Chamber and committees

The next item on our agenda is an evidence-taking session on the Local Authority (Capital Finance and Accounting) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2024 with Tom Arthur, Minister for Community Wealth and Public Finance. Mr Arthur is joined for this item by Scottish Government officials Elanor Davies, who is head of local authority accounting, and Susan Robb, who is a solicitor.

I welcome the minister and his officials to the meeting and invite him to make an opening statement.

Thanks very much, minister, and thank you, too, for taking the time to lay things out in quite a bit of detail and for the work that you have been doing on the regulations.

I would be interested to understand why the Scottish Government feels that regulations are needed now, given that the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities has stated that

“there is no requirement for a review of capital accounting”

and that, during last year’s consultation, directors of finance said that

“no clear rationale for this review has been provided to support the proposed changes.”

Thank you.

That concludes our questions in that evidence session. I appreciate the minister’s and officials’ provision of information.

We turn to agenda item 7, which is consideration of the motion on the instrument. I invite the minister to move motion S6M-12003.

Motion moved,

That the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee recommends that the Local Authority (Capital Finance and Accounting) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2024 be approved.—[Tom Arthur]

Motion agreed to.

The committee will publish, in the coming days, a report setting out its recommendations on the instrument.

At the start of the meeting, we agreed to take the next item in private. I therefore close the public part of the meeting.

So, you are just using the term as a quick, catch-all, shortened way of saying all of that.

I would just like to get a few things on record. I was a strong advocate for the inclusion of the Scottish food commission in the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Act 2022. We have seen examples of strong commissions that have achieved transformational change, such as the Scottish Land Commission, or which have pulled together different strands into a whole-system approach, such as the Just Transition Commission. We absolutely need that kind of thing now in Scotland, but, in order to do those things, the commission needs the right expertise and experience.

The appointment of the chair and commissioners is central to how the culture of the Scottish food commission will develop and, in turn, how it will carve out its place and a reputation for stewarding the 2022 act and holding national Government and relevant authorities to account. The appointment group will set the tone for how areas of work are driven forward, particularly in respect of policy coherence and holding ministers to account for how the 2022 act and the good food nation plans impact, or are impacted by, the plethora of existing—and future—policies and legislation.

As such—and given the focus on the transformation of our food system—it is essential that a group of highly engaged individuals who are comfortable with systems thinking are appointed. They must have a breadth and depth of experience and skills as well as lived experience of our food system. It is not desirable for places to be reserved for any specific sector or stakeholder group, as all commissioners will need to be able to consider the impact on multi-stakeholder and public groups and be skilled in understanding the tensions, power dynamics and interests at play.

Looking at the text of the regulations, I think that in regulation 2, which relates to the appointment of commissioners, the third paragraph is the weakest of the three and is quite oddly worded. I have concerns about what it means and how skills and “expertise” will be established and prioritised within recruitment. I understand the desire to keep the provision broad, but it is important to ensure that commissioners have the appropriate skills and experience. Appointed commissioners will need those core skills and competencies, and it will be worth checking how that will be managed through the person specification appointments process. The key is to ensure that those skills and competencies are not dependent on sectoral expertise or a candidate’s connections and that a commissioner should not be appointed to represent particular interest groups.

I will vote for the secondary legislation, but I strongly encourage the Scottish Government to go further. Not only should it consider the desirability for the board to include one member who fulfils the criteria that are set out, but it should consider how much more effective the commission will be if all members fulfil all those criteria.

The food commission will not have an easy job. Our country is not well served by the current operation of our food system, which is letting down producers and consumers alike and is putting pressure on our healthcare system and our environment. However, if the food commission has the right expertise and know-how to put things into practice, our food system can, instead of contributing to problems, contribute to solutions, which will help us to reach net zero; improve health and wellbeing; strengthen national food security and local economies; provide good jobs; and ensure that everyone in Scotland can afford and enjoy the world-class food that is produced in our good food nation.

Do you have a sense of how the marine directorate could pursue work to understand how many there are? I know that remote technology is now available—in fact, I think that I forwarded information about that to the marine directorate—but that is more to do with losing gear. If we have tracking equipment that can prevent fishermen from losing gear, which causes a marine litter problem, that could also help us to understand the number of creels in the water. Do we need a policy on that? What could we do to get such an understanding? We are having to make decisions without having the full picture.

Cabinet secretary, you pointed to a couple of learning projects in Mull and the Western Isles. I know that the marine directorate is very busy with lots of things, and it is challenging for the committee to understand all the work and all the bits of the puzzle. We come across little bits of it when we consider an SSI or when a piece of work comes to the committee. In order for us to contribute well to the scrutiny of your work, it would be good to understand some of the elements that you are working on that contribute to the fuller picture. I would appreciate some more information on those initiatives and on what you are seeking to get from them.

The Sustainable Inshore Fisheries Trust, otherwise known as SIFT, in its response to the 2024-25 spawning closure consultation, said:

“There is a measurable economic cost of prohibiting creeling within the closed area, without a concomitantly measurable benefit to the resident cod stocks.”

That is based on evidence that it has. If including creeling in the closure makes very little difference to cod stocks, why not allow creeling to support the economic benefit while focusing management measures where they will make a big difference, such as minimising bycatch from nephrops trawling?