Chamber and committees

No, actually—I am hoping that it would be the opposite, because it would involve both support and guidance. Rather than repeating what is being done, this is about looking at what is not being done at the moment. I think that it would support organisations, and it would lead to a constructive relationship. That is certainly the experience in Wales—and I have already mentioned the culture change that has taken place in the decade since the commissioner there was appointed.

There would have to be respect between public authorities and a new commissioner, if they were to be established, just as there is respect when the Parliament holds public bodies to account. Of course, that does not mean that you do not ask difficult questions. I think that the combination of advice and guidance will support the proposed approach, with that backstop of the knowledge that an inquiry could be carried out. This is absolutely about empowering and supporting organisations to do what we would like them to do and what we have talked about as the ambition.

I just want to double-check whether any of my team wants to come in and add to that or say anything else. Have I said enough on that or is there anything helpful that I could say? Sean, do you want to come in?

It comes back to sharing best practice, and to guidance. Having effective guidance is important, because we cannot put it all in legislation, and things change over time. It is about making sure that functions are actually implemented; it is also about what more public bodies could do.

One or two of the organisations that submitted evidence to me when I was looking at introducing the bill and which have given evidence to the committee talked about examples such as how procurement decisions are taken, which could potentially ignore sustainable development principles. The bill pushes that further up the agenda, so that it becomes about what public sector organisations do and how they invest their money—for example, if they are contracting functions out to somebody else to do that work for them.

Some people have suggested that I should amend the bill. However, I have kept it tight; we cannot have a member’s bill that is extensive and goes on forever, so I focused on three elements. If the committee feels that the aspect that you mention is important, I could certainly look at that before stage 2, if the bill was to get to that point.

Part of the guidance could be to get people to think about how they frame the procurement process—what their ambitions are and what criteria lead them to award contracts. Guidance could be useful for that kind of thing. That function and the decision making by public bodies are part of the duty. Good guidance, collective and shared knowledge, and good practice could start to change views. You are right that stage 1 of the Community Wealth Building (Scotland) Bill is coming up this afternoon and that we have the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015. We need to think about pulling together best practice and pushing that further up the agenda. Just the guidance and wider support could help local authorities or public sector organisations. As I mentioned, if they are under pressure, practical support could be critical.

Can you speak up slightly, convener? I do not know whether it is just because I have a bad cold or whether it is to do with the sound levels in the room, but I am struggling to hear.

Is that a legal question that you would like to come in on, Caroline?

The number that I gave was 130. I will check with the team that I am correct—it is 131.

That is a very good question. I ask Roz Thomson to respond to that. Roz, who is part of the team, has been very helpful in pulling this together.

I have looked at the reports that have been produced by different committees over the years, including those on the national performance framework and the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015. There are occasionally reviews in Parliament, but the legislation that we have at the moment is not delivering. The Finance and Public Administration Committee’s 2024 review of the national outcomes highlighted that we are not making the progress that we need to make. It also talked about the need for wellbeing and sustainable development legislation, which helped to push me forward.

There is a need to strengthen the legislation, because having a public duty pushes things up people’s agendas. If something is just seen as being nice to have, it will not happen. Some of the reports that have been produced show that we are not getting the reviews that we need. You mentioned the national performance framework and the national outcomes. It is striking that reviews of the national outcomes are done every five years—that is in the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015. The Scottish Parliament information centre blog shows the work that has been done, but we are not getting implementation on the national performance framework and the national outcomes.

We need to pull this together and push it up the agenda. Until we do that, we will not get the action that people agree that we need but which is not being implemented across public bodies and the Government.

I referred to the planetary boundaries in the policy memorandum. We certainly do not want to transgress environmental limits or planetary boundaries. That is a key part of sustainable development and collective wellbeing. I would be up for looking at that aspect in advance of stage 2, but I would not want to change the definition and get it wrong. We would have to get the definition right, and I thought that the way forward was to use the Brundtland definition and the past experience with regard to the sustainable development goals. As that definition is clearly—and internationally—understood, I do not think that there would be a challenge in that regard. The bill is intended to strengthen and accelerate our progress towards meeting the United Nations sustainable development goals. That is the overarching ambition.