Local Government and Communities Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Official Report 549KB pdf

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Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 (Subordinate Legislation)

Good morning everyone and welcome to the 11th meeting in 2016 of the Local Government and Communities Committee. I remind everyone present to turn off their mobile phones. As the meeting papers are provided in digital format, tablets may be used by members during the meeting. If you see us with laptops, we are honestly not doing other things; we are looking at our committee papers to better inform the questions that we have this morning.

We have a full house; no apologies have been received, I am happy to say.

Item 1 is subordinate legislation on parts 2, 3 and 5 of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015. The committee will take evidence from a number of witnesses. Nine Scottish statutory instruments relating to part 2 of the act on community planning, and part 5 on asset transfer requests were laid before Parliament on 10 November 2016.

Further SSIs relating to part 3 of the act on participation requests are expected to be laid before the Parliament later in the year. Evidence relating to that section will refer to regulations that are currently in draft form and will feed into formal scrutiny of the final instruments.

With that said, I welcome Ian Cooke, director of Development Trusts Association Scotland, Mhairi Wylie, chief officer of Highland Third Sector Interface, Ruchir Shah, policy manager at the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, and a weel-kent face around here, John Wilson, the chairperson at Glenboig Neighbourhood House. Good morning and thank you for attending this morning.

As we indicated, there are no opening statements at this stage so we will go straight to questions if witnesses are okay with that. Andy Wightman has indicated that he would like to ask the first question.

The statutory instruments that we are considering are part of a broader package of statutory instruments that are necessary to deliver the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2105. Given the complexity of some of the instruments and the detail that has gone into them, the Government consulted on them earlier in the year. Has that consultation been broadly adequate? Do you feel that the responses that either you or others have put in have informed the statutory instruments that are before us? Are you broadly content with that outcome?

Who would like to go first?

I will kick off.

I will focus on the asset transfer instruments, because that is what we have been most involved in, both in terms of our work historically and in terms of what we have done with the working group that has been producing the statutory guidance.

There have been lots of opportunities for consultation at the different stages of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015—probably more than is the case with the average act. In this latter part of the process, my sense is that there has been a bit more of a reaction from local authorities and public bodies against the asset transfer provision. From what we have seen of the guidance—obviously, we just got sight of that fairly recently—it looks reasonable, but my concern is that we are facing a wide range of attitudes in authorities and public bodies, ranging from local authorities that totally get the concept and are up for it and have been engaged in the process for some time to ones are far more recalcitrant.

I think that the guidance will work with the local authorities that are interested in asset transfer and want to engage in it. I am much less convinced that it will have an effect on the local authorities that are less keen to do so.

Does anyone want to add to that? It does not have to be specifically on asset transfer.

Ian Cooke has outlined some of the concerns that have been raised regarding local authorities that are not as willing to participate in the community asset transfer process as others.

For nearly two years, Glenboig Neighbourhood House has been involved in discussions with the local authority about developing a community asset transfer policy, and has been working on that with three organisations in North Lanarkshire. The difficulty is that that process stopped when the Government said that it was going to produce its own guidance. Like Ian Cooke, I fear that, although local authorities that are keen to fully participate in the process and work with communities that are interested in community asset transfers will do the job well, local authorities that are reluctant and which resist that move will not do so.

Some of the responses of local authorities and public bodies to the consultation that took place over the summer raise a number of issues about the ownership of the land, what can be transferred to communities and what should not be. The reality is that the community asset transfer process and the idea of community empowerment was about trying to ensure that, where communities could justify making an application for community ownership, the public bodies would work with those communities to help that happen.

The difficulty that I see is that many agencies will use the consultation process, and perhaps the guidance that has been issued, to resist working with communities to consider community asset transfers, whether the communities that are involved are geographical communities or are communities of interest.

There was a long lead-in in terms of the consultation on the bill—I was a member of a community empowerment reference group that was set up two years in advance of the act coming into being. There was a long period of engagement and a lot of interest at the time.

Right from the start, it was evident that there was a fundamental difference in thinking between local authorities and community and voluntary organisations. That split in thinking seems to carry on all the way through the process, so I am not surprised to hear colleagues such as Ian Cooke say that there has been a bit of a push-back from local authorities more recently.

During the consultation, we realised how much interest there was in ensuring that there were mechanisms by which the local authorities that would be quite interested in transferring assets and engaging more closely with their communities could do so legitimately and much more easily. One of the problems that we identified at the time, particularly in relation to participation requests, was that, if a more formal mechanism was coming on board, local authorities that already had very good relationships with communities might say, “Right. Hang on a second. We will prioritise the formal mechanisms and some of our more informal conversations with communities will then suffer as a result.” We were a bit concerned about that.

