Seòmar agus comataidhean

As no other member wants to ask a question, I turn to agenda item 3, which is the formal consideration of motion S6M-18057.

Motion moved,

That the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee recommends that the Climate Change (Local Development Plan) (Repeals) (Scotland) Order 2025 [draft] be approved.—[Ivan McKee.]

Our next agenda item is evidence taking as part of our scrutiny of the Scottish budget 2026-27. We are joined by Andrew Burns, who is deputy chair of the Accounts Commission; Derek Yule, who is a member of the commission; Blyth Deans, who is an audit director at Audit Scotland; and Martin McLauchlan, who is a senior manager at Audit Scotland. I welcome our witnesses to the meeting. We have around 90 minutes for this discussion. There is no need for witnesses to operate their own microphones. We have agreed that we will direct our questions to Andrew Burns in the first instance, who will distribute them as he thinks appropriate.

I will ask the first question, which is about the commission’s call for transformational change. You said that there is not enough evidence that truly transformational change is taking place, but, last week, one council chief executive told the committee that they had a sense that the use of the word “transformation” was “too loose”. What do you mean when you talk about a transformation? What does a transformed local authority look like? What should local authorities look like in 10 years’ time?

Thanks for asking that question, Mr Coffey—it is important to be clear that there is no duplication.

I note that Andrew Burns said that local authorities do not welcome being audited, but I think that being audited is part of the relationship—it is like two sides of the walnut, in a way. It creates essential feedback loops for councils to keep them on the straight and narrow, as you said, Mr Burns. That relationship is important.

Before I ask about the invest to save fund, I want to come back to the question that Willie Coffey brought up about councils working with communities. The Minister for Public Finance made a statement to the Parliament on the public service reform strategy, during which he talked about a range of things—he simplified a lot of things—and said that the Scottish Government is going to

“unlock the potential of the third sector”.—[Official Report, 19 June 2025; c 56.]

You talked about the challenge around communities feeling that things are being done to them and the importance of councils being more collaborative and engaging with communities in a way that goes beyond consultation. However, the idea of unlocking the potential of the third sector concerns me because it involves the idea of organisations in the sector—which are mostly run by boards of volunteers—picking up quite a lot of things that public services and local authorities can no longer handle. What are your thoughts on that? Should we be concerned that we are pushing things into the third sector and that that is not a space that has a feedback loop?

That is helpful. Multiyear funding will be good, but we are still looking at a lot of great work that is volunteer run and I imagine that colleagues find the same when they go out to meet development trusts or organisations that are doing that work. I find that there is a smaller pool of people who want to be on boards and take responsibility for compliance and all that kind of thing. That is not your job, but when we talk about the delivery of services by local government, it is good to recognise that things are also moving to the third sector.

I have a question about the invest to save fund. I am interested to hear your views on that and how future iterations of the fund could support more collaboration and flexibility, which are one of the five pillars you would like to see happen.

That is helpful. It is good to pull those three threads into the conversation. Derek, I appreciated you separating out the issue of free school meals and pointing out that, although funding has been applied, it has not kept pace. That was helpful.

I will bring in Fulton MacGregor, who has a number of questions on budget challenges. He joins us online.

Before I bring in Meghan Gallacher, I have a couple of questions linking the themes of retention and digital skills. This might be outwith your remit, but have you come across any evidence of the move to digitisation causing older people in the workforce to think, “I don’t want to go down that route or retrain”? I am aware anecdotally of that happening and of people thinking, “That is a whole new skill set that I don’t want to get into”, and then choosing to leave. Have you come across that?

Let us stick with the islands. You mentioned that local authorities in the Highlands and Islands have difficulty recruiting people. Again, this might be outwith your remit, but how much of a factor is housing? The committee has taken evidence on the challenges with housing in rural and island communities.

It is good to hear that there is a proactive approach.

Almost right on time, that concludes our questions. I thank the witnesses for their very helpful contribution this morning to our work on pre-budget scrutiny. Thanks for joining us.

We had previously agreed to take the next items in private, so I close the public part of the meeting and we move into private session.

Good morning, and welcome to the 23rd meeting in 2025 of the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee. I remind all members and witnesses to ensure that their devices are on silent. Mark Griffin and Fulton MacGregor will join us online.

The first item on our agenda is a decision on whether to take items 5 and 6 in private. Do members agree to take those items in private?

Members indicated agreement.