Seòmar agus comataidhean

The next item on our agenda is an evidence-taking session with two panels of witnesses as part of our pre-budget scrutiny. For our first panel, we are joined in the room by Councillor Katie Hagmann, who is the resource spokesperson at the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities; Jonathan Belford, who is the chair of the directors of finance section at the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy; and Alan Russell, who is representing the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives. We are joined online by Councillor Steven Heddle, who is the vice-president of COSLA.

I welcome everyone to the meeting. We have about 90 minutes for this discussion. There is no need for you to operate your microphones. We will direct our questions to Katie Hagmann and Steven Heddle, and they can direct them to others. As he is online, if Steven Heddle wants to come in on a question, I ask him to indicate that by putting an R in the chat function.

We will now move to questions, and I will start with a question that is specifically on the forthcoming budget. Something that has come up in our sessions so far has been the need for multiyear funding. Our witnesses may be aware that I questioned the First Minister about that during the conveners group meeting with him a few weeks ago, and I got assurances from him that that will be forthcoming. That is a positive step, but something else that I have picked up in our sessions is the need for flexibility. It is one thing to have multiyear funding but, while there has been a move towards more flexibility, I have also heard that there are still concerns in that space. I would be interested to hear the witnesses’ thoughts on that.

That concludes our questions. Thank you so much. It has been a useful discussion this morning. We have evolved. It used to be Katie Hagmann here on her own with some officials, but it is a good mix to have SOLACE and CIPFA and Councillor Heddle as well. It has been a splendid panel this morning. Thanks for joining us. I will now suspend for a few minutes to allow for a changeover of witnesses.

I asked the previous panel about the time pressures, given that the autumn budget is coming later, which has a knock-on effect on the Scottish Government budget coming in mid-January. I want to get your thoughts about the pressure on local authorities, given that the budget will come in mid-January and they will have to do things such as putting out council tax notices at the same time.

Before I bring in Steven Heddle, I have a time management point for us all. We have asked about a third of our questions, but we have used up about two thirds of our time. We have about 40 minutes left, and I must ask for more succinct responses. Please indicate if you want to come in, and I will try to bring you in. It is not as if people are repeating what has been said—that has not been happening. Everything that has been said has been important; I just want to make sure that we are keeping to time as best we can.

Steven Heddle will come in on the IJBs, and then I will bring in Willie Coffey with some more transformation questions.

Anyone else? No. Maybe Steven Heddle covered it well enough.

Could you clarify what you mean when you say that one of the things that you are looking for in the power of general competence is the ability to create revenue raising streams at a local level so that local authorities can choose what funding they might bring in through a revenue stream?

I will move us on to the issue of a general power of competence for Scottish local government, which we asked members of the previous panel about. They were keen to say that they remain committed to pursuing the concept, and they talked about the potential opportunities that they might have in emerging areas such as green energy if they had such a general power of competence.

I recognise that the Scottish Government ran a consultation on the subject, which has concluded, but everyone who represents local government, including COSLA, is still keen to see progress being made in that space. What are your thoughts on that?

Thanks for that. It was a good point and good to hear the illustrations in your own local authority. We go back to Meghan.

It is good to get that clarity. I certainly take your point from earlier that you are looking for a gearing effect in order to make local authorities aware of the opportunity that is before them.

I will bring in Evelyn Tweed now.

Again before the summer, we reached a point in the committee where we realised that, if we want some change, it will need to be started on early doors in session 7. I take your point that the revenue neutral approach is about fairness, which is what was managed in Wales. If it can be achieved in Wales, I would hope that we could reach that point here in Scotland.

I believe Meghan Gallacher might want a supplementary on this question.

Can I clarify something? You said that reform would not be likely to happen within a decade. Is that within this decade or within 10 years?