Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee

Meeting date: Thursday, March 14, 2013

Official Report 259KB pdf

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Cross-party Group

Agenda item 2 is on a cross-party group application. The committee will take evidence from Margaret McCulloch on the proposed cross-party group on towns and town centres. Members have a paper and Margaret is with us. Do members have any questions on the application?

Good morning, Ms McCulloch. I compliment you on your registration form, which is excellent. It is certainly along the lines that the committee wanted.

Paragraph 1 says:

“To analyse policy prescriptions and develop ideas and innovations.”

What do you mean by “policy prescriptions”?

The Scottish Government and the Westminster Government are conducting reviews of towns and town centres. We are waiting on Malcolm Fraser, who is conducting the Scottish Government’s review, to produce his report, which we will look at. We will consider the ideas and suggestions in that and the report of the Westminster Government’s review, which looked at how we can put some life back into town centres and towns.

Good morning, Margaret. Paragraph 2 says:

“There is no overlap with other Cross Party Groups. Angus MacDonald MSP had an initial meeting to look at starting a group but didn’t proceed with it.”

Do you have any idea why that was the case?

I phoned Angus MacDonald to ask him why. His workload did not allow it, so he did not take it forward. Initially I was concerned that there might not have been interest in a group, but that was not the case.

The third point in the description of the group’s purpose says:

“The group will ... consider how best to take forward recommendations from the town centre review and the government’s regeneration strategy.”

That review is time sensitive, in the sense that once it is done and looked at, it will be in the past. However, it will remain as part of the group’s purpose, although you will have dealt with it over perhaps the next six months or whatever. Does it need to stay in the purpose? Would it not be better under paragraph 3, as one of the issues to be addressed by the group as part of its agenda?

I am happy to move the item. I have no problem with that; it is quite a good idea.

Are you content to do that?

Yes; absolutely. That is no problem.

We will note that and amend the form accordingly.

I have one final question, which is on the financial benefits that you have declared. I see that you have calculated the secretarial costs, which will be met by Scotland’s Towns Partnership, at £360 plus £100 for sundry expenses, which is £460. That is below the £500 limit. Have you calculated the cost not just of the person attending the group’s meetings, doing the minutes and so on but of the work of organising the meetings beforehand, chasing people up and following things up afterwards? The person in question might well spend a couple of hours a week outwith the actual meetings on such work.

We have allotted three hours per meeting, but we do not think that meetings will last longer than two hours. The remaining hour should cover the admin work before and after a meeting. That said, we could monitor the situation and, if the time taken for admin work appears to be creeping up, we will inform the committee and provide up-to-date information on the financial side of things.

That would be very helpful in allowing us to ascertain the exact figures. After all, until the group starts, you do not know exactly how long the person will spend on the work. It would also help us by providing a good marker for other groups.

As members have no other questions, I thank Margaret McCulloch for her evidence—that was excellent. Now the committee must decide whether to recognise the cross-party group.

I am happy to endorse the group’s establishment. I seem to recall that there was such a group in the previous session, which I thought was important, given the problems faced by such places the length and breadth of Scotland. I am not making a party-political point—the problems are not of any particular Government’s making—but I really feel that, the more we can all work together to reinvigorate our town centres, the better things will be. In my area—Cowdenbeath—there are something like 41 empty shopfronts on the High Street alone, never mind the other streets.

I did not sign up for the group for the reason of pressure of work that Margaret McCulloch alluded to—I did not want to overcommit myself—but that will not stop me, when I can spare the time, dipping into the meetings of what is a really worthwhile organisation to have in the Parliament.

I agree with Helen Eadie. The application has been completed to the required standard, and the subject is as close to my heart as it is to Helen’s. Unfortunately, the problem is widespread, and town centres in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales are feeling the pinch, simply because they are not getting any footfall now that people are using the internet. The problems faced by town centres are highlighted quite a lot on television. As the cross-party group is concentrating on such a subject and as it does not affect any other group in the Parliament, I agree that we should pass the application.

I am happy to accept what is a procedurally excellent application. However, I note that some of the boxes that have been filled in are slightly mixed up and I wonder whether that is because of the website or because of the way in which the applicant has been forced to fill out the form online. For example, the names of organisations and individuals are in the wrong places.

That is a good question. The clerks will look into that and check how the system is working.

This is an excellent cross-party group on what is an important issue in my constituency. I know from experience that every single time the media want to look at a high street they drive down from Glasgow and take pictures of the one in Paisley. Because of the issue’s importance, I will probably do more than dip into the group’s meetings; I will probably go to them quite regularly.

It looks as though we agree that the application should be approved. Like other members, I think that the application is very good; indeed, we will probably point those who are submitting applications for other groups in its direction as an example of the comprehensive information that we need to make our decisions.

With that approval of the application for the cross-party group on towns and town centres, we move into private session for the rest of the meeting.

09:40 Meeting continued in private until 11:20.