The next item is consideration of our approach to the financial memorandum to the Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Bill. Members will see that paper FI/S3/08/23/6 suggests that we adopt level 3 scrutiny, which involves taking oral evidence from the main parties on which costs are expected to fall. In this case, we may wish to take oral evidence from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, Scottish Water and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, or perhaps from two relevant local authorities, one urban and one rural—for example, Glasgow City Council and Perth and Kinross Council—and then from Scottish Government officials. We may also wish to seek written evidence from the national parks authorities, the Forestry Commission and groups representing private landowners, such as NFU Scotland and the Scottish Rural Property and Business Association.
The idea of inviting two local authorities to give oral evidence is useful, but the difficulty at this stage is picking them. Things depend on what approach we take. It is clear that some local authorities have much larger flooding issues than others do, and I suspect that different evidence would be received depending on the authorities that we selected. We must somehow ensure that every local authority is given the opportunity to give us evidence on how flooding will affect us. I want to be cautious that we do not prejudge the evidence or select councils that are not representative or councils that we do not realise are not representative. That is the only difficulty that I have with the proposal to invite Perth and Kinross Council and Glasgow City Council to give evidence.
Yes. There is a difficulty. A city is one thing, and we might ask which city has been most affected by flooding. Perth and Kinross Council was chosen at random, but Perth and Kinross has certainly suffered badly from flooding. Anybody who can suggest a more appropriate local authority candidate should let us know now. If we want to take evidence from a city local authority, we could consider which city is most flood prone.
Further to what Derek Brownlee was suggesting, we could ask for written evidence from all councils and decide which two to talk to based on that.
We could certainly do that. That would clarify which local authorities consider themselves to be most at risk, but we might find ourselves in the same situation if several local authorities volunteered.
We would be asking them for written evidence, not oral evidence. Once we had that, we could decide which two to talk to.
I would be happy to go along with that.
I am just querying whether it would be feasible to identify the savings to the consolidated fund as a result of the investment.
I just want us to ask whether any such exercise has been done.
One of the problems with seeking written evidence is the length of time that is involved. However, having evidence on the savings is important. Perhaps the committee could delegate the matter to the deputy convener and me. That might speed up the process, which we need to do, because we are getting into a fixture pile-up situation.
I agree, and I think that Joe FitzPatrick's suggestion is good.
Transport Scotland should be added to the list as well.
We are now expanding the list, which is dangerous. We need to decide who would be the most lucrative source of information. We could write to endless numbers of people, but it would take a lot of time for them all to respond.
What is our timescale? When do we have to report to the lead committee by? That will determine what we can do.
At the moment, we have scheduled a session on 4 November, when we will take evidence from the bodies on whom costs fall. On 18 November, we will take further evidence from Scottish Executive officials and, on 9 December, we will consider the draft report. That will fit in with the lead committee's timetable.
We should consult COSLA and ask it to nominate two local authorities. Would that be possible? I do not think that we have time to write to all the councils, as they will be slow in responding.
That is a fair point.
I think that we should write to all the councils, as that will ensure that we have evidence from all of them. If we do not have time to take oral evidence from them, at least we would have written evidence from them.
We could set a firm deadline for the responses.
Will we be hearing from the minister or the officials?
The officials.
Will the minister appear before us?
No, because we are dealing with finance, not policy.
Given that flood management and flood prevention have been debated in the Parliament, does the department not have some information about which parts of Scotland have been badly hit? Perhaps SPICe or someone would have that.
You are an optimist.
I know what you mean, but there have been at least two debates on the subject.
We could make inquiries about whether there is a handier source of information.
I still think that Joe FitzPatrick's idea of writing to all the councils is good, if we set a firm deadline.
Do we agree with that suggestion?
Let us hope that we are not deluged with a flood of evidence.
We now move into private session.
Meeting continued in private until 17:04.
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