Chamber and committees

I have a wee supplementary. Under your leadership, COSLA had its first job-sharing role for a spokesperson. That had never been done before, and it goes without saying that such a move allows local authorities to look at the levels of change in their own areas. It is incumbent on us all to increase representation from different groups. I just want to put that on the record.

President, you have mentioned community wealth building quite a few times in your evidence this morning. In a recent letter to the committee, the Scottish Government said:

“We intend to introduce Community Wealth Building legislation during the current session to encourage the model’s wider adoption across Scotland. Part of this will be removal of any impediments experienced by local authorities and other ... ‘anchor’ organisations seeking to advance a wellbeing economy.”

What is COSLA’s understanding of those impediments? What more can the Scottish Government do to help remove such barriers?

I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests, as I am still a serving councillor on East Ayrshire Council.

What are your views on the role of local government in Scotland’s economic recovery from the pandemic? What actions are required, and how can those be taken in such a way that there is no further increase in inequalities? We know that the impact of the pandemic has been heavily gendered. I welcome your views on those questions.

I will ask about the affordable housing supply programme. We know that Scottish councils share the ambitious target of delivering 50,000 affordable homes over the next five-year term and that they have warmly welcomed the five-year resource planning assumptions that give them some certainty over their plans. However, what evidence does the Scottish Government have on the increasing costs of building new homes and the extent to which that might affect the progress of the affordable housing supply programme? How will that be monitored and reviewed over the next five years?

I want to explore further the issues with diversity that you have talked about. As a former member of COSLA’s barriers to elected office working group, I am aware of all the work that is being done in the background by COSLA and by councils in general to increase the representation of under-represented groups in our councils. You have already touched on the outputs of that working group. Can you expand a little bit more on those today?

What progress is being made on the review of grant subsidy benchmarks and will there still be a differential between councils and RSLs? Are you confident that revised benchmarks will allow councils to meet the shared ambitions of the Scottish Government and local authorities to tackle poverty, inequality, homelessness and climate change?

I thank Brian Whittle for that intervention. The thrust of my speech is around us seeking a way to passport that learning and experience across the country. The local food strategy and moving towards being a good food nation will do exactly that.

On receiving the Soil Association’s gold award for the 12th successive year, Andrew Kennedy, head of facilities and property management of East Ayrshire Council, said:

“Since 2008, East Ayrshire Council has recognised the connections between what we eat and learning, how food helps with our health and how we can support our local producers. We invest in the food on the plate and the value it has, with good quality sustainable meals now the norm in East Ayrshire. Our approach also plays an important role in community wealth building ... for which the Council has received funding to develop Scotland’s first regional approach to CWB through the Ayrshire Growth Deal. ... This means that we are committed to continuing to work with local businesses to support the local economy and to reduce our carbon footprint by continuing to source fresh local produce.”

During the height of the pandemic, East Ayrshire Council retained its school food contracts to ensure that local suppliers did not go under, and every week delivered a staggering 30,000 freshly prepared meals to families who were in receipt of free school meals. At Christmas, boxes also included an East Ayrshire gift card for each child, which gave a boost to local businesses by encouraging families to shop locally.

I turn my attention to a recent news story that emerged when local dairy business Mossgiel Organic Farm in Mauchline in my constituency won the milk contract for East Ayrshire Council. That contract not only supports the farm to grow, but has a huge benefit in terms of carbon and single-use plastics reduction. By installing refillable milk vending machines in every school and delivering supplies via an on-going move to an electric fleet, it is estimated that there will be a whopping reduction of approximately 400,000 pieces of single-use plastic from East Ayrshire primary schools every year.

Farmer Bryce Cunningham of Mossgiel now joins other Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley producers, including We Hae Meat in Girvan, A & A Spittal of Auchinleck and Corrie Mains Farm of Mauchline, in capturing the hearts and bellies of weans across East Ayrshire. I am sure that others will agree that that is fantastic news and a model for replication where possible, in order to aid our growth as a good food nation.

Whether it is local sustainable eggs, poultry, pork, beef, fish, cheese, milk or dry goods, Scotland’s food and drink sector has much to offer our anchor organisations. In many areas just now, we have Scottish Government supported community wealth building initiatives, including—as a Scottish first—as part of our Ayrshire regional growth deal. In order to support the sector and our communities to recover from Covid and the uncertainties of Brexit, it is vital that we ensure that the learning and examples from those pilots are shared across the country.

As has been said already, there is no doubt that procurement is tricky and is often mired in seemingly unchangeable bureaucracy, but strong leadership and a compelling and urgent case for change can focus hearts and minds. From farm and sea to plate, let us make it local.

It was alarming to have constituents contact me during the summer to advise me that their private water supplies were lower or dry and that we were at a standing start for supplying emergency drinking water. I would like to have noted my thanks for the assistance from the Scottish Government to my many constituents who are not on the mains water supply due to the rurality of their properties. I ask that the minister commits to ensuring the robustness of water scarcity reporting so that both spheres of government can react to the real humanitarian crisis when indicators suggest that private water supplies are at risk.

I thank Jim Fairlie for that intervention. Recently, I was on a conference call with the Association for Public Service Excellence—APSE—and Robin Gourlay came on to the call. He has recently retired, so we paid tribute to all the massive work that he did.

East Ayrshire Council serves school lunches that contain very few processed foods. A large proportion—up to 70 per cent—of the food is locally sourced and 15 per cent is organic. All that is done with careful consideration of sustainability and environmental impact. Locally, that approach has resulted in suppliers growing their businesses to accommodate the increased demand for local food in school meals, thereby employing more local people, reducing food miles in the council’s carbon footprint and helping to create wealth that is retained locally. With the creation of 15 community food larders over the pandemic, East Ayrshire is also reducing local food waste and supporting dignified food provision in communities.

I refer members to my register of interests, which shows that I am still a serving councillor in East Ayrshire Council.

I rise to speak in support of the motion and in support of Scotland’s larder and our wonderful producers. They have been tremendous throughout the pandemic, but have also struggled with the real and present challenges that are posed by Covid-19 and Brexit.

I will focus my contribution to the debate on how we can support our food and drinks sector by seeking to adopt right across Scotland a community wealth building approach that will see organisations such as local authorities, health boards, colleges and universities and other public bodies utilise their vast procurement spend within their localities. I am glad that the Scottish Government is currently consulting on the draft local food strategy, because it is hugely important for many policy areas.

Councils are the area with which I am most familiar. The collective council spend across Scotland last year was £23.9 billion, or 14 per cent of gross domestic product. Although a lot of that is taken up by education and social work budgets, a significant amount of money is spent on procurement of goods and services—and, incidentally, on wages, which circulate in local economies.

In my local authority area of East Ayrshire, which is one of two councils in Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley, the council has held the Soil Association’s food for life gold award for more than a decade, and is the only council in the UK to do so. Decisions that were taken at local level all those years ago, on the back of the Scottish Government’s hungry for success initiative, meant that community wealth building principles were at the heart of school food in East Ayrshire long before they came to the fore in the nation’s collective consciousness.