Official Report 329KB pdf
I call today's meeting of the Local Government and Transport Committee to order. The main item on the agenda is stage 1 consideration of the Transport (Scotland) Bill and, as is normally the case with an Executive bill, our first panel of witnesses consists of representatives of the Scottish Executive. I welcome to the committee Jonathan Pryce, who is the head of the transport strategy and legislation division; Frazer Henderson, who is the bill team leader; Tom Macdonald, who is the head of the bus and taxi policy branch; and Caroline Lyon and Laurence Sullivan, who are solicitors with the Executive.
I thank the committee for inviting us to give evidence today. We are pleased to have the opportunity to set out the provisions of the bill and give the background to it.
Thank you for those introductory remarks. Fergus Ewing will open the questions on part 1 of the bill.
Jonathan Pryce mentioned that a consultation, the remit of which is to consult on
In response to that, I would say that the consultation paper sets out proposals on—and, in the main, puts forward the Scottish Executive's view on—how to progress the regional transport partnerships. Nevertheless, it is important that we get feedback from that consultation and that we are able to bring the results of consideration of that feedback before the committee. We certainly hope that we will be in a position to do that at stage 2.
Would we not be better off having that feedback before we spend time examining the bill, which will be our prime role as a parliamentary committee for the next several weeks? Why does the Executive not withdraw the bill and bring it back when we know what the boundaries, constitution, functions and financing of the partnerships will be?
The key thing is that all the matters that we are considering in the consultation paper will be the subject of the secondary legislation. The bill's primary provisions are in front of the committee now and are open to the committee's consideration.
I appreciate that the decision was taken by a minister rather than by a civil servant, so it is perhaps difficult for Mr Pryce to answer my question precisely. The responsibility rests with ministers. However, I remember that the last bill that contained so many provisions for making subordinate legislation was the one that dealt with individual learning accounts, which came to a sticky end, as far as I recall.
The bill makes provision for only one council member per local authority on the partnerships because the policy intention is that the regional partnership boards should be lean bodies that are capable of having focused and structured discussions and decision-making processes. That is what drives the proposal that there should be only one councillor per local authority on the partnerships.
You must accept that there is at least a danger that, with one nominee per council, a dominant party will be able to ensure that the representatives on each of the regional partnerships are from that party, which will mean that the partnerships become seen as being dominated by party-political interest.
I would not like to speculate on what the final political balance would be, but we recognise that there could be an issue of political balance. The minister has acknowledged that and has said that it is something that he will want to consider further when he talks to the regional partnerships around the country. However, he has made it clear that he would like to hold to the principle that there should be only one voting councillor per local authority on the regional partnership boards.
I have a question to ask on the back of Fergus Ewing's, although it is perhaps not as overtly political as his was. Some of the proposed partnerships are relatively small in terms of the number of member authorities. For example, only two member authorities are proposed for the north-east regional transport partnership, which suggests that the number of people on the partnership would be limited. There would be only two councillors and—because two thirds of the places are allocated to councillors—there would be only one other person serving on the partnership. Is that interpretation correct?
In the scenario that you describe for the north-east, it is possible for there to be two external members as well as two councillors, because each council could have more than one vote. The provisions of the bill are designed to ensure that at least two thirds of the partnership's voting weight comes from councils. In the north-east, it is possible to envisage Aberdeenshire Council and Aberdeen City Council each having one councillor member with two votes and there being two external members with one vote each. It is a relatively complex arrangement to work through.
A fairly limited pool of people would still be responsible for taking decisions in the partnership.
Yes. That is the way in which we have framed the legislation and the way in which we envisage the system working. It is possible—indeed, likely—that non-voting members would also attend board meetings. In that circumstance, the two councils might wish to send along other non-voting representatives as observer members.
The members who are not councillors would be appointed by the Executive, subject to the Parliament's approval. Is that correct?
In the first round of appointments, it is intended that the Executive will consult the local authorities that make up regional transport partnerships. Thereafter, appointments will be made by the partnerships, subject to confirmation by Scottish ministers.
So the Executive has the power to appoint external members. That seems to increase the general risk of politicisation.
At the moment, it is difficult for me to say whether there is any likelihood of a change. I explained that the minister was keen to retain the one council, one member arrangement for partnership boards—the element that is specified in the legislation. There is no intention to make a change, but the minister accepts that there is an issue of political balance. We need to consider whether that can be addressed in another way.
I think that I am right in saying that Strathclyde Passenger Transport does not support the provisions relating to membership of regional transport partnerships. Is that your understanding?
We are discussing a number of issues with staff of Strathclyde Passenger Transport.
I had the benefit of meeting representatives of SPT this morning. Would you not say that one of the body's advantages is that it includes at least an element of representation from different parties?
That is the way in which the Strathclyde Passenger Transport Authority is made up at the moment. We are proposing something different.
I want to bring in a couple of other members, but I will come back to Fergus Ewing later.
Mr Pryce, I hope that you will accept that some committee members are a wee bit concerned that we may be discussing some of the material a little prematurely given that we do not have all the facts about how the boundaries, constitutions and functions of the new transport partnerships will work in practice. You conceded that those issues are out for consultation at this stage.
The consultation paper is before the committee, so members can see in outline the Executive's proposals, including its boundary proposals. Our hope is that the Parliament will be able to see rather more detail in the audits at stage 2.
I hope that you will accept that the subordinate legislation affirmative procedure can never be as robust as the bill process. For example, the timescales that are involved in the order-making process do not allow for our taking evidence from witnesses.
The only way I feel that I can respond to that is by giving the example of the boundaries. The consultation document includes a set of boundaries and I would entirely expect members to express views on them during the process.
Are you are saying that, if we wish, civil servants will come back before the committee to give evidence on boundaries, constitution, functions and financing? If we are to go through the process properly, where does that leave us in terms of the timetabling of the bill?
The minister will come before the committee towards the end of the stage 1 process. There will be an opportunity at that point to raise issues that members might have encountered in their evidence-taking sessions.
Okay. There are other issues that I would like to raise, but I will do so later in the meeting.
I have a specific question about the boundaries. What criteria have you used to divide Scotland into the regions for the purposes of part 1 of the bill?
Although the consultation paper sets out some of the considerations that we took into account, it is fair to say that we have largely tried to build on the four existing voluntary regional partnerships and to reflect their current division of Scotland. For example, we reflected the fact that, in central and Tay regions, Angus and Dundee are not members of any voluntary partnership by proposing a new partnership, which will include some of the existing south-east Scotland transport partnership authorities. Our fundamental approach to developing the boundaries has been to take the best of existing practice but to ensure that the whole of Scotland is covered by partnership areas.
Although Dumfries and Galloway has had contact with the west of Scotland transport partnership in the past, it does not really fit into any of the existing areas and it might not wish to become part of WESTRANS. However, under the strong powers of the bill, it will be required to become part of the regional transport partnership and will therefore have money requisitioned.
Dumfries and Galloway is a member of WESTRANS; it is not a member of Strathclyde Passenger Transport, but we should remember that some areas of other local authority members of WESTRANS are also not covered by SPT. The policy is that all Scottish local authorities should be a member of one or other partnership. Like the rest of the country, Dumfries and Galloway has transport links with other authorities and it is reasonable that it should participate in a partnership with other local authorities.
So you would rule out any proposal to make Dumfries and Galloway a partnership area on its own. However, Dumfries and Galloway is a former regional council area. Given that you are using those criteria and that strategic framework in this exercise, why is it not capable of remaining an area on its own?
The current policy is that all local authorities need to be a member of a partnership. Under the bill, it is not possible for there to be a single local authority partnership.
Is it not a little unusual to require people to be part of a partnership? After all, a partnership should be about working together for mutual benefit instead of requiring people to be part of it and requisitioning funds from them to pay their dues.
It is certainly the intention that the local authorities in the partnership will work together. Obviously, that raises questions about funding arrangements and the extent to which local authorities are prepared to work together in partnership and by consensus. However, the proposals are underpinned by the presumption that the councils will take a consensual approach. The position of Dumfries and Galloway vis-à-vis the partnerships is pretty much as I have set out: under the policy, it needs to be a member of a partnership with other local authorities. However, we are aware of its reluctance to enter into such a partnership. I have no doubt that the authority will make that entirely clear when it responds to the consultation and will also let us know about which partnership would be the best one for it to go into if it were not able, as you say, to be in a partnership by itself.
I want to follow up the general point about requisitioning funding. Why has the Executive chosen that route rather than granting funds directly?
We acknowledge that requisitioning is not always popular with local authorities, but we have not found any other straightforward way of arranging funding that would retain the local democratic principle. The Executive could fund the partnerships directly, but at that point the member local authorities would be out of the funding and accountability loop. Our view was that on balance it was better to provide accountability through the local democratic process whereby the councils, rather than the Executive, were the paymasters.
On the accountability front, how will the process work? I refer to the WESTRANS example. I am a resident of Dumfries and Galloway and a council tax payer. How is having one councillor from Dumfries and Galloway on the WESTRANS board providing accountability?
That councillor will have weight in determining precisely what the partnership board's spending is and he or she will be accountable to his or her council and constituents. That is the link. A local democratic representative is on the board.
The councillor will not have weight if they have been outvoted by the other 13 councillors on the board.
That brings us back to the voting arrangements and the intention that councils should as far as possible work together and take a consensual approach.
I have a couple of questions. First, if we assume that the bill is passed and the regional transport partnerships are established, would the partnerships, rather than local authorities, not be the appropriate bodies to hold powers in relation to the introduction or promotion of congestion charging, because they would be able to balance the interests of a whole region as opposed to those of an individual authority? Does the Executive have a view on that?
It will be possible for the partnerships, in consultation with the councils, to decide what functions they wish to transfer from the councils. The bill and the orders that will go with it will make the scenario that you describe possible. In certain parts of the country, congestion charging could be the responsibility of the regional partnership, but that will largely be a decision for the councils within the partnership to take. They would have to make a recommendation to Scottish ministers, who could then promote the order that would give effect to the recommendation. That is all part of the secondary legislation process of deciding what functions councils might want to transfer to regional level.
