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What would be your plea?

You have anticipated my follow-up question, which is about multiyear certainty. In the previous session, Paul Manning suggested multiyear pay deals as a possible solution, and it sounds as though you agree that that is a potential solution or part of the solution. You have kind of covered what I was going to ask, but will you confirm that the Scottish Government will provide certainty on multiyear funding for local authorities as soon as it is able to do so?

Good morning. I want to discuss the pay of the local government workforce. It seems that, every year, there is what is almost a scramble around pay negotiations involving the Scottish Government, COSLA and various others. There are last-minute meetings, deals are done and so on. It always seems to be a wee bit chaotic—certainly, that is the feeling that we sometimes get in this place. What needs to be done to ensure that that is not the case and that the issue of pay is managed more sustainably next year and beyond? Are there any solutions that you could present to the committee?

I will follow up on the questions about local government pay demands that I asked in the previous session—I do not know whether you have had a chance to review what was said, cabinet secretary. We all know better than anybody that there is almost a scramble to get things over the line every year. You might have heard some of the suggestions that were made in the previous session about how things could be done on a more managed and sustainable basis. Do you have any ideas about how things might be done next year or any suggestions about how the process could be improved?

Has Sharon Dowey looked into whether, if amendment 54 is pushed to a vote and agreed to, it would put criminal cases at risk?

Thank you very much, convener. I had a wee problem with unmuting, which I think was my fault, not those controlling the system.

I want to ask about an issue that gets a lot of media attention every year: the pay settlement for the local government workforce. The statistics that we have say that local government employment amounts to around 70 per cent of revenue budgets. What needs to happen for pay deals to be managed more sustainably and strategically next year and moving forward?

As I am not in the room, I am happy for the convener to call those who wish to answer that and in what order.

I thank the witnesses for those answers.

Professor Heald, you said in your written submission that the equalisation methods that are used to distribute funding mean that Scotland is not realising the full benefit of the funds. Will you expand a wee bit on that, and say what could be done in this year’s budget to address the issue?

Good morning, and apologies that I was late—I was attending the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee.

I think that you might have already mentioned this because, since I have been in the room, you have referred to a vodka case a couple of times and it might be the one I am thinking of. Can I confirm before I ask my question: is the vodka case that you have described to the committee the one that happened in Coatbridge?

I apologise if you have gone into great detail on that. As well as my role on this committee, I am also the MSP for Coatbridge and Chryston, and I have been very aware of the case. I want to thank you and North Lanarkshire Council for your work on it. It sounds like good work was undertaken, and it helped educate me about the work that you do in partnership with the council.

I would not normally ask a direct constituency question at committee, but it could be helpful for us to understand as a whole, and I do not have the full information. What was the process and how did it come about, from point of contact—whether it was from members of the public or the store itself—to your investigation? Could you go through in some detail—not lots—how that came about? It sounds like it could be a good example for us to understand and learn from.

Yes—up to what you can share.