Chamber and committees

I think that the committee will contact you about that issue, cabinet secretary. We heard evidence about the matter during our town centres and retail inquiry.

Thank you for attending the evidence session, cabinet secretary. That brings us to the end of the meeting. We will now move into private session.

Good morning, and welcome to the 17th meeting in 2022 of the Economy and Fair Work Committee. Today’s meeting is being held virtually. I am not anticipating any connectivity problems but, if there are such problems, Colin Beattie, as deputy convener, will take over the chairing of the meeting.

Our first item of business is to decide whether to take agenda item 3 in private and whether discussions of the committee’s work programme should be taken in private at future meetings. Do members agree to take those items in private?

Members indicated agreement.

Am I correct that the Audit Scotland report shows that progress on R100 is slowest in the north, which is recognised as a more difficult area to deliver in? Therefore, we face similar challenges in that it appears that that is happening first in the areas that are more accessible and cheaper to deliver in, before we get to the areas in which it is harder to deliver.

That is helpful. Do you have any comments on Ofcom? You talked about inequalities in the current funding system. I understand that Ofcom published its Scottish report in December last year. How does Ofcom fit into the situation that we face in Scotland? What does it contribute?

John Mason is next.

Last week, Michelle Thomson and I went to Burntisland, which has a thriving little High Street. Burntisland is next to Kirkcaldy, and we were told that businesses in Kirkcaldy want to move to Burntisland because it provides the advantages of smaller units and the small business bonus scheme. The committee has taken evidence from Love Oor Lang Toun, and we heard that Kirkcaldy has a lot of empty units, some of which are big, and that it is a challenging environment.

Part of the issue is the rates scheme. It is great for a place such as Burntisland, which has a small and thriving High Street with diverse businesses, but it is not supporting big town centres, where there are closures, mismatched units and high streets that are finding it difficult to recover, notwithstanding all the community effort that goes into that. You have talked about engaging on non-domestic rates. Is there a timescale attached to that, or does that need to be resolved?

I cannot remember the name for it, but we have heard of situations in which the council will go in and carry out repairs to unsafe buildings. It is entitled to carry out such repairs, but it then finds it difficult to reclaim the funds, because the landlord is an absentee or because they are just not co-operating. We have heard that that could act as a disincentive to the council to take on a repair, even though the repair might be necessary. Has the Government considered that? I believe that the legislation to enable councils to do that was recently passed, but we have heard that it might not be working as effectively as it could be and that councils might be reluctant to get involved with dilapidated buildings, because of concerns that they might end up owning them or might not be able to recover their costs.

There are also some concerns about capacity. We heard about the shortage of planners and the pressure—which you will be well aware of—on planning departments and their capacity to pursue a lot of their ambitions for communities. The programmes are quite ambitious. You mentioned partnership; how can you ensure that there is enough capacity for partners to deliver?

The committee will now take evidence on the draft Registers of Scotland (Information and Access, etc) Miscellaneous Amendment Order 2022.

I welcome back to the meeting Tom Arthur, Minister for Public Finance, Planning and Community Wealth, who is joined by Megan Stefaniak, who is a lawyer with the Scottish Government, and Harry Murray, who is policy lead at Registers of Scotland. I invite the minister to make a short opening statement.