Chamber and committees

There is maybe a wider issue. I would focus not on pay in particular, because you are probably on a bit of a hiding to nothing, to be honest, but on the role of councillors, the wide variety of work that they do, their responsibilities, the fact that many of them are trying to juggle other jobs at the same time and so on. There is something in there about us elevating the role of councillors and the work of local government and explaining what councillors do, why it is important and the need to have a wider variety of people stepping forward. That could be part of trying to encourage more people to think about standing for local government in the run-up to 2027. In the old days, becoming a councillor used to be seen almost as a voluntary thing that only those, such as those and retired people would ever enter into. We have moved on from that and more women and younger people are involved, but the numbers are still low compared with other spheres of government.

There is a perception issue and, potentially, there are practical barriers. When the special interest group reports on those wider barriers, there may be something for us to do collectively—the committee might also have a role to play—to look at ways of putting some of that information out there, to start a bit of awareness raising around the role of councillors and the importance of the work that they do. I would certainly be up for that.

On your first point, I have to be honest and say that what was said in the earlier session was the first time that I had heard that there was any breakdown of anything. That is just not my understanding at all. I was not at the meetings, to be fair—I have to be clear about that—but I do not get the sense that there was any difference or any changes to the report or the outcomes, which would have happened whether or not folk were attending all the meetings. I think that the report is the report and that it would have been the report no matter what. It is a good report. It is very clear in its recommendations and I think that SLARC has done a good job.

As you have alluded to, we then come to the question: what now? As Fiona Campbell said, the regulations will set the level of salary and, clearly, how that is funded has to be agreed in advance. Otherwise we would be passing regulations when folk have not agreed how that will be funded, and that is just not the order to do things in.

We have to get into sorting the how, and that has to be a compromise that is discussed through the budget process. I have said that I am open to that discussion and we should look at the art of the possible. I will have a requirement from the Government’s perspective that this is a collective decision and a collective priority.

That is not something that I am aware of, to be honest. I was under the impression that the work on SLARC was positive and that they were getting on with it. Where the difficulty arises is who pays for it and who funds it. That was the difficulty in 2011, and that is the difficulty now. Are you saying to me that the council tax freeze decision has been a bit of an issue in a whole load of discussions with COSLA? Yes, it has, because COSLA does not agree with it. The issue has surfaced in many discussions with COSLA, but I do not think that it was an issue that got in the way of SLARC.

The bigger issue is that we all agree on most of the recommendations but it is then about how they are funded. It was understood that there was never any commitment given at all that the Scottish Government was going to fund this. In an attempt to be helpful and to move it beyond where it got to in 2011, there is a route there, but it has to be a cross-party route. You can understand why I am saying that. In the current climate, money is tight and, therefore, there will have to be a cross-party agreement that this is a priority. There is a strong argument for trying to set the ground in advance of 2027 to encourage new people to come in to serve in local government.

As I said in my opening statement, I do not think that remuneration is the only issue, but I do not disagree that it is a barrier. It is one barrier, although politicians around this table will fully understand that are many other areas that are difficult. If we collectively agree that this is important, we collectively agree that it is important in terms of the budget.

COSLA asked for SLARC to be set up and the Scottish Government agreed, because we recognise that there is a remuneration issue. I do not recognise the council tax issue having delivered something different in terms of the recommendations. The recommendations are positive and have been largely accepted by the Scottish Government, so I do not see what the council tax issue has changed. I do not think that it would have changed any of the recommendations and the report that popped out at the end of that piece of work. It is as it would have been whether or not there was a council tax freeze, in my opinion.

As for the funding of the recommendations, at no point has the Scottish Government said, in SLARC or anywhere else, that the Scottish Government would pay for the remuneration of councillors, for the very reason that it never has. It has never been something that Scottish Government has paid for; it has always been paid for by local authorities themselves out of the settlement.

