 The first item on our agenda today is to decide whether to take items 3 in private. Item 3 is an opportunity for us to consider the evidence that we have heard from the accounts commission. Are we all agreed? Okay, we're all agreed. I'm just getting a notification that there might be some technical hitch with some of our witnesses. Let me just check that. Okay, so we're just going to keep going and hopefully we're all here and available. Okay, so the next item on our agenda is to take evidence from the accounts commission on its recently published overview of local government in Scotland and its financial overview of local government in Scotland. And our witnesses today are Bill Moyes, who's the chair of the accounts commission, Anthony Clark, who's the director of performance audit and best value and interim controller of audit at Audit Scotland, Carol Calder, who's the interim audit director at Audit Scotland, Blythe Deans, who is interim senior manager at Audit Scotland and Lucy Jones, who is the senior auditor also at Audit Scotland. I welcome our witnesses to our meeting. It would be helpful if members could direct their questions to a specific witness where possible, although I will be happy to bring others in who wish to contribute. Actually, I would suggest that members direct initial questions to Bill and then he can direct, because he'll have a greater understanding of who might have the answers we need. If other witnesses go on now, open the session to questions from members and I'd like to begin. I'd like to start by asking how councils use the reports that the accounts commissions create as those reports are broad and focused and contain a significant amount of analysis across local authorities. I'm keen to hear more about how those reports influence local authority financial service and workforce planning and I'm also interested in how the accounts commission track the impact of their reports and improve their usefulness to local authorities. Good morning, convener and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. As you know, I was appointed at the beginning of January. I had quite a lengthy induction period and during that period I had a lot of meetings with executives and members of local authorities. They all to a person remarked at how seriously they took the reports from the accounts commission and how thoroughly they read them and did their best to follow them. That has certainly been my experience so far. Given my relatively short length of time in post, I'm going to ask Antony, who has much more experience of this, if he could perhaps respond in detail to your question. There are a range of activities that we undertake to promote our reports within the local community. We run joint sessions with the Improvement Service, with the elected members, we have regular contact with Solace and chief executives in local government and we also engage with the professional groups to make sure that our messages that we have in these reports are well communicated and well understood. Another important point that is worth bringing to the committee's attention is the fact that the accounts commission and the appointed auditors do a great job of promoting the overview reports and getting feedback on the overview reports for the accounts commission so that we can learn and reflect and improve their usefulness over time. We also have quite a strong stream of engagement activity between publishing reports as well to help us to ensure that when we're selecting the themes, the priorities, the areas of focus, that they are things that will be relevant for both elected members and offices of local government. We regularly run focus group sessions with senior officials and we have quite a lot of engagement through COSLA with elected members as well. I think that there are so many aspects to that. I could probably spend all day talking about impact, but I reckon that I have other questions that you want to cover. We have been very clear that, over time, many of the areas where the accounts commission has made recommendations, such as medium-term financial planning, we have seen improvements in the way in which local authorities have been adopting medium-term financial planning. Similarly, there are themes around workforce planning over the past four or five years. I think that we have seen quite big improvements in the extent to which local authorities have more strategic approaches to workforce planning. I think that we are pretty confident that the reports are widely used. There is a very specific point to do with the financial overview that is worth mentioning as well. We have had quite a lot of discussion with local government about the timing of the financial overview. We are keen to make sure that the financial overview that the commission prepares can be useful for local authorities, elected members, finance directors and other senior officials in budget setting processes as well. We have been working hard to pull the publication of the financial overview report forward so that it can be useful for local authorities for financial planning purposes. I hope that that answers your question, convener, but if there is any follow-up, I am very happy to have a go at that as well. Thank you, Antony. That is really helpful. I am sure that, as you have said, more will come out with the other questions that we are going to ask you. I wanted to ask a bit about the Accounts Commission and the relationship with the new cohort of councillors. I will come back to Bill initially. I am curious to know what engagement the Accounts Commission has had so far with the new cohort. For example, is there training provided or seminars to new councillors, particularly to those councillors with specific finance remits? We have written to new councillors to introduce ourselves first of all and to explain what we do and what they can expect from us. That is an important starting point. We are planning with other partners training programmes during the early part of the councillors appointment. In roughly a year's time, I think that I am right in saying that we are going to rerun parts of those programmes again once the councillors have had a bit more experience. I wonder if I could bring Carol in to flesh out the detail. Yes, absolutely. Later this year, we will be having a specific event with the improvement service hosted by the improvement service for new elected members on this specific report, which is the local government overview. The improvement service does a lot of induction programmes for new councillors and the councils will have their own induction programmes. Generally, when we do a piece of work, we will try to engage with the improvement service and do some live events with new elected members. With the local government overview, there is also a checklist for elected members, which is specifically designed for those new members to help them to ask the questions that they need to be asking. We do as much as we can to do practical engagement with elected members as well as creating reports and checklists that help new members as well as they get into the role. Thanks for that, Carol. Having been through the new member experience a year ago, I am grateful to hear that there is a level of support for colleagues working at the council level. We are now going to move on to questions around skills, shortages and workforce planning, and I will bring in Annie Wells with those questions. I have quite a few questions here, and I will try to make them as simple as I can and not to. What are the main causes of the skill shortages within councils? What are the impacts of those shortages and how are councils attempting to address them? Is there any evidence of services being significantly reduced or changed as a result of staff shortages? Perhaps I could ask Annie to pick up that question. There is not a single answer to that question, I do not think. We know that there are skills shortages in a number of local government services that have been well publicised and well rehearsed. The social care sector is one that is well known. I think that the reasons for the skills shortages and the pressure on the social care workforce are partly to do with rates of pain remuneration, partly to do with it being seen as an attractive profession. There has been a lot of activity taking place at the national and local level, trying to generate interest in people joining the social care workforce with local authorities, working with colleges, trying to promote the attractiveness of that and, as you probably know, the national scheme that was run collaboratively between national and local government, trying to draw people into the social care workforce. In other areas, there appear to be specific skills gaps around digital. I think that that is partly to do with the competitive pay rates that local authorities struggle to meet compared to the private sector, but there has been an awful lot of work to have through the local government digital authority to generate the kind of capacity and skills that are needed to help local authorities to deliver on the digital agenda that is really important in terms of providing high quality modern public services. We also know that there are some gaps around planning and environmental services. I am not entirely sure if I know what the reasons are for those skills gaps and shortages. What we do know is that local authorities are working very hard with their professional bodies to try and find ways of plugging those skills gaps. We are asking whether there is any evidence of the gaps that are causing problems in terms of service delivery. The evidence that we are seeing so far suggests that local authorities are coping with that relatively well, but there are inevitably impacts on colleagues that are working where you have a shortage of staff that puts additional pressure on individuals. We have also seen some good work done by local authorities to try and reskill people to draw people into those roles where there are gaps. However, it would be undeniable that there are some quite significant challenges to look at government around workforce planning. More positively, when we look at the best value assurance