Chamber and committees

It covers a much wider range of sectors. I think it is one or the other, though.

I am interested, throughout the process, in the right level at which decision making should be undertaken and discretion should be exercised. To come back to the argument that I put in response to Meghan Gallacher, I do not think that there is a precise-science answer. I worry about individual communities feeling a sense of loss of control over what happens in their individual localities.

If I think about the communities that I represent—Elena Whitham represents an area with a similar population composition—there are towns in my constituency where, in the past, significant civic discretion was exercised. That created a sense of focus in those communities, which was reactivated during the pandemic. Most, though not all, of the really successful and impactful developments that took place during the pandemic happened in those communities. In substantial towns, people came together and could put in place fixes to ensure that everybody was looked after. Colleagues who represent similar areas to mine will know exactly what I am talking about.

A lot of that has been eroded over many years, probably since local government reorganisation in the 1970s, and there is a sense of loss in communities about that. However, over the years, there have been many good examples of how that sense of loss has been addressed by good community endeavour.

When we move away from those functions, which are fundamentally about locality, a sense of community and pride in the community, we come to the more sophisticated delivery of public services, which Parliament legislates for. The delivery of those public services can often carry significantly onerous burdens. That particularly applies to the quality of public services in areas such as adult and child protection. I worry about the delivery of those services across 32 local authority areas, given that, although the population base in some areas is dramatically smaller than others, the burdens are the same. The burdens that Parliament applies to the delivery of the child protection service in the city of Glasgow is exactly the same as those that it applies for Clackmannanshire Council. We expect assurances to be offered on the same basis. However, because of the difference in size, cases will be handled more frequently in the city of Glasgow than in Clackmannanshire.

I took a number of steps as education secretary, and encouraging collaboration among local authorities was a particular priority. In the area that I represent, there has been a great deal of collaboration between three authorities—Dundee, Angus and Perth and Kinross—on the delivery and improvement of education services and child wellbeing services across those three council areas, and I see significant improvements arising as a consequence of that. It is really welcome when councils collaborate at a multi-authority level.

That should not be interpreted as a Government commitment to force that upon people, because that is not a particularly good way to proceed. In 2016, when I was education secretary, I advanced the concept of regional improvement collaboratives, and the idea was met by a fair amount of hostility and resistance. However, as Ms Whitham will have experienced in Ayrshire among the three local authority areas there, once people got into a room and started talking about their challenges and the common themes, the collaboration that came from that was pretty beneficial for children and young people in Scotland.

Indeed, one of the pillars of the educational response to the pandemic was the west of Scotland improvement collaborative. The collaborative did a huge amount of excellent work to record online learning, which was then made available on a choice basis to school pupils, families, teachers and local communities right across the country through the common platform that we created in the e-Sgoil. The collaborative was a fundamental source of thousands of the lessons that were recorded. I pay warm tribute to everybody who was involved in that, because it was a sterling piece of work that helped in the delivery of education.

Therefore, there very much is a space for collaboration among local authorities. What was achieved in education between 2016 and 2021, against a background of a lot of hostility to and scepticism about the concept, helped us enormously in delivering sustainable education during the pandemic.

We have to do that by creating the space to enable communities to advance the agenda, although I do not think that there is merit in replicating the burgh council model that was in place prior to the 1975 local government reorganisation.

One of the great privileges of my office is that I can see at first hand good innovations. In communities that I represent and in other communities around the country, I have seen developments emerge—through development trusts, for example—through which community capacity has been built up year after year by communities committing to that.

The concept of a development trust—that is an example and I am not prescribing it as a route; a Scottish charitable incorporated organisation or something else might be used—brings together community industry, which enables developments to take place. Other propositions grow from that, and communities can then exercise much greater and more distinctive delivery of services and purpose. Then, a positively engaged local authority will recognise that that is happening and seek to engage with the community to ensure that more functions are deployed in the locality in a way that has the impact that we all seek. That might well address some of the points that Mr Griffin put to me about the extent to which people feel that they can shape their local community agenda.

