Visits to Councils
We now move to our reports. We will start with the visit to East Lothian Council by Gil Paterson and Johann Lamont, for which Gil was the reporter.
At the outset, I wish to say that McIntosh came at a particularly good time, both for us and for councils. It is safe to say that I was surprised at the attitude from East Lothian Council, which was the first council that I visited. I was a wee bit taken aback that the council's representatives were quite pleased that we had taken the trouble to see them. It was a revelation. I think that they were surprised and, because it was early in the Parliament's life, they helped us a lot, and a lot of bridges have been built. The same thing applies to the other visits that I made but the feeling was more pronounced after the first visit, obviously.
I will speak about the visit from the notes that I made. Perhaps Johann Lamont will fill in anything I miss out. I will probably miss out a lot since I am not good at writing and thinking at the same time.
Do you want that recorded?
It is a matter of public record now.
The council felt that a power of general competence would help a great deal. The council got into trouble after taking on some community projects—I do not recall them telling us what the projects were. The councillors felt that they were persecuted by the Accounts Commission. The council had to expend a considerable amount of energy and money on extra work because of that. After some time, the council's approach was vindicated. They told us that a power of general competence would have meant that there would have been no interference. The power of general competence would also allow the council greater flexibility in arranging to share investment in equipment contracts across council boundaries. Sharing with other authorities would allow big money to be spent.
The council agreed with the McIntosh commission's recommendation for an independent review of local government finance. The councillors were somewhat saddened by the Executive's decision on the matter. It was felt that rural deprivation was not properly recognised by the present grant system. Councillors said that the Government did not consider the different forms that deprivation takes and sees it as an urban problem that does not affect rural areas. The council also believes that rural population levels are not taken into account when the Government decides on grants. The councillors believed that rates that are gathered in a council area should be spent exclusively in that area and that they should have total control over how the funds are spent.
The councillors spoke about decision-making structures. They had examined the cabinet system. Although they had not yet decided whether they would like to adopt a cabinet system, they were positive about the idea. They said that they imagined that the cabinet would be scrutinised by committees and that the cabinet and the committees would meet in private to allow free thinking and the easy development of ideas. There was no ulterior motive behind the wish to meet in private, just the old saying that two heads are better than one. It was felt that councillors would perform better if the public scrutiny part of the process took place at the end. I think that they are a wee bit frightened of their own shadows.
Like other councillors, the East Lothian Council members expressed strong views on the link between members and wards. Whatever system developed, they wanted a clear link to remain. They were opposed to the idea of directly elected council leaders but believed that other councils should be able to adopt that system if they wanted to.
On community planning, the councillors told us that they had 19 community councils. However, it was felt that the councils were not representative of the communities. The council shares £100,000 between the community councils and has passed certain responsibilities to them. It was noted that more—though not many—elections have taken place since the community councils have been given budgets.
The councillors said that the area still felt the effects of the long-ago teachers action. It was felt that schools had lost the benefit of teachers being helpful in their own time by taking sports and so on. The council is targeting kids who are falling off the edge.
The meeting with the members of this committee was welcomed by the councillors. With regard to the council's budget, they felt that the pips are squeaking under the pressure for budget squeezes and that there was not a lot of room to move. They believe that councils are left to pick up the pieces after decisions are taken here and in Westminster and that they do not have the resources to do so properly.
The councillors had come up with an innovative idea, although I am not sure that it would work in terms of the practicalities. They suggested that it would be useful if local authority officials and Scottish Executive officials could swap places. That might help them better understand each other's position. They accepted that politicians make decisions that Scottish Executive officials follow.
One of the best experiences on the visit was when we went to Haddington Infants School. It is a long time since I have been in an infants school and it was humbling to see a school practising social inclusion. Children with severe learning difficulties were integrated into the class but also had a small room off one classroom that was in full view of the rest of the children and in which they were given particular tuition. I was struck by the commitment that was shown by all members of staff.
I would like to echo that point. We visited a primary school and a secondary school because East Lothian Council has effectively mainstreamed its support structures for youngsters with learning disabilities and we were interested to see how that is working. There is a lot of doubt among the public about whether such a move would be possible, but I found the situation to be encouraging. The pre-school children were mixed together and the staff were able to target those who needed support at certain stages of the day. The council is very proud of the model.
I should point out that many more councillors and council officials from all parties were present than the front of our report indicates. We should thank East Lothian Council for taking our visit so seriously, especially since there were only two representatives from this committee. I think that they were surprised that there were only two of us; they expected a bit of an entourage. We might want to consider sending more of us to meet people in future. Two seems too small a number, and it would be helpful if one person took overall responsibility for taking notes.
