Chamber and committees

Okay. Do your colleagues Jim Jack and Kirsty McGuire have anything to say about the issue of additional resources that might be required to deliver the bill?

Aye.

Kirsty, do you have anything to add?

Good morning, and welcome to the 26th meeting in 2023 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee. We have received apologies from Ross Greer, and I understand that Jamie Halcro Johnston is travelling and that he will be delayed.

We have one item in public on today’s agenda, which is an evidence session on the financial memorandum to the Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill. I welcome to the meeting Charlie Devine, service manager, waste partnership, Dundee City Council; Kirsty McGuire, waste manager, South Lanarkshire Council; and Jim Jack, head of operational services, West Lothian Council.

I intend to allow up to 75 minutes for this session. We have written submissions, so we will move straight to questions.

I will go to Mr Devine first because we set out a number of questions, as we do for all financial memoranda, and, unlike his colleagues, he completed the first three. We will therefore put him on the spot first. If his colleagues wish to chip in, I would, of course, be more than happy for them to do so.

You were asked to comment on the financial assumptions that were made. Dundee City Council’s submission talks about “insufficient financial detail”, and it says that the

“Scottish Government should consider the impact of additional capital and revenue costs required to implement, manage and maintain the required changes at a time of considerable budgetary pressure for”

local authorities. Can you enlighten us on what those additional capital and revenue costs would be?

Back in 1980, Clare Grogan said in the film “Gregory’s Girl” that boys think in numbers. I am one of those people. Can you put some numbers on what has been said, given that the financial memorandum is all about the numbers?

The bill talks about something like £2.95 per household for education, behavioural change and so on. Do you recognise that figure?

It is all about best estimates, is it not?

Have your local authorities received funding? It is interesting that 17 out of the 32 local authorities have received a total of £53 million. Obviously, local authorities are different sizes and so on. Has your local authority received funding, or is that something that you are in discussion with Scottish ministers about? I see Kirsty McGuire shaking her head.

The Scottish Government seems determined to make this work. It says that the Scottish ministers will be enabled to impose statutory recycling targets on local authorities, with financial penalties if targets are not met. In Wales, a local authority can be levied with a fine of £200 per tonne of waste by which it falls short of the target amount. It is clear that there will be pressures on local authorities.

The financial memorandum talks in detail about savings from paper cups going to landfill and this, that and the other. You have all said that any additional costs should be met fully by the Scottish Government, but what is the net outcome from the bill for each of your local authorities?

Mr Devine, you were quite hesitant about talking about pounds, shillings and pence at the beginning of this question session, but where are we in terms of the parameters for a city such as Dundee to deliver what is in the financial memorandum? Would that cost the city an extra £500,000, £1 million or £2 million? Obviously, we have to look at that. The whole point of financial memorandums is to give best estimates so that we can look at the impact on the public purse. Where is Dundee on that? I will ask your colleagues the same question.

Okay. Thank you very much.

That concludes the public part of the committee’s work today. We will move into private session to consider our work programme. We will have a wee break until 5 to 11 to enable our witnesses and the official report to leave.