Does the Executive have a view on whether that would be a desirable development?
Our view is that it is for the councils to make their own proposals about what functions should move.
My second question relates specifically to what will become the south-east partnership in the SESTRAN area. I am aware that SESTRAN includes Forth Estuary Transport Authority as one of its members. How do you envisage the new south-east partnership relating to FETA?
It is perfectly possible for the arrangements to continue much as they are at the moment; FETA would not be a member of the partnership, but it could work closely with it. The detailed arrangements for FETA will depend on the outcome of the bridges review, which is on-going. A separate process is under way to look at the management of and operational arrangements for the toll bridges in Scotland. Options for change to FETA and the Forth road bridge will be considered in that context.
I welcome the general intentions behind the regional transport partnerships, but I am slightly concerned about one or two of the things that I have heard today about the policy position. I am not entirely convinced—and I wait to be convinced by you or, later, by the minister—that the right approach is to say that every council must be a member of a certain regional transport partnership, even if it is not logical for it to be a member of that partnership. For example, it is not immediately obvious why Dumfries and Galloway Council needs to be in the same regional transport partnership as the greater Glasgow area.
Much as I wish that it were possible, I do not think that any drawing of boundaries will be perfect. No drawing of boundaries will satisfy every local authority and everyone who has an interest in the new partnerships and where their boundaries lie. There will always have to be some compromise when we draw a dividing line between parts of the country.
Fife people such as myself never want to see Fife split for any reason. The point that I am making is that there is no flexibility in the policy or the consultation document: a council has to be a member of one regional transport partnership or another although, in most areas, there is going to be a significant overlap at the edges. Fife is a good example of that. Where would you draw the line between the part that would go with Dundee and the part that would come south to Edinburgh? That would be a difficult thing to do. I am not sure that there is enough flexibility in what is proposed at present to take such issues on board. The answer might lie in observer membership of partnerships, but that might need to be specified.
You make a very good point about observer membership for neighbouring partnerships where there is such clear overlap. We are faced with a situation in which we have to draw boundaries and ensure that every part of Scotland is in only one partnership because the partnerships are to be capable of carrying out executive delivery functions. They could take on some of the transport functions of their constituent local authorities; therefore, we need to know where the dividing lines lie. We do not have the luxury of saying that Fife can be in, for example, the city region planning arrangement for Edinburgh as well as the city region planning arrangement for Dundee.
The consultation paper provides three models for the development of regional transport partnerships that would allow councils to start at the lowest level and work up to the top or, I suppose, vice versa. Is there any opportunity within that for a partnership to have different functions in different parts of its area? For example, the transfer of functions to the west and south-west partnership might be less relevant for Dumfries and Galloway Council than for the councils that are in the SPT area. Will partnerships have the opportunity to come to arrangements whereby different functions are carried out in different parts of their area?
It is not the intention that there should be any difference among councils within a partnership area on the degree of function that moves to the regional level. I will need to check whether such an arrangement would be possible under the bill as it is currently framed. However, we have not ruled out the possibility that management arrangements could change where particular functions are delivered. For example, for the west and south-west partnership, it might well be that all public transport functions might be vested in the partnership, but an agency or local-office arrangement could plausibly allow services in Dumfries and Galloway to be delivered locally rather than from the heart of the partnership area. I cannot say precisely how such an arrangement would work, but the partnership could certainly explore those possibilities. That might meet some of the concerns that have been expressed this afternoon.
I ask Bruce Crawford to keep his questions on part 1 as brief as possible so that we can move on to consider other parts of the bill.
I recognise that dividing powers between councils and regional transport partnerships is a delicate balance to get right, given that local authorities have a legitimate democratic interest. However, some critics have said that the need for consensus and for partnership working will simply create toothless wonders without the real powers to do the job. An example of that is section 8, which deals with the duty of constituent councils and other public bodies in respect of transport strategies. The catch-all phrase "so far as possible" appears in every subsection of section 8. What consideration was given to providing the regional transport partnerships with more powers of direction so that the critics' "toothless wonder" tag could be lost?
You have certainly put your finger on the approach that we have adopted. The requirement to produce a regional transport strategy that is binding on the constituent local authorities provides the mechanism by which the regional transport partnership can provide significant direction to those local authorities.
I also want to ask about the intention to establish the regional transport partnerships as bodies corporate. If I remember correctly, Scottish Water was established as a body corporate under the Water Industry (Scotland) Act 2002. I read in the policy memorandum about the suggestions that you have made for the make-up of those bodies corporate, such as having joint boards or following existing arrangements. Did you examine the possibility of creating a public sector company limited by guarantee, which would be a more innovative model?
We looked at a range of options for the new regional bodies—that was the subject of the consultation in September 2003. As I recall, we did not get a significant level of support for the company option, although it is fair to say that we did not get a huge response on the best approach to take. We sought to take a bespoke approach, which is particularly suitable for transport, bringing together members from each local authority while ensuring that there is some external expertise.
That could still happen in a public sector company. The organisation could have that membership but be formed differently. I will give an example to illustrate why I asked the question. If at some stage in the future we were to decide to have another bridge across the Forth because of congestion problems—I am not saying that that would be the right option—that would be extremely expensive. It would, no doubt, gobble up all the Scottish Executive's transport budget for some time. If, in the current environment and with the body corporate that you envisage in the bill, the regional transport partnership was the prime mover behind that, all that expenditure would score against public expenditure requirements. Am I right to say that if the body was a public sector company limited by guarantee, it could borrow from future years on the strength of its income from tolling or whatever, and that that would not score against public sector borrowing requirements? That would be a more innovative model and would release resources.
The financial question whether the sort of company that you describe would take expenditure off the balance sheet is complex. A complex analysis would be required to decide whether something would remain on the public sector balance sheet. I honestly cannot say whether the aim that you suggest would be achieved—it might. Under the proposed arrangements, it is open to a regional transport partnership to set up a company. It will have most of the attributes of a local authority and as it is possible for local authorities to set up companies limited by guarantee, it is perfectly possible that a regional transport partnership could do that. If there was a specific project of the nature that you describe, that option could be explored further.
I understand the public sector model—for example, Perth and Kinross Recreational Facilities Ltd is a company limited by guarantee but that does not necessarily prevent it scoring against public expenditure. It would be useful if the Executive officials could take the suggestion away, put it through their complex mincer and come back to tell us whether it is feasible. The committee might want to examine the option further.
I do not think that something that was set up separately, outside the existing structures, would alter the balance sheet treatment, nor do I think that we could come back to you and give you a confident assessment of whether something would be on or off the balance sheet, simply because that is really a matter for Audit Scotland. It would consider the matter if we came forward with firm plans and, in my experience, Audit Scotland considers such matters only once a body has been created. However, I am happy to reflect on that matter.
With due respect, we will have to vote on whether the bill is satisfactory. Some members may think that another model would be more satisfactory, but we need all the evidence that we can get to allow us to decide whether to support the bill. There must be some compulsion on civil servants to discuss the matter with Audit Scotland, if that is required, and to present to us the full range of available options. After all, you have presented other available options. We are simply asking for an option that is not on the table at present.
You raise the general point of the extent to which such a body would be able to take its borrowing off the balance sheet. I am happy to explore that issue with my finance colleagues. However, at present, I am not confident that we will give you the material that you want.
If Mr Pryce is going to do that examination, I ask him also to consider the implications for the accountability of the members of such a public company limited by guarantee—rather than a body corporate—to their nominating bodies.
Am I right that the bill will impose a sole duty on the transport partnerships, which is to draw up a strategy for transport in their regions?
That is the single main duty that will be placed on the partnerships from the outset.
Is it the sole duty in the bill as drafted?
It is the sole duty that the partnerships will get at the outset, except in the west of Scotland, where the policy intention is clear that the board of the partnership will get powers that at present lie with Strathclyde Passenger Transport.
My question was whether it will be the sole duty in the statute—I think that the answer is yes. Is it correct that, under the Transport (Scotland) Act 2001, the Scottish ministers already have powers to require any body to prepare a strategy for transport and that the Scottish ministers could therefore require Highlands and Islands strategic transport partnership, WESTRANS and other such bodies to do that?
That is not the approach that we have taken.
My question is whether the legal capacity exists for ministers to use the power—which I think is contained in section 1 of the 2001 act—to require any body that they want, including existing bodies that do good work such as HITRANS, to carry out the sole duty that will initially be conferred on the new regional transport partnerships under the bill.
I think that, under the 2001 act, ministers can require bodies to produce a joint transport strategy.
I am glad for that clarification, because that is what I thought. I am left metaphorically scratching my head—as the public may be doing—and asking what the new bodies are for, what they will do and whether they will be talking shops. The estimated cost of the new bodies is £2.5 million, but are they necessary? Would we not be better sticking with the existing bodies and providing them, on a voluntary basis, with additional power or resources, if that is what is required? Why do we need the regional transport partnerships, at a cost of around £2.5 million?
The framework that is set out in the bill will provide not only a requirement to produce a regional transport strategy, but a duty on the constituent councils to co-operate with that strategy. I do not believe that that is part of the 2001 act.
I see. Can you give, say, three examples of councils that are not co-operating at present and which have therefore led the Executive to introduce the new statutory model?
It would not be right for me to go into detail. However, it is important that councils should have to co-operate with the provisions that are set out in the regional transport strategy. That is not the way in which the existing joint transport strategies work.
Are you not able to give us examples?
I would not like to give specific examples, but I am aware of instances of friction between local authorities in fulfilling their transport functions.
I am not aware of any legislation that can abolish friction.
We move on to part 2 of the bill, on road works.
I have asked about how many prosecutions there have been under the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991, but my questions were answered by the Scottish Executive Justice Department, rather than the Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning Department. What research have you done on the matter and why do you consider that the existing provisions have not worked adequately?
