Chamber and committees

Last year’s spending review suggested that public sector workforces, including local authority workforces, would have to shrink if they were to remain sustainable. Minister, is that still the Government’s view?

Minister or Councillor Hagmann, is there a more detailed breakdown by department of the headcount at local authority level? That might help us to understand the issue with workforce numbers in local government and the movements between departments.

Councillor Hagmann, with the Government’s suggestion that the workforce will have to adjust to remain sustainable, is it possible for local government to reduce workforce levels while still providing the level of service that it is providing or is expected to provide?

As service delivery changes, how are COSLA and local authorities assessing the impact on the workforce, particularly on women and minority groups, to make sure that the changes are not impacting on them more negatively than on other groups? Similarly, what assessment is carried out of the impact on women and minority groups in communities that rely on the services that are going to be delivered in a different way?

My daughter Rosa was born on 1 April 2017 at University hospital Wishaw. She was born at 27 weeks gestation, weighing 535g or just one pound and three ounces. She came home from hospital almost exactly five months later, having spent the vast majority of those five months in the neonatal intensive care unit that the Scottish Government plans to downgrade.

My daughter’s birth was an emergency birth. My wife’s labour was induced early because she had developed an acute infection that, left unchecked, would have killed them both. We were told that, because of our daughter’s size and gestation, she would be very likely to be stillborn or to die shortly after birth, but that the neonatal team would be on standby to do what it could. We were left hoping and praying for a miracle, but miracles do not happen—miraculous people happen. After the birth, the miraculous staff at Wishaw worked to keep our daughter alive and get her into the intensive care unit for the start of a five-month rollercoaster journey of recovery. There could not have been a stabilisation and subsequent transfer to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen or maybe even the north of England, because she was too sick. The Government’s proposal means that Lanarkshire parents of the sickest babies, who need the most support, will be left with the choice between making a journey that they know is not in the best interests of their baby or leaving them with a skeleton staff who do not have the award-winning knowledge, experience or capacity that exists in the hospital right now.

Shortly after my daughter was born, my wife’s health deteriorated. She was haemorrhaging and had to be rushed to emergency surgery. She spent more than a week in recovery. She felt incredibly guilty that she could not be with our daughter beside her cot, but at least she could be in a nearby ward to provide the breast milk that is crucial to the survival of premature babies. I know that it would have been far too much for my wife to cope with if our baby had been moved to a different hospital before my wife was healthy enough to be discharged. However, there was also the issue that she was not our first but our second child. Sick babies are not born in isolation. It is all very well for the Government to say that travel, accommodation and food costs are covered. Although that is a good thing, parents have to fight for it and it is absolutely galling that that has been used as a partial shield for the decision. However, we are talking about moving mothers away from their communities, families, children and that vital support network. How does a mum get their kids to nursery or school in Lanarkshire and then get to Aberdeen to care for their sick baby?

I have told my family’s story, but it is far from unique. Rosas are being born in Wishaw every other week—I have met them. Their families and the staff have not been listened to. This Parliament and Government should listen to the team in Wishaw that is working miracles every day. We should be supporting the staff to do the award-winning work that they want to do and supporting families to give their baby the best start—locally, and surrounded and helped by their wider family and community.

Although I have not operated in the short-term let sector, I draw members’ attention to my entry in the register of members’ interests, which shows that I ceased to be the owner of a private rental property this summer.

The licensing regime for short-term lets is, in its current form, completely unnecessary for large parts of the country. Scottish Labour voted against the regulations when they came to the Parliament in 2021 and we still think that they need to be reformed. We support a delay to the scheme. We believe that there should be a detailed review of the impact of the licensing regulations and that changes should then be made. With a housing bill finally coming in this parliamentary year, we think that that will provide the right vehicle for changes to be made.

The regulations were badly drafted—[[Interruption.]

To ask the Scottish Government how it is working with trade unions to ensure that it includes workers’ voices in its policy development. (S6O-02458)

Last week, in its response in support of my bill for an employment injuries advisory council, the Fair Work Convention said that it was “pleased to see” the principle of “effective voice” underpinning the bill, which would put the voices

“of trade unions at the heart of the Council”

and the new benefit.

Does the cabinet secretary agree that workers know their workplaces best? They know the illnesses and diseases that they face at work, so will the Government listen to the Fair Work Convention, which it established, and support the bill, so that we can secure workers’ voices in the new benefit?

You talked about the number of applications for asset transfers and participation requests, and we heard that the number of participation requests is a good bit lower than the number of asset transfer applications. Does the Government have an opinion on why that might be? Do you consider that more work needs to be done to improve awareness and encourage communities to go down that route?

Councillor Heddle, is it possible for local government to meet the Verity house agreement’s key commitment to sustainable public services while also meeting pay demands from local government staff?