Local Government and Communities Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Official Report 733KB pdf

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Pre-Budget Scrutiny

Agenda item 2 is an evidence session as part of our pre-budget scrutiny. At the end of last month, we wrote to the Scottish Government with our views in relation to next year’s budget. We touched on various issues, including the effect of single-year budget settlements on councils’ decision making; providing for certainty in the house-building budget post-2021; funding for preventative spend, including housing adaptations; climate change targets in local government; and wider fiscal reform and empowerment in local government. The committee agreed that it would be helpful to discuss those and other issues with the Scottish Government ahead of receiving its formal response.

I welcome to the meeting Aileen Campbell, who is the Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Local Government, and Kate Forbes, who is the Minister for Public Finance and Digital Economy. I invite the cabinet secretary to make a brief opening statement.

Good morning. I thank the committee for inviting us to give evidence as part of its pre-budget scrutiny. As the convener said, I am joined by Kate Forbes. We are supported by Shirley Laing, Brad Gilbert and Graham Owenson.

We very much welcome the committee’s pre-budget scrutiny and appreciate the work that it has done to date to give us a clear picture of its priorities. As we prepare for the budget, we face significant challenges, including demographic challenges, fiscal challenges that are a result of continued austerity and welfare reform, and the political uncertainty that is being caused by Brexit. In meeting those challenges, it is crucial that we work in partnership with local government and the wider public sector in precisely the way that Christie challenged us to do in his report back in 2011. That partnership approach and a desire and need to focus on outcomes led to the creation of the national performance framework and a focus on wellbeing, inclusive growth, tackling poverty and reducing inequality.

Partnership with local government has brought great rewards. We are on target to deliver 50,000 affordable homes in the current session of Parliament and we are working in partnership to end period poverty. We are collaborating to end homelessness and, together, we are expanding and improving early learning and childcare by developing flexible high-quality provision that will support children and their families.

Although that is good and transformative, challenges remain, and we know that we need to do more. The local governance review provides us with the opportunity to reshape democracy, strengthen community decision making and reimagine where power lies. Our work on housing up to 2040 enables us to think beyond parliamentary cycles and to create a new housing system for Scotland for the longer term. I hope that, beyond its budget scrutiny, the committee will engage on those pieces of work, as those elements speak to the reform and innovation that I think the committee is looking for us to take forward.

I have set out some of the key areas of work that are being progressed under my portfolio. I look forward to the questions that I know the committee will have, given the significant work that it has done with stakeholders.

Thank you. I believe that the minister wants to make a brief opening statement, too.

I thought that it would be helpful for me to sketch out where we are with the budget process in particular, and any other financial elements that the committee would like to know about. I thank the committee for having us.

As you will know, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Economy and Fair Work wrote to the Finance and Constitution Committee on 6 November to advise it that the Scottish budget could no longer be announced on 12 December because of the general election. That will have come as no surprise to members of the committee. Without the United Kingdom Government’s tax announcements and the Office for Budget Responsibility’s tax, social security and economic forecasts for the next UK budget, we do not have clarity on the funding that will be available for public services in Scotland. Given that that lack of clarity on future funding is accompanied by the threats of the UK exiting the European Union and of a disorderly Brexit, we are facing some of the most economically disruptive challenges that the country and the Scottish Government have had to face in 20 years of devolution.

When the new UK Government delivers the 2020-21 budget, decisions on how to allocate the resources that are available to Scotland will be taken collectively by the Cabinet as part of the spending review process, but we are already engaging with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and other parties to ensure that we give as much notice as possible. The spending review framework that was published in the medium-term financial strategy sets out our approach on resource and capital. In line with the national performance framework, it focuses on outcomes and wellbeing. We are determined to ensure that we make best use of our fiscal levers for the benefit of public services in Scotland.

Thank you. Can you provide concrete information on how the Scottish Government will manage to provide multiyear financial settlements for local government and respond to the concerns that have been raised about the decoupling of revenue and capital budgets?

I am happy to pick that up. We have previously given a commitment to provide a three-year funding settlement for local government from 2020-21. In the committee’s letter to Aileen Campbell, it outlined succinctly why that is to the advantage of local authorities. However, you will appreciate that, given the position on the budget following the UK Government’s announcement of the general election, although we are considering our approach to next year’s budget, the level of uncertainty to which our entire budget is subject makes it extremely difficult to plan for next year, let alone for the next three years. It is not a situation of our making or one that we want. We are liaising on the timing and the planning of the budget and we continue to have discussions with COSLA, but the situation makes it very difficult to plan beyond the next year.

You asked about the decoupling of the revenue and capital settlements. We will not decouple the revenue budgets from the capital budgets next year, but we will set out clearly our spending plans for resource and capital. I have already mentioned the spending review framework that was included in the medium-term financial strategy. It sets out the approach on resource and capital, which will involve multiyear reviews of spending. Following a recommendation that the budget process review group made, and as agreed with the Finance and Constitution Committee, there is a presumption that the Scottish Government will carry out a spending review that is linked to the equivalent UK spending review, in an effort to give as much notice as possible of our budget beyond next year.

I have a brief comment to make about capital, which you might want to cover in another question. The capital budgets beyond 2020-21 will take account of the Infrastructure Commission for Scotland’s findings at the end of December 2019. As members will know, it provides long-term strategic advice on national infrastructure priorities, and those recommendations will be critical to our next infrastructure investment plan.

I accept that problems arise this year, but are you still committed to providing multiyear financial settlements when the situation settles down?

As part of our discussions and negotiations with COSLA, there is certainly still a commitment that we will try to provide as much as possible by way of multiyear funding in the future, but in the light of the uncertainty that surrounds the 2020-21 budget, it is difficult to make that commitment for next year, let alone three-year budgets.

You mentioned that you have been in discussions with COSLA. A frustration is frequently expressed to this committee about the level of Government spending commitments that local authorities are mandated to carry through, which leaves them with little wriggle room in relation to the rest of their budgets. Have you had any discussions with COSLA about that and about fully funding Government commitments in the future?

I will deal with that on two levels. Essentially, you are referring to ring fencing. When the Scottish National Party came into government in 2007, one of the first steps that we took was to significantly reduce ring fencing. I will provide some context. In 2007, the ring-fenced grant accounted for £2.7 billion; now, it accounts for just under £900 million, which is less than 8 per cent of the total funding. Giving local authorities as much freedom as possible to use their funding as they see fit is a core element of the local government financing process.