To our knowledge, there have been no prosecutions under the 1991 act. Why that is the case is a matter for procurators fiscal.
I do not agree, because there is a wider issue. Elaborate provisions currently govern the digging up of roads throughout Scotland, but the anecdotal evidence is that the public do not regard the situation, since the passing of the 1991 act, as satisfactory and no one has been prosecuted for being in breach of the act's provisions. How can we be confident that additional legislation will make the situation better?
You will be aware that the bill would uprate the level of fines from level 3—the current level, which is £1,000—to levels 4 and 5. If a summary offence occurs, procurators fiscal might take a different view about prosecuting the offence vis-à-vis other offences that they must consider—I am not trying to second-guess how procurators fiscal would address the matter. We considered the offences, in particular administrative offences, and identified four offences under the 1991 act that we thought might more appropriately be dealt with by fixed-penalty notices.
Do you understand my difficulty? No one has been fined under the existing provisions, so it cannot be argued that people disregard them because they are too lenient. Simply to change the provisions will achieve nothing unless they are enforced. Surely the first step should be to enforce the current provisions, rather than to introduce new measures.
I note your comments.
Perhaps we can develop the point. Mr Mundell asked about prosecutions, but the Executive intends the bill to reduce inconvenience caused by congestion and to address matters such as the quality and safety of reinstatements. Many utility companies contend that the congestion that is caused by road works that they initiate is not huge in relation to the overall congestion on Scottish roads. Has there been a statistical analysis of the scale of the problem? What impact would the bill be likely to have?
There are common figures for congestion. It is estimated that 65 per cent of congestion is caused by the sheer volume of vehicles on the road. A further 25 per cent is caused by incidents, which could range from people double parking to serious accidents. That leaves 10 per cent, which is caused by road works of all types.
Working on the assumption that much of the work that is currently going on will still be undertaken after the laying of new regulations, what impact do you anticipate that the bill will have on reducing the amount of congestion attributable to the actions of utility companies?
We are seeking to improve the co-ordination and co-operation between utility companies and road works authorities. It is very difficult to estimate the likely reduction in congestion because that will depend on the manner in which all parties co-operate in implementing the planning requirements.
Your evidence so far seems to be proffered on the assumption that all road works are occasioned by the utility companies, but that is obviously not true. What proportion of the total is caused by the utility companies?
It is difficult to get a figure for that. One of the reasons for that is that the Scottish road works register, which contains details of road works, does not contain all information sets. We are seeking to redress that situation so that all information will be placed on the register. Once that happens, we will be in a better position to identify which road works are attributable to utility companies and which are attributable to road works authorities.
I think that we are going to hear from the national joint utilities group later. While I am no expert, I understand that it will dispute those statistics. If you do not have the statistics, how were you able to quote those percentages for the causation of congestion?
The congestion figures were taken from a 1992 report by the Transport Research Laboratory. They were, I believe, based on a sample and on an extrapolation taken thereafter.
So, at best, the statistic is 12 years old—and probably older.
Yes, unfortunately.
If the statistic is at least 12 years old, do you think that it is of any use now?
I think that it gives an indication. Clearly, many changes have taken place over the intervening period—especially among the utility companies. For example, many more telecommunications companies have come on stream. More research needs to be done.
I wonder whether you can clarify something that will help us when we take evidence from the national joint utilities group. I know that this issue has been considered during the consultation, because utility companies have already expressed their concerns to you. Am I right in saying that the bill will subject utility companies to civil penalties if they infringe the law? If so, should those penalties not be exacted from anyone who is responsible for carrying out road works but who fails to do so and infringes the law? Should there not be equal treatment for utility companies, local authorities and the companies responsible for trunk road maintenance? Are they treated equally in the bill?
As you know, the bill amplifies the provisions of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991. There is indeed an uprating in the penalties that will apply to utility companies. The Scottish road works commissioner can also apply penalties, through regulations, if utility companies are not co-operating in the provision of information to the register.
I thank you for that answer, but it does not really address the question put. Everyone should be treated equally. If there is to be a system of fines, anyone who fails to carry out road works properly should be fined. The minister does not accept that view, or the legislation would not apply civil penalties only to utility companies.
The road works authority has a duty to maintain the roads, which are a public asset. There are provisions under the various acts that we have been speaking about whereby the Accounts Commission can come down hard on the local authority. As I understand it, there are also provisions for ministers to intervene directly with local authorities to ensure that they are pursuing best value under the Local Government in Scotland Act 2003.
Does the Accounts Commission have the power to exact civil penalties? If so, has that power ever been used? Have ministers ever intervened?
I am sorry—I do not know the answer to that question.
Perhaps we could find that out. There seems to be a two-tier system—it is road works apartheid. Utility companies will be fined. They will be hounded and pursued. Meanwhile, local authorities are subject to no sanctions at all. How can that make sense? Surely there should be one rule for all and, if the public want road works to be carried out properly and promptly, there should be one regime to which everyone is subject. Surely that is fair and easy to explain, and that is what we should have before us.
We are indeed looking at a bill that does not put the utility companies on the same basis as the road works authorities. That is inevitable, as the road works authorities are the owners of the asset. They are the owners of the road and, as Frazer Henderson said, they have a statutory duty to deliver best value and to ensure the smooth operation of the traffic on those roads. The incentives for the utility companies, strong though they may be, are rather different. Because of that aspect, the road works authorities and the utility companies have a different background to their reason for being on the road and carrying out road works. The bill is not just about the carrying out of the road works; it also places a duty on the road works authority to co-ordinate the works that take place on its roads.
Are the road works authorities liable—and have they been liable—to enter details of road works on to the Scottish road works register?
Yes.
Have they done so?
Yes, some have done so. As I mentioned at the outset, we want to ensure that all information sets are placed in the register by all parties, so that we have a complete record.
So some road works authorities have not done so. Could you be more precise, perhaps in a letter to the committee, about the facts on this matter?
We can give you information about the notices that have been applied on the register for the past year.
This is an intriguing area. Who will be fined and who will not be fined? If I have understood you correctly, the road works authority and the local authority cannot be fined because they are responsible for and own the road, and the Scottish Executive is in the same boat, because it owns the trunk roads. Where does that leave BEAR Scotland or any of the other premium providers? They are not the owners but are simply discharging a duty on behalf of the Executive. Will it be possible for them to be fined? It seems that we need to explore this area a bit more.
We cannot answer on the latter point today. As I understand it, the bill's provisions will apply to the organisation that has responsibility for the road works. In other words, the Scottish ministers are accountable for any works on the trunk road network and, as you say, BEAR Scotland and Amey Highways are simply acting as our agents in carrying out the work.
The Scottish Executive will not be playing on the same playing field as the utilities because it will in effect have an opt-out from being fined. You would perhaps not use the term "opt-out", but you know where I am coming from with that terminology.
That is exactly what I was going to say; I would not think of it as an opt-out. The Scottish ministers have a responsibility to ensure the smooth operation of the trunk road network, want to ensure that at all times and therefore seek to minimise any disruption.
I will pursue the idea of the proposed Scottish road works commissioner. My impression from surgeries that I have held over the years as a local councillor and as an MSP is that the big complaint from the public is about the amount of road works and the number of different companies that do them. Constituents ask why, rather than the road being dug up again and again, it cannot just be dug up once and have everything done then. My worry is that the commissioner might not have the resources and power to act as an overarching agent for all the work. Although there is pressure on private sector companies to get the job done as quickly as possible, there is not enough pressure on them to ensure that they put the road back into the condition in which they found it, and that is a major problem. Local authorities also have pressures on budgets for the equipment that they have to hire for road works, and that makes them try to get the job done quickly. I ask you to assure us that the commissioner will be properly resourced and will have the powers to stop the fiasco of several pieces of road being dug up at different times over the course of 12 or 24 months to the annoyance and inconvenience of ordinary people. I think that there are weaknesses in the plan, but I ask you for that assurance.
I will ask Frazer Henderson to respond on the detail of the powers that the commissioner will have. The bill provides significant powers of direction for the road works commissioner, which should improve matters considerably.
The statutory register that we mention in the bill—the Scottish road works register—will be the principal tool for undertaking the co-ordination activities that your constituents constantly state are lacking. Under the auspices of the commissioner, it will be the principal way that we ensure that we get proper co-ordination and co-operation between road works authorities to minimise the impact of road works throughout Scotland. That is the ultimate aim and we are providing a planning tool to achieve it.
If there are future problems in local authority areas, the commissioner, rather than local authorities, will be responsible for solving them. Will the commissioner have the authority to be able to bridge the gap between the local authorities and the private utilities?
We think of the commissioner as an overarching corporate body that will bring the utility companies and the road works authorities together using the register as the principal planning tool. By reference to that planning tool and the information that it contains, the commissioner will ensure that quality is maintained. I think that the bill refers to at least eight occasions on which the commissioner can resolve disputes between the road works authorities and the utility companies with the aim of smoothing through better co-ordination of road works, which is what your constituents have said that they want.
I do not think that anyone would argue that the 1991 act is working satisfactorily. I can give a good example from my constituency. Work under a contract to replace water mains along the High Street in Newburgh was meant to take six months, but it took 18 months and caused great disruption for the community and businesses. Even when the work was completed, the reinstatements were not done to a satisfactory standard, which meant even more disruption to the local community while things were fixed. How will the bill help to prevent such things from happening again?
One of the major irritations with major water mains going in is that substantial works are required, but provisions in the bill mean that road excavations for substantial works cannot occur again within three years. That said, the emphasis is on all utility companies co-operating and co-ordinating activities in such a manner that roads are not constantly being opened.
Nothing particularly untoward happened—there were simply bad contractors and there was bad management of the scheme. I had hoped that we would try to address such matters with the bill. Will the bill enable roads authorities to work to try to ensure that, when there is clear evidence of bad management of a scheme by contractors, roads authorities or the commissioner can take action to deal with that?
