Chamber and committees

Thank you. I am sure that committee members’ questions will bring out more issues. Pauline, will you tell us about your community?

It is helpful for the committee to hear that people do not even know what the local governance review is.

I will ask my question again, because I hear that my microphone may not have been working and I was not clear. We would like to hear about your involvement in the local governance review, your expectations for your participation, communication with the organisers, and your understanding of the next steps.

We move on to questions from Meghan Gallacher.

Thank you. We will move on to questions from Miles Briggs.

I will move on to another area. In the context of the recovery from Covid and—fittingly—of the climate and nature emergencies, we have been talking about how communities can be empowered at local level to make the responses for localism, which Alison Evison talked about, and how we can make that real. We heard from one witness on the community panel that there is a need for spaces for meetings and for the skills to convene and facilitate and that people need to be paid for their time. Is the Scottish Government considering that? I imagine that the issue might present itself in the local democracy bill and the community wealth building bill.

That concludes our questions. I thank the cabinet secretary, Robin Haynes and Brian Logan for joining us.

The committee will now move into private session, as agreed earlier.

I am curious. Do we have any evidence about why performance is variable?

We now have a question from Mark Griffin, who is joining us online.

Good morning and welcome to the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee’s ninth meeting in 2021. We have received apologies from Willie Coffey. I ask all members and witnesses to ensure that their mobile phones are on silent and that all other notifications are turned off.

Under the first agenda item, do we agree to take items 4 and 5 in private?

Members indicated agreement.