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My final question is probably for the cabinet secretary again. It relates to some of the evidence that we heard from the prisons, in which they more or less said—this might not be an exact quote—that alcohol is no longer a major issue within prison estates, and that, occasionally, there might be some hooch around at Christmas time. That was almost a direct quote from one of the witnesses. However, they said that, in general, alcohol has been overtaken by drugs—synthetics, in particular—as has already been outlined today. Is the Government interpreting that alcohol is no longer the issue in prisons that it used to be? How is that affecting or impacting policy decisions on drug and alcohol use in prisons?

Yes. I also have a question on the back of Alexander Stewart’s line of questioning, on which I tried to come in earlier.

Good morning to the panel. Your evidence session has been good. I apologise for the fact that, perhaps ironically, there have been some issues with the technology here. Who says that we do not plan these things? It almost makes the point that I want to make in some of the questions I will come on to. The issue was that both my camera and my microphone could not be accessed at one point. I have been here and I have heard the session. A good old logging off and logging back on again seemed to work. There you go—sometimes it is not too technical.

Before I come on to my main line of questioning, I want to go back to the issues around the workforce, because that was an interesting discussion. For clarity, I was a local government employee—a social worker—for 12 years. I loved my job and I loved being a council employee, although I worked the 70 hours that were referred to—I remember that well. I should also probably declare an interest in that I was a Unison member for the whole of that time.

When constituents come to see me when there are changes in councils, what strikes me—it struck me when I was a council worker—is their place in the decision making. Often, they feel that the decisions are taken by the high heid yins, as we call them, or by councillors—or maybe a mixture of both—and they are not involved in them. I remember many times, when we were losing services or whatever, we would be told that that was what was happening—and that was the end of it.

Do you both have any ideas for how workers could be more involved in the decision-making process? How could they be involved in saying whether services should be going or not going? Or is that too complicated for councils to do? Everybody would want no services to go. However, if you start from the point that there have to be some cuts in the current climate, how could workers be kept involved in that process?

Yes. You have made some good points. Unison generally does a good job. Sometimes, though, the issue is when people hear about decisions, which has nothing to do with Unison or the people who are affected. Often, when a paper goes to a council committee meeting, people only hear about it online because somebody happens to share it, and the decision is only several weeks away. There is then a bit of catching up to do.

I am sure that you will both be aware of the situation in North Lanarkshire fairly recently, when the grading of early-years workers was changed, which caused an enormous uproar. Every MSP, MP and councillor surgery was inundated for weeks afterwards. There was then consultation, and there were discussions with workers, but there was not enough time before the decisions were made. That is just an anecdotal point that I wanted to put on the record.

Convener, can I just check something? There was a wee bit of me logging on and off a while ago. Do you feel that the AI and digital literacy stuff was covered? That was around the time that I was logging off and back on, to try to fix the problems.

We like loaded questions.

The only other thing that I want to ask about is the union’s role at a national level with regard to public service reform. If you want me to ask that now or to leave that until later, that is up to you.

That is great, convener. I wanted to check that.

I want to ask about collaborative working between councils and other organisations or services. Integration joint boards, community planning partnerships and things like that are key in that regard. How is that collaborative work going, and can any more be done to improve those relationships and improve services?

Thank you, convener. What level of involvement do you feel that the trade union movement has in the work of the Scottish Government at a national level? What input do the unions have to the Scottish Government’s public service reform board and local authority transformation programmes? Could they have more input? What would the value of that be?

Good morning to the panel. Councils are generating more income from fees and charges for certain services. Do you feel that councils assess the impact of increased charges on individuals and communities, or is it more the case that charges are put in and that is it?

An example from my local authority is the new charge for the brown bin, as it is known locally, which caused a wee bit of an uproar. Meghan Gallacher will be aware of that, and so will Mark Griffin. That is just one example. There are other examples where more is being charged for leisure services in order to cover costs. How does that fit in with preventative policy approaches? In what ways are councils assessing the impacts on people?

I will come back in on councils looking at what others are doing. That is a great idea and it should be happening. North Lanarkshire Council looks at other councils, as other councils look at it, but that cannot be only about mimicking or bringing in a service because another council has brought in the same service. All the assessments and engagement might have been done in one council area but, if the change is just replicated without the same engagement elsewhere, that is where issues can start. That was just a wee point.

My second question is on the reduction in the use of ring fencing that has happened in the past three years. Councils are telling us that there are still too many restrictions on how they can use their funding allocations. Andrew Burns, what more do you think needs to happen to allow councils to have more autonomy in how they spend their money? Do you have any other ideas?

Yes—it does. I have one final question. We heard at last week’s meeting that the allocation mechanism that is used to distribute Scottish Government funding is not working as well for some smaller local authorities. Will you outline how a new fiscal framework can help to overcome some of those issues for councils that are as small as some of those that we took evidence from last week?