The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.
All Official Reports of meetings in the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament.
All Official Reports of public meetings of committees.
Displaying 971 contributions
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 8 November 2022
Paul McLennan
Paula, I see you nodding. Do you want to add to that?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 8 November 2022
Paul McLennan
You have touched on my second question, which is about whether panel members agree with the Scottish Government’s reasoning for excluding homelessness services from the remit of the national care service. You have kind of answered that, as well. You think that it is really important that those services be part of the structure, whatever it looks like, going forward.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 8 November 2022
Paul McLennan
Does anyone else want to comment on those two questions?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 8 November 2022
Paul McLennan
I appreciate the pressures that you mentioned around funding and other issues such as Covid, but just to play devil’s advocate, how many improvement plans have there been in the past and has that approach worked?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 8 November 2022
Paul McLennan
I will bring in Andrew Burns and Carol Calder for an Accounts Commission and Audit Scotland view on the reasons for the disparity. What has gone on in the past and, without moving on to the national care service, what lessons do we need to learn from that? The question is about learning from the past and how we can move forward.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 8 November 2022
Paul McLennan
Carol Calder, do you want to touch on that point? Then I will see whether anyone else wants to come in. Eddie Fraser mentioned IJBs, so I will move on to IJBs in a wee second.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 8 November 2022
Paul McLennan
Those are good points. Thank you.
11:45Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 1 November 2022
Paul McLennan
I was going to ask this question later, but it is an extension to the question that was just asked. The access to elected office fund is meant to have an impact on the number of councillors with disabilities. What more can be done to ensure that more people with disabilities feel that they can put themselves forward for election? I wonder whether anybody wants to come in on that broader aspect of what Miles Briggs has said. The committee has heard about the issue before. I do not know whether anybody wants to pick that up or add anything.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 1 November 2022
Paul McLennan
Does anybody else want to come in?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 1 November 2022
Paul McLennan
I share Willie Coffey’s concern that a bill that stakeholders do not know about is passing through the UK Parliament, and that the Scottish Government does not seem to know about the amendments. Minister, do you want to say anything else about that? The evidence that we have heard so far has said plenty about it being a bill that is passing through Westminster without consultation of the Scottish Government or other stakeholders. You have already indicated what the Scottish Government is doing about planning data and digital planning.