Skip to main content

Language: English / Gàidhlig

Loading…

Seòmar agus comataidhean

Official Report: search what was said in Parliament

The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.  

Criathragan Hide all filters

Dates of parliamentary sessions
  1. Session 1: 12 May 1999 to 31 March 2003
  2. Session 2: 7 May 2003 to 2 April 2007
  3. Session 3: 9 May 2007 to 22 March 2011
  4. Session 4: 11 May 2011 to 23 March 2016
  5. Session 5: 12 May 2016 to 5 May 2021
  6. Current session: 12 May 2021 to 25 December 2024
Select which types of business to include


Select level of detail in results

Displaying 1153 contributions

|

Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee

Local Government in Scotland: Overview 2023

Meeting date: 13 June 2023

Miles Briggs

You do not go into this in the report, but would it be helpful to have a specific ring-fenced preventative budget? I do not see many current opportunities for spend to go directly to preventative projects, because we are managing crisis, whether in social services, homelessness services or mental health services. What would you recommend doing to achieve that shift towards prevention? If the resource is not there, the projects do not happen.

Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee

Devolving Scotland

Meeting date: 13 June 2023

Miles Briggs

Thank you. It is an area where a lot more discussion will happen across parties.

Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee

Devolving Scotland

Meeting date: 13 June 2023

Miles Briggs

Good morning, Ali, and thanks for joining us today. I want to discuss the introduction of another set of politicians—elected mayors and provosts. We have touched on that, but I would like to hear more of your thoughts on it. Is there evidence of elected mayors increasing accountability, improving community engagement and delivering better outcomes for people? What are your thoughts on that? What has Reform Scotland said about the suggestion?

Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee

Local Government in Scotland: Overview 2023

Meeting date: 13 June 2023

Miles Briggs

Good morning, and thank you for joining us. I want to ask a couple of questions about the spending figures in the report. What stood out for me was the significant reductions in council spending on planning, culture and leisure services and environmental services over the past decade. What impact have those reductions in spending had on local communities and businesses? Have some of the changes that we have seen—for example, the use of arm’s-length external organisations—helped, or have they simply been a way of transferring the money off council budgets?

Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee

Devolving Scotland

Meeting date: 13 June 2023

Miles Briggs

Which powers would you centralise to elected mayors, provosts or civic leaders? This is a leading question, but something that has not been well managed is deciding who is responsible for delivery of the city growth deals that the UK Government, the Scottish Government and collections of councils have signed up to. We have had big bang moments and big numbers for those, but we have key infrastructure projects such as the Sheriffhall roundabout, which is not far from here, progressing at a snail’s pace. That is a huge key project for the Lothian region, but no one is the lead minister or lead politician for it. Do you envisage powers over, say, economic development, health or policing sitting with the individual?

Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee

Devolving Scotland

Meeting date: 13 June 2023

Miles Briggs

Would it improve the relationship between local and central Government to have that additional tier or would it mean that we just created another voice for the areas in people who, let us face it, will be elected by a party that is either in government or not? Political cycles might dictate who has the roles. Might we see mayors who will, as with Andy Burnham and Sadiq Khan, happily take on the UK Government? We would maybe have Conservatives elected, who would take on the Scottish Government at this point. It is quite easy to have a dissenting voice if you are not in the Government of the day, because you will not necessarily be progressing an agenda.

Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee

Devolving Scotland

Meeting date: 13 June 2023

Miles Briggs

Finally, to go back to Willie Coffey’s question about council numbers, let us consider having 32 elected mayors and the amount of resource that an elected mayor of Edinburgh, for example, would potentially have compared with an elected mayor of Clackmannanshire. The voice of those mayors, in the cities, would work well in driving real economic opportunity and promoting an area. However, where did the idea of having 32 mayors come from? Should we look at where we operate more regionally—such as with Holyrood’s Lothian region—with individual councils coming together? People could get lost if there were 32 voices instead of eight.

Social Justice and Social Security Committee

Charities (Regulation and Administration) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

Meeting date: 1 June 2023

Miles Briggs

Good morning to the minister and her officials. I put on the record that I welcome amendment 2, which covers one of the key parts of our considerations. How it works in practice is something that we will want to see monitored, so I hope that the Scottish Government will do that, taking into account the limited numbers of cases for which this provision will be needed.

Amendment 2 agreed to.

Sections 9 to 11 agreed to.

Section 12—Recording of charity mergers and treatment of legacies

Social Justice and Social Security Committee

Charities (Regulation and Administration) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

Meeting date: 1 June 2023

Miles Briggs

I welcome amendments 3 to 12. There is one point of clarification that I feel is still needed—maybe it is for stage 3—which relates to the situation of a United Kingdom-wide charity that is based in England and does research funding in Scotland. That research project could have a legacy gifted to it from a Scotland-domiciled individual. Has that been captured in these amendments? The cabinet secretary might want to take that issue away and clarify it for stage 3, but I know of a number of charities that, for example, fund research projects in our universities, and individuals might donate or leave a legacy to those projects. I wanted to see these amendments lodged, but I wonder whether that situation has been captured or whether any legal advice has been taken on that scenario.

Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee

Building Safety

Meeting date: 30 May 2023

Miles Briggs

We are talking about decades before we can legitimately—