Chamber and committees

I have a constituent who, along with his family, has gone through the emotional trauma of attending court on six separate occasions to face the person who is accused of breaking into his property, stealing personal items of huge emotional value and setting fire to his home, only for that case to be postponed every time. Will the cabinet secretary say how many cases have been postponed due to non-attendance by an accused person, what the Government’s view is on the impact that that has on victims and families and on dealing with court backlogs, and what plans it has to raise the issue with the Courts and Tribunals Service to stop it happening?

I know that the standards are up for review at the moment, but as well as the fairly huge cost burden, individual RSLs have properties on their books that, no matter how much money is spent on them, will never be brought up to standard as a result of a range of issues, such as mixed-tenure blocks of flats. What view is the regulator taking on properties that RSLs deem impossible to bring up to standard? We do not want to be in a situation where stock is decreasing. How is the process managed when RSLs take the view that they cannot spend money on properties to bring them up to standard?

Good morning. George Walker, in your earlier answers, you touched on the risks, costs and concerns that are associated with landlords’ commitments to achieving decarbonisation and net zero. In your previous session with us, you said that the costs and risks were not necessarily identified in associations’ business plans. Has the position changed? Are those business plans starting to give more recognition to the funding that will have to be identified and set aside for those things? If not, how is the regulator supporting landlords to go down that path?

I did not hear clearly whether the cabinet secretary has agreed to join the special meeting with COSLA leaders; I hope that that will be clarified now. The Government’s claim on Thursday that local government would get £500 million, and its promotion of a partnership approach, unravelled within hours. As I said at the time, that was little more than smoke and mirrors.

The unanimous response of COSLA leaders across all parties—and, most significantly, of council leaders from the Deputy First Minister’s party—is that the budget represents another massive real-terms cut in councils’ core funding, which will lead to socially harmful job losses. That could not be more serious.

Services as we know them will cease to exist. On Thursday, I asked the cabinet secretary whether he had assessed the cost to the national health service of cutting preventative services, but he did not answer. What is left to cut? Where is the impact assessment of what such austerity will do to the rest of Scotland’s public services?

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the statement by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities expressing council leaders’ extreme disappointment with the proposed budget settlement for local government and its presentation lacking consistency with a partnership approach, and their invitation to the Deputy First Minister to attend a special meeting. (S6T-01061)

There is still no answer on the wider impact of the cuts on Scotland’s public sector landscape. I heard the Deputy First Minister’s comments on Sunday about the need for reform. Where has the Government been for the past decade? Councils have been salami slicing in the face of 10 years of real-terms cuts. The days of salami slicing are over; it is now wholesale cuts—services ended.

Officials in Scottish National Party-run Aberdeen City Council have started looking at everything that the council does—social work, council tax collection, free school meals, dog control, health and safety and even the welfare fund. That could all be privatised and outsourced. Given what Aberdeen—along with all other councils—is considering, is the budget being used not to reform but to dismantle local government?

Will the Scottish Government extend the eligibility for its new employment injury assistance to key workers who are suffering from long Covid that was caught at work and who are now unable to return?

The claim that there will be £550 million more for local government is clearly smoke and mirrors and all about more ring fencing, and the huge real-terms cut to core services through the general revenue grant will be disastrous, coming on top of the house-building budget being slashed by £176 million.

Last week, SNP councillors in COSLA—not, I should say, councillors from any other party—talked about

“services”

being

“either significantly reduced, cut or stopped altogether”

and said:

“When councils can’t focus spend on prevention ... the NHS will end up spending significantly more money”.

Has the cabinet secretary assessed the additional costs that will be borne by the NHS and the impact on care and people needing emergency interventions when councils are left with no option but to scrap preventative services?

Thanks for those answers. I want to touch on how the new fiscal framework would work in practice. We have heard about principles that would sit behind it but very little about the technical detail of how it would operate.

I direct my question to David Ross, since he talked about the proportion of the Scottish Government that is going to councils. Essentially, what is the ideal financial relationship that you would like to see between national Government and local government? Are you looking for a fixed share of the Government’s budget? How would that fiscal framework work in practice?

Thanks, convener.

COSLA launched the budget campaign a couple of weeks ago. It is fair to say that it paints a really grim picture for local authorities if there are no changes from the spending review figures. Shona, what impact would a flat-cash settlement have on local authorities? Are you able to set out a breakdown of the extra £1 billion that directors of finance have called for? Have you any suggestions as to how national Government might fund that?