On the issue of fully funding Government commitments in the future, I note that, first, education and healthcare are part of local authorities’ core purpose, and secondly, a lot of negotiation and discussion go on around those commitments. Members will have seen that clearly with early learning and childcare, for example. Local authorities were very clear about what they needed and the Scottish Government said that it would ensure that those funding commitments were met.

Have you had those discussions with COSLA recently?

We speak to COSLA regularly, and discussions about funding come up in almost every conversation. That includes discussions about Scottish Government commitments that local authorities are delivering. We are partnering with local authorities to deliver those commitments.

In the 2019-20 budget deal, the Scottish Green Party and the Scottish Government reached an agreement that included the following:

“We will work jointly with COSLA to agree a three year funding settlement for local government, along with a supporting rules-based framework.”

I take your point about one-year budgets and so on but, putting that to one side, there was no anticipation then that capital and revenue would be decoupled. If they have been decoupled or there is an intention that they will be decoupled beyond year 1, that is a breach of the agreement.

I think that I said quite clearly in my answer that we have no intention of decoupling.

My understanding is that there is no intention to decouple in year 1 but that there is an intention to decouple in year 2 and beyond.

I am not trying to hide anything with my words. I was simply stating that, certainly this year, we will not decouple. There are no plans that are live right now—

No, but the evidence that we have is that, beyond year 1, there will be a decoupling, which is something to do with some recommendations from the Infrastructure Commission for Scotland.

At the moment, our plan is not to decouple. What I was trying to say in my answer was that, going forward, we fully intend to take account of the Infrastructure Commission, but we will be clear in stating what capital budgets are and what revenue budgets are over the longer term, which is what COSLA would like us to do. It wants us to provide as much advance notice as possible of what capital and revenue budgets might look like.

I am not suggesting that we will decouple beyond next year; I am simply saying that we have no intention of decoupling this year. Going forward, in the light of the request around multiyear funding, one of the ways that will enable us to give as much long-term, multiyear information as possible will be the Infrastructure Commission’s findings, which will inform our decisions around capital.

An issue that came up quite a lot when the committee looked at sick leave and absence rates was the disparities between councils. What work is the Scottish Government undertaking with councils to promote best practice in managing those things?

I noted the evidence that the committee took. Local authorities are autonomous bodies that are responsible for the day-to-day management of their staff, including matters such as staff absenteeism. Work is under way through COSLA and support is on offer from the Improvement Service but, in any area where it would be helpful for the Government to be involved, we stand ready to be involved. That might involve looking at developing new policies to cope with different employment practices or trying to support staff in a much more empathetic and holistic way. We stand ready to provide any support that we can provide, including national guidance to support that work.

I take the autonomy of local authorities as read. The committee heard particularly good examples of the way in which Glasgow has changed things round. However, given the impact that levels of sickness and absence have on the country as a whole, what role can the Scottish Government have in ensuring that the good practice that has been followed in cities such as Glasgow is adopted by or at least put in front of other local authorities?

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If there is a need for the Scottish Government, working with COSLA, to take that national leadership role, we could help to support and share good practice and support the development of policies. More generally, I understand that the Improvement Service and the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers are involved in engagement in that regard.

We would be happy to be involved in whatever way local authorities and COSLA would like us to be involved, because it is an important issue. If there are ways in which we can share best practice and provide support, we can do that. There are probably a number of things that we could do. However, in anything that we do, we will respect the fact that local authorities are responsible for the day-to-day management of their staff. If there is a desire for us to be involved, we will of course help, and we will use any levers that we have to provide that support. That could involve sharing and showcasing good practice and all the things that can enable local authorities to change the culture and ensure that their staff feel supported. It is important that we look critically at ways to reduce absenteeism.

Thank you. As their nameplates have arrived, I officially welcome the cabinet secretary’s officials: Graham Owenson, Shirley Laing and Brad Gilbert.

I would like to clarify that I heard you correctly, cabinet secretary. Did you just offer to help councils to reduce the level of absenteeism? For some time, the committee has felt some frustration about the fact that we have wide disparities between councils with regard to absenteeism. In the worst cases, it represents quite a cost. As getting the levels down would benefit everyone, I would like to know whether you have made an actual offer to do something.

Absolutely. As I said to the convener, we are always happy to work with COSLA and local authorities to share good practice. If there is a desire for us to be involved in spreading the word about a good example of a local authority that is performing well, supporting its staff, reducing absenteeism and enabling people to feel supported when they come back to work, we are happy to be involved in that. Ultimately, this is about delivering good services to the communities that we represent. Part of that requires staff to be supported to deliver those services, so it is in all our interests to ensure that that work can continue.

The offer is there. If the local authorities and COSLA want to take it up, we are happy to engage with them and work out what our role might be and what the best way would be for us to be involved. We must bear it in mind that local authorities are autonomous and are in charge of their day-to-day management of their human resources processes and their personnel but, if they want us to be involved, we are happy to be involved.

We want to focus on outcomes and support people who need services to get back into work, because that involves a number of outcomes that are applicable to issues such as child poverty, in-work property and various related issues. It is in all our interests to ensure that we support people back into their employment.

I assure you that the Local Government and Communities Committee is not trying to take away the autonomy of local government.

Of course not, convener, but there are related issues around child poverty rates, in-work poverty, absence from work, statutory sick pay and various other issues that can disrupt family life and have wider knock-on impacts that affect the sense of wellbeing of the individual and their family. As I said, action in that regard is in the interests of all of us.

I do not know how much clearer I can be. If local authorities want us to be involved in that work, we stand ready to be involved in it because of the related policy issues that are impacted on by employment issues.

Housing organisations are looking to maintain the rolling development plans beyond 2021. Is there scope for a cross-party statement of intent to ensure that that happens? Is the Government willing to play its part in that regard?

In my opening remarks, I mentioned that we are looking to have a broader conversation around what the housing system should be like up to 2040. Consultation events on that issue are happening across the country at present and we have engaged thoroughly on it with various stakeholders. Further, we have our ambition to deliver 50,000 affordable homes up to 2021. The natural question is, “What next?”

Kate Forbes outlined the budgetary challenges that we face, given that we need clarity from the UK Government before we can set our budget. Some of those challenges will be wrapped up in the discussions. Given that housing is a really important part of Scotland’s infrastructure, we need to ensure that all those elements are in place before we make any commitments.