The roads authority can currently take action if it thinks that there have been delays in any works that are taking place under the 1991 act. It can step in and undertake the work itself, and fine and/or invoice the relevant utility company for backfill, for example.
I am not entirely convinced that you have answered my question. Information was available and people knew that work on the contract was taking three times longer than it should have taken and that the quality of work was not up to standard, but it still seemed impossible for the roads authority to take sufficient action to resolve the problem because its powers were essentially limited to reinstatement issues. However, there was bad management and poor supervision of a contract by the utility company, which meant that the work took longer than it should have done. Is there anything in the bill that will mean that if utility companies say that they will take six months to do a job but go beyond that six months, something can be done to deal with the matter?
I would like to reflect on that and come back to the committee on it. I want to check the details.
I would be grateful if you could do that, because one of the fundamental frustrations of the public is when utility works take significantly longer than required and cause more disruption. There is no point having a street works register saying that a job will take six months if it takes 18 months. That would be of no value to anyone.
The power may already exist in the 1991 act, but perhaps the road works authorities are not using it. The extended powers in the bill will mean that they will have to co-ordinate their works properly, which may be an incentive for them to use the powers in the 1991 act to avoid any unnecessary delay.
With deep respect, I am not sure how the roads authority can do that if the failure is on the part of the utility company to supervise its contracts adequately. Surely the roads authority cannot take over the running of the contract, which is the central problem.
Under the 1991 act, the road works authority has quite a wide power to take whatever steps are necessary
We will be getting quite a superhighwayman. The commissioner will promote good practice and co-ordinate co-operation, which I understand, and will ensure compliance, which may lead to enforcement and fixed penalties. If those penalties are objected to, court action will no doubt follow, which will involve substantial amounts of time. The commissioner will monitor the performance of statutory undertakers, I presume from Benbecula to Berwick and from Wick to Wigtown. It will be a big job for the individual, but I cannot reconcile that big job with the costs, which it is suggested will be in the order of £200,000 initially, with running costs of £160,000 thereafter. Does that mean that in effect the job will be done by the person and a dog, or will they have a substantial number of staff to underpin them? Monitoring the performance of statutory undertakers will be a job in itself, even though we will get feedback from the roads authorities. If cases end up in court action to back up fixed penalties, a substantial amount of work will be required to ensure that the action is successful. We have the detail of what the individual will do, but I am concerned that they will not have the wherewithal to make it happen. Maybe you will tell me differently.
You are right to identify that we are talking about figures of £160,000 and £200,000 to start with, which are for a commissioner plus a small staff unit. We envisage the commissioner working closely with the roads authorities and utilities committee Scotland—which, as the name suggests, is made up of various parties—to drive forward improvements. That committee currently has a key role in terms of the register. From the dealings that we have had with that committee, we know that it wishes to improve the situation to drive up quality and ensure that the register has more information. The commissioner will not be going against the grain. We are all moving forward together. Support will be available to the commissioner from within the utility companies and the road works authorities.
I appreciate the grain of the argument. However, utility companies will realise that the Scottish road works commissioner has a lot of teeth but cannot bite, because he will not have the wherewithal to do the work, given that he will have a small staff unit and no inspectors or staff to process disputes with road companies about fixed penalties. The utility companies will say, "He might be a big scary man, but he cannot do much to me, so we will carry on doing what we are doing."
Regulations made under the bill could enable the commissioner to fine the utility companies.
Let us tease that out. If a company objected to a fine imposed by the commissioner, who would do the case work and produce the evidence for the procurator fiscal? Would that be done by the commissioner and his small unit? Do you understand my point?
I note it.
In light of Mr Henderson's previous answers, I ask that the clerk write to the Lord Advocate to ask for his view on why there have been no prosecutions under the 1991 act. Perhaps the Lord Advocate can tell us how many reports have been made under the 1991 act and why they have not led to prosecutions.
One of the commissioner's key roles will be to ensure that the road works authorities fulfil their duties, which include ensuring that the utility companies perform as they should in relation to the road works authorities' assets. Therefore, the commissioner will be likely to seek from the road works authorities information about the state of roads and about why the authorities might not be co-ordinating the works of utility companies or ensuring that those companies undertake their work in the manner that is expected of them.
That is an interesting reply. Basically, you are saying that you regard the local authorities as the problem, because they do not enforce the existing legislation. The purpose of the commissioner will be to gee them up. Is that right?
One of the commissioner's principal roles will be to ensure that the provisions of the 1991 act and the bill that relate to road works are addressed.
Could the minister not do that? If local authorities are simply not enforcing the existing legislation, must we invent a new role in order for someone to tell local authorities to use the powers that they already have?
One of the principal reasons for creating the role of Scottish road works commissioner is that we want to put the Scottish road works register on a statutory footing and we need a statutory body to keep the register. In addition to that, we identified deficiencies in the 1991 act—perhaps "deficiencies" is not the right word. Under the bill, the commissioner will take forward the monitoring, compliance and good practice elements that emanate from the use of the register as an information set.
I would like Mr Pryce to clarify a small matter in relation to Fergus Ewing's point about congestion. I understand that local authorities have a duty to maintain roads, but I am not aware of any provisions that place local authorities under a duty to minimise congestion, although that seemed to be the implication of what Mr Pryce said.
I am not suggesting that they have an explicit statutory duty to minimise congestion on the roads. However, given that they are the owner of the road and the traffic manager for that part of the local road network, in fulfilling their duties on best value they will want to ensure that the traffic flows smoothly on their roads.
Yes, but they do not have a specific duty to minimise congestion, do they?
Not that I can think of.
Finally, do members have questions about part 3 of the bill, which deals primarily with national concessionary schemes, but includes a range of other measures?
In the interests of focus, I will leave out my question on the national concessionary schemes, because I am sure that other members will want to ask about them. I will ask about the support for the lifeline ferry services to our islands and, in particular, the repeal of the Highlands and Islands Shipping Services Act 1960. Has the Executive had discussions about exempting itself from the European Union state-aid rules, which it appears are being used as a justification for the repeal of the act? Has there been any discussion about challenging whether the rules should be imposed in relation to the essential ferry services to our islands? If that has been considered, what comparisons with services in other countries have been used?
There have been discussions with the European Commission about state aid in relation to the tendering of ferry services. From what the Commission has said, we are clear that there continues to be a requirement for the Executive to tender ferry services in Scotland. That comes out of the Altmark case, which was about whether a payment constituted state aid. The requirement for public tendering of ferry services stems from the maritime cabotage regulation, which has a different treaty base from the state-aid rules. The Altmark judgment itself does not affect the issue whether public tendering is required—the conclusion is that it is required.
I draw to your attention page 14 of the policy memorandum. The last sentence of paragraph 68 states, in connection with assistance to sea transport services in the Highlands and Islands:
My colleague Laurence Sullivan will be happy to answer your question on the legal aspects.
The purpose of the change of effect of the 1960 act—and its linkage into the EU rules that are mentioned in the policy memorandum—concerns the procedure that the Scottish Executive has to go through in order to use the 1960 act, rather than the substance of EU state-aid rules, which section 39 of the bill does not affect in any way. Section 39 simply removes the effect of the 1960 act and uses instead the power in section 70 of the Transport (Scotland) Act 2001, which will make the procedure for supporting lifeline services easier.
I say with the greatest respect that we are not talking about that. I am perfectly aware that the cumbersome problems with the 1960 act—in relation to the level of aid that triggers an application and to the complexity and bureaucracy that are involved in that—must be removed. However, as you will know if you check page 13 of your policy memorandum, your
The 1960 act contains a power to fund lifeline services that is limited to the Highlands and Islands. Removing that provision and replacing it with the powers in section 70 of the 2001 act will extend the position, because the 1960 act has a variety of problems, which you noted. I am not in a position to comment in detail on the wider, complex issues of state aid and Altmark, because the substance of that argument does not affect what we do in the bill to change the procedures by which the Scottish Executive has the power to fund lifeline ferry services.
Are you saying that EU state-aid rules have nothing to do with the proposed changes in relation to Highlands and Islands shipping?
All EU state-aid rules apply to Scotland, as they do to the rest of the EU. I am saying that the removal of the effect of the 1960 act does not affect that.
I apologise if I am not making myself clear. I am looking for an answer from the Scottish Executive on whether it is prepared to consider seeking the same exemption as the German Government did in relation to Altmark and the French Government did in relation to water services from EU state-aid rules, to allow us as a country to continue to have the duty to support Highlands and Islands ferry services, rather than forcing those services into competitive tender. Has that been considered? Is there a case? If there is, why has it never been proposed?
Discussions have taken place. We have explored with the Commission whether it is necessary to tender ferry services, particularly the Clyde and Hebrides services. The Commission could envisage no circumstance in which the requirements of the maritime cabotage regulation would enable the Clyde and Hebrides ferry services not to go to tender. The arguments have been considered carefully. We have taken the case to, and discussed it with, the Commission. The Commission's clear view is that tendering is required. However, I confess to not being an expert on ferry tendering.
I am asking you whether the Executive subsequently considered whether it had a legal case. You went to the Commission and asked it about the matter. In the cases that I mentioned, Governments went to the Commission and they were told, "No, you can't exempt water in France," and, "No, you can't exempt bus services in certain parts of Germany." However, there were subsequent court cases that allowed those Governments to fight their causes. Can you provide information to the committee about whether there was any consideration of mounting a legal challenge to the Commission's opinion and, if not, why not?
We will come back to you on that.
Okay. It would certainly be useful if you would come back to the committee on the general area that has been covered by that line of questioning. Thank you for that. We move on to other lines of questioning.
The bill provides for a power to create a national travel concession scheme. Has further thought been given to the delivery mechanism for that? As we note from the Scottish Parliament information centre briefing on the bill, the options for delivery are through local authorities, the Scottish ministers or the new transport partnerships.
