Chamber and committees

Finally, the budget shows that 12 per cent of local government’s budget is from in-year transfers from other budgets. That is £1.5 billion, which is significant. Will you set out in a bit more detail what the make-up is of that £1.5 billion? What proportion of that spend is directed spend and what proportion can local government spend freely, on whatever it sees fit?

At the time, and in subsequent years.

Good morning. All 32 directors of finance wrote to Scottish ministers and set out what they felt were more than £1 billion of additional budget pressures on local government for 2023-24. Cabinet secretary, have you and your officials had the chance to meet the directors of finance to discuss the assessment of the make-up of that £1 billion and to compare it with the budget allocation for next year to see whether the allocation meets the pressures that they set out?

As well as setting out the £1 billion budget pressures, the directors of finance set out what they felt the impact of not meeting those pressures would be, which is services reducing or stopping, or staff numbers going down. We have seen examples of that with local authorities starting to produce their savings packages, some of which have been pretty severe. What assessment has been made of the 32 savings packages that are emerging, and what the impact will be on other public services such as health or social care as a result of reducing the services that were previously provided by local authorities?

Year on year, has consideration been given to increasing the allocation to local government to allow it to increase the provision of allotments or community growing spaces?

I know that the standards are up for review at the moment, but as well as the fairly huge cost burden, individual RSLs have properties on their books that, no matter how much money is spent on them, will never be brought up to standard as a result of a range of issues, such as mixed-tenure blocks of flats. What view is the regulator taking on properties that RSLs deem impossible to bring up to standard? We do not want to be in a situation where stock is decreasing. How is the process managed when RSLs take the view that they cannot spend money on properties to bring them up to standard?

Good morning. George Walker, in your earlier answers, you touched on the risks, costs and concerns that are associated with landlords’ commitments to achieving decarbonisation and net zero. In your previous session with us, you said that the costs and risks were not necessarily identified in associations’ business plans. Has the position changed? Are those business plans starting to give more recognition to the funding that will have to be identified and set aside for those things? If not, how is the regulator supporting landlords to go down that path?

Thanks for those answers. I want to touch on how the new fiscal framework would work in practice. We have heard about principles that would sit behind it but very little about the technical detail of how it would operate.

I direct my question to David Ross, since he talked about the proportion of the Scottish Government that is going to councils. Essentially, what is the ideal financial relationship that you would like to see between national Government and local government? Are you looking for a fixed share of the Government’s budget? How would that fiscal framework work in practice?

Thanks, convener.

COSLA launched the budget campaign a couple of weeks ago. It is fair to say that it paints a really grim picture for local authorities if there are no changes from the spending review figures. Shona, what impact would a flat-cash settlement have on local authorities? Are you able to set out a breakdown of the extra £1 billion that directors of finance have called for? Have you any suggestions as to how national Government might fund that?

Thank you for that. I will briefly come back to Councillor Morrison. A large part of that £1 billion was for pay deals and pay settlements. Since the pay deals were jointly negotiated, is COSLA asking for them to be baselined to alleviate some of the recurrent pressures?