We understand that housing, and particularly social housing, is of critical importance. It impacts on the country’s wellbeing and on educational attainment—if children and young people have good houses in which they feel safe and warm, they perform better at school. The provision of good housing enables us to deliver on a number of outcomes in our national performance framework, so it is in the interest of every part of Government that we recognise the huge importance of housing beyond just bricks and mortar.

The fact is that the current budget situation does not give us the clarity that we need to be able to make a firm commitment. Nevertheless, I am sure that the committee will ensure that its points and concerns are articulated strongly with regard to what it would like the Government to do in our budget.

I am not quite sure that the cabinet secretary picked up on the question of whether, looking ahead to the next Scottish elections, there is scope for a cross-party statement of intent. That is something that the housing sector seeks.

Absolutely—we are asked about such things regularly. I am talking the committee through the challenges that we face in relation to the budget, and giving my thoughts on the wider importance of housing beyond simply the delivery of new housing. We have to think about housing in the round. It is about not only delivering new houses, but ensuring that we do not miss the need to improve existing stock.

If people want to work on housing on a cross-party basis, the housing target up to 2040 is a perfect vehicle to allow us to think collectively about what a new system might look like and how we can embed the changes that need to happen.

Speaking as my party’s housing spokesman, I certainly think that there is an opportunity for parties to get around the table ahead of the 2021 elections, to see what we can agree on.

Absolutely. The Labour Party has produced and published documents setting out its thoughts on housing, and we will happily engage with other political parties.

Part of my ambition in developing a new system is to ensure that we get out of the parliamentary cycle, which sees us competing against each other when in fact we probably all agree about the fundamental importance of housing. How do we make good use of that collective ambition in order to provide the stability that the housing sector wants, rather than limiting ourselves to the five-year electoral cycle? We need to think about how we plan for and change the system up to 2040. If Graham Simpson wants to tell me his thoughts and views, I will happily listen to and engage with him as part of our consultation and conversations that we are currently having.

That is another useful offer—thank you.

Good.

There you go, Mr Simpson—do not say that you never get anything out of this committee.

Andy Wightman has a question.

Before I move to my question, I want to follow up on Graham Simpson’s question. The original question was fairly straightforward. There is a commitment to an affordable house-building programme, but it runs only up to May 2021. Given the timescales that are involved in planning, procurement, developing land and so on, is the minister willing to agree in principle, with all the parties in Parliament, to a continued commitment on affordable house building beyond 2021 in order to provide some certainty and predictability for the housing sector?

The housing target up to 2040 is designed to—

No, I am not talking about 2040.

I am talking about the situation after 2021. I am setting out the context in which we want to plan and work across political parties to develop a vision and an ambition up to 2040. I am happy to work with political parties beyond the 2021 target. I am also articulating the significant challenges that we face in setting our budget and in giving a commitment at this time, but what we do immediately after 2021 will be part of the budget process—

So an in-principle commitment to deliver, for the sake of argument, 50,000 affordable homes in the next session would not cause a problem for you. I am talking about a statement in principle—obviously things can change and budgets can collapse.

That would be premature. The fact is that we currently have—I know that you want to dismiss it—an on-going consultation with the housing sector, in the widest possible sense, in order to understand what the housing requirements are, what people’s views and thoughts are and what communities feel and want.

I would not want to prejudge the outcome of those discussions by simply saying that there be a target of 50,000 houses. I think that we all understand and agree that there is a continued need, beyond the current target, to build and deliver social housing. I will not prejudge the outcomes of the consultation on housing up to 2040. I am happy to agree to meet the Green Party, to understand your thoughts and views on the matter.

I am asking for your view now on a very straightforward question about an affordable house-building programme.

I do not really understand how we can ask for a cross-party statement of intent and have the Government say, “We want to do this.” What is the point of discussions with the Green Party, the Conservative Party and the Labour Party if the Government has already said what it will do after 2021? The whole point is to have those discussions beforehand.

Andy Wightman can ask his next question now.

I will move on, convener. My next questions are on preventative spend. I do not want to touch on integration joint boards just now, because my colleague Graham Simpson will come to that issue shortly.

We have heard quite a lot of evidence about the difficulties involved in making the necessary investments to deliver genuine preventative spend programmes whereby we reduce the more acute demands on certain public services by stepping in at an early stage to prevent those demands from arising. It poses a challenge for local government, because investment is required up front, with a potential payback period of perhaps as long as five or 10 years.

What is the Government’s thinking on how to embed a programme of preventative spending, on which, I think, all parties have broadly agreed since the Christie commission, in order to ensure that local government can properly plan services for the medium and long term in a way that reduces demand on the more acute services by avoiding the need for people to enter the justice system or the health service, or by preventing people from becoming homeless?

Prevention is already prioritised as part of the national performance framework. As Andy Wightman said, prevention is rooted in the Christie commission’s recommendations. We can point to a number of policy areas in which prevention fundamentally underpins the decisions that we take. A good example is child poverty. Significant investment is going towards addressing that issue, because of the preventative role that it will play in respect of the future outcomes for individual children and society more generally.

We can also point to initiatives such as family nurse partnerships, the £1.4 billion of support for low-income households and the provision of £100 million to mitigate some of the worst impacts of the UK Government’s welfare cuts. All those things prevent a further impact on the wellbeing of such families. That is happening not only through our investment as a Government, but through the good work that local authorities are doing to support families. Local authorities have produced their own reports about what they are doing on child poverty in order to illustrate the policy developments that are taking place at that level.

I want to ask specifically about the accounting in that regard. Let us say that a local authority spends £100—that is a fictional amount—on a housing or health initiative, which saves the national health service or the police a certain sum of money that might amount to more or less than the original spend. How can we build an accounting framework to incentivise local government to undertake preventative spending? At present, the savings and benefits accrue to budgets that are held by other public sector organisations. We have not yet managed to create a funding and accountability framework that makes the process straightforward.

Kate Forbes will want to come in on that. In my discussions with a number of local authorities and public services, even as far back as my time as Minister for Children and Young People, the outcomes have often been the galvanising element. The Christie commission challenged us to remove some of the silos in which public financing sits, and to use the collective resource to maximise service delivery and the impact of that funding, regardless of where those pots of money sit across public life.

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From my experience with local government and community planning partners, I know that there has been, and there will be, frustration about the situation that Andy Wightman describes. In essence, however, good planning has enabled us to focus on outcomes and to deliver on the needs and aspirations of communities, regardless of where the spend is accounted for.

