Chamber and committees

I welcome our second panel. Ian Buchanan is equality and access manager at Disability Equality Scotland; Nicoletta Primo is research and policy officer at Sight Scotland, and Adam Stachura is head of policy and communications for Age Scotland.

I will start the questions. You are probably all aware that the Scottish Government has a number of different strategies for town centres. There is the retail strategy, the 10-year national strategy for economic transformation and the recent response by the Scottish Government and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to the town centre action plan. Are the needs of your members being recognised in those national plans? Is that the case at local level, for example when local development plans and place plans are being developed? Is there an awareness of your members’ needs? Perhaps Ian Buchanan could start.

Thank you. Good morning, Nicoletta. Will you say a bit about the strategies that are around at the moment and whether they recognise the needs of your members?

We need to make some progress, so I will bring in Jamie Halcro Johnston.

That is helpful.

I thank all our witnesses for appearing before us and contributing to our inquiry.

I suspend the meeting briefly to allow a changeover of witnesses.

Did you find that the reasons for that disappointment were the same as those of other generations, or were there particular differences among the older population?

You did say over-50s. I was a bit concerned by that. [Laughter.]

I bring in Maggie Chapman, to be followed by Fiona Hyslop.

The enterprise agencies will be coming in to give evidence next week. I think that you mentioned a Highlands and Islands project. That area has Highlands and Islands Enterprise, the south of Scotland has South of Scotland Enterprise, and the rest of Scotland is served by Scottish Enterprise. The focus of the two regional enterprise boards is different, because they are involved in community trusts. Is that an issue? Do you see a benefit in HIE and South of Scotland Enterprise being involved in that type of work?

Adam Stachura, can you comment on that, and on whether the needs of older people are recognised by local authorities in their local development plans and local place plans?