Official Report 540KB pdf
09:31
The next item on our agenda is to take evidence on the draft climate change plan. We are joined by Shona Robison, who is the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government. She is accompanied by Scottish Government officials: Gareth Fenney, who is the interim director for heat in buildings delivery; Philip Raines, who is joint deputy director for domestic climate change; and Daniel Hinze, who is deputy director of the infrastructure and investment team. I welcome you all to the meeting. There is no need for you to turn on your microphones—we will do that for you. I invite the cabinet secretary to make a brief opening statement.
Thank you, convener. I take the opportunity to thank the committee for the invitation to give evidence and, additionally, to acknowledge the work of the committee over recent weeks in gathering evidence and scrutinising the draft climate change plan.
I am aware that the Cabinet Secretary for Housing attended the committee last week, as the lead minister for decarbonisation of heating in homes. As you are aware, the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action and Energy has the overall lead on the climate change plan and will be attending the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee on 10 February.
We meet in a crucial period for climate action in Scotland, when the impacts of climate change and the need to confront the challenges through reducing emissions and building resilience are overwhelmingly self-evident. In February last year, the First Minister called on all parts of Scottish society to play their part in responding to the climate emergency, which, he acknowledged, requires the continued leadership of the Scottish Government. The draft climate change plan published on 7 November last year demonstrates that leadership and contains the actions that we must all take—Government, the rest of the public sector, industry, other organisations and individuals—to reduce our emissions and realise the economic and social benefits available from doing so. Scottish local authorities are crucial partners in that effort. For that reason, the draft budget that I delivered to the Scottish Parliament on 13 January included an additional £20 million in capital funding for local authorities to respond to the climate emergency.
My draft budget demonstrates that this Government remains committed to playing our part in global efforts to tackle the growing climate emergency. Despite the current difficult financial circumstances, we will invest at least £5 billion to support our efforts to deliver a just transition to net zero and climate resilience. That includes money for renewable energy development, carbon-free transport, more carbon-free heating for businesses and homes, and funding to restore Scotland’s natural environment.
Delivering climate and nature action at the scale that is needed will incur significant costs, but, as Professor Graeme Roy, chair of the Scottish Fiscal Commission, has said,
“Doing nothing, not responding to the challenge of climate change, will be far more expensive and damaging to the public finances than investing in net zero … it is simply not an option.”
The draft climate change plan will deliver on our first three carbon budgets from 2026 to 2040. The carbon budget levels are in line with advice provided by the Climate Change Committee and demonstrate that the Scottish Government’s ambition and commitment to delivering net zero carbon emissions by 2045 at the latest is unchanged. That is complemented by the Scottish national adaptation plan, which focuses on building resilience to the effects of climate change that are already with us and can no longer be avoided.
This draft climate change plan is the first in the United Kingdom to include the costs and benefits of the policies within it. Those policies can deliver significant advantages for all of Scotland, both in terms of direct financial benefits and wider co-benefits across society—such as cleaner air and reduced road congestion—as more of us switch to using public transport where possible.
The draft plan includes action to boost investment, create green jobs and capture the economic benefits that the green industries of the future offer. Scottish businesses are already realising those opportunities in growing global green markets from our world-leading offshore energy services to new and emerging opportunities in hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, and green finance.
A key focus of the committee has been the buildings chapter of the draft plan. We know that our building practices and heat in buildings policies are essential to the level of emissions that the sector is currently responsible for, but also because that is critically important for the just transition in Scotland.
Public consent for climate action is also crucial for the effective delivery of Scottish Government climate mitigation policy. We know that we risk that consent if we cannot deliver warmer homes and more affordable energy bills, or we risk exacerbating fuel poverty. That is one important reason why the policies in the draft plan have been assessed against the just transition principles. This assessment also contributes to ensuring the deliverability of the policies, and we are looking forward to strengthening that further through discussions with stakeholders and key delivery partners, including local authorities.
Finally, I have to say plainly that the success of the draft plan also depends on action from the UK Government. Most significantly, as the committee has heard previously, steps must be taken to reduce the price of electricity. The Scottish Government has been pressing the need for that, and the Climate Change Committee has also called for it.
The Scottish Government will continue to engage widely throughout the consultation period of the draft plan, and I hope that all interested parties will have a chance to share their views on the plan and the action that it includes.
I am grateful for the opportunity to make this statement to the committee, and I would be happy to take questions from you.
Thanks very much for your opening statement. You made some very good points, which I am sure that we will pick up on through our questions. I will open the conversation with general questions arising from our previous evidence.
Throughout our scrutiny, we have heard that councils want much more clarity on what they are expected to deliver under the climate change plan. Is it intended that the final plan will set out clearer and more concrete expectations for local authorities, including measurable actions? Given how limited the time is before the plan is finalised—we are also approaching the end of this session of Parliament—how will the views that we have heard from councils and other stakeholders be reflected in the final version?
The whole point of having a draft plan is to hear views then reflect that feedback, particularly where there is consensus on issues.
The Scottish Government regularly meets the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to discuss net zero issues. COSLA is a member of the climate change plan advisory group, which has contributed to the development of the draft plan. There is that direct and fundamental connection to the draft plan that is in front of you.
As you know, local authorities are independent of the Scottish Government, but the draft plan outlines the direction of travel across seven sectors of the economy that ministers consider to be necessary to reduce our emissions and contribute to delivering net zero, particularly by reducing emissions from heating buildings. Transport and waste are particularly relevant to local authorities and their responsibilities.
We consider the information in the draft plan to be particularly relevant and useful to local authorities in deciding how they will contribute to the delivery of Scotland’s climate change plan and achieving net zero.
We are also working with local authorities to take forward the climate delivery framework, which aims to enhance collaboration between local and national Governments to effectively address climate change and achieve net zero targets by 2045.
Relevant work under that framework includes the improvement of data and climate-informed decision making through the roll-out of the Scottish Climate Intelligence Service and the development of an overview of the various net zero commitments and targets that have been set by individual local authorities. We are also working with COSLA to deliver workshops for local authorities to discuss the draft plan.
I hope that all that will help to clarify expectations. That does not mean that all 32 local authorities will do the same thing and focus on the same thing. Urban local authorities will perhaps have a different focus from rural local authorities, which is absolutely fine. Some of the areas that I have described will help them to define what they are going to focus on delivering, and there are tools to make that happen.
