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We can consider that and come back to you. We are trying to be as inclusive as possible, if you have any suggestions for that.

Again, the work is very much at an early stage. I will maybe bring in colleagues who have been involved in some of it.

One of the key indicators would be the number of children in temporary accommodation and the general temporary accommodation figures. At last week’s board meeting, everyone was focused on how we get children out of temporary accommodation. It is about looking at a sustainable reduction in the use of temporary accommodation over a period of time. That is one of the key things.

Homes for Scotland also raised the issue of the number of stalled sites, so an indicator could show what work is being done on those. There are also the usual indicators on starts, completions, authorisations and so on. Those are the key things that are being developed. For me, however, one of the key indicators would show a reduction in the number of children in temporary accommodation.

The work is very much at an early stage and it needs to be inclusive. It is not up to Government to declare an end to the housing emergency—it is up to the stakeholders, including local authorities and the regulator. The question is how we deliver that. I do not know whether anyone wants to come in with regard to where the discussions started and where they will go.

I will bring in Lauren McNamara in a second. We have regular meetings with the housing regulator on a number of issues. We have talked about how we reduce homelessness as quickly as we possibly can, and what we can do to reduce the pressure on local authorities. We have targeted an additional £42 million of funding support in 2024-25.

There are also lessons to be learned from across Scotland, because 13 local authorities have reduced their homelessness figures and 16 have also reduced the number of children in temporary accommodation. The convener mentioned Perth and Kinross Council, which reduced the number of children who are in temporary accommodation by 57 per cent, and Angus Council and Moray Council have reduced that figure by 50 per cent, so we have to learn from them.

It comes back to targeting the five local authorities. The regulator has warned that there is systemic failure in some councils. About £4 million in additional funding has been allocated in the budget to help local authorities to prepare for new prevention duties, which is an incredibly important aspect of the work that we are doing, as well as to try to reduce the current pressure. I have talked about the targeted funding for voids and acquisitions, and about additional funding for local authorities so that they can target those things. We have to try to tackle the challenges so that we can reduce the pressure on local authorities.

There is £2 million to support the work on empty homes, and the increase in the housing budget will try to reduce empty homes. Local authorities meet the regulator and agree action plans with it, which we are informed of. We are trying to support local authorities so that we can reduce the pressures on them, including reducing the number of kids who are in temporary accommodation, reducing temporary accommodation figures, and increasing the affordable housing supply programme. I am not going to interfere with the work of the regulator; it makes observations, which we take into consideration, but we need to consider how we work with local authorities to reduce the pressure on them through increased funding for homelessness, empty homes, and the affordable housing supply programme.

Meghan Gallacher asked about the key performance indicators that are being developed so that we know when local authorities are out of the housing emergency, given the observation of where they are just now. The way that we do that is to work with the regulator, which is also on the housing to 2040 strategic board. We need to consider how we reduce the pressure on local authorities in the immediate term by looking at voids, acquisitions and so on. We need to ensure that we support local authorities with increased funding and reduce the pressure on them as quickly as we can. We work very closely with the regulator. I do not know whether anyone else wants to add anything else on that?

It is across all local authorities.

For me, coming from a local authority background, one of the key things has been to get round as many local authorities as I possibly can to see what their specific issues are. I still have one or two to visit, but I have visited Argyll and Bute.

You are right; there are 32 local authorities with 32 different approaches, and there are lessons for other local authorities to learn from the five councils on which we are focusing. I mentioned the acquisition fund. When we spoke to COSLA, we were keen to look at what we do in that regard with the five local authorities and there was an 80:20 split—80 per cent of the fund went to the five local authorities and the other 20 per cent went to other local authorities. We are still focusing on voids in other local authorities as well. The work that I mentioned on empty homes is incredibly important and we have a breakdown of the situation in that respect.

There is a large number of empty homes in Highland and in Aberdeen, so we need to look at what we do with each of those local authorities. There are lessons to be learned from the work that Glasgow has done. We talked about the £2 million for empty homes, so we need to focus on that as well. It is about ensuring that the lessons that we learn from the five local authorities in that regard are taken into the other local authorities.

