Seòmar agus comataidhean

No. I have just my own question, which was up next. I am sorry; I misunderstood you, convener.

The witnesses got the preamble to my question. How do you cope with and manage that situation, given its impact in real terms on what you have to spend? How on earth do you adapt to the quickly changing situation with the cost of living, the cost of materials and inflation?

What is the local authority perspective on the criteria that the investment panel used to assess bids? How fair did you find the process? How easy did you find it to operate? I address those questions first to North Ayrshire Council—for no particular reason, I should add.

What was the involvement of communities in Orkney?

Youse.

You alluded to this issue, which we brought up in previous sessions: in reaching the decision to delay, did you consider how historically abnormal it would have been for a census to take place during a pandemic? It is difficult to think of a more abnormal circumstance, other than a war.

I thank everyone for being here and making such interesting comments. I have a great deal of sympathy with what has been said about the predicament of the many people who have described their situation in written evidence. I do not mean to begin with an excuse, but the Government obviously finds itself in a similar position to that of many of your organisations, with fixed budgets, lack of flexibility and so on.

I am curious to know what we can do to ensure better and more imaginative working together between Government, local government and cultural institutions to make real some of the things that you have talked about, such as culture’s benefit to health, the benefit of cultural institutions working with the national health service and all the other things that have been raised in previous meetings on such subjects. I am looking for ideas about what can be done to make real the things that we all believe in but which take a long time to achieve.

You have both alluded to the fact that people in many communities in large cities are increasingly resistant to filling in surveys. Will you explain what you mean? Can you suggest any reasons for that?

Perhaps Sir Ian could go first.

It strikes me as a positive thing when Governments listen to consultations and the views that are put to them. It has been mentioned that opinion from the consultation responses was balanced but, going by my constituency correspondence, I think that I would have got a balance only by counting all the responses from central America, where people seemed to be very positive about the idea. For some reason, news of the policy had circulated widely in the press there. I have no idea why.

My serious question is this: what process of listening was undertaken, and what process of reasoning was used to reach the decision that was reached?

We have had this conversation before. One theme that seems to me to have come through is that people are keen to have measures that benefit whole communities rather than individuals, which was a criticism that was made of the original proposal.

That leads me, in the limited time that I have, to talk about housing. It is always identified to me, as an islands MSP, as one of the huge obstacles—although not the only one—in the way of people who want to stay and start businesses, or to expand their businesses, in island communities. Having gone through the exercise and considered the matter, what is the Government’s thinking now on housing in island areas? In particular, how will the Government ensure that the obstacles that were identified in the consultation exercise are overcome and that local authorities and housing associations build in places that are difficult to build in and not just in places where it is easy to do?