I will get Tom Macdonald to say a little more about that, but I believe that the minister appeared before the committee just two weeks ago and said then that there would be further developments shortly.
The position is still as it was two weeks ago when the minister was before the committee. The powers in the bill are discretionary and they give ministers the ability to make an order for a national travel concession scheme if that is what they decide to do. The point is that the power is discretionary.
Jonathan Pryce indicated earlier that we will be able to see, in skeleton form, some of the other orders that will be made under the bill. Will we see a national travel concession scheme order in skeleton form at stage 2, even though I think that it will be too late at that point? Will we know what the specific proposals are or will there be an announcement from the minister before then?
That depends on what stage we have reached in our proposals for concessionary travel. Perhaps Tom Macdonald would like to add something.
I cannot respond to the question whether a draft order will be presented to the committee, but ministers plan to make an announcement fairly soon about the way forward on concessionary travel.
I am not sure where that leaves the committee in terms of evidence taking. If we get to stage 2, we will not be able to have a detailed discussion about whether the mechanism that will be used to deliver such a scheme is the most satisfactory way of doing it. I am a bit concerned about that, in the same way as I was concerned about earlier issues.
Did you say "30mph repeater signs"?
I am talking about repeater signs within town boundaries.
So you mean the small signs—
Small signs or markings on the road. I understand that, at the moment, local authorities have to ask permission from the Executive to introduce such signs. That requirement seems unnecessarily bureaucratic and everyone would be helped if it were removed.
I do not know the details. We can certainly take that issue away and consider it. I am not aware that local authorities have made approaches to us about it. If you have any more information—
I will certainly forward to you the information that I have.
I think that I know the answer to my next question from reading the policy memorandum, but will you confirm for the record that section 37 of the bill will give ministers the power to introduce travel concession schemes not only for buses, but for ferries and trains as they deem fit?
Yes.
I appreciate that the bill is enabling legislation for national travel concession schemes and does not provide the detail. However, the financial memorandum refers to the budget allocation of about £196 million over the last two years of the spending review to implement such a scheme. That is a substantial sum. We are all keen to ensure that, in introducing a scheme, that money is invested wisely. Is it possible to tell us now, or to indicate when further information will be available, about the models that the Executive is considering and about how such a scheme will be funded? Is the Executive considering a national scheme based on the fare multiplier that is used by local authorities or is it looking at another mechanism, such as a quality partnership-type scheme, which would require operators not only to ferry our concessionaires around but to improve the services that are available to people, in particular in rural areas where having a concessionary bus pass will be of no use if there is no bus to use it on?
All that we can do at the moment is to refer you to what is in the partnership agreement, where there is a commitment to free off-peak bus travel throughout Scotland for elderly and disabled people.
The remuneration mechanisms through which operators are paid for carrying concessionary passengers currently work on a no-better-no-worse basis: operators are funded for what they would have received if they had not had the scheme in the first place. That underlying mechanism goes back to European legislation and is likely to continue when we introduce new national schemes. Beyond the narrow confines of the issue, as the Minister for Transport said when he was last before the committee, the scale of the investment in concessionary travel that comes through from spending review 2004 is such that there should be a general benefit to bus services.
I am pleased to have that on the record, as it is important. Does the Executive intend to publish a consultation on concession schemes before the draft orders are published?
Ministers have said in the past that the intention is to produce a consultation paper. All that I can say now is that an announcement will be made quite soon.
When the Minister for Transport was before us, he said in response to a question from my colleague Bruce Crawford that he was actively considering extending the proposed national concessionary scheme to ferries. Since then, have you been in contact with the ferry operators, such as Caledonian MacBrayne, and with HITRANS? Have you come up with a cost for extending the scheme to ferry users in the eligible categories—senior citizens and people with a disability?
We have not been directly talking to HITRANS. I think that my colleagues on the ferry side may have been speaking with CalMac, but we do not yet have an answer to the questions that you pose about where we go further in relation to ferry travel. I say again that the minister will make an announcement quite soon.
Yes, but he has already said what he thinks the cost of the scheme as proposed is, so we should be entitled to know—and the taxpayer needs to know—what the additional cost would be to extend the scheme to ferry users. Have you obtained information about those costs? Can you provide an estimate of the cost of such an extension?
I cannot provide that today.
Is that because you do not have that information?
I certainly do not have it with me.
But you have it.
I do not have robust, fully worked out estimates of what such an extension would cost.
May I ask one final question that strikes me as possibly being relevant? The minister will no doubt, concurrent with consideration of national travel concession schemes, be looking to implement the partnership commitment to explore ways in which air travel could be made less expensive for people in the Highlands and Islands. In particular, he will be thinking about the undertaking in the partnership agreement to consider the model that was proposed—
I am not sure how relevant that is to the bill.
I am coming to the bill. My question is simple. Arguably, if it is cheaper to go by ferry, fewer of the people who currently use the plane to travel to the mainland will continue to do so. Has consideration been given to whether making ferry travel subject to the concessionary scheme will have a knock-on impact on usage of air services and, in particular, on the finances of Highlands and Islands Airports Ltd and the companies that operate lifeline services to the islands?
I understand the point that you make, but we have not done what you suggest.
Do you intend to do it?
We will consider all aspects of the issue. You make a reasonable point.
We would not want to help one type of transport and damage the interests of another, especially when lifeline services are involved. A commitment to lifeline air services appears in all the transport documents that I have seen.
Was that a yes? You were nodding.
I was indicating that I understood your point. I was not aware that you were asking a question.
I have a question about yellow taxibuses. Tom Macdonald is from the section that deals with taxis and so on. A few weeks ago, we heard evidence from the traffic commissioner for Scotland about some of the difficulties that Stagecoach yellow taxibuses were having. There is a conflict between them and local taxi drivers because of a lack of clarity about the distinction between public service vehicles and private hire cars. Given that the long title of the bill refers to
I understand that the legislation to which you refer is reserved and is unlikely to be susceptible to modification through the bill.
Good grief! We cannot even look after taxis.
We can look after taxis. The legislation on taxis and private hire vehicles is devolved, but the legislation on the licensing of bus services is reserved. We can deal with the issue from the point of view of taxis and private hire vehicles, but not from the point of view of yellow taxibuses. You said that there is confusion about what is a taxi and what is a bus. The yellow taxibus from Dunfermline to Edinburgh that Stagecoach provides is a registered local bus service. There is clarity about where it fits into the current structure.
I accept that it is a local registered bus service, but it can be called to people's homes to pick them up, as a taxi would be called. The fact that that is not how registered bus services normally work has resulted in a lack of clarity in the system. I understand that some issues may be reserved to Westminster—although I may not like it—and that that may make it difficult to achieve clarity.
I recognise the point that you make. There are questions about the distinction between buses and taxes. However, the yellow taxibus has been accepted by the traffic commissioner as a local bus service, so we know how it is classified.
You say that the bill's overarching policy objective is
I understand that the Executive has considered the point that you raise, but I am not aware that any particular consideration was given to it in the context of the bill.
Would it be possible for amendments and additions on the issue of road equivalent tariffs to be introduced to the bill's policy objectives? Will you share with the committee the consideration that has already taken place in the Executive? What was the extent of that consideration? Were figures given and was a scheme examined?
It is for me as convener to adjudicate on what amendments are acceptable and within the remit of the bill at stage 2. I would not want to do that hypothetically on the basis of amendments that I have not seen. At stage 3, it is for the Presiding Officer to decide whether an amendment is appropriate. I do not think that the Executive officials can respond on the matter.
Can they respond to the second part of my question, on the consideration that has already taken place?
Yes. Thank you, convener, for your comments on the scope of amendments—that is my understanding, too. As far as road equivalent tariff schemes for ferry services are concerned, it is best for us to drop you a note explaining the background. Again, that is not a matter on which I or anyone else here is particularly expert.
Will you do that in enough time for me to raise the matter during consideration of the bill or are you talking about dropping us a note in a few months' time?
We will seek to produce something for you swiftly. I do not know how much we will have to say.
That brings us to the end of questions—finally—for this group of witnesses. I thank Jonathan Pryce and his team of officials from the Scottish Executive. I suggest that we have a three or four-minute break before we bring in the next panel of witnesses.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—
I apologise to our next panel of witnesses for the fact that we overran a little with the Executive officials. To some extent that was because the Executive is the promoter of the bill and so will be quizzed in detail on every aspect.
I realise that you have had a long day; we have given you a written submission, so we will rely on that. We welcome the opportunity to give evidence to the committee at this early stage of the bill. I have spoken to Bill Barker and neither he nor I will say any more than that, as we prefer to answer your questions, which I think would be appropriate.
That is helpful. Thank you for the written submission that you provided in advance. Again, we will deal with the three aspects of the bill. Do members wish to ask questions on regional transport partnerships and part 1 of the bill?
One of the proposals in the bill is that regional transport strategies will have to be devised within a year of the partnerships being set up. Do you think that that is achievable? If not, what timescale would be realistic?
I should have said that I will deal with part 1 of the bill, Bill Barker will deal with part 2 and we will field questions on part 3 between us.
We heard recently from Audit Scotland that there is a backlog of £1.5 billion of road works for which local authorities are responsible. How will spending £3.7 million on the bill help that situation? Would it be better to spend the extra money on carrying out road works rather than on talking about carrying out works of any description? Will you explain in concrete terms exactly how the partnerships will help?
That issue probably falls neatly between us—Grahame Lawson will talk about expenditure on regional transport partnerships. You refer to the maintenance backlog, on which Audit Scotland recently published a report. I can say only that any additional money spent on that backlog would be a wonderful thing.
I ask members not to get too deeply into the £1.5 billion backlog because the committee has agreed to take further evidence from SCOTS and Audit Scotland on that. We will be able to give the matter detailed scrutiny in due course.
