Seòmar agus comataidhean

Not at all. I will ask you about one more thing, and then I will move on to Mr Burr and open out the rest of the session. It is about the 12 questions that we asked. I was intrigued to note that the response to three of the questions was “Not applicable”. I will ask Mr Burr about the reasons for that in a moment. In Dundee’s submission, you did not respond to questions 10 and 11. Question 10 was one of the questions that Mr Burr also did not respond to. Question 10 was:

“What level of support and guidance has your organisation been given by the Scottish Government to deliver the efficiencies and plans necessary for your organisation, and how adequate has this been?”

Mr Tough responded to that, but I wonder why Dundee did not. What is your view on that? Do you feel that you are not getting the guidance and support?

Mr Burr wants to come back in.

Good morning, and welcome to the 20th meeting in 2023 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee. We continue to take evidence on the Scottish Government’s public service reform programme. With names hopefully pronounced correctly—we had some debate at this end of the table—we will hear from Malcolm Burr, chief executive of Comhairle nan Eilean Siar; Robert Emmott, executive director of corporate services at Dundee City Council; and Iain Tough, head of corporate support at East Ayrshire Council. I welcome you all to the meeting. I will allow up to 75 minutes for the session. If witnesses wish to be brought into the discussion at any point, please indicate to the clerks, and I can then call you. We have your written submissions, so we will move straight to questions.

My first question is to Mr Burr. Let us start at the beginning. One of the things that we have been asking about is sustainable services. The submission from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities used the phrase “fair and sustainable funding”. What does that mean to you, bearing in mind the comment in your written submission that your local authority has had consistently the biggest reduction in revenue funding over the past few years? Will you talk us through that?

That appears to have concluded questions from the committee. Are there any further points that you would like to make before we conclude the session?

Okay. Thank you very much for your evidence this morning. It was very helpful to the committee. We will continue taking evidence on this subject after the summer recess.

That concludes our public evidence taking. As the next item on our agenda will be taken in private, I will call a five-minute recess to allow our witnesses to leave.

Mr Emmott, all the evidence suggests that, even when you know that funding is only for one year, medium to long-term planning is extremely important. Do you not agree?

Staff will always be a major component, if not the major component, in all local authorities, no matter how digitalised they become.

Do you see digitalisation as an on-going thing or as a goal where you feel that you will be able to reach optimum service delivery?

I have talked about shared best practice among local authorities for many years. Should other local authorities look at how East Ayrshire does asset transfers? What could you learn from how other local authorities deliver services?

I thank the committee for my appointment, and I thank in particular my colleagues Michael Marra and John Mason, who have convened the committee’s meetings in my absence.

As I rejoin the committee, I declare that I have no relevant interests.

Under our next agenda item, the committee will continue our inquiry into the Scottish Government’s public service reform programme. Today, we will hear from Sarah Watters, who is director of membership and resources at the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, and Cleland Sneddon, the chief executive of South Lanarkshire Council, who is representing the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers Scotland. I welcome both of you to the meeting.

I intend to allow up to 75 minutes for this session. If the witnesses would like to be brought into the discussion at any point, they should indicate that to the clerks, please, and I will call them. We will move straight to questions.

I was impressed by the quality and detail of your joint submission, which is an excellent piece of work. There was one very clear and overriding statement from local government. Paragraph 9 in the summary of key points states:

“Local Government requires fair and sustainable funding and greater empowerment.”

Such themes run right through the document. However, something that I have found frustrating with COSLA on a number of occasions is the fact that, although there is talk of fair and sustainable funding—I think that everyone on the committee is very sympathetic to that; for example, three members of the committee who are here today are former councillors, and Douglas Lumsden was, of course, a council leader—there is no detail on what that really means. It would be good if that could be expanded on a wee bit. We will touch on that and then go on to other points.