Seòmar agus comataidhean

The committee will publish in the coming days a report setting out its recommendation on the instrument.

We agreed at the start of the meeting to take the next two items in private. As that was the last public item on today’s agenda, I close the public part of the meeting.

Thanks very much for that. We are focusing on homes. You used the word “imply”—perhaps we will get some clarity from the Government on that.

That is helpful. Thank you.

Fionna Kell, I am curious. You talked about the shortfall in housing and about the concern that this might slow things down. However, on the other side, we would end up with a lot of housing that people would then have to retrofit in the future. Have you given thought to that?

Does that mean that all the companies that you represent in Homes for Scotland are busy setting up retrofitting arms?

We move on to questions from Marie McNair.

It is interesting to hear that level of detail and to hear about the common understanding that is being worked on. I imagine that part of the demonstration of success—it might not happen this year, because it is early days, but it might happen in the future—will be that we will not have the bun fights, because so much co-design has been done up front to lead into the budget discussions.

I will bring in Ivan McKee.

Okay. Thanks very much.

I want to get into the granular detail. It is great to hear that you recognise the importance of having the skill sets around the table. One of the things that came to light when we gathered evidence was that there is a need for acknowledgement that community engagement is a professional skill that needs to be resourced, whether that role is performed by local authorities or the third sector. That must be recognised, because there is so much work that needs to be done right now and so many changes that need to be made for which such facilitation and engagement skills are crucial.

Earlier, we talked about the fact that voices are not being heard. Councillor Heddle talked about the need to create the space in which people feel comfortable and safe to express themselves. We must recognise that a professional skill set is needed to enable that to happen and that we need to resource that. That is not about dictating what the arrangement will look like at local level, but we must get out of the situation that we are in. In Scotland, we face a challenge regarding the budget situation, but we need to start looking at how we get that soft infrastructure in place so that we have people who are able to engage with and to facilitate work with communities to ensure that they are not trapped in a cycle of one-year funding. As our witnesses well know, that one year is taken up with getting the money in the first place, then having to report on how it has been used.

We need to continue the conversation on that, but I would be interested to hear your initial thoughts.

Joe FitzPatrick, do you want to come in on the community planning aspect?

I will bring in Councillor Heddle and them Tom Arthur can add his comments.