Community Empowerment (Scotland) Bill (Draft)
Good morning and welcome to the seventh meeting in 2014 of the Local Government and Regeneration Committee. I ask everyone to ensure that they have switched off mobile phones and other electronic equipment.
Item 1 is consideration of the draft community empowerment (Scotland) bill. I welcome our first panel of witnesses: Derek Mackay MSP, who is the Minister for Local Government and Planning; and, from the Scottish Government, Alasdair McKinlay, who is the head of the community planning and empowerment unit; and Jean Waddie, bill manager, community planning and empowerment.
I invite the minister to make some opening remarks.
The Minister for Local Government and Planning (Derek Mackay)
I appreciate the committee’s interest in the community empowerment (Scotland) bill. There has been a variation in the name since the consultation on the community empowerment and renewal bill, because nobody could pronounce that properly and people wanted to talk about renewables, as opposed to community empowerment.
The bill has evolved from an exploratory consultation, which has moved forward. We have engaged in an extensive consultation, the responses to which are undergoing independent analysis at the moment, and we will publish the results in due course. The process is leading towards the introduction of a bill, which I hope will reach stage 1 in around June of this year.
The driving force behind the bill is the view that we can unlock much of Scotland’s potential through community empowerment, and we believe that the various components of the bill can make a difference in doing that. Specifically, the bill will make it easier for communities to take on public sector assets and make better use of them; give communities a right to be listened to when they have proposals to improve services in their area; and improve community planning by putting it on a statutory footing and providing clear duties for all partners involved, as well as introducing a range of other measures.
The legislative route is just one way of delivering community empowerment. Other strands of work will be undertaken at the same time, such as the reconfiguration of some funding for the third sector and for community groups, and the provision of better guidance on engagement and consultation. That may not require new legislation, but it will certainly help the whole agenda that the committee has been looking at. I have read with great interest the committee’s report on regeneration, which focuses on community-led regeneration, and I hope that that will provide further tools to do the job.
Thank you, minister.
You said that you cannot legislate for everything; I quite often say that we cannot legislate for common sense. As we have gone round the country recently, we have found some community groups that are enthusiastic about taking on responsibilities for assets, but quite a lot of barriers seem to be put in the way by public bodies. Do you feel that the bill will help those folk who have that enthusiasm to take on such responsibilities and to get things moving?
Yes, I do. The experience across the country is far too variable and there could be greater consistency. The draft bill outlines what should happen when there is a request to transfer an asset. We should also create a culture of expectation around community empowerment. Legislation will not fix everything, but it can help with the creation of a culture in which community empowerment is the right thing to do. If a group has a proper, well-informed, outcome-focused business case, the presumption and the balance of power should be in favour of that community group having access to that resource.
Incidentally, that provision does not apply only to empty properties; it could be for underused properties as well. I think that it will set an appropriate culture in place. Much of what the bill proposes already happens—there are examples of good practice in asset transfer—but I am sure that the barriers that the committee has identified will include accountancy rules, bureaucratic barriers or a perception about the third sector’s capacity to deliver. There has been a range of barriers and impediments to transfer in the past, and I hope that the bill will help to address that situation, as will any guidance that comes from it and the reconfiguration of finances that I have suggested.
Even with the best council leader in the world, it is normally for the council to determine what assets become available to the community. The bill turns that on its head and asks the community, “What would you like to have to realise your ambitions for your area?” That is the step change that the bill can deliver. Instead of waiting to be offered something that might be disposed of by the public sector authority, the community will have the right to challenge and to say, “We could do a better job with that asset.” That is extremely powerful.
I would like to ask about the consultation period. I am aware that there were two written consultations. To what extent did the Government engage directly with the people and communities?
The exploratory consultation was quite extensive, as the bill emanates from a manifesto commitment to conduct a wide-ranging consultation. As the minister at the time, I said that we were taking some risks by posing questions on things that we might not do, but I felt that it was worth probing rather than ruling out options such as legislating for mandatory participatory budgeting, on which legislating did not feel like the right thing to do. That is one of the issues that we explored, and we have taken it through, but I still engage on the very question of participatory budgeting and whether there is more that we can do.
That, in part, answers your question. There has been a formal consultation, an exploratory consultation and a consultation on the contents of the bill and the areas that we are still exploring. As well as conducting those formal parliamentary and Government procedures, I have still been engaging with individual groups. Last Thursday, I met the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and churches that have engaged with grass-roots recovery and local empowerment, not just around assets, to discuss the chance to thrive project.