I have just heard the shift in priorities echoed in what John Wilson has said. Part of the thinking in local authorities is that, where a more formal mechanism is in play, there is almost an expectation that energy and resources should be put into that. I am a little concerned that local authorities that have advanced and have good relationships with communities, particularly on asset transfer and participation, might get tempted away from that and that there is a danger if the guidance is too prescriptive.

My concern about the guidance that has been consulted on in the past couple of months or so is that we have not been able to get the same level of engagement, interest and enthusiasm in the detail that there was during the build-up to the bill. I think that some of the provisions that are now coming out are being done very much more on the hoof and that more considered engagement took place for the bill.

I would like to make a general point. I echo some of what has already been said. There is a challenge. I agree that there has been a long run-up, and we have had good opportunities to have input, but I am a wee bit concerned. I know the effort that we put in in Highland to consult community groups that have had multitudes of questions right from the introduction of the bill. I am not convinced that there are people throughout Scotland who have confidence in understanding the legislation enough to go out and engage with communities and educate them so that they could have put forward questions to influence the consultation. There has been a bit of a gap in how we educate people when we get down to the finer detail, and particularly at this stage.

Those answers have inspired a couple of supplementary questions from MSPs, but does Andy Wightman want to follow up on what has been said first?

Yes. Obviously, I agree that the process has been a long one, and it is a bit exhausting at the end of it. However, we have the instruments that will make the act work and give communities the opportunity to utilise it for the first time.

To build on those answers, in general the rules around participation requests and asset transfers are perhaps necessarily complex and bureaucratic, given the act. I want to pick up on Mhairi Wylie’s point about working with communities. How important will it be to get an easy-to-use guide to the powers? At first blush, communities will not look at a statutory instrument, and they will not just have the powers in question; they have powers under other legislation, such as the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2016, to look at and evaluate in order to determine the best way forward. Informal approaches have, of course, always been a route. How is a process navigated in which the local authority might insist that formal routes are used when informal routes might be more productive?

That is massively so. It is not just about the guidance but about how communities are supported to understand and implement it. Communities are phenomenal, but they do not always agree with each other, let alone with anything else, so they need a lot of support. We are very lucky to have had support across agencies, and specifically from DTAS, when we have been out engaging with communities. We need more collaborative support to ensure that communities understand. They need an easy-to-understand document that they can to some extent hold the local authority and other public authorities to account against.

On Mr Wightman’s point about bureaucracy, as I understand it—I was a member of the committee in the previous parliamentary session and went through the committee’s scrutiny of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Bill—the committee was attempting to make it easier for communities to engage and to make requests for community asset transfers, and not to make the process overly bureaucratic. As Mhairi Wylie said, the difficulty is that, when we start to make things overly bureaucratic, the bureaucrats take over.

In many cases, communities have a simple ambition: to take over the running, ownership and delivery of their services. If you make the situation overly bureaucratic, you will frighten those communities out of fully engaging and participating in the process. We have the legislation in place—it is the guidance that will be set out in the statutory instruments that are being laid before Parliament—and it made it quite clear that we wanted to make community engagement easier. If we get statutory instruments that make things more difficult and bureaucratic, that will defeat the purpose of community empowerment and engagement in this process.

10:15  

There are three scenarios to take into account. First, there are local authorities that do not want to transfer assets or participate, and they will easily find ways around any guidance or rules that come into play under the community empowerment legislation. Secondly, there are local authorities—or, at least, departments of local authorities—that are very keen and interested and totally get the idea behind enhancing their communities and encouraging them to make best use of the assets in the area or opportunities to engage. Those authorities will be doing that sort of thing anyway, regardless of the legislation.

What we need to focus on is the third scenario, which lies in the middle—in other words, the local authorities that are a little bit ambivalent. There might be some champions in those authorities who totally get it and want to support their communities, while there are others who remain to be convinced. The provisions that we are discussing could be a powerful tool for them and would allow them to say, “This is a route we can follow and a process we can use” and to reassure those who are less inclined to give it a shot. That is, I think, where the provisions have the most value and what the guidance has to speak to.

A couple of members have supplementaries.

Thank you for your opening comments, which I found quite interesting. I speak as a serving councillor in South Lanarkshire, where a lot of this work is already going on.

I was interested to hear about North Lanarkshire. I believe that Mr Wilson is involved in a group that has taken over the community centre. Is that right?

