygu mewn genres penodol. Rwy’n credu bod hwnnw’n rhywbeth sydd ddim yn cael ei ystyried yn ddigonol weithiau. Mae rhai ohonyn nhw yn llwyddo wedyn i ddatblygu hynny yn fodel masnachol llwyddiannus sydd yn gallu gwerthu a symud at greu cynnwys ychwanegol a thu hwnt i S4C hefyd. Mae S4C yn ei dro yn elwa o hynny, rydw i’n meddwl, o ran safon a gwerth y cynnyrch maen nhw’n parhau i’w gomisiynu.
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Mr Williams: It would be a factor, also, to consider the major investments that the independent companies have already made and the expertise that they’ve developed in specific genres. I think that's something that isn’t taken into account very often. Some of them succeed then to develop that into a very successful commercial model, which can move to produce additional content beyond S4C, as well. S4C, in turn, benefits from that in terms of the quality and value of the output it continues to commission. |
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[361] Jeremy Miles: Rydych chi’n awgrymu bod effaith economaidd positif i S4C o ran y rhwydwaith o gynhyrchwyr teledu. Dyna graidd y ddadl sydd gennych chi.
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Jeremy Miles: You suggest that S4C enjoys a positive economic impact because of the network of producers. That’s the core of your argument. |
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[362] Mr Williams: Byddwn i’n dadlau bod yna, ac ar draws Cymru hefyd—ei fod e’n gallu comisiynu heb fod yn rhaid iddo fel leoli ei hun fel darlledwr ym mhob man. Mae yna gwmnïau yng Nghaernarfon, mae yna gyfres ddrama yn cael ei lleoli ym Mhorthaethwy, mae yna gwmnïau yn cynhyrchu rhaglenni gwledig arbenigol yn Abertawe, sioe ddyddiol yn Llanelli—mae yna glwstwr o gwmnïau wedi datblygu ac wedi—. Maen nhw i gyd yn wahanol i’w gilydd. Nid oes jest un model ac mae pawb yn dilyn y model hwnnw.
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Mr Williams: I would argue that, yes, that’s true, and across Wales as well—you can commission without having to be located as a broadcaster in every place. There are companies in Caernarfon, there’s a drama series located in Menai Bridge, there are companies producing specialist rural programming in Swansea, there’s a daily programme from Llanelli—clusters of companies have developed. They’re all very different to each other. There isn’t a single model and everyone follows that model.
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[363] Jeremy Miles: Na, ond mae’n berffaith bosib dadlau bod hynny’n bosib mewn modelau gwahanol. Ond rwyf i eisiau symud y drafodaeth ymlaen; rwy’n clywed eich dadl chi. A ydych chi wedi gweld, fel TAC, patrwm yn nhermau’r nifer o gwmnïau y mae S4C yn comisiynu wrthyn nhw dros y blynyddoedd? Achos, os taw dadl economaidd yw rhan o’r ddadl, mae’n bwysig bod ystod eang o bobl yn cael eu comisiynu i seilio’ch dadl chi. A ydy hynny wedi bod yn gyson dros y blynyddoedd, neu a ydych chi wedi gweld crebachu neu ehangu ar y nifer o gwmnïau sy’n derbyn comisiynau?
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Jeremy Miles: No, but it’s perfectly possible to argue that that is possible in different models. But I want to move the discussion on; I’ve heard your argument. Have you seen, as TAC, a pattern in terms of the number of companies that S4C commissions programmes from over the years? Because, if an economic argument is part of the argument, it’s important that a wide range of people are commissioned, on the basis of your argument. Has that been consistent over the years, or have you seen a contraction or an expansion in the number of companies that receive commissions?
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[364] Mr Garlick: Yn sicr, am gyfnod pan gollwyd lot o’r arian, roedd yna grebachu sylweddol—am gyfnod. Oherwydd sefydlogi, fe roddwyd lot o’r gwaith i nifer cyfyngedig o gwmnïau, ac felly, yn naturiol, mi oedd yna lai o gwmnïau. Ond, y llynedd a’r flwyddyn gynt, os ydw i’n gywir, mi oedd yna 55 o gwmnïau'r flwyddyn gynt ac eleni, yn sicr, mae 50 o gwmnïau wedi cael comisiwn. Nawr, mae rhai o’r comisiynau hynny’n gyfresi drama sydd yn mynd trwy’r flwyddyn ac fe all gomisiwn arall fod yn un rhaglen awr, ond mae o’n waith i unigolyn ac i gwmni. Ac fel yr oedd Gareth yn ei ddweud, mae’r rheini yn gwmnïau sydd reit ar draws Cymru gyfan, nid jest o fewn gafael i Gaerdydd nac hyd yn oed o fewn gafael i Gaernarfon—yn hytrach, maen nhw yng Nghaerfyrddin ac yn y gorllewin; maen nhw ym mhob man. Fel yr oedd Gareth yn cyfeirio ato’n gynharach, mae yna dri chwmni newydd wedi cael cyfresi neu ddramâu fydd yn cael eu recordio yn ystod y flwyddyn, mwy na thebyg dros yr haf pan fo tywydd Cymru’n caniatáu.