reports that we write on local authorities, we have seen improvements in workforce planning at individual local authority level. One of the things that we are recognising at the moment is that, as local authorities move from the current phase of the pandemic to what might be called the new normal, there is still a lot of uncertainty about what the shape of local government will look like. Therefore, we make a recommendation in the overview report that there is a real need for local authorities to revisit their workforce plans at the moment as they think through what their future model of working and the shape of local authorities are going to be. That is a particular area of uncertainty, given the way in which hybrid working is beginning to be developed, and there still appears to be a degree of uncertainty. I think that local government, across a whole of the public sector, will not know how hybrid working is going to operate. I hope that that answers your question, but please come back if you want to follow up on any of those points. That has answered quite a few of my questions, so thank you very much for that, but I have another question to ask. With the evidence of higher staff absence levels and some degree of burnout, how are councils attempting to improve staff wellbeing and promote fair work? I think that we have better evidence on how local authorities are addressing the wellbeing issue than perhaps a fair work issue, so if I might start with that, if that is okay. We saw during the height of the pandemic local authorities being quite thoughtful about how they supported their staff, lots of staff engagement activity, lots of staff surveys around well health and stress and pressure and so on and so forth. That good approach to engaging with staff, often involving trade unions as well, appears to be being carried forward into the future planning for the new models of service delivery moving forward. We have seen an awful lot of investment by local authorities in welfare schemes and support schemes for staff as well. Staff feels quite a positive story from the Government's side about how they have been working with their staff through what has been a difficult period of the pandemic and trying to build that welfare activity into future ways of working as well. On the fair work question, I am not sure that we have gathered much evidence on that as part of our overview reporting, so I do not feel particularly well placed to answer that question, but it is something that is on our agenda in terms of our future work, in terms of looking at how local government and other public bodies are addressing fair work. I hope that, when we come back to the future, we might have more to say on that. Thank you very much for that. One question that I want to come back to is about the pandemic as being the workforce planning, both more difficult and more necessary. Is there any other witnesses that want to come back on that, if there is anyone? You will see from our report, particularly on page 19, about senior posts, that there has been what has been called the great resignation. That has had a big impact. I think that it is people taking stock during the pandemic of what they want from their work-life balance, but it has reduced knowledge capital. It has increased the competition for people in senior posts with those levels of skills. I was speaking yesterday to the improvement services network of change managers across councils, and they were saying that the biggest issue for them in trying to facilitate change is capacity. That includes skills, numbers of people, recruitment and absence, but it is also headspace. When you have less people and more absence and you are under pressures, as we report in our report, the pressures that councils are under, there is just less headspace to think about changing and doing things differently, not a lack of motivation. However, I think that the loss of knowledge capital and the loss of leadership skills at a high level across all councils has been significant in the past year. That has had a big impact. Succession planning and workforce planning is also important. I think that there has been a lot of work across councils with the initiatives that Antony has mentioned, but also mental health training for managers so that they can recognise that in staff as well. There is a lot going on, but I would not want to underestimate the amount of pressure from all the different factors, recruitment factors, absence factors and people who are moving on and out of the sector. Thank you very much for that, Caroline. Thanks, convener. That's me done. Thank you. Thank you, Annie. We're now going to move on to questions from Willie Coffey on the theme of inequalities and community engagement. Thanks very much, convener, and good morning, Bill, and to the rest of the panel. I was wanting to ask just if you could give us a little flavour of how the pandemic affected things like early intervention and preventative policies. There's a note in your report about this, but I wonder if you could give us a little flavour of how we're assessing the impact of this and what it's causing. Certainly, Antony, do you want to come in first? Thank you. Thanks, Willie. It's a really important question, isn't it? The commitment that was made towards that shift towards prevention on the back of the Christie commission report and probably even predating the Christie commission report has been a really important part of the way in which local government has been operating for some time. The truth of the matter, though, is that we have been critical about the extent to which we've seen that shift towards prevention even before the pandemic, to be honest, Mr Coffey. We've seen examples of, if you like, small-scale projects and interventions that have had a good preventative aspect to them. I think that we've reported on a number of occasions about the challenges that local government and their partners have found in converting those really good small-scale projects into change at scale across the whole system. There's absolutely no doubt that the pressure that local government and their partners were under during the height of the pandemic in dealing with the immediate presenting pressure of the health and wellbeing and the economic impacts of Covid-19 on their communities has meant that there's been less time, space and focus on that shift towards prevention. It's reflected in the overview report where we highlight the fact that local authorities' transformation plans were often paused during the pandemic. Many of those transformation plans weren't just about more efficient services, they were about changing the focus and emphasis of services, and there was a great deal of pause of those transformation plans during the pandemic. That probably inevitably meant that local authorities and their partners had been able to make that shift towards prevention. There's a more positive story to tell here because we've reported this year and last year in the overview about the way in which the local authorities and their partners pulled together in a very collaborative and agile way to deal with the community needs that were identified during the height of the pandemic. That collaborative working, that agile response, if it can be continued, it would give us some hope that that shift towards prevention through different models of service delivery might be able to be delivered. I guess that there is that open question at the moment as to whether or not public bodies will drift back into all the ways of working or whether they'll be able to sustain that kind of agile approach, that innovation that we've seen so far. We hope they'll be able to sustain that, but as Carol and his bill have said, many pressures on local government at the moment might make it more difficult for people to make that shift. Thank you for that, Antony. You mentioned the digital exclusion issues. If anything didn't come out of the Covid experience, it was the fact that the application of digital technology could help us to overcome a lot of the difficulties that we faced during that period. It's just to get a sense from you about whether councils are still providing access to digital technology and digital solutions. Is it working well or is it causing any accessibility problems for the general public who are perhaps not able to engage in the digital agenda as well as others may be able to do? If I could kick off, I would certainly expect there to be some problem for people in their 80s who will struggle with digital technology. I mean, thinking about my own family's experience, trying to buy a parking ticket for a car and that kind of thing nowadays requires skills in digital technology that three years ago were absolutely not necessary. I think that not just council but the Government as well needs to be alert to the fact that although a large proportion of the population can actually handle digital services quite well, there are gaps and those gaps have to be identified and allowances made and special arrangements made. Again, let me bring the team in because they have more detail than I do. Antony, is this your area? I do have some insights from the work that we've done in this area. I don't know if I'm on screen at the moment. This isn't my area for specific expertise but I do have some insights gathered from our work. Mr Coffey, you may know that the Accounts Commission blogged on this very topic about digital exclusion. The Deputy Interim Chair of the Accounts Commission, Tim McKay, wrote a blog on this. It's something that the commission is particularly interested in because, whilst we're very encouraged by the shift towards digital, there is that concern that we share with you about digital exclusion. As Bill Moyes said, there is a lot of activity taking place within local government to try and make sure that people at risk of digital exclusion aren't excluded and there were some specific actions that took place during the pandemic around laptops to school children, which I think would probably be speaking quite effective in getting that out. There's a lot of work taking place. I think that I'm digital off if I groups that may be at risk of