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I am grateful to the Scottish warm homes campaign for appearing today. We considered its petition on 26 April last year when, to a large extent, we were quite a different committee.
The major decreases are in expenditure on communities programmes, down £35 million in real terms—I will come back to that—and in the unallocated capital modernisation fund, down £26 million in real terms. However, all is not as it seems.
I know that the minister will address that.Secondly, on undertakings, during the stage 1 debate I recounted my experience of visiting the pilot project in West Lothian.
You are probably right to point out that local authorities are purchasing half-day places, which will mean that lunches will not be involved. However, I have visited loads of private nurseries in my time as an MSP and know that they provide snacks just as local authority nurseries do.
I welcome our witnesses, who are Angela O'Hagan, the convener of the Scottish women's budget group; Dr Ailsa McKay of the Caledonian business school; and Rona Fitzgerald, visiting professor at the Caledonian business school.
I recently had the privilege of visiting the Newarthill Credit Union. It is located in a new building on the main road, built with not one coin of public money but every bit with private and collective endeavour.
If they are serving that niche well, the burden of trying to get funding should be taken off their management. When we visit them, that is what we are told needs to happen.
The Health and Safety Executive works with union health and safety officers in visiting non-unionised sites—essentially it uses the expertise that trade unions have in the sector to its advantage and to the advantage of the general workforce.We would like to consider such schemes.
A key component of the business case—patronage forecasts—is based on the number of people moving into the area. The site visit indicated that there were not many areas of potential growth in the number of domestic residences along the route to the airport.
That is precisely why we need to establish an independent regulator that will have the resources to enable it to regulate the bodies it will oversee. OSCR will not visit charities, but it will listen to and spot check information that is provided to it.