The local teams engage with local authorities regularly on how we increase the affordable housing supply programme. The increase in the budget relates to the opportunities in that respect and getting the resource planning assumptions back to where they were previously, so we need to think about what that looks like.

I mentioned the additional funding based on the planning assumptions. There are always planning assumptions regarding how much a local authority receives to put towards an affordable housing supply programme. Discussions are already going on with local authorities on that, looking at how we maximise the opportunities from the project in Argyll and Bute and get projects in other local authorities up and running as quickly as possible. That is being helped by the work on stalled sites, which is looking at how we get those sites up and running.

One of the key aspects involves our discussions with local teams. You mentioned mid-market rent, convener. One of the key things that we mentioned in the programme for government was a £100 million commitment to mid-market rent. That commitment is forecast to bring in additional funding of £400 million from other investors for delivery. The Scottish Federation of Housing Associations was very focused on that commitment, because they deliver some of their housing through mid-market rent. There is a question of where we look for mid-market rent opportunities in other local authorities. We can do more in some local authorities than others, and that is important. Our discussions with local authorities and local teams are about what those mid-market rent opportunities are and how we can develop and grow that sector. The charitable bonds that I mentioned earlier are also really important for getting investment into that sector.

Coming back to Argyll and Bute, a key thing that I mentioned in my opening statement was the role of housing work in terms of how we deliver and I mentioned the partnership with the Nationwide Foundation. As you will know, an important issue that rural authorities mention to us is the ability of development companies to deliver on housing. Often, our discussions are about how we increase their capacity to do that, because that is really important. That funding makes a real difference in helping companies to develop housing. In rural communities, 10 to 15 houses can make a real difference.

There is a wide range of opportunities, but what can we learn from the five local authorities about how we look at mid-market rent and the funding for that? How do we look at the rural affordable homes for key workers fund? We have a nuanced approach to each local authority. So, yes, we are focused on those five local authorities, but local teams work on a daily basis with other local authorities to maximise opportunities and there are on-going discussions about the budget for doing so.

Yes, I will come to where things have worked and the local authorities that have reduced their empty homes and have exemplar schemes in a second.

One approach to lessons learned is based on data. Glasgow has reduced its empty homes by about 50 per cent in the past three or four years. It did that through a focus on compulsory purchase. In its recruitment, it very much focused on people with the experience to drive that. That is something that we can discuss with Edinburgh, which has approximately 15 per cent of the Scottish total of empty homes. We talked about the work that Edinburgh carried out on voids. There are around 7,000 empty homes. What do we do to try to reduce that number? If Edinburgh reduced its empty homes by 50 per cent in the same period of time as Glasgow did, we would be talking about 3,500 properties that would be available for the council to use. That is a significant number in tackling those issues.

Perth and Kinross Council was invited to the rural and islands housing conference that we held in October, along with the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership. Perth and Kinross Council talked about its work in the private sector and its leasing scheme. The Scottish Association of Landlords also attended the housing to 2040 strategic board meeting. Work is active and on-going with the Scottish Association of Landlords and the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership to see what schemes can be developed in other parts of Scotland. We have already mentioned the £2 million for empty homes. Some projects in Scotland are already working, so how do we learn from them? We are also looking at the number of empty homes officers in different parts of Scotland and whether it needs to be increased. Edinburgh council recently increased its allocation by one officer, so it is focusing on that as well.

We talked about the five target local authorities. We will be working very closely with Edinburgh on empty homes, because if it can reduce its number of empty homes in the same way that Glasgow did, 3,500 properties would be available in the next two to three years. That is significant. Where do we learn the lessons from that? In terms of other local authorities and the work being done by Perth and Kinross Council, there is an opportunity for closer work with the Scottish Association of Landlords, which is working very closely with us on looking at schemes that can be delivered. Again, we will look at the progress of that at the next meeting of the housing to 2040 strategic board in March.

You are right. Building houses also helps the local economy. One of the issues is the availability of local construction companies. There might be one or two in an area and we need to continue to build on that.

