Seòmar agus comataidhean

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.

We will come back to you on that specific question.

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.

10:30

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.

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 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.

I would have thought that the framework would help with that, but Phil might want to say something.

We agree with that principle. The CARE scheme is one avenue that will help that to happen.

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.

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.

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.