Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee

Future work

At its meeting on 20 June 2023, 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 it can be as effective as possible in delivering for the communities it serves and empowering those communities.
This work is connected to the Local Governance Review and New Deal for Local Government, with all other parts of the Committee’s work, linked to these two projects.
In looking at empowering both local government and in turn communities, the Committee will look at the relationship between central and local government, what local government needs to work well and if attitudes should change to ensure that power is devolved to the right levels to provide real community empowerment.
The Committee’s work will focus on the following key themes:

• Are local government and central government working well together as equal partners to deliver on shared priorities and reduce inequalities?
• Does local government have the necessary: clarity on what issues they should deal with and what central government should deal with; certainty of funding; flexibility; and autonomy to work effectively and meet the challenges faced in each local authority area?
• 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 and supported 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
• Post-legislative scrutiny of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015
• Community Councils

The Committee will also focus its budget scrutiny this year on the local government budget and more specifically on workforce issues in local government.

In addition, the Committee will consider the Visitor Levy (Scotland) Bill and will begin work looking at 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 the Committee’s scrutiny will focus on the adequacy of that strategy.

The Committee will focus on the following themes:

• Building enough homes or bringing enough homes back into use to meet current and future housing needs
• Building homes with a focus on placemaking
• Creating and sustaining a mix of housing that is financially and physically accessible to all
• Building homes that provide for affordable warmth and zero emissions
• Ensuring that new and existing homes are safe and of a high quality

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

• 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
• the Minimum All Tenure Housing Land Requirement and Housing Needs Demand Assessment tool
• the Cost of Living (Tenant Protections) Scotland Act 2022 Regulations

Over the course of this year the Committee also expects to consider the Scottish Government’s climate change plan and a housing bill.

Planning

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

The Committee has agreed to undertake an annual review to see how it is being translated into local development plans and the extent to which it is achieving its transformational aims.

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 relating to housing and tenants’ rights within the responsibility of the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, and matters relating to local government boundaries, local governance review and democratic renewal.