There are seven sectors in the plan, but there is not a dedicated sector for local authorities, because there is a thread of expectation running throughout. Annex 3 assumes that there will be extensive local authority delivery, but my sense from our evidence sessions is that the roles are not clearly defined in that space.
When we had that evidence session with the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers, COSLA, the Scottish Climate Intelligence Service and a couple of others, I was very moved by the fact that they really wanted to get on with it and were ready for it. That was fantastic. It is important to do whatever we can at the national level to support that and to remove blocks and barriers.
As you have said, local authorities are different. They will start from different places on what they need to address. I am interested to hear how confident you are that all local authorities are in a position to drive the level of progress that the plan depends on. What will the Government do in situations where councillors are struggling to keep up the pace?
The honest answer is that, like everything else, 32 local authorities do not all move at the same pace. Whatever the area of delivery, there are always some that are further advanced than others. For example, heat networks in Glasgow are quite far down the road in respect of the financing, the models and how to test and make that happen, whereas other local authorities have not progressed so much. Part of that might be the size of Glasgow and the capacity that its local authority has compared with smaller local authorities. However, the sharing of information is important, so that, once something has been done, it does not have to be reinvented 32 times and there can be learning from that.
There are opportunities for collaboration between local authorities. That will be important in thinking about district heating systems and technology. Things are being done that could be delivered across more than one local authority area. That is the way forward.
Some of the very small local authorities may need further support on how they can contribute. The support that I have referred to—there is also other support—can help those smaller local authorities to define what they are going to do and how to do it. It is fair to reflect on that.
That is also an issue for rural and island communities and councils, where it is a challenging space to deliver some of that. It is good that we have the carbon neutral islands project, which gives us an understanding of the challenges that they face. I would be interested to understand whether the Government has considered front loading support or giving more support to those harder-to-transform places where, for example, we will not necessarily get people on to buses, because there are no buses. How do we ensure that we bring those places along?
09:45
That is a fair comment about the bus network in rural areas—lack of availability can be a challenge. That issue has been raised with me, and the Cabinet Secretary for Transport is very aware of it.
Interestingly, we have been working very closely with Shetland, Orkney and the Western Isles on a new accelerator model for the islands. The accelerator model, which is a way of generating funding for infrastructure investment, has been used successfully in many parts of Scotland. For example, the model has been used in Granton, in Edinburgh, in relation to housing, with the Scottish Government contributing to the revenue costs of borrowing.
We have not yet used the model in an island context, but it is really important that we do so, because our island communities, particularly those in Shetland, host a lot of renewables infrastructure and there is the sense that communities need to get something back for hosting it. The accelerator model that we are exploring is a good way of providing for that, because the priorities will be determined by those on the islands—we expect the local authority to discuss the priorities with the local population. “Payback” is probably not the right term, but that model acknowledges the pressure on infrastructure from hosting major offshore wind farms, for example, and we are being up front about the need for investment in infrastructure, housing, roads and so on. Some of that work will relate to decarbonisation and reducing bills.
I am quite excited about applying the accelerator model, and the three island authorities have been keen to work with us in developing it.
That is very interesting. I was going to ask this question later, but I will ask it now, because you mentioned renewable energy and the idea that, given that Shetland islanders are hosting such infrastructure, they should get more infrastructure that will benefit them personally by transforming their lives and that will support them to help us to meet our carbon ambitions.
Has the Scottish Government explored opportunities for community ownership of renewable energy? Countries such as Denmark and the Netherlands are often cited in that regard. In Denmark, there is 50 per cent community ownership of renewable energy, although that could include community and local authority ownership. Have you thought about entering into those conversations? Ownership, rather than benefit, could bring considerable income for local authorities and communities to help us to achieve the ambitions that we are talking about.
In Scotland, there are some small-scale examples of community ownership, which is a sound principle. However, the scale of the offshore renewables sector in Shetland, for example, is enormous and private investment is required on that scale. We have to make a judgment. We have limited resources—hardly a day goes by when I do not remind everybody of that—so we need to think about how we balance public sector investment with private sector investment and that can be done effectively through partnerships.
I have referred to the principle that communities must see the benefit of such infrastructure investment. Hosting that infrastructure can lead to pressures and disruption, so it must also lead to direct benefits for those communities. That can be achieved through ownership, but it can also be achieved through the accelerator model, for example, whereby we help with the costs of local authority borrowing for infrastructure investment.
It is important that companies consider the investment that is required. Some have invested in housing, which will result in permanent affordable homes being available in the future, but more work can definitely be done in that regard.
I should also mention the community and renewable energy scheme—CARES—which supports small-scale ownership and works with investors on community benefit. However, some of the developments that we are talking about are not small scale—they are huge, and they are really important for the Scottish economy.
For sure. Let us look at community and local authority ownership of onshore wind. Orkney Islands Council has done a great job in setting about offering ownership of a number of wind farms.
Although the scale is big and we need private finance, is there a space where the Government, perhaps through the Scottish National Investment Bank, could support communities to own a piece of such developments? The Government has the ambition of at least 10 per cent of energy being community owned. It is fantastic that the island of Yell has five wind turbines and that Tiree has one, but I am not talking about small developments. When big wind farms are put up onshore, communities need to have some ownership of them. I think that that would help with the general direction of travel that the Government wants to go in to meet its renewable energy ambitions.
We agree with that principle. The CARE scheme is one avenue that will help that to happen.
Thank you. We will move on to a new theme—costs, finance and council capacity—on which Evelyn Tweed will begin the questioning.
Good morning. Thank you for your answers so far, cabinet secretary.
How will you set out the expected distribution of costs and benefits across local authorities? How has that informed your budget decisions?
We give support to local authorities through the local government settlement, which underpins local government finance. In my opening statement, I mentioned the £20 million of additional capital that we are providing in the budget, which builds on the funding that local government got last year.
We also support local government to develop its plans. I mentioned some of the supports that we provide, which include the climate delivery framework and the Scottish Climate Intelligence Service. There is also the public sector heat decarbonisation fund, the heat network support unit and the Sustainable Scotland Network.
In addition to the settlement, we provide various funds to support local authorities to get on with their work in this area. I do not know whether any of my officials has anything to add.
As the cabinet secretary said, one way to think about the issue is to think about the policy areas where local authorities will have the biggest responsibilities, which include areas such as transport, buildings and, in particular—in the first instance—public buildings. Funding is available for the decarbonisation of public buildings. My colleague Gareth Fenney might want to say more about that. Another big area is waste. The budget clearly sets out, as does the spending review, areas where such funding has been set aside. Local authorities will get that funding in the time-honoured way, through the mechanisms that have been agreed with COSLA for the distribution of funding.
