Chamber and committees

Agenda item 3 is a decision on taking business in private. Do members agree to take in private agenda item 5, which is consideration of the committee’s work programme, and agenda item 6, which is a discussion on the appointment of a committee adviser on environmental regulations and standards?

Members indicated agreement.

Stephen, you and others have made the point that some people lack skills in the areas that are required. It took me four years to be trained in planning law and planning. How will we train those people up in the time that we have? Have we changed our training to ensure that new people are properly trained?

Two members have asked to ask questions. I will bring you both in, but I ask each of you to put a short question to one panel member.

Thank you, Gail.

David Hammond, what are your views on that?

We can hear you perfectly.

Louise was too slow in looking up, even if she had anything to add. Monica Lennon has some questions in this area, so Louise might be able to come in on those.

Much better.

We can hear you much more clearly than we could during the rest of the meeting, so plug on. You are doing well, and we are hearing you well.

I have one more question for Gail Macgregor. Having listened to the evidence and read through quite a lot of reports, I am struggling to come to terms with the scale of the problem and the cost of resolving the issue. I will take the discussion to a place in the Highlands where there are 873 social houses, 540 of which do not reach an energy performance certificate C rating. The surveyor in me says that to address that will cost between £15,000-£40,000 for each house so, in total, at the top end it would be about £21 million and at the bottom end it would be £12 million. If we roll that out across the whole of the Highlands, we are probably talking in excess of £150 million, just to get the social housing up to an EPC rating of C. How do we quantify the policies that have been talked about? Do we know what they are going to cost? If we do not know what they are going to cost, are the policies going to be valid when they are introduced? What work have you done with your colleagues on that issue?

The deputy convener has an interesting point on finance.