We lease a former local authority-run community centre, from which we run a number of services, including the local post office. However, the lease is on a month-to-month basis, and I can go into detail later about some of the issues that we have faced in trying to move things forward and take ownership of the building.

The message that I am getting from all of you is that councils can use the legislation and guidance however they like. The question, therefore, is whether the guidance is robust enough.

To be honest, I think that we need to expand this beyond councils because, having spoken to a number of people in the community, I know that it is not just council assets that they are looking at. We need to be careful here. Yes, councils are involved, but how is this going to work with our national health service and other national bodies such as Police Scotland and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service?

In answer to the question whether the guidance is robust enough, I would probably say that, at the moment, it is not. It could be tightened up. If this exercise is about shifting power relationships between communities and the wider public sector, getting the guidance and the detail will, as members have said, be crucial, and I am not quite sure that we have got the balance right.

This will always be difficult, because it is also about shifting minds and changing cultures within organisations and, indeed, communities. That will take time, but we have an opportunity here to tighten the guidance and make it more robust.

How would you tighten it?

I have not looked at the guidance since the end of last week but, from what I have seen, one obvious area will lead to wasted time and effort by communities and potentially wasted public money if we do not get it right.

There is an informal process where the community can approach a public body about an asset, but nothing really happens until the community makes a formal asset transfer request. At that point, what is called the validation date kicks in. That means that the asset in question cannot be sold on in the intervening period until the process is concluded.

The problem is that, to get to that point, community organisations will often need to change their governance and set up a company. They will have to do business plans, suitability studies and options appraisal exercises. It is a lot of work and effort; to get all those ducks in a line is quite a challenge. In the meantime, the local authority or public body can go ahead and sell the asset. That raises the question of whether that is the best use of communities’ time. A second question is who is going to fund that work. Is the Scottish Land Fund or the Big Lottery Fund really going to fund that sort of feasibility business planning work if it knows that the local authority may sell that asset in the intervening period?

Thank you.

May I come in with a short question?

Yes, but after Ruth Maguire who has indicated that she wants to come in.

I want to explore that issue a little more. There will always be a tension between balancing the empowerment of folk and the bureaucracy—if we want to call it that—that is required to make sure that the transfer will be competent and work well. Communities may not traditionally have the skills that are needed, such as for setting up or changing the governance of assets; taking over assets is almost like running a business a lot of the time.

How do we get to a really good point? We are discussing giving over public assets; although we need to do things informally, quickly and easily, we also have to protect those public buildings and services. I would like to hear your opinions on those key factors. How do we make sure that our communities are ready?

That is a question that came up a lot when we spoke to people in communities. They are very conscious of the fact that, if they or other members of their community are to take on those assets, they need to ensure that the processes are there.

They had no particular solutions on that issue. We need to go back to basics to ensure that people have opportunities to develop their skill sets and that there is support for them, and we need robust but fair processes so that they make effective use of those opportunities.

The Glenboig community has been ready for almost 17 years to take on assets. We attempted over the past nine years to acquire the community centre, for which we had the lease. When that fell through because of planning restrictions that were placed upon the community, we decided on another site and were involved in negotiations for five years with the local authority about a community asset transfer. We are now back to considering the community centre because the council, as part of its review of facilities, asked whether we would be interested in it. We said that it would be useful for us to do that.

Communities themselves are more aware than anybody of what public assets are, and they want to defend them. A person may be told by a local authority that the community centre is hired out for 20 hours a week, and a community can take on the ownership of that. The community centre in Glenboig is used now for about 70 hours a week; that shows the balance that has to be struck between talking about public assets and community ownership. Many communities throughout Scotland want to take ownership because they see the failings of public bodies in how those facilities or land have been operated or managed. Many communities in Scotland understand the concept of public assets; they want to ensure that the best use of those assets is achieved. If that means taking on ownership, that opportunity should not prevent them from moving forward. We should consider the whole issue of public assets and the community good that can be achieved by asset transfers.

Mr Cooke, do you want to add to that?

It is a good question. I do not think that we have ever suggested that asset transfer or community ownership should be easy. You are right—there is a lot at stake. Getting the process right is as important for the community as it is for the public body that is disposing of the asset.

We talk about sustainable asset transfer. It is a case of getting the process right so that the disposing authority can have the confidence that the issue will not bounce back in a year or two’s time. Over the past 10 to 15 years in Scotland, we have accrued a lot of experience on how to do this, and the success rate is impressively high. It is certainly a lot higher than the start-up rate of private sector businesses.

