Chamber and committees

I note an interesting interaction between this session and the previous evidence session with Mr Adam, the minister dealing with the Government’s participatory and deliberative democracy agenda. There is a big concern about the attachment of community benefits to big planning projects, whether they relate to energy or something else, and it is an issue that needs to be addressed much more rigorously in NPF4. For example, I know from planning decisions made in Glasgow that there is real concern about funding disappearing centrally in council budget lines and not being attached to material and tangible improvements in the community that is the locus of the development.

There are clear issues that need to be tightened up and considered. There is also a potential interface with the agenda in Mr Adam’s portfolio.

I concur with what Mr Ewing said with regard to a need for remedy, which is clear in terms of natural justice.

I think that there is another stakeholder, because Glasgow City Council is the successor body to Glasgow Corporation. Any question of liability would probably need to be discussed, which therefore requires a response from Glasgow City Council as well as from the Scottish Government. We should therefore also make inquiries of Glasgow City Council.

The instincts in bureaucracy are to defend against liability and against extending liability, but that is the wrong approach in this instance. We should therefore try to establish a remedy for a group that has clearly suffered harm.

I think that Mr Ewing covered the matter fairly comprehensively. I am intrigued to hear the minister’s response.

A common theme that came across from all the petitions is governance and the need for checks and balances in relation to the structures of health boards. The rights of rural communities would be better enshrined in a formalised setting by creating some sort of statutory body that advocates for them and places obligations on health boards. We need to set a safety standard that identifies very clearly that driving such distances to access critical care is inherently unsafe.

That would place an obligation on the health board to address that as a standard issue. Perhaps some reflection is needed on how that might look. The petition does not make that demand, but an issue emerged in conversation during the evidence session about whether some sort of body could say, “This is a defective system for these reasons. You need to address it.” Such a body might be equivalent to the Scottish Housing Regulator, for example, and it could place such obligations on health boards. It seems that the idea that that could be done through the health board was challenged—there was a feeling that boards might be prone to groupthink and that what is needed could not necessarily be achieved just by having a rural representative on a health board, because their voice would be drowned out.

My question relates to the question on the 50MW thresholds for devolved versus reserved planning applications. Has the Scottish Government engaged with Alister Jack at the Scotland Office or Greg Hands at the Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy on that issue—perhaps to seek a remedy through planning reform? I sense that, on the occasions when these issues are raised, they are discussed and, potentially, discrete elements could be devolved as a result or at least a mechanism could be established. It might be worth taking that action. If that is not happening, perhaps the committee could support that effort by calling for those ministers to come before the committee in due course.

Thank you very much for that. I want to ask a bit more about how that fits into the wider agenda on participative and deliberative democracy. How does the report fit into that wider vision or objective?

What is the Government’s view on how that fits into the wider open government plan? In particular, how do you see monitoring and evaluation working?

A major point has been raised about wider and deeper engagement with local government. What is the Government’s response to the recommendation about deeper engagement?

There are things like that.

Another example that I often encounter relates to the planning process. There are consultation events and opportunities to engage, but it is only when people suddenly realise that construction has started, and wonder why they did not know about it, that we get the emails and the agitation about why something is suddenly happening. We might say, “Well, you should have got in touch six months ago when the guy was at the community centre with those notice boards about it all.” They say, “I know, but I didn’t know anything about it.”

There are already these types of defective examples. Does the Government recognise where the limitations are and how to address them?

I want to ask more about the Government’s specific governance arrangements for the exercise, to ensure that you achieve the satisfactory outcomes that you envisage.