Chamber and committees

I will just add, convener, that it relates to this inquiry because there is every reason to suspect that HES might take a risk-averse approach when it gets through this and, if that is the case, it will be a continuing failure.

What is crucial to having that serious, grown-up conversation is an understanding of the general financial environment, and I do not get the sense of that, to be honest. Nobody—neither you nor the previous two speakers—has mentioned the impact of the increase in employer national insurance contributions, which I cannot imagine will have had no impact.

I cannot speak for the Greens, but no other party in the Scottish Parliament suggested an amendment to the budget that would have increased the local government settlement, so there seems to be tacit agreement in relation to that. Did COSLA have conversations with any Opposition parties on the budget?

Thanks.

The cabinet secretary is providing answers.

Cabinet secretary, as we have heard—it is in the budget—you have taken action to lift the restrictions and to give a signal that HSE should do that. However, it is one thing to open the door and another to see others going through it. I will cite a couple of examples. This is the last point that I will make.

Back when I worked in the council, we took the Wallace sword across to New York. It had huge TV coverage and queues around the block. Because of the surrounding publicity, it substantially paid for the refurbishment of the Wallace monument centre.

There was a fantastic BBC Four programme about John Logie Baird. We have completely failed to exploit the fact that he was born in Scotland. The house where Alexander Graham Bell was born has never been used. There are two visitor centres in Canada and one in the States for him, but we have done nothing in this country.

I am currently trying to get the oldest football in the world taken to the world cup, to show that football was born in Scotland. I do not see, and have not seen for a long time, any such initiative from Historic Environment Scotland.

I do not doubt what you say, cabinet secretary. Very good people are working there. However, they, too, have to be imbued with that spirit of knowing that that can happen, to come up with ideas and to start monetising what is probably the biggest set of assets of the country. I want the assurance that, despite all that we—rightly—have to deal with, that fundamental point is not lost.

I will just confirm that no Opposition party came to the Government, with the possible exception of the Greens, and asked for more money—or, in fact, asked for anything, which is quite astonishing.

Can you say something about the impact of the increase in employer national insurance contributions? I know that that was last year, but this will be the first full year that you are having to find that money. What kind of impact has that had?

You did not.

I agree. What is often not said is that councillors are not trusted, really, but they are trusted more than every other elected member. Indeed, studies will show that they are the most trusted elected representatives. Going back to your earlier point, I think that, during the pandemic, people really appreciated the vital nature of local government services to an extent that they never had before.

Do any of the other panel members want to come in on my substantive points?

Do you need an answer to the question?

I endorse what Mr Harvie is saying. He is not without experience in this area. It may well be an exceptional case, but the Government should have in place provisions that allow it to deal with exceptional cases. I urge the Government to look at this very seriously. It may be more for Mr Hogg, given that it would be a cross-Government issue to be brought to ministers, but I would like to hear back from the Government on whether it intends to put in place any provisions that would allow it to take action, given the constraints that the cabinet secretary has rightly pointed out.

The detriment to the service and the public image of the organisation has been very costly. We have had a number of sessions on this matter. We had evidence from the Auditor General at the most recent session, and we have gone quite exhaustively over the things that have gone wrong.

I have only one question, so I will not take the half hour that Mr Kerr did because, if we all did that, we would be here for three and a half hours just for this panel. My concern is that, as well as the things that went wrong, there were underlying concerns beforehand. One of those concerns was a point that I have made a number of times. For a number of years, there was no sign of any kind of entrepreneurial initiative or spark to do things differently, for example, to maximise the monetisation of the assets that HES has. I am very comfortable with HES monetising its assets, and it should do much more of that. I am looking for an assurance that that push is not going to be lost in all of this. HES might have been good at using credit cards, having booze at all sorts of events or getting all those tickets for whatever reason, but was it good at looking at new opportunities to bring in more money? Given the budget, which we will discuss shortly, I know that bringing in more money is a fundamental aim for HES, but what assurances can the Government give us that the importance of monetisation will not be lost in all that is going on?