 Good morning. Welcome to the 13th meeting of the 2016 of the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee. We have apologies from Claudia Beamish. Can I welcome Edward Mountain, the convener of the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee, who is also that committee's reporter in relation to the appointment of the tenant farming commissioner? Before we move to the first item on the agenda, can I remind everyone present to ensure that their mobile phones are on silent for the duration of the meeting? Agenda item 1 is a decision on taking business in private. That concerns items 3 and 4. Are members agreed to take those items in private? We are agreed. Agenda item 2 covers the appointment of the Scottish land commissioners and the tenant farming commissioner. The committee will hear first way from the nominee for the tenant farming commissioner, Bob McIntosh, who will then be joined by the five proposed Scottish land commissioners to allow a discussion with the group as a whole. Good morning, Bob. Welcome to the committee. We are going to move on to questions right away. I will begin. What specific farming experience do you feel you bring to the role of tenant farming commissioner? I guess I could answer that in several ways. I was a hands-on, though part-time farmer for about 15 years in a livestock farm in Northumberland. We had about 500 breeding news and 20 suckler cows. I was working full-time at the time, but I spent all my holidays and weekends as a very much a hands-on farmer, so I had a real immersion in the farming system at that time. The first two years of that were as tenants of the farm and laterally as owners. In my career with the Forestry Commission, I have had various land management roles. I was at one time responsible for the whole of the Forestry Commission's escape across the whole of Great Britain, about 1.3 million hectares. A lot of that land was not forest, so I had a lot of immersion in dealing with tenants and tenancies of all different types, agriculture and otherwise. One of my roles in the Forestry Commission was to encourage and promote the idea of the starter farms, which I think has been quite a useful development in terms of giving new entrants a start on the farming ladder on land and buildings that we would otherwise have sold in the past. Those are the three main areas where I have had involvement with the agriculture sector. I just wanted to ask about whether or not you consider any of your existing roles presently to be a conflict of interest with the role that is going forward. For example, I know that you were a previous director of the Forestry Commission Scotland. You are currently a board member of the Highlands and Islands Enterprise, and you are a member of the Executive Commission of the Association of Deer Management Groups. I do not think so. Highlands and Islands has a key interest in community development in the Highlands and Islands area and in promoting community ownership and community development. It is one of the levers that is pulled to deliver that. Most of the policy stuff comes from outside of high. It is really a delivery agent for community involvement and community ownership. I do not think that there will be a conflict there. Obviously, if anything came up that was a conflict, I would have to declare that to either the Land Commission or an HIE board. Can I ask if any of those roles are renumerated? The HIE board is, yes. If I may, what about moving forward? Would the fact that you are the tenant family commissioner influence some other posts that you might take up? Would you feel that you would be very careful about any roles that you took on in future? Absolutely. I am supposed to be retired, so I do not intend to take on any more roles that I can assure you beyond this one. Kate Forbes. Thank you very much. I wonder if you could expand on how you envisage the role that is practically going forward, particularly building relationships with the numerous stakeholders and perhaps drawing on prior experience with those stakeholders in the past? Yes. In taking forward the role that is going to be vital that I work closely with the key stakeholder bodies, tenant farming associations, Scottish land and estates, national farms union, RICS probably as well. What has happened to date in terms of drawing up interim codes has very much been with the involvement of all of these bodies, and that will certainly be the way that I would move forward. We have to move with them, we have to take these bodies along with us as we develop policy and ideas. I would want to work very closely with them. I have dealt with most of them in the past in previous roles in various different ways, so I know most of the individuals involved and I think they know me. Do you think that your lack of experience alone, in a practical sense with regard to farming, is at disadvantage in any way? Well, I guess it might be, but I'm supposed to come to this as a neutral. In a way, I guess where I'm coming from helps that I'm not going to die in the world, tenant or landlord. I do come from a reasonably neutral perspective, but I have had a career that is in a lot of involvement in land use and land management issues, so a lot of the issues that are around I am aware of, I think, and have had some experience of. Thank you. I'd like to make a declaration before I ask Bob any questions, if I may. I am a partner in a farming business and, for information, I worked as a surveyor for the last 15 years looking after farms and estates, so all of that is declared in my register of interests, if anyone would like to see that. Bob, if I may, I'd like to ask a little bit about your experience. I believe you said that you'd farmed in Northumberland, which is obviously different legislation as far as farming in Scotland. Could you tell me your experience in releasing to the agricultural holdings legislation? Have you done rent reviews? Have you done resumptions? Have you done end-of-tenancy things? Have you looked at those in Scotland? I haven't been directly involved in those, but obviously, in terms of the land that we manage in the Forestry Commission, there was a lot of that going on, and some of it floated up to me as chief executive to have dealings with, but we did employ quite a lot of land agents, and they would have done most of the nuts and bolts of that sort of stuff. Just to clarify, you had an oversight, but you've never immersed yourself as you have in farming by your admission in the actual nuts and bolts of the legislation relating to agricultural holdings in Scotland? Not deeply, although in the last few weeks I've been trying to immerse myself. I doubt if anyone could be an expert in the ag holdings legislation actually having a quick look at it. I am getting up to speed. I don't pretend to be an expert in that area. I will have access to expert advice in that area, although in the role, that's pretty clear. I think that there's also what I'm saying. I don't think that the technicalities of the legislation are not really my role. If there are issues to be resolved and technical and legal issues, that's really for the land court. One more follow-up, if I may, on that. Having done it for 15 years, I certainly wouldn't regard myself as an expert. I think I've dipped my toe in the water. I agree with what you say, but what slightly worries me is when you actually go to holdings, if you're not seen to be actually involved and actually know what you're talking about, it can make things difficult. Do you perceive that that's going to be a problem, or do you think that the people who accept your forestry experience gives you a view on agricultural holdings? I would accept that it's an area where I have to get up to speed pretty quickly and understanding the legislation in more depth than I do at the moment. I think that's fair. Mark Ruskell Morning, Bob. You've obviously got a huge amount of experience in working with different stakeholders and civil service and forestry commission and other bodies, but what about the real lived experiences of tenant farmers in Scotland? That's clearly an area where