Chamber and committees

Good morning. As you probably know, today is the first day of industrial action by non-teaching staff. Last week, we heard that the Verity house agreement has had little impact on Unison’s discourse with COSLA. Johanna Baxter, who is the head of local government at Unison, suggested that it might be used as a reason why one side cannot take on the other. For example, COSLA cannot criticise the Scottish Government by asking why it will not provide more money to fund pay deals. Similarly, the Scottish Government refuses to interfere in COSLA’s relationship with the trade unions. Where are the lines of accountability drawn here? How can you guarantee that there will be constructive conversations about financial resources? I put that question to Councillor Hagmann, in the first instance.

Councillor Hagmann, you are absolutely right to show where the accountability lies. However, although there is a pay offer on the table, I heard—I hope that I heard right this morning—that the trade unions want certainty about where the funding for that pay offer is going to come from and confirmation that it is not going to come from more cuts. Local government is really suffering. You are right to say that those workers are the people who are delivering on the ground. If the money is going to come from cuts, it will be a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul. That is why they want to know where the funds are going to come from.

Therefore, I think that the Scottish Government is accountable here, because the issue comes down to the funding settlements and where the Scottish Government can help. As you said, the Scottish Government cannot step in directly, but the process starts with the Government, so it can help out. That is why clarity is needed about where the cuts will be, if there are to be cuts. What is your view on that?

Talking about skills shortages in local authorities, the Accounts Commission noted that there were challenges in recruiting “at operational and leadership levels”. At last week’s meeting, one panel member said that higher levels of economic inactivity play into the recruitment challenges and that councils are coming up with different innovative ways of engaging with their potential workforce. Of course, education, skills and employment are also the responsibility of the Scottish Government, so how is the Scottish Government supporting that drive?

I have a follow-up question on carers, but I will wait for you to say whether I have any more time, convener.

Earlier, we spoke about work pressures on departments, and we heard that the overall reduction in local authority personnel has had a disproportionate impact on certain council departments, such as planning and building standards departments. Upcoming pieces of legislation that have been proposed by the SNP-Green Government, including those covering heat standards for new builds and the short-term lets licensing scheme, will undoubtedly result in an influx of applications to such departments. Are those departments adequately staffed and resourced to deal with an increase in workload without there being adverse effects on stakeholders?

We heard from the other witness panel that councils are not equipped to deal with the increased workload that new legislation brings. Is time a factor in your looking for solutions? If you were given a lot more time when legislation came forward—for example, to plan your apprenticeships and internships—would that be a factor? I ask that of Gerry Cornes.

Absolutely. I started off as a trading standards officer and moved on to economic development. You are right—there are so many opportunities in local government, and we need to sell it.

Mo, would you like to add anything?

Good morning. Before I ask my main question, I want to touch on diversity in the workforce, which my colleague Willie Coffey spoke about. Johanna Baxter mentioned the figure of 60 per cent vacancies in East Dunbartonshire, which is in the West of Scotland region that I cover and is also where I live.

Just last week, I was chairing a meeting between East Dunbartonshire Council and the Milan day care centre, which cares for elderly Asian people as well as other people that really need that help. One of the questions that was asked by the black, Asian and minority ethnic community was whether, on that panel of people who make the decisions about where cuts are made or services are changed, there was anybody who was diverse—I am going to use that word—who could have that thinking about what the service should look like. People from that community mentioned that they were being shifted to another facility in a different area where nobody spoke their language and there was no catering for the food that they eat or the clothes that they wear. They asked about how they were going to integrate with people from western society and talked about their cultural needs.

Those issues were brought up time and again in that meeting, and I was shocked by the situation. Do not get me wrong: the people who worked for the council were a bit stuck about how to answer those questions. In such a situation, the council cannot serve diverse communities because it does not understand how to serve them or what their culture is, because the workforce is not representative or diverse. Johanna Baxter, is that situation going to come up more, and have you heard of situations such as that?

We have heard about the disproportionate impact that the overall reduction in local authority personnel has had on council departments, particularly those such as planning and building standards. Earlier on, we heard from Johanna Baxter, head of local government at Unison, that there have been cuts of around 40 per cent to planning departments.

Upcoming legislation proposed by the SNP-Green Government, including the new build heat standard and the short-term lets licensing scheme, will undoubtedly lead to an influx of applications to such departments. Are those departments adequately staffed and resourced to deal with such an increase in workload? What kind of adverse impacts would that have on other stakeholders?

Good morning, panel. My question is about recruitment. We have heard this morning that vacancies are high and that Scottish councils fail to recruit workers for one in four jobs. We also heard from the previous panel and this panel that underfunding is one of the biggest challenges that local government has today. Those cuts lead to cutbacks in service provision as well as strikes over pay and conditions.

What impact will lower pay and uncertainty in relation to job security have on the skills shortages and on local government’s ability to deliver on priorities? We have also heard about people moving to the private sector more because of job security and pay issues, which are having the effect of fewer people coming into local government.

I ask Paul Manning to come in on that first, please.