Good morning, and welcome to the 26th meeting in 2017 of the Local Government and Communities Committee. I remind everyone to turn off mobile phones. As meeting papers are provided in digital format, members may use tablets during the meeting. Unfortunately, our deputy convener, Elaine Smith, cannot be with us and has given her apologies.
We move straight to agenda item 1, which is evidence as part of our inquiry into city region deals. We have several witnesses. I welcome Councillor Susan Aitken, who is the chair of Glasgow city region cabinet and leader of Glasgow City Council, and Kevin Rush, who is the director of regional economic growth with the Glasgow city region deal. I particularly thank Kevin Rush for taking us through some of the Glasgow city deal stuff yesterday on a committee visit—I am sure that we will come to that at some point.
I also welcome, from the Edinburgh and south-east Scotland city region deal partners, Councillor Adam McVey, who is the leader of the City of Edinburgh Council, and Andrew Kerr, who is the chief executive of the City of Edinburgh Council.
From Highland Council, we have Councillor Graham Ross, who is depute provost and leader of the Inverness and Highland city region deal, and John Robertson, who is programme manager with the city region deal.
I also welcome Councillor David Ross, who is the co-leader of Fife Council, Councillor Jenny Laing, who is the co-leader of Aberdeen City Council, and Richard Sweetnam, who is the head of economic development at Aberdeen City Council.
I thank everyone for coming. We have a pretty large panel of witnesses so, as I said earlier in private, I apologise if we have to restrict speaking by perhaps allowing only one person to speak where there are two people from one city region deal. If there is a specific question about one city region, not everyone has to answer. I want to give everyone a reasonable opportunity to have their say.
We will move straight to questions. I open with a general point, which will lead to a request for specific information. Last week, the committee heard that there is a contrast between the United Kingdom Government’s approach of maximising economic growth from city region deals and the Scottish Government’s aspiration to have a balance, including inclusive growth, which is the expression used. I know that the teams are at different stages of planning, implementation and delivery, but I am keen for every team to give an example of a project that has been, is being or will be delivered that involves inclusive growth. In particular, I would like to know how that will be monitored and what the benchmarks are.