Seòmar agus comataidhean

I do not know what the salary is at the moment. I think that it is around £19,000 per year.

Thanks for that. That was a very interesting discussion. I now have a greater understanding of your thinking behind that.

Thanks very much, Mark. That was interesting. Thanks for that positive response, Alison.

I want to pick up on one piece. You talked about coterminous boundaries. At the end of June, we will be going to Orkney, which is a single-island authority. Have you looked at what is going on there? We heard from Councillor Heddle at one point that that council has given budgets to its community councils on the surrounding islands so that they can make decisions at a local level with some financial backing.

It is really important to point that out. It is helpful to hear that there may be a need for some powers that have already been devolved elsewhere to come to Scotland to help us with that.

Something that I always come back to is how we get more people to engage with community councils. I made a note that says, “How local is local?” We need to have that conversation, and we may talk about that in the committee. Having a universal basic income is not necessarily an ideal approach, but I wonder whether it would be a way to get more diversity at the very local level on our community councils, because people would have some foundational income to enable them to serve their community.

That is super. I do not think that we should be concerned about repeating anything in this committee; we need to repeat things until they come through. I appreciate your response. You highlight the fact that we are an outlier. In the European Union, local authorities have the ability to raise 40 to 50 per cent of their revenue. I think that the message in relation to spheres is getting through—at a Conveners Group meeting, I asked a question of the First Minister, and he used the word “spheres” in his response. As you say, that sets the tone, but how do we put the action in under the tone? When I think about spheres, I think about getting real clarity. That came through at the new deal event. There is a need for real clarity about who is responsible for what areas and who has the power and the fiscal responsibility, and we will be looking for that clarity. Page 30 of your report will definitely be scrutinised heavily.

Thanks for that; it was good to hear. You talked about boundaries before, but then you unpacked that piece about coterminous boundaries in some places. Again, it brings us back that nuanced approach that we need to look at.

I will now bring in Ivan McKee.

Thanks very much for that. I was going to ask whether the overview showed any significant changes in local government finance and performance, but, in a way, you have laid that out already. I will ask a supplementary question about that, and, in response, you can pull out anything else that you want to highlight beyond the recommendation on the fiscal framework.

Given that the Scottish Government has allocated a total of £13.5 billion to local government in this financial year—that is up 3.5 per cent in real terms since 2013-14—can you set out why council budgets are now under such severe strain?

Does anyone else want to come in on any highlights relating to the significant changes?

Thanks for highlighting that. There are so many bits to keep track of.

As you are aware, we held a great event with Scotland’s Futures Forum on local government and central Government relationships—some of you were there; in fact, all of you might have been there. A number of people told us that local government is often seen as the delivery arm of central Government rather than its true partner. I am interested in your thoughts on how a new deal could change that and support a relationship that is based on trust. What could a new deal mean for the communities that local government serves?