Chamber and committees

I will leave it at that, convener.

We have covered quite a lot of ground, and some of the issues that I planned to mention have been touched on already. Much of our focus has been on how communities can feed in to the process. Local authorities’ written input has been about how the councils—three, in this case—rather than central Government could perhaps be more in control of the whole fund. Earlier it was suggested that central Government rules are making it very difficult to put such an approach into practice. Should the whole fund have been more under the control of local authorities, or should it now be?

One aspect that has been specifically referred to is the one-year window: we must have a consultation, make decisions and spend the money all within a year. Of course, to some extent, local authorities also have that problem. I know that they are always complaining that they want multiyear funding. If local authorities were running matters with this fund for 10 years, would you be better able to deal with that and give community groups more of a spread of time? Mr Bews, please answer that if you want to.

I think that Aberdeenshire Council raised the idea that the just transition fund should be aligned with other economic plans, such as the regional economic strategy. I realise that that council is not here today, so maybe you can comment on that. We have heard a bit about duplication, but are those things currently aligned or could they be better aligned? Is that a problem or is it not a problem?

I realise that my questions have been mainly for the local authorities, so I will give Mr Ross and Ms Stuart the opportunity to answer. Do you have any thoughts? Should we have more decision-making power at local authority level, or should we forget central Government and local authorities and focus entirely on communities?

I will stick with the two local authorities for the moment and let the others comment afterwards. Do local authorities have the capacity to take on more of the running of that? I know that you are all strapped, as well.

Would you like to add anything, Mr Ross?

I and, perhaps, some of my neighbours would go as far as saying that we need somebody from the council to come round and say, “Look at that bin. This should be in it and that should not be in it.” In all the time that we have had recycling in Glasgow, I have never seen that happen or had a leaflet on the subject through my door. Every week, the wrong stuff goes into the wrong bins, and it just carries on.

I am thinking wider than just unsold consumer goods. Going through all this, do you think that the costs, finances and expectations are based on you doing the minimum, or is there an expectation that you will be—or do you hope to be—more proactive in this area?

Okay. I will leave it at that.