you perhaps need to engage a bit more with those individual farmers. What do you plan to do? How do you plan to do that? Do you intend to continue working with representative bodies, or will you actually be out there on the ground meeting families? Oh, very much. Hope I'll be out there on the ground. Yes, absolutely. We've still got to resolve how the sort of complaints procedure will work, but I would have hoped that I could intervene in a lot of these issues by speaking to people on the ground and avoid things coming to formal complaints. That means being out on the ground, talking to people, understanding their issues and trying to reach some sort of middle ground. So, for example, I've got a number of high-profile eviction cases happening at the moment, including one in an hour, and I wouldn't expect you to comment on those at the moment. But in your current role, how would you, in the role that you're coming into, how exactly would you engage with an issue like that in terms of understanding the views of those parties involved in it? Yeah, well, I think by speaking to all sides, as I say, it's pretty vital that we understand all sides and these arguments, and I think, you know, in my previous role in Scottish Government, I seem to spend most of my life sitting between people with conflicting objectives and management ideas, so I'm not unfamiliar with that role, and I'm not staried about how easy that will be. But yes, I mean, I will have to get together with people. Most of this role I see is about relationship building. It's not about the technicalities so much. It's about trying to create a culture where landlords and tenants can work in an area of mutual respect and understanding in a fair and reasonable manner, and reading Ag Holdings' legislation review, it does seem that that's one of the areas where there seem to be a lot of dysfunctional landlord-tenant relationships around, so that's really about building relationships as much as anything. In a wider sense, what are the challenges that you think you would face in the role? The TFC role, particularly. Well, it's a really difficult area. I mean, it's unavoidable that there are inherent tensions in the whole thing between an understandable desire of tenants for more security and an understandable desire of landlords for more flexibility, and finding a compromise between these two things is not easy. So it's an area that has inbuilt tensions, and, you know, the evidence shows that the area of tenanted land is declining. Perhaps one area where there is a greater consensus around a code of conduct for land agents, how would you intend to take that forward? Well, one of my duties set by the act is to produce codes of practice, which would apply not just to agents but to tenants and landlords, too. So a lot of work has been done on that already by Andrew as the tenant family adviser. So there's a lot of stuff to build on. Those interim guides have got to be turned into formal codes of practice. That has to be done in consultation again with those bodies that I'd mentioned before, and those have got to be published and promoted, and they will hopefully provide the sort of base from which landlords and tenants and agencies will take their guide as to what's reasonable, acceptable behaviour. And then we've got to introduce a formal complaints system, which allows people to complain if they think that the other party has not abided by the codes of practice. This is over at a very early stage. This has all got to be put in place over the next few months. So that will be one of the immediate priorities in the role. Okay. You've touched on the fact that Andrew Thin has been the interim tenant farming commissioner. He's the appointee to become chairman of the land commission. Could you talk us through how you envisage the interaction between yourself and the TFC role, and the wider land commission? How do you think that will work in practice? Well, I'm very pleased to be on the commission as well as having the TFC role, because I think there is a link between the two, and I am interested in the wider issue of the land commission, not just the TFC role. So there'll be areas of work for the commission, which don't directly affect the sort of ag holdings area, but there'll be areas of my work that have a knock-on effect into wider land commission duties. Since I'm on the commission, I think there should be no difficulty in marrying the two, and there'll be things that I'll want to discuss with the whole land commission, I guess, in terms of my role. So just to get this on the record, in practice, will you take the weed and deliver on all the TFC roles, or do you have to refer to the land commission in any way? By and large, the legislation gives me the role for doing these things, but it does talk in general terms about working with the rest of the land commission on relevant issues. My question is to refer to my register of interests regarding agricultural forestry holdings. Good morning. You've touched on a question a bit already when you said that the number of tenant farmers is dropping, and you're right. Over the last 12 years, I think there's been a 20 per cent reduction in the amount of farm available for tenancies. What do you see as being the main cause of that? I think there are probably lots of reasons, but again, it's inherent tension between security and flexibility, which I guess has caused some landlords not to want to rent land because of the fear that they may lose it. There's no getting away from that. It must be part of the issue that prevents land owners from wanting to rent land. It is very difficult to get that balance between the rights and responsibilities of a tenant and the rights and responsibilities of the landlord. As I said before, there is an inherent tension there, which is not easy to resolve. You believe that there's a lack of flexibility which has caused it? I'm sure that's just one of the reasons. There are lots of other reasons, I'm sure. Just to follow up on that, because I think it's disturbing that if you look, there is a drop-off of tenant farms and new entrants in them. You're saying there's tension. I just wonder if you could say what your solution is. Is your solution a freedom of contract between landlord and tenant, or is it a stricture within the legislation of the agricultural holdings and the limited duration tenancies? Could you give us some? I have no preconceived ideas on that. Clearly, the ag holdings review led to some changes in the legislation in the land reform act, and some new measures were introduced there. Now, we'll have to see how these bed-in, the new modern limited duration tenancy, we don't really know how successful that's going to be or otherwise. So we'll have to wait and see how these things develop. In the meantime, as I said, I would really want to sit down with the main bodies, get their ideas, their thoughts on it and work with them to move things forward, but I have to say that I have no preconceived ideas at this stage about what the best solutions may be. We hear all too often about the tensions and the disagreements that exist in the sector, but behind the scenes there has been some fairly good collaborative working, notably led by David Johnson at Scotland in the States on things like rent reviews. Does that encourage you that it is possible to make progress in this role? Absolutely. I think that, even in the amount of work that Andrew has done so far with the interim guides and things, it is bringing about some sort of culture change. As far as I can gather from speaking to SLE and TFA on these sort of bodies, they see that as a very positive thing and they do think that they are recognising changes within their members in the way that they operate. So I think that it does give hope that we can move forward. Finlay Carson. Thanks, Ed. Good morning. You earlier mentioned about starter farms in your role in forestry. How would you measure how successful you are with starter farms in community woodlands and how is that part of your key objective in your new role? Well, I think that starter farms are just one way that