You mentioned benefits. That is an important issue. It is probably a trickier one, in some respects, because some of the benefits will be more national, and it might not always be apparent where they will fall in individual local authority areas. When it comes to, for example, how much individual consumers who buy an electric vehicle might get, it might be straightforward to work that out across the country, but when it comes to the wider benefits, especially what we call the co-benefits, such as the health benefits that come from tackling climate change, that is more difficult to work out.
Local authorities would probably want to see the national gain from those benefits rather than see gains by specific parochial area. However, we will want to work with local authorities to establish more clearly what those benefits are, if only because—as the convener might have suggested earlier with regard to community ownership of renewable energy—if you can demonstrate those benefits for a local area, it makes a powerful case for making such changes. That area of benefits and how they play out locally is very much at the forefront of our minds, particularly as work goes forward.
I can pick up on the area-based schemes that we spoke about last week. One of the key ways in which we work with local government in the heat in buildings space is through the area-based schemes. The funding settlement that local government gets includes funding for area-based schemes. The formula that sits behind those allocations is agreed with COSLA and local government and takes into account some of the costs of delivery. A rural or island area will have higher costs for delivery, which the formula accounts for, as well as the rate of fuel poverty. We are looking at how best to target and distribute that funding for those area-based schemes and delivery.
Phil Raines mentioned support for public buildings decarbonisation. That is not done on the basis of allocations to local government. There is a fund for that, through which we work with local government in order to support their projects on buildings decarbonisation. It is a more centralised fund that is there to support delivery.
Thank you.
To move on, cabinet secretary, we have heard from local authorities that they are worried about funding gaps for services such as social care and so on. How are you balancing the budget? You have said that £20 million will be in place for climate change policies. How will you balance everything overall for local authorities?
That is a challenge across the whole of the public sector, given the varying, competing demands upon it, of which tackling the climate emergency is one, and social care, which you mentioned, is another. In the 2026-27 budget, we will provide local government with a real-terms increase in the settlement, bringing it to almost £15.7 billion. As I said earlier, the budget will also allocate time-limited capital funding of £20 million to support councils in responding to the climate emergency. How that funding is allocated is a matter for councils. We have also given councils a lot more discretion, baselining of funding and reductions in ring-fenced funds, which can help local authorities to meet the demands that they face. No one is saying that it is easy. However, like the rest of the public sector, councils will have to ensure that they can manage, using the levers that they have—which include full discretion over council tax—to set their budgets and meet the priorities of local people.
We will move on to questions from Fulton MacGregor, who is joining us online. [Interruption.] Fulton, your mic is not on yet. Hang on a minute. This is where we get to have a little pause and catch our breath.
Can you hear me now?
Yes.
Good morning. I will stay on the same theme. What scope is there to offer local authorities multi-year spending plans in order to support the delivery of net zero policies?
The spending review sets out what I would describe as indicative spending envelopes for the course of the spending review. However—and it is a big however—every spending review becomes more of a guide, rather than showing where things end up in reality. I do not think that there has been a spending review in history where the actual figures ended up being the same as those that were originally set out. All that we can do is set out, on the basis of the spending envelopes from the UK Government’s spending review, what is anticipated.
10:00
If you look at the course of the spending review, you will see that it is a bit V-shaped, with 2027-28 being particularly difficult and 2028-29 being a little bit better. There is also a real-terms decrease in capital over the spending review period. Do I think that that will hold? Absolutely not, given that there will be a UK general election in 2029, apart from anything else. I suspect that that trajectory will change.
Moreover, I would point out that the 2022 spending review assumed that, by 2025-26, local government would get something like £10.7 billion. I will need to get you the exact figures but, in reality, the figure was about £2 billion higher than that.
The point that I am making, perhaps in a rather long-winded way, is that spending reviews are a guide, but the reality of the funding changes, because of in-year shifts, further consequentials, or changes to the UK spending review, or all those things. I know that local government has made some commentary on the fairly flat cash outlook across the spending review but, as with every other spending review, those will not be the figures that local government, or the public sector generally, will end up with.
Thank you for that clarification, cabinet secretary.
Do you have any plans to use finance and workforce planning levers to support dedicated multidisciplinary net zero teams within local government?
I will ask Gareth Fenney or Phil Raines to take that question.
I am not aware of specific dedicated funding for that. It would probably come through the general funding that local authorities receive, and they can decide how best to support their own capacity building, skills and team building on that basis.
Our contribution in that respect comes, as the cabinet secretary has said, through our joint funding with COSLA of the Scottish Climate Intelligence Service. In a sense, we provide the resource to support the building up of those kinds of skills and teams and the capacity for local authorities to understand the different climate change challenges in their area and how best to marshal data and respond as appropriate. So we are investing in a central resource to help build the kinds of teams and the kind of co-ordination function that I think that you are referring to, but I am not aware of any dedicated funding for creating those teams. I think that that would fall more within local authorities’ own responsibilities.
Thanks for that clarification.
I have a final question, convener, if that is okay. The evidence stresses the fact that local authorities sit almost at the intersection of housing, transport, planning, public health and so on. How can you further ensure that local government finance settlements support integrated place-based programmes, rather than siloed funding by portfolio?
That is a fair challenge, and we must continue to work to get out of siloed funding. It is quite difficult to do that, because of the way in which budgets work, but we absolutely should do it, and there are great examples of place-based funding approaches. Granton, which I have mentioned, is a good example of various parts of government and various funding streams being brought to bear in a locality in a way that can be more impactful than the sum of its parts. It is looking at land, housing, transport, renewables and even artworks. We are bringing together a huge number of different parts of government to focus on a place that will be really important for growth, for housing and for the Edinburgh city region.
We can build on that good example and take a place-based approach more generally to ensuring that our funding goes further and is more impactful. We can get better at doing that, if I am perfectly honest.
Thanks, cabinet secretary, and thanks, convener.
Fulton, you mentioned that you might have a supplementary question. Did you manage to get a response to it?
The issue was covered, thank you.
Okay—super.
I want to pick up a couple of points that Fulton raised on workforce capacity. Annex 3 of the plan does not include any modelling on that. Do we need to look at that aspect? It is about more than local authorities forming small teams of multidisciplined and knowledgeable people; it is also about whether we have the capacity. Do we have people coming through the pipeline who have those skills? That came up frequently in our evidence-taking.