I do not think that the process should be easy, but it must be fair and proportionate. If the 2015 act is about empowering communities, we cannot have them running around doing all sorts of work that might ultimately lead to nothing. That would represent a disempowerment of communities rather than an empowerment. There is a fundamental issue at the heart of this discussion.

I think that the answer might lie outside the 2015 act and the guidance on it. Scotland was recently selected to be a pioneer in the Open Government Partnership, which means that, for the next two years, Scotland will be able to showcase to a global audience how it is being open, transparent, participative and engaging. There is a bit of a momentum and an incentive behind that, certainly at Scottish Government level.

If, in addition to asset transfers, participation requests and all the various instruments in the 2015 act, we also had a very open approach, whereby decisions by public authorities about their assets, and the data that is fed into those decisions, were shared much more transparently and openly with the public, the hard light of day would easily reveal whether a sudden decision to sell a building had been made merely in response to the fact that a community was seeking an asset transfer or whether, alternatively, selling the asset represented a much better and more cost-effective approach. If the process was much more transparent and open and everybody knew what the situation was, the community would be much more able to decide whether it should invest its resources in a feasibility study, for example.

This entire provision, in combination with an open government approach at local and public authority level, might be the trick that is missing.

Those were really interesting answers. In relation to what John Wilson said, there is a community in my constituency that has taken a huge amount of time—through no fault of its own—to go through the process, but it has got there now.

When we talk about community voices, those voices are not always reflective of the whole area—they are sometimes the voices of people who have the skills and the confidence to make their voices heard. It is necessary to get a balance to make sure that, when we talk about what the community wants, that is reflective of the whole community. Getting the balance of that process right is crucially important.

Given that you namechecked Mr Wilson, I think that we should ask him how he makes sure that his organisation is representative of the whole community and not just of those who seek to be involved.

Glenboig Neighbourhood House has regularly carried out surveys among its population. For the past nine years, we have held open days on any plans that we have had for the community, whether for new facilities or new services. The plans have been made available and the local community has had the opportunity to come and view them. They have been displayed for the various groups that we help to support so that the views and aspirations of those individuals and groups can be reflected in what we are trying to achieve.

10:30  

There is a balance in ensuring that the wider community is consulted and informed and can participate in the process. We have an annual general meeting, which the population of Glenboig is invited to attend so that they can express their views and concerns and hear what is happening in the community, and we provide regular newsletters.

Not every community group does that but, given my past work experience, I agree with Ms Maguire that it is good practice to do that and to ensure that, if you are speaking on behalf of a community, it knows that you are speaking on its behalf. In that way, it can be reflected in the views and opinions that are put forward.

However, I would also throw this to the other side. If we consider public agencies and local authorities and the things that they have done to communities without any consultation, we see that both sides—not only communities but public agencies—need to be more forthcoming in terms of the consultation processes that they use when they do things to communities.

That is very appropriate point, Mr Wilson. Mhairi, do you want to comment on that?

I will make a quick point. We spoke to more than 100 community organisations and representatives about the 2015 act, and that was the number 1 issue. There is no easy solution, and it becomes even more difficult when we talk about communities of interest or association rather than just territorial or geographic communities. It is something that we, as support mechanisms for communities, need to be very strong on. There is no perfect answer; it has to be unique to each community.

Do Mr Shah or Mr Cooke want to add anything?

It is a good observation. There is no easy answer, but if a community is trying to utilise either the community right to buy or asset transfer, they have to demonstrate public support, and in some cases, it is quite an undertaking to do that. As Mhairi Wylie said, it is about sharing good practice, but the role of community bodies is clear in the guidance. I think that John Wilson’s point is that a democratic accountability mechanism has to be built into the bodies that can take on assets, and particularly public assets.

We have got the framework right. Communities are by definition quite messy and there will be tensions, but we can share good practice and build on that. To me, the issue is not a show stopper. There are other, more technical issues that we need to focus on.

Mr Shah, do you want to add anything?

No.

Elaine, you wanted to come in earlier. Has the moment passed or do you want to come in now?

I think it is still worth while for me to ask my question. I also want to ask about participation, but we have not got to that yet.

I will bring in Alexander Stewart before you move on to that.

Okay. I will briefly ask Mr Cooke about something that he said earlier. Sorry—I should say thank you to all the witnesses for coming, as it is the first time that I have asked anything.

Mr Cooke, you expressed concern about an asset transfer situation where a community is going through the process of trying to take over an asset but, in the meantime, the local authority or public body sells it. Is there a case for saying that, if the community reaches a certain point, the asset should be frozen? Should we look at whether that should apply?

