Chamber and committees

The debate has given us an opportunity to celebrate the asset transfers in all our communities. Fulton MacGregor perhaps wins the award for the most thank yous delivered during a speech, although Jenni Minto gave him a run for his money on that. I am not going to be outdone, however, because I want to highlight some of the great projects here in my region.

In 2016, I was pleased to support the Bellfield project in Portobello, which was the first community right-to-buy asset transfer in Scotland. Bellfield is a community centre located in what was previously Portobello old parish church, which is a Georgian church of classical design on Bellfield Street in Portobello. The church was subject to a successful community buyout in 2017. It then reopened, following vital investment that was needed, in June 2018, and it has gone from strength to strength.

There seems to be something in the water in Portobello, because quite a lot of community buyouts have taken place since then. That includes the community buyout of Portobello town hall, which I know that locals were really determined not to see lost. That just shows that, when communities really use the legislation, it can deliver results. I think that we all want to see that, and to encourage it in future.

Paul Sweeney made important points in relation to distressed community assets, which is an important issue. Assets are becoming more and more difficult to take forward, so we need to consider additional support around that. Although Willie Coffey has not spoken in the debate, in the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee, he often raises and highlights issues around individual buildings and ownership, and the lack of capacity that councils have to address issues with empty and condemned buildings. We need more work on that, as it can often become incredibly difficult to unpick and get to the heart of the ownership of a building.

I agree with Stephanie Callaghan’s point. My colleague Alexander Stewart highlighted that the process around community asset transfers can often be complicated, and we need councils to be able to assist communities. In future we need more focus on the teams who will deliver that. We know that planning departments are having staffing problems anyway, but often people in councils are not being directly allocated to supporting such work. We need that situation to be improved.

Ariane Burgess made important points on making new and innovative uses of buildings on our high streets. I for one want many high streets to have opportunities to bring diverse former shops into housing use, which we need to look at. I do not think that we necessarily captured that in the national planning framework that the Government introduced.

The Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee recently undertook an inquiry on allotments. We cannot honestly say that we have given community empowerment to people who want to see more green space and more growing opportunities—that was certainly the conclusion that the committee drew. There is a specific issue about how land that is in public sector ownership and which could potentially be used for community growing is not being released. We need to examine that because, especially following the pandemic, there is an appetite for such projects to be pursued. I hope that we can see those being progressed. That is certainly what the committee tried to do.

Members from across the chamber have looked towards the future sustainability of projects. I am concerned that, for some time, some organisations that I work with are facing construction inflation, and I am also concerned about their ability to finance future projects. We are constantly returning to the Scottish Government and local government to ask for support. Planning departments and the organisations that often provide grants for such projects are becoming more and more difficult to access, so we need to consider how such support could be delivered in future.

Finally, I want to touch on a point that was put to me by representatives of one project about how we can ensure that, in the next five years, we will deliver projects that are harder to achieve. I put it to the minister that some schemes have involved the low-hanging fruit that such buildings can become, so that they are easily transferred. As Paul Sweeney outlined, there are more difficult cases, which is where the legislation will really be tested. Although we have had a welcome and positive debate, I hope that the Government will not rest on its laurels. There will be potential community assets that we all want to be saved and utilised but that will be the hard cases. Ministers should ensure that they are ready to run those hard miles, too.

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of how any additional cost of living pressures will impact on the rebuilding of public services, as set out in its Covid recovery strategy, in particular public services in Edinburgh. (S6O-01679)

The capital has some of the highest vacancy rates in our public services and some of the highest housing and childcare costs. I have previously raised with the Scottish Government the potential development of an Edinburgh pay weighting. Will the cabinet secretary agree to meet me to discuss that further and whether the Government will look to commission university research into the potential need for an Edinburgh weighting, such as that in London?

Good morning. Thank you for joining us today.

Councillor Stockan, your comments on the national care service touched on this earlier, but I want to come back to how the new deal in this fiscal framework could be impacted by the creation of a national care service. Could you give us your view on that?

I can come in at the end.

I will follow on from those questions. From the earlier panel, we heard about the disparity between island councils and other councils. As an Edinburgh MSP, I am acutely aware that Edinburgh receives one of the lowest shares per head of population. Many of the problems that Scotland faces with homelessness are here in the capital, where we have 25 per cent of the homeless. The council continuously tells me that it does not have the resources to address that. Councillor Morrison, you are having conversations on reviewing the funding formula to look at councils that have historically lost out, such as Edinburgh. What plans are there?

Does anyone else want to come in on that?

Thank you, Frazer, and sorry about the feedback. I think that we picked up everything that you said. I think that you were calling for more to be done around insulation programmes; I think that that is what you were pointing towards.

I have two short questions. First, with regard to the discussion that we have had this morning, what other support do you think that the Scottish Government should provide to families and individuals who are struggling with the cost of energy?