I suspect that those discussions are getting picked up in the framework and in the workshops. My colleagues can speak to the detail of that. [Interruption.]
You do not need to switch on the microphone; we will do that for you, Philip.
Thank you. Would that it were true for so many things in life. [Laughter.]
There are a range of issues to do with delivery that must be worked through, including ensuring that there is a pipeline of workforce skills and capacity for local authorities and, indeed, others, to deliver what we set out in the climate change plan. We will be hoping to set more of that out in the final climate change plan, not least by responding to some of the comments that we have received on the draft CCP and through evidence for committees such as this one. We will work through what that means for local authorities at the workshops, which will be kicking off in the next couple of weeks.
We did not want to lean too heavily into delivery or capacity-building issues in the draft, because we saw it as the opportunity for setting out what it is that we want to do. Once we start getting feedback on the draft, that begins to shape how we do the thing that we want to do, rather than Blue Petering it, if I can use that expression, and just saying that it is all done and dusted and presenting the final plan.
We recognise that there are issues that we need to work through, and we have the mechanisms to work them through with local authorities. I think that there is a will on both sides to push ahead and make good on the enthusiasm that you noted in the evidence from local authorities to the committee.
We might need to have a jargon-busting glossary to explain what Blue Petering means for some people who are watching this or reading the Official Report.
I want to pick up on the cabinet secretary’s points on Granton. Throughout this parliamentary session, there have been conversations about how we get out of silos. It seems to me that Granton is a very fine example of considering everything together, including transport and housing. I want to celebrate that and note that it can be challenging to get out of those budgetary silos. Once something is on a spreadsheet, it can be difficult. Granton is a fantastic example and it would be great to see more of that happening across Scotland.
Yes, definitely. I would agree with that.
We will move on to partnership working, community engagement and infrastructure. I will bring in Willie Coffey initially with a few questions.
Good morning. On the theme of community engagement in its widest sense, how will the Government and our local councils progress things in order to bring the public along with us on the journey?
I am forever hearing from constituents about how little they know about—their lack of awareness of—how to get on this journey with us and who they can trust for advice and guidance. Will you share your views on how we can improve that and reach every community in Scotland on this journey, while meeting the hopes that we have for the transition?
I will bring in colleagues on the detail of this.
I referred to public buy-in and acceptance, and consent is really important too. It is fair to say that there is a lot of misinformation out there—that is stating the bleeding obvious—particularly in the climate change and net zero space. Ten years ago, there was a political and global consensus about what needed to be done and why. I am not sure that that is the case any more.
It is incredibly difficult to get good, factual information that can counter some of the disinformation and misinformation. It comes down to trusted sources of information and to who people trust—and, again, that can be difficult. There is something about the connections that local authorities and community organisations have with their local communities, where discussions can be had that are genuine and a flow of information can be produced that does not sound like lecturing. There can be a two-way conversation where people can express concerns. We have talked about the hosting of infrastructure—local communities need to see the benefit from that, and there has to be a genuine conversation about it. It can be difficult to do that when there is noise, particularly on social media, and things can be misrepresented in a flash.
There are no easy answers in that regard, but the more local that councils can go with community partners, the better. There are some really good, tried-and-tested structures in local government around consultation with community partners, in relation to not only climate issues but many other issues. There is no blueprint for doing that, but it has to be about trusted partners and good-quality, factual information that can help to counter some of the misinformation.
If I may build on the cabinet secretary’s point, the Scottish Government has recognised the importance of investing in and providing the structures that help to enhance already existing community engagement structures. We have invested in climate action hubs—a network of places where that climate-related engagement with local communities can take place. Local authorities are involved in that, too. An event will take place tomorrow with the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action and Energy, which will look at how climate action hubs can respond to and take forward the climate change plan.
At the same time, we have been investing annually in how we might engage with local communities and how local communities can be part of that wider climate conversation. There is funding through the climate engagement fund, which is an annual fund that will be continuing into next year and which supports projects across Scotland that enrich that dialogue. I suspect that, over the next year, much of that dialogue will focus on what the climate change plan will mean for local communities and how to ensure that there is the buy-in that the cabinet secretary spoke about.
People may be sitting in their homes right now, listening to us. Where should they go for information? Would you point people towards Home Energy Scotland, for example? It has a good website—I have been on it. Would you suggest that people look at their local authority’s website to see how they can participate in the transition? Would those be the routes that you would recommend to people who want information now?
10:15
I might respond to that in several ways. There are people who may want to take part in the discussion around climate change. They might ask, “What does it mean for my household?”, “How can I support it?”, or “What if I have concerns about it?”
Some of the engagement mechanisms that I have spoken about—particularly the climate action hubs—are part and parcel of that. There is something about ensuring that people who have an interest in heating, transport or other aspects that affect their lives—particularly services that are delivered by local authorities—make choices that are informed by climate change. They may not necessarily go somewhere to learn about climate change; they may be interested in heating—you have drawn attention to one of the key sources of information on heating—and find information on climate change in that way.
It is about how we mainstream consideration of climate change into everything that we do. That will be the trick for ensuring that climate action is part and parcel of our discourse and our lives going forward, and that it is seen as a thread that is running through all the different services and all the different parts of our civil, economic and social lives.
On the specifics of retrofitting the heating systems in our homes, is there a role for councils to be the principal trusted partners? Again, I have engaged on that with my constituents, who say, “We don’t know who to trust. We are scared that, if we buy a system from company X, it may not be there this time next year.” I hope that councils will always be there, so is there a role for them to participate much more widely? The private residential sector is nine times the size of the remaining council stock. I know that some councils are beginning to retrofit their housing stock, particularly flats. Do you see a role for councils to be the trusted partner—perhaps a delivery partner—that could engage with the private residential sector in Scotland to get the transition moving at pace?
That model could work. I go back to my earlier point, which is that some local authorities will have more capacity than others. Glasgow and the surrounding conurbation would potentially have more capacity and more ability to enter into potential contracts to deliver on big ambitions, if we think about tenement properties as an example. Other local authorities that are much smaller and may have very different housing stock will be in a different position.
One of the reasons that Glasgow is so far ahead with its district heating plans is because it has a view on how it can move forward in a way that suits multi-tenure properties and different business requirements. Potentially, district heating could be a good, affordable solution. Through public-private collaboration, you could have ready customers through a hub that is run by the public sector, which could help to move things forward. It could also provide an option for businesses to come on board. Glasgow is looking at a hub-and-spoke model.
