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Yes, something definitely needs to be done. The Scottish local authority remuneration committee is busy reviewing the remuneration piece too, so hopefully we will see some progress on that. As you said, someone who is responsible for the city of Edinburgh, for example, is considered to be part-time and is paid as such. That is concerning.

So there could be gradual reform rather than everything being ripped up.

The Scottish Land Commission recently published a report, which you may have seen, about forms of tax on land. It did not necessarily suggest a land value tax, but it had different kinds of ideas on tax on land.

One of the things that was flagged up to me was the fact that, in Fife, Amazon has its regional delivery centre, where its stuff gets sent out not only around Scotland but to the north of England. Amazon pays, I think, £1 million in non-domestic rates, and the neighbouring Tesco pays £2 million. Amazon generates tremendous income but is not really paying for it. I am interested in exploring those things, and, as a committee, we will look at that issue and how to generate more income for local authorities. Have you looked at that?

Thanks for that. It is really helpful.

It has been a really useful session, and we could go on a bit longer—I have certainly got more questions—but I have put a big box around my note “How local is local?”. Perhaps that is another part of the conversation if we want to take a more local approach, be that through 19 or 32 local authorities. That might have been discussed in some of the reports of the 2002 or 2014 local government committees, which you have referred to. It seems to be another piece of the conversation about what we want to devolve to more local levels, and that is important as we face a climate and nature emergency. Communities will face very different sets of issues—flooding, wildfires or whatever—and a pandemic-level speed of response to those issues will be needed. What is the local level at which power is needed in order to do that quickly?

I have a number of mop-up questions. On the subject of wellbeing, is there any consideration of the four-day work week? Has that been looked at?

Brilliant. When you were responding to Ivan McKee’s questions, you mentioned the opportunities from the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 and how that has brought about communities doing asset transfers. I wonder whether our upcoming community wealth building bill could bring more opportunities for the collaboration that you have talked about, around the procurement of goods and services across local authorities. What are your thoughts on that? Antony Clark is nodding.

It is very good that you have highlighted that. Speaking of English councils, I am aware that there are inshore fisheries and conservation authorities there. In England, there is overview of the inshore waters, managed at the council level. That is a really interesting model. In Scotland, we are probably struggling with having local stakeholder input into our inshore marine space. It is not just about fishing; many other people are involved in the inshore waters. The approach that is being taken in England and the fact that it is tied to a local authority is interesting. It is not necessarily appropriate to take models from England and use them as a sticking plaster to be placed over what is going on in Scotland, because we have a different structure to begin with, but it is interesting to look at that.

I totally take on board the idea that we need a nuanced approach. Some of it is to do with the fact that we have many islands, a lot of coastline, a lot of big rural areas, and a high concentration pattern in the central belt. A nuanced approach is definitely needed. I get a sense that the situation is different from that in other parts of the UK, where there are not so many islands, for a start. We have a very different set of issues right off the bat.

I have one more question, which is about housing. The report expresses significant concern about the record number of children who are trapped in temporary accommodation, failing homelessness services, and a chronic shortage of social housing across the country. How can local authorities respond to those immense challenges?

We now move to item 3, which is an evidence-taking session with Reform Scotland on its devolving Scotland initiative. The intention is that the session will allow the committee to further explore issues relating to the on-going review of local governance and build on the success of our recent joint event with Scotland’s Futures Forum on the future relationship between local and central government in Scotland. We are joined for this item by Alison Payne, the research director at Reform Scotland. I welcome Alison to the committee.

I will start with a few questions, and then I will bring in colleagues. You once said:

“Scotland is unusual internationally in the weakness of its local authorities.”

I am interested in hearing why you said that and about how Scotland’s local democracy compares with that in other parts of the United Kingdom and Europe.