digital exclusion and identify ways of addressing that. I do think that it's very much on the local government radar. I think that my colleague Lucy may want to come in because I think that she has some insights on that as well, if that's okay, convener. There's the Connecting Scotland initiative, which is a national initiative that provides devices, data and training to some of the most vulnerable during the pandemic. In the last six months or so, there was an independent review, which looked at sustainability. One of the concerns that came out of it was around the sustainability of the programme going forward. I know that there's national work under way to look at how that can be continued. Just to add as well that digital exclusion is something that we're looking at very closely. We're just beginning to scope a performance audit on it, so perhaps in future we can come back with more detail on that as well. That was another question from me if I may, convener. The experience that many communities had during Covid in working directly with local councils to help to deliver urgent services and pretty desperate circumstances at times, so there was a fantastic level of engagement with the community during the Covid period. As we look forward to recovery in local council services, is that level of engagement with the community still there, or is there any sense that we've lost that direct contact that we had with communities and how best can we take that forward to make sure that communities themselves are directly involved in the recovery from Covid? If I could kick off, we're stressing to local authorities very strongly that recovery doesn't mean reverting to the pattern of services and the pattern of working that existed three or four years ago. We're stressing very strongly that councils should learn from the pandemic what is possible. We're also stressing very strongly the need for real engagement with communities and with bodies who represent the community into things such as budget setting, service planning and understanding how services can change. In describing to councils what it is that the population would like to see so that services are driven by the views of the population rather than what the councils prepared to do. But there's undoubtedly a danger that some councils will find it easier to revert to the past pattern of working and the past pattern of services, and we're going to be doing a lot to try and discourage that and show councils how they can benefit from learning the lessons of the pandemic. But let me invite my team to come in, because again they will have some detail to offer. I'm very happy to come in on this one if that's okay, convener and Mr Moyes. As Mr Moyes has said, the commission has been very keen to promote the importance of sustaining that community involvement and community engagement. For me it's going to be critical to the future success of local government. The best local authorities seek communities as assets, not passive service recipients. The best local authorities work collaboratively and constructively with local communities to understand and identify their needs and use them as a resource to help deliver better outcomes for their communities as well. We are very much hoping that this will be a really important part of the Covid-19 recovery agenda, and it certainly seems to see review work that we've done looking at Covid-19 recovery plans. It's true to say that the recovery planning process is still at a relatively early stage for many local authorities. We're not out of the pandemic yet, so it's something that we'll need to keep a watching brief on quite, quite hard. However, there's a strong sense coming through that the future success for local government really will depend on unlocking community action and local authorities seeing themselves as facilitators and partners with local communities. We're hoping that that will be an agenda moving forward. You'll know from previous discussions on this topic, committee, that there are risks here. The risk is that the communities that already have great resources will breathe the ones that draw more resources to them. Those communities that have less advantage and less resources may be left behind. There's a real challenge there, I think, for local authorities to identify how they can target their resources to make sure that there's fairness and equity in terms of how they approach this work with communities moving forward. We know that this stuff isn't easy. Working with communities takes effort, takes real investment. It's a skill set that local government has been developing, but maybe it's an area that the store scope for local government to develop their skills further and certainly show a bit more leadership in some local authority areas. That's really helpful, Anthony. All the members, I'm sure, on the committee, would be looking forward to seeing just how well that will work in the years ahead. Thank you very much for your answers to my questions this morning. Back to you, convener. Thanks, Willie. Thanks for those responses. It is heartening to hear this kind of move towards—actually, in the committee, we've had discussions around the kind of facilitation and enabling of local authorities for communities, so it's great to hear that that looks to be something that's developing. I'm now going to move on to questions around Covid support, planned savings and usable reserves, and Mark Griffin is going to come in with those. Sorry, convener. I think that that was someone else's section. Oh, sorry, yep. Marie McNair. Thanks, Mark. Thank you, convener. Good morning, panel. Good morning, Bill. Given the massive amounts of Covid-related support channeled through local authorities at impressive speed, approximately £4.6 billion in the last two years, how confident is the commission that this has been effectively and transparently? Better lead off on this. Bill, you were clipped slightly there. Can you just say who you wanted to have lead off on it? Sorry, I thought that Anthony might kick off. Brilliant. Come on in, Anthony. Thank you very much. I will kick off if that's okay, who's probably slightly more familiar with the detail of the analysis of the accounts that we did for the financial overview that we referred to into the wider performance overview as well. I think that we've been about the way in which local authorities worked with the Scottish Government and partners to get the money out to businesses and communities. That was a relative success story, although some question marks around the pace at which some of the money actually got into people, bank accounts or pockets, whichever way you want to look at it. We have raised questions around the transparency and the accounting for all of those funds. You'll know that there's a significant amount of Covid-19 funding now sitting in local government reserves. Much of that is earmarked for the current financial year and the following financial year to do with the on-going pressures of Covid-19. The way in which it's been set out in local government accounts has headings for certain activities, but we've been suggesting that local government needs to be clearer about how that money is spent over the next couple of years so that we can be absolutely confident that it's been spent for the purposes for which it was intended. We made that point not just to local government but to the Scottish Government as well in the original general's report on Covid-19 finances. I think that we are highlighting the need for further and better transparency about how that money is spent moving forward. I don't know if Blythe wants to come in and add anything to my comment. I can offer a little bit more insight on that one. The quick answer to the question is that it was really difficult to track Covid support. As Anthony mentioned, the report that we published last week on Scotland's financial response to Covid-19 was quite clear. The improvements were required and the transparency of that funding. The reason for that would be that, as you mentioned, there was a need to balance speed with good governance. That obviously had an impact on the report requirements that certain funding streams came to councils with. In the early part of the pandemic, the vast majority of funding streams came with report requirements. That made it a little bit easier for the Scottish Government to track what was being spent and ultimately evaluate and assess the impact of that. As we got further into the pandemic, so through the second wave, those report requirements diminished. It meant that there was less control over where that was being spent. Going back to the point about evaluation of impact, it became a lot more difficult. It is also important to point out that it is quite difficult to disentangle the Covid funding and spend from the core spend. When it comes to support for things such as loss of income or general Covid recovery, it is not quite as easy to demonstrate what that was spent on. Funding for free school meals is a lot more straightforward to establish what was spent and what it was spent on. Antony is right to say that, from our point of view, in our reports, we have been quite clear that we are keen to see spending plans for that Covid funding that has been carried forward, agreed with councils decision making committees and become a bit more transparent in terms of the public being able to assess what is going to be spent. I guess just to give the confidence that it will be spent as well, because obviously you can see from the report that quite a significant balance of Covid funding was carried forward. That is what we are expecting to see when we reassess reserves going forward. Thank you, Brian. Can you maybe go on to say a bit about how the last two years have impacted local government finances, particularly in relation to plan saving and budget gaps? For example, how new ways of delivering services prompted by Covid led to savings for the council? Bill, you could direct that question to someone. I think that I will direct it to Blath initially, since he probably knows the detailed best in this area. However, if other colleagues want to come in, please do. Thanks, Bill. Yes, absolutely, Ms