Gareth Fenney may want to say something about retrofitting. I expect that Màiri McAllan touched on that last week.
We spoke a little about that last week. Area-based schemes are really good examples of councils leading the charge with retrofitting. At the moment, it is limited to certain building types and certain areas. There is a really good example of that not far from here at Lochend, where the tenement blocks are being retrofitted. That work is transformative. The focus is on the council’s stock and on in-filling owner-occupied stock, working with the local community. When I visited that project, someone getting off a bus stopped us in the street to ask, “When are you coming to work on my block of flats?” That was really exciting to hear. I think that that councils absolutely have a role here.
Last week, Ms McAllan referred to a review of our schemes that we are starting to kick off, and, over the coming financial year, we will be looking at the role of area-based schemes and place-based mechanisms. We are very keen to work with local government to understand how we can evolve its role and build on what it is doing at the moment, but it is, absolutely, a trusted party.
The example that I just gave of somebody stopping us in the street as they were getting off the bus is a really good one for showing the trust in that local government scheme. People are saying, “This is happening to my neighbours. When are you coming to treat my property?” I think, therefore, that local government has a critical role to play in that support mechanism and in helping people understand and navigate what is to come.
In that respect, the local heat and energy efficiency strategies—or LHEES—are very important, too. They are local government led, with 32 now in place, and they provide a really good communication and engagement tool that can be used to start to have conversations with communities and individuals about what is to come in their area. That is happening over a very long period of time, but it is the start of a longer-term plan that needs to be built on and then rolled out.
Cabinet secretary, you mentioned the price of electricity. Again, my constituents say to me, “Why should I switch to something that’s five times more expensive than what I pay at the moment? Gas is four or five times cheaper.” I do not have an answer to that. You have said that we do not control those costs, but one of the other issues is the cost of buying, say, a heat pump, which can be £14,000. I know that grants are available, but they do not quite reach £14,000, and people say to me, “I can’t afford that, so I’m not in the game when it comes to the transition.” That is why I was asking whether councils could play a role in being the volume provider in order to bring the price of units down significantly and make them affordable for people to make the transition.
There are economies of scale with regard to price. Obviously, there are grants, as you have said, but the price of electricity is a major issue, and we have been pressing the UK Government on pegging electricity to gas and on the need for a renewable electricity price differential. The benefits to Scotland from that would be immense. I can reassure you that we regularly raise the issue with the UK Government, and there has to be movement on it.
Do you see there being any movement in the next few years?
If you look at the UK Government’s overall ambitions, you might say that it is probably not facing in a hugely different direction from us. Certainly the rhetoric is there, but there has to be movement, given the many things that would flow from the approach, which is viable—I am thinking of the cost-effectiveness argument, tackling the fuel poverty issues and so on. There has to be movement; I guess that you just have to remain optimistic.
Thank you for that.
I want to pick up on Willie Coffey’s point about councils being a volume provider for air-source heat pumps or whatever technology might be appropriate for a house. It is an issue that we have discussed in our evidence-taking sessions, but is it something that councils could do? Is there any space in procurement for that? Are there any blocks that would prevent them from doing that, or could they just decide, “Yeah, that’s a good idea—let’s be part of that roll-out and be a trusted provider”? I know that Home Energy Scotland offers a pathway for people to find suppliers or those who can fit the technology, but Willie Coffey was asking whether councils could be the place to go if you wanted to buy these things, because of economies of scale and therefore reduced prices? Would there be any block in the way of councils doing that, if they decided that they wanted to?
I am not entirely sure. We could revert to you on that. There might be procurement or state aid issues—
It would be good to have a look at that.
We will come back to you on that specific question.
That would be great.
Willie Coffey is not done with his questions, but we will move to Mark Griffin for the moment and then come back to him.
Good morning, cabinet secretary. The convener has talked about community or council-led, owned and developed renewable energy schemes, but we have heard that among the blockages in that respect are infrastructure and grid capacity issues. Has the Government done any work with local authorities on identifying such issues and any potential solutions to them?
I will bring in Philip Raines to answer that.
There is a general answer to that. I do not want to pass the buck again, but I can say that there might be a specific example around heat in buildings that might encapsulate the issues.
A theme that is running through this evidence session is that different local authorities will have different sets of needs. Once we are clear on the policies and expectations going forward, following work with local authorities in the run-up to finalising the climate change plan and beyond, the important thing will be to work out what it is that they need and what the different expectations should be. They will be different for transport, for waste and for heat in buildings. How they work out will probably depend on the situation in each local authority area.
There will be a need to help the local authorities to better understand what their infrastructure needs are going to be. They have to be able to work with their communities and their citizens to determine what they need to do from an infrastructure perspective in the areas in which local authorities play a particular role—I mentioned three sectors where that is the case. They will also need to have the resources and the capacity to be able to take that forward.
Gareth Fenney can talk about heat in buildings, particularly in relation to how the LHEES might work in practice.
There are two things to touch on. The issue of grid capacity is reserved to the National Energy System Operator, the network companies and the regulator, Ofgem. We are working with them and seeking to engage with them. A big area of focus with them is the regional energy strategic plan, which will set out how networks will need to evolve over the longer term. It is the mechanism by which they will plan and facilitate that early investment in capacity and network upgrades, so that is one of the key things on which we are working with the NESO and engaging with local government with regard to how development can fit in with those strategic plans and how that can unlock longer-term development.
On the heat side, the local heat and energy efficiency strategies are a key enabler, guiding that development and identifying where a heat network is or needs to be developed over the long term. That is an engagement point for those conversations with the energy network companies and the distribution network about where investment should be made ahead of need and how we can work together to make sure that that investment is planned.
There is a need for forward planning, working with the NESO on the regional energy strategic plans and using the more localised mechanisms such as the LHEES to drive that forward and plan that engagement over the longer term.
The other area that I wanted to cover concerned how local authority planning departments deal with the requirements in the climate change plan.
National planning framework 4 requires planning authorities to give significant weight to tackling the climate crisis in planning decisions. What is the Government’s expectation when it comes to balancing that requirement, which relates to the climate change plan, with other competing priorities, such as the housing emergency and economic development priorities? How are council planning departments expected to balance the sometimes competing demands of action on the climate, on the housing emergency and on the economy?
