Seòmar agus comataidhean

Further to the answers that you have given to Willie Coffey and Paul McLennan, COSLA has outlined its concerns about where the national care service currently sits. With all the budget pressures that you have outlined, there is an opportunity to pause to look at the national care service, to allocate the resources attached to it now to local government so that the funding goes to the front line now when it is not being otherwise used, and to look again at what is happening with the policy.

That is helpful.

I have raised with you in the chamber the issue of auditing potentially available land, especially with regard to public sector bodies. The national health service has a significant estate that could be allocated for this use. Some organisations are doing that, but what plans are there in Government to carry out an audit and then ask public sector bodies to allow allotments to be developed? At the minute, there seems to be a bit of a closed-gate situation for many people who have come to me, especially here in the capital, having tried to access land that is owned by public bodies.

We heard that there are opportunities but that the finance to achieve them is not there, or it is to come from local authorities that do not have it. That is the financial problem for many people in using some of those bits of legislation, but I take on board what you have said. It might be helpful to investigate which public sector bodies even have the issue on their agenda. Some, such as the NHS, which should have an agenda to promote wellbeing and get people into such activities, would surely want to release land to do that. That was a helpful answer, and I thank you for your time this morning.

Good morning, cabinet secretary, and good morning to your officials.

Thank you for that. It is something that the committee is keen to monitor and will return to quite early on.

You have already touched on the rent freeze policy. The committee has heard concerns that local housing associations across the country are rewriting their business plans. What impact assessment has taken place of the below-inflation increase in the social rented sector and how that has destabilised them? The committee welcomes the fact that the sector has now been removed from the policy, but the committee had suggested that it should not have been there in the first place and that it needed to be taken out.

There will be a bit of a stalemate if COSLA is not willing to bring that forward.

I want to move on to local government budget allocations and the financial challenges that local authorities are reporting. You touched on what the Government argues is a £570 million cash increase for local government. This is a game that we seem to play in every single budget, but COSLA is adamant that, when we take into account all the policy commitments that the Scottish Government has put on to local authorities, that increase is £71 million. Do you accept that?

Thank you. I think that versions will continue to differ throughout this process, from COSLA and others.

Finally, I want to ask whether there is a plan to review the funding formula for local authorities. The cabinet secretary touched on pressures in Edinburgh; they are acute, if not in crisis, for affordable housing and homelessness, and Edinburgh is one of the lowest funded local authorities, if not the lowest funded one. Does the cabinet secretary have anything to add on that, during this budget process?

Last week, Parliament agreed national planning framework 4. Do you believe that the funding in the budget will be enough for the ambition for affordable housing in NPF4?

Good morning, minister and officials, and thank you for joining us. You have already outlined where you think the committee’s work can make a difference but, specifically, does the Scottish Government intend to review the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015, including part 9, to take on board some of the issues that we have raised?