Seòmar agus comataidhean

The Ethical Standards Commissioner and the Standards Commission sent a joint letter to the Scottish Government to ask that legislation be amended to give the option of finding a breach without holding a hearing. Will you expand on the reason behind that proposal?

It is helpful to hear that one of the first issues that the expert group will look at is the crossover between planning and licensing. We have seen concerns in the written evidence about the interface between planning and licensing, and claims that they work separately and sometimes at odds with each other. Minister, do you have any early plans on how those two regulatory regimes could be streamlined when it comes to applying for short-term lets, and perhaps how they could work together better?

That is really helpful. Thank you for expanding on that and giving us that update.

The next area that I want to touch on is the survey that you talked about last year, which you were planning to roll out to complainers and respondents. Your annual report says that, because the return rate was so low, you found it difficult to provide a robust analysis of the findings. Are you planning to continue that survey? Do you have any plans to try to boost the return rate?

I want to talk about what the housing system will look like in, as the convener said, the medium to longer term, as we—I hope—move out of a housing emergency, reduce homelessness and end the cycle of emergencies and crises. What do we need to do to prevent future housing emergencies while tackling the one that we are in now? What are the foundations of a sustainable housing system? I will come to Callum Chomczuk first, because you have said that some of the actions that we are taking just now to address the current crisis might feed into future crises.

I want to chat about how effective the current actions of local authorities and the Scottish Government are at tackling the emergency and building towards a sustainable solution. We have spoken about the difficulties around taking a whole-system approach, but it should be fairly simple to look at taking that approach to the regulations that we have in place. Some of the regulations that we have talked about come into play down the line. Looking at them individually, a lot of them are very hard to disagree with, but it would be good to get your take on the cumulative impact of all those regulations on the general regulatory and legislative landscape around the emergency housing supply. I will come to Jennifer Kennedy first because I she talked about that in her submission.

Thank you.

Professor Ken Gibb told us earlier about potential reforms to the way that we operate land and land banks in Scotland. His centre has published a report called “Sustainable Housing Policy in Scotland: Re-Booting the Affordable Housing Supply Programme”, which talks about creating a housing agency and compiling land assembly sites to assist the development of both affordable and private housing. I do not know whether you heard his comments, but I wonder how you think that would interact with council services. I know that you might not all have property services or planning as part of your remit, but do you think that that would work to increase supply of housing land in Scotland?

Is the work that is going on in the background sensitive? Are we able to get a progress report that sets out some of the things that have been agreed on?

Good afternoon, cabinet secretary. Earlier, you touched on some of the tax-raising powers, including for the cruise ship levy, that the Government is considering devolving to local authorities. Which other tax-raising powers is the Government actively considering devolving?

As part of the work on the fiscal framework, is there any thinking on the appropriate level of tax-raising powers that authorities should have in relation to the balance of their spending? Last week at committee, a witness mentioned an ambition to move towards having locally raised versus central grant funding on a 50:50 basis. Is there any Government thinking on the appropriate balance in that regard?

Good morning. I had a question about prevention, but as that subject has been covered, I will, for the sake of time, move on and ask about the fiscal framework.

COSLA’s submission states that

“There has been considerable progress on delivering a Fiscal Framework”.

A number of witnesses have questioned that, although there might be work going on behind the scenes that we do not know about. Given that we have had a delay of a year or so in getting the framework in place, when can we expect to see it, and why has it taken so long?