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Mr Garlick: Certainly, for a time when much of the funding was lost, there was a significant reduction, but that was for a period. Due to the stabilisation that’s taken place, much of the work was given to a limited number of companies, and, clearly, for that reason, there were fewer companies. But last year and the year before, if I’m correct, then, there were 55 companies and, this year, 50 companies have been commissioned. Now, some of those commissions are for lengthy drama series running through the year, and another commission may be a single programme of one hour, but it provides work for an individual and a company. And, as Gareth said, these are companies that are spread across the whole of Wales, not just within a stone’s throw of Cardiff or even Caernarfon—they’re in Carmarthen and they’re in west Wales; they’re all over the place. As Gareth mentioned earlier, there are three new companies that have been commissioned to produce dramas that will be recorded over the summer, most likely, when the weather will be more friendly to that.
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[365] Mr Williams: Yn eu hadroddiad blynyddol, mae yna restr ohonyn nhw. Yn yr adroddiad blynyddol, rwy’n meddwl fy mod i’n iawn i ddweud bod yna enw ryw 90 cwmni. Mae rhai o’r rheini’n ddeiliaid hawlfraint fel yr Eisteddfod Genedlaethol, er enghraifft, sy’n cael cytundeb cynhyrchu cyngherddau nos, er enghraifft, i S4C, ac yn gwneud hynny o dan yr endid Eisteddfod Genedlaethol Cymru. Rŷch chi’n cael partneriaethau fel yna’n datblygu, a chwmnïau sy’n llythrennol newydd sbon yn ennill eu comisiynau cyntaf i gynhyrchu i S4C, a rheini, gobeithio, yn dod yn fodelau llwyddiannus wedyn, ac yn ennill mwy o waith.
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Mr Williams: In their annual report, there is a list of them. In the annual report, I think I’m right to say, there are the names of 90 companies. Some of those are copyright holders such as the National Eisteddfod, for example, which has a production agreement with regard to the evening concerts for S4C, and does that under the entity of the National Eisteddfod of Wales. There are partnerships like that developing and companies that are literally brand new winning their first commissions to produce for S4C, and those, hopefully, will become successful models and gain more work. |
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[366] Jeremy Miles: A ydych chi’n gweld yr effeithiau economaidd yn ymestyn tu hwnt i’r cwmnïau cynhyrchu a’u cyfranddeiliaid nhw i’r gweithluoedd? A ydy hynny’n digwydd neu a oes gwasgedd yn digwydd ar suppliers a’r criw ac ati? Beth yw’r darlun fanna?
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Jeremy Miles: Do you see the economic impacts extending beyond the production companies and their shareholders to the wider workforce? Is that happening or is there a pressure on suppliers and crew? What’s your view there? |
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[367] Mr Williams: Beth a welwch chi o bryd i’w gilydd yw trio, o bosib, cysoni pan fyddech chi angen criwio pethau. Mae e yn natur comisiynwyr, weithiau, i wneud penderfyniadau’n hwyr ac yn agos at y cyfnod cyfleu, ac mae angen criwio, ac mae’n dibynnu ar y deinamig o ran pa gynyrchiadau eraill sydd yna. Mae’n wych i gael y cynyrchiadau mawr yma’n dod i mewn i Gymru, ond, o ran y farchnad lawrydd, mae fe’n gallu cael effaith o ‘push-o’ prisiau lan ac mae’n gallu bod yn her, weithiau, i staffio’n briodol gyda’r arian cyfyngedig sydd ar gael.
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Mr Williams: What you will see from time to time, possibly, is a need to be consistent when you’re trying to crew productions. It’s in the nature of commissioners, sometimes, to make decisions late and close to the crucial dates, and you need to crew, and it depends on the dynamic in terms of what other productions are in existence. It’s great to have these big productions coming into Wales, but, in terms of the freelance market, it can have the effect of pushing prices up and it can be a challenge, sometimes, to staff appropriately with the restricted funding available.
