Seòmar agus comataidhean

Thank you for your statement, minister, and for extending to the committee an invitation to the event in October. I am keen to find out about the details of the event, so, if your officials could make the clerks aware of the dates, we can make committee members aware of that information, too.

We will now move to questions, and Jeremy Balfour is first.

I, too, am conscious of the time. I call Bob Doris.

That concludes our question session. I thank the witnesses for sharing their views with the committee today. We will hold a further evidence session over the coming weeks, so we will have heard from a host of people in third sector organisations.

That concludes our public business for today. We will move into private session to consider the remaining items on our agenda.

I will touch more on the inefficiencies in the funding processes. That includes how burdensome the funding application form and the reporting requirements are. In our workshop, the committee heard from several people that there is good practice with some application forms; I cannot recall, but it might be the Robertson Trust that has an excellent application form. What could we do to try to streamline the process?

Our next item is an evidence session on the Housing (Scotland) Bill at stage 1. Today, we will hear from Paul McLennan, the Minister for Housing, and I welcome him and his Scottish Government officials: Catriona MacKean, deputy director, better homes division; Laura McMahon, solicitor, legal directorate; and Matt Howarth, policy officer, homelessness prevention team. Thank you for joining us.

Minister, I believe that you would like to make a short opening statement.

I am sorry, minister, but, before you come in, I just want to say that I am conscious of time, and I must ask that we be as concise as possible with our questions and answers.

Marie McNair, who joins us online, has the next questions.

I thank the minister and his officials for coming along today.

In the coming weeks, the committee will report to the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee on the evidence that we have taken on the bill.

I will suspend the meeting for the set-up of our next agenda item.

Can you do it briefly?

That is really helpful.