people can get a start on the farming ladder. In previous years, when the Forest Commission bought land, the house and the steadying and a bit of good land roundabout it would have been sold on. So the idea was rather than selling it on, we would equip it and put someone in or not, sort of 10-year tenancy, give them a start in the farming, maybe on a part-time basis, maybe full-time, and hope that they could build up expertise and capital so that at the end of 10 years they can move on to something a bit bigger. So I think that it has a part to play in helping to get new entrants into the business. So how many starter farms were actually created? It's probably less than a dozen at the moment, but I'm out of it now, but the commission is still, I think, planning to hopefully acquire more land in the future, so I imagine we'll see more starter farms coming. Thank you. David Stewart has some questions now. Thank you, convener. Good morning, Dr Macintosh. Could you outline for the committee your key objectives and priorities for the post? Yep. Some of my priorities are set down by the legislation, so I have to start with the codes of practice, the complaints procedure. I've been asked, the Government asked if the tenant farming commission would carry out a specific investigation into the role of agents acting for landlords and tenants, so we'll have to be a gathering of evidence about that. There was obviously some disquiet expressed during the Ag Holdings review about the way that agents were sometimes not helping the landlord-tenant relationship. Clearly many are very helpful in that role, some clearly are not, so I have to carry out a review of their role. That'll mean a call for evidence and a gathering of stuff in the publication of the results. A number of things are proscribed already in terms of my initial priorities, but, again, going back to it, I think it is about relationship building, it's about helping to try and change the culture of how landlords, agents and tenants all interact with each other, and a lot of that I see happening through the codes of practice. Could I ask you then a question on the flip side of that? What work will you not be carrying out? My experience in dealing in the Parliament with new organisations is sometimes you can have boundary wars with other organisations saying, no, no, this is my job. Clearly that is a potential. What's your thoughts to the committee on what you will not be clearly carrying out in your role and the wider role? I certainly don't want to cut across the role of the land court, obviously that's one area. The whole crofting area, obviously there's the crofting commission, I don't see it as my role to cut across what they are doing, so I want to work very closely with the crofting commission and the land commission, but I need to be very careful about not stepping on their toes. It's obviously not for your role to comment on the way the current legislation is framed, but is there a potential conflict in the legislation between your role in the crofting commission? I don't think so. The sort of work that I'd be doing on codes of practice and how landlords and tenants should interact with each other over rent reviews and things would have a relevance in the crofting sector, I think, whether or similarly landlord-tenant relationships, but in terms of all the technicalities of crofting, I wouldn't dare tread into that sort of area. One, two, either. No, thank you. Can I just wrap this up, Dr Mackintosh Bridges, to ask you a general question around what are your expectations of how time-consuming this role will be because it does strike me, it will be extremely time-consuming, and are you ready for that? Well, it looks like my contract is going to say something like six to eight days a month, but I fully expect that that will not be enough. On the other hand, the commission will be recruiting staff over the next few weeks and there will be staff within the commission to support my role. Now, we're still going to clarify that, so it's not absolutely clear what they might do and what I might do, so I will have support within the commission, which will make it easier. Things like dealing with all the complaints procedures and things, I think, there'll be somebody to do that. I'm hoping that I can spend a lot of my time interacting with tenants and farmers and landlords and the various organisations, rather than getting bogged down in the bureaucracy of it, as it were. If all the members are content. Thank you very much for your time, Dr Mackintosh. I'm going to suspend briefly to allow a change of witnesses. Welcome back. We now have Bob Mackintosh joined by the five Scottish Land Commissioner nominees. We have Professor David Adams, Lorne McLeod, Megan McInnes, Dr Sally Reynolds and Andrew Thin. Welcome to all of you. We, as you can imagine, have a number of questions for you, and we'll begin with Mark Ruskell. I'm not the negative, but really to ask you, you've got considerable strengths as individuals and as an entire commission, but what you see is your weaknesses collectively and how do you see how you might address those? Inna, do you want me to lead and then pass it around, or how do you want us to do this? So that would be fine. Thank you, Mr Thun. So just an initial thought and then we'll just pass it out. I think it's a really strong team and I hope that shows on paper. The weakness clearly is that actually most of us have only met each other last night. We've got to build a team and that, you know, there is an enormous difference between six well qualified, well experienced individuals and a really effective team. So that's the weakness at the moment and we're going to have to really work over the next two or three months so that by 1 April it's fully functioning. Lorne might offer a few thoughts given his experience of this sort of thing in other walks of life. In terms of the legislation perhaps a legal expertise is something that we maybe don't have particularly strong amongst us, but I think in terms of the recruitment of staff and support mechanisms to undertake her work and specialisms in law, obviously there will be a variety of specialisms in law that will be needed. So I think that a level of expertise can be brought on to support what we do but I do believe, as Andrew said, we met last night, I do believe we have a great breadth of experience according to the section 11, the list of expertise that was required. So, I mean, in terms of how the commission will actually function, I mean, do you envisage having committees, subgroups, I mean, how would you actually marshal some of that wider expertise such as legal expertise that you'll need to bring in to supplement the expertise that you've got already? Have you got early thoughts around how you function and how you bring in extra expertise when that is required? Given that we only met last night, you'll forgive us, I hope, for not having that fully thought through and crystallised as a team. Clearly we have the power and we hope, subject to the spending statement on 15th, some resources to employ some people to help us. Clearly we will have to structure that round an extremely strategic approach. There'll be, there's an enormous number of different things that we could do. We will have to come at this very systematically and I would be very reluctant to offer you half-baked thoughts now. OK. Are there any other areas beyond legal expertise and what about planning, housing? Maybe David could say a bit about planning and housing. I think we're reasonably well covered in terms of basic expertise in planning and housing. I mean, I've been widely involved in debates with the professions and with stakeholders. I think that obviously what we need to do is to ensure those debates continue and that the key bodies are involved in developing the work. I do think what is very important is that the work of the commission should be seen as a commission for Scotland as a whole and not just the rural parts of Scotland. Issues around planning and housing are very important for that. Let's just tease that out a little bit and let's go around