Chamber and committees

That is great, thanks.

The good food nation plan is probably a tiny little blip on one of the buried budget lines. Stakeholders have raised concerns about the slow pace and opaque nature of the development process for that plan, and I am hearing how frustrated they are. The consultation closed five months ago on 22 April, and the analysis has still not been published. Stakeholders feel that it is disappointing that the Government is taking more than three years to produce a plan, especially one that they feel is, unfortunately, unambitious. How can the Government ensure that there is sufficient budget allocation to take that work forward at a faster pace? Can you give us clarity on the timetable today?

Thanks for that.

On access to information on the marine directorate’s budget and research programmes, we heard from stakeholders that there is a lack of detail and transparency. The Government previously told the committee that work is under way to review what information the marine directorate will proactively publish, saying:

“As for the point about transparency as a directorate, we are looking at what information we can more proactively publish ahead of time, so that it is there and can be accessed readily by stakeholders. That piece of work is under way.”—[Official Report, Rural Affairs and Islands Committee, 11 September 2024; c 36.]

Will you commit to publishing more detailed annual information on marine directorate budget spending and research activity?

I will go into a little more detail. One of the stakeholders at the round table was Open Seas. It made a written submission before the round table in which it raised a point about the marine fund’s payments of more than £500,000 to commercial subsidiaries of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation to collect fisheries observer data. It noted a concern about the use of public funding because the Fishermen’s Federation is not purely a research organisation, the data has not yet been published, and the data could be collected more easily by REM, which could potentially influence the federation’s support for that policy. Finally, it notes that there is little transparency around how that large sum of money is being spent.

Are you able to address those points—they are quite detailed—or provide more information on the detail of the project costs at some point?

If you could update us on that, that would be great.

We have been hearing from a number of stakeholders about their concerns with the forestry grant scheme. We heard the Woodland Trust outline that there must be sufficient funding for forestry, peatland restoration, the nature restoration fund, agricultural environment schemes and the relevant agencies, including those that focus on skills development. It is my understanding that the recent 41 per cent cut to the forestry grant scheme budget is predicted to cause a significant fall from previous years in the amount of new woodland that will be created in 2024-25, and that it will be one of the biggest gaps between target and delivery. That cut is also undermining sectoral confidence.

How does the Scottish Government propose to respond to the view that cutting planting funding will reduce the possibility of the Scottish Government meeting its own annual targets?

Okay—thank you.

Jonathan Carr-West, you have spoken previously about

“an increased basket of different local revenue-raising options”.

It would be interesting to hear what you mean by that, what lessons we could learn from other countries and how such a basket of measures could work in a Scottish context.

Okay, thank you. I will bring in Miles Briggs.

Thank you very much. That will help us in considering what questions we direct to you. We will try to direct questions to one or other of you initially, but if you would like to come in, type R in the chat function and the clerks can let me know and I will bring you in. We have about 90 minutes for this discussion.

The point of the session is to understand what has happened to some English local authorities and to hear about the lessons learned as regards financial sustainability for Scotland.

Jonathan Carr-West, are the drivers of financial weakness that have been identified for Scotland similar to those for councils in England and Wales, and are there differences between the Scottish and English local government finance environments that could impact on financial sustainability?

Thank you for that.

I want to continue on the differences between Scotland and England. I will start with Jonathan Carr-West, then Abdool Kara can come in. The lack of a general power of competence for Scottish councils is often cited as a weakness, and we have had a number of councillors in the room saying that giving councils in Scotland such a power would be a helpful next step with regard to raising revenue.

However, the LGIU has stated that the current position might be a reason why Scottish local authorities are not exposed to commercial risk. I am interested to hear—from you initially, Jonathan—what the benefits are in having a general power of competence, and whether they outweigh the risks.