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[368] Jeremy Miles: Beth yw effaith hynny ar y farchnad o ran graddfeydd a beth mae criwiau’n cael eu talu? A ydy hynny’n golygu eu bod nhw’n cael eu talu mwy, neu a oes gwasgedd y ffordd arall yn digwydd oherwydd ariannu S4C?
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Jeremy Miles: What is the impact of that on the market in terms of the grades and what the crews are paid? Does that mean that they are paid more, or is it squeezed the other way because of the funding within S4C?
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[369] Mr Williams: Mae’r gwasgedd ariannu’n creu, efallai, mwy o anghyfartaledd, fel yr oeddwn i’n sôn wrthych chi am y gost yr awr comisiwn sydd wedi digwydd. Mae’n gallu creu mwy o anghyfartaledd rhwng gwahanol cynyrchiadau i wahanol ddarlledwyr. Cewch chi byth rhyw un pris tariff sydd yn gyson trwy’r diwydiant i gyd. Nid ydym yn dadlau am hynny, ond fe welwch chi amrywiaethau mawr iawn ynglŷn â beth mae’r gwahanol raddfeydd yn cael eu talu.
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Mr Williams: The financial pressures create greater disparity, as I mentioned with regard to those per hour costs for a commission that have occurred. It can create a greater disparity between various productions for different producers. You will never get one tariff price that is consistent across the industry. We’re not making the case for that, but you do see great divergence in terms of what the various grades are paid. |
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[370] Mr Garlick: Ond, yn y pen draw, i ddod yn ôl at y pwynt yr oeddwn i’n ei wneud yn gynharach, mae yna reolau ynglŷn â beth rydych chi’n cael talu a beth nad ydych chi’n cael talu. Rydym yn glwm wrth y rheolau hynny. Mae yna reolau Equity i actorion ac yn y blaen, ac yn y blaen, ac mae’r cwmnïau’n gorfod glynu at hynny ac mae hynny’n mynd i mewn i’r gyllideb.
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Mr Garlick: But, ultimately, to come back to the point that was made earlier, there are rules on what you can pay and what you can’t pay. We are tied to those rules. There are Equity rules for actors and so on and so forth, and companies have to stick to that and that then goes into the budget. |
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[371] Jeremy Miles: Ac mae hynny’n wir pe baen nhw’n aelodau o TAC neu beidio.
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Jeremy Miles: And that’s true if they’re members of TAC or not. |
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[372] Mr Garlick: Ydy. Hynny yw, beth mae TAC yn ei wneud—mae gennym ni gytundeb rhwng TAC ac Equity a dyna’r cytundebau y mae cwmnïau fel Rondo yn eu defnyddio ac yn y blaen, ac MU a’r hyn a’r llall. Ond, os ydych chi’n ei wneud trwy TAC neu beidio, mae gofyn i chi dalu’r isafswm a chyflog teg, wrth gwrs—mae hynny’n naturiol. Ond i ddod â chi nôl at y pwynt yr oeddwn i’n ei ddweud yn gynharach am y dechnoleg, yna, os ydych chi’n mynd yn ôl 15 neu 20 mlynedd pan oedd ITV neu’r BBC yn mynd â chriw allan i ffilmio eitem newyddion, hyd yn oed, mi fyddai yna hanner dwsin o bobl yn mynd—wardrob, mecyp—i newyddion. Erbyn hyn, un dyn sydd yn mynd, fe sy’n cario’r camera, fe sy’n cario’r sain, fe sy’n cario’r golau, ac mai fe wedyn fydd yn mynd yn ôl i eistedd yng nghefn ei gar i olygu’r peth a’i yrru i Gaerdydd. Mae hynny, wrth gwrs, yn naturiol yn mynd i gael effaith.
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Mr Garlick: Yes, of course. That is, what TAC does is—we have an agreement between TAC and Equity and those are the contracts that companies such as Rondo and MU and so on use. But, if they’re a member of TAC or not, then you are required to pay that minimum and a fair wage, of course—that’s natural. But to return to a point I made earlier about the technology, if you go back 15 or 20 years when ITV or the BBC would take a crew out to film a news item, then there would be half a dozen people in that crew—wardrobe, make-up—and that was just for news. Well, now, it’s one person going and he carries the camera, the sound and lighting, and that individual will actually go back and sit in the back of the car to edit that and to send it to Cardiff. That is quite naturally going to have an impact.
