Chamber and committees

I will come in with a quick question for Johanna Baxter. When the budget was published, Heads of Planning Scotland and the Royal Town Planning Institute Scotland raised the concern that a long-term challenge lies ahead for planning and noted that, compared with 2009 levels, it is the most heavily cut public service sector. It has an overwhelmingly older workforce, with only 9 per cent of planners being under 30. In light of that, what are your views on how well budgets recognise staffing challenges for local authority departments such as planning?

Thank you for that. In the previous evidence session I raised the question of the yearly recurring debate between COSLA and the Scottish Government. You have already touched on your desire for more engagement and more collaboration, and Councillor Macgregor said that the idea is that policy be developed in consultation with COSLA and local authorities. I would love to hear a little bit more along those lines about other areas on which consultation and collaboration could happen.

I will take a little dive up north and ask a question that I put to the previous panel. Why have the three island local authorities received real-terms reductions in their overall revenue allocations in 2022-23, when they face unique pressures and when, historically, they have been underfunded for the additional services that they manage, such as ferries?

Go ahead. I think that Mark wanted Shona Robison to respond as well.

We have come to the end of our questions. I thank Shona Robison and Kate Forbes for joining us this morning. As agreed earlier, we will consider items 3 and 4 in private.

I thank Councillor Gail Macgregor, Eileen Rowand and Martin Booth for joining us and providing us with very useful responses to our questions.

I now suspend the meeting to allow the witnesses to leave.

I am sorry about that, Miles.

We will go over to Mark Griffin.

I have a question for Gail Macgregor. Given the unique pressures that the three islands authorities face and the complex services that they run with their limited resources—for example, ferries—what is the impact of the real-terms reduction in their overall revenue allocations for next year?

Does Shona Robison want to come in on my first question about supporting local authorities to tackle long-term challenges in planning or on potential solutions for encouraging co-operation between COSLA and the Scottish Government?