Seòmar agus comataidhean

Are you asking whether the Government is doing anything to enable credit unions to lend to organisations in the community?

If you look at the annual procurement report, you will see that 47 per cent of the total public sector spend—£16.5 billion—goes to SMEs. I made the point earlier that that is a significant number, although that does not mean that work is not happening to increase it further. Interestingly, the proportion of public spend that goes to SMEs is higher than the proportion of the economy that is represented by SMEs, so SMEs get a bigger proportion of spend from the public sector than they do from the private sector. That is an interesting thought to reflect on.

In local areas, the issue becomes one of definition. In Clackmannanshire, the scope for spending with local bodies within the council area is different from that in Glasgow, where there are a lot more businesses and, therefore, a lot more scope to spend with local bodies. The setting of targets at that level becomes an issue. Last week, the committee talked to the Federation of Small Businesses, which tends to focus on microbusinesses. Those are very different from what we would call medium-sized businesses, but both are in that SME range—a huge range of different businesses is caught by the SME categorisation. In setting targets, we would need to be very careful about what exactly we would measure and how we would compare like for like. As you said, the spend of a health board is very different from that of a council in terms of the scope that each has for spending locally. The best way to set such targets would probably involve considering that as part of a plan, in order to allow for local variations.

Absolutely. I think that some of that could be in the bill and some of it could be in guidance, depending on how we want to articulate it.

That is absolutely true. It is important to recognise that we are not starting from ground zero. There are a whole series of workstreams in the national strategy for economic transformation that seek to address the point about entrepreneurs starting businesses. There are a lot of great examples of community development trusts, including in my constituency, and a lot of work is being done at a Scotland-wide level through organisations to pull that knowledge together, share best practice and give the momentum and impetus to take that forward. There is a lot happening, but I recognise the points about capacity and our role in helping to support that where we can.

Capacity can be a challenge. Going back to the point that Willie Coffey made, I note that there will be good capacity by definition in areas where good progress is being made, but not in areas where it is not. How that is balanced is important. We are keen to work with partners in the broad sense to take that forward. However, I note again that the bill is not the only opportunity that we will have to address these issues.

I am very happy to consider that. Again, however, it is important to put the matter in context. The public service reform strategy that we brought out last week has workstreams on how we make community planning partnerships more effective. Will legislation come out of that work? I think that it is likely that there will be a lot of public service reform during the next parliamentary session, which will cover a range of things in that space and consider how to get more empowerment in local service design and everything else that goes with that. We are very much considering that.

I suppose that it comes down to what the most effective vehicle is. If there are specific things that we can do in the bill during the next few months, given its timescale, we are very happy to consider that, but I would say that the bill is not the end of the story. There is a lot more to be done. There is also the democracy matters work, on which we have indicated that we will create legislation on the single authority model, the strengthening of CPPs and so on during the next session of Parliament.

I know that some issues relating to that are reserved and some are devolved. We are happy to unpick that. Stephen White might be able to comment on that.

That is a good question. [Laughter.] I had not spotted that. Do officials want to comment on that?

There are a number of answers to that question. It has been helpful to listen to the witnesses who have appeared before the committee, because there is clearly a lot of support for the work that is being taken forward. That is important. A lot of people are looking for the bill to signal the Government’s direction and intent and to lay out how our partners across the landscape of local authorities and other public bodies can best specify their roles.

A lot of work was done on that in the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014, which focused on the significance of SMEs. Scotland’s performance in that area is far in excess of what we see across the rest of the United Kingdom or, indeed, in most international examples. That legislation has delivered.

We can change thresholds without legislation, depending on which thresholds we are talking about. Clearly, those that are set internationally are different, but we can change those that we have set domestically without legislation. Similarly, the legislation that is in place on community asset transfer is undergoing review so that we can understand its impact and build on it.

I take the point, and I will be looking to the committee and others to see whether there are any glaring omissions of specific things that might be included in the bill in order to give more impetus to the work that we want to take forward.

Absolutely.