Chamber and committees

As Tom Arthur said in the previous evidence session, we expect to get the output of the local governance review by the beginning of next year—I think that “early next year” was the language that he used. A really important on-going piece of work is the “Democracy matters” conversation, but an equally important piece of work involves looking at single authority models, with Orkney Islands Council, Western Isles Council and, I think, Argyll and Bute Council looking at whether such a model will work for them.

As I have been going around local authorities, I have been saying to them, “If there’s something that, two years ago, you thought might not work”—which is where Argyll and Bute Council was a few years ago—“and you want to look at it again, do not hesitate.” Argyll and Bute Council is likely to come forward with a single authority model that it thinks might help it get sustainability. These things need to be worked through in partnership, and that will, I hope, allow us to make the changes. I do not expect these things to be carbon copies of one another. If we end up with three single authority models, I expect that each will be unique and will work for what is right for the area.

I know that other island authorities, particularly Shetland Islands Council, do not want to take the same route. Instead, they talk about the partnerships that they have developed under the current arrangements, and we would hold them up as exemplars.

There is a lot of learning to be done, and any changes that we make in this respect will be looked at by other authorities. I hope that, even if we do not end up with a single authority, the work that we have done in looking at the issue will help us to improve the sustainability of public services as a whole.

The points that Mr Arthur made on engagement with the wider community and getting people involved are really important, but ultimately, it is the responsibility of the community planning partnerships to identify the measures that they need to use in order to assess whether the work that they are doing and their partnerships are having an effect.

From the Scottish Government’s perspective, we do not currently commission research to look at the impact that community planning partnerships have in the round; that would be a difficult exercise to take forward. It would be difficult to measure some of the positive aspects of community planning partnerships.

The most important thing about the 2015 act was that it put those partnerships on a statutory footing, whereas previously they were not. That is a good thing. When we measure how effective our actions are, it is important that the partners who have responsibility make sure that they measure outcomes appropriately, so that we can assess not whether the partnership is working but whether the actions that the partnership is taking and driving forward have an impact on communities.

It says something that the first part of your question was about those marginalised communities. It is sometimes easy to say that we are doing all this amazing work, because all the people around the table are connected, but often it is the people who are not around the table who most need the support of the community planning partnership.

That is why we need to continually assess in order to make sure that we do that correctly and, if we see particular gaps, that we look at how we will address them. We know that there was a particular gap was in relation to Gypsy and Traveller communities, and we have now taken action to make sure that we now know how to, and have the tools to, engage meaningfully with those communities on their terms, not on our terms. Such engagement is not on the terms of a particular part of a partnership, the Scottish Government or even this committee, but on those communities’ terms.

First, the new deal goes much wider than the Verity house agreement; the Verity house agreement is one of the planks of the new deal, but the two are not the same. A lot of work is ongoing with local government to deliver the new deal, and the Verity house agreement is an important partnership agreement between the two spheres of government—the Scottish Government and local government partners. The Scottish Government and COSLA recognise the important role of community planning partnerships within that. It is important to note that that is central to the agreement between the Scottish Government and local government.

I thank the committee for the opportunity to make some brief opening remarks. We collectively recognise that the two spheres of government play a vital role in delivering sustainable public services that our communities across Scotland rely on. Building, maintaining and valuing a strong working relationship with local government is therefore a key priority for this Government.

As the committee will be aware, the need for a reset of the relationship between local and national Government was first set out in the resource spending review last year. The First Minister reiterated the commitment to a new deal with local government in his policy prospectus, “Equality, opportunity, community: New leadership—A fresh start”, in April and again on 30 June, when he, the Deputy First Minister and I signed a partnership agreement to be known as the Verity house agreement, alongside the COSLA presidential team and political group leaders.

I believe that the Verity house agreement will better enable both spheres of government to work effectively together to achieve improved outcomes for communities across Scotland. However, the agreement marks only the beginning of the new deal with local government. COSLA and the Scottish Government are working jointly at pace on a new fiscal framework and shared work programme, including an outcomes and accountability framework, to underpin the Verity house agreement. Taken together, those should balance greater flexibility over local financial arrangements with clearer accountability, while demonstrating strong delivery of better outcomes for people and communities. If we can get the new deal right, I believe that it will make a positive difference to our communities and the lives of the people whom we serve.

It would be good if Sarah Watters and Ellen Leaver could contribute on that issue, because they have been very much involved in the actual day-to-day work on that. The three shared priorities roughly align with the priorities in the resource spending review. Obviously, there was a degree of work, which Sarah and Ellen will have been involved in, to look at the priorities in the spending review and take something back to the politicians. However, I do not think that there was a particular argument around the three priorities, because they make sense. That is shown by the fact that the Verity house agreement, with those three priorities, was supported not only by the Scottish Government and the COSLA presidential leader, but by political leaders across the COSLA organisation—all parties were able to sign up to that.

I guess that that is the strength of looking at top-level outcomes and the difference that we are trying to make. On many of the issues, whatever our political perspective and our differences about how we get there, we share a common desire to improve the lives of people in Scotland, and the three priorities help us with that.

There was a question about the Verity house agreement. The main point in relation to that is the commitment to the conclusion of the local governance review and the recognition that it needs to be completed in this parliamentary session.

Part 7 gives ministers power to make regulations to facilitate supporter involvement and to give fans rights in a number of areas. The Scottish Government held a consultation on that in 2016, and no action has been taken since. The matter sits within the portfolio of the Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport. If colleagues are okay with this suggestion, maybe you could ask her to give you a written update on the Government’s views in light of the responses to the 2016 consultation.

That is an important question. That is why our approach is not to say that the Verity house agreement means that it is all completed. There is a lot of work to do to get it right in a respectful way, with COSLA and the Scottish Government working together. The work that Sarah Watters mentioned is happening now in order to get the outcome framework right. Part of the work that is on-going relates to finding a better way to take the fiscal framework forward and identifying where we could have different arrangements in order to agree our shared outcomes.

Actually, Councillor Heddle has just made the point that I forgot to make about independent scrutiny and the range of bodies that play that role.

A fair bit of work is already taking place to develop the fiscal framework. Part of that work involves looking at all the areas of ring fencing and direction and at where there are opportunities to relax that.

The starting point is that, going forward, we should not have ring fencing. About 7 per cent of council funding is currently ring fenced. However, in the spirit of partnership, it is fair to recognise that, even when funds are not ring fenced, there is often a degree of direction. If you speak to senior council officials, they will tell you that, even when there is no ring fencing, the reporting is sometimes overly burdensome. If we can find mechanisms that give us assurance on outcomes, we can remove some of the unnecessary bureaucracy. That is a work in progress, but a significant amount of progress has been made, and we hope to have made some progress for this year’s budget.