Chamber and committees

I know what you mean about feeling that there is another level. I have certainly had that feeling when I have been involved in a discussion and, at a certain point, it has felt as though the decision has been made somewhere else.

I want to drill down a bit on the issue that Fulton MacGregor raised. Is Unison or another trade union involved in the Scottish Government’s public service reform board? Are you aware of that?

I am glad that I asked the question, because a four-day working week would seem to be a positive response to the issues of sickness and recruitment and retention, which Alexander Stewart asked about. If we move to a four-day working week, as well as making it more appealing for people to come in, that could help with the sickness issue, because it would enable people to get some proper downtime. As you said, people’s work-life balance also comes into play.

The second item on our agenda is an evidence session as part of our pre-budget scrutiny. I remind everyone that the committee has agreed to focus on public service reform. This is the third of our evidence sessions. Today, we are joined by Maureen Dickson, regional organiser, and John Mooney, also a regional organiser, both from Unison. I welcome you to the meeting. There is no need for you to operate your microphones—we will do that for you.

We will just throw our questions out and one or other of you can pick them up. I will start. We have three themes to go through: budget and funding trends; workforce issues; and the approach to transformation.

So far in our evidence sessions, we have heard that, off the back of the Verity house agreement and the conversations around that, ring fencing has decreased. We also hear that, off the back of the United Kingdom Government’s spending review, multiyear funding could be an option in the upcoming budget. I am interested to hear about what you have seen in terms of that change in ring fencing and the potential for multiyear funding. Who wants to pick that one up first?

Before I bring in Fulton MacGregor, who is online and has a few questions, I want to pick up on something that was talked about last week, which is now a thread that has started to come through the pre-budget scrutiny. There is a limited envelope and there are different pressures. The pressures that have been highlighted to us are early years provision, free school meals and adult social care—those are the looming pressures that most local authorities face. There has been a call for a national conversation with people about what they should expect from their traditional public services, given that there is a shift in direction—local authorities need to make available that provision, which is important, which means that they need to look at reducing other services, such as libraries.

I want to bring that issue into the scope of the budget challenges piece, because that is the conversation that we are having. There are those three critical areas, but most people maybe do not understand that a big shift is happening. People are going about their daily lives, but they do not understand that there are issues that need to be addressed quite critically and rapidly. We must address the ageing population, as well as the Government commitment in the Verity house agreement around tackling childhood poverty.

I do not know whether I have a question in there, but I want to bring that issue in. Has that come into your thinking?

It was useful that the point that the fiscal framework needs to include the funding formula came up in last week’s meeting. That is the difficult bit. We heard from the smaller local authorities that things have changed in their demographics and that the pressures that they are now seeing are not being covered by the formula.

We will move on to the theme of workforce challenges; you will be glad to know that these are our last few questions.

That is good to hear.

The next item on our agenda is an evidence session on the draft Climate Change (Local Development Plan) (Repeals) (Scotland) Order 2025 with Ivan McKee, the Minister for Public Finance. The minister is joined by Adam Henry, who is a senior planner for the Scottish Government. I welcome our witnesses to the meeting.

The instrument has been laid under the affirmative procedure, which means that the Parliament must approve it before it comes into force. Following the evidence session, the committee will be invited to consider a motion that recommends that the regulations be approved. I remind everyone that officials can speak during this item but not in the debate on the motion that will follow it. I invite the minister to make a short opening statement.

Come on in, Adam; you could just rattle through the numbers.

As no other member wants to ask a question, I turn to agenda item 3, which is the formal consideration of motion S6M-18057.

Motion moved,

That the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee recommends that the Climate Change (Local Development Plan) (Repeals) (Scotland) Order 2025 [draft] be approved.—[Ivan McKee.]

Our next agenda item is evidence taking as part of our scrutiny of the Scottish budget 2026-27. We are joined by Andrew Burns, who is deputy chair of the Accounts Commission; Derek Yule, who is a member of the commission; Blyth Deans, who is an audit director at Audit Scotland; and Martin McLauchlan, who is a senior manager at Audit Scotland. I welcome our witnesses to the meeting. We have around 90 minutes for this discussion. There is no need for witnesses to operate their own microphones. We have agreed that we will direct our questions to Andrew Burns in the first instance, who will distribute them as he thinks appropriate.

I will ask the first question, which is about the commission’s call for transformational change. You said that there is not enough evidence that truly transformational change is taking place, but, last week, one council chief executive told the committee that they had a sense that the use of the word “transformation” was “too loose”. What do you mean when you talk about a transformation? What does a transformed local authority look like? What should local authorities look like in 10 years’ time?