Chamber and committees

That is helpful. Thanks. You have touched a couple of times on outstanding technical issues. You will know that the minister is coming to the committee after this evidence session. What are the outstanding technical issues? We can ask the minister on the record when we are likely to have them resolved.

That is great. Thank you.

Thank you. That is helpful. My final question is to do with the remediation work that small or medium-sized building businesses would potentially have to carry out. What kind of support packages, whether loans, grants or other things, would the Government have to put in place to support those small and medium-sized businesses that otherwise might be pushed out of business?

Good morning, minister. The Government and developers have both talked about outstanding technical questions when it comes to getting an agreement on the accord. Can you outline the outstanding technical questions from the Government’s side? Can you summarise those and set out how quickly you think the technical questions will be resolved to get that full legal agreement signed and delivered?

My second question is similar to one that I put to Homes for Scotland and is about responsibilities for small and medium-sized developers. The Government has said that it is open to negotiations on responsibilities. What does that mean in practice? Are you considering either the turnover threshold of £10 million, as exists in England, or the loan system that has been introduced in Wales? Obviously, the last thing that we want is developers going out of business and the potential for more orphan buildings. What reflections do you have on that, minister?

I am an MSP for the Central Scotland region.

Does anybody else want to comment on community engagement?

I put the same question to Jackie Weaver. Do you have examples of how well or how badly community or parish councils are engaging with the wider community? What best practice models have you seen in making sure that the wider community’s views have been expressed?

We have touched on the issue of how community councils convey the views of the community to authorities, whether that is national Government, local government, health boards or other statutory authorities. How do they do community engagement that allows them to genuinely convey the community’s view, rather than the individual views of the members of the community council? Is that happening, and how is it happening?

Thank you for that. As well as asking about how community councils represent the views of the wider community, I would like to ask about how we make sure that community councils and community councillors are representative of their communities and how we increase the number of volunteers. I do not know how many community council elections have been contested over the past 10 or 20 years. How do we increase the level of participation? How do we make sure that people with caring responsibilities and people from marginalised communities are involved? How do we make sure that community councillors are as representative as possible? I will come to Emma Swift first.