Chamber and committees

I will direct my first question to Mike Staples and Russel Griggs, but I am happy for anybody else to comment. The rural community housing bodies have been awarded funding of £960,000 jointly by the Scottish Government and the Nationwide Foundation. The funding is over three years and is for the Communities Housing Trust and South of Scotland Community Housing to deliver housing projects. What have you been able to plan to do with that money?

Good morning. We have spoken a little bit already about budget transparency, and I am quite interested in the public engagement part of that as well. The Accounts Commission says that is it important that councils are

“clear with the public about their finances and have frank conversations about what services they can realistically provide”.

What led the commission to make that recommendation?

Is that work tied in to early intervention and prevention? I ask that because you mentioned significant sums of money being saved.

Thank you. I should probably put on record the fact that I was a councillor on South Lanarkshire Council until 2022.

Have you done work to explore how councils are communicating and engaging with the public, and whether that is influencing the decisions that are made?

That brings me to my next question. We are 10 years on from the Christie commission and the vision that it set out. I am quite interested in the programmes and the transformation that we have had over recent years, and what leads to successful transformation. Do you have a good example of transformation that has gone well, and can you say what the key reasons are why it has come out better than others?

Could you give a specific example of such partnership working and the empowerment of communities that goes along with that?

You will make sure that you are looking at the whole picture.

That makes sense. A learning disabilities, autism and neurodivergence bill is proposed and there is the possibility of a commissioner. Do you have plans to contribute or feed into that as it develops? What are you doing or are you planning to do on that?

That is good to hear. The video with the young people was absolutely excellent. It was great to see such a wide range of children and young people being represented. One of the quotes that you included in your report is:

“Adults need to step back and see why our behaviour isn’t great. There’s always an underlying thing.”

What representation do you have from groups of young people with particular challenges around additional support for learning, disabilities and so on? How do you look at that? Is it a proportionate thing or something that you balance out? Is there sometimes a need to have more of those young people in your young advisers group or is it more about that group interacting with others in those groups and bringing things forward?