There are very good practices around the country under which local authorities enable much greater discretion to be exercised at local level. If that were to be done in partnership with the development of development trusts or SCIOs, or through wider community engagement activities, that could address the fundamental point that Elena Whitham puts to me and which I recognise—that, in some communities, people feel a sense of remoteness from public authority and are anxious to shape their community’s future better.

I recall some discussion of those points. To be on the safe side, I had better write to the committee about any specific work that has been undertaken.

To go back to the issues of local government finance, two points are relevant. First, the formula to distribute funding among local authorities is a matter of dialogue and agreement with local authorities. If there was to be any proposition to change the distribution of funding for them, that would obviously have to be agreed by them. I think that there is a reluctance in local authorities to discuss the distribution formula at present, and that has generally been the case.

Secondly, in previous budgets, we agreed a supplement for the City of Edinburgh. I negotiated that point with the late Margo MacDonald in the 2007 to 2011 session of Parliament, and that will still be factored into the budget arrangements that we have in place.

There are ways of discussing such issues. Health board funding is determined by the NHS Scotland resource allocation committee, and steps have been taken over time to address exactly the issue that Mr Briggs has put to me.

Those issues are fundamentally about addressing the points that I discussed with Elena Whitham about how to build capacity in communities so that they can exercise those influences. If we were to pitch up in communities and say, “Here’s a couple of hundred thousand pounds to do things,” some communities would be able to handle that without any difficulty whatever, because they have capacity that has probably been built up through the establishment of a development trust. There might be proceeds from wider revenue sources—for example, communities in my constituency benefit from the proceeds from renewable energy projects, so they have resources that can enable them to build up capacity.

However it happens, there has to be capacity in a community to handle things. We cannot just pitch up in a community and say to a group of volunteers, “Here you are. On you go, and good luck.” There has to be capacity, which has to be actively built up. We have a proper opportunity for local authorities to work with local communities to do that and to activate other sources of funding, whether it is through common good funds, sources such as renewable energy funds or other vehicles.

The Government and I are very supportive of the building up of that capacity. It enables communities to choose where they can exercise the greatest influence and deliver the greatest impact.

If I again think of my community, we had a day of biblical weather in my constituency on Sunday. In Alyth, which is a town that has been blighted by flooding, there is a real activation of community activity and engagement on a variety of issues but specifically on flooding. As the situation became severe on Sunday, the community activated itself. Volunteers undertook work to support and protect others and to put infrastructure in place. Through partnership with the local authority, the community has procured sandbag supplies, which are available for temporary deployment to deal with circumstances as they arise. On Sunday, volunteers were making all that happen.

The community has temporary flood defences—the ones that start off looking like pillows but end up weighing a ton once they are wet—which it deployed. Some good outcomes were delivered. That is because there is capacity to make that happen, which then engages the community. All that is done through capacity at the community level, through social media and by having a really engaged community. It is a perfect example of what I am talking about, albeit in an extreme situation. We all have communities that operate on that basis.

The challenge is how we make that a reliable, dependable and on-going feature in our delivery of public services. The Government cannot prescribe that from St Andrew’s house—it would be folly for us to do that. Having good dialogue and discussion with local authorities is essential, as is local authorities having the right outlook. If local authorities were to enter into the conversation thinking, “We must control everything; we must run everything,” they would put off local engagement. However, if there is a welcoming spirit to embrace what might be possible for a community to handle, we will see an awful lot more thriving as a consequence.

The Government gives on-going consideration to those issues through our dialogue with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. I cannot give you a definitive assurance because the issues are still the subject of consideration. The Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy is leading the work on the development of a rules-based fiscal framework, which is being discussed with local government. That work will conclude when those discussions are completed. The finance secretary will be able to update the committee and Parliament on the development of the fiscal framework once that work has been undertaken.

