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Both things can be true, because, as Councillor Hagmann indicated, individuals’ experiences in an area where there have been difficulties with recruitment due to Brexit or shifts in ways of working can make it feel as though there has been a cut, because there has been a reduction in staff in a particular area.

The figures that are published are overall figures, as is appropriate, but the experience on the ground for someone in an area where there has been a shift of people away might suggest that there has been a reduction. I do not think that anybody is coming to you with untruths; they are just expressing what they are seeing on the ground, which, as Councillor Hagmann said, might vary.

The numbers are slightly up.

Whatever the constitutional situation is, we should step back and ask what we are trying to achieve. If we can achieve what we are trying to achieve without going down what would almost certainly be a challenging constitutional battle line, we should try to do that, because local authorities want those additional powers as soon as possible. My message to leaders across Scotland is that, if they have ideas, let us test them out. If the challenge is that the situation cannot be resolved without having that power, we will need to look at that. I do not think that I have seen anything where that has been the case—I do not know whether Ian Storrie is aware of anything—but, if there are issues, we need to look at them.

If we are looking at whether there is one magic power that makes everything okay, looking down south does not appear to be the answer. Twenty-six councils in some of England’s most deprived areas are at risk of effective bankruptcy, including those in Birmingham, Slough, Croydon and Woking. Clearly, there is something not right there. If there are lessons to be learned, that is great, but I am not sure that any one sweeping power will allow us to resolve some of the challenges.

The secret for us is to make sure that we work in collaboration and with respect. That gives us the opportunity to make a difference on the ground in a shorter time than would be the case with what could be a constitutional battle.

Despite the real-terms increases that were allocated to local government and several other public services this year, it is unquestionably the case that the pressures on our local authorities and other public services are unsurpassed. Such high levels of in-year inflation have not been experienced in my memory—not since I was very young. There was nothing that we could have done to plan for that, so that pressure is there. Our public services have done an amazing job to manage that in a way that protects the most important services, but let us not pretend that it is all apple pie; it is not. It has been really challenging this year in particular. We face significant in-year increases because of inflation, high energy costs and higher-than-expected pay settlements. Money to address those things has to be allocated from this year’s funds, so there is unquestionably a real challenge there.

That is partly why we are looking at further flexibilities for local government, but one of the things that we need to do is look at how we can empower local government to raise more of its own funds. That is a wider discussion. When I have gone around the country speaking to council leaders, I have encouraged them to think about what works for them.

It is absolutely clear that some ideas are coming through Parliament, such as the visitor levy and the proposal around second properties. Those will work for some local authorities but not for others, so we need to be open to the idea of listening. Obviously, there is a working group within COSLA that Councillor Hagmann co-chairs. There are 32 local authorities, and there might be other ideas out there. A local authority might come up with an idea that it thinks is bespoke to it but which another local authority says is useful for it, too. We need to be open to that if we want to have the public services that we all aspire to have.

It remains the Government’s view that we need to continue to make sure that we apply our limited resources across public services in such a way as to achieve the best possible results for our citizens, and that we need to continue to look at ways of doing things more efficiently and effectively. Flexibilities in local government to make sure that they can do things differently, if appropriate, are part of that. I guess that is where that sits. Nonetheless, we have managed to provide additional funds to local government in recent years.

Ultimately, how they employ and shape their workforce is a matter for local authorities, but there will Scotland-wide issues, particularly around skills gaps and the specific areas that, I guess, the committee will come to shortly: environmental health, planning and building standards. They are the challenges that you will have heard of, and it is absolutely appropriate that we work on them in collaboration with our colleagues in local government, further and higher education and the specific professions.

The area that I am most aware of is planning. The Government and COSLA are working with Heads of Planning Scotland and the Royal Town Planning Institute to make sure that we are taking that forward. A lot of work is being done where particular skills gaps have been identified. The first thing that we need to do is to recognise that there are challenges, and then work together to meet those challenges, and we are doing that in collaboration with our local government partners and others.

I will pass that to Ellen Leaver, if that is okay.

I agree with what Councillor Heddle has said about leadership, and I will add a couple of examples.