I take Andy Wightman’s point. It is challenging and difficult when we come to the core accounting beyond sharing budgets and active collaboration. Local authorities, like every other public body, have as much freedom and flexibility as possible to use their budgets as they see fit. I know that Andy Wightman said that he did not want to touch on IJBs, but that is an interesting example of an area in which, short of sharing budgets, it is very difficult to recycle savings between different organisations.

Every Government agency and department, along with local authorities and other public bodies, has the freedom and flexibility to work collaboratively in trying to resolve challenges. Last year, when the violence reduction unit was hitting the news in Scotland, reference was made time and again to the unlikely alliances between education, justice and other areas in order to deal with the core problem.

I will come at prevention from a slightly different perspective—a digital perspective. In order to invest in significant capital projects that we know will drive freedom and efficiency, we work collaboratively with local authorities, to support them to invest in improved digital services that will drive better outcomes. That is an active decision to collaborate and work together; it does not come about naturally by itself without the determination to collaborate. Short of forcing people to share budgets, it is about collaboration.

To some extent, it is an academic exercise. If the actions of one sector are benefiting another sector, is there not some way in which you can marry that up? In the next budget, for example, the sector that did the work might get a reward from the sector that benefited from that work. That is a theoretical example, but it is something that the committee has been looking at. We have had organisations in front of us talking—“complaining” might be too strong a word—about the fact that they do something that comes out of their budget, but the benefit is felt elsewhere. Is there any way that the Government could look at doing something about that? That is not an easy job—I do not expect you to come back in two weeks with a letter telling us that you have done it.

We look at those things at Cabinet level, so Aileen Campbell might be able to speak more knowledgeably about that. The budget is brought together as a whole, and the Cabinet makes a collective decision about it. That means that, when spend is being discussed in one portfolio area, there is another discussion happening about how it will benefit—or perhaps disrupt—another area. There is a collective decision-making process. If that is happening at the top, the hope is that organisations and agencies will work together to ensure that the savings are recycled.

I would point not to the Cabinet-level discussions, but to practical examples such as the early years collaborative, which brings together a range of professionals across the third sector, the NHS and education. A gamut of people are involved in the early stages of a child’s life. They agree on a set of outcomes and stretch aims—that is the improvement methodology that is used—to understand what they should focus on, who is best placed to do that and how to collaborate with and complement each other’s work.

That is driven by a focus on children’s lives, as opposed to thinking about where a child fits in terms of service delivery. The end result is that outcomes are improved, regardless of whose budget helped to create that result. We can measure a tangible improvement in how a child’s life has benefited from the collaboration that happens at the front end of delivery.

That also empowers front-line practitioners to challenge back up the line. As well as national leadership on how we embed prevention in a much more routine, disciplined way, we need front-line practitioners to be empowered on the ground. That happened through the early years collaborative, which is now the children and young people’s improvement collaborative. From what I saw, that empowerment of front-line practitioners enables much better decision making, because they focus on the needs of and the outcomes for an individual child, rather than getting het up about whose budget line did what. That might mean that, in 25 years’ time, that child will go to university rather than ending up in Polmont. That is a longer-term point of view.

It is important that we protect that early investment and do not let it slip during adolescence. Support needs to be provided at all stages and ages of a child’s life. Through the tackling child poverty delivery plan progress report, we endeavour to show a child’s life course and the range of support that Government and public life more generally can offer to support them so that they can contribute to society when they emerge from childhood into adulthood.

That example, and the violence reduction unit example that Kate Forbes gave, are examples of the type of situation that I am suggesting that we should try to get to eventually.

You have programmes that have worked extremely well in your policy area, but, in the general run of things, it is much more difficult, where some organisations—

It is difficult. Part of the issue comes back to the questions that were asked earlier about clarity. I think that we all have the aspiration of making better use of public resources. Christie challenged us to do that and the national performance framework demands that we do that. The public have no idea about whether what they pay in will go into the police pot, the NHS pot or the council pot; they just want good services. We need to make sure that we use that as our guiding principle when we marshal the money that is entrusted to us to spend.

We have had a session with local government and other interested parties on the financial state of local government in the medium and the long term. The call has been made fairly consistently for more certainty and for more autonomy. I am aware that the Government has convened, with COSLA, a local governance review. I am also aware that there are no plans to introduce legislation in that area in this session. Nevertheless, those conversations have been taking place. Can you give the committee any insight into your deliberations, particularly in relation to providing greater fiscal autonomy for local government?

I can give an overview of the local governance review; Kate Forbes leads on the fiscal element of that. You are right that there has been on-going discussion between the Scottish Government and local government. We jointly oversee the progression of the local governance review work. As part of that, consultation events have been held around the country, to gather communities’ thoughts and views on reimagining democracy in Scotland and what they would want from that.

There is the fiscal element, the functional element and the community element, which are about how we can engage with our communities and build on the community empowerment legislation. That work continues, and we are about to go out to communities again in an attempt to paint more of a picture of what might be possible. Communities expressed a desire for us to illustrate some of the models that might be more appropriate, so that they could get a better understanding of what is possible through engagement with that process.

We did not want to legislate at this time because we were called on to make sure that we did not lose the opportunity to get it right and to take a bit more time over the process. However, that does not stop us progressing some of the other pieces of work that we need to do and testing ideas in the short term. We are working with local authorities on consulting communities, to get a better understanding of the models that they would like to be tested, probed and worked through.

Kate Forbes leads on the work on the fiscal empowerment of local authorities.

The fiscal element is progressing as well. From my perspective, although there are three strands, including the fiscal strand, it is important to keep sight of them all, in the round.

The fiscal element focuses on two different areas. First, a number of pieces of work have been progressing since last year’s budget, which was the most significant empowerment of local authorities since devolution. There is the transient visitor levy, the workplace parking levy and the empty property relief. That aspect forms an element of the discussion.

The second element is what comes beyond that and how additional tax or revenue-raising powers sit in COSLA or local authorities’ wider financial settlement. Those conversations with COSLA are progressing. Some of the focus has been on this year’s activity, but we are still focusing on the future and how revenue raising sits in the wider funding settlement.

What is the Government’s view on how much fiscal autonomy local government should have?

We have taken steps this year in those three areas that I mentioned. We want to ensure that local authorities have as much freedom and flexibility on spend as they do on source of money.

On how local authorities come to their settlements now, I think that 42.9 per cent of overall revenue comes through either revenue raising, such as council tax, or from fees that they receive. That is not a bad starting point.