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[373] Jeremy Miles: Diolch.
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Jeremy Miles: Thank you. |
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[374] Bethan Jenkins: Mae gan Suzy gwestiwn clou ychwanegol.
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Bethan Jenkins: Suzy has a quick additional question. |
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[375] Suzy Davies: I do want to push you a little bit on this question of rights, because we’ve had S4C in, and, in answer to their questions about why can’t they be more commercial, they’ve explained to us, ‘Well, actually, we don’t have the rights to the content half of the time.’ Not all content is exploitable commercially, but a lot of it is, yet you don’t see an awful lot of small production companies being able to exploit that capital value. What is wrong with having an arrangement with S4C that you work together to get the value out of these in terms of distribution?
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[376] Mr Garlick: I think this is going back to the point I was making earlier about the brief and, if we as companies see that there is a programme idea that is exploitable, that we start discussing the exploitation of that idea at the beginning of the process rather than at the end. Because, sometimes, at the end, people will say—
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[377] Suzy Davies: But who would do the exploiting in your early—? Contract law allows you both to—
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[378] Mr Garlick: Well, it’s a conversation that we probably still need to have. Do we as companies all come together and appoint somebody to go to MIPTV and so on and so forth, or do we still try and do it ourselves? There will be companies, I’m sure—I don’t know if Gareth is one of them, but there will be companies who’ll say, ‘No, I want to do it myself because then I get to keep whatever exploitation—’
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[379] Suzy Davies: No, I understand the—. But nothing’s happening at the moment, so can’t we have—? To use Neil’s words, why let the best the enemy of good?
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[380] Mr Williams: Mae eisiau mwy i ddigwydd, yn sicr, rŷch chi’n gywir, ac rwy’n credu bod y model yma o ffeindio ffyrdd i gynnwys S4C deithio’n ehangach ac yn fwy rhyngwladol dim ond yn beth da. Rwy’n credu bod Ron Jones yn berffaith gywir pan oedd e’n cyfeirio at y ffaith bod yna fesur o lwyddiant, a rhan o’r llwyddiant yna yw: a ydy’r cynnwys yma’n teithio? A ydy e’n mynd y tu hwnt i Gymru? A ydy pobl yn ei weld e yn ehangach na Chymru? Dychmygwch cynhyrchydd yn gallu dweud, ‘Mae fy rhaglen i wedi cael ei weld ym Mrasil, yn Ne Corea, yn Awstralia’—. Mae’n foddhad anferth i bobl, ac yn newyddion da iawn, iawn i S4C bod S4C yn cael ei weld yn rhyngwladol fel rhywun rŷm ni moyn gwneud busnes gyda nhw, achos dyma ddarlledwr sydd ag arian i wario ar gynnwys—‘Fe hoffwn i gael peth o’r cynnwys yna’. Mae yna straeon wnaiff deithio—dim pob un; mae peth o’r cynnwys yn mynd i weithio yn well ac orau i’r farchnad yng Nghymru, ac nid oes dim o’i le â hynny. Ond mae yna esiampl o bethau—
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Mr Williams: More needs to happen, certainly, you’re entirely right, and I do think that this model of finding ways for S4C’s content to travel internationally can only be a good thing. Ron Jones was quite right when he referred to the fact that there’s a measure for success, and part of that is whether this content travels. Does it go beyond Wales? Do people see it more broadly than just in Wales? Imagine a producer saying, ‘Well, my programme has been seen in Brazil, in South Korea, in Australia’—. It gives people huge satisfaction and it’s great news for S4C because S4C is seen internationally as someone that companies want to do business with, because here is a broadcaster that has money to spend on content—‘We would like some of that content’. There are stories that will travel—not all of them; some of the content will work better and will work best for the market in Wales, and there is nothing wrong with that. But there is an example of things— |
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[381] Suzy Davies: Na, rydw i’n derbyn hynny, ond mae hynny yn mynd i newid ar ôl—
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Suzy Davies: No, I accept that, but that’s going to change— |
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[382] Mr Willaims: O ran hawliau, yn aml iawn, y rhwystredigaethau yw y prinder adnoddau arbenigol, diffyg amser oherwydd bod y cyllidebau mor dynn—. Mae yna feddwl ar waith yn S4C nawr, rydw i’n teimlo, i geisio annog mwy o amser i edrych i weld beth yw apêl rhyngwladol y cynnwys ac mae hynny yn sicr i’w groesawu.
