Chamber and committees

As I mentioned, the medium-term financial strategy included increases in local government funding to give an indication, but it is just an indication. The lack of certainty around funding from the UK Government means that the final decision will be taken when the Scottish Government’s budget is passed. As Councillor Hagmann said, there has been a lot more earlier collaboration with COSLA. Councillor Hagmann has already had meetings with the Deputy First Minister. That has happened much earlier than it has done in previous years. That engagement is definitely front-loaded this year.

You are conflating two very different points. The Verity house agreement drew a line in the sand for how we operate and collaborate going forward. If you want to talk about what we are doing on planning, I will say that it is a real issue that has been identified by local government, the Scottish Government, Heads of Planning Scotland and the RTPI, all of whom have recognised its challenges. The challenges are not straightforward. It is not just that folk are leaving planning; it is more than that. There are challenges with recruitment and in having a new planning regime that is transformational for Scotland, and we want to make sure that we get the most from that so that it creates all these opportunities. That is why we have, for some time, been working with our partners to look at how we can address that.

I am not sure that I recognise the number that you gave for planners that will be needed. That is a higher number than I had heard, but, for sure, a substantial number of new planners will be required over the next 10 to 15 years. We need to plan for that, and we are doing that.

One of the important pieces of work that we have done is the “Future Planners Report”. The Scottish Government provided funding for Heads of Planning Scotland and the RTPI to look at how we can tackle some of the challenges that we face, and their report is useful. It was published in 2022, and I am sure that the committee is well aware of it. We are taking forward the actions in that report. Nothing in that report is unachievable. There are a number of short-term actions, medium-term actions and long-term actions, and we are making real progress, particularly, right here and now, on the short-term actions. We will continue to work with our partners to do more, because some real challenges could be coming up.

Pam Gosal mentioned undergraduate courses. In my home city of Dundee, the Duncan of Jordanstone college of art and design at Dundee University offers an undergraduate course, but other undergraduate courses have stopped operating. That is partly because people who end up becoming planners often do not have that career as their initial aim. They start off doing something else, such as architecture, and then do a masters, and a number of masters courses are available across the country.

To support that shift, we have funded 10 RTPI bursaries for students who will undertake Scottish postgraduate planning degrees this year. We will see how that goes and whether we can expand the number of bursaries to encourage more folk to make the shift. We need to make sure that folk who are looking at their career choices at school realise just how exciting planning is. Folk often do another course and then realise that they want to be a planner, and they then have to take a further course. I have been engaging with young planners, who are a enthusiastic group of folk. They are keen to make sure that the wider potential employment pool understands exactly what planning does and how exciting it is, particularly in the context of national planning framework 4 and the transition to net zero. If we can get that message across, more colleges and universities will consider providing planning as an undergraduate course. I am aware of at least one other university—I cannot name it just now—that is considering starting an undergraduate course in planning. It would be good if that were to happen.

We need to do more to encourage people. We are keen to look at whether there might be an opportunity for work-based training so that young folk can do their undergraduate course while working for, say, a local authority. A number of local authorities are keen to help with that process, but we need to make sure that it will work for the universities, young people and local authorities. One of the challenges is that NPF4 provides a huge number of opportunities, which means that there will also be an increased draw from the private sector. We need to make sure that we increase the size of the pool, but we are working on that with local government and other partners.

Are we talking about planning or wider local government?

If we are talking about planning, we are making those changes right now. The bursaries are in place. We are also working with heads of planning to look at what more we can all do to make the planning system more efficient. You will be aware that one of the things that is coming through is permitted development rights. If we get those right, they could take pressure off our local government planners. We need to get them right, because we do not want just to say that everything is okay while it becomes a free-for-all. There needs to be appropriate planning support, and that is why we are consulting and will be introducing further legislation. I am absolutely open to suggestions on what further work we can do.

Although we are not doing it right not, we will also be working on the digitisation of some of that work, which will potentially offer huge advantages in the future. A number of local authorities are already digitising some of the work that they are doing. They are moving more online and using less paper, and it is much more efficient. It is important to remember that that does not all rest with local authority planners. A huge amount of weight and sometimes a fair amount of unfair criticism is placed on local authority planners, particularly when things do not go the way in which some applicants would like. Applicants have a responsibility to make sure that an application is submitted with the required information so that the planning authority can make its decision as speedily as possible.

Sometimes, folk will not like the decisions that come out of a planning process. That is why there are appeals. From speaking to developers, however, I know that one of the issues that they are keen to see resolved is the time that applications take. If applicants are going to be told no, they want to know sooner. It is partly on the applicants to make sure that their applications are as correct as possible. We are working with local authority partners and heads of planning to try to understand what more we can do to help with that process.

Councillor Hagmann covered most of the points eloquently. We cannot overemphasise the need to ensure that we have a workforce with the correct skills, and apprenticeships are part of that. The Withers report is really helpful in helping us to navigate that going forward across not just local authorities but the whole public service. Councillor Hagmann covered the other points.

Yes. It is a really good question. When we speak to local government finance colleagues, they will often highlight the fact that, where there is ring fencing, other bureaucracy is involved that is challenging and requires resource. As Councillor Hagmann said, we need to make sure that that reporting is supporting us in reaching outcomes. It is therefore really helpful that, in the Verity house agreement, we have some agreed outcomes and are shifting to that approach.

Simon Cameron mentioned the Christie commission. How many years ago was that? It was a long time ago. Mark Griffin and I sat on the Finance Committee at the time of the commission. It was going to help us shift to an outcomes-based preventative approach. That is really difficult to do. Hopefully, the Verity house agreement helps us do that, by focusing rigidly on the outcomes that we are trying to achieve and by making sure that everything that we do supports us in achieving those outcomes.