McNear. The point about savings is an important one. The way of the world over the last couple of years has meant that the emphasis on making savings has changed. Obviously, with the additional support that has been provided to councils, there has been a less reliance on savings in the last year, where it is going forward as Covid funding ends, that requirement is going to intensify. Traditionally, we would note in the reports that there is variation in performance against savings targets across councils, but I would caveat that by saying that some councils are perhaps more ambitious than others when they set those savings targets. Obviously, they will be determined by what is included in their financial strategies. It is also important to say that the quick wins or the easier savings, if such a thing exists, have probably been made. It now puts councils under a bit more pressure to make the difficult decisions and to make the savings that perhaps have been put off to this point. I guess just now that it is becoming a matter of necessity. That is something that will need to be carefully managed. Obviously, with the introduction of new elected members and new administrations across the country, that is something that will need to be careful consideration and input from elected members and officers. In terms of the budget gaps, a report in 2021, looking ahead to the 2021-22 budget, and the subsequent gap was a lot more difficult than in previous years. That is entirely due to the Covid funding that came to councils late in the financial year, so budgets were set before that funding became available, which meant that the budgets that had initially been set hadn't factored that in. You can see from the report that that was a significant sum of additional funding that came through to councils, so the budgets had to be adapted for that reason. Some councils did that differently from others. Councils set specific Covid-19 budgets and others. It was more of an iterative process with different meetings and bringing back more information as it became available. It highlights the challenges that councils faced at that stage in terms of establishing first and foremost what the budget was, and how that gap was going to be bridged. We saw from our analysis that the way in which the budget gap was going to be bridged was pretty consistent with previous years. We identified savings being a major part of that use of reserves, being a contributor, too. Also, bridging actions that perhaps weren't quite as available as they were in the past. Previously, we had BBC councils look at generating income through fees and charges, or the council tax rate increase being a major contributor to closing that gap. That's not quite as easy, particularly on the fees and charges income. Clue services have changed and perhaps in some cases aren't actually running. It reduces councils' ability to charge for those services and ultimately contributes to bridging that funding gap. It's quite a complex picture on the budget and the savings, but it's certainly something that we will keep a close eye on as part of our financial review work. Does anyone else want to come in on that? Are you okay with that, Bill? Can I move on to the next question? Anthony, I think that we should just add briefly. Anthony, do you want to come in? It's just one very brief point to add to Ply's comprehensive answer, which is that what we're starting to see is some conversations taking place across local authorities around collaboration and shared services that perhaps haven't been quite so pressing as in the past. They do appear to be thought being given to whether there are opportunities to create efficiencies and reduce costs through greater collaboration. That's also been part of the local government story for quite some time in terms of shared services and regional planning, but given the pressure facing local government finances, we anticipate that being a bit more of a significant story moving forward. It's happening in councils that are in my area, East and West and that a lot more shared services are happening. The last question is whether the issue of reserves is covered in the financial overview. Given the report that was published in March, is there any more recent assessment of how much of local authorities' 3.8 billion reserves have been used up since March 2021? Can you answer that? Thanks, Bill. I can offer an answer yet, but unfortunately, no, we don't have an update at this point. That update will become clear when the unaudited accounts for 2021-22 are published. That's something that we will review as part of our normal practice. We will use an account database and use that as our source to establish that the position on reserves. The basis of the question being somewhat inflated, in comparison to previous years, because of the nature of the funding that came late in the financial year. We have been quite clear in the report that we want to see clearer spending plans for that money that has been carried forward. I know that I mentioned that in my previous answer, but I think that it is what reiterating here that within councils' accounts there is significant variation in terms of the disclosure of those reserve balances, both in terms of the commitment and the earmarking of them, but also in terms of the purpose, intent and timing. I think that that would be really important to see, particularly when it comes to the Covid reserves, just around that assurance that the money is going to be spent. I guess just to mitigate the risk almost that that money sits there for longer than it needs to. As I said, there is variation at the moment, and I think that it would certainly improve the transparency of the accounts if we could see a bit more in terms of the plans for that spending. Thank you for that. I have no further questions. Thanks, Marie. We are now going to move over to questions on longer-term financial sustainability and impact of budget changes on individual services, and we are going to bring in Paul MacLennan on those questions. Thanks, Cymru. Good morning, panel. I want to touch on, just as Cymru said, a bit longer-term financial sustainability and impact of budget changes. The first thing at the moment is the impact of rising inflation. Last week we heard that it could go up to 11 per cent. In your view, what is the impact of rising inflation probably for the next year? I think that it is projected to be up there for around 18 months at least. I don't know just the thoughts on what that will impact on local authorities. I am probably coming to the best person would be chair at the moment, but I have to come to. We will probably see yourself again directing who the best person would be in that regard. I will ask Anthony to kick off, and then we might get on the wind. Anthony. Thank you very much, Mr MacLennan. We know from our discussions with directors of finance that they are concerned about the impact of inflation and cost pressures more generally on local government services and finances. The obvious one that people are concerned about at the moment is the pressure on the potential challenges that might arise from there. We are going through a tricky period in terms of paying negotiations across a whole range of sectors, public and private, but that is an area that is concerned towards the finance of the HR directors, chief executives and council leaders. Obviously, we do not know what the pay settlement for local government will be, but that is one area that could be challenging for local government. We have highlighted in previous overviews the inflationary pressures on capital spending as well and how that has created significant costs for buildings, renovations, new build and so on and so forth. That challenge is not going to go away anytime soon, and that could cause issues in terms of the pace at which local government is able to refurbish and develop its estate, which is a really important aspect to providing high quality services for people, residential care, homeschools and the like. Those are the two main areas that I would probably draw out in terms of issues. Directors of finance are pretty good at managing those things, but it will not be easy for them to move forward. I suppose that one major level of expenditure is obviously the energy costs. I know that some local authorities will hedge their energy costs over a period of time, so they know the impact is one of the main reasons for a rising inflation of energy costs. Have you had any feedback from the directors of finance in that regard about the energy costs, which were forecast to go up, but not by as much as we have another rise in October coming in? It has cropped up in our discussions with them previously. Sorry, I should have mentioned that in my previous answer. Some local authorities have hedged their costs, so they are managing that risk. It could be a further important pressure point for the Government as well. Thank you for that. Moving on to the report that we got through today, I suppose that looking at some of the levels of change in funding from 10.11 to 20.21, there have been big increases in preschool, home care, children's primary school and so on, but there have been decreases in libraries, street cleaning, parks among others. In terms of that, have you done any impact on those reductions in some areas? Did that come in? I suppose that you mentioned before in the report about councils an important here need to accelerate progress with transformation programmes that have stalled. I wonder whether you have done any impact on that, and maybe just bring it into transformation programmes as well into that kind of answer I am happy to have a run at that one if that is so again. Again with the three years that I have bellied on that, again with it being Anthony. Oh, that is fine. Anthony, on you go. I think that the best source of evidence for this probably is the local government benchmarking framework report that the improvement service prepares each year and that gives you a good analysis of the relative performance of individual services, the cost of those services and levels of satisfaction. It is a very good source of evidence in terms of how the reductions