That is a fair question. As you pointed out, local development plans are currently being prepared by planning authorities, and they have to take NPF4 into account. In recognition of the competing demands and the fact that some local authority planning departments are quite small, the planning hub has been developed with an explicit priority focus on renewables and housing to enable additional support to be given to local planning authorities that might struggle, particularly with large and complex applications.
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There is also something for local authorities to reflect on around whether planning is ripe for looking at in relation to shared service agreements. There is a lot of competition among local authority planning departments around recruiting staff—they quite often end up taking an experienced member of staff from somewhere else, and so it goes on. There is scope for looking at how planning departments might operate on a more regional basis or share resources, rather than all of them competing for the same things from a limited pool.
Work is also being done to train more planners in recognition of the importance of the profession’s expertise and the need for a pipeline of people coming through. We can write to the committee with some detail on that. The planning hub was born out of the recognition that capacity and expertise are sometimes challenging issues.
The planning hub is a centralised resource. Are there any plans, in addition to that, to give direct support to planning departments in taking forward the recommendations in the climate change plan?
I am happy to write to the committee with more detail about the role of the planning hub, but my understanding is that it will support local authorities. I am not talking about support with the small developments that are local planning departments’ day-to-day meat and drink; I am talking about support with some of the complex, large-scale applications that some local authorities will deal with more than others, depending on their location—there are obvious reasons for where some of those developments are happening, and the planning hub should be in a position to give that additional support.
Ivan McKee is overseeing the hub, which was set up with that approach very much in mind. I am, however, happy to furnish the committee with a bit more up-to-date information about what is happening and what practical support the hub might lend to local authorities that are trying to deal with things that could consume all their time because of the complexity. We will set that out in writing.
Cabinet secretary, this question is about the role that local authorities can play in decarbonising the transport network. Constituents tell me that they would much rather go to a park and ride in an urban setting or just outside it, in a town such as Kilmarnock, and make their journey to places such as Glasgow rather than queue on the M77, which is chock-a-block with cars northbound and southbound every day, to be perfectly honest. Is there enough in the budget to encourage councils to develop park and ride at scale to encourage people to make that modal shift?
When I make my journeys to Edinburgh from Kilmarnock, the M77 is constantly chock-a-block, and I get the sense that modal shift is not taking place, partly because it is difficult to find big park-and-ride spaces in a town such as Kilmarnock. By and large, do you consider that there is enough encouragement, funding or otherwise to promote that and to work with bus companies such as Stagecoach, and ScotRail on their capacity to take extra people on their services if we succeed in getting park and ride working properly?
Again, it is horses for courses, and what might be a very good solution for one area might not be for others, depending on location. However, as a principle, that can work effectively. It comes down to regional partnerships and regional planning, because aligning all the things that need to be aligned will span more than one local authority. I would have expected ideas like that to be part of discussions among the regional transport partnerships on how they come together to look at modal shift and set clear priorities for the available funding.
Do you see much evidence that that is taking place? I appreciate that my journey is restricted to the M77 and M8—my life involves driving on that road quite a lot—but do you see it taking place elsewhere? Are authorities providing those facilities to get people out of their cars and on to the buses and trains?
I see that local authorities are looking at all those issues, and often discussing them on a regional basis rather than individually, so that is a good thing. However, what emerges from that is a different question, because there would need to be a process of negotiation of priorities. One local authority may not have the same priorities as their neighbouring authority, which is where things can sometimes become quite difficult.
Nevertheless, I would hope that those types of initiatives on modal shift would emerge as part of the on-going work that is supporting local authorities to come together to prioritise and plan. Park and ride is one idea—there are many others—for how to make public transport more accessible and affordable and how to encourage people out of their cars.
We can certainly have a look at whether any partnerships are specifically considering park and ride. I am not aware of specific details in that regard, but we can ask transport officials to provide the committee with some detail on that.
I will broaden the discussion a little bit, because it has been flagged to the committee that transport is one of the hardest areas in which to get a shift, whether that is modal shift or something else.
I saw nodding heads. Do you recognise, through the climate change plan, that transport is the hardest area, and that we therefore may need additional financial support and clearer recognition in that space to support local authorities with initiatives such as EV roll-out and integrated ticketing? Willie Coffey highlighted the very good example of park and ride, which would support behavioural change among people who want to take public transport.
What does the Government see in that regard? We have the Verity house agreement, so local authorities are empowered to do their own thing, but it is the Government’s climate change plan. What kind financial support would come with that acknowledgement?
I will bring in colleagues shortly. Transport is critical. It is presented as a negative net cost—that is, a net saving—because the financial benefits that accrue to households and businesses through things such as the electrification of transport and modal shift are expected to be greater than the financial costs, so it is a biggie in terms of delivery. We are exploring opportunities for marketisation to reduce the public sector costs of the actions in the draft plan, including transport actions, because the costs of all that cannot be borne by the public sector alone; it simply would not be sustainable. We need the public and private sectors to work together at both local and national level if we are to achieve our ambitions.
Those are my initial thoughts—Phil Raines may want to come in on that.
There are different ways to tackle that issue—there will never be just one way to do it. A lot of it will come down to modal shift—as you rightly point out, convener—and the incentives that the public sector, through both local and national Government, can provide in that regard, as well as the electrification of transport, hence the investment that is being made in EVs. National Government has specific roles in doing different things in that respect, The draft plan gives examples of that, and I can perhaps best support the cabinet secretary’s answer by providing the committee with some examples.
There is support for behavioural change. We want more people to use EVs instead of fossil fuel cars. There is a role, in the budget, the spending review and the climate change plan, for national Government to support the investment in EV infrastructure and to consider incentive schemes and what have you. That is about national Government trying to affect the decisions of individual consumers.
There is the point that Mr Coffey raised earlier, which you were also alluding to just now, convener, about the support that national Government can provide for regional strategic approaches. The active travel budget is all about enabling that. It considers how best to integrate different transport systems to support a shift away from specific transport modes and also looks at measures that are aimed at individuals—for example, cycle schemes.
There is also what you might call the blue-sky element, which is consideration of how to invest in areas in which the ability to decarbonise lies some way in the future. Heavy goods vehicles are an important example, as they have a longer journey, if you will, towards decarbonisation.
The climate change plan sets out policies for that and the spending review sets out what that would look like for much of the first carbon budget period. Those are different areas where national Government has a clear role to play in supporting local government.