Part of the issue is that we need to ensure that it is not simply assumed that the local authority will always be the provider of leadership. That is not always the case. I have a couple of examples from recent visits in which other skills were brought to bear.

I mentioned previously the Wester Hailes community. In producing its local place plan, it used consultancy to supplement its skill set and that of the local authority. That worked for Wester Hailes and it gave the community more independence than there would be from a local authority person taking that leadership role.

One of the communities that I visited during my summer tour was the Struan community on Skye, which is looking at repurposing a building as a community asset for the future. The Struan community pulled in the support of Planning Aid Scotland to supplement the skills that it had around the table, although the community was pretty rich in that respect. It is not a case of one size fits all, but we need to avoid assuming that the leadership role should always be performed by Government, whether at national or local level, because that could remove a community’s independence.

We know for sure that there is some really good practice going on. It is important that it is shared across Scotland. It is also important to remember that we would not expect all community planning partnerships to look the same. By definition, they are impacted by their localities and communities, so there will be a degree of variability.

However, it is reasonable to assume that we should be trying to drive up the standards and effectiveness of all CPPs. That should not be done in a top-down way, in which we tell CPPs what to do or how to operate. It is about making sure that platforms exist for sharing best practice, and about looking at whether, based on that, there is a need to adjust guidance at some point in the future.

The Scottish Government works collaboratively with other bodies to ensure that we are sharing best practice. Obviously, COSLA, as the other arm of government, takes a very close interest. Crucially, however, there is also the community planning improvement board. It is a product of the pandemic, but I think that its role of bringing together people from across the CPPs to ensure that we are sharing best practice is still really useful.

There is also the community planning network, which Councillor Heddle mentioned. Using those bodies, we can make sure that we are sharing best practice. If the discussions around that suggest a need to update guidance, we can also look at doing that.

However, it is important that we do not ever suggest that we have got community empowerment and community planning right and that that box is ticked. We need to continue looking at how CPPs operate and how they represent the communities.

In some communities, I have engaged with people whose initial response when they have been spoken to about their CPP is that they really do not have any engagement with it. Obviously, the CPP is not an entity in itself—it is a body of its parts. When we drill down, we often find that many of the partners of the CPP are engaging directly with people. Maybe there is a need for those partners to think about how they can better articulate how they feed back into the CPP, whether those connections are through the police, the fire service, the local council or the third sector interface.

No one is suggesting that everything is perfect and that we cannot make improvements. I think that everyone in this field wants to do more and recognises that we are on a journey and that we can make this better.

I think that I am the minister that you are quoting. However, if I suggested that it was not happening at all in Scotland, that was probably unfair—I am not sure that that was what I said.

Clearly, in some areas, there is particularly good practice. For example, I am aware that Argyll and Bute Council and Perth and Kinross Council have particularly good interfaces with the third sector. In at least one of those locations, the third sector shares the chair of the CPP. I could be wrong, but I think that all CPPs involve the third sector. Can that be done better or could there be more involvement? I think so.

The current guidance provides the flexibility for that involvement to be approached in a way that works for different localities. We need to be careful that we do not say: “Well, this works really well in Perth and Kinross; therefore, you should all follow this model.” For the Government to instruct in that way would not be appropriate. However, it is appropriate to make sure that we are sharing best practice. The community planning improvement board helps us to do that along with the community planning network. It is right that the third sector is involved in that process.

The pandemic showed us that CPPs created the connections that provided resilience during that time. Some things during the pandemic could not have been delivered or achieved without a good interface with the third sector. Because of the work of the CPPs, connections had already been made, so there was no need to bring everyone around the table in order to be able to deliver for communities.

I am not suggesting that every CPP has it right, but I am suggesting that it would be wrong of us to impose particular models. The committee’s comments have been heard by Greg Colgan, chair of the CPIB, who will help us to look at the guidance. If there is a feeling that we need to refresh some of that guidance, then we will do that. Once we have had those conversations and have looked at the work of the committee—you took a huge range of evidence, which is helpful—it may be that we decide that there is a need for a short-term working group in order to look at how we improve the guidance so that we can encourage best practice everywhere.