The council was keen to emphasise to the Scottish Executive that local authorities are suffering in so far as aspirations and obligations are set at a Scottish level but are not properly funded. There appears to have been a shorthand agreement whereby the local authority says that a project will cost so much and the Executive says that it should cost a different amount and that it will split the difference. However, council representatives said that they were beginning to experience a major problem in not getting enough money to meet their obligations. They feel frustrated by that, and believe that the situation should be examined.
The fact that East Lothian has a growing population has caused problems for the council, which has to meet the cost of a population growth and of the greater demand on services. The problems are only recognised at a later stage; the moneys received do not match the increase, and that has major implications.
The council was very frustrated about the question of ring-fencing. They felt it important that there should be local flexibility in making choices. For example, the council has a social inclusion partnership in Tranent, and would have wished more flexibility in what they could target money on instead of having to bid within the parameters that had been defined elsewhere. That is an issue that arose time and again. The council questioned the implications of the cost of putting in bids, and asked whether having to squeeze or tweak local needs to meet the bidding and putting in an inordinate amount of officials' time was best value.
Council representatives highlighted the need for deprivation to be factored into distribution mechanisms, and spoke of some needs not being met. Simple population figures do not necessarily reflect the fact that East Lothian is a growth area, nor do they reflect the proportion of elderly people among the population. Other local authorities might identify with that point.
Problems with consultation were discussed, and the council talked about consultation overload. Local authorities expect to consult, but are concerned about the importance of quality.
The council greatly stressed the need for stability, and the need for the Executive to listen to the councils about their financial pressures. They emphasised that their comments are not simply made to get more money, but to describe and explain genuine problems. For our part, we were very impressed by the seriousness with which the council took our visit. At one point, council representatives said that they needed at least their present number of councillors to deal with the work that they had to get through.
There was some specific information provided, which I should perhaps have passed on to the clerk. The director of education and community services had attended a conference on education for citizenship, organised by the Gordon Cook Foundation. I think that it was held in America somewhere. He gave me the relevant document, which I think could usefully be made available, and was enthusiastic about the ideas that had been generated about active citizenship, something that we may not be promoting so successfully in this country.
I want to underline once again the degree to which East Lothian Council took seriously our visit. Many of the points that were made are, I believe, echoed by members' experiences elsewhere.
Thank you for that, Johann. I was particularly interested in the council's suggestion about an exchange or secondment of staff. I think it is quite a good one.
As Johann Lamont and Gil Paterson have both said, the question of whether to ring-fence the amount of time spent putting in bids has been raised many times. The Executive makes decisions, thinking that it is doing things the right way, and gets an official to go to a council and see how difficult it is. The councils often get no money in the end.
I was also interested in what I thought was a particularly large amount of money going to community councils.
I was also going to ask about that.
The allocation is just over £5,000 to each one. If the council is now considering elections, I would have thought that allocating that much money would be tightly tied in. It will be interesting to see how they deal with that.
It seems bizarre that the community councils receive well over £5,000 each, despite their not being representative. Did the council say how it planned to make community councils more representative?
The general comment, which members have also heard elsewhere, is that no elections take place at community council level. However, some light has been seen at the end of the tunnel: when community councils are given some responsibilities—and some dosh—that seems to attract one or two elections.
It was also thought that other organisations and structures, not just the community councils, had a contribution to make. Particular experiences were recounted of community councils in areas that had coloured the council's judgment. The council was not of the opinion that all community councils were a problem.
We will move on to our next report, which is on Perth and Kinross Council. As Sylvia is not here, Colin has kindly said that he will make the report.
When I woke up this morning, I did not expect to be making this report, so it will involve an element of a wing and a prayer.
We first met all the council directors in a big room. We were introduced to some of the major themes that they agreed were important. At an anecdotal level, one bloke eyeballed me—the clerks need not minute this—and said, "Greenock Academy, 1968, higher history: you taught me." That was a bit unnerving—but he was the finance director of Perth and Kinross Council. He got his higher, which was something.
We met all the council officials first, then the council members in the chamber. On general competence, some council members expressed the view that they felt powerless under current arrangements, although they have considerable power. They were perhaps looking forward to a day when Scottish Enterprise, hospitals and water authorities might slip back into wholly democratic control, under the council. They were also worried about the lack of democracy in quangos.
Council members felt that little had changed in local government finance. They had gone through a considerable public consultation exercise before setting the council charge for the financial year 1999-2000. They had met 700 people, in a variety of meetings to which they had brought a range of options. The outcome was that most of the citizenry were in favour of the council tax going up by a given amount. They put up the tax, but then the Scottish Executive said that they could not do that. I think that that disturbed them a little; they felt that capping still existed and they were universally miffed.
Council members did not fancy the cabinet system at all. They were not hostile to proportional representation, probably because the council is a more mixed, less one-party regime than many others. They insisted, however, that the councillor-ward link had to be maintained and, so that communities could be better represented, they did not see a need to have equal sizes of wards. They were against directly elected council leaders.
