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We know the costs and types of investment that are required to open a new store—whether it is food or non-food—but the levy is an additional cost that is unknown, unanticipated and unplanned for. I was comparing it with costs that are also fairly unplanned.
There are times when that is true, but there are other times when it is not. I visited a number of NHS Grampian teams a couple of weeks ago, and they did not just take me to the nice people.
It is now down to a bare minimum of, I think, one and a half members of staff. I compared that with the level at the Wales co-operative development centre, Cwmpas, which has 80 staff working on co-operative development.
It starts the challenge in relation to the resource shift from other parts of the public sector that potentially has to happen so that that funding can come into local government. That would allow us to compare the opportunities that exist in a national priority or policy area and recognise the benefits that could be achieved if local government received th...
They also argued that, in order to demystify the parliamentary process, they would appreciate more video content from elected representatives on how to engage with them and more explanation of the various differences in the Parliament. How does a member’s bill compare with a Government bill? What do cross-party groups do?
Indeed, the Scottish Fiscal Commission has estimated that our income tax policy choices since devolution will raise an additional £1.45 billion in 2024-25 compared with what would have happened if we had matched UK Government policy.
We will have to interrogate that issue. Cases such as this are exceptional, but any big budget within an authority could absorb the costs if they could be allocated within the structure.
Of course, Scotland has substantially more road per head than the rest of the UK does: 10.6km per 1,000 people compared with 6.4km per 1,000 for the UK.