Yes. At present, the point when the asset is frozen is quite far into the process. For the community to get to that point, it has to invest an incredible amount of effort and energy and, probably, access quite a lot of public money for a venture that could ultimately be unsuccessful.

I will give an example. I got a phone call this week from one of our members in Glasgow, which is an experienced development trust that owns other properties. A janitor’s house has been lying vacant for 10 years in that community. The development trust has spoken to a local school come up with a project that they both believe would benefit the school and the community. The development trust contacted the local authority and said, “Here’s what we’re thinking. What’s the situation?” The local authority’s response was to immediately put the house up for sale and market it.

That reflects some of the attitudes that the 2015 act has to take on. The development trust in that situation is an experienced one. We have to give less experienced organisations, particularly in disadvantaged areas, a fighting chance, and the point at which the asset is frozen is crucial to getting this right.

If a community has been using an asset on a month-to-month basis, such as Glenboig Neighbourhood House as outlined by John Wilson, and they expressed an interest in acquiring it, it would not seem fair for the local authority to suddenly decide that the asset should be sold off for commercial reasons. Is that the kind of thing that you are thinking about?

Absolutely. If Mark McRitchie from Community Central Hall in Glasgow were here, he could tell you that the organisation has been run from what was formerly the Methodist central halls in Maryhill Road in Glasgow for 20-odd years. It poured in lots of money that it raised to try to keep the building wind and water tight and to develop it. A number of years ago it asked the local authority whether it could buy the asset, because it had put a lot of investment into it and that made a lot of sense. The council said yes. There was a willing buyer, a willing seller and no problem about the price, but five years later that has still not happened. I do not know what happens in those situations, but there seem to be in-built blocks in the culture or the mechanisms of some local authorities and public bodies operating against such transfers.

Again, that is what the guidance needs to address.

I should have said at the outset that we were hoping that Mark McRitchie, the chief executive of Community Central Hall in Glasgow, would come along today. I know the organisation very well and commend its work. Thank you for mentioning it.

After the meeting, perhaps you can tell me whether the janitor’s house is in my constituency. If it is not, there is a similar situation elsewhere in Glasgow. Before we move on, do you have anything to add, Mr Wilson, given that you were namechecked?

I want to follow up on what Ian Cooke has said. I would argue that the point where a community declares an interest, either in land or premises, is the point where the local authority or public body should put a freeze on that asset, to say that a community interest has been declared.

In terms of some of the responses to the consultation process over the summer, the local authorities and other public bodies are talking about community groups carrying out feasibility studies, business plans and valuations in order to take forward the business case for acquiring an asset—that all takes money. It takes time to acquire that money and it takes time for the work to be undertaken.

Ian Cooke highlighted a good example in that if the local authority is made aware that there is a vacant property or piece of land and then decides to put it on the market, that defeats the whole purpose of community empowerment and the ability of the community to acquire the asset for its benefit.

Do you have a period of time to suggest for that? I know that it is like asking, “How long is a piece of string?” Many communities may make an initial declaration of interest and not have the capacity or support to follow that up, so there could be a freeze on a range of assets. Would three months or six months be appropriate? Are you thinking of having a cooling-off period during which the council could not market that land or property? Where would we strike the balance?

It is all of those, convener. If the community has identified a potential asset transfer, the local authority should take that on board and work with and assist the community group to go through the hoops that the authority has asked them to go through. As I said, to carry out a feasibility study and ensure that the group is capable of moving forward will take time. The piece of string might be three, six or even 12 months, but what is important is that the local authority declares that land or asset frozen until such time as the community group has the wherewithal to come back and say that it is interested in taking it forward, with the resources to do so and providing all the information required, or say that it has looked at the business case and that it will not work for the group, so it is willing for the local authority to dispose of the asset.

That is part of the difficulty. In many cases it is when the community identifies a piece of land or an asset that the local authority finally realises that they have it on their books and decides that it has to think about selling it or making some capital gain out of it.

Thank you for your answers so far, which have been very relevant. As a serving councillor in Perth and Kinross, I have seen the massive excitement that communities have when they have the opportunity for engagement, although that sometimes leads to frustration because of the complex issues that they then become involved in. As you said, one size does not fit all. A community sees something being successful elsewhere and thinks that it can do the same, but when it finds that there are further obstacles, excitement becomes disappointment and disillusionment. I understand the need for the guidance and the opportunity that it offers, but I am not sure how we get through that.

