Chamber and committees

The issues are related, because one of the fundamental considerations that statute requires Boundaries Scotland to adhere to is the question of electoral parity between different localities. Of course, the other principal pillar of the framework required by statute is locality itself, which Boundaries Scotland has to take due account of. On the question of parity with regard to the population composition of wards, the more sparsely populated an area, the greater the amount of land and degree of rurality that will have to be considered as part of the settlements.

Frankly, there is no easy answer to this. I suspect that the challenges of representing a large geographical area are different nowadays; as someone who represents a large rural area, I have found that a different approach has had to be taken in light of the pandemic. In my 23 years of representing the communities that I represent, I had never had a single videoconference with a constituent. I am now doing that every week of the year, and it has suddenly dawned on me that it is more convenient for many of my constituents to have that conversation with me remotely instead of our having to travel endless distances to see each other. There are ways round that particular challenge.

On your very significant question about the repopulation of sparsely populated areas, that is a policy objective in its own right that carries merit, and it should be reflected in Parliament’s decisions about the composition of wards where the volume of population merits such an approach in applying the statutory principle of parity among wards.

That an interesting question. I am struck by the fact that there are mainland areas that, in many respects, have some of the same characteristics that islands have. The Rannoch area in highland Perthshire, which I represent, is essentially an island on the mainland. There is one route into the Rannoch area, and one route out. At the other end, there is obviously a way out, but it is a long walk that is not for the faint hearted. The route in is not dissimilar to one that would be used to access an island. There are similarities that perhaps need to be reflected on, and it is within the Parliament’s scope to ensure that the statute reflects that important point.

With regard to the nature of the statutory framework in which Boundaries Scotland operates, I come back to the point that I made in my first answer. There are two pillars to the analysis that Boundaries Scotland undertakes: the question of parity and the question of locality. I know that Boundaries Scotland attaches significant importance to maintaining the cohesion that one would ordinarily think should be in place when it comes to the nature of localities.

Boundaries Scotland will have explained to the committee the specifics of its consultation process. The committee has also heard testimony from a range of representatives from local authorities and communities, who have expressed their satisfaction at the nature of the engagement process. I am therefore confident that Boundaries Scotland has, notwithstanding the challenges of Covid, been able to undertake effective consultation.

I have been quite struck by my experience over the past 18 months. Until the election, I had the great privilege of policy responsibility for nurturing the Gaelic language. I held a number of extensive stakeholder discussions about the Gaelic language, which included representatives from, in the main, the remote and rural areas of Scotland. I have two observations about that.

First, connectivity was actually pretty good. I was very pleased with it, and we had good conversations. Secondly, through engaging in digital dialogue I encountered more people and was able to interact more conveniently with them than would have been the case had I gone on the road. Nothing would have brought me more joy than to go and sit in community halls in the Western Isles or north-west Sutherland to conduct face-to-face public meetings, but I would probably have interacted with fewer people if I had done that. Instead, while I sat at home in Perthshire I had on the line countless representatives who were able to interact directly with me, and for longer because I did not have to think about travel time and all the rest of it.

It is swings and roundabouts, but I am certainly satisfied that Boundaries Scotland has done nothing but undertake an effective consultation process.

I recognise the importance of the issues that Elena Whitham raises, but I come back to the point that I made to Mark Griffin. Ministers have been taken out of the statutory process, so it is important that I act in a fashion that accepts that decision.

There is no easy answer to any of those questions. To highlight the challenge in such issues, I go back to the question that Paul McLennan put to me on the situation in Arran. Arran seems to be quite pleased about having an island-only representative who can fight the corner for Arran locally, within North Ayrshire Council and with other public bodies, whereas the community in Islay takes a different view. I can sit here and argue the merits of both cases. There can be different approaches and perspectives.

On the situation in Highland Council, I go back to my exchange with the convener at the outset about some of the issues in relation to Highland. There is a duty on local authorities, as there is on the Government, to make necessary and appropriate policy interventions that meet the needs of localities. It should never come down just to what is said on a locality’s behalf by a local elected member for that locality. It is a question of how Highland Council can reach all of Highland and do the right thing by all of Highland, rather than only doing the right thing by a particular locality because its voice is strong enough. That is not representative democracy and that is not how we listen to communities or respond to the agendas about which they are concerned.

I will not give a specific view on the merits of individual proposals, but those are the general sentiments of which public authorities need to be mindful when they are coming to their conclusions.

I think that that is a pragmatic proposal by Boundaries Scotland. Since we formed the Government in 2007, I have chaired the convention of the Highlands and Islands, which includes North Ayrshire Council as Arran and Cumbrae are part of the territory covered by Highlands and Islands Enterprise. The importance of viewing Arran as a distinctive entity was a point successfully advanced by North Ayrshire Council within the convention of the Highlands and Islands and a variety of other policy fora.

That approach acknowledges that that community is affected by a very specific set of issues around the delivery of public services—I refer back to the valid questions that the convener raised with me. Fundamentally, those are about the delivery on Arran, the maximisation of the connections between public services and the important connections between that community and access to public services on the mainland.

The approach proposed by Boundaries Scotland reflects, I think, the nature of that island community. It recognises its distinctiveness and the fact that so much of life is interlinked on that island and, frankly, has very little to do with what is happening on the mainland. Crucially, it provides a role for a representative of that island to advocate for the connections between the island of Arran and the mainland. That is an example of where Boundaries Scotland has looked carefully at the distinctive circumstances and come up with what is—as Mr McLennan fairly puts to me—a unique proposition.

