Seòmar agus comataidhean

I will pass over to Tom Arthur in a minute to talk about the “Democracy matters” conversation. Although there is a big digital part to that, it goes beyond digital. It is so important that we reach the communities that do not normally engage. Tom Arthur will be able to talk about how some of the partners in that conversation are helping to ensure that we do that.

Such engagement is the responsibility of all CPP partners in all of their work, not only in their work as part of the CPP. They are statutory members for a reason, and they have a responsibility to ensure that they engage across our varied and diverse communities. Having that meaningful engagement in everything that they do will enable us to get things right.

We have talked about the successes of CPPs, and maybe one of the successes—which is not really measurable as such; it is difficult to report—is the recognition by all partners of their role in engaging with all parts of the community. That engagement is in a better place than it would have been without CPPs.

The frustration, particularly from the groups that you mentioned, is partly because recognition of the value of community growing has grown in the past number of years and there are increasing numbers of community growing organisations across the country using lots of different models. The Scottish Government supports that work. Since 2012, we have awarded more than £1.8 million through various grants and funding mechanisms to directly support community growing and increase the land that is available for it.

I visited lots of communities through the summer. In some cases, I was specifically visiting a community growing facility. In others, I was looking at some regeneration but, often, even when I did not expect to visit a community growing facility, the organisers would say, “There’s where we are going to put the community growing facility.” One of the communities in Shetland was going to build a particular structure. I have forgotten the name of it but it was a Shetland-specific polytunnel that was able to withstand the winds. The community showed me where that was going to be fitted.

There is a recognition of the benefits of community growing. There is absolutely a role for allotments, but there is a wider movement and a range of community growing organisations in virtually every community. The benefits of those organisations need to be fully recognised. Community growing is not just about the growing of food, which is really important, given the crises that we currently face. There are wider benefits to community cohesion, mental health and physical health.

There are also education benefits. I visited a community growing scheme in Dunoon that was attached to a school. It was an old school garden and the community growing organisation went in. All the people involved were properly certified to work with the kids, so the kids were able to go in. Initially, it was a case of, “This is all really dirty and yucky and look at thae worms!” but now it is so successful that the school is saying, “Thanks very much. I think that we can do this now,” so the group is now looking for another area to develop.

We—the collegiate “we” not just of public Scotland but the wider community, because business plays a big role in this as well—need to think about what more we can do to enable that. One of the big opportunities is the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Act 2022, which enables us to tie together a number of strands.

Last week, I was at a conference organised by SURF—Scotland’s Regeneration Forum—that specifically considered community growing as part of regeneration across Scotland. It was a really good conference. It had a combination of people from the standard regeneration groups across Scotland and a range of people who were involved in all sorts of models for community growing. We need to share the energy that was in that room more.

For its part, the Scottish Government supports a lot of the organisations involved through regeneration grants or other empowerment grants. Specific aspects of the 2015 act relate to allotments and waiting lists for them. The Government has surveyed local authorities to try to identify the work that is continuing.

Obviously, allotments are a local authority responsibility rather than one for the Scottish Government, but we are keen to work with COSLA and our local government partners to see whether there is more that we can do, particularly in light of the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Act 2022. We now have contact points for allotment services across Scotland and are working with authorities to share good practice.

I have touched base with Councillor Gail Macgregor, the COSLA lead, to suggest that we might consider how we can better support local authorities across Scotland. We need to be careful not to cause an additional layer of bureaucracy with reporting, and we are keen to work with local government partners to see whether there is a way to bring commonality to the reporting that local authorities already do to make it easier for committees such as this to have transparency on what is happening across Scotland.

A huge amount of work is going on, and a huge amount of progress is being made across Scotland, particularly in the community growing forum. Previously, the only option for growing your own food was to have an allotment. That is really challenging for many people, and it is a substantial amount of land per person, whereas the use of community growing can potentially reduce waiting lists for allotments, including by giving some people more appropriate access.

It is a really exciting time in this area, particularly with the opportunities that the good food nation plan brings.

The starting point is respect for our different democratic mandates, because this cannot ever feel to local government that the Scottish Government is coming in to check its homework. An important part of the outcomes framework will be increasing transparency in a way that works for all of us; by that, I mean not overreporting but ensuring transparency and clear lines of accountability so that people know who is accountable for what part of decision making. That will allow our electors to challenge us and local government’s electorate to challenge it. It is important that we get that right; it will take time, but that work is on-going.

