Seòmar agus comataidhean

I appreciate that you have been in post for only two months, but our committee is about to produce a report and we are nearing the end of this question session, so it would be helpful to know what that mechanism would look like.

Silke Isbrand, do you want to come in, on the invitation of Councillor Macgregor?

Andrew Burns, what is your view on the leveraging of private finance? Is there a conflict between councils being responsible for their own estate and, at the same time, saying that we need community and/or place-based investments? In that case, the council should also be leveraging private finance for things that are income generating or there is a source of income that is not generated from its own stock.

Stephen, bearing in mind that you identified issues around community bonds—private finance for communities—what is your view on the leveraging of private finance? Unfortunately, the committee had to cancel a visit to Linlithgow, where the council has already used private finance through a solar bond exercise.

You have talked about how to mobilise the workforce and expertise. If the big-ticket items are housing and transport, what can we do about the barriers that you see around private finance? What opportunities exist? Nobody is saying that we will be able to tackle net zero through public funding, even with the best will in the world.

Should councils be leaders in adopting a place-based approach to tackle net zero or should they be interested only in public services and public sector responsibilities?

Is COSLA involved in Minister Harvie’s green finance task force on housing?

David Hammond, will you address the same question and whether you think that council officials have the skills required to embark on those joint ventures or to use different finance mechanisms? What is needed to share that skills base across local authorities?

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the 24th meeting in 2022 of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee.

I welcome to the meeting Edward Mountain, who is joining us for the first time as a committee member. He replaces Dean Lockhart. On behalf of all members of the committee, I once again thank Dean for his contribution to the committee’s work this session. I have, as discussed at our previous meeting, written to Dean on the committee’s behalf.

As Edward Mountain is joining us for the first time, agenda item 1 is a declaration of interests. I invite Mr Mountain to declare any relevant interests.

Thank you very much, Edward.

But there is no obvious transparency about that overall impact to make it clear, whether it should be the board’s oversight or indeed the minister’s oversight.

Could I give you an example? We have talked a lot about volume and you have talked effectively, I think, about how you are managing volume. However, clearly, if Registers of Scotland or lawyers make a mistake, it could have consequences. I think that the rejections could be seen as a good thing—as gatekeeping potential problems with what has been presented. However, clearly, the risk of that is greater—you have said this yourself—from a 2017 case than it is from a more recent case, because trying to manage that risk, or to rectify a problem, whether it lies with your organisation or with the supply chain of lawyers providing the applications, is more problematic if you are carrying more older cases. The potential severity of that impact needs to be measured somewhere.

I am not sure that that is transparent either in what you have been saying to us today or in your corporate plan, or indeed in what I have seen in the risk register; it is just service inputs as opposed to risk outputs to the economy. We are the economy committee, so clearly we are interested in that. It may not always be you, and it might be individual lawyers. Between you and your major customer base—lawyers; obviously, you work very closely with the Law Society—how do you manage the risk of things going wrong, as can and does happen? We know that it will not be large cases; it will be small cases, but those cases could have a major impact.

Do you have a duty of care at all and who holds responsibility for any impact on individuals—you will know about mental health issues that we will come to you about—as home owners or indeed businesses? Where does the risk of that impact lie? Where does the accountability lie? Is that with individual lawyers, the Law Society, your board or you as an organisation? There is definitely a risk there, but who is managing that risk and how do we make it more transparent that it is being managed properly?

I would like to ask about your risk register. We understand that it is published every month for your board. We can find a June 2021 risk register, but I would like to ask about the transparency of that for scrutiny purposes and access for this committee and also about how it has informed your corporate plan.