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Mr Willaims: In terms of rights, the frustrations very often are the shortage of specialist resources, lack of time because the budgets are so tight—. There is some thinking in S4C now, I feel, to try and encourage more time to look at the international appeal of the content and I think that’s certainly to be welcomed.
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[383] Bethan Jenkins: A fyddech chi yn erbyn beth mae PACT yn ei ddweud, felly? Maen nhw’n dweud y bydden nhw yn hollol yn erbyn syniad Ian Jones o gymryd yr hawliau yn ôl pe na fyddech chi fel cynhyrchwyr annibynnol yn defnyddio hynny. Beth yw’r broblem gyda hynny?
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Bethan Jenkins: Would you oppose what PACT says, then? They’ve said that they would be entirely against Ian Jones’s idea of taking the rights back where you as independent broadcasters wouldn’t use them. What’s the problem with that? |
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[384] Mr Williams: Mae eisiau i gynhyrchwyr annibynnol gael y cyfle yn gyntaf i ecsbloetio’r cynnwys.
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Mr Williams: We need independent companies to have the first opportunity to exploit the content.
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[385] Bethan Jenkins: Ie, ond, os nad ydych chi’n gwneud hynny, oni ddylai S4C gael yr hawlfraint i allu, os nad ydych chi yn gwneud hynny?
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Bethan Jenkins: Yes, but, if you don’t do that, shouldn’t S4C have the copyright to do so, if you’re not doing that? |
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[386] Mr Williams: Wel, byddwn i’n dadlau nôl bod ganddyn nhw ambell i deitl lle mae ganddyn nhw aseiniad llawn arnyn nhw ac maen nhw’n bia’r hawliau arnyn nhw. A ydyn nhw’n ecsbloetio’r rheini tu hwnt i’r hawliau sydd gyda nhw?
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Mr Williams: Well, I would say that they do have a few titles where they actually own the rights. Do they exploit those as much as they could? |
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[387] Suzy Davies: Nid ydw i’n awgrymu trosglwyddo’r hawliau. Rwy’n sôn am rywun i’ch helpu chi cael gwerth mas o’ch hawliau drwy gytundebau gyda phobl sy’n gallu dosbarthu’r stwff—yn gynnwys S4C.
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Suzy Davies: I’m not suggesting transferring the rights. I’m talking about somebody to help you to get value out of your rights through contracts with people who can distribute this stuff—including S4C.
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[388] Mr Williams: Mae hynny yn digwydd yn achos nifer fawr o—fe wnes i gyfeirio at gyfres rŷm ni’n datblygu yn gynharach, ac mae hynny’n digwydd yn fwy aml yn awr. Mae yna nifer o gwmnïau cynhyrchu yn gweithio ar y model yna, ac rŷm ni’n eu gweld yn mesur yn erbyn llwyddiannau rhyngwladol fel Y Gwyll, sydd wedi llwyddo i werthu ar draws y byd.
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Mr Williams: Well, that happens in a number of cases—I referred to a series we’re producing earlier, and that’s happening more and more often now. There are a number of production companies who are working on that model, and we do see some International successes such as Y Gwyll/Hinterland, which has sold across the world. |
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[389] Suzy Davies: Ocê, diolch.
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Suzy Davies: Okay, thank you.
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[390] Mr Williams: Mi fyddai fe’n braf iawn gweld mwy o ddramâu yn llwyddo yn yr un modd.
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Mr Williams: It would be good to see more dramas succeeding in that way.
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[391] Suzy Davies: Wel, byddai. Diolch.
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Suzy Davies: Yes, it would. Thank you.
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[392] Bethan Jenkins: Dyna’r amser sydd gyda ni ar hyn o bryd. Os oes unrhyw beth ychwanegol i chi ysgrifennu atom ni yng nghyd-destun rhai o'r cwestiynau heddiw—rydw i’n credu oedd Lee Waters wedi gofyn am yr ymchwil o ran S4C roeddech chi wedi siarad amdano, Iestyn Garlick. Hefyd, os oes unrhyw wybodaeth ychwanegol ynglŷn â sut rydych chi yn ecsbloetio ac yn gallu gwerthu ymlaen rhai o’r rhaglenni ar hyn o bryd, byddai hynny yn ein helpu ni i ddeall, os oes angen newid, sut, ac wedyn inni weld y darlun yn glir cyn i ni wneud unrhyw fath o sylwad. Byddwn i’n hapusach peidio â gwneud sylwad hyd nes eich bod chi’n rhoi mwy o wybodaeth i ni ar beth sy’n digwydd ar hyn o bryd, os bydd hynny’n iawn.