each of you in turn. I wonder if you're outlined for us what you feel you personally bring to the land commission in terms of expertise and areas of interest. What's that with Megan McInnes? Thank you, convener, and good morning, everyone. First of all, I'm very excited about the chance to become a land commissioner and having met with the others last night, it looks like it's going to be an excellent team with a huge amount of expertise and competencies. I think my personal contribution will be the years I've spent working on land reform and natural resource management and governance in Asia and internationally, as well as my background and family connections to the Highlands and to the fact that I grew up on Sky and currently living up across. Work in Asia and internationally has let me get involved in a whole range of different elements of land reform, land management from working with local communities on titling and recognition of collective land titles and land governance systems to working with Government and policy makers on legislative reforms, as well as working with international agribusiness companies on how to balance the need between economic productivity and environmental and social protection. I hope that those together give me a strong element of expertise to contribute to the commission's work. Dr Sally Reynolds I come from a personal background with regard to crofting and I personally work just now in a community-owned estate, so I have professional and personal experience of community land ownership. In addition to that, my PhD was in environmental biology and I worked for a long time as an agricultural consultant, giving me a breadth of experience about land management, agriculture, environmental issues such as pollution, protected sites. I hope that I can bring a breadth of experience in that way. I have a lot of experience working with communities, both professionally through working as a community-owned estate and personally working as a common grazing sclack and involved in a number of local community organisations. I have also worked with SNH on the local grey lag goose management scheme, which has given me a breadth of experience working with not only volunteers but also a government agency. I am taking that forward in a positive manner. Finally, I am a Gaelic speaker, so I will be able to add to the other benefits by communicating in Gaelic. Okay, thank you. Professor Adams. Well, I guess my expertise is in real estate and planning. I've done a lot of research into urban land ownership, most behaviours of landowners, looking at the house funding industry, the development industry. In that one of the key tasks of the commission is to conduct to oversee research, I was deputy chair of the UK wide panel that assessed the quality of research across all universities in the UK in architecture planning and built environment in 2014. So I have a lot of experience in terms of research quality, research ethics, research methods and so on and so forth. So hopefully that will cross beyond my particular urban expertise. Okay, Laura McLeod. I would hope that I would be able to bring expertise in business and finance in terms of understanding of due diligence, of financial analysis, of putting financial structures together, of funding mechanisms. I've obviously had experience in private business as well and also involved for six years as a co-opted director of the Isle of Gaea Heritage Trust, and then six years in total with Storysuistia, which is one of the larger buyouts, 93,000 acres, in which I have been able to turn around a landed estate and made it viable in terms of financial structures and taking forward job creation opportunities for capital development, harbour development in terms of renewable energy. In addition to that, my involvement with Community Land Scotland, which has given me an experience of a wide range of communities and how they get involved with land issues and around that. Another thing that I would like to add to that is the importance of collaboration. The protocol that we developed with Scottish Land and Estates is very important to that, which offers opportunities for communities who wish to take forward the purchase of land, which is not presently on the market. There is a step-by-step approach to working on that, so I think that collaboration in terms of the work of the Land Commission will be extremely important. Okay, Mr Mantle, at the risk of rehearsing what we went through. I guess that the main thing that I would bring to the wider commission is a lifetime's background and interest and involvement in land use and land management. I think that's what I bring, principally both at the practical end and also at the policy end, because in my last three years, I was esconderd into Scottish Government as the Environment and Forestry Director, so I was responsible for a lot of policy areas around land use, environment, forestry, etc. Okay, Andy Thin. In this real wealth of experience here, from the international to the very specific, what I hope I will contribute is co-ordinating, pulling that together, facilitating so that all that talent is expressed in a way that's useful to the Parliament, useful to the Government. That would be number one. We must add value really effectively to the priorities of whoever is the elected administration of the day. Number two, I do have a lot of experience of taking people with me in different roles that I've played, stakeholders, in the broader sense of that term. I know an awful lot of these people. I hope that that outward-facing contribution is my other main add-on. In terms of interaction with the tenant farm and commissioner, you've obviously been the interim. Do you feel that you can assist Dr Mike Tosh in that role, or are you conscious as well that you need to allow him to get on with it? I hope that I will be able to assist if it's wanted, and I hope that I'll be able to shut up when it's not. Maurice Golden. I think that you're right to recognise that collaboration is going to be key, but there will also need to be considerations around complaints and disputes. I would really just like to press you on an area where I feel that it's still lacking, based on what you've said. That's around the requisite level of legal expertise that you can easily access. Obviously, you can have a firm on a retainer and try to bring that in the house, but, for me, I think that it would be quite difficult to square that circle. I'm just wondering your thoughts on that. I've got to offer a thought on that. I might see what others think. The breadth of scope for this commission is such that the legal expertise that we are quite likely to want at different points in time will be quite specialised, and you'd never get it in one person. My experience, for example, of tenant farming, is that relatively few practising lawyers can really give you the advice that you need on our holdings. We should employ whatever we think we need in terms of general advice, but we will need to have the flexibility to buy that specialist input whenever we need it. It would be impossible, even with five or six people, to have all that specialist people on the commission, and you wouldn't have any other doubt. However, what you have got on the commission—I was really delighted to pick this up last night—is that everybody around this table has engaged in legal issues one way or the other, at a level of detail that really encourages me. I think that these people know how to talk to lawyers. It's probably the best way to put it. Alexander Bournemont Thank you. A question on the agricultural experience. Do you think that it's a concern whilst crofting is important? There are two representatives from crofting backgrounds on the commission, but crofting only represents less than 3 per cent of Scotland's agriculture. Do you think that that's a bit of a concern, but it's maybe too heavily focused on one particular sector? I don't think so. I mean, I don't think that anyone's here to represent anything. I think they're here because they have a diverse range of experiences, which happens to include—I mean, my