Seòmar agus comataidhean

Our second theme of the morning is community empowerment. Mark Griffin will lead on that.

That concludes our questions for today. Thank you all for joining us online and for giving your time so that we can understand more fully your perspectives on community planning partnerships.

Karen, would you like to respond?

The next item on our agenda is to take evidence from two panels of witnesses as part of our post-legislative scrutiny of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015, in our community planning inquiry. This is our third session in the inquiry into the impact of the 2015 act on community planning and how community planning partnerships respond to significant events such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the current cost of living crisis.

The partnerships are a crucial part of ensuring that communities receive the support and services that they need—now, more than ever. They bring organisations together to co-ordinate their activities and to listen to and learn from each other. Today, we will hear from a number of national and regional organisations that are involved in community planning.

We are joined by our first panel of witnesses. In the room we are joined by Mark McAteer, who is director of strategic planning performance and communications, and Stephen Wood, head of service delivery north of Scotland, both from the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, and by Pauline Smith, who is the chief executive director at Development Trusts Association Scotland. Online, we are joined by Caroline Warburton, who is destination development director at VisitScotland, and Valerie Arbuckle, who is national partnership development manager at Police Scotland. Welcome to the meeting.

We will try to direct our questions to a specific witness, where possible, but if you wish to come in, please indicate that to the clerks. Caroline and Valerie can do that by typing the letter R in the chat function. There is no need to turn your microphones on and off manually, that will be done for you.

Each member will explore a particular theme, and Annie Wells, who is joining us online, will start our discussion by asking questions about the challenges that communities face.

I know. [Laughter.]

Thank you very much for that.

The next theme is, fittingly, community empowerment, and will be led by Mark Griffin.

Pauline Smith, can you give the community perspective?

For our second panel, we are joined by Derek Shaw, director of innovation and place with Scottish Enterprise; Karen Jackson, director of strategy, partnership and engagement at South of Scotland Enterprise; Sharon McIntyre, head of career information, advice and guidance at Skills Development Scotland; Dave McCallum, head of operations south-east at Skills Development Scotland; and Eann Sinclair, area manager for Caithness and Sutherland at Highlands and Islands Enterprise.

I welcome our witnesses. As was mentioned to the first panel, we will try to direct our questions to a specific witness where possible but, if you would like to come in, please indicate that to the clerks by typing R in the chat function. Sharon and Dave, in the interests of time, if you could decide in the background who will answer, that would be great. Alternatively, maybe colleagues will direct a question to one of you, and that will, I hope, get a response.

We will start with the theme of challenges facing communities. Annie Wells, who is also online, will lead on that.

Does anyone else want to come in on that question?

We move on to our third theme, which is the role of the third sector and communities.