Seòmar agus comataidhean

Why would any Government want economic growth for its own sake? Is the purpose of economic growth not to generate wealth to invest and spend on services?

Jamie Robertson, what is CIPFA’s view on that? It seems that there is broad support for the visitor levy, but there are issues. It is great for Edinburgh and, I imagine, for Katie Hagmann’s Dumfries and Galloway region, but I do not know that North Lanarkshire, Clackmannanshire and certain other local authorities would necessarily be able to generate additional funding in that way. Would it cause a funding imbalance across Scottish local authorities if, for example, Edinburgh were to get £30 million, £40 million or £50 million a year and North Lanarkshire were to get only a few hundred thousand pounds a year, or even less?

Clearly, you are not prepared to say what you feel the settlement from the Scottish Government should be. The committee is trying to pin that down, because it is very difficult for us to make recommendations to Scottish ministers about the Scottish local government financial settlement if local government does not tell us what budget it requires for next year.

There is a lot of pressure on MSPs about teacher numbers: the Educational Institute of Scotland has called for 3,500 more. I recall that we were all lobbied about that earlier this year. There are also frequent calls in the chamber for more teachers, despite the falling number of children in our schools.

Malcolm, what impact is the straitjacket of ring fencing having on your local authority? Those of us who were here in the days of the historic concordat in November 2007 might recall that the Scottish Government was seeking to eliminate that sort of thing, but it has gradually crept back in over the past 15 years or so.

Good morning, and welcome to the 27th meeting in 2024 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee.

Before we start, I put on record our thanks to the Estonian MPs, organisations and officials who met us during our short fact-finding visit to Tallinn last week. There is a lot for us to learn from Estonia’s success story in digitalisation and public service reform, and we will draw on that learning as we continue our pre-budget scrutiny. I thank our clerking team for its first-class organisation and preparation for the visit, which ensured that we met the right people at the right time, that visits went smoothly and that we were all adequately fed and watered. We will publish a summary note about the visit in due course.

The first item on our agenda is to continue taking evidence on managing Scotland’s public finances, a strategic approach. I welcome Councillor Katie Hagmann, resources spokesperson for the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities; Jamie Robertson, chair of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy directors of finance; Malcolm Burr, chief executive of Comhairle nan Eilean Siar; and David Robertson, chief executive of Scottish Borders Council. Thank you all for your written submissions. I have to say that COSLA’s submission was exceptional—it was 41 pages and included 171 paragraphs, and it made for a very interesting Sunday.

We have about 90 minutes for the session. If witnesses would like to be brought into the discussion at any point, please indicate that to the clerks and I can then bring them in.

I will start with COSLA’s submission. Katie Hagmann, in addition to providing a very detailed submission, you have added a wee summary. One of the things that you mention in the summary and, indeed, frequently throughout the submission is the need to provide “adequate, sustainable and flexible funding” for local government. Can you expand on that? It is a rather vague statement. Can you give us a wee bit of a steer on where you feel that local government funding should sit in the forthcoming Scottish budget?

Still on local taxation, we know about cruise ship levies, visitor levies and even workforce parking levies. I would not think that any of those would have a massive impact on local authority finances. Which other areas would you like local government to look at, Malcolm? You mentioned reform. If we were to reform local government finance, which other areas should local authorities have control over? Would they include a local sales tax, for example?

Katie Hagmann, Estonia has only 1.3 million people in 79 municipalities, whereas we have 5.4 million people in 32 municipalities, so municipalities there have about a tenth of the population of ours. It has one connected digital system, called X-Road. Is the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities working with local authorities to ensure compatibility of systems in order to ensure that the savings that are made can be made at the national level and will therefore benefit local authorities directly?

I am heartened to hear that COSLA is engaging with all 32 local authorities to ensure that we have one system that can operate across the country. Would the national health service be linked to such a system? Using Estonia as an example again, I note that one of the advantages of its system is that it connects the entire public sector together. You have talked about care, but obviously there is a very strong interaction between health and care in this respect.

Given how time is moving on, the housing indicator will be the last one that I touch on. I also want everyone to have an opportunity to say something to round things off.

The proposed new housing indicator says:

“We live in safe, high-quality and affordable homes that meet our needs.”

In the previous evidence session, we heard about very high-quality but not particularly affordable housing that one local authority is providing. Allan Faulds, with the resources available, how can we maximise that indicator?

I am thinking specifically about the vulnerable groups that the ALLIANCE considers and deals with.