experience includes crofting. It also includes ag holdings. It also includes—I ran an enterprise company. People bring to these things diverse experience, and that diversity brings depth. I don't see it as a negative at all. You don't feel an absence of anybody with beef or dairy or cereals, grain, any of that is an issue. I think that we have experience around the table of the livestock sector. I take your point about arable, left, direct arable experience, but certainly the livestock sector we have. Good experience. Finlay Carson. Just on, it does concern me that there appears to be an overemphasis on the public sector. If what is the experience of actually hands-on practical land management with regards to anything other than crofting across the commission, with all due respect to Dr McIntosh, there's a huge difference between weekend farming and day-to-day land management when it comes to agriculture. I come from the area in the south of Scotland, and I'm worried that there's not the expertise or the experience on the panel other than from the crofting experience. I'll speak to myself. There is a lot of very good robust private sector experience, but I was, for several years, director of an estate company that had a big farming operation. I have a very good handle on the realities of running a commercial operation. Lorne, you've been a director of the company? In my involvement with the Isle of Gea heritage trust, there were four or five dairy farms on the island, so obviously some understanding like that, but I would accept that I don't have a practical hands-on experience, but from the experience of being on the board looking at reconstituting farms and trying to help them to become more viable, I've got experience there. I do come from a crofting background, and my hands-on livestock experience is in a crofting scenario. I did work as an agricultural consultant where I worked with farmers and crofters. I didn't only deal with crofting, and my involvement in estates has again been from a crofting. There are crofting estates, but I do deal with all sorts of things, like commercial leases and so on and so forth. I do have some concern about relegating the commission to being a farming organisation. The question could equally well be asked as why do we not have a house builder? Why do we not have someone from a financial institution on the commission? I think it is very important as the commission goes forward, as I mentioned beforehand, that we think about land across the whole of Scotland, and not just land in rural areas. A real question that each of you could probably give me a bit of guidance on it is that there's always two sides to every argument, and with land it becomes polarised on each side, and I understand the need to come up with codes of practice. I wonder whether it be on rural or housing, or how you're going to sell yourselves to the agents who are trying to act on a commercial basis and have commercial guidelines and returns that they need for their investment. I just wondered if I could ask if it's all right with you. Each of you, I don't know, the order that you want to go in to explain how you think you're going to embed yourself with them because they're a critical part. I'll kick off for that. Scotland's a small place, and you need to get out and talk to people, and you need to engage in this. You know, Edward, because you've seen me operate before, that's how I envisage all of us getting out and engaging with people. It's one of the real strengths of this country, actually, is that you can do that. You can get out in a relatively short time. If you get off your backside and put the energy into it, you can build those kinds of understandings, which are two-way understandings, very effectively. A year ago, I convened a meeting of land agents in Perth, because I felt that there was a level of expertise among land agents that hadn't particularly been brought into the community land-owning sector. That was a particularly positive meeting, and in the intervening year, we've seen at least one firm of land agents that is now looking at creating a specialism to support community land-owning sector. I think that it's working in collaboration and working in a positive manner with groups, and bringing in all those expertise that can be really conducive to us working very positively going forward. I think that I would like to echo what Andrew said about the importance of stakeholder engagement with all the different stakeholders, the land agents, and every other group that has a stakeholder concern within the land sector in Scotland across the various different urban and rural communities. It is extremely important that we take time to talk to them, we get out of our offices and we go and see what's happening on the ground in all these different areas, and take time as well to develop a strategic vision and a strategic plan for action over the three or five-year terms that we will be given. I think that it's only through doing that that we will be able to allow everyone else's concerns that we are fully independent. We're not taking any particular group's sides and we want to maintain that independence throughout the remit of this commission and set the groundwork for the future Scottish Land Commission as it moves forward. Just picking up on that point about your independence, you're here today because you bring in expertise in certain areas, but some might say a potential for conflict of interest to arise. We touched upon that earlier with Dr Mattantosh. I'd like to go round each of you in turn to ask you to reflect on whether you feel that there are any areas of conflict of interest potentially in what you currently do with taking on the role of land commissioners and how you'll address those. Can I start with Professor Adams? There's no conflict of interest with my academic role because I'm encouraged to be as controversial as possible in that role. My university is extremely happy to see me taking this role. I do have, in the papers, a role in convening a local community organisation. Obviously, if there's any conflict of interest in that, it would be declared and I would absent myself from any discussion. Dr Reynolds. I do work for a community owned estate and I have discussed it with them at length and they've given their full support that they are more comfortable for me to be here, but in the same way as David, obviously, if there was ever a conflict, I would abstain myself. In other areas, I don't see any conflict of interest unless there was something to do with crofting that we were reviewing with common greasings. I would have to, because I am a Government greasings clerk, but I don't envisage anything with that, but if there was again, I would make sure that I abstented myself from the discussions. Andrew Thennan. I own a small amount of land that's not answered around the house and will be fully declared. I'm chairman of Scottish Canals, which owns land and big metal horses and various other things. I don't think there's any conflict there, but I certainly will be fully declared and very alive to it. I suppose the only thing I didn't mention earlier is that I'm a fellow of the Royal Institute of Chartered Savers. Given that the whole tenant farming thing revolves around landlord tenants and agents, there might be a suggestion that, as a member of the RICS, I'm particularly hefty towards agents. I am considering whether I keep my membership up for that very reason. I'm the chairman of Community Land Scotland, and it would be my intention if I was confirmed in post that I would resign from that role and my involvement with Community Land Scotland. The year-end air is 31 December, so it will take effect from that. I'm also a co-opted director of the community-owned estate for the island of Areski, south Euston and Bimbecula, and I would also resign that role from 31 December. On a professional basis, I'm currently on maternity leave from the Organization of Global Witness. Under that role, I had been involved in various elements of the land reform act, particularly part 1 and part 3. I have been involved in helping