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I certainly do not think that accusations of overgenerosity would come from any source, but there certainly could be accusations of a lack of flexibility.

I have to say that, unlike in England, as has been pointed out by academics on the cross-party group on life sciences, which Michael Marra and I are members of, all the Scottish universities work together in partnership, but the English ones do not.

It would be helpful to know that, because there are real concerns that local authorities would then have to allocate money from other capital funds, which are already under pressure, to ensure that those levelling up projects are completed.

I will move on. The Scottish Local Authorities Economic Development Group—SLAED, which is not to be confused with the 1970s pop group—has submitted information to us and raised a number of issues. For example, with regard to how funding was allocated, SLAED was concerned that no local authority that had been successful in round 1 was successful in round 2 and that that was

“a consequence of a UK Government decision, taken at a late stage in the process, not to approve any bids submitted by a local authority that had been successful in round 1. This gives rise to doubts that the bids selected were not necessarily the best submitted in terms of quality.”

Why did the Government decide to do that? Some authorities are a lot bigger than others, and Glasgow is an obvious example. Glasgow had a number of projects that it wanted to submit because it has a disproportionate number of deprived areas.

However, Clackmannanshire, which is one of the smallest local authorities—and the smallest mainland local authority, with about 50,000 people—had real difficulties with the timescales for submitting allocations, so it was unable to bid. Clackmannanshire Council said that it is disadvantaged because of its size and the lack of staffing capacity within the local authority. Those kinds of projects do not come up all the time, so the council does not necessarily have officers sitting there hoping that they will.

With regard to other local authorities that have not received funding, some local authorities might, on paper, seem prosperous across the board. East Lothian is an obvious example, because much of East Lothian is very prosperous, but parts of East Lothian are not prosperous at all and the area includes some of the most deprived areas of Scotland. East Lothian Council therefore feels that the metrics that the UK Government is using do not take account of some of those issues.

Thank you very much. I will open up the questioning to colleagues. The first to ask questions will be Liz Smith.

Given that no one else has mentioned the multiply programme so far, I thought that I would touch on it.

Secretary of state, you have talked a lot about partnership working, but South Ayrshire Council, a Conservative-led authority, has said:

“the allocation for Multiply which accounted for over 17% of ... UK”

shared prosperity fund

“resources, was ring fenced ... it is doubtful whether South Ayrshire Council would have determined such allocation if it had been given discretion on this matter. The programme could have been more effective by aligning and combining both numeracy and literacy interventions. The Multiply financial allocations follow an even pattern. It will be challenging to spend”

even

“one third of our Multiply allocation”.

Surely, if there has been partnership working and not imposition, as you have said, that situation with a Conservative authority would not be happening.

It is becoming more important, but it seems odd that the UK Government should even be involved in the multiply initiative, given that education is completely devolved. If we are honest, it has not been brought in through partnership working. The UK Government has decided that it is going to impose it on Scotland, and that is it. I cannot think for a single minute that the Scottish ministers said, “Oh, that’s a great idea.” They would have been happy if you had allocated additional funding through the block grant that they could spend on education, but to come in and impose something on which even Conservative authorities do not believe they can fully utilise the allocated resources is clearly a concern.

I am quite sure that they would be willing to work cross-border.

We have to finish at noon, so we have only a couple of minutes left, but I will say one final thing before I wind up. Zoe Billingham, director of the Institute for Public Policy Research think tank, said that the National Audit Office report on levelling up includes

“a litany of missed deadlines, moving goalposts and dysfunction in the way levelling up funds have been allocated to councils as part of the government’s flagship programme.”

In Scotland, we have also had the imposition of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020, which means that it cuts across devolved policy. To give you the final word, secretary of state, what will you do differently to ensure that levelling up is much more impactful and effective for those it is trying to assist?

Good morning and welcome to the third meeting in 2024 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee.

We have one item on today’s agenda, which is to take evidence on the replacement of European Union structural funds in Scotland from the Rt Hon. Michael Gove MP, Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations, in the United Kingdom Government. Mr Gove joins us online. A very good morning to you and welcome to the Finance and Public Administration Committee.

We have almost 90 minutes for the evidence session. Before I open up the discussion to members, I understand that Mr Gove would like to make a short opening statement.

Has that happened? Do you have any examples of where that has happened in Scotland?