Seòmar agus comataidhean

Good morning, everybody. I want to ask for your perspective on the wider issue of public engagement and awareness of the agenda. If you were listening to the previous panel, you might have heard me mention the target to deliver zero-emissions heating systems in 1 million homes in the next 10 years, which is about 100,000 homes per year. Where are we on public awareness of that? What might be the role for a national public energy agency in helping us to meet that target over those 10 years?

Thanks very much, convener. I have really enjoyed our colleagues’ contributions. The discussion has been absolutely fascinating.

Most of the questions have now been asked. I hoped to give our colleagues a last chance to offer a final thought about what their key wish would be now. We are the Public Audit Committee of the Scottish Parliament and, as has just been discussed, we have to follow the public pound, with the Auditor General’s help.

I was struck by some of Ryan Smart’s contributions. He mentioned giving food parcels to families who are desperate for them. Is that an audit function? How on earth do we audit such things and the outcomes that flow from them?

I want to give our colleagues a wee chance to offer some final thoughts about what a key ask would be to protect, enhance and retain the good things and the good practices that have come through Covid. How can we retain those into the future? I would be obliged to hear a short contribution on that from each of the panellists, if that is possible.

I am the MSP for Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley.

Can we have a final key ask from Euan Leitch?

That is great.

As for getting time off for public duties, it is pretty much down to the employer and the councillor—the employee—to agree that sort of thing. My experience is that an employer wants to give you as little as possible when, in fact, you need much more if, as you have said, you are to do your job correctly. Do we need to look at what is proper in that respect and recognise that a councillor needs time off for public duties to be able to do the job properly?

My question is about another barrier that perhaps has not been explored yet, and Alison Evison might be best placed to answer it. We are having great difficulty attracting people into local government, and I am thinking of those who are perhaps lucky enough already to be in a job and earning more than the salary that councillors get. How do we get more of those people into local government? Inevitably, it will touch on the issue of getting time off for public duty. When I was a local councillor, I found it incredibly difficult to continue with what I will call my day-to-day job as well as do my council work, given the hopelessly inadequate time off that I managed to get from my employer in order to carry out my public duties.

How can we begin to address that? Should we be thinking of, say, giving people fully paid sabbaticals so that they do not lose the money that they earn from their main jobs? If not, how do we attract such people into local government? How do we ensure that their employers do not lose their service—or. indeed, have to pay for the loss of their service—and that people do not feel as if they are being run off their feet trying to do two jobs at the same time?

Good morning. I am delighted that a wider review is taking place of the 1991 act and the 2010 act, which was the subject of the work that the Public Audit and Post-legislative Scrutiny Committee did in the previous parliamentary session, as the minister will recall. I am sure that members who served on that committee will be listening in to this meeting.

I ask the minister to clarify something. If a person who has been served with a dog control notice in one local authority moves to a different local authority with the dog, does the dog control notice cease to apply in the second authority, or does it still apply?

Good morning to the panel. First, I thank Councillor Ashraf for mentioning Bashir. I was privileged to serve in the Parliament at the same time as Bashir, and I assure people that he is very much missed around the Parliament.

I will put to our councillor colleagues the question that I put previously to Councillor Evison, which was about how to get more people who may be working attracted to local government. Soryia Siddique said that she gave up her full-time job in order to become a local councillor. Junaid Ashraf mentioned that a lot of his friends and colleagues already earn well beyond what a councillor’s pay is. How do we resolve that? Do we put the pay up from the £17,000 or £18,000 that it is and, if so, to what level? How do we attract people who are earning at the moment, and who have to support their family and pay a mortgage, into local government? Do we need to somehow match what a person’s salary is so that they do not lose out financially, to enable them to do the councillor job full time, as Councillor Evison suggested we should? What is the solution? Perhaps Soryia and Junaid could offer a few thoughts.

As you have said, access to the database will be on a national level—any authority will be able to access the database, even if a person with a dangerous dog that is subject to a notice moves around. Should an animal commit a second offence—if I can put it that way—in a neighbouring authority, would that become the first offence in that authority, or would it count as a second offence? You have said that the notice is a civil notice, but breaching it becomes a criminal offence, so it is probably important that a person knows whether, if their dog commits a second act of aggression, such as an attack, in the neighbouring authority, it will be a criminal offence.