It is not unusual for legislation that comes through this Parliament to be amended at stage 3 in a way that creates another reporting responsibility. Very often, that reporting ultimately lands with local government staff, because they are the folk delivering the service on the ground. That is why we all need to think about how we do such things a little bit differently. I absolutely understand why members of Parliament want to see how money is being spent and the outputs, but surely our focus has to be on outcomes. In education, how are we giving young folk better opportunities for the future? How are we driving poverty down, particularly for young people? Those are objectives that are agreed as priorities across the political and public service spectrum, so we need to work harder to focus on those outcomes. We have been trying to do that for a number of years, and hopefully the Verity house agreement will help us on that path.

A huge amount of work is on-going to develop the fiscal framework. We are looking at where we can relax previous ring fencing and what further powers can be extended to local government.

Ian Storrie might want to say a little bit about the work that is going on in the background. That is really important. The fiscal framework is critical. The Verity house agreement is a really important part of the new deal. It is a really good success, and it is already changing the way in which we work. Getting the fiscal framework right is crucial to making it work for the long term. We are working really hard and taking the time to get that right. We have to get it right first time.

Yes, thanks very much for giving me the opportunity. It is important to recognise that local government pay negotiations are, rightly, between COSLA, as the representative of the employers—local government—and the trade unions, which represent the workforce. That said, the suggestion in your original question that the Scottish Government has chosen to stand back—I cannot remember your exact words—is not factually correct. Going right back to the start, the Scottish Government provided a further £155 million in the 2023-24 allocation to support a meaningful pay rise for local government workers. We saw that inflation was rising, and that was additional money after the budgets had been set. In addition to that, we provided reassurance that we will support councils with the £94 million increased recurring costs for future years. That was a real concern for local authorities when they made not the last offer but the one before. They were not necessarily concerned about that money but about what they would do in future years. Unusually, because of the Verity house agreement and the collaboration around that, the Deputy First Minister was content to provide that assurance, and group leaders across local authorities welcomed it.

As I understand it, the decision to make that further offer was unanimous. When it was rejected, COSLA and the Scottish Government made a huge effort to look at how additional funds could be identified without impacting on jobs and services. Scottish Government, COSLA and local government finance officials worked hard to identify and reprofile money in capital-to-revenue opportunities so that we could reprioritise £80 million from existing spend and identify emerging underspends to enable that last offer from COSLA. It was good to hear that two of the unions recognised that it met the unions’ demands. We will continue to work to ensure that the third union gets the clarity that it seeks. Councillor Hagmann has identified some joint communications that we hope will make their way to members. Ian, can you give the committee a little more understanding of where the £80 million came from?

Thank you, convener. I thank the committee for the invitation to participate in this pre-budget scrutiny session. I am particularly grateful that the committee, having invited both Councillor Hagmann and me, recognises the importance of involving both local and national Government in the pre-budget discussions, in line with our Verity house agreement commitment.

The Scottish Government recognises that local government workforce planning is a matter for each individual local authority. Although some issues are experienced Scotland-wide, each council faces a unique set of challenges that require tailored solutions rather than homogeneous approaches alone. That said, we are aware of the significant impact that workforce shortages in particular areas, such as environmental health and planning services, continues to have across Scotland. Those shortages undoubtedly impact upon our ability to achieve our three shared priorities. The Scottish Government is therefore fully committed to working in partnership with local government to ensure that the new deal with local government affords the greatest level of flexibility to councils to tackle workforce challenges in ways that work for them.

I was fortunate to come in when that work was quite well progressed. A lot of work had already taken place on resetting the relationship, which is what the new deal is about.

One of the biggest issues—Councillor Hagmann talked about this—was building trust between COSLA and the Scottish Government. That has to be a two-way thing. Both of our democratic electoral mandates have to be respected. Sometimes in the past, we forgot that the other side had a mandate, too. Sometimes local government maybe does not recognise the mandate that the Scottish Parliament has in some areas, and sometimes we forget that our councillors were democratically elected by their electorate in their elections. One really important thing is respecting our two mandates and that both spheres of government have a mandate. Sometimes that is in shared areas; it is clear that there are areas in which the Scottish Government and local government both have a mandate. We need to build trust in order to do what we all want to do, which is to deliver on the three shared priorities for all our citizens.

A pretty significant advance was that all six political groups in COSLA—Scottish Labour, the Scottish Conservatives, the Scottish Liberal Democrats, the independent group, the Scottish National Party and the Scottish Green Party—were able to sign up to agreeing that the three priorities of tackling poverty, particularly child poverty, transforming the economy through a just transition to net zero, and delivering sustainable public services were things that they would all prioritise, putting party politics aside and recognising that those were areas on which we could work together across the parties and the two spheres of government in Scotland.

That is our starting point, and we are developing that. We are improving trust. That is a big change compared with how we worked in the past. In passing legislation, whether that was a Government bill or a member’s bill, the Scottish Parliament would ask COSLA, “What is this going to cost to deliver, because you’re going to be delivering it? You get no say on it.” That was the extent of the consultation with local government.

I hope that there will now be much earlier discussion between the Scottish Government and our local government partners in COSLA. One thing that the Parliament needs to work out is how, with members’ bills or members’ amendments, across the Parliament, we all respect local government’s democratic mandate and how—this will be more difficult—back-bench members’ amendments or members’ bills can involve the same level of collaboration with local government while the different democratic places that we come from are respected.