Chamber and committees

As colleagues across the chamber have said, the report is hugely welcome and it acknowledges local government as being at the heart of meeting our climate goals. It also sets out a series of warnings. I welcome the headline response, which has been quoted by a number of speakers, that councils need more help and that targets will not be met without a more empowered local government, with better access to skills and capital and a better understanding of its role.

Fundamentally, the report accepts that decisions by this Government, including relentless cuts to council budgets and a failure to tackle our wider skills shortages, are very real blockages to success. It emphasises that a partnership approach between local and national Government, which currently exists in name only, is vital for success.

The warnings that the report gives are absolutely nothing new, so it is telling that the Government has failed to respond to it.

When it comes to the decarbonisation of heat in our buildings, the committee acknowledged that local government is still awaiting clarity on its role in relation to private and business properties. That sentiment is felt right across supply chains, and the Existing Homes Alliance said that it needs to be addressed urgently. Householders, alongside builders and tradespeople, are crying out for certainty about what they should do and how and when they should invest, or assurances that they are installing the right technology, that that is not going to be overtaken by events and that Government will not come in and say, “No, you need to rip that out and install something else.”

That needs to be done properly, because decisions made by Government without adequate planning and support for local communities are contributing to failure right now.

I recently visited Stornoway and learned how badly wrong this Government’s approach can be. It is affecting vital work to tackle fuel poverty in that island community, having a huge knock-on effect on the skills and work pipeline and decimating investment in local communities that should be progressing towards net zero.

Many in the chamber will know that the rate of fuel poverty in the Western Isles was due to hit 80 per cent this winter, but it was the short-sighted actions of Government that contributed to the collapse of the area-based scheme on the islands. In March last year, the council’s delivery partner, Tighean Innse Gall, announced the closure of its insulation installation department, with the loss of 14 jobs. TIG cited an onslaught of changes to regulations brought in by the UK and the Scottish Governments, and said that the Scottish Government’s wholesale adoption of Westminster standards was the key reason for the failure of the scheme. TIG said that the lack of rural proofing in the PAS 2035 retrofit standards, and a failure by the Scottish Government to flex those standards to ensure that they work for Scottish housing stock—

I remind Parliament of my interest as the owner of a private rented property in North Lanarkshire. We agree that it is right to extend the provisions, given the crisis in household finances, but how many times will we extend them in a piecemeal fashion? Would not it be better to bring forward the proposed housing bill and to have a permanent state of rent controls in this country instead of relying on continued extension of the provisions?

The contractor’s method for determining rateable values using the real costs of recent new buildings is now passing artificially high values on to councils, which now face spiralling non-domestic rates bills. In South Lanarkshire, the bill has gone up by £2.9 million. Why is the Government using that method and passing on increased bills to local authorities at an extremely difficult time for them?

To ask the Scottish Government by how much local authority non-domestic rates bills will increase, following revaluation of public sector properties based on rebuild costs using the 1 April 2022 tone date. (S6O-01978)

How have community planning partnerships helped marginalised and disempowered communities to build capacity and confidence to challenge or influence decision making so that they can engage fully in the community planning process? Are communities, particularly those that are marginalised or disadvantaged, aware that community planning partnerships exist?

Thanks. Does anyone else in the room or online want to contribute on that point?

It was about whether there is even an awareness of community planning and the benefits that it can bring. Do people even know that it exists?

I did, but Mark McAteer and Oliver Escobar have helpfully covered it in their extensive answers. Thanks for that.

I have another question about comments that the committee heard from the Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights. It stated that it has a concern that CPPs may be “race-blind” when it comes to tackling inequalities. How do you ensure that all communities, including communities of interest and identity, people with protected characteristics and those who are marginalised, have their voices heard in community planning, and that community planning partners are aware of the issues that are affecting particular interest groups?

What experience do the witnesses have of helping marginalised and disempowered communities to build capacity and confidence so that they can engage with the community planning process? At a more basic level, is there even a public awareness of what community planning is and what it can do to support communities?