Good morning. The sun has just come beaming in my window, so I hope that you can still see me.
In respect of the fiscal flexibilities, over the past few months, local government has been very good at working collaboratively with the Scottish Government, and the fiscal flexibilities have arisen from an acknowledgment—as Mark Taylor has touched on—of the volatility and uncertainty that exist. Local government has been proactive in trying to find solutions to get us through the short to medium-term difficulties that we are facing as a result of Covid.
The fiscal flexibilities were instigated by local government, and by working collaboratively with the Scottish Government, we have reached a point at which three of those flexibilities will be capable of being utilised by local councils, should that be required. I stress strongly that directors of finance are not looking at those as palatable options; they are for a worst-case scenario. However, they will certainly help some—although not all—councils to plug a gap, if required. I stress that none of the options is a replacement for cash. If additional consequentials come through, we will keep an eye on those and ensure that local government’s share is given to local government. The fiscal flexibilities have been a positive piece of work with the Scottish Government, but they are by no means the solution.
Because of Covid, much of the work on our fiscal framework was halted temporarily, and we need to get back to the stage of having proactive discussions about what the relationship between local government and the Scottish Government will look like.
Fairly recently, we launched our blueprint, which encapsulates local government’s vision for the short, medium and long term. That is an important piece of work that we need to do with the Scottish Government. It is certainly signed up to doing it, but it is a question of finding the space in the current landscape to make that work meaningful. That would also involve all Opposition parties across Parliament.
We are currently looking for a substantial shift in the balance of funding, more sustainability of budgets, longer-term budgeting and more flexibility around the funding that we receive to ensure that it is utilised in the best possible way at local level.
That was a quick canter through the fiscal flexibilities and the framework, but I can pick up on any specific points.