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I am conscious of the time, and this is a huge issue. You are absolutely correct to recognise that all of us have a mutual interest in this area.

The first thing that I would say is that we should recognise culture for its intrinsic value and acknowledge that it is to be enjoyed in and of itself—I do not even feel comfortable using “culture” as a catch-all label for all the diverse fields that it covers, but let us use it just now as shorthand. Yes, it can certainly help to draw people into town centres, stimulate conversation, promote further investment and attract more businesses to an area, but we must first recognise that the contribution of artists across any medium should be valued in and of itself. That is a positive thing that our town centres can offer.

Culture is hugely important to the discussion that we are having. It adds to the experiential point that I made earlier, because it takes us beyond the idea of town centres as just being somewhere functional where you go to get your messages, to get your hair cut or to go to the pub. Because of synergies, town centres are greater than the sum of their parts. Culture can involve utilising the existing assets in the built environment. For example, in Galashiels, we are providing support to the Energise Galashiels Trust, the local development trust, which is running the town and tapestry project—I think that that is what it is called; I will correct the record if it is not. There are QR codes on buildings in the town, so people can hold up their phone’s camera and get a history of the architecture, which helps them to get a deeper understanding of their built environment.

Another thing that is happening in Galashiels is the commissioning of murals. Anyone who walks around Glasgow will see that as well. It enhances the environment in which people live and helps to give them a sense of place and identity, which is important for town centres.

Although out-of-town retail plays a hugely important part in our economy in providing employment and services, town centres and city centres can provide a sense of identity, place, history, heritage and “where Ah’m fae”. That is an X factor, of which culture is an important part. It can manifest itself in a range of ways, from something as simple as encouraging people to look up and learn the history of their environment, through a mural on the wall to a significant investment, such as the great tapestry of Scotland, to draw people from outwith the community. The ways in which it is applicable are multifarious and as diverse as culture is.

That is a really important question to which there is no easy answer, although I can say that there is a range of ways in which we do that. In planning, for example, the Scottish Government supports Planning Aid for Scotland, which in turn provides support. We have also agreed with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities a target of 1 per cent for participatory budgeting, and we have a shared ambition to move away from having dedicated pots of money for that activity to mainstreaming it. That, again, is about continuing engagement. If the committee wishes to explore that, I can point you to a fantastic example of PB in Ferguslie Park in Renfrewshire.

That approach helps to engage people and gives them agency and a say in their community, which can have a catalysing effect. After all, when people get involved in one issue or project, it encourages them to get involved in more issues.

I recognise the point that the views of groups that are defined as the voice of the community are often not necessarily recognised by everybody within that community, so ongoing work has to take place on that.

Local place plans have recently been introduced through regulations that came about through the Planning (Scotland) Act 2019, and they provide people with more opportunities. We recently finished consulting on new-style local development plans, on which we will publish our response in due course. That response will examine how we can increase community engagement with, and involvement in, the planning system. We are all aware that when it comes to planning, engagement often takes place at a point of conflict rather than through collaboration. The earlier in the process communities engage with the planning system, the more likely it is that they will feel that they have agency and a role in shaping their community, rather than that they are reacting to proposed changes.

There is a range of support available through local place plans, participatory budgeting and the support that we provide to communities directly through the community asset transfer process or through our empowering communities programme, for example. However, fundamentally, some cultural change will also be required, and that will take time, so work needs to be continuous.

Community empowerment is one of my responsibilities. With the forthcoming review of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 I am very alive to that and am keen to continue dialogue about how we can maximise involvement and engagement from all communities—not only on the future of our town centres and planning, but across a range of areas and service delivery.

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to the draft order, which relates to the provision of extracts of documents that are held in registers under the control of the keeper of the registers of Scotland.

The keeper plays a vital role in the Scottish economy by safeguarding property rights through the registration of documents in the land register and register of sasines, in addition to the registration of documents in a number of other registers that support the legal profession.

Extracts are copies of registered documents that have an evidential status equivalent to that of the original and which can, therefore, be used in lieu of the original, including in court. Prior to the pandemic, they were mainly issued as paper documents in line with how customers interacted with ROS at the time. However, since the pandemic began, the majority of extracts issued by ROS have been in digital format. That reflects the way in which ROS’s and the legal profession’s work has shifted towards the use of digital services where possible.

The provision of digital extracts has proven hugely popular with stakeholders. Strong support has been expressed informally and through public consultation for enabling the provision of digital extracts across all the keeper’s registers. The order seeks to achieve that in the following ways.

The register of deeds in the books of council and session has, until this point, remained paper based due to its primary function as a way of preserving documents. However, the register will open to electronic documents on 1 October this year, and the order makes provision that extracts can be issued in electronic format from that time.

The order also sets out the default form of extract to be issued, depending on how the registered document was submitted. Extracts for paper documents will be provided on paper, and extracts for electronic documents will be provided electronically. In both cases, electronic or paper extracts are available on request if the default format is not suitable for the customer.