Like the bill itself, increasing community empowerment is an on-going process, and it will continue to change even after the bill has been enacted, just as the third sector and communities change and are resilient in their circumstances. That was a pretty long-winded way of saying that there has been extensive consultation, and that it continues.
Could you say more about the reconfiguration of finance streams? When do you intend to divulge that information? As you said, some communities are relaxed about saying what they really want to do, simply because of the current finance arrangements, so is that something that will be in your work plan soon?
It absolutely is, and it is something on which I will engage more closely with other ministers, because community empowerment and regeneration cut across many different ministerial portfolios.
I do not think that someone who is in a community group will be too fussed about which fund money comes from to support their project, but the system should be made simpler and more straightforward and sustainable. For example, there are at least 20 funds for community groups that I am aware of in Government circles, as well as some other partners such as the Big Lottery Fund, and I can see scope for bringing much of that together, not just into one interface but by ensuring that the whole process is simplified, instead of making people jump through many bureaucratic hoops.
Good governance and accountability are required, of course, but I am convinced that we can do much better in streamlining the resources so that we get a bigger bang for our buck and make it easier for existing and emerging community groups to access the immense resources that are already there. We de-ring fenced resources for local government, and we can do something similar around the third sector. I hope that that will mean more longer-term funding, more sustainable funding and simplified funding, which will enable people to put their energy into delivering great projects instead of running a bureaucratic machine to service process.
Good morning, minister.
I wish to make a declaration, convener. As the chair of a community organisation that took over the lease of a local council facility on Monday morning, I am very interested in the issue of community asset transfer. I am concerned about the fact that the draft bill refers to land or parts of land being transferred as community assets. Many community organisations, including the one that I chair, are interested in transferring ownership of buildings that the council owns. Will the draft bill be amended to include property as well as land, or does the definition of land include property?
Yes, it does.
It might be worth spelling that out in the bill.
We refer to assets as being the structures, the buildings and the property as well as the land—the title—on which they sit. We mean both. I recognise that we will have to make the bill more user friendly. The lawyers can have their fun—they can do their business and the job that we pay them to do, which is to write watertight legislation—but we will also have a guide that the rest of us can understand so that, when we take the bill to communities, they will know what we mean. Through engagement, we have raised expectations around the bill, but it is only when we understand what the legal terminology means that we can say what is included in the bill. You have given us a good example.
I take the point. Yes, we mean buildings as well as land. We will make that absolutely clear in whatever guidance comes out with the bill—I recognise that there needs to be guidance as well.
I welcome what you say about the definitions, minister. You are right in saying that many communities around Scotland are looking at the bill as a way to enhance themselves to fit all the models that you have outlined of economic development, social development, health and all the rest.
I accept that the Government is keen to issue guidance, but instead of having guidance that can be interpreted in 32 different ways, it would be useful to have clearly stated in the bill what is meant by community asset transfer and what is included in that process—whether it is land, property or other council assets that communities may wish to bid for and take ownership of. There is a danger not just of, as you said, council lawyers or Scottish Government lawyers making a good earning out of the bill, but of other lawyers outwith the public sector making money out of the definitions. It would be useful for everybody concerned, but communities in particular, if the definitions were included in the bill so that there was no dubiety about what is meant by community asset transfer.
That is right. Mr Wilson will welcome the reflection that, if the bill is applied equally, it will simply make the inequality worse. We must frame it and give support in such a way that it presents a level playing field. By that, I mean that, if we simply create an agenda that supports asset transfer, communities in some better-off parts of the country might access public facilities within their own geographic patch while those communities with the fewest resources or with the least capacity and expertise to do that will be left behind.
I need to do a range of things to ensure that the bill levels the playing field instead of making the current inequality worse. Ultimately, it is about people’s rights. I am not cementing the bill here today, but I do not propose an automatic transfer whereby if someone asks, they get. There must be a more sophisticated process than that. It must be designed to support those who, hitherto, have maybe not had the capacity to transfer assets.
09:45
Guidance is important, but so, too, is power. For the process to work, the bill must swing the pendulum of power from the state to communities. Having an appeals mechanism sends out a message. If the authority—be it a council or, for that matter, the Scottish Government or one of our agencies—says no to a transfer of property, it should have a good reason for saying no. We also propose an appeals mechanism in relation to the public sector, be it the Scottish Government or a local authority. We do not yet know exactly what that mechanism will look like, but we have posed questions in the consultation to try to probe that.
