Seòmar agus comataidhean

Thanks for that. That is useful and very interesting. Ivan McKee has some questions.

It sounds like a tremendous thing, because you are giving them the agency to do something.

That is a great point.

Are there any other final words?

Welcome back. We will have a round-table discussion about community councils with our second panel. I extend many thanks to our panel for joining us. We are joined in the room by John Bachtler, chair of Cambuslang community council; Debra Duke, community council liaison officer at Moray Council; Alastair Kennedy, chair of the joint community councils of Moray; Steve Kerr, chair of the Edinburgh Association of Community Councils; Donald Stavert, treasurer of the joint forum of community councils in West Lothian; and Barry Cathie, from the royal burgh of Rutherglen community council.

We are joined online by Shayne McLeod, vice-chair of the association of Shetland community councils; Bill Pitt, chair of New Aberdour, Tyrie and Pennan community council; and Ewart McAuslane, treasurer of Tillicoultry, Coalsnaughton and Devonside community council. I welcome you all.

For those of you who are online, you can let the clerks know that you would like to reply to a question by typing R in the chat function. For those in the room, you do not need to operate your microphone; that will be done for you by our broadcasting team.

I will begin our conversation by inviting you all to briefly introduce yourselves. I will start. I am Ariane Burgess, MSP for the Highlands and Islands.

Is there anything specific that you have seen that has brought about the positive change in the relationship?

Thanks very much. I am going to go to Shayne McLeod online and then come to John Bachtler in the room.

That is very good to hear.

Barry Cathie, do you want to come in?

Great. I think that that is really important. I thought that all councillors had to go to community council meetings—the ones who I know in my region certainly do.

I will move on now and bring in Ivan McKee. I am mindful of the time. I feel that we could do with many more hours than we have because you are all already sharing such rich things.

I also want to say to the witnesses that you should not necessarily assume that we will get on to the issue that you want to talk about. If you have the mic, say it then. A colleague might have a question that you might answer, but bringing up another issue is fine.

Thank you for pointing that out. Jackie Weaver, I have a question for you. I am interested to hear what you think the strengths are of the system in England, particularly as it compares to Scotland. We could probably be here all day hearing about that, but if you can give us some highlights that would be great.

Thank you—that was very helpful. We will now hear from John Bachtler, Debra Duke and then Bill Pitt, who is online.