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Thank you very much, Mr Boland.

There has been quite a lot of talk today about collaboration. We have just touched on communication, and I want to concentrate on collaboration and communication. Let us start with collaboration, because I think that it is in all our interests to ensure that the north-east does not just survive but continues to thrive. I think that most folk from the area would agree that that should be the case.

To get to that point, we all have to collaborate. Ms Harrick, in particular, has talked about the collaboration that exists across the industry. Is there enough collaboration between Governments—the Scottish and the UK Governments—industry, academia and communities for us to get this right?

Let me give you an example. Ms McCarthy said that it sometimes took 12 years to get a major project all the way through from planning to consent. We recognise that we do not have a huge amount of time to make the just transition. What do we need to do by way of collaboration to get the Governments and all the other parties, such as industry and communities, to understand that we need to do this a bit more speedily than we are at the moment and to be a bit more flexible as we move forward? Maybe Ms McGinlay would like to answer first.

Does anyone else want to come in on that?

I will be very brief.

Aberdeen and the north-east have been a global player in the oil and gas industry—top of the tree—and I am sure that we all want the same to be the case in relation to renewables in the future. I could ask lots more questions about planning and consenting, but I wonder whether the witnesses could oblige us by writing to us on how they think that the planning and consenting system could change in order to be beneficial for the just transition.

From a personal point of view, I have found that the best policy and decision making happens when we listen to the voices of those with lived experience as we formulate the policy, which is basically what you are arguing for.

Alasdair Ross, do you share that view? I am sure that you do, but let us hear from you on that front.

There does not necessarily need to be statutory weight, but there have to be parameters that are set by all sides. Communities understand that. They understood it during the “planning for real” process, which took place here many moons ago. They realised that a swimming pool could be on three adjacent streets, for example, and folk also realised that we would need X amount of housing for the school to continue to have a roll of the same size. Therefore, none of the problems is insurmountable.

My final question is about communication. This morning, we heard from a lot of people about various things, and they had questions about aspects of how the just transition fund is working, because the reasoning for certain things in relation to it was never explained to them. Does that communication need to be improved? You can give a yes or no answer to that.

It is great to be in the wonderful north-east of Scotland and in this great city of Aberdeen. Last night, I was boring some colleagues to death about the 1952 Aberdeen local plan, which was set out in a visionary document. We have talked about vision today. In some regards, from my perspective, that vision should be from the grass roots up, rather than top down from the Government.

Today, we have heard quite a lot about NPF4, for which I am partly responsible, and a lot about local development plans. Local place plans have been touched on but no more than that. One of the great things that came from this city was the “planning for real” approach, which covered community planning and spatial planning, and was prevalent in the north-east but has disappeared. The local place plans were supposed to bring together community planning and spatial planning, leading to much greater understanding by communities of what the ambition is and what their vision is for their area.

My initial question is for Jim Grant and Stuart Bews. I recognise that we have had the Covid years and the rest of it. What have your local authorities done to help communities to formulate local place plans? Has community planning been linked with that, to get the best possible solution and vision of those communities?

It would be interesting to hear from planning colleagues—community planning and spatial planning colleagues—in Aberdeen on that.

I see that Alison Stuart wants to come in.

I have just one more question. We could probably spend hours on this, to be honest, and it still would not make a lot of sense. Financial transactions confuse a lot of folk. I think that we need to look at them a bit more closely, because I get the impression from community groups that it would be almost impossible for them to access FT money. However, it has been done previously in the form of charitable bonds for houses, and community groups might want to explore that. Has the information that you have had on FT been helpful or has it not helped at all? Has it been a hindrance to FT usage instead?