One of the main concerns is about the value of the asset transfer and the compensation that local authorities may seek. Is there a way in which you intend to put a value against some of the issues that you have identified, such as economic development, regeneration, public health and social and environmental wellbeing? Such a process would enable communities to produce a balance sheet and say, “We are delivering on these issues. We do not expect to pay the market value for a property or a piece of land, because in the longer term we will deliver benefits to the community that are greater than just financial benefit.”
Yes, of course. When any authority considers an asset transfer, it would consider the benefits and the outcomes that could be achieved by such a transfer. It would be a matter for each authority, but we would not be seeking the property’s commercial value. If an asset is underused or not used at all and a community group wants to run it, it would be preposterous to demand on every occasion that its full commercial value be paid. The situation will depend on the merits of the case and the circumstances.
However, we will rewrite the relevant sections of the public sector finance manual to make it consistent and clear across the country that we will be transparent and will be accountable for public assets, but that when such a transfer happens—remember that it will happen for community not-for-profit organisations or social enterprises, whatever they happen to be—full commercial value does not have to be paid. We will make that clear in the accountancy guidance that is provided and in the bill.
The process is genuinely about unlocking the potential of our country through the release of assets and by providing access to assets that fundamentally belong to the taxpayers. They belong not to Government, councils or elected members but to the people, and we are giving the people the power to get some of them back to do great works. We will therefore not tie them up in bureaucratic rules—he says, advisedly, with civil servants sitting beside him. [Laughter.]
We have already identified that two things need to change. There must be consistency across the country in the interpretation of the law and in the application of the public sector finance rules, which we will amend to take account of the bill.
I thank the minister, particularly for the passion with which he has answered the questions.
My question probably relates to the point that the minister made about tying us up in bureaucracy. Public liability insurance and other liabilities that can be attached to taking on the operation of a facility or the development of, for example, a community garden, are often raised. I have experience of the issue arising in community groups that I have been involved in, or with which I have had involvement as a local member. Obviously, at present, when an organisation or group leases property from a local authority it can be captured by that local authority’s public liability insurance and so it does not have to take out such insurance, which would place a burden on the members of the group. Will the bill clarify the situation when an asset transfer takes place and outline the options or steps that might be available to give comfort to community groups and organisations?
I will make two points. First, the asset transfer might be a transfer into a lease; we will not be compelling communities to buy properties. There will be flexibility to allow that, because in some instances, a long-term lease might be better than a purchase. A fairly substantial reference group, which is co-chaired by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, helps to lead on the draft bill. Some members of the group have said that in some respects a right to try is better than a right to transfer, so the asset could be leased rather than there being a full asset transfer. The first point to make is that there will be flexibility and there will be options. We are not trying to set centrally how every transfer must be delivered.
The second point is about financial sustainability. Public liability is but one thorny issue with which any community group would have to wrestle in relation to support, capacity, and funding streams. I touched on that earlier to say that we need to streamline funding streams and to do better. Some funds are better than others; it might surprise the committee to know that some funding streams were undercommitted. In this financial climate, that would surprise anyone. Others are oversubscribed. If we get the funding streams right, that will provide more support.
I will give you an update on community transfers and community ownership. We have been able to assist the Development Trusts Association Scotland in expanding the community ownership service because asset transfers continue to happen, and to give front-line, grass-roots support to those that are transferring right now. As that agenda continues and is—I hope—successful in securing more transfers, there will have to be more provision for supporting groups on issues such as public liability insurance. We are not saying that we are taking ownership of or responsibility for that issue, but I am sure that we can make it somewhat easier if we get the legislation right, if the options are flexible, and if funding capacity and sustainability support are there, as well.
That might be a point that I can come back to with our witnesses from the local authorities.
I am not looking for exact figures, but how did the consultation responses from community groups and organisations, social enterprises, and the third sector versus the public bodies that responded measure up?
I am delighted to say that there was broad support for the thrust of the bill and most of its provisions. I do not have the detailed breakdown as yet. As you will appreciate, we are still going through the external consultation responses, although I have got some headline messages.