That is what I was going to say. If you do not mind, the question is better answered at another time. We certainly welcome any money for road maintenance because there is a backlog, but we will answer the question later. On the partnerships, all I can say is that voluntary partnerships already exist, but they have limitations. It would help if they had more teeth because there is a need for a regional dimension in transport planning.
What teeth will be provided by the bill?
You asked that question earlier. There are big differences between the partnerships. Four of the five proposed partnerships will have limited powers, in that their only statutory duty will be to produce a regional strategy. The exception will be the new body that will take over in the west of Scotland, which will also have to take over the powers of SPT. That will create a major imbalance in the powers and nature of the partnerships, which you will have to address.
Am I right that, as far as SPT is concerned, teeth will be extracted rather than provided? Its responsibilities in respect of rail are being removed, as explained in paragraph 22 of the policy memorandum.
I understand that the committee will invite SPT to speak to it later. The powers that will be "extracted" from SPT, as Fergus Ewing put it, are limited and relate to the strategic element of rail passenger planning rather than to overall planning. The bill does not mention the relationship between the new regional partnerships and the proposed national transport agency—between the two, no powers will be lost to Scottish democracy, so SCOTS is relaxed from that point of view.
The questions that I am trying to cover are: what is the point of the partnerships and how will they make a difference for the better? So far, your answer has been that there will be more teeth—although I cannot detect any molars, let alone any incisors—and that the strategies will be statutory rather than voluntary. What difference will that make unless there is extra cash to implement the strategy? I think you will agree that the bill does not give any indication of whether there will be extra cash, or whether the partnerships will be responsible for delivery and fulfilment of the strategy as well as its production.
We mentioned that in our comments on section 3 of the bill. We acknowledge that there will be huge variations, as I said, in the scale and nature of operations. We would certainly be concerned if there was no assurance from ministers that strategies will be funded. That applies to sustaining the current SPT operation, which is a major operation in its own right and is the exception. It is the only situation in which local authorities' duties and responsibilities for public transport are vested in another body.
That is extremely helpful. You said that unless there are assurances from ministers that the strategies will be funded, they will not work. Should the strategies be able to cover all modes of transport? Should the regional bodies be able to cover trunk roads, minor roads, rail, ferries and air transport or should they cover only some of those modes? If so, which modes should they cover?
We made representations on that. The bill mentions powers being ceded by local authorities to the partnerships and we have raised the issue of powers being ceded downwards by ministers to the partnerships, particularly in relation to trunk roads and motorways. We accept that there may well be a difference between the trunk road network and the motorway network in terms of the scale and nature of the beast, but it is difficult to see the difference between trunk roads such as the A77 south of Ayr or the A9 north of Inverness and other local authority roads. We see no reason why maintenance and development of such roads could not be passed to regional transport bodies.
That is extremely helpful. As far as trunk roads are concerned, should the regional partnerships have responsibility for prioritising in their strategies the improvement works that would be required for trunk roads in their areas to work properly?
I do not see how a regional partnership could come up with a transport strategy that did not address that issue.
Are you and your organisation aware of the widespread lack of co-operation among local authorities, which might be preventing regional schemes from being delivered? In our previous questioning, we sought examples of that, but none was provided.
I am not aware of any friction among local authorities. There will be issues that divide authorities, of course. For example—although perhaps I should not mention this—the issue of road-user charging in Edinburgh and the east of Scotland has, shall we say, got authorities talking. Otherwise, in terms of promoting projects, the evidence is that local authorities recognise the advantages of co-operating with each other and do so. For example, my local authority, North Lanarkshire Council, which is a member of the WESTRANS partnership, and West Lothian Council, which is a member of the SESTRAN partnership, are co-operating closely on the reopening of the Airdrie to Bathgate railway line and on promoting the Caledonian express services on the Shotts line. Not only do we co-operate within our partnerships, we are prepared to co-operate with other partnerships.
That is a helpful response, because part of the rationale for the bill was the need to force local authorities to work together. If there is no evidence that they are not working together, one must question that rationale. Could you comment on the funding arrangements and the concept of requisitioning funds from local authorities rather than having the Scottish Executive fund the new partnerships directly?
Wearing my SCOTS hat, I would say that that concept of requisitioning funds will be alien to many authorities. It is not something that they are accustomed to and I am not certain that many authorities would be comfortable with it. However, the 12 authorities that currently lie within the SPTA area are used to requisitioning, to a certain extent, because funding for SPT comes in the front door of each authority and straight out the back door to SPT.
It is always easy to spend somebody else's money.
In your written evidence, you express concern about the proposal for each council to be represented by a councillor with a weighted vote. Could you expand on those concerns? What would be your suggested solution?
We have concerns about the democratic accountability of the weighted-vote system. If I might be permitted to say so, that system smacks of union meetings with card-carrying members and so on. All the institutions that we have in local authorities at the moment are based on a one-person-one-vote system. We see that as being the only way to do things. For example, SPT has 34 members and the share is proportional to the size of the member authorities. Glasgow City Council has eight members, North Lanarkshire Council and South Lanarkshire Council have four members each, and so on down to smaller authorities that have only one member.
I am not sure whether Grahame Lawson heard the earlier evidence from officials. I am interested in the various powers that will be available to the regional transport partnerships, as compared with the powers of councils. I appreciate that there is a difficult balance to be struck. You will have heard me talk about the phrase "so far as possible" in the bill, which represents a wee bit of an opt-out, although I can understand the reasons for that.
Yes. When the present local authorities were established in 1996, one of the things that we had to do was come up with a local transport strategy. At the time, we expressed concern that there was no national strategy within which to set local strategies. We got the impression that the then Scottish Office felt that, if each of the 32 local authorities produced a local transport strategy, those strategies could be put together and—hey presto!—we would have a national strategy.
I think that you are saying, in effect, that although it is all good and well for good work to be going on, for regional transport strategies to be developed and for there to be agreements among the regional transport partnerships and the local authorities, the Executive is not going to play ball, meaning that everything will come to a stop. You are asking for the bill to contain a duty on ministers to have a national transport strategy so that time is not wasted and we know where we are going.
Absolutely.
That was very useful. Thank you.
There are no further questions on that part of the bill, so we move to members' questions on part 2 of the bill, on road works and so on.
Do you have any view about why there have been no prosecutions under the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991?
My colleagues from the Executive gave you part of the reason. There is a perceived reluctance among procurators fiscal to make such prosecutions. It is also fair to say that, within Scotland, we have always taken the view that we would work in partnership with utilities companies. Unlike the situation south of the border, we have had some remarkable successes in collaborative and co-operative working. A number of my colleagues in other authorities would really like to have taken cases to prosecution, but have failed because the procurator fiscal felt that to proceed was not in the public interest.
So the reports have gone to the procurators fiscal.
I understand that that is the case in some authorities. I know that none has gone from my authority, but I cannot give you information on other authorities.
It is probably not a question that Mr Barker can answer, but on that basis, one of the questions that we have to ask is why such issues would be pursued under the new act if fiscals are not pursuing them under current legislation.
We share your concerns.
You mentioned utilities companies. Prior to introduction of the bill, a number of those companies expressed concern that the statistics that underpin development of the bill were not an accurate reflection of the amount of road works that have been undertaken by the utilities companies, and that local authorities had much more responsibility than the statistics indicated. Do you have any comments on that?
A number of smaller Scottish local authorities find it difficult to find the resources to put into the Scottish road works register all the data that are currently required. Some works, whether utilities or road works authority, are excluded from having to be put into the register. There are gaps in the existing system, though I have to say that the SRWR is one of our successes. It might not be perfect, but it is a lot better than anything that has gone before.
Will the bill enhance the relationship between you and the utilities companies?
For a moment I thought that you were going to ask whether it would enhance the Scottish road works register. I was just about to leap into an answer.
You can answer that one as well—I do not mind.
One of the good aspects of the bill is that it will require everybody to enter information on the register. That is not the case at the moment because it is possible to pass notices by paper—in other words, by fax or post. The bill will make it a requirement to use the register; that will be a good thing. I do not anticipate the relationship between utilities companies and road works authorities changing to that extent in Scotland because of the bill.
So fears on the part of the utilities companies would be groundless.
Those companies would have to answer that question.
I am not sure whether you were here when I referred to the case in my constituency of a utility company—the water board as it happens—whose contractors were so inefficient, and Scottish Water's supervision so poor, that a contract that should have taken six months took 18 months. Will any of the proposals in the bill help to address such situations when they occur? That was not an isolated incident—it is not only the water board that is responsible for such occurrences. If the bill contains no such proposals, can you suggest any improvements?
I do not think that the bill will make a great deal of difference in circumstances such as those that you described. To be fair, I do not think that any legislation will overcome difficulties with contractors, whether they are on the utilities side or on our side. South of the border, section 74 of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 made provisions for lane rental, but even that has its problems.
I noticed the reference to lane rental in your submission. Do you think that that would be of benefit as regards lengthy works by utilities companies? Would it give an additional incentive to the utilities companies to supervise their contractors?
As I am speaking on behalf of SCOTS, I must give a fairly ambivalent answer. Although the more urban areas—the cities, in particular—feel that such provisions could have significant benefits, rural authorities such as mine feel that the administrative burden of implementing such measures would outweigh any benefit. Opinion is divided.
Your submission challenges whether the Scottish road works commissioner will be effective or will be able to do anything that cannot already be done by, for example, RAUCS. It questions whether the commissioner will have any additional powers and asks what the point of having a commissioner will be. It suggests that the proposal will impose additional burdens on smaller authorities, as you just mentioned, which the Executive's financial memorandum does not cost or provide for. I do not have time to repeat the other criticisms that are made. Will having a Scottish road works commissioner produce any clear and demonstrable benefit or would we be better off using the money to carry out road works rather than to administer and talk about them?
As far as SCOTS is concerned, the single benefit of a Scottish road works commissioner that we can identify is that access to Scottish ministers will be provided. Also, with the requirement to publish annual reports, the commissioner will become a figurehead for the whole road works situation.