to work on submissions for the consultation processes that are under way following the enactment of that, so I will need to be discussing that with Global Witness and also with Andrew the chair and with Bridget Campbell's team about any potential conflicts, if I'm also confirmed in post. On a personal basis, my partner and his family are crofters in Apacross, so if there's any conflicts potentially moving forward there, I'll also declare an upstain as necessary. Can I ask how in practice advice will be available to you on potential conflicts of interest? How's that going to work on the commission? It was my responsibility to make sure that conflicts are managed well and managed properly, and I've done it many times in many public bodies, so that's the first line. The second line where I will always, if necessary, seek advice from sponsoring civil servants and, if necessary, lawyers. I mean, I don't anticipate that, but it should be my management. Okay, thank you for that. Finlay Carson. Can I ask how many of the panel have currently or in the past had any formal ties with CLS? Committee of Land Scotland. Well, the community group that I convene is a member of community council. And the community group that I work for is also a member, and I am a personal member. I've done a small amount of work with community land Scotland on the potential some background research on the land rights and responsibility statement, but that's a contract which has been completed for a number of months now. Thank you. As Professor Adams has identified, this is a commission for the whole of Scotland, so I'd like to hear from each of you and how you envisage conducting your work across Scotland geographically, sectorally and engaging all the stakeholders with a stake in Scottish land. We start with Megan McInnes. Well, as we've only just first met last night, we're only just beginning to think about exactly how we want to start doing that. I think all of us recognise that conducting that kind of stakeholder engagement at this initial process and also moving forward is one of the most important parts of the commission's work, so it's extremely important that we get it right, that we reach out to all the different stakeholders and that we are able to demonstrate that we're willing to listen, we're open and we're available for conversation with anyone who wants to come and talk to us as the commission's strategic vision is developed and then as we actually start implementing the work as it's proposed on the 1st of April. I think that, as has also been clearly demonstrated, we're not representative of particular geographical areas or necessarily particular sectoral groups, but I think that together we all have very good contacts and experience and knowledge of these different areas and it's going to be about making sure that we have a plan that covers all the different sectoral, geographical and intercept groups across Scotland to make sure that we do genuinely reflect land reform issues across the entire country. And if I could just include it, I know that you're to be based in Inverness, so again thinking about how you do make sure that you get out and about across the Highlands and across Scotland. Certainly with my involvement with Community Land Scotland, one of the exciting things at the moment is that the majority of inquiries are coming from outwith the Highlands and Islands, particularly Dumfries and Galloway and the borders and also urban areas, so I've had an involvement in Dumfries and Galloway. In addition to that, last week we had an awareness raising event in Newton Stewart, which was filled to capacity, so I believe that there is a growing awareness of issues, but I am conscious of the point that you made there. There is an importance to bring this also to the urban areas, but successful projects going forward like the Community Buy out of the Burmulloch boxing club, and that's right in the heart of Glasgow. I think that the importance of land and access to land for the entire communities of Scotland and individuals is important, and I think that that's something that needs to be at the forefront in taking forward work of Scottish Land Commission. Yes, I totally agree. It's about everyone in Scotland and the land is for all of Scotland, and the urban area, we mustn't ignore. In my previous role in the Forest Commission, we started an urban forestry agenda and we got involved in managing and creating woodlands in the heart of some of the most disadvantaged parts of Glasgow and things, and that was a hugely rewarding experience, which I think had a very positive impact on communities and the landscape in the urban areas, so certainly not our intention to ignore the urban dimension in that. This is not unique to this public organisation. The majority of public bodies need to be fully serving all of Scotland's people. That's what they're there for, so this is not unique. In my experience, there's two key dimensions. I apologise for keeping a principle approach, but we haven't got the talk through the practice. First of all, you have to get the culture and core values right from day one. We must establish the right culture, the right core values, transparency, accessibility, all those sorts of things, so that we can be there for everybody. Secondly, you have to get management practice right. The board needs to get out, the staff needs to get out. When you conduct a review, you need to have a systematic evidence-gathering process that's properly and closely to the social media and all those sorts of things. Those two dimensions are what we have to think through, but we haven't thought it through yet. I would agree with everything that my colleagues have already said. We did only meet yesterday, so we haven't managed to start planning this yet, but I assume that we will have a strategic and methodical plan to get out there and see everyone. I'm a very, very big believer in community engagement and communication, and I'm a very big believer in talking and going out and meeting people face to face and speaking with as many stakeholders as possible and ensuring that we meet as many people across the whole of Scotland and every sector. I would hope that the commission will have a very strong focus on the huge extent of vacancy and dereliction. It's 12,500 hectares in Scotland. It's really not been tattled for a long period of time. That's more than twice the size of the city of Dundee. We have a long-standing problem. It's concentrated in cities. It's not exclusive in cities. It particularly affects in those deprived communities. It is a scourge on the economic sustainability of Scotland that we waste so much resource that is vacant and derelict. I think the commission has to begin to understand why that is the case. It has to understand why redevelopment projects, why development projects take so long. It has to understand the role of land in housing and in urban areas. It must really tackle some of these issues that are core as much to the economic prosperity of Scotland as a whole, as to environmental sustainability. Now, in some cases that is concentrated in urban areas, but some of these derelict sites are in quite peripheral rural locations. I think we need to get away, as I say, from urban and rural and we need to look at themes and the theme of trying to reduce, trying to tattle the huge backlog that we have of vacant and derelict to me is an important part of the commission's work. At this stage, it might be useful just to tease something else out on the record. Can you each confirm the period of your appointments, because I understand it, they are staggered? I'm not sure if we can, because it's not confirmed that we haven't got formal offers. I don't think that the Government can give us a formal offer until you've considered whether you wish to confirm. It's simply that the act has a provision for staggered appointments up to a maximum of five years, and the idea was not to get to the point five years from now, where the entire land commission was up for change. I've had a conversation with several servants, and it is the intention to make sure that