There is no great disagreement about what we are proposing. I suppose that land reform has been slightly controversial, but there is broad agreement and enthusiasm about the direction of travel. Some representatives of the public sector might say, “Slow down a bit. We’re already doing great work, so we don’t need to go much further, and we’re not so sure about an appeals mechanism.” Others in the third sector or in voluntary groups might say that we need to be more, not less, radical, and that we need to do more. There is a wide spectrum of opinion, but nobody is really disagreeing with the direction of travel, although they might want to discuss the mechanisms, terminology, definitions and the balance of power.
COSLA and the local authorities were expected to rebel and say no, and the third sector was expected to have ridiculously high expectations; I have found that neither is the case. On the whole, it seems that we have found a happy medium, although I want to ensure that the bill continues to be quite radical, otherwise it will neither empower nor excite and so will fail.
The reports that we have seen indicate that an area of controversy might be common good funds. I have been involved in local government for a long time in a city that has a substantial common good account. How will we get over the inevitable controversies in transfers of common good land or property? Have some of the responses thus far on common good been because public bodies have not maintained adequate asset lists of what they hold as common good?
I think that there is a degree of truth in that, convener. Like you, I have experience of common good funds that have been forged in the heat of battle. Sometimes the battle has been political, and sometimes it has been because of how community groups feel about how common good assets have been used.
My home town of Renfrew has a common good fund. The last valuation that I saw was for about £10 million, which is quite substantial for a population of about 22,000 people. My local experience has helped to inform my ministerial experience on common good funds.
Some people within the bureaucratic world would say that we should just do away with common good funds because they are anachronistic; they date from local government reorganisation, and they serve no purpose. I take a different view. Many communities see them as being their inheritance and as something that belongs to them. That is quite right.
That takes me to the convener’s point that local authorities have not always kept registers that can be made available and that people would want to see. There are already rules about how to account for common good assets, but they have not always crystallised into an account of what is held by a common good fund, what its purposes are, and how it can be accessed and used.
Through the draft bill we are proposing to create such registers and statutorily to involve community councils. Community councils will be the only statutory bodies that provide coverage across the country—or most of the country—regarding common goods. We propose a credible register, engagement with community councils on the register’s composition and on-going engagement with community councils on use and disposal of common good assets. That will be far more healthy, democratic, engaging and community-minded than what some people would have had us do, which was simply to wind up and abolish common good funds and have them subsumed into the council pot.
Common good assets are a tiny fraction of local government finance, but I say again that they are very important to individual communities, which care passionately about their use, their origins and their future.
You say common good assets are tiny compared to other local government budgets, but they are substantial in certain places; in Aberdeen, for example, the figure is £78 million. Will the bill lead local authorities to look long and hard at how they deal with common good registers, which have been neglected for far too long in some parts of the country?
Yes, it will. It will be empowering, it will shine a light on common good funds and it will lead to greater transparency. With the culture of expectation about community empowerment, this all bodes well for common good funds.
I will put in context the figure that the convener cited. I recognise that common good assets are massive to local communities. Even in Aberdeen City Council, which is an authority that I am very fond of, common good assets total £78 million. I do not have the figure to hand, so I will take the convener’s word for it. Overall, assets in local government are worth about £35 billion. However, to communities their common good assets are absolutely invaluable and phenomenal.
We could all be a bit negative about some past uses of common good funds; for example, paying for councillors’ lunches does not seem like the best use of them to me—although that is a personal opinion that is not in the ministerial lines to take.
I agree. I am glad that you are fond of Aberdeen—I hope that that was not a slip of the tongue.
There is a proposal in the draft bill to extend the community right to buy to include
“urban areas and settlements with a population of 10,000 or more”.
Why did you settle on that 10,000 figure?
The good news for me is that my colleague Paul Wheelhouse will be leading on the land reform element of the bill, which will be very empowering and will benefit from the work of the land reform review group. I can give you the direction of travel and the general thrust of that work.
In the past, the legislation was created around rural rights. We are trying to extend land reform and the right to buy to all parts of Scotland—urban and rural—so some of the qualifying criteria must change to take account of that. Parliament arrived at the 10,000 population figure before I was an MSP. What we are doing now is creating consistency across the country. That figure probably reflected the appropriate population of a community at the time.
Has there been any great discussion, or conflict, about the proposal to put community planning partnerships on a statutory basis?
Of course. It would not be a community planning partnership if there was not a great deal of discussion around its purpose and future. We have engaged with the national community planning group, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and other partners to get sign-up. Again, there is general agreement.
