Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee

Future work

At its meetings on 18 and 25 June 2024, the Committee agreed a programme of future work. The programme is structured around a set of key themes under each element of the Committee’s remit.

Local Government

At the heart of the Committee’s work on local government is a focus on ensuring that local government can be as effective as possible in delivering for the communities it serves and empowering those communities.

In looking at empowering both local government and in turn communities, the Committee agreed that it would consider the relationship between central and local government, what local government needs to be effective and how culture should change to ensure that power is devolved to appropriate levels to provide for genuine community empowerment.

To give effect to this approach, the Committee agreed to focus its work around the following key themes:

• Are local government and central government working effectively together as equal partners to deliver on shared priorities and reduce inequalities?
• Does local government have the necessary:

1. clarity on what is a local government matter and what is central government matter,
2. certainty and levels of funding,
3. flexibility, and
4. autonomy to operate effectively and meet the challenges faced in each local authority area?

• Is local government pursuing a public service reform agenda, working effectively and collaboratively to make best use of finite resources to deliver for its communities?
• Do we have the right structures in place to allow local government to be effective, maintain services and support its workforce?
• Are communities being empowered to shape their priorities and deliver them?

In pursuing these themes, the Committee will continue to undertake work in relation to:

• The Local Governance Review
• The New Deal for local government
• Understanding barriers to local elected office 

The Committee will focus its pre-budget scrutiny this year on the local government budget and more specifically on issues around the sustainability of local government finances.

The Committee will also continue to closely monitor progress in relation to its previously undertaken work in relation to:

• Post-legislative scrutiny of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015
• Community Councils
• Community Wealth building

Housing

The second element of the Committee’s remit relates to housing matters.

Central to the Committee’s work is a focus on ensuring that Scotland has the number of homes needed to meet current and future need and that house building is taking place in the right places and to the right standards.

The Scottish Government sets out its ambitions for housing in Housing to 2040 and last year the Committee focussed its work on this strategy. Since then, the Scottish Government has declared a housing emergency and with that in mind the Committee’s work will focus on both the adequacy of that strategy and the response to the housing emergency.

The Committee will focus on the following themes:

• What does it mean to have a housing emergency and how is the Scottish Government working with partners in the private and public sector to respond to it?
• Are we building enough homes or bringing enough homes back into use to meet Scotland’s current and future housing needs?
• Are we making the best use of land in Scotland to meet Scotland’s housing needs?
• Are we building homes with a focus on placemaking?
• Are we creating and sustaining a mix of housing that is financially and physically accessible to all?
• Are we building homes that provide for affordable warmth and zero emissions?
• Are we ensuring that new and existing homes are safe and of a high quality?

In pursuing these themes, in the context of Housing to 2040 and the housing emergency the Committee will continue to pursue work in relation to:

• the response to the housing emergency from national and local government
• the adequacy of Housing to 2040 to meet these challenges
• the delivery of the affordable housing supply programme
• retrofitting of housing for net zero
• short-term lets
• damp and mould in the rental sector
• cladding
• RAAC

Over the course of this year the Committee will also continue to consider the Housing (Scotland) Bill.

Planning

The Committee’s focus around planning continues to be on the National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4), which came into effect in February 2023.

The Committee undertook its first annual review of NPF4 in 2024 to see how it is being translated into local development plans and the extent to which it is achieving its transformational aims.

The Committee will undertake a second review in 2025.

Correspondence

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Official Reports of meetings

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Committee reports

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To consider and report on matters relating to local government and planning falling within the responsibility of the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government, matters within the responsibility of the Cabinet Secretary for Housing, with the exception of matters related to homelessness and rough sleeping, fuel poverty, and welfare and debt advice services; and matters relating to local government boundaries, local governance review and democratic renewal.