By the end of our visit, I think that council members were keen to have us there and I contest what Johann said about the number of people who turned up. The very fact that people from the Scottish Parliament were coming to the council was much appreciated. Although a delegation of 10 might look more impressive, it might also be deemed to be a bit wasteful. The council felt that an enthusiasm was coming from the Parliament, which was expressed partly by the fact that we were there listening to them instead of pontificating from a great height.
It is interesting to see, in the notes that members have before them, that council members felt that there was too close a relationship between COSLA and the Scottish Parliament. We got a wee whisper of that last week in the report on the visit to Aberdeen City Council.
We then had two visits. We were taken to Birch Avenue, Scone, to a centre that combines various local authority services, such as education and social work. The local hospital trust also has an input. The centre deals with adults with learning difficulties and gives respite care to those who need it. It aims to be a one-stop shop for people who have problems that require them to deal with the administrative processes of several organisations, and that result in a duplication of work. Old and frail people can have a one-stop induction there, instead of going to the social work department and telling staff their name, date of birth and so on, and then providing the same information to the hospital service. The centre provides those services for the ease of the citizens it serves.
Later in the day we were briefed by the education committee on a consortium of primary schools and Blairgowrie High School. The consortium identifies best practice and co-ordinates education among its members. It promotes social inclusion and has improved education in the area. The consortium has also examined practices in the low countries and has made links with them so that staff can visit those countries.
Thank you. I, too, was interested in the comment that the relationship between COSLA and the Scottish Parliament is too close.
Norman Murray would probably not agree with it.
Why did the officials or the councillors not answer question 9, on civic education?
I noticed that, too.
Perhaps we missed out that question as we were going along.
The comments on question 9 state:
"No additions to the written responses."
However, there was no written response.
There is some confusion. Question 9 on our sheet is about the covenant, but question 9 on the council's question sheet was on civic education. However, the council has not answered either of those questions.
I do not know why it did not answer those questions. Michael McMahon says that Kenny Gibson can read between the lines.
Are there any other sensible comments?
On the number of members who should attend meetings with councils, I was not suggesting that we send 10 members, or anything like that number.
I know that.
We should discuss at some stage whether there is a minimum number of members who should go to meetings to ensure that all points are picked up. Councils should be clear about who is meeting them. A joke was made about the fact that when Frank McAveety met the council, 10 people went with him. We looked rather puny, because a lot of people were at the other end of the room.
You will just have to work your way up the system, Johann.
We must consider how we can hear most effectively everything that the councils are telling us. Should we decide on a minimum number of MSPs who should attend such meetings? Leaving aside members who call off at the last minute, councils should know whom to expect.
The council responded well to the idea that we might visit it again. Return visits could be made regularly during our period of office, so that we do not get just a one-off snapshot. We could then determine whether progress was being made.
Most councils would accept repeat visits. Once our reports are finished and any necessary legislation has been passed, we can revisit councils. Councils have a year to examine their structures and determine how they will change them to make them tighter than they are at present. We would want to know whether that process is working.
It is essential that we go back to the councils. I support everything that you said. I found it difficult to write down information and take and answer questions. Two members were not enough. Three or four members would have been fine.
I did not mind the fact that a lot of people were facing us. At first I thought, "My God, look at the number of them," but as time went on I felt more relaxed, as did they. We do not need to match the number of MSPs with the number of people we speak to. The process is not a battle.
Did the people you spoke to comment on the innovative alliance between new Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and independents, and was it proposed as a possible model for the Scottish Parliament, or for other local authorities? [Laughter.]
Do not answer that.
Convener, he is winding you up.
The value of such meetings is that they diminish councils' suspicions that we are involved in a centralist plot. They are important bridge-building exercises. The more often we cross that bridge to revisit people, the better, and the more those people will trust us.
Thank you, Colin. I remind members that we are back in this room tomorrow at 2 o'clock.
Will the heating be on?
I hope so; I am being signalled that it will be on.
Last, but not least, I wish to record my thanks to Morag Brown for her paper, which I read 18 times. I still do not understand the ins and outs of it, but it is helpful when we are comparing what is happening here with the rest of the European Union. Do you have a question, Kenny?
I wish to raise one point. Like you, convener, I found the paper fascinating and mind boggling, but I would like to know how the countries in the paper were chosen. Were they the only countries for which information was available? I noticed that Germany and Sweden are not included, for example, but that the Slovak Republic is.
Morag Brown (Scottish Parliament Information Centre):
The information for the European countries was taken from a Council of Europe report that compared different local electoral systems at a single point in time.
May I ask a question on the Hagenbach-Bischof quota system?
Yes, but quickly. It sounds like an ice cream to me.
I must say one last thing. Colin Campbell has been bothered by the Droop quota for a considerable time—
Excuse me. The official reporters are still reporting. I thought that we were finished. We are now.
Meeting closed at 15:57.