The same issue arose in 2011, when the Scottish Government made the position clear that any uplift and change to remuneration would have to be funded by local government. At that point there was no agreement, so nothing changed. At this point there could be agreement, but Pam Gosal, as an Opposition spokesperson, will understand the importance of moving this forward cross-party. If the local government leadership groups and COSLA, which are multiparty, all agree that this is a priority for the local government settlement—when we are negotiating we get into a lot of detail around the local government settlement—that for me is a signal that there is cross-party support for it.

The regulations will require cross-party support in this place. We need to all be on the same page if this is to go forward and money is to be found because, bluntly, I will not fund this in the face of opposition from other parties—I just will not. My challenge is this: if this is a priority, let us take it forward cross-party. I think that it is a good report—regardless of whether the council tax freeze happened or not—and it has a lot of merit, but we need to agree on a cross-party basis.

Local authorities pay councillors. There has never been the precedent of the Scottish Government funding salaries or salary uplifts for councillors and there was certainly never any indication during the SLARC discussions from us that that would be the case. What has emerged since SLARC’s work is a call from COSLA and council leaders that funding is needed beyond what local authorities have in their budgets. That would be a new way of doing things and it is, for the same reasons, an issue that got in the way of progress being made back in 2011.

The difficulty is that it would not be a universally popular move. Therefore, if it is the right thing to do, it needs very much to be done on a cross-party basis. That is the point that I was making, because such a change would step outwith the norm of how payment of councillors is done at what is a difficult time—a time when finances are tight in local government and the Scottish Government—and the suggestion has already garnered negative media portrayals. It is something that needs to be handled carefully.

However, I absolutely recognise what SLARC is saying and what members around the table have said about the barriers. Looking towards 2027, remuneration is clearly one barrier. It is not the only one, but it is a barrier. If we were collectively to decide that the recommendation is a priority, I would imagine that it would be seen by all concerned as a priority part of the budget process.

One would have to follow the other.

The Scottish Government has never said or given any intimation that there would be a change in the assumption of how that is paid for, given that that suggestion has never been the case. Nothing was said that in any way changed the situation to give that impression.

That is a bit of a stretch, is it not? That was a very specific thing 20 years ago. The assumption has always been that local government funds the remuneration of its elected members. You can see why, because it is quite a contentious area. It is something that you could flip to say that, in the normal course of events, councils probably would not welcome Scottish Government interference in remuneration of councillors. However, we are talking about a significant change to remuneration, so I recognise the challenge. I think that it needs to be a shared responsibility.

It is not something that would come along very often. It is a reset that would need to stand the test of time, and it would need to be part of a wider package and presentation to try to encourage—on the points that Pam Gosal was making—more people to come into local government. There is an opportunity, with a line of sight to three years away to 2027, to do a number of things that could encourage more people. Remuneration is part of that, but it is not the only thing.

The recommendation requires further consideration. One of the fundamental questions is whether it would apply to existing councillors or only to those elected from 2027. Those who stood previously stood without that being an expectation. I do not want that to be taken the wrong way because it is not about the principle. However, it is a fundamental question. Would it apply retrospectively or would it be forward looking from 2027?

That is important because the cost is significant and goes beyond what we have talked about in terms of remuneration. It would have to be carefully thought through. In the push to attract a wider group of people coming into local government from 2027 onwards, it might be quite an attractive part of the package. There could be a basket of things. However, the recommendation needs to be discussed further because the cost goes up significantly from the remuneration costs that we have discussed.

This is the territory that we get into in the budget negotiations as part of the local government settlement. It is a good question. For me, the position of ordinary councillors is a priority because that would be the main thing that anyone thinking about going into local government would look at. It would be a number of years before they would become a senior councillor, unless there were exceptional circumstances. In most cases people come in and serve as an ordinary councillor—or a back-bench councillor or however you want to describe it. That is a priority.

I guess that what you are alluding to is whether there is a split around who funds what. Is there some compromise? These are all the things that I would quite welcome getting into with local government in order to find a pragmatic way forward. I hope that we can find that way forward because everybody accepts that there is a genuine issue. It is about whether we are willing to collectively grasp the moment and agree that we need to do something about it collectively.