Seòmar agus comataidhean

Okay—but we really need to move on.

Thanks for all your responses. To clarify, should we, as a committee, ask the Government to publish to a more detailed level so that we can see where the budgets are intended to go? Should we ask the Government to report on what was spent and how it was spent? For example, in 2022, we approved £25,000 for the marine directorate for additional duties resulting from the UK leaving the EU. Should that kind of thing cover reporting? I am looking for a yes-or-no answer.

So, you are saying that there needs to be greater transparency. If the budget data is difficult for you to understand, in order for us, as a committee, to be able to scrutinise it, it needs to be in a much more accessible form, and it needs to give us the necessary level of detail.

This has been a really interesting discussion so far. A number of you have said that the budget is at too high a level to be usefully understood or scrutinised. We are here to scrutinise the marine directorate, as the committee has chosen to do. I am also hearing that there is a need to incentivise change to achieve the national outcomes that you have mentioned and to ensure that we reach the objectives of the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010 and the Fisheries Act 2020.

Phil Taylor, you mentioned that first. How do you see public money being used to incentivise the change that we need and to achieve those outcomes?

My question is inspired by what you just said. Not this past summer but the one before—this summer did not really happen—I met with fishermen who said that they would love to be around the table with politicians and scientists. During this morning’s tea break, Colin Moffat and I were chatting about the fact that information is not quite getting through. Scientists gather data in one way while fishermen who are out on their boats see something different.

How do we join those dots and get together to make urgent changes? We have forums such as the RFGs and the IFMAC, but something is missing. I think Alastair Hamilton said that not everybody wants to get round the table and that the problem is that some people just want to go out and fish. It seems to me that we have all those different forums but that something is not quite working. Elspeth Macdonald is nodding.

In the future, how will we know what impact the bill has had on the private rented sector and on tenants’ lives? We are interested in whether you think that the bill should, in the interests of transparency, include a requirement for the Scottish Government or local authorities to regularly report on the impacts. If so, what key indicators should be used to measure the impacts?

Does COSLA have a perspective on that?

The next item on our agenda is to take evidence on the Housing (Scotland) Bill. We are joined in the room by Tony Cain, who is policy manager for the Association of Local Authority Chief Housing Officers, which is otherwise known as ALACHO, and by Callum Chomczuk, who is national director of the Chartered Institute of Housing Scotland. We are joined online by Mike Callaghan, who is policy manager for the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. I welcome the witnesses to the meeting.

We have quite a few questions. We will try to direct them to witnesses so that they know what is coming. Mike Callaghan, if you type R in the chat function, we will know to bring you in. There is no need for the witnesses in the room to operate their microphones.

I will begin with a general question for Tony Cain and Mike Callaghan initially, but Callum Chomczuk is welcome to come in. In your submissions, you identify a lack of coherence in the bill. Will you expand on your views on the overall coherence and effectiveness of the bill as a package of measures to assist in the realisation of a new deal for tenants? What improvements could be made?

Mike Callaghan, would you like to come in on that question and talk about COSLA’s submission?

We will move on to focus on rent specifically and I will bring in Willie Coffey.