We are supportive of additional conversations. If COSLA has recommendations on revenue-raising powers, we would be open to discussing those.

Of that 42 per cent, fees and charges take up about 6 or 7 per cent. The rest comes from council tax—the Government instructs councils on the limits within which they can set rates—and non-domestic rates, which you set the rate for and Parliament approves. Local authorities do not have control over any of that tax element of that 42 per cent.

There may be a cap on council tax, but local authorities still have some freedom within that cap. The point is that all the revenue raised from NDR and council tax goes directly to local authorities.

Fiscal autonomy is not just about who owns the revenue; it is about the power to set rates and design the tax system.

That is why joint work is on-going between Government and local government. The agreement of local government has been essential for the work that Kate Forbes has progressed, alongside the other pillars of work that we are progressing. The openness is there to thoroughly consider any options, because it is a joint oversight between us and local government. It is not something that we are trying to impose on to local government; it is a joint endeavour overseen by us and COSLA.

Yes. I just wonder what the Government’s view is.

The Government’s view is quite simple. We are taking forward that work this year, and as part of that, if COSLA and local authorities have proposals to make, we will discuss and work through them.

Likewise, that offer is open to the committee, if you have particular views on what you would like to be in the local governance review. There is also the need to represent the things that communities would like to see, following the scrutiny that you have done on the budget. You should be considering and feeding into that.

I think that we will be.

I want to pick up on something that Andy Wightman said. There was mention of the workplace parking levy, which will, of course, be optional for councils. Given that we are doing pre-budget scrutiny, when you draw up your budget for local authorities, will there be an expectation that councils will use that levy? Will they be penalised if they do not use it?

The answer to that is an unequivocal no. That is an additional revenue-raising power for local authorities. It is optional for every local authority.

So the settlement will not take any account of that.

No.

Therefore, if local authorities choose to use the workplace parking levy, it will be extra money.

Absolutely.

Okay—that is clear enough.

Cabinet secretary, I want to ask about the budget for adaptations for registered social landlords, which we have asked you about previously. For seven years, it has been frozen at £10 million. In our letter to you, the committee made a specific ask for that budget to be increased. Are you prepared to consider that?

10:15  

If part of the committee’s response to us on the budget process is to ask us to increase the budget for adaptations, we will, of course, look at that, along with all the committee’s recommendations. At the moment, that is part of the wider considerations that are taking place on the overall budget. We have talked about the challenges that we face as a result of the budget coming imminently upon us. An increase for adaptations will be part of what we consider in the context of those wider discussions.

We understand the committee’s concerns, which it has raised previously. We face on-going demographic challenges, so there will be a continuing need for adaptations to housing. Last year, we also talked about how we can make better use of the funding pots, which sit in a number of different places. We might want to make that clearer and more transparent. That will be part of those wider discussions in a policy sense; we will not simply look at the issue from a budgetary perspective.

We have been talking about preventative spending. Funding adaptations is a really good use of money for preventative spending.

Absolutely. It is also about how we future proof houses and ensure that they are adaptable and suitable for people’s needs as they get older. It is not just a case of retrofitting adaptations; it is also about making sure that what we build is fit for purpose for the future.

I am not asking you to tell us what the budget will be—obviously, you cannot do that—but can I take it that you are sympathetic to that request?

The points that you make are robust. There is a need to make sure that adaptations are made so that people can live in their homes for longer, but that will have to be part of the wider consideration and discussion of the budget. We are not in a position to provide any figures. A call has been made for us to look at the policy more holistically, and we must do that.

I will move on to IJBs, as we have taken quite a lot of evidence on those. I want to address a couple of areas. There is a perceived imbalance of power between councils and health boards. We took some evidence on that from Unison, which told us:

“Most councils have a policy of making no compulsory redundancies, but the NHS’s policy is to make no redundancies at all.”

We heard that the fact that cuts within an IJB must be achieved through council redundancies has

“a disproportionate effect on social workers and others who work in that area.”—[Official Report, Local Government and Communities Committee, 2 October 2019; c 23, 22.]

We were told that their jobs are “more vulnerable”. From the evidence that we have heard, there seems to be a view that the power in that relationship appears to lie with health boards rather than with councils.

We have also been looking at the financing of IJBs, which is murky. Nobody seems to be able to drill down into who is spending what. We had a number of evidence sessions on that, and I know that the Health and Sport Committee is also looking at the need for greater transparency. What do you have to say about that issue and the disproportionate balance of power?

The IJBs have been designed to bring about collaboration and partnership work that will improve outcomes for communities. I know that the Health and Sport Committee is looking at the issue, and work is being done by the Government to make sure that integration takes place in a way that is acceptable to all parties. We want to increase the effectiveness of integration and to ensure that the outcomes that motivated the integration process are delivered.

I promise to get back to you on some of the issues around employment practices. It might just be that there are differences in set-ups and in the way that things are understood, and that some practices have caused frustration. We will get back to the committee on those points to ensure that it has the clarity that it needs and that the work that the Health and Sport Committee does in this area complements the Local Government and Communities Committee’s work.

I will speak about the finances. The Scottish Government works with the integration authorities to publish quarterly consolidated financial reports, which give details of financial performance, including information on the funding that is held in reserves. Those can all be found on the Scottish Government’s website.

The integration authorities are responsible for managing and delivering the financial balance for the health and social care responsibilities, and they have a requirement to produce audited accounts as well as annual performance reports to detail funding allocations from partner bodies and how those are spent. Although it is for local partners to negotiate and agree their budgets in a timely manner, we want to work with them to better integrate those financial arrangements. That is part of the ministerial steering group review’s work, which is looking at the integration process.

When partners develop integration schemes, there is clear guidance that says that they should set out their arrangements, particularly for risk sharing between bodies, including managing overspends or underspends. Each integration authority has such arrangements in place. However, they need to be revised every five years, and integration authorities in some areas are looking to further establish the arrangements that they have in place.

The “Ministerial Strategic Group for Health and Community Care, Review of Progress with Integration of Health and Social Care—Final Report” was published in February this year. IJBs have been working through that report’s recommendations. I am not sure that the workforce issues that you describe were as prominent then as they have been in the committee’s evidence sessions. However, a workforce planning work stream is looking to make improvements on that front.

When is the ministerial steering group review due to be completed?

I do not know. I am not involved with it, but I can get back to you with a date.

Thank you.