I notice that the bill will impose a duty on the commissioner to monitor road works throughout Scotland. In his questioning of the civil servants, Bruce Crawford established that, with a budget of £200,000 for the whole office, the commissioner is unlikely to have more than a handful of staff. Is it your view that, because most monitoring will be done through submission of information by local authorities and others, you will be doing the commissioner's work for him or her, because he or she will simply not have the resources to monitor all road works throughout Scotland?
The short answer is yes.
I thank Fergus Ewing, as I was going to go down that road. I am now able to go down another road instead. If the short answer is, "Yes, one man and his dug isnae gonnae make any difference," could RAUCS be given the statutory power to do the job instead?
That suggestion has merit. Both SCOTS and RAUCS have discussed the suggestion of making RAUCS a statutory body with certain powers. At present, it carries out its functions in a spirit of co-operation, and those functions are much the same as those that the commissioner will have. We already monitor road works quality locally, in larger areas and nationally.
In that case, will you submit more considered views on that model? There is no point in creating a bureaucracy to do what is already being done. All we need to do is give the powers to your organisation—provided that you agree on a proper constitution—and, hey presto, we do not need one man and his dug.
We can certainly produce something on that.
Those are all our questions on part 2 of the bill and I do not think that we have any questions on part 3—I guessed that most of our questions to the witnesses would be on parts 1 and 2. I thank them for their evidence.
Thank you for the opportunity to give evidence to the committee.
Thank you. The first group of questions is on part 1, which is on the regional transport partnerships. Iain Smith will lead off.
I listened with interest to your statement, Councillor Mitchell, but I was a little concerned that you seemed to imply that the consultation document's option 3 model, which would give most powers to the regional transport partnerships and take more powers from local authorities, would be imposed on HITRANS. I am not sure that that is what is intended by the bill or by the options. Do you accept that, if HITRANS went for option 1, it would make little difference to the current situation and the existing HITRANS, because all option 1 does is impose a duty on all regional transport partnerships to create a regional transport strategy? That would not be a huge burden on local authorities. It would not result, for example, in Shetland Islands Council having to pay for something in Argyll, because that would be part of the strategy and it would be up to Argyll and Bute Council to fund its share of that work.
You are correct. At the moment, we are looking for a continuation of the present situation, in which we would deal only with the strategic transport plans, but somewhere in the stuff that I have read, it is suggested that there would be a move towards further legislation under which model 3 might be implemented. That is worrying. In addition, we do not know at this stage what the impact of the secondary legislation will be. We are saying that we should not be asked to sign up for something until the secondary legislation has been published and we can look at it.
I understand that point, but my understanding is that the consultation document "Scotland's Transport Future: Proposals for Statutory Regional Transport Partnerships", the bill and the minister's previous statements have all made it clear that the Executive does not anticipate regional transport partnerships—apart from the west and south-west of Scotland partnership, which is slightly different because of Strathclyde Passenger Transport—moving beyond model 1 unless there is a consensus in the partnerships to do so. Do you accept that the policy intention behind the minister's statement is that it would be up to the partnerships to decide whether they wished to go further than the basic minimum requirements?
That is not our primary concern at the moment, but it is a secondary concern. One of our primary concerns is the additional costs that will accrue from having a much larger administration. Theoretically, once the new Highlands and Islands regional transport partnership is formed and running, there is nothing to stop it expanding its administration. That would mean additional costs, all of which will, under the present proposals, fall on the councils after the first year of the new partnership's operation. We will find that we are paying huge amounts of money for no improvement on what we had before.
Surely if a regional transport partnership is basically creating and monitoring a regional transport strategy, it will not create a huge bureaucracy. That is what HITRANS is doing at present.
The figures that I have been given show that, at the moment, Shetland Islands Council is paying something like £14,000 a year for its share of the bureaucracy. However, I am afraid that when the new regional transport partnership is formed—if the council is part of it—that amount will go up to more than £100,000 a year to pay for the extra services that the new partnership will put in train.
It would be helpful if you could provide the committee with those figures, because I am not sure where they come from. To be honest, because HITRANS is already fulfilling most of the functions that are included in the minimum requirements for regional transport partnerships, I cannot see where the huge increase in cost comes from. That is the bit that is confusing me.
We have given a statement and a range of figures to the Finance Committee. The figures are not quite as high as those that Councillor Mitchell gave, but the current operating cost of HITRANS is about £250,000 and we estimate that, if it carries on as a model 1 partnership, the cost might become something between £400,000 and £500,000. If the Scottish Executive's share of that cost is removed, the current share of about £100,000 that is borne by the local authorities would be multiplied by five. How the authorities divvy that up between them will vary if it is done by population share, but if the cost has to be borne from current local government finance without any additionality, the money will have to come from another pot.
That is helpful. We have not yet received a report from the Finance Committee, so we were not aware that those figures had been made available. We will obviously study them—at least, I will.
I heard what Councillor Gordon Mitchell said about secondary legislation. There are a number of provisions in the bill that give ministers the power to do things by order. I am especially concerned about sections 2 and 10, which allow ministers to make orders about anything. Would the witnesses from HITRANS like to reflect on those provisions? What problems do you think that they might cause?
If extra powers are granted, we do not know what will be done with them. That is the big problem. We are concerned about the financing of extra duties that may be imposed, as we do not know how the extra costs will be met. We suspect that some of those costs—whether they are extra administrative costs or potential borrowing costs, about which we still do not know—will come back to local authorities.
I understand that HITRANS is organised on a consensual basis. One large project that needs to be completed in the Highlands is the upgrading of the A9. If the new regional transport partnership drew up a transport strategy that included that project, all the partners would have some responsibility for delivering it. Are you suggesting that smaller and island councils should be able to say that they do not want to contribute?
We expect that the partnership would find a way of spreading the cost among those councils that would benefit from the new project. We in Shetland would not expect to pay for something that was happening on the mainland, on roads that we would never use.
In that case, why should you expect the mainland to pay for additional ferry services?
Which ferries?
Any extra ferries that the partnership decided to run as part of its strategy.
The problem is that we are out on a limb. All our internal ferries are run by Shetland Islands Council. The ferries between Shetland and the mainland are run by NorthLink Orkney and Shetland Ferries, with a direct subsidy from central Government. At the moment, there is no HITRANS input into the ferry system.
The new regional transport partnership will draw up a transport strategy for the Highlands and Islands. It may decide either to upgrade the A9 or to improve the ferry services between Shetland or Orkney and the mainland, because they are not what they should be. There would a compulsion on members of the partnership to contribute to whichever project is chosen. I am trying to establish how you will get things done. How do we get big projects to happen unless everyone is prepared to contribute? I am sure that you have a good answer, but I need to hear it.
Councillor Mitchell has spoken from a Shetland point of view. Shetland is unique. The borrowing provisions that were mentioned earlier would be perfect for us, if they were in place. Bruce Crawford spoke about the A9. All the councils in the area and members of HITRANS support the A82 project. A few months ago, all the members of HITRANS gave their support to the spinal route in the Western Isles, which has gone ahead in the past few weeks. We have big projects in mind. HITRANS is committed to expansion in the whole of the west Highlands and Islands. Shetland does not see that it needs to contribute to projects in the HITRANS area, because it does not really use them.
I understand that.
I am just trying to explain the other side of HITRANS. We have a difficulty because there is a unique situation in Shetland, which is very independent and has a forward-thinking local authority, but wants to retain control.
Is that unique? I do not know whether you arrived early enough to hear David Mundell talk about the problems in Dumfries and Galloway in relation to that area's involvement in a west coast TRANS that would include the greater Glasgow area. Big projects might go ahead in greater Glasgow that would bring no benefits to Dumfries and Galloway. Aspects of the situation might be unique to Shetland, but all the peripheral parts of Scotland have problems.
Everybody has problems. I am not in favour of breaking away from HITRANS or changing the current system; I am trying to describe the problems that the smaller authorities perceive that the bill would create. It would be easier if the bill were amended slightly to allow us to operate almost as we did before. The changes to the bill would involve, first, removing the threat of requisitioning and including provision for some other system of finance that would not place a great burden on a small authority but would bring in central Government grants without disturbing the council's usual financial system. Secondly, nobody wants the new system of voting that would be imposed on us—that is not just our view, but that of almost everybody in HITRANS. As things stand, we can argue our way into a decent compromise on any subject, but if we are forced into a vote every time we are likely to find ourselves disenfranchised.
It strikes me as dangerous to argue that Shetland does not want to contribute to the A9 because its residents do not use it much, but instead wants central Government to contribute to the road. Does that not imply that people who live in the central belt, who might not often use the A9 north of Inverness should pay for the road, whereas people who live in peripheral parts of Scotland should not have to pay? That seems a strange argument to make.
We are not saying that we should not pay for the A9. Under the current system, the A9 is paid for by central Government. We were concerned that a situation could arise in which central Government could not find enough money to pay for the A9 and required HITRANS to borrow money to pay the remaining costs, which would put us in a difficult position. We cannot be involved in prudential borrowing, because we do our own borrowing within Shetland Islands Council.
That leads to the inevitable question that I put to SCOTS. If HITRANS or its successor body were to agree a particular strategy, constituent councils and other public bodies would have a duty "so far as possible" in relation to the strategy, but there would be no such duty on the Scottish Executive. Do you think that the bill should place a duty on the Executive to be involved in the same way as the constituent councils and other public bodies might be?
That is fundamental to our position. The HITRANS strategy has tended to consider what the Executive and the national transport agencies are doing in the Highlands and to try to influence their policies, rather than to concentrate on individual local authorities. Our strategy does not say what Shetland Islands Council should do in relation to its internal ferry services, for example, but it comments on how the links between Shetland, Orkney, the Western Isles and the mainland should work. We see our strategy as a fairly high-level document, which is almost a dialogue with transport Scotland—as it will be—and the national providers, such as Highlands and Islands Airports Ltd, CalMac and so on, rather than something that imposes on the local authorities, but if we cannot influence what they are doing through our strategy, it is not worth very much.
