Seòmar agus comataidhean

Would your proposal change the Scottish ministers’ role in the process in any way? What precisely would be their role in any amendment process that might happen locally? Would you have a role in that?

Good morning, minister. I ask you to say a little bit about the opportunities for the public to examine any proposed amendments to local development plans. What circumstances would bring that about? How long would you expect that public examination to last?

Good morning, cabinet secretary. I will pick up on the NSET issue that Colin Smyth led on. When I was a member of the Public Audit Committee, one of the issues that we focused on was how the national strategy for economic transformation supports and interacts with our regional economic development partnerships. As a member from Ayrshire, I am particularly interested in how that develops. I would not say that particular problems were raised, but we were interested in how the Government will evidence how NSET has benefited communities such as Ayrshire.

If we look at population trends that have been released in the past few days, we see that Scotland’s population is increasing, but the increase is far greater in particular areas in Scotland than it is in others. To generalise, it would be fair to say that the populations in the south, the west and the islands are diminishing, while the populations in the north and the east are increasing. Is the Government aware of that? Does it see that as an issue with regard to delivery of NSET in those particular parts of Scotland? How do we plan to rebalance the situation, if at all?

I will take you back to the issue of Prestwick airport, cabinet secretary. The Scottish Government has been, and still is, a great supporter of the airport, which we own. Does the Government think that there is room for improvement in the number of passengers going in and out of Prestwick? The airport is so close to Glasgow and is named Glasgow Prestwick, which I think is a strange term to use these days. However, given that closeness, do you think that there could be an increase in the volume of passengers coming through Prestwick? We see about half a million passengers going through Prestwick but about 7 million going through Glasgow. They are geographically close and we own Prestwick, so does the Government see any potential to improve passenger volumes?

Would you say that a positive change in population should be an indicator of positive economic transformation? Despite the very small increase that was reported yesterday, the trend for Ayrshire is still down. Constituents will say to me that we have a lovely national strategy for economic transformation but that the overall population of Ayrshire is still going down. If, overall, people are leaving the county, how can the Government say to constituents such as mine that our transformation strategy has been successful?

Thanks very much, convener. Good morning, everybody.

I will come to the reserves issue in a wee minute, Katie, but first of all, on council debt, you must have heard some of our conversations last week with Professor Heald, who talked about local authority debt being upwards of £1 billion. You must also have heard the conversation about what happened, tragically, to some councils down south, which incurred huge amounts of debt that they have been unable to service. In fact, some have, in effect, declared themselves bankrupt.

There was a discussion about the power of general competence, which English councils have, but Scottish councils do not. I asked a direct question whether local councils in Scotland would like such a power, but not, one would hope, to do the same thing that Woking Borough Council did and end up £2 billion in debt.

Is the debt in Scottish councils generally serviceable? Are you collectively able to service and pay that debt as it arises, presumably from borrowing and so forth?

My final question is on reserves. In its most recent joint report with the Accounts Commission, Audit Scotland has said that local councils in Scotland are sitting on £4.5 billion of reserves. First, do you accept that figure as being accurate?

I am sure that you will tell me that the money is all earmarked, allocated, committed and so on and so forth, but the committee has actually found it difficult to cut through and see exactly what is usable, non-usable, committed or uncommitted. The report says:

“the lack of transparency in some councils’ annual accounts makes it difficult to draw firm conclusions on councils planned use”

of all those reserves. Do you agree? We are finding it difficult to understand the picture with reserves and all the different categories. Will you offer a general comment on that, please?

That was really helpful. Thank you very much, everybody, for offering those explanations.

That is a very helpful answer. Are there circumstances in which the Scottish Government would step in—for example, if it felt that a council was borrowing too much and going beyond the CIPFA guidelines and the prudential framework? Has that ever happened? Do you have the power to do that?

I turn to the issue of reserves. You might have heard me put to Councillor Hagmann the fact that the Accounts Commission report that said that there is £4.5 billion of reserves sitting with Scotland’s local councils. Councillor Hagmann was very quick to point out that £4 billion of that is already earmarked or committed, leaving £500 million as useable. What is the Scottish Government’s sense of that? Is the figure accurate?