in funding for services like library, street cleansing have or have not impacted on customer satisfaction and the quality of services as well. It is something that we are thinking of looking at in the future as part of our overview reporting because in the past before the Covid-19 pandemic the commission's overview report was very much an overview report covering all services. Over the last couple of years we have also been focusing much more strongly on the impact of Covid-19 on councils and their services and their communities. As we come through the pandemic we are keen to start re-emphasising the service quality and service performance aspects in our overview reports. We will be looking at that in future years, Mr McLean. At the heart of your question seems to be a question around are there challenges around some of those services because of reductions in funding? I think that that seems to be what you are getting at. The key thing that you mentioned Benchmark is that it is looking at the outcome-based performance indicators because if it is looking at the service and if it is being increased or reduced I think that the key thing for the committee to look at is in terms of what are the outcomes. Part of that, as you said is customer satisfaction but I think that is something that we need to measure what the specific outcomes are and the impact on the outcomes. Rather than any budget increase or budget decrease I think that is a key point for the committee to look at. I completely agree with you Mr McLean and perhaps a better way of answering a question that I am more tuned into is when we have been doing our best value assurance reports on individual local authorities we have looked at the extent to which councils are prioritising resources and we have seen some local authorities get quite good at that getting very clear about their priorities for their area being not just service performance but wider outcomes and shifting and targeting resources in those areas. I guess a recent example would be the commission recently considered a report on Angus and Angus council took a view that they wanted to reduce their investment in roads because they did not see it as being such a high priority for aspects of services addressing inequalities and so on and over time it became apparent that the satisfaction in Angus area with roads was diminishing in ways that were perhaps predictable but more dramatic than the council had expected so they did a course correction they started to reinvest in roads again so it is that informed evidence-based thinking that the commission is keen for local authorities to promote but as you say very much on the basis of outcomes rather than anything else it has to be that the commission's resources are measuring what difference councils and their partners are making for their area. You know that, don't you? What's good evidence on outcomes? How do you attribute attribution versus contribution and that kind of stuff but we're very keen to promote that as a way of working and it's certainly something that's going to feature as part of our overview reporting and our performance audit work for the commission movement. That's great and Carol wants to come in. I wanted to link that back to previous questions about staffing. Exhibit 3 on page 25 of our report sets out how the reductions in spend across some of the smaller services over time and this was a trend that predated the pandemic but obviously will be exacerbated as well after the Covid monies through will be able to see that a bit more but I think reductions of money and funding into those services means reductions of staff so that means more pressure than on staff it means focusing in on the statutory specifics the things that they have to do it means less headspace, less time to look at transformation and doing things differently a couple of years ago in our 2020 local government overview we did a focus on planning and we had a round table with some senior planners across the country that was their focus had to be on their statutory regulatory function whereas what they wanted to look at was the wider place making agenda but I think the reduction on spend and pressures on services knowing what that impact is we can only find out by speaking to the people that deliver those services and the ones that receive it or what I would say is that you'll see mentioned in the report that we don't have very clear data on what the impact and demand increases the unmet need the backlogs across all services so there's not a lot of data yet that gives us a clear picture on that so I think that's also going to be a significant issue to be thinking about when we're looking at spend on services or what's been the impact on that service because of the pandemic where's the backlogs and the unmet need we can't give you a clear answer on that because the data is not there so I think data is an important thing that councils need to grapple with and again data skills, people with data knowledge it's not easy the improvement service did a lot of work during Covid developing the Covid dashboard and I know that they're working with the local government digital office to develop that into a local government data portal which will sit alongside the lgbf as Anthony has already mentioned so I think it's a really complicated story when you look at just the spend the impact is on services on staff, on doing things different and transformation as well as what's been the bottom line impact on the delivery of that service thank you for that, that's really helpful and just kind of the final point it just kind of moves on from the point that you made Carolyn again through Bill was in terms of one of the most important things that we recover from the pandemic is an economic recovery and obviously we're talking about funding for economic development departments and planning obviously are key as part of that recovery I just wonder if you have any thoughts on funding for these services where you can see that as part of the Covid recovery, the business recovery and again through yourself Billodon who is the best person you would want just to get around about that let me invite either Anthony or Carol whichever of the two of them would like to come in to answer that question Anthony thanks very much it's a great question we are interested in the role of local government in supporting economic regeneration and growth and you may be aware that we've written a couple of reports on region deals and growth deals and that's an area that we're still looking at quite hard in terms of how our local authorities collaborating together with their partners to help generate those big growth aspects of economic growth that seems to be quite an important bit of the story but it's a difficult investment in economic development teams as well I think it's difficult to look at this in isolation because local government works in collaboration with central government in this area so we have a range of national local agencies working together we've had some really useful discussion leaders that work in this field and we are thinking about doing audit work in this area in the future if we do I think that might give us a better sense a better insight in terms of whether or not there is sufficient funding at the local level to support that national and regional drive for economic growth pretty clear isn't it that many council areas are going through tough times the Covid-19 pandemic has hit city centres very badly but not just city centres more rural areas as well we don't really know how long that impact might last whether or not we're going to have a inter-recession in Scotland do we so there's lots of question marks out there about how this is going to pan out moving forward I'm glad to hear that because I think that one of the key questions I think I haven't had 15 years experience in the council before was what's a council's role is it a facilitator particularly in the about economic development is it a facilitator on a neighbour and I think that's one of the questions I think we'd hopefully be picked up in an audit and I don't know if Carol's getting anything else to add really important at the point that you've made I would only add to what Anthony said in terms of the examples I think we've got in the report of councils looking at a wellbeing economy so joining it all up I'm trying to talk about wealth building as long side inequalities and make you know it's not something separate so I think we've got a couple of examples of that in the report so that's all I would add to Anthony's answer there Carol, as convener of the cross-party group on wellbeing economy I would totally agree but that's much appreciated Thank you convener That's a nice note to end on your series of questions Paul, isn't it so now I'd like to bring in Mark Griffin and he's going to bring in questions around the recent spending review document Thank you Cymru I think the commission meant to be fair other organisations as well if highlighted issues around the lack of multi-year financial settlements and the issues that has caused long-term planning and financial management and I think taking aside the impact of some of the drastic cuts in that resource spending review I just wanted to ask whether that five-year plan has, or if you think has does give local authorities the certainty that they need to plan services over the next five years and come to the bill first Let me bring Blithan since he has been looking at this for us recently Blithan, do you want to pick that up? I can certainly offer an answer and then colleagues might want to come in afterwards but I absolutely recognise the question and it is something that the council commission has been pushing for for a while in terms of that more longer term certainty for councils to allow councils themselves to produce medium and longer term plans that are robust and comprehensive and give them the chance to plan ahead for what's going to be a challenging period. In terms of the spending review itself it's to be welcomed that that longer term position is available but I would say that the fact that it's at level 2 in terms of not going down to individual council level it