Thanks for setting out those examples. Are you looking at integrated ticketing? Even though we have the Verity house agreement, it would make sense for ticketing to be a national process, given that people travel throughout the country. For example, I travel from Moray through numerous local authorities to arrive at Edinburgh. Will integrated ticketing be considered at a national level?
I will come back to the committee with that information, because I do not have it to hand. I assume that it would be done on a national basis—either that or on a regional basis. I would struggle to see how it could work effectively at a very local level. Let me come back to you on that.
Great. We now move on to our next theme, which is data and monitoring. I will bring in Alexander Stewart for that.
Good morning. Data and monitoring have been identified as areas in which local authorities see a need to combine local and national infrastructures for dealing with intelligence and managing data. That can then help to disseminate data and ensure that funds follow. It is important to know how the Scottish Government plans to support the development of national intelligence and data so that we can make the most of the information that national and local government have by ensuring that information is shared to allow planning and monitoring of climate change policies. It would be good to get a flavour of what you think that looks like and how it can be managed to ensure that that data is effectively collected and shared.
I will ask officials to come in with detail on that, because they are closer to how it will work in practice. However, we have recognised the issue of data. The Scottish Climate Intelligence Service has been mentioned a few times during this session. It is jointly funded by the Scottish Government and all 32 local authorities via COSLA on a 50:50 basis. I think that its funding was about £1.8 million for 2025-26.
It is largely a capacity-building programme that takes a unique approach to supporting all local authorities. It is not just a data platform; it helps to build the capacity that is needed to solve the climate challenges that we have been talking about today. That includes using the data to inform your plans and then deliver on them. It also makes links with other organisations, such as Adaptation Scotland; officials will be able to tell you more about that.
We will look at how wider just transition considerations might be brought into that work. That is the overall aim, but Phil Raines might want to say a little more on that.
I will just make a small correction. The 2025-26 funding for SCIS is £1.1 million.
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I apologise.
There are lots of numbers in the text.
The issue with monitoring and evaluation is about ensuring that the national data is collected as timeously as possible to allow the tracking of ministerial legal responsibilities. Ministers have responsibility for ensuring that the carbon budgets are met, so how do they know whether that is happening? That involves a combination of the outcome measures—ultimately emissions— and knowing about national policies on EV take-up, heat pumps and what have you. It is about ensuring that local authorities have what they need to take forward what makes sense for them, and giving them the capacity to collect the data that they need.
I think that Mr Stewart alluded to the capacity for understanding that. We have a role in supporting local authorities to have those skills. We also need to ensure that, where they are collecting something that is important nationally, we can collect that. That is what SCIS is helping to develop, and the climate delivery framework has identified that as one of its key priorities. There is a clear shared interest in local authorities being able to do that. That is where we envisage a lot of the work developing over the rest of this year, particularly on the delivery side, because monitoring and evaluation are critical.
The shared ideas that you mentioned and the monitoring that needs to take place are crucial. You alluded to the fact that some councils are struggling and others are not, depending on the priority that they give to the issue and how they lead on that. It is about early warning systems, evaluating and ensuring that local authorities have that in place.
Do you have views on how that can be achieved? As we have heard, not all local authorities are running at the same level or starting from the same point, but we all want to try to reach the same goal. How do they achieve that in the timescales that you have set and with the funding packages that are open to them?
I would have thought that the framework would help with that, but Phil might want to say something.
Probably the best way to do that is through the climate delivery framework. You establish the de minimis that all local authorities can do, and you make sure that they have capacity for that. You ensure that certain information systems or data gathering are set up. You then start with collecting what you might call the bare minimum data that everyone collects, but you keep investing to help areas to develop what they need, either to support increasingly sophisticated national data gathering or local data gathering.
Many local authorities already have systems, and there is something about facilitating the learning between areas. For example, Glasgow has terrific experience with regard to heat in buildings decarbonisation, and it has been very active in sharing that learning with others. It is about using that and building up that approach, at a national level, in supporting local areas and in helping local areas to support themselves.
We have heard about the plans for early warning indicators. How will those indicators be developed as part of the plan to link with local government reporting duties and their existing data collection in order to capitalise on and capture what you and local authorities are trying to achieve and to make progress on meeting the goals and targets?
A lot of that will be about the prioritisation of what kind of data gathering investment you want to take forward. Historical emissions data lags. You do not want to wait two years, which is what we do, to find out that we should have done something two years ago. A lot of work has been going on, certainly among Scottish Government analysts, to look at those early or trailer indicators and what have you.
The trick will be, as we work with SCIS, and as SCIS works with local authorities within the climate delivery framework, to work out the de minimis for those early warning indicators. As I am not the analyst myself, I cannot provide that level of detail, but there are ways of doing it. If we were able to do it collectively, in a way that enabled all local authorities to feel not only that they could benefit from it but that it would support the national effort, we would want to prioritise that aspect going forward.
Thank you.
I have a couple of questions about data. I represent the Highlands and Islands, and when, in 2021, I went off to visit folks around the region, I met and spoke to climate officers across local authorities. At that point, their feeling was, “Oh right, we’re in this new role. What are we measuring against? What are our benchmarks? What are we all trying to do? Is there anything coherent?”
At that time, there was no sense of everyone having to do the same thing, so we had local authorities doing different things. Is the aim of the Scottish Climate Intelligence Service to get some coherence and create a bit of a benchmarking framework, to ensure that local authorities are looking at, and we are measuring and monitoring, the same things?
The simple answer is yes. However, what that looks like is, I think, still to be worked through for different types of indicators.
Right.
It is also important to point out that local authorities often set their own benchmarks. A lot of them have their own sets of targets and have made their own commitments, much as we have nationally, and they are looking to ensure that their systems are, for their own reasons, able to capture those things, too.
I guess that consistency will be one of the central goals of SCIS over the next year or two, so that we know exactly what we mean when we look at certain things and we know exactly what the benchmarks are. We will then need—much as Mr Stewart was saying—to build upwards from that core set of early warning indicators so that we can get the right information. It will give us a more sophisticated way of collecting and analysing that information, and it will help both the local and national effort.
Thanks—that is great.
Going back to the conversation on early warning indicators, I note that annex 3 of the plan relies on those indicators, while the plan, in general, seems to be going for more of a back-loading approach. We seem to have a lot of staging grounds and a lot of preparation happening up to 2030, and then suddenly, somehow, we have to move very quickly.
