Community Leadership Forum
The next item on the agenda is the community leadership forum. I take the opportunity to report on the previous meeting of that forum, which comprises the leaders of the 32 councils, the relevant ministers, various civil servants and me. Meetings are held around three times a year. I am aware that I have not fed anything back to the committee, so I shall do so now.
The new ministers—Angus MacKay and Peter Peacock—were at the meeting, as were senior civil servants from the Executive and the chief executive of COSLA. The main business was local government finance, which was addressed by Angus MacKay, who announced the launch of the Executive's consultation paper on community planning—the power of community initiative that we talked about earlier—and on political restrictions on council employees who want to stand for election. That report had been delivered to members the previous evening.
The minister announced a wide-ranging review of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982, for which a task group will be set up this week. It is expected that its work will be completed by the end of the year. The minister talked about three-year funding and three-year council tax—the kinds of things that we heard about earlier in the week.
Mike Palmer, the head of branch B in local government division 2, spoke to the consultation paper and answered some questions, as did Angus MacKay. Professor Alice Brown, who has been appointed chair of the community planning task force—the membership of which is being finalised—then spoke about the potential to deliver new forms of governance and about the challenges of engaging community interest in local government beyond the rhetoric of the mainstreaming of social justice and equality issues. She addressed the question of how we can get governance to work in that way, beyond simply talking about it. Professor Brown indicated that the task force will be an independent body and that she would like to speak to the Local Government Committee at some point. I am sure that the committee would welcome that.
Ronnie McDonald, the deputy general secretary of the STUC, and Rowena Arshad, the director of the Centre for Education for Racial Equality in Scotland, then spoke. Ronnie and Rowena gave a joint presentation that focused on image, organisational culture, diversity and legislative opportunities in the post-Kerley age. They mentioned initiatives that have been taken in the structure of the STUC to address the promotion of equality, and Rowena—in an especially robust presentation—made the key point to council leaders that equality costs money. She mentioned a large number of mainstreaming initiatives that could be implemented by councils to promote equality, including equality training, sharing good practice, mentoring, work placements and capacity building through civic education—perhaps using the resources of the councils' community education services. Ronnie McDonald mentioned the need for legislation for positive action, including the need for changes to the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and the Representation of the People Act 1983.
I also spoke for some time. I gave an overview of the work of the Local Government Committee: I spoke about our remit, what we have done in the past, what we are doing now, and what we plan to do next, including the review of local government finance.
Peter Peacock, the Deputy Minister for Finance and Local Government, wound up the proceedings. He concentrated on the strengths of the ministerial team, pointing out that he and Angus MacKay had been in local government for some time and therefore had long and direct experience of it. He expected that there would be a positive relationship between the Executive, COSLA, local government and the committee.
The meeting was reasonably well attended—about 20 council leaders were there. It lasted for half a day, although normally it would last for a day. Some questions were asked as to whether the forum's remit should be changed. In the past, the meeting has split into small working groups; that was not done this time, and I do not know what will happen in future.