In that case would you support the Executive, through transport Scotland, being required to set out in statute a national transport strategy?
Yes.
Yes.
Yes. I would also support its being required to have regard to what comes from the regional strategies.
I understand that.
I have a number of points. I have read the submission regarding the costs of HITRANS and have heard your concerns about requisitioning. The existing costs are set out helpfully in the written submission and detailed as £250,000 a year. We have heard from Mr Brindley that they are set to increase approximately fivefold if one model is adopted. This committee does not consider the costing aspects specifically—that is what the Finance Committee does. However, on a point of procedure, have you sent a separate detailed submission to the Finance Committee so that it has the benefit of the detail of the computation of your cost estimates?
Yes, we have. The predicted increase was not fivefold. The submission that we sent the Finance Committee says that our current costs are £250,000 a year. A lot of provision is made in kind by our partners. For example, we do not pay office costs and we receive a lot of help in kind from the partners' staff. Once a new organisation is up and running, it will have to pay for an office, its admin and its telephones and it will not be able to call on members of the councils' staff to help it out so easily. We have said that the figure could double; it could rise from £250,000 to £500,000. I made an estimate of about £400,000, which would be for a model 1 authority dealing with a strategy.
Will you clarify that? From what you have just said it seems that the increase in cost will not be as much as you indicated initially. You are suggesting that many staff members are already employed by the public sector bodies. Given that many of them are employed by the councils, I presume that the councils are already paying for them.
Yes, there is an element of that. The councils are providing help in kind. They will benefit, because they will be able to use their staff to do other things.
Although you have provided information to the Finance Committee, it would be useful if you could break down all the figures for us, so we can understand them properly.
I want to be clear about this. Councillor Mitchell said that he was speaking to some extent for his own council, Shetland Islands Council, rather than for HITRANS. Am I right in saying that as things stand, given the serious question of funding and local authorities facing a substantial, up to fivefold, increase in their contribution to the new body, HITRANS and its constituent members would oppose the regional transport partnerships?
I was speaking for Shetland Islands Council and to a certain extent for Orkney Islands Council and I happen to know that Western Isles Council takes a similar line. As I said at the beginning, there is a spectrum of views within HITRANS, which I feel could eventually be reconciled if small changes were made to the wording of the bill. HITRANS does not have a clear view on the bill at the moment. To a certain extent, things will depend on the committee's findings, but in round figures, we do not oppose it. I am here to point out to members the problems that the legislation would bring to us. Indeed, my council is taking a much stronger stance than are the other councils; we have already informed the minister that we are considering the possibility of having a separate TRANS with Orkney. We are considering that possibility mainly with financial and voting problems in mind.
Will Mr Brindley answer the question?
I do not know whether HITRANS would say that it could not afford to do what has been proposed if it was imposed on local government. The bill's financial memorandum says that a start-up cost will be provided by the Executive. I have forgotten the figure, but around £1.5 million will be made available for year 1 start-up. After that, it implies that people are on their own. Baldly, I have said to the Finance Committee that if the cost to local government rises from its current level of around £100,000 to something in the order of £400,000 to £500,000 and no provision is made in grant-aided expenditure to allow for that—in other words, costs must be met from existing commitments—it will be quite hard for some authorities to meet costs. At this stage, I do not know whether they would reach the point of saying that they could not afford to meet the requisition.
I appreciate that candour is not always possible, especially if it involves criticising those from whom you are seeking funding in various other ways. However, it seems inconceivable to me that HITRANS could support the bill as drafted, or that any of its constituent members could, unless assurances are given.
We have been commended for that work, which is why we are rather puzzled that we are being forced into a corner by some parts of the bill, which does not really stack up, as far as we are concerned.
I want to deal with another matter that has not been mentioned. I do not think that we will have the opportunity to take oral evidence from Highlands and Islands Airports Ltd, which has a unique place with respect to airports in Scotland, as it is wholly owned by the Scottish Executive and is reliant on public funds. I think that a witness from SCOTS—although I might be wrong—said that it was expected that responsibility for HIAL would pass to a national body. Presumably, HITRANS would oppose that tooth and nail if it were true. I must admit, however, that the suggestion came as something of a surprise to me. It did not appear to have been mooted under the HIAL proposal. I wonder if any of the witnesses can comment on that. HIAL has built up a lot of expertise over the years in staff, personnel and so on. I think that the prospect of control passing down to Edinburgh would be of concern.
We would be concerned if control went down to Edinburgh. However, control over HIAL really comes from Edinburgh already, to an extent. At the stage when HITRANS was considering the various options that might be open to it, one of them was for HITRANS to take over HIAL, CalMac, NorthLink Orkney and Shetland Ferries and all the rest, running them as part of a bigger organisation. We pointed out that, if we found ourselves involved in such a venture, and if there was a major catastrophe in one of those organisations—which, as you will probably recall, took place with NorthLink—we would not have sufficient funds in HITRANS to bail that organisation out. Central Government funds are required to deal with such situations. We rapidly backed off the concept of taking over any of the quangos that we could, theoretically, have under our wing.
My understanding is that there is currently a small team in the Executive's transport division that is responsible for HIAL's operation, although day-to-day management is based in Inverness. The industry is nationalised and the Executive team considers the broad strategy, ensuring that the funding is in place. That team will move to transport Scotland, or whatever the agency will be called.
On another matter that is important for transport funding in the Highlands and Islands, I wonder if HITRANS could give us any information on whether it would like to be in a position to argue for continued funding from European regional funding sources for major transport projects of all types. Such funding has been invaluable to many major projects. Without it, many projects, including those involving the A9, the A830, harbours, piers and air travel, would never have happened. In particular, could you indicate what you expect to happen after 2005, when the axe falls?
I am not sure that we need a lengthy answer on that. I am not sure that that falls entirely under the remit of the bill.
There is £38 million in the current European regional development fund programme for transport, which has made a significant contribution. HITRANS has worked with the managers of that programme to set the strategic projects and to determine which projects get that money. We would like that to continue. However, it is not up to us to say. Without that money, there would be a significant loss to the infrastructure programmes that we have in the Highlands.
I think that the bill confers a power on the regional transport partnerships that could be used, for example, to enable the partnership for the Highlands and Islands to negotiate directly with the European Commission directorate-general for energy and transport, at least in relation to the trans-European network, which I think includes the A82, as was mentioned earlier. Would going directly to the European Commission—cutting out the middlemen—assist you?
That question has not been asked. Therefore I cannot speak for HITRANS, but my own view is that that would be a step forward.
I will come back to Mr Ewing about HITRANS's strategy.
We will move on to parts 2 and 3 of the bill.
Does HITRANS take a view on the establishment of a road works commissioner to look after what already exists?
We have not discussed that yet, so I cannot give you an answer on behalf of HITRANS.
Could you submit an answer once HITRANS has made that decision?
Yes. We meet on 10 December and I will ensure that we respond to the committee on that point.
What is your general experience of the existing regime? Is it working? Will the proposals in the bill make the relationship between local authorities and utility companies better or worse, or will they make no difference?
Discussions with my colleagues suggest that we tend to see that as more of an urban issue than a rural one. I think that SCOTS also said that to a certain extent. There is no evidence of major problems in the Highlands and Islands; I cannot give you examples of where the current system is not working. At the meeting on 10 December I will try to get a response from HITRANS to establish whether we have the same problems with the procurators fiscal not taking forward cases when action could perhaps be taken. However, I am not aware of a significant problem. No one I have spoken to says that the provision of a commissioner will make any difference to what happens.
I will mention Scottish Water. That seems to have been a problem in most authorities; it has certainly been a problem in Argyll and Bute. The matter may well come down to a budget change. Scottish Water was going to do certain work and did only part of it. The job seemed to start and stop and appeared to go on for ever. In parts of Argyll we have had problems all the way through with road works and utilities.
I have one last question. As I understand it, the purpose of part 2 is to accelerate the time that it takes for utilities in particular to complete road works and to ensure that they are of improved quality. We would usually expect the duration of road works to be weeks or at most months. Councillor MacIntyre might be in the best position to answer this question. Am I right in saying that road works on the A82 between Tarbet and Inverarnan, in the form of temporary traffic lights, have been in place for a period of time that is measured not in weeks, months or even years but in decades? Does Councillor MacIntyre agree that tackling that problem on the A82, where there is an extended single-track section in two parts, should feature largely in the transport strategy of HITRANS in future?
The A82 is part of our strategy. For the record, the traffic lights that you mention have been there for 32 years—although they are only temporary. A study is on-going to try to get to some sort of conclusion. We are looking at the stretch from Inverarnan up to Fort William. It seems, sadly, that it will take another year or 18 months to get the results of that survey, although Highland Council and Argyll and Bute Council have both conducted their own surveys and have information about the matter. Howard Brindley is conducting some detailed work.
The First Minister referred to the A82 at First Minister's question time on 4 November, in the context of it being classified by the Automobile Association as a black route—in other words, one of the most dangerous routes—in response to a question from Jackie Baillie about a tragic accident in her constituency of Dumbarton. Why should it take so long to produce the report, which the First Minister referred to as a priority? I do not understand why it should take so long, particularly if information is already available from the local authorities.
Howard Brindley can perhaps answer that question.
We have been working with Executive officials and consultants on the matter. I believe that early next year all the main surveys will be completed. It will then take a further six months to produce a report that identifies what needs to be done. Once the report has been produced it is necessary to go through a process of statutory traffic orders and perhaps public inquiries, so it is not necessarily the case that work can be started on the ground once that point has been reached. Delays will occur. If the report is produced by the end of next summer, we will still not have reached the point at which it is possible to go to contract and have the work done. More statutory work will have to be done.
There are no further questions, so that brings us to the end of the evidence session. I thank Councillor Mitchell, Councillor MacIntyre and Howard Brindley for their evidence.
Meeting closed at 17:33.