Chamber and committees

So it is about learning on the job, in a way.

That is great.

John Bachtler wants to come in.

Thank you for that encouragement. We have an opportunity in that regard with the proposed local democracy bill.

I will bring the session to a close, although clearly we could discuss more. I thank at least one of you for mentioning community planning partnerships. We have just finished a piece of work on that, and we will soon publish our report. Community councils play a role in those partnerships, and should perhaps play a greater role than they do.

Thank you for joining us—the session has been really useful. I will end by saying happy birthday to all the community councils in Scotland.

At the start of the meeting, we agreed to take the rest of the items on the agenda in private.

I think that we hear that point loud and clear. What we are picking up is that there is a potential for some sort of community funding to come out of ScotWind.

Thank you. Does anybody else want to come in on this question?

Good morning and welcome to the 15th meeting in 2023 of the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee. We have received apologies from Annie Wells. I remind all members and witnesses to ensure that their devices are on silent and that all other notifications are turned off during the meeting.

The first item on our agenda is to decide whether to take items 3 and 4 in private. Do we agree to do that?

Members indicated agreement.

Under agenda item 2, we will take evidence on community councils from two panels of witnesses. This year marks 50 years since the passing of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973, which created community councils to bridge the gap between local authorities and communities. We are taking the opportunity to hear about how community councils are working in Scotland, to look at good practice and at how we could make community councils more effective. It is important to acknowledge that they exist and that a tremendous amount of volunteer time goes into them.

For our first panel, we are joined in the room by Brian Davey and Emma Swift, both of whom are communications officers from the Improvement Service. Along with them is Dr Oliver Escobar, senior lecturer in public policy at the University of Edinburgh. Online we are joined by Andrew Paterson, policy and research officer from the Scottish Community Development Centre, and Jackie Weaver, the chief officer at the Cheshire Association of Local Councils.

We have a number of questions, and I will start with a question for everyone in general. First, however, I need to say a couple of things. Those who are in the room do not need to operate your microphones. We will do that for you. If you want to come in on something, just indicate to me or Kath Byrne, the committee clerk. Jackie Weaver and Andrew Paterson, if you want to come in, please put an R in the chat function.

I am interested to hear what you think are the strengths of community councils in Scotland and what role they could play in democratic renewal at a local level. What proportion of the Scottish population is covered by community councils and has that changed in recent years? Do you get the sense that they are more prevalent in certain areas than in others? I will start with Oliver Escobar.

Brilliant. That is amazing.

That sounds great. I am interested in that issue, and I have been racking my brains about how to get young people engaged, so there are a couple of things that I would be interested to hear your views on. I am going to open up the discussion as we move to a close, so you do not necessarily have to respond to what I say—there might be other things that you want to add.

One thought that I had was about collaboration with the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award. People are going through its scheme, and it has a community aspect. Also, I have been wondering about the idea of universal basic income, although I know that that would be a big thing that might involve the rebuilding of the whole of Scotland. We have talked about the amount of time that people have to put in to do this properly. If people had some kind of fundamental financial support, a more diverse group would be able to participate much more in what we need to do, which is helping Scotland plc do its thing and provide for our communities.

Along with that, I have been thinking about how the Improvement Service provides training once people are in a community council, and I wonder whether we need to teach young people at high school about facilitation skills, decision making, proposal making and how to go into situations of tension with people with whom they do not agree—how to move through that process rather than getting stuck in being adversarial. I feel that teenagers should learn those kinds of skills. My sense is that, at the moment, schools still tend to teach just to the job. Of course, it is not totally limited to that but, if we taught to the community—how to be a member of a community and civil society—that would be great for people in their job, but they would also have the underpinnings to be part of the community.

I have been racking my brains about those issues, but maybe you think differently from me, as you are actually involved in those experiences.

Who wants to come in on that briefly? Debra Duke’s hand shot up.

That point about technical support for planning is critical.

Steve Kerr wants to come in.