I have seen two groups trying to do the same thing. One group has been very successful, while the other has got nowhere and has become frustrated by the process, which it thinks has not worked for it. The question is how we manage that. The guidance needs to give people a flavour of what to expect. If the local authority or health board, or whoever has control of the asset, does not want to give away that control, there will be frustration in moving forward. How can we square that circle and ensure that there is a good response and outcome for the community? I have seen groups that have been excited and enthusiastic and for whom the process has worked well; others have been turned off and are frustrated because they have become embroiled in regulations.

That brings us back to the details of the guidance. If the guidance comes into force, how can we review it for the future? We would welcome your thoughts on that. Mr Cooke mentioned a lack of robustness in some areas.

There is definitely a case for strengthening the guidance and possibly for strengthening the regulations off the back of that, but we should be aware that we are in danger of chasing bad practice by issuing more and more regulations and guidance. That leads to more bureaucracy, which might work in one or two cases but is a burden for everyone else. The danger is that those public authorities that genuinely do not want to play ball will always find a way around the process, thus creating endless bureaucracy for everyone else as we try to introduce more regulations.

As I said, the open approach—strengthening freedom of information requests, open decision making and speeding up the publication of decisions, minutes and so on—has a strong part to play. Take the case of the janitor’s house that was mentioned earlier—if the local authority had known that it would have to explain its decisions or make its decision making public, it might have thought twice about taking that decision. If it still took that decision, it would have needed to be very confident that it was doing so in the best interests of the wider community.

That is a good question and one of the challenges. We have about 240 members throughout Scotland and we get phone calls from different groups at different stages of the process. There are things that we can do in the guidance and things that are beyond the guidance but which we must not lose sight of.

The process should not be easy. We are trying to test whether there is a credible proposition from the community and part of our jobs—the guidance helps with this—is to ensure that the community goes into it with its eyes open, so that it knows the implications and how much voluntary effort will be required. The community must be clear about the business plan. That is the key thing—in my experience, too often business plans are weak and sometimes local authorities are not the best readers of such plans.

The Scottish Government is placing increasing expectations on communities. If we are serious about that, we have to keep investing in communities and ensuring that they have the support to ensure that such endeavours are long term and sustainable.

10:45  

I echo what Ian Cooke said. Elements of the guidance could be tightened up, but there need to be things that sit in the act. If you were to go back to the principles, the ethos of the policy is community development. Therefore, we need to invest in community development and in communities themselves. We need to ensure that the guidance allows for that credibility of community voice.

A wee while ago, I had an experience while working with DTAS and a community. The community was struggling to get anything going, partly because of the small number of people there who had bought into the principle and it could not develop a business plan. We need to support communities so that they have full buy-in from the whole community. You could strengthen elements of the guidance in order to do that. Outside that, more needs to be done.

Mr Stewart’s original question was about community expectations, and he gave an example of two organisations in Perth and Kinross. One had a good experience; the other had a bad experience. Public agency and local authority staff are on a learning curve, too. It is not good enough to say that the communities that want to engage in the process have to be trained and sufficiently knowledgeable about what they want to do. Work also has to be done with public authorities so that their staff understand what the legislation is about and what we hope to achieve through it.

It was envisaged through the legislation that there would be greater community empowerment. If we have resistance in public agencies or local authorities to community asset transfer—at whatever level—barriers can be created to stop communities from acquiring those assets. It might not just be the chief executive or the council leader who is creating a barrier; someone lower down in the machinery might be saying, “I’m not really keen on transferring this asset. I can see a better use of this asset for something else, rather than giving it to the community to operate.”

We need to ensure not only that communities are informed, trained and sufficiently knowledgeable, but that local authorities and public agencies are suitably knowledgeable about the objectives that are set out in the legislation. That is about giving people greater influence and control over what is delivered in their communities.

We have just under 10 minutes left for questions. A couple of members still have themes to cover, with the possibility of a third member coming in—Andy Wightman might come back in, if there is time.

I think that everyone in the room is supportive of community empowerment and ownership, where possible. I am sure that everyone would agree that the initiative for community ownership should come from the community itself.

A few years ago, the local authority in the area that Ruth Maguire and I represent decided—more or less unilaterally—to try and offload community assets on to communities that were not only unprepared for that, but had no desire to take them on for a variety of reasons that I am sure you would be familiar with. What advice can we give to communities in those circumstances? What support can we give them?

I think I know the case to which Mr Gibson refers. It was about the transfer of an asset that was running at £0.5 million annual loss from the local authority to the community in the hope that the community would be able to run it and take on the debt.

