Seòmar agus comataidhean

Good morning to the panel and thank you for joining us.

I want to touch on the Verity house agreement. What is your understanding of developments towards the fiscal framework and the monitoring and accountability framework that were included in the agreement?

In the Accounts Commission’s submission, you state that councils

“urgently need to transform how they deliver services to become financially sustainable.”

You have touched on the potential for savings and efficiencies of a once-for-Scotland approach around information technology—I think that NHS Scotland, for example, has been moving towards that—and around procurement. What would you like to see included in the forthcoming budget to take that work forward and to look towards how councils can collectively work together to become more financially sustainable? There is potential in some of the work, for example of my council in the city region area, to implement the sharing of resources and expertise, especially in planning and things like that.

You touched on RAAC. I wanted to raise that issue with you both in relation to future challenges. We have already had a pretty bleak conversation about the pressures that local government faces, but where do you think councils are in assessing the situation in relation to RAAC? On Friday, I met people in West Lothian who are affected by RAAC, and I do not think that the council necessarily has a figure for the situation. There is now mixed tenure in many of the developments that we are referring to. Do you have any idea what the exposure to risk now looks like for councils in relation to the housing stock in England, and of any figures that exist for Scotland?

You touched on social care pressures, which is an area that I am interested in pursuing, especially what that looks like north and south of the border.

We have seen pretty major reforms in local government over the past decade to try to address that pressure—for example, the integration of health and social care in Scotland. Currently, the Scottish Government is taking forward the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill.

When you speak to councillors and council officials, you hear that the pressure is not easing but growing. For most councils, including my own here in Edinburgh, half of that budget is for adult social care, from day 1, and the pressure is consistently growing and outstripping demand.

How optimistic are you that the situation will improve, and not just create something that councils cannot resolve? Some of the policy changes that we have seen have not, in fact, helped to deliver any real reform that has necessarily improved the situation.

When would you expect to have that shared with you?

Jonathan, do you want to add anything to that?

Thanks for that. We have had conversations over the years about reforms and commissions. Looking specifically at the aims of the Christie commission back in 2011, has that helped your work to move towards preventative spend and the reform of public services? To loop back to the Verity house agreement, will that help to update that, in your sense, to try to take forward that work?

Does anyone have anything else to add?

Good morning, cabinet secretary, and your official. I wanted to go back to the Verity house agreement because it has been raised. Angela Leitch said of the Scottish Government’s decision not to fund the recommendations that it does not seem to be in the spirit of the Verity house agreement. I wonder how you would respond to that, specifically.

Thank you for that. You have mentioned that there is no precedent for the Government paying, but I wonder about the Local Governance (Scotland) Act 2004—under which ministers made regulations to provide for local authorities to make severance payments to councillors who are not seeking re-election, when we moved to the single transferable vote to elect councillors. Is that the precedent for taking this forward?