Chamber and committees

I will address my questions to James Withers—he is getting a good workout this morning—and to Mary Brennan. I want to explore the local food economy. As we have all acknowledged, we are facing a climate and biodiversity emergency. I believe that we need to move away from mitigation and start adapting, so I am interested in the whole local food economy piece. How do we start to shorten supply chains and look for opportunities for food to be grown locally and publicly procured?

We heard from James Withers about the challenges of labour shortages and that kind of thing, but what else should we be looking at? If we are moving in the local food direction, as has clearly been signposted, what do we need to put in place to remove blocks and make something that is very complex more straightforward?

Perhaps Martin Reid would like to say a little bit about his thoughts on the haulage world.

I am keen to support you in doing that. If we can get whisky on to rail, it could be part of a push to make the railway better. I hear what you are saying: we cannot do it all, but we could do a lot.

Another way that the whisky industry could drive innovation in sustainability and the climate emergency is in the way that crops are grown. A lot of farmland in Moray is used to grow barley for whisky. Have you been considering innovation in how the barley is grown?

I thank you very much for all your answers. It has been very helpful to hear your views in this evidence session, and we look forward to working with you in this session of Parliament. The committee has agreed to consider agenda items 4 and 5 in private, so we will now move into private session for the remainder of the meeting.

Thank you for laying out the Accounts Commission’s perspective. In your opening remarks, you gave us a broad view of the various issues facing local government. I am interested to hear from you—we have spoken about this previously—what you think the highlights are. What are the biggest challenges facing local government in the new session of Parliament?

I may have to suspend the meeting briefly, because there seems to be a communication problem with our audio; I do not think that Elma Murray is hearing us.

She is hearing us now—we are okay. I will ask my question again.

Elma, in your opening remarks, you outlined a range of areas in which there are challenges facing local government. I would love to hear your perspective on what the biggest challenges facing local government will be in the coming session of Parliament.

It is great to hear that the importance of the climate emergency will be front and centre in the national planning framework. Over the summer, I and colleagues have heard about the challenges that our local authority and national park planning departments face. I am keen to hear how the Scottish Government intends to tackle the resourcing and workforce issues that the departments face.

Our second panel of witnesses are from the Accounts Commission. I welcome Elma Murray, interim chair; Antony Clark, interim controller of audit; Brian Howarth, audit director; Carol Calder, interim audit director; and Blyth Deans, audit manager. I invite Elma Murray to make some opening remarks.

I hope that the committee can help to make the benefits of participatory budgeting more visible, too.

I thank you for your confirmation of what local authorities have been doing in recovery, and your recognition of the need for support.

My colleague Meghan Gallacher has a question.

Welcome to the second meeting of the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee in session 6. This is our first meeting together in person, as a committee.

Our first agenda item is consideration of whether to take in private agenda item 4, which will be an opportunity for members of the committee to reflect on the evidence that they heard earlier in the meeting. Do members agree to take agenda item 4 in private?

Members indicated agreement.