Seòmar agus comataidhean

Good morning, First Minister. It may be a little early to come in on lessons learned, but I hope to pick up on a point that was raised earlier, on which you gave some information.

One of the early messages that the committee got on the project concerned the lack of technical rigour that was applied at the outset to determine the yard’s capabilities to build the ships, in terms of its facilities and so on, and the skills and expertise of the workforce to build the designs that were presented to them. For example, the vessels had a clamshell-door design, and we heard from the workers that they had never built ships to that design before.

I realise that you cannot possibly be aware of the details of that at that stage, but perhaps you can say something about the importance of technical design and rigour, and a thorough assessment of technical capabilities, at the outset of such a project. Is that one of the key lessons that we are learning from the experience?

On Monday, the workers said to us that they were fed up with the whole issue being used as a political football. I am sure that we all know that there is an inevitability to that, but they were fed up with it.

Can you offer some words of comfort and support to the members of the workforce, to show them that we value the work that they are doing and that we recognise that they are playing a crucial role in helping us to complete projects that will ultimately benefit the public when the ships go into service?

I thank all three witnesses for their contributions. It was very important to make those points.

My only other question is about numbers. Is data available that shows the number of female councillors from ethnic backgrounds in Scotland’s councils? Do any of you have that data? If you have it, could you share it with the committee?

Does that mean that the process that we are in at the moment does not even reach the dizzy heights of a consent decision?

I have another question that you might have heard me ask the previous panel. We are interested in the number of female councillors from ethnic minority backgrounds, but the previous panel was unable to provide any hard and fast statistics or data on that. Is that something that COSLA might take up so that you could report on the breakdown of female councillors from ethnic minority backgrounds and so on and inform the committee’s work?

Good morning, minister. This is potentially a dog’s breakfast. The Scottish Government has already embarked on its digital strategy and has given us an indication of progress so far. My experience of East Ayrshire Council’s digital planning system is that it is very good and is robust. Members of the public can access it and can see decision processes, documents, maps and drawings—everything. It is well advanced and I hope that our system will take that further. However, if the UK legislates in the area, is it possible that our authorities could be acting illegally in doing what they are doing?

Thanks very much for that. The committee will probably want to pursue that issue.

Good morning to everyone on the panel.

I want to stick with the theme of support for elected councillors who are currently in office and to ask each of you for one or two suggestions about how we can improve that. I think that all of you have mentioned that the opportunities for training for new councillors when they are in the post are particularly beneficial. What other support might be needed?

I am thinking back to our experience during Covid. One of the few good things that came out of Covid was the digital hybrid model becoming available to elected members. I saw the benefit of that in the Scottish Parliament. I also know that that was a huge benefit to elected councillors throughout Scotland in giving them greater ability to participate in council business. That approach respected family issues, as well. It was a great boost to many councillors.

I invite each of you to offer a suggestion or two about possible better support mechanisms. I will start with Talat Yaqoob, if that is okay.

Good morning, panel. I do not know whether you tuned in to hear the witnesses on the previous panel, but I will continue with the same theme that I asked them about, which is support mechanisms to assist elected members, particularly females, to participate, do their job well and, we hope, stay in councils. A couple of suggestions were made about the provision of more support for administration and casework. As you know, MSPs and MPs have a budget to allow us to do that work but, from memory, I think that the support to allow elected member councillors to do that it is very limited.

We are all aware that the hybrid working model was really beneficial to all elected members in the Parliaments and councils. I would like to hear a few thoughts from Councillor Morrison about what support mechanisms might look like and whether COSLA is intending to pursue them in the current term.

Have you had time to consider whether all of Scotland’s authorities are still embracing the digital hybrid model? Have some retreated back to in-person meetings?