The evidence that we have received—to be fair, we are the Local Government and Communities Committee—is that the health boards appear to be the stumbling block in almost every department, as they seem to be less welcoming of the whole partnership idea. That is a real concern for us. We cannot have extra pressure put on local government if the health boards are not fulfilling their part of the deal.

Mention has been made of the finance reports, but what method is there for the Government to make sure that there is a good and fair partnership between local government and the health boards that will benefit the people they are meant to be serving?

That will be done in a number of ways. I talked about the national performance framework, which is not just for local government and national Government; it is designed to make sure that many other players in public life focus on outcomes. The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport, Jeane Freeman, sits on the local governance review, because of the importance of the health service’s role—it is a local governance review, not a local government review. Government leadership is essential to ensure that health boards play their full role in the IJB setting, and if issues emerge from the committee’s budgetary scrutiny, we will endeavour to follow those up.

We can point to many examples in which the health service is playing a full and proactive part. It is represented in the local governance review, and the public health priorities are a shared endeavour between the health service and local government. Questions have been asked about preventative spending. That involves looking at how we can support public health priorities, because that will take away the need to spend money at the acute end of the health service.

There are many ways in which health boards are playing their part. Of course, the health service has people out in the communities—a host of different people play a role in a community setting, whether they be midwives, health visitors or podiatrists—delivering services and crossing people’s thresholds. We should not lose sight of that in the narrative of what we are trying to create through the integration scheme.

I completely accept and agree with that. The health service obviously does a lot of great work. I am a great supporter of the IJBs—they are the way forward—but they only work if all the partners are willing to work together, and some of the evidence that we have received suggests that that is not always the case.

I want to pick up on that issue. Many comments have been made in evidence about the functioning of IJBs. A point that has frequently been made is that while some are functioning extremely well, some are not.

Pending implementation of the outcomes of reviews, surely there must be a way for whoever would lead on the issue to take control of the situation and to identify which IJBs are working well and which ones are not. They could then consider what can be done in the interim, as a matter of practicality, to bring about improvement, pending perhaps wider structural changes that may or may not happen following the on-going review. Would that be a practical way forward?

Absolutely. It was probably remiss of me not to say that, because it was part of my answer to the question on absenteeism. There are always opportunities to share good practice and learning points, and to work with other IJBs to flush out where good outcomes are being delivered, where challenges have been met and ways in which that learning can be shared. That is a proactive and positive way in which potential disparities in performance could be addressed. The same goes for much of public life—whether in the 32 local authorities or in different departments within those local authorities.

I want to move on to climate change, on which the committee took a lot of evidence from witnesses. Local government has two major areas to consider—transport and buildings—and it has a significant amount of influence on both. We received lots of evidence on the extent to which councils are working to promote carbon neutrality. How will the Scottish Government assess the extent to which councils are working on carbon neutrality and what are they delivering? How will it identify what further measures need to be put in place?

Consultation on the public sector’s role in responding to the global climate emergency is already under way. Our proposals include all public bodies, which means that councils must make their targets and the progress that they are making towards meeting them publicly available so that residents can see how well they are performing. That consultation is open until the start of next month.

As you said, it is very important that local authorities do as much work as everyone else to progress their work on carbon neutrality. I am conscious that that area of policy sits with another part of Government. We will endeavour to flush out further information if the committee wants it, but at the moment there is an on-going consultation about the role of the public sector in responding to the climate challenge. That closes at the end of next month, and the Government will examine the information that comes back.

We would be interested in that, because it is very relevant to my next question. What funding will be made available to enable councils to implement the climate change targets that are set out in the 2019 programme for government? I am interested in transport and buildings in particular, and also the issue of skills and knowledge.

We know that a heat networks bill is to be introduced, but planning is not a core issue. In your initial comments, you mentioned core services getting the funding that they need. We know that planning is critical to the climate change agenda, but it is within the unprotected area of local authority budgets. An additional set of skills and knowledge will be needed on top of what we have now. How can community heat networks be promoted when we do not have the required skills and resources in local authorities? We can almost name the fantastic work that is being done by some local authorities, but it is not being done universally by all councils.

Another issue is the opportunity for councils to provide bus services, which was considered as part of the Transport (Scotland) Bill that was passed only a few weeks ago.

Those are three areas where really innovative—totally new—work is needed. How will that be funded? What will the Scottish Government do in relation to knowledge and funding to enable local authorities to take the lead at community level?

Following the passing of the Planning (Scotland) Bill, we will be consulting on planning fees and performance towards the end of this year. As part of that process, we can look at issues such as increased fees for retrospective applications and all the other issues that were discussed during the progress of the planning bill. The principle was to ensure that improved performance could be linked to that. I know that the issue of how the resources generated from that might be used came up during the committee’s evidence sessions. That would be up to local authorities. However, we would want to be able to further engage on what is appropriate in terms of planning fees and cost recovery.

10:30  

Regarding the issue of building and the skills that are required, Professor Sean Smith has carried out a review of that. The review also considered the industry more generally, including the types of buildings and infrastructure that we are constructing and whether we have the necessary skills to be resilient to future challenges and the current climate change challenge. All of that is being looked at to make sure that we can gear up to ensure that we have the right skills to build the right things in the right way, so that we can make good on the carbon challenges.

You are right that there are other ways in which we can think critically about the transport provision of the budget and how we can embed more innovative thinking in practice. However, some of that is locked into the budget discussions that will have to take place. The climate emergency means that we have to think about things in an imaginative, innovative and different way—we cannot just continue as we are, otherwise we would not be responding to the emergency that we face. A lot of that will be caught up in the budget discussions.

The critical issue during the first half of our evidence session today has been about core services—priorities and areas where councils are under pressure—and those are areas where local authorities will really have to step up the work and do things that are either not currently being done by local authorities or are only being done by very few. That means that a huge transfer of knowledge will be needed, which also presents a risk. For example, if a local authority is developing a heat network, it is desirable for it to be low carbon, but there are financial risks involved. Local authorities need to learn from each other and from their experiences, or from other countries—some countries are 20 years ahead of us. It is important to look at how the need to respond to climate change is framed for local authorities.

I am keen to see that in the budget. The process in the run-up to the budget would be to see whether the Scottish Government would be putting in new resources. To cut to the chase, I recently asked the Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform and she said that the Government had reached a settlement with COSLA, which she indicated is the forum for dealing with these issues. I reflected at the time that given the nature of the climate emergency, the big-ticket changes you would be looking for are not within the financial framework that councils are operating within, particularly given their staffing constraints.

