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Thanks for that. You have spoken about welfare extensively. In your report, you mention that the GBGB welfare strategy does not give sufficient attention to behavioural issues and the mental states of dogs, even though those form two out of the five domains of animal welfare. Will you expand on the importance of those domains and how they relate to greyhound welfare?

There are a couple of things that I want to raise. I want to come back to the issue of centres—policy objective 1B—and add into the mix that we have our fantastic national planning framework 4, which is pointing us towards more town-centre regeneration. That is something to keep an eye on, because, as we try to retrofit houses and create more housing in town centres, we will be adding additional pressures; for example, Mark Griffin talked about issues with families living nearby. If that is the direction of travel for how we want our town centres to regenerate, it is worth keeping an eye on the fact that we will have a higher population and more activity in the streets. I take on board the mechanisms that you described for offering people a way to bring things to our attention.

I have some concerns about objective 1C in the paper, which deals with port development. Our paper mentions green ports specifically, but they are not in discretely defined areas. A number of the ports are Edinburgh ports. I want a little bit more detail about the order of what is happening. That comes from a concern about a potential loss of community voice, for communities of interest and communities of place. If a development starts to happen that is affecting them, what recourse or ability do they have to raise that concern? The paper states that the order

“provides for development to be undertaken by the statutory undertaker’s agent.”

Can you tell us a bit more about who those agents are?

You described something very specific there: bus stops. What else could be brought in under this?

Thank you, minister, for your patience. The committee has discussed various issues, and we want to seek reassurance from you on a couple of points of concern.

With regard to policy objective 1A, on electric vehicle charging points, 105 buildings are part of the cladding review process, and there are concerns about whether the wall-mounted EV charging points will interact with any of those buildings. Are you aware of that situation? How can we handle that?

Thank you very much for that.

On policy objective 1B, on town centres, there is concern about the ability of the public to participate in anything that might affect their lives and about the removal of the neighbour notification. Can you give the committee some reassurance about how people could participate? The concern is that, if a business makes a move to set up an outdoor seating area, it will be difficult for the public to find out that that is happening on their doorstep.

We are a bit short of time because previous business went over time. Colleagues, I ask you to roll your questions into one, where that makes sense and is possible. Guests, we want to hear from you, but if something has already been said—

You get the point. It has been a challenging morning.

Thanks for that. Story telling makes things so much more accessible.

I want to go back to Alison McGrory on asset-based versus deficit-based community development. You said that the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act provides guidelines on the approach. Is there not flexibility in that? My understanding is that guidelines are just that and do not say, “You must do it this way”. Do you feel that in the guidelines there is not flexibility to move to an asset-based approach? You made a really good point about building on what is already working. Is there scope there, or does something in the legislation need to be reviewed?

The next item on our agenda is an evidence session on community planning. We will hear about the experiences of health and education community planning partners. This is the fifth session in our post-legislative scrutiny of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015. Our inquiry is looking at the impact of the legislation on community planning, and at how community planning partnerships respond to significant events such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the current cost of living crisis.

I extend many thanks to our witnesses for joining us. We are joined by Craig McArthur, who is the director of health and social care in the East Ayrshire health and social care partnership; Alison McGrory, who is the associate director of public health in the Argyll and Bute health and social care partnership; and Alison MacLeod, who is the strategy and transformation lead in the Aberdeen City health and social care partnership. As Alison MacLeod is joining us online, I ask her to let the clerks know when she would like to reply to a question by typing R in the chat function. Craig McArthur and Alison McGrory can just indicate that to me or the clerks. There is no need to operate your microphones, as that will be done for you.

Annie Wells will begin our discussion with questions about the challenges that communities are facing.

Thanks very much for that. It sounds as though clarity is really important.

How is it going in Argyll and Bute, with the LOIPs and locality plans?

Good morning, and welcome to the 10th meeting in 2023 of the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee. I remind all members and witnesses to ensure that their devices are on silent and all other notifications are turned off during the meeting.

The first item on our agenda is a decision on whether to take items 4, 5 and 6 in private. Do members agree to take those items in private?

Members indicated agreement.