Chamber and committees

Thank you, minister. It is great to hear that some great work will be done in the future, and I look forward to seeing it. What are we going to do about current recruitment challenges? We have so much legislation, including members’ bills, going through Parliament. How are we going to help local government with its current challenges? What talks are you having in that regard? How can we help?

Good morning, panel. My question is about recruitment. We have heard this morning that vacancies are high and that Scottish councils fail to recruit workers for one in four jobs. We also heard from the previous panel and this panel that underfunding is one of the biggest challenges that local government has today. Those cuts lead to cutbacks in service provision as well as strikes over pay and conditions.

What impact will lower pay and uncertainty in relation to job security have on the skills shortages and on local government’s ability to deliver on priorities? We have also heard about people moving to the private sector more because of job security and pay issues, which are having the effect of fewer people coming into local government.

I ask Paul Manning to come in on that first, please.

Earlier, we spoke about work pressures on departments, and we heard that the overall reduction in local authority personnel has had a disproportionate impact on certain council departments, such as planning and building standards departments. Upcoming pieces of legislation that have been proposed by the SNP-Green Government, including those covering heat standards for new builds and the short-term lets licensing scheme, will undoubtedly result in an influx of applications to such departments. Are those departments adequately staffed and resourced to deal with an increase in workload without there being adverse effects on stakeholders?

We heard from the other witness panel that councils are not equipped to deal with the increased workload that new legislation brings. Is time a factor in your looking for solutions? If you were given a lot more time when legislation came forward—for example, to plan your apprenticeships and internships—would that be a factor? I ask that of Gerry Cornes.

Absolutely. I started off as a trading standards officer and moved on to economic development. You are right—there are so many opportunities in local government, and we need to sell it.

Mo, would you like to add anything?

Good morning. Before I ask my main question, I want to touch on diversity in the workforce, which my colleague Willie Coffey spoke about. Johanna Baxter mentioned the figure of 60 per cent vacancies in East Dunbartonshire, which is in the West of Scotland region that I cover and is also where I live.

Just last week, I was chairing a meeting between East Dunbartonshire Council and the Milan day care centre, which cares for elderly Asian people as well as other people that really need that help. One of the questions that was asked by the black, Asian and minority ethnic community was whether, on that panel of people who make the decisions about where cuts are made or services are changed, there was anybody who was diverse—I am going to use that word—who could have that thinking about what the service should look like. People from that community mentioned that they were being shifted to another facility in a different area where nobody spoke their language and there was no catering for the food that they eat or the clothes that they wear. They asked about how they were going to integrate with people from western society and talked about their cultural needs.

Those issues were brought up time and again in that meeting, and I was shocked by the situation. Do not get me wrong: the people who worked for the council were a bit stuck about how to answer those questions. In such a situation, the council cannot serve diverse communities because it does not understand how to serve them or what their culture is, because the workforce is not representative or diverse. Johanna Baxter, is that situation going to come up more, and have you heard of situations such as that?

We have heard about the disproportionate impact that the overall reduction in local authority personnel has had on council departments, particularly those such as planning and building standards. Earlier on, we heard from Johanna Baxter, head of local government at Unison, that there have been cuts of around 40 per cent to planning departments.

Upcoming legislation proposed by the SNP-Green Government, including the new build heat standard and the short-term lets licensing scheme, will undoubtedly lead to an influx of applications to such departments. Are those departments adequately staffed and resourced to deal with such an increase in workload? What kind of adverse impacts would that have on other stakeholders?

I am quite happy to ask this next question to the director of councils, if that is okay—or do you want me to ask it here?

Good morning.

I have some questions on recruitment. We have heard that vacancies are high in Scottish councils and that councils fail to recruit workers for one in four jobs. We have now heard from all three panels, including you, that funding is one of the biggest challenges for local government. It leads to cuts in service provision as well as strikes over pay and conditions. We have heard about the lower pay and job uncertainty, and that people are choosing the private sector over local government. What impact is that having on skills shortages and on local government’s ability to deliver on the priorities?

As for people seeing the private sector as more attractive, I know, coming from a BAME background, that if I were an accountant, my parents would be pushing me into the private sector, because of the job security. I worked in local government for around 20 years and I have to say that I loved it. However, I can certainly say that job security is a big thing for people from BAME backgrounds. I am just saying that, because we have been mentioning BAME issues.

Could I ask one more quick question please, convener?