Part of the budget discussions that we will have will be about what the settlement will be and how local authorities prioritise their spending. We have a statutory target to reach around some of these things, and that has to drive progress across all public life, not just local authorities. That is why we are consulting on the role of the public sector and how it responds to that challenge. That consultation closes at the end of next month, so we have to consider all the responses and work out what we have to do differently to meet the targets that Roseanna Cunningham has set out within the legislation. We also need to consider what that means for day-to-day life more generally. That will be part of the discussions, and it will be up to the local authorities to then deliver on that through the budget settlement that ends up being agreed to.

There are also other ways to look at that, such as, for example, through the community planning partnership. We could look at whether this organisation could discuss ways to bring together the people who are making decisions within communities, and whether it could discuss how climate change will impact on the communities that this organisation serves.

The Scottish leaders forum also has climate change as one of its priority work streams. Again, that forum brings together all the leaders from local authorities, including health boards and others from across the whole of public life. Those bodies are looking at what more they need to do to respond to the challenges that have been set out. Climate change is a priority that has been set out by the Scottish Government and it is a priority of Scottish leaders. There will be discussions throughout the budget process about what is attributed by individual local authorities to meet that challenge.

That really squares with all the evidence that has been provided by witnesses that the work is needed. You are saying that we will need to look to the budget for that, and we will need to wait and see.

Yes, but as I said, that workstream is being taken forward by the Scottish leaders forum to ensure they are responding adequately in public life. The forum is led by Colin Sinclair, the chief executive of NHS National Services Scotland, and Sally Loudon, chief executive of COSLA.

That has been led from the front by our leaders in public life, to work out what they do as the public sector to respond to the challenge, alongside the work that we are doing to consult with them on the practical issues that they need to address. That includes how they need to change what they do; what they need to fund; what they need to think about differently; whether their existing commitments tally with the fact that we now have a very pressing climate change problem to address; whether that means that we have to rethink our past prioritisation in spending, and how we do that by looking through the lens of child poverty, without embedding further inequalities more generally; and making sure that the transition to a low-carbon economy is a just one.

Local authorities are already heavily involved in the vehicle charging network. The committee has heard evidence that, if we are to step up the use of and demand for electric vehicles such as cars, buses and bikes, we need charging points. Although we have some infrastructure for that, it is not going to meet future needs and demand. Will you give us an update on your plans to expand the vehicle charging network?

The programme for government contains our commitment to continuing to support charging up to 2022, and to support the creation of 20 electric towns across the country. We now have more than 1,200 charge points, and the £20 million funding that was announced earlier this year will see another 800 charge points added to that network.

We are also working with local authorities, SP Energy Networks, SSE plc, and others, to work out what more we can do and how we can work collaboratively to deliver on that aspiration. That does not sit wholly within my portfolio, so if there is anything else that you want to probe and test, we will happily get back to you.

We would be very interested, because it links directly to planning. If you are building new houses or extending communities, that infrastructure is crucial from day one, so that people can see it before they actually move in and invest accordingly.

You are absolutely right. Funding is there, existing networks and infrastructure are in place, and there is an ambition to do more, with funding attached. That work is on-going, alongside the energy providers and network operators, to work out how we deliver that.

You are right to ask how that links with housing up to 2040. Do we have the right infrastructure? Do we need to do more there? Do we need to have much more planning embedded, to make sure that people can live the life that we expect them to live, and cope with the climate emergency that is upon us? These issues do not just belong to one portfolio; I am conscious that Roseanna Cunningham has more of the specifics around charging points.

I accept all that, but I am conscious that communities are expanding and new communities are being built. From the 2040 perspective, that infrastructure brings the opportunity to do it now, as opposed to the big agenda of retrofitting which you rightly mention.

Yes, and it is—

Okay. I want to move on.

I just want to say—

Hold on a second, please. The committee can write to Ms Cunningham and see what information we can get back. Be very brief, Ms Campbell, please.

Although the housing work that we are doing is planned up to 2040, that does not mean that we will just do the work at the end of 2040. It is about on-going work, and that came through in the evidence that the committee received. If you want to change systems, you need to do it over time. It will not happen overnight.

As you will know, the housing sector is looking for longer-term certainty around what it has to build, how it has to build it, and what it needs to gear up for. It is not about a big bang at the end of 2040 and suddenly having a new system; it is incremental work and culture change is necessary.

The committee has heard evidence that the procurement rules and practices that are in place are quite challenging, and that those rules and practices were brought into place to support, assist and improve, but they might be creating barriers to effective service delivery across the piece. It would be good to get the Government’s view on that.

That is something else that the committee has brought up previously. I can understand that there are frustrations, but the procurement legislation has been designed to be flexible, to ensure that we get more small and medium-sized enterprises into the pipeline, and to support our local businesses. The changes that we have brought about through the legislation have been designed to do some of that. If there are particular frustrations, it would be good to get more detail and clarity on where those have been so that we can work through them.

We also hear that there is a bit of risk aversion in public life with regard to how procurement can be used to deliver on wider aspirations. To go back to Annabelle Ewing’s point, it might be a question of sharing good practice and learning from others who are doing good things.

I also point to the work that is being done in Ayrshire on community wealth building, which I think is particularly interesting. I had an extremely informative meeting with a councillor from Preston on the work that Preston City Council has done, and it is interesting to see the development of the community wealth building approach across all three Ayrshire council areas. Tools such as procurement are being used to embed fair work practices, to tackle inequality and to make sure that communities benefit from the public money that is in the system, and that work is linked to the regional deals. That is an example of a case in which procurement has been used in an imaginative and innovative way to deliver services and a host of other outcomes.

I indicated that there are challenges, but you have identified that there are real opportunities to develop and expand that process to ensure that you achieve value and that the necessary support mechanism is there. Will some redesigning or restructuring be required to ensure that that happens? As you have identified, some councils are quite forward thinking and progressive in what they are trying to achieve, whereas others seem to be averse to taking such an approach. If the system was redesigned, would that help all councils to feel more confident?

It could do. However, people are being bold and imaginative within the existing structure, so it is clear that there is no hindrance or barrier to some councils. What has enabled those local authorities to try out different things to support their third sector and their SMEs? At national level, we have some good statistics on how many SMEs are interacting with the procurement system, but we need to think about how we tackle risk aversion and enable those authorities that are risk averse to be enlightened by other authorities that are doing interesting things.