I have to make sure that every part of the public sector takes community planning seriously. It is the job not just of local authorities or health boards, but of other public sector partners. The sharing of the duty among all public sector partners and putting it on a statutory footing will be really important. Community planning partnerships are already important, but a lot of the mechanics, functions and outcomes are not as we want them to be, so the eventual bill will address that.
Some time ago Fife Council did a major piece of work on common good; perhaps that is a bit of good practice that we can see. As someone who spends a lot of time on his allotment—
The draft bill has got loads for you then, Mr Rowley.
10:00
Yes. We are doing stuff on allotments.
However, in terms of community planning and community planning partnerships, budgets are absolutely crucial. What will the proposed bill do in terms of the barriers? I agree that we need to take community planning lower than the strategic level. For example, the seven area committees in Fife are now developing local community plans. However, it is about trying to get the partners to come in, getting transparency around budgets and ensuring that if key outcomes and priorities are identified, the budgets of all organisations, including in the third sector, are focused on them. Will the bill address that?
Yes, it will. I think that we are beginning to see real progress now, which has been partly aided by the work of the national community planning group and the Accounts Commission’s probing of individual community planning partnerships. I think that that is creating the right expectations. Fife is a good example of what is happening with community planning partnerships. I went to Fife with the then convener of COSLA, Pat Watters, and met Mr Rowley, in his previous capacity, and the rest of the community planning group to assist with the quality assurance programme.
For the first time, every community planning partnership in the country has gone through an appraisal of what they are doing and what development should look like based on the single outcome agreements. There will be more of that. However, the bill will help those who make close inspections of an organisation’s statutory and legislative duties. For example, in the past the police might have focused on crime numbers, the health service might have focused on its HEAT—health improvement, efficiency and governance, access and treatment—targets, and local government might have focused on statutory performance indicators. The bill will mean that there will be shared responsibility to focus on outcomes jointly, rather than their being just for the council. The bill will give a strong statutory footing to that.
I think that some of the other workstreams are already leading to greater joint action. For example, I was encouraged by work that I saw in Glasgow that seemed to be progressing our work around joint resourcing, which has been mentioned. If each part of the public sector plans in isolation what it is going to do, we will not achieve the effective change that we need. We will do that only by pooling resources. That is not a bureaucratic accountancy exercise; it is about mapping out the place-based needs of an area, identifying what needs to be done and getting on with it.
It has been a travesty that the best projects have sometimes happened despite community planning partnerships rather than because of them. However, we hope that if we make the right synergies and connections, that will foster the right joint working. Practice is variable across the country; there are great projects, but we want to upscale and mainstream the good practice. I think that the bill will help to lay the foundations for that in terms of legal expectations and shared responsibility. The on-going work of the national community planning group and the quality assurance programme will help not from when the eventual bill is enacted but from now. I hope that that reassures Mr Rowley.
In terms of actual cash and resources, we need to be a bit more creative. I was impressed by what I heard from Glasgow, where the health board and the council are working together on three strategic themes through the place-based approach. They are mapping out what is required and what the public sector will do with the third sector, and they are getting on with it. They have governance arrangements, but they are less fussed about, for example, commercial value, transfer transactions and all the rest of it. It is not about asking, “Whose asset is it?”; it is more about asking, “What outcome are we trying to achieve?” That kind of work is very reassuring in terms of what Mr Swinney said about joint resourcing and focusing on outcomes.
We are seeing progress on the ground on community planning, which I know the committee will take a great interest in, having worked so closely on community planning objectives in the past. I believe that the bill will strengthen and embed that.
If we accept the principle of decentralisation and decisions being made at the most appropriate level, how do we engage? What will the bill do to engage local communities and give them a greater say and a greater accountability call on the community planning partners?
I am convinced that we will be able to produce better results if we create that culture of empowerment locally. That means the third sector’s being able to co-produce, collaborate or co-operate—whatever we want to call it—to produce better services. The bill will help with that.
I refer again to the work of the national community planning group. It has commissioned work with the Scottish Government and COSLA to find out what mechanisms are working to design services locally that deliver for the third sector. That work is on-going.
Although the bill will not prescribe what a community planning partnership should do, it will prescribe that everyone should play their part. Therefore, it will allow for a decentralised model with local empowerment, while setting some leadership.
