Chamber and committees

Thanks. I will move on briefly to look at nature-based solutions. Jackie Dunbar might be interested in this area as well. The climate and nature emergencies run alongside each other, but solutions to climate change can come from investment in natural capital within council areas.

Are there ways in which the Scottish Government could enhance support to local authorities to do more of that work, to consider adaptation, to consider investment or to bring forward investable models so that private capital can come in as well? It feels as though we often talk about climate over here and nature over there, but some of the solutions, the tools, the planning and the investment that are required feel as though they are in a similar space. What can we learn from the work on climate when implementing nature-based solutions and improving natural capital?

Cabinet secretary, I want to go back to what you said about the regulatory framework for local authorities on climate. It links in with what you were saying, minister, about developing the new deal for local authorities. Do local authorities need more duties within that framework? My impression is that some local authorities are very much focused on their own corporate emissions and doing what they can to reduce emissions within that scope but thinking less about the emissions from the wider area and about place making. Do more duties need to be placed on local authorities?

The world is changing. Earlier, you showed us the impressive stack of written communication. When I was out canvassing earlier in the year, I saw a lot of that communication—reminders and leaflets—drifting around stairwells next to pizza delivery menus, unfortunately.

My election literature was put through the door.

I am interested to know about the social media tools. Was there a campaign on YouTube, TikTok or Instagram? What was the effectiveness of that? Were there different types of messages? On terrestrial television, I saw a lot of community-minded messages about planning for education in schools. That appeals to me, but there might be different messages for different groups, particularly people who are not permanent residents in communities and might move on after a year or two.

I wonder whether, at this stage, there are particular lessons to be learned about the hard-to-count groups. Those include more transient populations such as students, those with English as a second language and those living in particular types of housing. Reflecting on what you said earlier about marketing—there was a lot of marketing out there—can you tell us whether that marketing was targeted at those groups? What lessons can be learned about how it could be improved in future?

The evidence this morning has been powerful. From it, I have taken the sense that the world has already changed and that, if organisations have to change, there is no sense of failure, but that there needs to be that headroom and support to enable that change to happen. I am sure that other sectors, including health, are having to think about how they respond to the new world as well.

Julia Amour, Janet Archer and Kirsty Cumming mentioned the transient visitor levy. There is a commitment from the Government to deliver that in legislation during the next year. What has the conversation been locally about that? Clearly, it will be a discretionary power that councils can use. What they can spend it on may also be discretionary, although there is a strong argument that it needs to be put into culture and wellbeing.

I do not know how that local conversation is panning out. Obviously, there will be some dissenting voices on the use of such a levy—perhaps from parts of the hospitality sector, who may not understand the benefits of how it could be used. I am interested to know how those early conversations are going, because whether the levy gets used is going to be pretty critical, including to the extra funds that could be brought in.

I see Julia Amour is nodding.

Are similar conversations happening in relation to your networks across Scotland, Kirsty Cumming and Janet Archer, or is this simply an Edinburgh conversation at the moment?

Reading the submissions, I was struck by the lack of consistency across councils when it comes to setting targets, the scope of the targets and the plans that are being developed to meet those targets. Why is that? Is that a problem?

In your working group in COSLA, is there political unanimity behind having a more consistent approach to targets? There are all these issues around how best to deliver targets in different-sized local authorities and so on, but is there political unanimity in your working group around having more consistency in how targets are set and planned for?

Thank you.

David Hammond, when it comes to council officers, is there a need for more of a framework around how plans are developed to tackle climate change and how targets are set?