there is a stagger. That will happen, and you just don't know yet, because of where we are in the process. In terms of strategic planning, you've all spoken to some extent about the importance of relationship building. Obviously, the commission will be time limited, because 1 April is when it's all meant to kick off. In the intervening months, how do you proceed together? What are your plans? I know that you said that you've only met last night for the first time, but how do you envisage going forward in strategic planning? How will you do exactly as Dr Reynolds spoke about previously, reach out to those communities and involve them in that strategic planning process? Over the next three to four months, we need to get in place a strategic plan just for that first year for 2017-18, and a business plan for 2017-18. We're not going to get everything clarified by 1 April. Probably the top priority in that first year, as it's set out in the act, will be to produce a three-year strategic plan, I'm guessing three years. I don't think all of this is going to happen between now and 31 March. In order to make that happen, as I've suggested earlier, there will have to be formal, structured ways of consulting and engaging, but I am also extremely anxious that, even in the pre-April period, we find ways as a team of engaging with the key players. That's going to be quite tough. It's only three months, three, four months, and it's Christmas in the way, but I think it can be done with the key players so that the human relationships start to build. For me, a lot of this is going to be about taking advantage of being in a small country to build those human relationships very early. Is anyone else any thoughts on how you do engage the community with the work that you're doing more broadly in that strategic plan? I appreciate that there is a time limit and that, perhaps, it won't be ready to go by 1 April, but do you have any thoughts more broadly about how you engage different stakeholders in that process? One of the things that we all discussed last night was the importance of communication and the commission establishing a communication plan in a strategy, both for listening but also for informing and being transparent. That's something that we've identified as a key priority that we'll start before 1 April so that people get to know who we are, why we are excited, what we have to offer and the means of that dialogue initiating with groups across Scotland can start already, not just in terms of us going out and visiting different stakeholders, but also more social media-based communications as well. It's extremely important given how much Twitter plays a role now in terms of the online discussions. There are some very interesting points there by Professor Adams about effectively placemaking, not just within an urban context but an urban rural context as well and the role of vacant derelict land, but it got me thinking about the remit of you as a commission and where you draw the line in terms of what's within your remit, what's outside of your remit. Perhaps I could ask Professor Adams to perhaps explain where he sees that line and where he would see the agenda of the commission relating to other bodies which perhaps feel that they've got more of a locus in a role there. Will you wish to make a comment on it after Professor Adams? I find that a very difficult question because I don't work in lines or boxes, I just make connections all over the place and I have talked about land reform to groups from the Scottish Property Federation, the RICS through to community housing associations and so on and so forth. So I think part of this is actually just seeing where we go and one of the key things about land is that it's such an integrating resource, it does pull together a whole series of potentials. I'm not too sure I have the answer question because it's not in my nature of thinking to draw too many lines in too many boxes. I realise that in terms of the organisation we clearly will have to not tread down the people's toes but no doubt we'll find a way of dealing with that. So it could cross over into local government reform for example? I hadn't thought that that was something to parotem and it might cross over into planning reform because I think that one of the issues around planning reform is the extent to which it doesn't make enough connections with land. How we actually deal with that, no doubt we will find out but I think the beauty of being an independent commission and the beauty of starting almost some scratch is that you actually try to think quite imaginatively and then if you find lines and boxes well let's deal with them there, I wouldn't start with them. If we think about our job as being to help this Parliament and this government achieve its priorities in relation to land policy, land legislation that starts to put a frame around this. We've got the national performance framework and that will be revised and so on. Ultimately this is about helping the Scottish people through the Parliament to achieve what Scottish people want to achieve and it's delineated to some extent by legislation but we will build from that a corporate plan 3 of strategy and all the rest of it and we will consult very widely on that and it will ultimately be laid before Parliament as part of the process so I think the mechanisms are all there to make sure that this is sensibly coordinated with the work of civil servants, the work of other public bodies. We have to be very careful not to be tempted and indeed perhaps pushed to go into this and that and that because it looks interesting and fun and exciting. We need to be very systematic and we need to constantly remind ourselves that our job is to help the Parliament, help the elected representatives of the country to deliver what those representatives consider to be the priorities, which at the moment are sustainable economic development, inclusion and so on. My questions are to Andrew Sin as the prospective chair. Clearly there's a heavier responsibility on you where issues such as leadership and vision are vitally important. Could you describe your leadership style and secondly, what is your overall vision for the organisation? It is an inclusive as a team-based leadership style, but it is a leadership style from the front and some people like that and some people don't but that is the nature of the way I lead and I think most people here have seen me lead in different roles so you know how I do it. Do I have a vision? Yes, I think I started to articulate it just now in response to Mr Ruskell. I think this organisation has the potential to help this Parliament and the Government of the day to deliver whatever its priorities are and those priorities will change from time to time with elections and all the rest of it. The potential is there to have a specialist body that's saying right your priority is a country that's more at ease itself for example a more inclusive economy or a growing economy or whatever it is. Well if you did this in relation to planning or derelict land or whatever that might help you to deliver your priorities so my vision is very much about an organisation that is really adding value to what the Government is trying to do and in the process of that exciting and energising the people of Scotland to think about these issues and think the unthinkable perhaps that's a bit strong but I think a lot of us don't think about land we take our current approach to land as red and part of our job will be to energise that thinking process which should lead to a more effective democracy and a more effective government. Thank you. My colleague Jenny Gilruth mentioned earlier about the issue towards developing the strategic plan. I think if I misquote Napoleon he talked about strategy disappears with the first contact with the enemy. I'm not suggesting you will have any enemies but you take the point that it's fairly easy to do a strategic document in an ivy tower and then find that that doesn't meet reality. How would you respond to that? No absolutely and I also think it's partly that it disappears because you