Local may always be best, but we need national standards and consistency on some matters. That takes us back to the very problem with asset transfers. If we let everybody do their own thing, some areas would be left behind; that would not be good enough. Within the parameters of local empowerment, decision making and solutions, we want to meet certain national standards and expectations, hence the proposed bill and the purpose of the Parliament. The bill is about unlocking potential and removing barriers, rather than about being too prescriptive.
It is about getting the balance right.
Everything is a balance. The most radical people would ask for a guaranteed right of transfer to community organisations, but what if the community organisation could not do as good a job as another organisation? Everything is about balancing and weighing up what is best for outcomes.
I was waiting for you both to wax lyrical about the Allotments (Scotland) Act 1892.
I am a little bit uneasy about the compulsory right to buy for communities and the circumstances in which they can do that. Will you expand on that issue? That right is to be extended to communities with populations of more than 10,000 people. Can that seemingly arbitrary figure be changed?
The work on the compulsory right to buy is taking place at the same time as the Scottish Government is concluding the housing right to buy. Those are two different things: one refers to the right to buy housing; the other refers to the community right to buy with regard to land reform.
We have compulsory purchase orders for where there is a specific purpose and outcome, and there is a legislative process. The right to buy process with regard to land reform comes into play when the land becomes available, when a declaration has been registered and interest has been noted. In the consultation we are exploring whether, subject to all the necessary legal requirements and European Union directives, when we are satisfied that land is abandoned and neglected, there could be an opportunity to compel sale to a community, if that is in the interests of the community.
I understand why Mr Buchanan might be uneasy about that, but it is not a law, a rule or a mechanism that would be used lightly. Therefore, we are exploring the matter very carefully, but it is just not good enough for lands to be left abandoned and neglected while communities have no right to access that land by way of ownership.
On the wider issue of the community right to buy, streamlining the process and extending it to urban areas is less controversial. Compulsion is a bit more controversial; we are exploring the issue and we could be quite radical.
That is the assurance that I was looking for. For example, the Isle of Eigg was abandoned by its landlords and the community was given help to buy the land, which was a good thing. It was the word “compulsion” that I was a bit anxious about.
We must consider compulsion, subject to the other criteria that I have mentioned, because if land can be abandoned it can be neglected and would become available to the community only when it was being sold. The difference with the proposed bill will be that we will not wait forever and a day for the land to be sold before we do something. We are considering whether there can be a mechanism to compel—not willy-nilly; only where there is a case for doing so—that would take account of legal definitions in relation to abandoned and neglected land, and which would be subject to all the other provisions that we are exploring with our solicitors.
My other question was about the 10,000 population figure. Is it an arbitrary figure? Is it likely to change? Will it include urban areas and settlements with populations of more than 10,000 and which are currently excluded? I am talking about the right to buy.
Yes. The 10,000 figure refers to the existing legislation. We are proposing to remove that arbitrary figure because we want to extend the right to all parts of Scotland in order to suit individual circumstances. How communities are defined, the size of sales and so on will all be far more flexible than they were.
The committee has done a lot of work of late on public service reform and regeneration. How will our work feed into the bill’s formulation?
The committee’s work has assisted. The four pillars of the Christie commission’s report around prevention, integration, people and the workforce, and improvement are absolutely what this work is about. The bill is principally about prevention and people. For example, if people have the tools to do the job, they will be able to help to set their own destiny by creating community projects that deliver for them. That is very empowering and very much fits in with the preventative and the people agendas, so the bill will be absolutely in tune with the Christie commission recommendations on empowerment. The bill will also be about decentralisation because it is about taking away bureaucracy in order to support that agenda.
Will you take into account the recommendations from our public service reform and regeneration inquiries?
Yes. I concur with many of the recommendations. The report suggests that there has been an omission with regard to accountability of community planning partnerships, and that MSPs could be engaged in that regard, but I am not sure that that recommendation went down particularly well with community planning partnerships and other partners. I am just showing off that I have read your report, convener. The accountability of community planning partnerships is an issue. They are accountable to the people and to democratically elected local authorities and health boards, they are subject to governance arrangements and they are inspected by the Accounts Commission and so on, but the committee has a point in that I have not yet completely addressed the need to hold community planning partnerships to account externally. Perhaps that requires further work. Other than that, the rest of what the committee suggested features in, and has assisted in relation to the proposed bill.
Thank you very much for your time, minister.
10:11
Meeting suspended.
10:14
On resuming—