It is important to recognise that, for many years, significant flexibilities have been available to local authorities for their financial management. Back in 2007, when I was the finance secretary, the Scottish Government substantively relaxed ring fencing, which was a key request of local authorities, to enable them to have a range of flexibilities at their disposal. That in itself provided local government with much greater fiscal discretion in order to address issues.

I am not sure that I would establish a connection between proposed industrial action in local authorities and a fiscal framework for local government. Those are two distinct issues. It is, of course, a matter for local authorities to conduct their employee relationships and negotiations—where it is appropriate for them to do so. Local authorities deal with those for the majority of their employees. Teachers are a somewhat different case, because a tripartite negotiating framework is in place. However, fundamentally, it is for local authorities, as employers, to take forward the relationship. I do not think that industrial action necessarily relates directly to any fiscal framework.

A national care service is currently the subject of consultation. One of the key points that the Government has made throughout is the importance of ensuring that appropriate local voices are heard when considering the approach to a national care service. It is vital that we hear from and engage with local communities on the delivery of care services, because they matter to local communities. The situation will be different in different parts of the country, so there must be variation and variety in how the service is delivered. It is critical that we hear the voices of local communities during the development of the national care service. That is a fundamental point.

I accept that local government has particular observations about the proposals, and it is important that we hear the voices of individuals who are pressing the Government—as was evident in the independent review—on issues such as the consistency of service performance and delivery in different parts of the country, and the standards that citizens can expect in all parts of the country. Those two fundamental questions have to be wrestled with during the discussions on a national care service.

Evidence is available from the Accounts Commission’s scrutiny of the way in which individual services are delivered. The Improvement Service also does a lot of good work on charting the relative performance of local authorities. The range of differences in individual service areas can be quite difficult to justify.

The Improvement Service is there to help local authorities to deliver their improvements, and I very much applaud it for its work, because it is prepared to confront the variation in performance amongst local authorities. If we are to have an honest conversation about this, that point has to be addressed, and the reports from the Accounts Commission and the Improvement Service tend to give an insight on a service-by-service basis into where some of the differences lie.

Mr McLennan is tempting me on to territory that is the proper preserve of the finance secretary, and I will refrain from getting myself into difficulty with her at this time in the budget cycle. It is never a good idea for a cabinet secretary to get into trouble with the finance secretary, so I will leave it to Ms Forbes to update the committee on the substance of the point.

However, as a general observation, I would say that in recent years and for certain wholly understandable reasons, given Covid, Brexit and other factors—you name it—the UK Government has been unable to offer longer-term financial information. However, we now have much greater line of sight in the forthcoming period than we have had, which is very welcome. As for how the finance secretary handles that situation, I shall leave that for Ms Forbes to share with the committee.

Mr Griffin has raised a very serious point. It brings us back to the question of the outcomes that we are interested in achieving with all of this activity, which, in this case, must be that individuals feel that they are able to shape the direction of their community and the place that their lives have within it. As a result, the statistics that Mr Griffin has put to me, which might well show a decline, are concerning.

Interestingly, I thought that, in extremis, during the pandemic, the degree of community leadership, interaction, decision making and adaptation was higher than I had seen it in my many years of experience. That tells us that it is perfectly possible for communities to be much more closely involved in shaping their agenda and direction as a consequence of their interventions.

We must ensure, however, that communities are not disengaged from that process, and that they do not find the process much more difficult to participate in because of the way in which we structure such processes. It is up to local authorities to ensure that they are putting out—as I think they did during the pandemic—a welcoming invitation to communities to shape the nature of the response that is pursued in individual communities. We must ensure that that happens not just in a pandemic but all the time. That is one of the fundamental points of the Covid recovery strategy that I put to Parliament before the October recess: it is about trying to capture and continuing to mobilise that sense of community discretion and influence, which has been such an asset to us during the pandemic.