As I said earlier, Perth and Kinross has seen no drop-off in applications this year. Because the music tuition year does not coincide with the financial year, there is a time lag in getting the statistics, and we are only now gathering them in. However, as of this week, there has been no major drop-off.
On the second part of your question about what we would do if there were such a drop-off, one step that is open to us is the bursary scheme, which is an open-ended scheme. We are looking at qualifications, but we are fairly flexible about them, as things stand.
Another step that we will take involves working harder with our parent groups to see how we can help. The examples that I gave about car sharing and so on are relevant in that regard. Furthermore, we are considering purchasing additional instruments. We will get advice from our professionals on whether there are any gaps.
We have concerns about people who are at the margins. Some people will qualify for a variety of reasons, but someone who is just over the line might be disadvantaged. We want to work harder with parent groups to ensure that such people, who might be disincentivised, can participate. They are sometimes the folk who are hit hardest. Rural transport costs can be a big issue.
We are working on those things to try to minimise the effects. I assure you that none of this has been done with any pleasure, convener—the measures have been taken to protect the service to make sure that it is available in the future. If we had taken chunks out of the service, that would have been seriously bad for everybody.
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