Chamber and committees

Yes.

Good morning. I want to ask two questions, one of which concerns partner organisations in local government. In not just this budget year but previous ones, as a result of decisions by Scottish ministers, councils have seen cuts to their budgets. In what way would a flat-cash allocation to local authorities impact on your organisations and the services that local government helps to deliver?

An important part of this, which you have outlined, concerns the projected lack of uptake of the benefits that are currently available. When it comes to this year’s in-year spend, where do other benefits—for example, the best start grant—sit, and are those also being earmarked as potential areas in which finance is currently allocated but may not be spent?

That is helpful. We are also waiting to see the bill and probably will not see it until an hour before the committee has to look at it.

Specifically with regard to rural homelessness, which we maybe do not talk enough about, supply and demand in those cases is often hugely limited. Do you know of any work that has been done about potential consequences for rural homelessness?

Finally, I want to ask about an issue that I have raised consistently. We are seeing a really depressing and worrying picture with regard to the number of children in temporary accommodation. I would say that, here in the capital, the situation is at crisis point. Where is the Scottish Government going wrong with the policy direction on that?

Good morning, cabinet secretary and officials. Thank you for joining us.

In your opening remarks, cabinet secretary, you touched on the remote, rural and island housing action plan. The Scottish Government plans that 10 per cent of the 110,000 affordable homes will be located in remote and rural communities. Can you update us on where the Government is with that and what percentage has been delivered?

Given what you said about this having to be a timed intervention—for six months—and the fact that we have just agreed to the Scottish social housing charter, which provides a framework whereby rents can be discussed between housing associations and their tenants, why has the social housing sector been included in the bill at all? It sounds like that might create more problems for the sector over the six-month period than is necessary.

That is helpful. A concern about which the committee has heard a lot and of which I am sure that you are acutely aware is the decline in the number of small to medium-sized builders, who often develop and take forward such projects. You mentioned funding being demand led. Given the current cost-of-unit price, what can the Scottish Government do to support smaller developers, especially when they are looking to develop affordable housing, which is often on a small scale?

I want to pursue a point that Marie McNair raised on forecasting and financing for housing associations, which are quite clear that the impact of the Scottish Government’s rent controls will mean their having to look again at their 10-year financing and consider whether projects will be affordable. Given that the committee will not see the bill until next week and that we have not had the chance to consult a wider group of stakeholders, what impact assessment has the Scottish Government undertaken to consider whether the approach will pull the plug on many vulnerable potential developments?

Good morning. I thank the witnesses for joining us.

The conversation about the state of the market has been quite negative up to this point. When it comes to solutions and ways of ensuring that we achieve the targets to which we signed up, do the witnesses think that there are new opportunities for financing and leveraging more money into the sector? Are there opportunities for longer-term investments such as pension funds to invest in housing schemes? Are different models available to enable us to realise the potential that we want to realise for housing construction? Perhaps Fionna Kell will go first.