makes it a little bit difficult to use that as the basis to plan ahead for councils over the longer term so I think it's important as well to recognise that we're living in a dynamic environment at the moment and things can change pretty quickly obviously one of the previous questions about the rising inflation rate would be one such assumption that the councils would need to build into probably in plans and obviously as things change councils need to be dynamic and adaptable and as flexible as possible to build that into what the future's going to look like so having that resource spending review over the next four years is helpful so that councils can plan ahead without a full degree of confidence I think that Antony wants to come in to add to that question If I might just quickly add something to Glyde's very helpful response to that question I agree that this is a step in the right direction but there still seems to be further work to be done particularly in relation to actually agreeing and finalising the fiscal framework between central government and local government that will perhaps provide greater clarity on the longer term planning between national and local government is going to work moving forward because whilst it's good to have that kind of longer-term envelope of overall funding for the local government sector there are still concerns amongst the local government sector about the extent to which they have full fiscal autonomy and also the extent to which local government priority setting is constrained by national government priorities in areas such as early learning in childcare and I guess perhaps the development that will require careful thought moving forward so yes a step in the right direction but it feels like there's still some way to go to finalise a full and comprehensive fiscal framework that includes a partnership agreement between local government and central government That's very helpful it gives us a basis to interrogate that and that's been the review and flag to that lack of detail with government so that that actually gives local councils more certainty of the individual figures that get that that's really helpful Taking aside the principle of the spending review and given local authorities that longer term or medium term stability I could just ask questions about the content of the spending review Now the five-year review is black cash which means inflation as it is really significant real-term reductions to local authority budgets and I think that's on top of cuts going back probably over the last 10 years What is the accounts commission's view on local authorities ability to continue to provide the services that they need based on the projections of real-term reduction of upwards of £700 million over the next five years Goliath, do you want to come in? I'll maybe pass that one to Anthony if that's okay with him just as an initial response to that question Thank you Anthony, you come in then Happy to take that one The commission's been quite clear in its overview reports for a number of years now that local government needs to change it needs to change to address the demographic pressures and also to meet the rising expectations that local people have around and council services the resource spending review there's going to need to be change in terms of how local authorities operate we've seen some great examples of local authorities transforming services working collaboratively with communities and partners to deliver efficiencies and new ways of working that pace of change is going to have to accelerate and when I responded to the need for perhaps greater collaboration across local authority areas there's probably a need for local government to be a bit more agnostic about what models of service delivery are appropriate moving forward and there's certainly scope for local government to tap into the capacity and expertise that communities have to support themselves but this stuff's going to be really really difficult and I think nobody could sit here and honestly answer your question what will this mean in terms of the level and range of services that councils are able to provide I think there's an open question as to whether or not the full range of services that councils currently provide will be available at the level and quality that they are now if there have to be reductions in services then it's fundamentally important that councils engage with their communities around those changes and work with them we've seen examples of councils getting themselves in hot water when they've tried to reconfigure services or reduce services but on the converse we've seen some councils do well when they engage effectively with the communities so for me it means that the whole issue of engagement and consultation and working with communities is more important now than ever was so I'm not sure I'm able to give you a clear and concrete answer to your question but I hope that you can give me some insights in terms of the commission's thinking in this really complicated area okay that's helpful, thank you thanks for giving me that thanks Mark and I see I think Carol did you want to come in on this theme in general so Carol if you want to come in and then really afterwards yeah just briefly I think you'll see in the report that we set out some key principles for leadership and I think leadership is going to be really important in this and the short answer to the question is it's going to be tough and difficult decisions are going to have to be made and as Anthony was talking I was agreeing with much of what he was saying and I was kind of listing the things that I think need to happen because as Anthony said collaborative leadership with partners and with communities it means strategic decision making and it needs data to underline those decisions to support those decisions it needs services to look different it also needs engagement with communities as Anthony mentioned but also management of expectations and shared services and more digital services I think and I think it's really difficult for new elected members, cohorts coming in who might have been at doorsteps talking about an expansion agenda and I think there's going to be some really difficult decisions and I think that leadership is fundamental to all of that political and officer leadership and I think that coming back to the induction plans and the work that needs to be done with elected members to support them in making some of these difficult decisions I think we thought when Brexit was coming in a local government overview probably 2019 we said that this is fundamental the big change it's the worst thing that's going to happen to councils and then we got a pandemic and we thought this is the worst thing that's ever going to happen to councils and funding's going down and then we got a war and a cost 11 crisis things are not going to get easier they're going to get harder and it comes down to getting through that thank you thanks for that Carol I have one point yes Bill come on in just before we move on to Willie the point was made earlier on in the discussion that a lot of the easy savings have been made by local authorities already and that therefore it is going to be difficult I've got a lot of sympathy for the argument that the government can't just say well the arithmetic points to a 7% reduction in real terms over a five year period we need a debate about what are local authorities for what are the things that the government expects them to do and what are the things that if they didn't do or did much less off the government would accept that and I don't see at the moment that debate happening but I think that that's an absolutely essential part of the context of tackling this level of reduction what is local government expected to do thanks very much for raising that point Bill that might be a very good thing to do a bit more work on Willie, you want to come in I thank you very much I was trying that again there was quite a bit of feedback coming in there but I'm hoping it's okay now Bill, inevitably the political parties will argue and grapple about numbers when we're talking about settlements and on the one hand members might say settlement it's a real terms reduction and on the other hand we can point to additional funding for local government that comes in from different sources so comparing the terminology like the core funding against the totality of funding to local government is there any way we can get a clearer picture of what the whole picture looks like so that we can actually see the entire funding that does go to local government to deliver services and it kind of touches on the point you made about what are we asking local government to carry out on our behalf so is there any way even for the public's benefit of trying to clarify the totality of funding that goes to our local councils to help us to deliver services I think that is something we can do let me ask Anthony to comment on that you're quite right that the resource spending review doesn't include any transfers from other portfolios that might support local government but we know that in I'm just going to check my figures here to give you the right one both in the second we know that that is transferred from other portfolios to local government in 2022-23 so it is possible to disaggregate those figures and work them out so we can do that moving forward but obviously £345 million is a relatively small overall proportion of local government spending in Scotland so even if we do add in the transfers from other portfolios it's probably not going to make a massive difference so I would suspect to the overall pot although welcome it would be and I see the applause that's coming on this Thanks Anthony Mr Coffey was just to direct you towards the briefing that our colleagues at the Scottish Parliament Information Centre produce in response to the 22-23 budget it gives a really good breakdown of that core position and then that total overall funding position and I guess fills in the gaps in between so that would probably be the best source that I could offer from that but certainly as Anthony and Bill have said there's other things we can look at as