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Bethan Jenkins: That’s the time we have at the moment. If there’s anything in addition for you to write to us in the context of some of the questions that we’ve had today—I think that Lee, perhaps, asked about the research regarding S4C you spoke about, Iestyn Garlick. Also, if you have any additional information on how you do exploit and sell on some of the programmes at the moment, that would help us to understand, if there is a need for change, how that happens, and then for us to see the picture clearly before we make any comments. I would be happier not to comment until we’ve had more information from you about what’s happening currently, if that’s okay.
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12:15
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[393] Diolch ichi am roi tystiolaeth gerbron. Rwy’n siŵr y byddwch chi’n dilyn yr hyn yr ydym yn ei wneud yn rhan o’r adolygiad ar S4C yn y dyfodol. Diolch yn fawr iawn.
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Thank you for giving evidence this morning. I’m sure you will follow what we’re doing as part of the S4C review in the future. Thank you very much.
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[394] Mr Garlick: Diolch yn fawr iawn i chi. Diolch yn fawr.
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Mr Garlick: Thank you very much. Thank you.
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12:15
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Papurau
i’w Nodi
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[395] Bethan Jenkins: Rydym ni’n symud ymlaen yn awr at eitem 5. Mae yna un papur i’w nodi—ateb gan Archwilydd Cyffredinol Cymru i’r llythyr gen i am Gyngor Celfyddydau Cymru ar gaffael gwasanaethau. A oes unrhyw sylwad gan aelodau’r pwyllgor ynglŷn â sut y dylem ni gario ymlaen â’r drafodaeth yn hynny o beth? Lee Waters.
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Bethan Jenkins: We move on to item 5—papers to note. There is one paper to note—a reply from the Auditor General for Wales to the letter from myself on the Arts Council of Wales and the procurement of services. Are there any comments from committee members on how we should continue with the discussion in this regard? Lee Waters.
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[396] Lee Waters: Yes. Thank you. It’s an interesting reply. I think it does speak to the wider issue we discussed with Arts & Business Cymru and the arts council, and the subsequent letter from Nick Capaldi. I think it does go to a broader picture. I would like to hear more from the Welsh Government and the Wales Audit Office about the issues behind this letter and behind Nick Capaldi’s response. I think there’s merit in having them both side by side so we don’t have one referring to the other, so that we can try and resolve the issue and understand both perspectives simultaneously.
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[397] Bethan Jenkins: So, the Cabinet Secretary for the arts.
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[398] Lee Waters: Well, I think an official. I don’t think we need to—
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[399] Bethan Jenkins: Or an official.
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[400] Lee Waters: I think an official, and an official from the Wales Audit Office, just to understand—. Because it’s not clear to me whether or not this is an issue of Welsh Government regulations or an issue of Wales Audit Office interpretation of those regulations, or indeed the Arts Council of Wales’s anticipation of what our interpretation might be, if you follow my logic.
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[401] Bethan Jenkins: Okay. Yes.
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[402] Lee Waters: I think there are wider issues here that have an impact on the sector more broadly that it’s worth exploring.
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[403] Bethan Jenkins: Does anybody else have an opinion on that? Are people happy to try and get a panel of the Government and the auditor general on this particular issue? Okay. Great. We’ll look into doing that then. Thanks very much.
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12:17
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Cynnig o dan Reol Sefydlog 17.42 i Benderfynu
Gwahardd y Cyhoedd o’r Cyfarfod
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Cynnig:
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Motion:
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bod y pwyllgor yn penderfynu gwahardd y cyhoedd o weddill y cyfarfod yn unol â Rheol Sefydlog 17.42(vi).
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that the committee resolves to exclude the public from the remainder of the meeting in accordance with Standing Order 17.42(vi).
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Cynigiwyd y cynnig.
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[404] Bethan Jenkins: Symud ymlaen felly at eitem 6, cynnig o dan Reol Sefydlog 17.42 i wahardd y cyhoedd o’r cyfarfod ar gyfer eitem 7—a yw hynny’n iawn gan bawb? Grêt. Diolch yn fawr iawn.
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Bethan Jenkins: Moving on, therefore, to item 6, motion under Standing Order 17.42 to resolve to exclude the public from the meeting for item 7—is that okay with everybody? Great. Thank you very much.
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Derbyniwyd y cynnig.
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Daeth rhan gyhoeddus y cyfarfod i ben am
12:17.
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