The order also makes provision that extracts of deeds registered in the register of sasines can be issued in electronic format. That brings the register into line with existing provision governing the other property register—the land register.

Finally, the order makes a number of clarificatory amendments to the Writs Execution (Scotland) Act 1877 in support of the provision of digital extracts and removes reference to legislation that is no longer in force.

I am joined by Harry Murray from Registers of Scotland and Megan Stefaniak from the Scottish Government legal directorate, who will be happy to assist me in answering any questions.

Good morning to the committee. I am grateful for the opportunity to participate.

As, I am sure, the committee will appreciate, we face a challenging time in relation to the real impacts of rising inflation. However, post pandemic, we also have a real opportunity to work together to transform our town centres. The inquiry is therefore very timely.

Our town, city, village and neighbourhood centres are vital to the collective wellbeing of our society, economy and environment. They are part of the solution to the big challenges around economic recovery, climate change, public health, inequalities and more. Those challenges have been exacerbated and accelerated by Covid-19, Brexit and the cost of living crisis.

Our recent response to the review of the town centre action plan recognises that success requires a collaborative approach and working that builds local assets. We need to harness the local energy and pride that people have for their towns and town centres. Its 59 actions coalesce around themes that were identified in the review and are designed to help to deliver our shared ambitions on net zero, a well-being economy and enterprising communities. They demonstrate our shared commitment, with local government and our wider partners, to support communities and businesses.

Our response includes a call to action for all to do their part in rebuilding, re-energising and reimagining our towns, putting the health of our town centres at the heart of decision making. Collaboration and partnership are also the cornerstones for delivering our recently published retail strategy and the city centre recovery task force’s report, the development of national planning framework 4, and the consultation on potential changes to permitted development rights. All those actions build on and strengthen one another.

I will take just one of those policies—the retail strategy. Retail is vital to Scotland’s communities, society and economy, as was clearly demonstrated during the pandemic. With more than 240,000 people employed within the sector, it is the largest in Scotland, with a high proportion of female and young workers.

However, as the committee will have heard, the retail sector has experienced on-going challenges and change, which have been exacerbated by the pandemic. How we shop directly impacts on retail businesses and has implications for our town and city centres. The retail strategy outlines how we will work with business and trade unions to deliver a strong, prosperous and vibrant retail sector that supports our national strategy for economic transformation ambition to have innovative and productive businesses, regions and communities.

As I announced in Parliament, we will establish a new industry leadership group for retail that will drive delivery of the strategy actions, in particular in relation to improving fair work across the sector. I am delighted to confirm that the group will be co-chaired by Andrew Murphy. Andrew is the chief operating officer for the John Lewis Partnership and has had a long and successful career in the retail sector. I very much welcome Andrew’s insight and expertise in helping to deliver the retail strategy.

I will conclude there, but I reiterate my gratitude to the committee for its undertaking the inquiry at this time, and for the opportunity to discuss these matters.

That is a fair question. There are particular challenges in that, so I am happy to reflect on what more we can do.

David, do you have a comment on that?

Landlords’ attitudes are affected by market conditions and what they consider to be opportunities. I appreciate that CPOs and CSOs are more a stick, but the carrot is that, the more attractive town centres and city centres are and the more opportunities they present, the more attractive it will be for existing landlords to make use of their properties, whether as retail or conversion to residential or to sell on.

Catherine Brown can correct me if I am wrong, but I think that we plan to develop that in the first one to two years

Please correct me if I have misunderstood your question. The funding that is available through programmes such as the place-based investment programme and the vacant and derelict land investment programme is available to all 32 local authorities across Scotland.

We are in the process of establishing the group. I believe that invitations have gone out, but I would be happy to write to the committee once the group has met for the first time to provide an update, if that would be useful.

You will appreciate that the causes are multifaceted, so the response will have to be multifaceted. It is important to remember that there are some great examples of town centres thriving in Scotland, but each town centre is unique and each has a different set of assets on which to build. Ultimately, however, the dynamic of our town centres is a reflection of the underlying economy—not just the total value of the economy, but how it operates.

In his evidence to the committee, Professor Sparks made the point that—it went something along these lines—actions during the past 50 years have cumulatively done harm to our town centres, and it will take time to undo that. We can discuss specific interventions, and I have covered many of them in previous answers when talking about CPO reform, CSOs, PDR, masterplan consent areas, changes to national planning policy and so on. However, the key is our underlying economic model, and that is why community wealth building is so vital. We need to move away from an extractive model to a model that involves more wealth being retained in communities, more democratic ownership of businesses and more pluralistic models, so that the owners of businesses are rooted within their communities. In other words, we need an economic manifestation of a place-based approach.

As far as support for local authorities is concerned, I mentioned the increase in planning fees, which, in some local authorities, is feeding through to an increase in the number of people who are working in planning departments. That will help to address that issue. I have also mentioned the work that is being done on recruitment and retention.

We are doing work in that area, but, ultimately, how local authorities choose to resource their various departments is, quite properly, a matter for the democratically elected members of local authorities to decide on.

David Cowan might want to add to what I have said.