The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.
All Official Reports of meetings in the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament.
All Official Reports of public meetings of committees.
Displaying 1816 contributions
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 11 January 2022
Mark Ruskell
Do you see it as all carrot and no stick? Is there a balance?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 11 January 2022
Mark Ruskell
How does your council interpret the road traffic reduction target for 2030? Do you see that as being primarily about reducing mileage within cities, or will you focus on trying to reduce the more long-distance mileage across the region?
Meeting of the Commission
Meeting date: 22 December 2021
Mark Ruskell
Do you see any way of reducing that figure in the future?
Meeting of the Commission
Meeting date: 22 December 2021
Mark Ruskell
I am content with those answers to your question, chair, but I have a wider question about pension governance in the Lothian Pension Fund. What role does Audit Scotland play in it as an employer? What role do the members of the scheme play in the fund’s governance, given that many of those people are your existing or former employees? Stephen Boyle or Stuart Dennis might want to answer that.
Meeting of the Commission
Meeting date: 22 December 2021
Mark Ruskell
I have a final question on detail. We noticed that the payment for audit support officers has gone down from £41 an hour to £38 an hour. Can you explain that?
Meeting of the Commission
Meeting date: 22 December 2021
Mark Ruskell
That would be good.
12:30Meeting of the Commission
Meeting date: 22 December 2021
Mark Ruskell
I will quickly go back to Martin Walker’s point on the future operating model of your three offices in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Inverness. I think that you are undertaking a property review at the moment. What are its emerging conclusions? Will you need those three properties in the long term? Will the changes that you have made as a result of Covid stick in relation to the need for less office accommodation? Can you give us a quick flavour of where you think that issue is going?
Meeting of the Commission
Meeting date: 22 December 2021
Mark Ruskell
That is fine. It sounds as if there are exciting opportunities for staff and as if there are potential cost reductions. That is a happy situation to be in.
I want to ask about a specific detail in the budget, which is the £660,000 for governance. Can you briefly explain what sits under that figure?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 21 December 2021
Mark Ruskell
Good morning. On the co-operation agreement between the Greens and the Government, in which areas has substantial progress been made, notwithstanding your comments about the fact that now is the time to build that delivery and ensure that we have the budgets and the detail for delivery? Are there particular themes on which progress is being made?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 21 December 2021
Mark Ruskell
I go back to some of the previous comments about carbon capture and storage. The committee heard some evidence last week that raised concern that CCS could be deployed in a way that, in effect, builds in dependence on fossil fuels. What are your thoughts on that? Do you see a case for separating out the function of something like the Acorn project as a carbon storage system for cement and other hard-to-abate sectors from the industry desire to increase the market for blue hydrogen? Is that something that you have considered? Are there risks in terms of how CCS could be used and deployed, and any unintended consequences from that?