well so that's probably something for me to have a look at and hopefully explain some of those issues Blyth, does that include things like money allocated for the Scottish welfare fund, discretionary housing payments, social care indication all of that is by and large not included if you talk about core but it is money going to local councils to deliver those other services that Bill was asking to carry out on their behalf Yes, that obviously comes through from the finance circular so that is included and the figures that are included in the spice briefing, as Anthony touched on the aspect of the funding that comes through from other Scottish government directorates is a big part of that situation and it gives us the lead into the debate around ring fencing and directed funding and the flexibility that councils have and again that the spice briefing is really helpful in terms of setting that out breaking down that additional funding from other directorates to show that the role that councils and local authorities play in terms of delivering the services on behalf almost of those other directorates so that information is there and you're right to point that out Mr Coffey that the finance circular also breaks it down to those individual elements of funding that come through Okay, thanks very much for that Thank you, Willie and you mentioned ring fencing so I'm not going to bring in Miles Briggs or around the theme of partnership between local government and Scottish Government Miles I wanted to take forward a few questions with regards to council finances and particularly with ring fencing in mind so I wanted to ask, given the commission's familiarity around council annual accounts and finance departments as well what their view is currently of Scottish Government ring fencing and what percentage of total government resources is currently being ring fenced Thanks Neil, let me ask you to kick off on that Oh, I was going to hand this one over to Blythe if that's okay but my first response before I hand over to Blythe if you don't mind is to say we haven't set out in the financial overview or indeed the wider overview a specific analysis of what percentage of local government funding is ring fenced from the Scottish Government we haven't done that, we've made a more general point around the extent to which significant amounts of local government funding is authorities in support of national priorities such as early learning and childcare expansion that money isn't ring fenced in a technical sense but local government would probably argue that it really has to be spent on supporting early learning and childcare and whilst there's some discretion in terms of how that money can be used in support of wider agendas the discretion is relatively limited there so I think I'd make a distinction between the technical kind of extent to which there's ring fencing and the more general sense to which money has been provided and allocated to local government in support of wider Scottish Government national priorities but at that point if you don't mind I wouldn't mind just handing over to Blythe in case he wants to add anything further to what I've said Thanks Anthony The question leads me to kind of leap with a response that sets out there's ambiguity around ring fencing as Anthony says there's debate around what the Scottish Government considered to be ring fenced funding and what COSLA is the representative body of local authorities would consider to be ring fenced so the Scottish Government's position is clear in the specific revenue grants that are allocated to councils is the only aspect of ring fenced funding whereas COSLA would contend that the additional transfers from other portfolios that we spoke about previously totaled around £1.4 billion in the previous year would be ring fenced without that flexibility for councils to use that to meet their local needs what is true that regardless of which definition you use the extent of ring fencing has increased so if we take 18-19 as the base year using the Scottish Government's definition the percentages have increased from 2.7% in 18-19 to 6.6% as part of the 22-23 budget that has increased even more dramatically if we use the COSLA definition so factoring in the transfers from other directorates so back in 2018-19 that was 2.7% sorry that was 4% and it's now increased to 17.9% so just to give you an idea of the figures involved in that that's increased from £386 million to £19 up to £2.1 billion so the argument continues between the Scottish Government and COSLA which is the correct definition and as Anthony says we've not decided to put our own opinion on that we've taken the neutral position and explained the situation and tried to give the clarity in that way so that's where we're at in terms of that debate around ring fencing that's very helpful and I think that leads on to the discussions that we're seeing take place at the minute around the new financial fiscal framework between local government and Scottish Government so I just wondered what the council commission's view was on how that could work and how that local flexibility could be built into that which we as a committee keep hearing councils want to see more of so I just wondered your views on that fiscal framework on that explanation or do you want to pass that to Anthony? I'm probably just going to Anthony first on that one Bill and I can come in with any supplementary information fine okay Anthony do you want to take it up? Thank you very much in response to an earlier question we spoke about the resource spending review being a helpful kind of step in the right direction of giving certainty and confidence for local government about its future long term finances but there's still more to do to clarify how the financial flows will operate between Scottish Government and local government and what constraints, if any, might apply around how local government can use the money that it receives from the Scottish Government in support of local priorities our understanding is that there's still quite a lot of work to do to identify what a proper fiscal federal government in terms of the mechanics of local priorities and any kind of control mechanisms that might apply as well so it's actually very difficult for us to sit here and answer your question to be honest in terms of what might that look like apart from in very broad terms I think our assumption is that that a fiscal framework will have to involve some kind of agreements on how national policy will be set in terms of the role of local government in influencing and shaping national policy because local government has been critical to the involvement of local government in setting policy in the first place we're assuming that it will have to involve some discussions around flexibility of using funding pots to support wider policy goals so that their local authorities are able to use money in more innovative ways to support their wider policy ambitions and what do I mean by that so I guess earlier in childcare there might be an example a local authority might feel that investing money towards it that's been given to them to support early learning in childcare in non-traditional ways so not directly on early learning in childcare provision but on family support or other approaches that will help to address the broader policy outcomes might be a better way for them to be able to use that money so having some agreement about flexibilities around how local policy and national policy can be linked will probably have to be an important part of that policy framework that will require a very mature discussion around the role of local government the convener or touched on the fact that what's local government for this has to be trained around what value can local government bring in meeting local at the same time supporting the delivery of key national priorities my sense is that often this works pretty well if you read the press you would think that it's not working well but I think there are many examples of local government and central government working quite productively together and early learning in childcare is a good example where there was strong collaboration not just around what the policy is trying to achieve but around the oversight and implementation of that policy as well with collaborative leadership collaborative oversight between COSLA and the Scottish Government I guess the fiscal framework will maybe want to draw on lessons of what has worked well in the past as well as dealing with some of the on-going challenges that we know are there between COSLA and the Scottish Government so hopefully I've given you some sense of what we think the shape of the fiscal framework might look like but I guess the question is probably better put to COSLA and the Scottish Government because they'll be designing it rather than the accounts commission that's helpful and I think one of the key messages which was coming out of the Scottish Government spending review document was talking about strengthening those partnerships and as we've heard already from yourselves the success of local government is unlocking community action so I think the key insight I suppose I would like to ask for yourselves is what do you think then needs to be strengthened within that partnership is it just because of budget lines or is this shared decision making in some of these areas to go back to my first question around local authorities thinking that everything they do is now ring-fenced giving them more flexibility to have those local priorities decided seems to be what we hear regularly as MSPs from councils that they feel that's been taken away from them so I just wanted to in terms of strengthening that partnership of any views that the commission had as well well if I might kick off and then my colleagues can come in and I think local authorities can make a very good argument but until they can demonstrate with really good data that their proposals are based on deep conversations with the local population and the bodies that represent their local populations it's very easy for the government to say well we've had what you have to say but we're not going to follow it so I think that one