Seòmar agus comataidhean

We are joined by our second panel: Shona Robison is the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government, is with Scottish Government officials Ellen Leaver, who is acting director for local government, and Ian Storrie, who is head of local government finance. I warmly welcome our witnesses and I invite the cabinet secretary to make a brief opening statement.

Will you give more specifics on how the work that you are doing on the fiscal framework will help to address the three shared priorities? I know that that is a big question in a way, but will you touch on the thinking about that?

That is good to hear.

Thank you very much. I will bring in Mark Griffin, who joins us online.

We appreciate you doing that, so that we do not have to go through a lot of processes that might not be used. I am aware that there are lots of things in legislation that end up not being used.

That brings us to the end of our questions. Many thanks for your contributions. It has been useful to get some of the detail.

We previously agreed to take the next item in private, but given the time, I am now going to close the meeting.

That is a very good point about needing time. Does anyone else want to come in on that?

Is that something that is being discussed in your meetings at the moment?

Okay. Thank you very much.

The next item on our agenda is to take evidence from two panels of witnesses as part of our pre-budget scrutiny for 2025-26. We are joined on our first panel by Councillor Katie Hagmann, who is the resources spokesperson for the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities; Jonathan Belford, who is the vice-chair of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy’s directors of finance section, and chief financial officer at Aberdeen City Council; Paul Manning, who is a member of the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers, and chief executive of South Lanarkshire Council; and Jamie Robertson, who is the chair of CIPFA directors of finance section, and chief financial officer at Dunbartonshire Council. I welcome the witnesses to the meeting.

We will try to direct our questions to specific witnesses where possible, but please indicate to the clerks if you would like to come in. There is no need for you to turn on your microphones—we will do that for you. We have about 75 minutes for this discussion. We turn to questions.

We were pleased to receive COSLA’s submission, which states that

“local government has sought earlier budget engagement”

and

“greater transparency in the makeup of the local government settlement”

ahead of the budget. We would be interested to hear whether COSLA is happy with the engagement so far this year and how engagement could be improved, if it needs to be.

Good morning and welcome to the 27th meeting in 2024 of the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee. Please note that Mark Griffin is joining us remotely this morning. I remind all members and witnesses to ensure that their devices are on silent.

The second item on our agenda is to decide whether to take item 4 in private.

Members indicated agreement.