The work that has been done in Ayrshire has already triggered thinking by other local authorities about how best to use their city deal money and how to look at such matters in a different way. That is important to me, because the other parts of my portfolio are about how we meet poverty targets, reduce inequality and improve people’s life chances by enabling them to access employment that is paid fairly. If all those things can be achieved through the imaginative use of procurement, we must support that. We can point to the Ayrshire councils for doing some creative thinking.

It has been put to us in many submissions that the best way to manage the situation would be to transform and redesign the procurement process. Budget constraint is an issue. There is an envelope of money that needs to be managed to ensure that development and expansion can take place. Because of the way in which councils are looking at their communities, what the impact might be on their communities and where they believe they should be taking their communities, they do not yet have the confidence to make progress on the issue, with the result that the procurement situation has become more of a barrier than an enabler. We want it to be an enabler, because the enabling needs to take place.

I agree with Alexander Stewart, convener—I was about to say “Presiding Officer”.

He has been promoted.

Although there is some good practice, we need to focus on the risk aversion in the system that is preventing it from being adopted across all areas.

We are drawing near to the close of our session. We have left the best till last—Annabelle Ewing has a couple of questions.

10:45  

That is his campaign for Presiding Officer started already.

It did not enter my head.

I will pick up from where Alexander Stewart got to. We had an interesting session with Professors Kenneth Gibb and James Mitchell, looking at potential alternative models of delivery and the way forward. We tried to pick up on all the good points that the cabinet secretary made on how to unlock the potential that is out there and get people working together.

A point that has come across frequently, and which is picked up in the IJB debate, is on how everyone works in their silo. How do we get people out of their silos? Professor Mitchell commented:

“One of the problems is that we appoint to such institutions in silos, we train in silos and we generally work in silos.”—[Official Report, Local Government and Communities Committee, 9 October 2019; c 45.]

He went on to advocate a stick-and-carrot approach, rather than one that he termed “sermonising”. That is an interesting idea. How do we get to a better place? How do we get out of silo working? It is a culture that seems to affect any exciting initiatives that are proposed. Nonetheless, during implementation, it seems to go back into the silo culture.

One issue that Professor Mitchell suggested was incentivisation, which picks up on Mr Wightman’s comment from a wee while back. It would be interesting to hear a wee bit more from the minister on that issue, in terms of the accounting and so forth, because we know that incentivising human beings is more likely to reap rewards in all manner of ways. I am sorry for the broad-brush approach, but I think it is important, because at the end of the day we are relying on individuals to provide the service. How do we do that into the future and in a different way to get good and more consistent results?

I will kick off. I point again to the early years collaborative as one way of fundamentally breaking down some of those barriers, and bringing people together, regardless of whether they are from the NHS, councils, the Government or the third sector, to focus on the needs of the child. The principles of the person-centred approach are important in trying to break through some of the silos.

Another area that I would point to in breaking down some of the silos—I have seen it happen in real life—is when we apply the place principle, which has been adopted by the Government and local authorities. Focusing on a place as opposed to focusing on the health and education services that we provide to the community and not what other things are going on, and thinking about the holistic needs of the place can be the driver that breaks down some of those silos.

I hope that we will align some of the funding streams. If you are building houses, you need to know what you need around that and how to meet climate change targets. What do you do for active travel around those houses? How do you align all the funding streams and opportunities in a more sensible way? The sense of place is something that I can see breaking down the silos. I suppose that the question is: how do we make that happen as business as usual?

The next step is how we get from pockets of good practice to it being the norm, with person-centred services and a place-based approach. I mentioned the Scottish leaders forum in response to Sarah Boyack’s question, because of its workstream on climate change. It also has a workstream on incentives, which might unpick some further opportunity for different approaches. I point to those examples, which, as I have seen, can bulldoze through some of that silo mentality. The early years collaborative is fundamentally empowering people on the front line to make substantial decisions that enable them to challenge further up the pecking order and question the aye-been culture.

I am very interested in the concept of incentivisation, because it moves us away from talking about inputs to talking about outcomes. Although we can all discuss that rhetorically, incentives actually make that shift. Although we may all agree, across the public sector, certainly between the Scottish Government and COSLA, on what the outcomes should be, such as improving people’s lives, linking that to the more tangible outcomes that we want to see is something that I would be interested in exploring further.

It drives more collaboration, so I can certainly commit myself to some preliminary consideration of that within Government but, more critically, to discussing it with COSLA. The place for that, if it is not in the budget process, will be in the local governance review. It is certainly a conversation that I will happily have with COSLA as part of our discussions on funding.

That is positive. Thank you.

I would like to add a practical example of where the place principle has worked to transform an area: the Clyde gateway. It has brought together housing, health, the community, the police, the women’s library—a whole host of different players—and it has fundamentally regenerated the area, providing it with opportunity. People in the community feel heartened because what they see is not projectitis, which they have experienced in the past when they have been promised much but have not seen any change, but the Clyde gateway approach having transformed the area. It has done that with and alongside, rather than to, the community. The area has started to see opportunities for employment, new housing and things that never would have previously wanted to settle in the east end of Glasgow. It is through that type of approach that you start to see the real benefit of focusing on a place and what that place needs, and delivering services accordingly, as opposed to doing it on your own because you need to meet a target for housing, or to build a new road, in isolation.

There may be an opportunity for a future visit.

Yes, it would be a good—

Excuse me. We are over time, so—

I have one last point to make, which involves the suggestion by the Robertson Trust about the model of social bridging finance. I will not ask the cabinet secretary and the minister to go into it in detail today. The model essentially brings together the public sector, the third sector and independent funders. The risk that is apparently taken by the independent funders involves not a financial return, but social impact. The Robertson Trust is currently carrying out an evaluation of that model. I ask the cabinet secretary and the minister to undertake to have a greater look at it, and to consider and reflect upon it, to see to what extent it might be appropriate to help promote the model in relevant areas of economic activity, because it sounds like an interesting idea.

Absolutely. We currently support a lot of the work of the Robertson Trust, so it would be easy for us to pledge to work with it to understand its approach and take out any future learning.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you very much, and thank you, Annabelle.

I thank the cabinet secretary and minister for attending today’s session. We look forward to seeing the Government’s response to the committee’s letter in due course; at least we know some of what will be in it.

I suspend the meeting to allow for a witness changeover and to establish a videolink.

10:52 Meeting suspended.  

10:57 On resuming—