That example takes us back to the need to look at the sustainability of a transfer, the business plan and the assets and whether the community group is fully versed in what it is going to do. At the end of the day, all the information on what would be involved must be made available to community organisations if they are to take on an asset. It is not about local authorities just deciding to dispose of assets that they cannot run at a profit by giving them to the community in order for the community to take on the liability and responsibility for running the facilities. It is about ensuring that any community organisation is fully aware of any issues that may arise. Therefore, the business case for taking on an asset must be looked at to ensure that it is viable.

One of the strengths of the 2015 act is that the community can make a bid for any asset. That kind of mitigates the danger of the public sector just trying to dispense with its liabilities, as opposed to assets. Part of our work, which is funded by the Scottish Government, is to encourage community organisations to make a critical choice and to understand whether something is an asset or a liability and, if it is a liability, whether it could be made an asset. In some cases, it could be, and we have some good examples of things being turned round in that way.

In my experience, communities work around market failure, either private sector or public sector market failure, which is challenging. As I said, they have to go in with their eyes open. As John Wilson pointed out, the business plan is critical. If a community cannot make something stack up or it does not have sufficient capacity, it should not go anywhere near that. Sometimes, a good outcome for us is if people in the community explore something and come to the conclusion that it is not for them or that there is another asset that would suit their purposes better.

Because of time constraints, if Ms Wylie or Mr Shah does not need to come in on the issue, we will get some of the dialogue back and forward that helps our scrutiny. If there is a burning issue that you must raise, please let me know, but Mr Gibson wants to follow up on that.

It is just a short follow-up. About six or seven years ago, North Ayrshire Council decided that, to reduce its liabilities and help with budgetary issues, it would simply say to a community, “You take over the community centre, or it’s going to close.” Basically, the council put a gun to the community’s head. Obviously, there was a furore about that and those things did not actually come to pass, but I am concerned that with the legislation, and given that local authorities and other bodies are under continuing pressure, there could be a push for communities to take on assets when they are not ready.

How can we cushion communities? We want to encourage people to take over assets where they have the potential and community capacity to do so, but we do not want people to be pushed over a cliff. At the end of the day, an asset could be lost because a public body does not want it and the community is not ready to take it on.

That is a really helpful point, although I am not sure whether there are specific answers to it, other than agreeing with it. We will hear from Mr Shah and then move to the next line of questioning.

The key thing there is the furore. The furore was there because it became public knowledge that the plan was to try to offload assets that needed to be enhanced, possibly to communities that could then bring in Big Lottery money or whatever to repair and enhance the assets.

On the core of the question, if there is an obligation on public authorities to share, on request from a community, any information or feasibility studies that they have commissioned about the assets that they hold, that would suddenly start to open up the conversation a bit more. Communities would be able to make a better informed choice on whether it is worth going down that route. Indeed, communities need that information to demonstrate that, even with knowledge of the assessment done by the authority, there is still an advantage in repairing an asset, so they want to pursue that. That should still be acceptable. The key thing is that the conversation needs to be opened up, and the documentation, analysis and data need to be shared more openly.

Is it also reasonable to say that we should not assume that something is a liability just because a local authority or other public body is losing money, because it is not being run as a business? I am thinking of Cadder community centre in my constituency, where Glasgow Life put the padlocks on and, a few months later, we took the padlocks off along with a local housing association. By definition, that saved the local authority money, because it disinvested from the local community. That community centre was never intended to be run for profit.

When an asset is to continue to be used for community benefit, should we expect local authorities and other public bodies not just to pass it to the community but to provide a dowry or some of the revenue running costs? I sneaked in ahead of Elaine Smith with that question, but I wonder whether it is important to put that on the record. Has that happened elsewhere, or should it be happening?

It has happened elsewhere, and it is really helpful to put that on the record. From what we have heard, the problem is that the process is quite confrontational. We are trying to get to a point at which we have constructive dialogue between the public sector and the community sector, we know our respective strengths and we come up with solutions for particular problems. Therefore, that suggestion should be on the record, because there are examples of that approach helping, particularly in the short term. It certainly changes the mindset of the local authority, because the process is then not just about getting rid of an asset; it is about redefining the partnership with the community to try to make the asset work in the longer term.

I indulged myself to put that on the record, so thank you, Mr Cooke. I should point out that, after £1.2 million from the Scottish regeneration fund, the community has a new community centre with the housing association as the anchor tenant, because the community got involved and tried to save what it saw as a community asset, which is a real win.

I hope that Elaine Smith will accept my apologies, but hers will have to be the final question.