haven't thought things through properly and consultation with other people but it's also that lots and lots of people will be coming in and telling us what we ought to be doing on this that and the next thing and it's extremely easy to become blown by the wind rather than strategic so I think both of those risks are there. I'm not going to repeat all the things that have been said but we were very clear in our conversation last night that we are not going to just jump in at the first thing that takes our fans that we were going to work through this quite systematically. We will produce by the 31st of March a clear strategic approach to that first year and we will, during the course of that first year, produce a proper strategic plan for the next three years and we'll do it very systematically. My final question is over conflict to use your analogy earlier about plane sailing. It's sometimes easy to manage in plane sailing but when there's a tidal wave it's much more difficult. How would you deal with a situation where you've got poor performance from commissioners? Would you be responsible for annual appraisals and how would you remedy poor performance? In all the public bodies that I have chaired, I have introduced something called 360 degree appraisal for board members or in this instance commissioners but it's the same thing. I would intend, I haven't asked these guys if they'll agree to it but I hope they will, I would intend to introduce really robust 360 degree for it in case you haven't come across it. It's in a form of appraisal where the people working around you and I'm including your employees as well as the fellow board members and possibly even outside stakeholders are invited to tell you what you're doing well and what you could perhaps think better do better. I'm very anxious that we have a really robust system and at the risk of stretching things a wee bit, I think that's something that should be in all public bodies in Scotland. I think I said it finally earlier but finally finally. Do you see yourself as having a clear management role over the other commissioners or are you first man equals because as you know from other bodies which I know you've had lots of experience of sometimes there has been a bit of role confusion over what the role of the chair is? No this is a team, I'm not managing people but I hope I can offer some sort of leadership and coordination and inspiration but this is getting the move. I hope you've heard that you've got extraordinary talent sitting round here and my job is to get that talent out and build synergy. Thank you, Edwin Mountain. Just a small question if I may to Andrew Thin is that I know you from the past and I was wondering if you'd thought about which you will have done about the size of the team that you will need to support the team that you currently have around you. There is provision for a chief executive, I wondered if you'd had any idea how lean the rest of the department will be. Very early days but we did touch on this last night. I think first of all we don't know what resource department or wish to make available to us so I have to put that proviso in there. I think we'll be very anxious to keep fixed costs as low as possible because who knows what the next 5, 10, 15 years are going to bring in terms of public expenditure so we want to keep fixed costs down so it'll be quite a lean tight team. What we would like to do is have sufficient slack in there so that variable costs will allow us to bring in the kind of specialisms that we refer to for example specialist legal support for particular bits of work so we can do it that way so that's the way I see it. So we can expect a lean team with support being bought in where required is what you're saying? Yes, low fixed costs with enough slack to do to use. I'm glad we tied you down on that Andrew, thank you. I think we've covered most of the areas that we would want to cover but perhaps I could wrap this up by asking each of you a question. You obviously come to this role with ideas and ambitions for what the Land Commission will deliver. Can I ask you what success would look like three years or five years from now for each of you? Megan McInnes? I was asked this exact same question during the interview. I think that if we think about having a three years result plan being developed within the first year within that timeframe I think it's most important that the commission has demonstrated itself, has demonstrated that it is a legitimate organisation and it's successfully and effectively contributing to the thinking around the land issues in Scotland across all the different sectors, urban, rural, whether you're coming from an agriculture or a crofting or a forestry or urban housing, all of these different sectors need to be reflected within that within our work. I think we need to demonstrate that we are communicating effectively, that we are listening to all the different stakeholder groups and that we are thinking about their ideas and responding and being transparent about that. For me, those are the most important elements of where we want to be within that first three year plan. On my experience, land and access to land is an issue that is absolutely crucial for individuals and communities maximising their own potential. I would like to see that we look at all the levers that can help to facilitate that and we look throughout the whole of Scotland particularly to those areas in urban areas that maybe haven't had the level of awareness of the potential that can come from land and access to land and I think that would be my objective for success. In relation to the TFC role, I guess a number of successes, one would be that the landlord relationship is a lot more comfortable across Scotland than it sometimes is at the moment, perhaps the amount of land available for tendington would start to increase again rather than decrease and I guess another measure of success would be if all the codes of practice and the culture changes working then the number of cases going to the land court should diminish. So nothing very ambitious there. How are you Reynolds? I would like us to have a very clear and strategic plan going forward and I would like us to be able to look back after three years to be able to review that, see where we've come from and where we're going and I would like to feel that by that time we'd have built up really good relationship with stakeholders and have good stakeholder confidence in what we are doing as a commission and the key for me in that is always communication and that's honest, clear communication. Professor Adams. I think what we need to do is to have, excuse me, a clear, rigorous and dispassionate understanding of what really are the land problems of Scotland to open up that debate with thorough analysis, thorough investigation and I would hope that by doing that it is then possible to chart either within the commission or within government far more successful land policies in Scotland in the future than perhaps we've had in the past. Okay, thank you. And finally Andrew Thurna. Two things, first of all the Scottish people through this parliament being very clear that it has created in this organisation something that is exciting, dynamic and that really adds value to the leadership of this country. And secondly that Scotland and the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament are perceived on at least a European stage if not beyond has been right at the front of land reform on an international level. Okay, thank you. Right, can I thank you for your attendance today. The next meeting of the committee is on the 6th December when it will take evidence from the chair and the chief executive of the Scottish Water and the chief executive of the business stream on Scottish Waters annual report 2015-16. The committee will also consider its draft report on the appointment of the Scottish land commissioners and the tenant farming commissioner. As agreed earlier we will now move into the private session. I ask that the public gallery be cleared as the public part of the meeting is closed. Thank you.