It is important that we develop clear lines of accountability and make clear who is accountable for what, and that is part of the work that we are doing.

Part of the question was about local government finance and it is appropriate to recognise that all public services currently face massive inflation, including energy price inflation, and that that causes challenges for all aspects of public service. To respond to your point, the Accounts Commission’s report makes it clear that we have increased local government funding over the years, but that does not by any means take away the challenges that local government is facing.

It is appropriate that we have a mature and transparent conversation so that we can show who is accountable, how the money has been spent, which outcomes have been achieved and where accountability lies if outcomes are not being achieved. It will be important to get that accountability framework right.

It is important to emphasise that local government pay negotiations are a matter for local government as the employers, and for the unions. It is enshrined in the Verity house agreement that that is the correct procedure and that the Scottish Government should not interfere in the process. However, in line with the Verity house agreement and despite the cuts that it has received, the Scottish Government has already committed to £155 million to support a meaningful pay rise for local government workers.

We have done things differently this year. In previous years, there might have been a threat of strike action and then Government would have come in and provided additional funding. We have recognised the challenges that you have outlined and £155 million was provided up front to support COSLA in its role as employer.

Pay inflation is a real challenge for all parts of the public sector. Local government, the Scottish Government and other public sector bodies are facing pay inflation driven by general inflation and the cost of living crisis. We are facing in-year challenges that we have never had to face before. I am trying to be as non-political as possible, but the impact of the mini-budget is being felt in every area of public service across Scotland and in the rest of the UK. That is a real challenge.

The Verity house agreement means that we can take those things forward together by working in partnership. What is right for one area might be different for another, which is why we want to empower local government to make choices and decisions. I hope that, instead of directing from central Government, we can allow local government to make the choices that will have the greatest impact on local areas.

As I mentioned earlier, my local authority, Dundee City Council, made a budget choice last year to provide extra funding for anti-poverty measures, because of particular challenges in the city. A huge amount of money has already been spent on mitigating Westminster policies. If we did not have to do that, the money could be deployed in different ways. Dundee City Council took difficult decisions not to do some things, because other things were thought to be really important. It is absolutely appropriate for such decisions to be made by politicians who are elected by their constituents to make them at local level, instead of their being directed by the Scottish Government in order to make life easier when we have to answer questions in front of committees such as this one.

Place directors have been around for a while. They try to understand, promote and support how public services work together, and that role has been reinforced in the Verity house agreement. I would not expect place directors to be accountable directly—that would be quite strange, because they are doing a piece of work; they are not making decisions as such.

Ellen, do you want to come in? I guess that you are a place director for some place.

We remain absolutely committed to supporting Mark Ruskell in bringing his bill forward at reconsideration stage, and the Verity house agreement is absolutely explicit in saying that we are committed to incorporating the charter. In fact, the language used in the agreement draws largely on it. Just because the European charter has not been enshrined in domestic legislation does not mean that we are not allowed to meet the aspirations of the legislation. Clearly, that was an aspiration of the Parliament.

Mr Ruskell took the view that we should wait until the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill was taken forward for reconsideration. We have had that announcement, and we will now continue to work at pace to bring the bill back for reconsideration, but this is a complex issue and we need to make sure that we get it right. It is an absolute commitment, and COSLA raises the matter at virtually every opportunity, because it is important to local government that the charter is enshrined in law in future. I hope that all members agree that it is important that we take that forward.

I definitely agree with what you are saying. The committee might find it valuable to hear about the experience of the Wester Hailes community—which has been a particularly deprived community, many parts of which have been marginalised—in producing one of the first new-style local place plans in the country. That plan has been agreed by the council, so it has a new status. It is one of many communities that are showing the way for others, so it might be worth the committee’s while to look at what it has done.

We are working with partners on that, and the tripartite group is one of the groups that is helping us to do that. Through that, the Scottish Government, local authorities and the Scottish Allotments and Gardens Society work together.

There has been a slowing down of that work, because of our work on the good food nation. It tends to be the same people who are doing the work, and the good food nation has been prioritised. I do not think that that is necessarily a bad thing, but you are right that there are probably some easy gains that we need to make. However, we need to do that in partnership rather than telling colleagues what to do.