Thank you very much, convener, and good morning. I am pleased to be here today to present the electoral arrangements regulations for the six council areas that contain inhabited islands.

The regulations give effect to the proposals submitted to me by Boundaries Scotland, and I have a legal duty to lay them before Parliament. The Scottish Elections (Reform) Act 2020 removed ministerial discretion to reject or modify the commission’s proposals. Instead, the decision to implement Boundaries Scotland’s proposals rests entirely with Parliament.

It is vital for local democracy and local service delivery that councils are as representative as possible of the communities that they serve, and regular reviews of council wards and councillor numbers are necessary to ensure that they reflect changes in population. Those reviews have been held under the Islands (Scotland) Act 2018, which offers additional flexibility to Boundaries Scotland to create wards that elect one or two councillors in areas that contain inhabited islands, as well as the two, three, four or five councillor wards permitted elsewhere in Scotland.

I am aware of the opposition of Highland Council and Argyll and Bute Council to some aspects of the proposals and that their representatives have asked the committee not to recommend approval of the instruments.

There will, of course, be differing opinions on the final recommendations, but I am pleased to hear that, in almost every case, the consultation process was meaningful and that elected members and communities, for the most part, felt that their voices had been heard. I am confident that Boundaries Scotland has discharged its duties competently and professionally, and there would need to be very strong reasons for rejecting its recommendations.

I hope that those comments were helpful. I am of course happy to answer any questions that members might have.

Thank you, convener. I welcome the opportunity to appear before the committee today.

The national performance framework is Scotland’s wellbeing framework. It explicitly includes increased wellbeing as part of its purpose, and it combines measurement of how well Scotland is doing in economic terms with a broader range of measures. The national performance framework is also the means to localise delivery of the United Nations sustainable development goals in Scotland.

The NPF provides a framework for collaboration and for the planning of policy and services across the spectrum of Scotland’s civic society, including the private and public sectors, voluntary organisations, businesses and communities. It is based on achieving outcomes that improve the quality of life of the people of Scotland.

The NPF is also a reporting framework that helps us to understand, publicly and transparently, the progress that we are making as a nation towards realising our long-term vision. Its data helps us to understand the challenges that we all face in achieving better outcomes for the people of Scotland, and to focus policy, services and resources on tackling those challenges.

The NPF promotes partnership working by making organisations jointly responsible for planning and spending to achieve shared outcomes. Although the Scottish ministers are accountable to the Parliament for the NPF’s development and delivery, the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 places a duty on public authorities to “have regard to” the national outcomes. To reflect that partnership approach, the current NPF was launched jointly by the Scottish Government and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. Local government plays a key role in achieving the national outcomes.

Given my remit, I am keen for the NPF to continue to guide our approach to Covid recovery. During the early stages of the pandemic, the Scottish Government’s approach looked to the national performance framework. The coronavirus framework for decision making explicitly reflected the core values of the national performance framework: kindness, dignity, compassion, respect for the rule of law, openness and transparency.

Analysis has shown that the pandemic has had significant and wide-ranging impacts across the national outcomes. As would be expected, the impacts have been largely negative, particularly in relation to health, the economy, fair work, business and culture. Covid-19 impacts have been, and will continue to be, borne unequally. The impacts are expected to widen many existing inequalities and to be borne disproportionately by some groups, including households on low incomes or in poverty, low-paid workers, children and young people, disabled people, minority groups and women.

However, analysis shows that there might also be positive future developments, including the acceleration of the shift towards digital technologies and services, partnership working between the public sector and other partners to improve outcomes for disadvantaged groups and shifts in the empowerment of communities to make decisions for themselves. Understanding those impacts will be important in driving the recovery and in achieving the national outcomes, as reflected in our recent programme for government.

We are preparing for the next statutory review of the national outcomes, on which we will consult widely across Scotland, including with Parliament. Following the outcome of the 2018 review, when the NPF received cross-party support, we will revisit the round-table approach to further political engagement on Scotland’s future wellbeing, building on the shared policy agreement that the Government has reached with the Scottish Green Party. The review will focus on how we can better achieve impact that is recognised and felt by the people who live in Scotland.

We strongly believe in our duty as a Government to protect the interest of future generations, including by restoring the natural environment and reducing our consumption in line with what the planet can sustain. That duty to future generations is spread across many policies and institutions.

The national performance framework provides for intergenerational wellbeing and improving opportunities for all, and means attending to the conditions that are required to ensure wellbeing into the future and for future generations, and not only for the present.

The national performance framework tries to put a concept such as GDP, which is important, into a proper and full context. In other words, the framework tries to set out the factors that we as a society and country need to think about, one of which will be GDP. There will be a range of others, but it is about putting them in a proper context.

Daniel Johnson asked about the balanced scorecard; the aim is to have a framework that enables people—and, indeed, parliamentarians—to judge where the balance of our policy making should be struck after seeing the range of different patterns of development in particular policy areas and how we can take decisions that better reflect a more rounded approach to policy making instead of just saying, “I’m only going to look at the GDP indicator at the expense of everything else.” That is clearly the antithesis of the NPF, which is our attempt to put concepts such as GDP into their proper context.

I am happy to give the committee an update on where we are.

That may well be the case. I am worried about the situation with Brexit and its impact on our society. We are beginning to see the sharp effects of that, and I am worried about what it will do to our economic performance. The data and indicators will speak for themselves in due course. Undoubtedly, when we face economic threats of that magnitude, they will show up in the indicators. We will try our best to withstand the threats, as we always do. We will do our level best to put in place a level of performance in all aspects that will overcome the difficulties, but I have to be candid with the committee that I have my anxieties on those points.