The Construction Industry Training Board carried out some work about a year ago, I think it was, that broke Scotland into 10 areas. It looked at construction capacity, learning opportunities in colleges and so on. Also, a Highland housing challenge summit was held a few months ago and one of the key things that it talked about was how to develop the construction sector there, so the issue is being discussed. Highland Council is also looking at the opportunities that it has and the challenges that it faces in developing the freeport, which will create capacity issues in construction while it is being developed. However, that is a huge opportunity to develop the sector and the local economy in that area.

Hubcos do a lot of work on delivering schools, for example. The programme tries to maximise the opportunities that are already on-going, and the hubcos already do a lot of good work in Scotland on finance models for delivering schools.

The question is whether we can extend that to housing and the infrastructure that is required around it. The housing investment task force—in which those bodies are involved, as well as investors and the SFHA—is considering opportunities for doing that. The task force will produce some recommendations, probably towards the end of March, and we will contact the committee about that.

The question is how we can flex the system that we already have. That is obviously applicable to Argyll and Bute Council and other local authorities.

I totally agree. The board was set up to look at longer-term structural change and to deliver it by 2040.

The board has been running for a period of time, but, in our discussions about the housing emergency for the past year or so, there has been an agreement across the board that one of the key things that we have to do, for a short period of time, is pivot towards a focus on tackling the housing emergency, because we need to get our approach to that right before we move on. That was agreed, so that has been our focus. The discussions that we had with stakeholders at that time were about an agreement to focus on the housing emergency. We then looked at bringing in additional members, again with a focus on that.

You are fundamentally correct—we have been discussing the matter at every meeting, and it was raised by stakeholders in one of the discussions that we had last week. I co-chair the meetings with COSLA, and the cabinet secretary attends, on occasion, as well. One of the key things that we discussed last week was that we need to continue to agree on what the short-term measures will be, because we need to get out of the housing emergency as soon as possible. That was raised within a discussion about how we look at the strategic objectives for 2040 in terms of the housing emergency.

There are issues that we need to look at. One is around the finance model, which the housing investment task force has been looking at. How we maximise opportunities for financing housing in Scotland was identified by stakeholders as one of those issues. Another one is housing affordability, which is relevant not just in Scotland but right across Europe. The question is how we look at tackling that, so we have been engaging—with Professor Ken Gibb, for example—on what affordability is. We have previously had discussions on that in the committee. What is affordability and how do we look at closing the affordability gap? It is an issue in Scotland but also in the rest of the UK and in Europe. It is an issue right across France. I think that Spain has announced a 100 per cent tax on properties that are bought by people outwith Spain, so if European Union nationals purchase properties there, there will be a 100 per cent tax on those. The reason why Spain has cited for that measure is the need for affordable housing for its own people. There are various things that we need to move on—affordability is one and financial flexibility is another.

How do we move on to that? There was agreement to come back to that at our next meeting and to discuss what things we need to pick up in terms of this immediate stage and the period to 2040. We are going to get feedback from stakeholders on that particular point.

We need to learn the lessons about how we got here. The challenges with housing exist across Europe, not just in Scotland. They exist in England and in other parts of Europe as well. How do we get to where we want to be? We need to look at what requires to change structurally over that period. That is what housing to 2040 was set up for. The stakeholders mentioned that last week, and we agreed to come back and ask what we need to focus on now, in the medium term. There is no point in taking time to get out of the housing emergency and then saying, “Oh, right—we need to think about this now that we’re out of it.” We need to be doing that in conjunction with what we are already doing. It is about getting that balance. We discussed that last week with the board, and, at our next meeting, we will discuss what the strategic objectives will be.

We need to set out the strategic objectives to 2040, for whatever Government is in place. We must continue to work on the long-term objectives and on long-term structural change in order to deliver on our target. Financing and affordability are issues that we need to pick up on.

I am aware of that, although it probably falls outwith my remit—another minister would deal with it. I can speak to the relevant minister about that. As you know, we try as best we can to source local produce from across Scotland. That is good for the economy and for how we tackle climate change, which we are looking to do. We are working on how we do that in the work that is being done. We can come back to you on that point. Another minister is probably dealing with it, and we can liaise with them about the point on tackling climate change.