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I come from a local government background. I was previously a councillor, and my first experience of such engagement was as a councillor. Local authority staff went to various groups and said, “These are our plans for the next year. What do you think?” I was one of the few councillors who turned up at every event, which was mainly because I enjoyed the engagement and liked seeing what was happening.

I can give a perfect example of that. Following the Bute house agreement, one of the subjects that the citizens assembly discussed was how to deal with local government finance. It will be interesting to see what the public come up with. Let us not kid ourselves: as politicians, that is something that we have discussed and have had various ideas about—certainly, over the past decade. It will be interesting to see what the public do when they get all the facts and everything is put in front of them. I will be interested in that. We will always work with COSLA on that area, in particular.

I am always one for considering different ways to approach things. This is not necessarily just about citizens assemblies. We can also consider using people’s panels, at which we could have engagement on a smaller scale. It is about engaging with the public and ensuring that they feel listened to.

As a politician, one of the things that I was interested in when I first came into post last year was work on the citizens assembly and Scotland’s future—it was one of the first bits of work that I read. I said to Doreen Grove then that I was, as a politician, trying to find bits on which I can deliver. That was in order to ensure—as the convener said—that we could meet the expectation that something will be delivered. I found it very difficult to pick something on which I could say, “I can deliver X, Y and Z”, because the subject is so complex.

One of the things that I have learned is that, as ministers, when we are asking questions, we should define things clearly. The question that was posed on local government finance in the citizens assembly was defined so that people could consider it. I could give examples of questions—such as on end-of-life choices—that we politicians have difficulty with, on which there are differences of opinion, and which people feel passionate about. I use end-of-life choices just as an example; I am not saying that there is a plan for a citizens assembly on that, but that considering such questions gives us real ideas about where we can go with them.

I have learned that less is more when asking such questions; you can get more value that way, from my perspective. I have gone off on a tangent, Mr Sweeney. In effect, what I am trying to say is that I believe that we should engage with local government on that example. However, we can work with local government on public participation in other ways as well.

Nothing jumps out from the recommendations as being the go-to, other than the fact that I want to get this right. I want the work to be of value to those involved in the process and I want to ensure that I, as a minister, can say that I was part of that process and that we managed to deliver something that changed our democracy for the better.

No, we have no timescales at this stage. We appreciate the work that the IPDD did, and we will need to consider it in detail and ensure that we get things right. There will probably be difficult things in among all the recommendations. Nothing is ever easy if you are going to do it properly but, as Government, we need to suck it up, get on with it and do it at various points. As I said in response to the convener’s question, we will step back, look at the recommendations and ensure that we create the process that will deliver what the public wants.

Doreen Grove and I were having that very conversation as we came in. She will articulate that a lot better than I could.

I know that only too well.

I agree. Sometimes, we are going to ask questions, and we will get answers that we probably do not expect, as you say. As I have already said, it will be extremely interesting to see what a citizens assembly on local government finance comes back with when its members are presented with all the facts in front of them. It might not necessarily be an answer that any of us in this room would think that it might be.

On how we deal with and manage these things, I always use this example. Again, when I was a councillor, I was on Renfrewshire access panels for those with disabilities—there were such panels all over Scotland. Initially, I went into the room and found angry people who were not being listened to by the local authority. I got to the stage of getting them involved, exactly as you say. I said, “The town hall’s being renovated and you’re part of the planning process—get in there and find out how we can make it accessible.” It is about ensuring that people can be involved and actually deliver something. That is always going to be the most important thing.

Is that easy to achieve? No. Is it challenging? Yes, but nothing good in life that is worth doing is easy. We are all used to the political process—as you quite rightly said, Mr Sweeney—and how we deal with such things, but this is a completely different animal. It is a situation in which the public may, on certain occasions, give us answers that we will be surprised by. Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily. Does Government need to take those answers seriously when they come in? Yes, it does. Will that be challenging as we go forward? Probably, but we need to roll up our sleeves and get on with it.

Thank you, convener. If you will indulge me, I will make a brief statement on the bill. As members will recall, it is a limited, single-purpose bill. It seeks to ensure compliance with treaties that the United Kingdom Government has agreed in relation to candidacy rights in local government elections.

I welcome the Scottish Parliament’s unanimous support of the bill at stage 1 and the committee’s continuing scrutiny of it. As no amendments have been lodged for consideration at stage 2, I have nothing further to add.

There is nothing to add to the letter, apart from to say that it was our intention to lodge an amendment but, in discussions with the UK Government, we found that it would create problems and difficulties on the UK side as opposed to ours and that the UK Government did not consider the matter to be a problem. Rather than have an argument with it about something that neither of us considered to be a serious problem, we decided that it would be best not to lodge an amendment. That is a simple summary of the position.

Again, it is a small number of people. Looking at it logically, we would probably say that most people, when they come into the country, would go into the main urban settlements in Scotland, and those authorities could probably cope with the demand. It is difficult for us to get that data because, when someone comes into the country, they can move as they like. They might arrive in Glasgow but end up living and working in Birmingham or London, and we do not tend to keep data on that. However, in order to give you total clarity, I will bring in Iain Hockenhull, who might be able to give you some detail on the data that we hold.

Yes.