of the things that has to be really strengthened in the whole system is much better dialogue between local authorities and the populations they serve and that I think then would give the local authority community a much better ability to say to central government well we think that because it's reflecting the views of our population and it's a brave government that tells whole populations that whatever they may think they're going to be ignored but let me pass it across to my colleagues who have got longer experience of this Anthony, do you want to kick off? Yeah I think to answer your question I think it's absolutely clear that for this to be effective there has to be that shared dialogue and that shared agreement around what the national community means at local level and that doesn't mean different ways of constructing national policy and it does mean probably different ways of involving local government in those decision making processes as well recognising that local authorities are uniquely placed I think to engage with communities work with their partners to deliver local outcomes and I don't think anybody would argue that it's perfectly reasonable for national government to set national priorities but it's also reasonable I think to accept that how they should be delivered and the extent to which they should be how they should be delivered at local level may vary from place to place so it probably will require some difficult discussions around regional variation and flexibility of implementation as well I think there's been a concern that it's sometimes felt to local government as though it's all an assumption that what works in Glasgow will work in Orkney or Dumfries and Galloway will work in the Western Isles and I think that's been some of the frustration amongst local government around the extent to which they're able to reflect those local needs and local choices and the other bit I think does touch on the extent to which local government can and should I think try and make sure that when it's implementing national policy it's doing it in ways as efficient and effective as possible so that there's some kind of dialogue around what success looks like and how many is measured as well Thank you for that response I'm sorry, Miles Are you complete? I'm just going to hand back to you, yes Sorry for jumping in there It's been a really rich discussion Willie, I see you do want to come in and Carol also It's been a very rich discussion I've got a couple of questions around this theme of local government and Scottish Government partnership and it's related to the islands act because I'm Highlands and Islands MSP and so within the islands act there's a mechanism for the three all island local authorities to request additional powers however such a request hasn't ever been made despite the act being enforced for several years and I just wonder what your if you've done any looking at that and if you think this mechanism that owns act is fit for purpose and I'm not sure who might want to pick that up Another reminder Anthony, do you want to kick it off? As you know we audit all the local authorities so we audit Western Isles, Orkney, Shetland and so on so we have a pretty good understanding of their needs and of their islands in Argyll and Bute as well I'm not sure I'd draw any conclusions from the fact that the that bit of the act hasn't been been in vote yet is that the islands, the leaders the community leaders, the elected members of the island councils have been working very productively together to make the case or the distinctivity of policy making and delivery as well so I guess I'm I'm not drawing any strong conclusions from the fact that there's a power there that's not yet been used Thanks for that response and then I've got another quick question about ring fencing and drip feed funding and that's I'm keen to hear that your views on lump sum funding allocation versus drip feed funding and this is coming up again because I'm aware of smaller local authorities who particularly feel the burden of officers' time of continuous funding allocation throughout the year from the Scottish Government and true in areas that involve significant statutory duties and ring fencing such as education in your experience what impact do you think a larger start of year lump sum funding could have on local authorities ability to plan effectively Thanks for me I think it's almost self-evident that if if local authorities are given larger sums at the start of the year rather than drip feeding throughout the year the administrative burden on local authorities and also pretend to give them greater scope to plan with confidence I think the bigger question is how long are those lump sums for an over what period of time because I think the problem we keep hearing or we hear fairly regularly from local authorities is the short term nature of funding makes it very difficult for them to plan both to recruit staff to develop and implement services and to retain those services as well and that doesn't just apply to local government but to the third sector as well I think that you will have heard, I'm sure, repeatedly from the third sector that when local government itself is providing funding to the third sector the short term nature of that creates similar problems to those which local government itself experiences as well I think that there's an issue around the medium to longer term nature of the funding that's made it available to local authorities as well as a lump fund rather than drip fund Thank you for that response Carol, I noticed you wanted to come in a few minutes ago and you want to pick up as probably on a theme that we were talking about earlier you want to come in and then Willie I'll bring you in with your final question Sorry, the conversation has moved on a bit but it was in relation to Mr Briggs's question about what needs to change in terms of the relationship with the Scottish Government and local government and I agree with everything that Anthony said but what I would add is that Anthony describes local government as being uniquely placed and I think they really are and I think what maybe needs to change is not to view local government simply as implementers but that they should be at the table in the design and decision making around policy objectives rather than coming in at the end in terms of implementing what happens but I think that there is more of a role for that kind of engagement at that level for local government, Scottish Government to be around the table at that level while developing policy Thank you Willie, you wanted to come in with a question Thanks very much, Ariane Bill, it was to ask about the levelling up fund as you know that's the replacement fund for European Union funds and in my other committee the audit committee who will scrutinise and who will audit this is at the moment the new government here that there's a role for audit Scotland or the committee of the Scottish Parliament in the looking at that Do you anticipate that the accounts commission because of your closer relationship with local government will be the body that will scrutinise and provide assurance about the spend across all the councils for that fund? I would expect so but it's not something I've encountered yet, Willie so Anthony, to ask him if he'd like to comment Thanks Bill and thanks for the question Willie I think the honest answer is it's not clear at the moment how the audit arrangements will operate for the levelling up funds and that's the conversation we're having with our colleagues at the national audit office the Wales audit office and the Northern Ireland audit office as well so it's an uncertainty at the moment to be honest whether the funding of the funds as they flow through from the UK government to Scottish local government or indeed to any other part of the Scottish public sector which may not rest with the accounts commission it may rest with the national audit office even if that is the case I think it's likely that the accounts commission would take an interest in how local authorities are using that funding to deliver better outcomes an audit opinion on the accountability and sign off whether that funding is making a difference as part of its wider interest in local councils delivering their best value duty in improving outcomes Okay, thank you, it's still unclear Thank you A work in progress thanks Willie for that question so I think we've come to the end of our questions but Bill, I wanted to maybe hand back to you if you've got any closing comments you want to make sure that we maybe haven't covered something to get across to us or something that you want to highlight I'd love to give you that time Well thank you very much Kim there's not a lot I want to say because I think we have covered a lot of ground today and it's been certainly for me a very interesting session but I think the thing that comes out of it most of all is the need for local authorities not just to complain about the pressures they're under although they're entitled to complain at times I would admit that we really do need to put a lot of effort into both planning and consulting the populations they serve and the stronger the feedback they can get from the populations they serve the better placed they are to make an argument to government about how they should be funded and how they should be overseen and I think that's the one point I would just like to leave the future role of local government is a key question for local authorities Well thank you very much for underscoring that that certainly did come to a point in the session so it's been really rich and I'm glad that we have this relationship with the Accounts Commission and that we're going to be seeing you on at least an annual basis because I find certainly the overview reports are very helpful for us to understand what's happening in local authority and also certainly I've been finding reports from my region also very useful so I just want to say thanks to all of you who've come today and really kind of helped us understand more of what's going on at a deeper level and as that's the last of the public items on our agenda for today I now close the public meeting