That probably brings me quite neatly to my question, which is on the section on participation requests, which we have not really covered. I was interested in the issue, and I thank John Wilson and Glenboig Neighbourhood House for giving us the annual report, which contains a section on consultation. I know a bit about that, having been the constituency member for that area and now being a regional list member, so I am aware of the particular consultation that is mentioned in the annual report. I want to ask John Wilson how the community participation requests might work from that. Would there be a lot of unfunded costs for community groups?

Before John Wilson responds—and I will allow Elaine Smith a supplementary—if any other witnesses have final remarks, now would be a good time to make them, because we are getting very short for time.

The issue with participation requests, and part of the reason for submitting the annual report, is that the Glenboig Neighbourhood House is involved in delivering a range of services, some of which it delivers as standalone services—in childcare and elderly care, for example—while others are delivered in conjunction with the local authority and the health board. In terms of participation requests, Glenboig is actively involved in and runs some of the services that are made available Coatbridge wide, so we have a good relationship. However, we have to ensure that that relationship is maintained and that other communities have that opportunity to engage with the process.

Earlier, we talked about the liabilities, and the convener referred to the liabilities in a community facility that the community took on and was able to turn round. In many respects, community participation could result in better delivery of services in communities. If communities are allowed to get involved in the decision-making and participation processes of the local authorities in their areas, that could be beneficial to the local authority and to the general wellbeing of the population.

Does Elaine Smith want any of the other witnesses to comment on that?

No. Obviously it is an interesting example, but I would like to know whether the other witnesses think that there is anything that should be covered by the participation request process that is not included in the draft regulations.

This might be the last opportunity for witnesses to speak, so they should feel free to add anything that they have not been able to say so far. Let us start with Mr Cooke.

It seems that there are two things that need to be disentangled in that particular provision in the legislation. There is the right to participation, the right to information and the right to engage, which is great, but there is also the right for communities to request to deliver or co-deliver a service; John Wilson’s experience relates to that. For us, that is the more exciting part, because that is the new part of the 2015 act. Perhaps the guidance would benefit from disentangling both those issues.

When we have done our engagement work around the 2015 act, that is the section that people are most interested in. Without a doubt, even when all the points that have been picked up on—about the spectrum of possible involvement—have been explained, people have dived straight into delivering services. That is the part that they are focused on.

I do not think that we have done enough yet to get across the outcome improvement process to people, and that is what they are being asked to participate in. By its nature, that is a very public sector-focused and bureaucratic way to describe what happens and we need to break down some barriers about what that actually means and how it applies to what we are trying to do. Nevertheless, this is an exciting aspect of the 2015 act and I look forward to seeing how it works in practice.

My comment is a slightly blunter version of what Mhairi Wylie said. When we first saw the proposals for putting in the participation requests—not on the delivery side, but the requests to participate in the outcomes—we were quite concerned. It almost seemed like a request to be heard, and that jarred quite a bit. Are we at a stage in local authority engagement with communities at which we actually have to have a process by which people need to make a request even to be heard?

I mentioned earlier our concern that those departments within public authorities that already have a good relationship could have energy drawn away from them by that provision, because civil servants and officials would feel the need to focus their energies on those areas that had a much more formal process. Having said that, it is still quite early days, and there is potentially a lot of value where there are much more bureaucratic authorities that need to have a much more formal process in order even to get a conversation started. At this stage, it is early to tell how that will pan out and I suspect that we will need to revisit guidance in this area over the coming years.

11:00  

Given that the statutory instruments will come to this committee, would you be content for them to come into force with the caveat that this is not the end of the story and that they will have to be reviewed and monitored? I am not trying to put words into your mouths, but eventually the legislation will come to the committee, which is why we are doing the scrutiny. With all the caveats that have been given, would you be content for the instruments to come into force? It would be good to get an indication of that.

If there was the possibility for them still to be tweaked before that happened, we would support that. The suggestion of reviewing them after a period of time, to see where the weaknesses are, would be welcome too.

By and large I agree, but I should point out that there are other things that need to sit alongside the instruments, as noted in the paper, to do with the practicalities.

Yes. I think that continuous review is quite important.

As I said, all the SSIs will have to be taken together and looked at as a whole, rather than being adopted piecemeal. Like the others, I agree that the legislation should be under constant review, particularly by this committee.

I am sure that we will want to do that. This has been a useful evidence session and I thank all the witnesses for attending. At our meeting on 23 November, we will take evidence from a number of public bodies, including Police Scotland, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, NHS Ayrshire and Arran, Strathclyde Passenger Transport and Scottish Natural Heritage.

11:02 Meeting suspended.  

11:07 On resuming—