Chamber and committees

Tony Cain, did you want to come back in?

My final question regards data around the link between short-term lets and the housing market. The cabinet secretary has said that the regulations could help to address the housing crisis. We know that there are five times as many empty homes in Scotland as there are self-catering units. Does the panel have any evidence of where the potential outcome of the regulations will be achieved?

I will bring Tony Cain back in. If anybody else wants to contribute, please put an R in the chat function.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us. First of all, I want to look at certain unintended consequences. Are you aware of evidence from other industries that are subject to local authority licensing or licence renewal resulting in significant disruption for those businesses? Specifically, what proportion of licence renewals for other industries are regularly refused by local authorities? Do you have any data on that? I will start with Andrew Mitchell, then go to Tony Cain and Leon Thompson.

That is helpful. As members of the panel will know, previous witnesses have told the committee that licensing of short-term lets could lead to a significant reduction in their availability and could cost the Scottish tourism industry tens of millions of pounds annually in lost revenue, even given the disruption that has been caused during the pandemic. How would you respond to those claims about the impact of the proposal on the industry?

I will bring Liam Thompson back in. If anyone else wants to respond, could they put an R in the chat?

As colleagues have said, we thank your organisations for everything that you did during the pandemic and are doing.

I want to ask a few questions specifically about the funding of third sector interfaces, which have an annual budget of £26 million. How do you see that utilised? Is it sufficient? What would your ask be, given that the budget is being announced today? I will ask Kaja Czuchnicka to start.

As others have, I thank you for everything that your organisations have done during and coming out of the pandemic.

I have a couple of questions about financial stability and sustainability. We have already heard about the importance of multiyear funding being available. We will, I hope, hear more along those lines in today’s budget announcement. I know of cases of health boards having already tried to move towards multiyear funding for mental health charities and drugs services. Does anyone on the panel have examples of that, or of the difference that multiyear funding makes and the additional capacity that it can provide?

That is helpful. My final question is about learning from the pandemic. Last Friday, I visited North Edinburgh Arts. We talked about the new partnerships and new relationships that have been built during the pandemic, and about how to sustain them. That very much comes down to their being able to use the facility of multiyear funding.

We all want additional capacity to be built across Scotland. Do you have examples of how that has been achieved during the pandemic? We have heard already that to some extent people just made things happen. There was maybe movement in terms of risk-averse people becoming involved in things. Are there examples of that? Does Suzie Burt have a local example of that? If others want to come in, put an R in the chat.

Kaja Czuchnicka mentioned community capacity building. I know from going around different organisations in my region that during the pandemic a lot of that capacity building was organic. Previously, organisations would have been more risk averse about such work and people would not have been brought in. The public health emergency response, however, meant that a lot of organisations adapted and built capacity. How do we make sure, for TSIs and other organisations, that that volunteer capacity from those who have wanted to support their communities over the last 20 months, is not lost? What has been learned during the pandemic to make sure that the barriers to volunteering that have previously existed are removed?

Finally, Suzie Burt, your organisation has established itself during the pandemic. Do you feel that the public health emergency let the third sector in but that it is now being pushed out again, or that barriers are being put in place that were not there before or were taken down during the pandemic? How do we prevent that? A lot of organisations that responded fantastically during the pandemic are now finding that they are not being listened to or that they do not have the same relationship with statutory bodies that they had before. What is your opinion about that? That question is open to anyone else on the panel as well.

Does anyone else want to come in?