Education, Culture and Sport Committee, 16 Apr 2002

Meeting date: Tuesday, April 16, 2002

Official Report 236KB pdf

---

Local Government Covenant

The next agenda item is the local government covenant. Members have a paper on the proposed covenant between the Scottish Parliament and local government, on which I invite comment. The committee's views will be sent to the Local Government Committee, which will report on the covenant prior to a debate in the Parliament.

Obviously, I welcome the paper. I remind the committee that, in the past, the committee has had a relationship with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. A committee member—myself, in fact—has represented the committee before COSLA and Karen Gillon has represented the committee in respect of education. She attended various meetings and has had numerous joint meetings with COSLA's education committee. It is important to continue those links.

This is the week of covenants. I hope that the proposed covenant is more worth while than that which was launched by the First Minister. I take such a jaundiced view of the document because it will be seen to be of use only when COSLA acts.

I am reminded of the attempt to have some sort of guidelines on the closure of rural schools drawn up by COSLA. That attempt got absolutely nowhere. The relationships between parliamentarians—perhaps even those in this committee, although I cannot speak for the committee—would be more harmonious were we to see some fruit of our meetings, deliberations and evidence sessions, or if something concrete came out of them. If the first concrete thing was useful guidelines on the closure of rural schools, that would be a great step forward and we could say that the document was worth while.

In principle, do members think that the document is good and proper? Would it enhance the relationship between the Parliament and the committee and local government? In general, I think that it would. Perhaps a covenant would allow for more effective relationships and mutual leverage on the matters that Brian Monteith mentioned. The situation should not be such that the Parliament always responds to local government; the process should be reciprocal and that is what the covenant is about.

I remind Brian Monteith that we discussed the closure of rural schools and agreed to ask the minister to pull together some kind of guidance on the closure of schools, particularly rural schools. I have been away for a while and I wondered whether we had received a reply to that. I know that the issue is not on today's agenda, but this seems to be an ideal opportunity to mention it.

I am not aware that we have received any response.

We have not received a written response. That is another issue that we must follow up. This meeting will result in many letters to the Executive.

Do members agree to approve and recommend the covenant and to say how we feel it will be of value?

Members indicated agreement.