That raises a lot of questions about confidence. I am concerned about the fact that a lot is going to come towards the end of session 7. After all, 2030 is pretty much the last year of that parliamentary session, and then we will suddenly be into session 8—and that is when we are going to get some movement. Have you been thinking about the timing?
I will bring in Phil Raines in a second, but we have for sure been looking at the phasing of the climate plan.
The reality is that, although we can plan ahead on what we think we know, technology moves on. The political climate, too, might move on in a way that is not entirely helpful. We can set out our expectations and our plans for what we know and expect to happen, but—and I am going to end up talking about unknown unknowns, which I want to avoid doing—it is fair to say that there are risks inherent in assuming something to be the case that might end up not being the case.
All we can do with a plan that spans this length of time is to set out our objectives, the flow of funding, what we think can be done and when we think it can be done. Beyond that, it is very difficult.
I would add that much of where we need to get to by 2045 depends hugely on behavioural change. It might be something of a cliché, but there is a lot of truth to the view that much of the heavy lifting in our decarbonisation journey—that is, doing the big things such as decarbonising the energy system and getting big results from that—has already been done. What we have to do now is persuade people to change their lifestyles to adapt to the new world that we are moving into and to get the benefits of that.
Behavioural change never really goes linearly. Often, it requires a lot of change in the environment and an investment in different things before tipping points are reached. Those tipping points will differ. We may be reaching a tipping point with electric vehicles, for example, but we are probably some ways from a tipping point for decarbonising our domestic heating systems. We would not expect a simple line, and what the curves look like is very much into analytical terrain.
From our perspective, it is no surprise, given the weight that behavioural change will need to play in the road to 2045, that there will be a lot of investment with maybe not as many signs that decarbonisation is moving as rapidly as we would expect when that investment kicks in, particularly towards the end—maybe carbon budget 3 or 4 in the run-up to 2045.
That, of course, cannot be used as an excuse for not making the investment or taking the action. However, there may be a distinction between showing the commitment and taking the action and expecting results from it.
Okay. This is not necessarily a question but a comment to tie together a couple of things that have come up in the behavioural change piece that you just talked about and what the cabinet secretary said about the need for trusted partners and trusted sources of information.
When COSLA, SOLACE, SCIS and others gave evidence to the committee, I was heartened by the amount that they were leaning in and wanting to get on with it. I wonder whether more could be done by national Government to support the telegraphing—getting it out to people—that our public services are doing the work and they understand that we have to take action on climate change.
Those services are already putting work in place but, somehow, that is not necessarily filtering through to people on the ground—to constituents. I was just really struck by how ready the services are—they are beyond ready; they are already doing it. They are or need to become trusted people who could telegraph the need for behaviour change, modal shift and so on.
This is a draft plan, and the reason that we are having these conversations is to work out what more needs to be done and what particular emphasis needs to be given. We will definitely feed that back. We can take back both the fact that the role of local authorities and their trusted partners is very community-based, and the question of whether there is something to do on better communication, consultation and two-way conversations about what communities want and on working in partnership with people—as this cannot be done to people.
We will take that back as something to reflect on for the final plan.
That would be great.
I have a couple more questions, under the heading of next steps. I touched on this at the beginning—given the very limited time between the end of scrutiny and the finalisation of the plan, I am interested to understand what processes are in place to ensure that parliamentary and stakeholder feedback genuinely shapes the final document. I will integrate my other question, seeking concrete examples: what feedback has already been integrated into the climate change system? If it is a living document, that would be great to hear about.
I will bring in Phil Raines. However, to give you further reassurance, I will build on what I have just said: a draft plan is a draft plan, and we absolutely want to hear views and reflect them in the final plan. There will be all the normal gathering of information and feedback—whether parliamentary, external or from our partners in local government and elsewhere.
Phil, I do not know what you might have by way of examples or next-steps mechanisms.
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It would be poor practice to simply down tools and wait for the Parliament to provide its report and for reports to come at the close of the public consultation. I think that we mentioned that we are having a range of discussions with stakeholders: we have talked about local government, we have mentioned the climate action hubs, and a lot is going on with business partners, environmental non-governmental organisations and so on.
We are, therefore, getting a lot of feedback. Although I would not want to say that, every time we get feedback, we go back and change the draft climate change plan—it is not a living document in that sense—we have been absorbing it. We have been following the evidence sessions closely. Colleagues are listening carefully, as they should, to what is being said, picking up the themes and getting a sense of the diversity of views. We are not waiting to take action, because we know that the timescales are tough. They are tough for the Parliament but they are equally tough for us to respond.
You asked for an example of the final climate change plan having built on those responses. I come back to the example that the cabinet secretary has already mentioned: delivery. When we put out the draft climate change plan, we knew that it might be, to some extent, a bit of hubris on our part to set out the policies in it and then say exactly how we would deliver them before we had a chance to debate and discuss more widely those policies, their efficacy and their appropriateness.
Now that we are starting to get that feedback, we know that we have to capitalise on the enthusiasm to get on with things that you have noted among local government partners and which exists among delivery partners more widely. We need to think about what those delivery mechanisms might look like—how we hit the ground running once the climate change plan becomes part of what this Government and Governments for the next five years will be doing.
We will set out more detail on that in the climate change plan. Obviously, it will be subject to the agreement of ministers—there will be cabinet discussion. Nevertheless, we know that we need to develop further in some areas, and that point is coming directly out of the feedback from sessions like this one and from talking to stakeholders.
Thanks very much.
I will pick up on a quick supplementary question that I meant to ask earlier. You mentioned climate action hubs. How much support do those get—how much checking in and bringing them all together? How many do we actually have across Scotland, and how much support do they get? You have identified them as an important place for people to come to for an understanding of what is going on and how they can participate and contribute. How much are they supported?
My colleagues will probably chide me for not having the number exactly to my mind. It is well into double figures. We will write back with that, maybe saying something about the financial support that has been set out as part of the budget and the regular engagement that the hubs have with one another—they get a lot of support in that way—and with central Government. We can come back on that.
That policy area is very active. It is a critical one for us, and we invest heavily in it.
I have certainly attended hubs in my local authority area. They are very vibrant and active in doing great work.
That brings us to the end of our discussion and our questions. I very much appreciate your joining us this morning. It has been very helpful and insightful, and I look forward to seeing how we have influenced the final plan through our sessions.
I will briefly suspend the meeting to allow for a changeover of witnesses.
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Meeting suspended.
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On resuming—
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Budget Scrutiny 2026-27