 I welcome back. I apologise for that breakdown in the broadcasting system to witnesses and also to our thousands of viewers at home. I always say thousands of viewers at home. I was in the middle of asking Elma a question round about integrated health and social care boards. You were saying that, since their establishment, the way things that have been done have changed. My question was why has it taken the establishment of these integrated health and social care boards to make that change rather than coming from community planning partnerships since their inception? I would like to emphasise first of all that in some places in Scotland clearly integration of health and social care had taken place prior to the new legislation. Some of that will have been happening in parts of Scotland where they had already decided that that was right for their particular area. What the new legislation has done is put really a legislative requirement on everyone to do that now. That is now being progressed certainly in relation to adult services, but in a lot of areas on a voluntary basis for both adult and children's health services as well. I could not say explicitly why it has not happened before. For me, the issue is that it is now starting to happen on a much more widespread basis across Scotland and I think that that is to be welcomed. Maybe the lesson for the committee when it comes to dealing with this legislation is that rather than hoping that certain things happen on a voluntary basis, it may well be that we should put a legislative mark down at the very beginning. Would that be a fair statement? I think that the point that Professor Hastings made at the very start in terms of the intent and what you would want to see as the outcome as a result of the bill will be very important to make sure that that is clear. The statement of intent is probably important. Before the break, Annette, you were wanting to come in. Do you still wish to do so? I just wanted to say a word in defence of strategic overviews in this debate. I am not suggesting that people who are advocates of community empowerment do not think that strategic action is important, but it is worth a reminder. It is at the level of the individual, public body or the community partnership that the learning takes place so that it is not mental health, but it is not smoking, it is mental health, it is not the community centre, it is not the housing that is the issue. Learning can take place at the level of the institution and the same mistakes cannot be replicated. There is that sort of issue about how you aggregate the learning from the different community empowerment activities that are going on and institutionalise it within public bodies, but there is also the issue in relation to thinking about the need for strategic co-ordination in action around avoiding perverse outcomes as a result of participation. In my evidence, I talked about the example of street sweeping and how the processes of participation can lead inadvertently to more services being provided and better outcomes in more affluent areas. The local authority that we did that research with then took action and said that that is not what we are trying to do here and that they have prioritised poor areas and a deliberate strategy. It is important to think about the sum of the parts and maintaining capacity at the centre to undo some of the wrongs that might be done. Combination of legislation, cultural change and good old gumption. And the recognition that sometimes decisions will be made which appear to be anti-participatory. Thank you. Harry, please. Okay, David, please. Perhaps what the legislation needs to be doing is focusing more on what the outcomes should be. It is absolutely right that the government decides that, for example, we want to see a reduction in the difference in life expectancy. For example, we want to see a reduction in the amount of children who are living in poverty. That is the type of thing that is absolutely right for central government to be involved in. So certainly outcomes is probably a good thing for legislation, but they should not necessarily get into the nitty gritty. Again, I get back to the point that I was making earlier. One size does not fit all and it is not necessarily the same model that will apply everywhere. Thank you. Ian, please. The challenge for the bill is how we empower communities from the top down. That is quite difficult. I think that there is agreement around the room that there is no one blueprint that communities are very different in nature and that such activity can be quite messy. There is a real danger in trying to do it from the top down and that you crush the creativity in the enterprise that has contributed to a lot of the community-led regeneration, which has been largely organic happening in communities all over Scotland. It seems to me that this bill builds on the experience that has happened. It is not just middle class or rural communities. I am also talking about working class and disadvantaged communities. It seems to me that the task in hand is how we inspire, encourage, nurture and support communities to try and engage in such a process. I think that what the bill does is offer a range of, by introducing new duties and new powers, a framework that makes it a bit easier for communities to engage in some of those activities. We will hopefully encourage more communities to take part in such a process, but it is certainly something that you cannot impose on communities. I think that the cultural change is crucial. I would hope that the bill does influence the culture, but it is a two-way process. I think that cultural change needs to take place in the public sector because there is certainly a lot of this activity that involves a degree of risk. I think that, understandably, public organisations can be quite risk averse. Equally, there is cultural change that is required in the community sector. If we are going back to disadvantaged communities, what strikes me is that two of the challenges in disadvantaged communities are, one, that they are very grant-dependent, and two, that they are very public sector-dependent. We have to begin to change that a bit. I think that there are opportunities within the bill to begin to do that through encouraging people to take a more enterprising approach, looking at ownership of assets, looking at community enterprise and so on. I think that what is required is different sorts of interventions and different approaches to support the implementation of the bill. It is interesting that you talked about the word cajo, which sometimes can be seen as being forcing. Callum, I was going to come to you anyway, because your organisation has been very vocal about forcing folk into voluntary positions. Is there a danger that, if we try to force people into participation, there will be a backlash? I am not sure about a backlash per se, but it is the same principle that supports what Ian was saying. We cannot force participation, but the point is that the legislation could be an opportunity to create the best possible environment for participation. What I would encourage the committee to look at is how you can drive into the system much more of a duty to involve that you can measure against, because I do not think that that is imposing it from the top down. You are not saying exactly how that should happen, but you will then be able to test whether processes and means by which involvement and participation were supported. However, not for one second, but I suggest that you would want to do anything to take away from the creativity of the grassroots activity. In fact, what we are trying to get to is a system whereby that flourishes even more than it does now. Ian, you want to come back in. It is going to balance with how you encourage and inspire, but not force. I made that impression, and I am going to correct that. Stuart McMillan, please. It is a question for Ian. First of all, I want me to go in your comments, you mentioned about the cultural change and the grant dependency and the public sector dependency. I asked a question to Mr McCulloch regarding the FSB and other business organisations assisting within the communities. Are you aware of details organisations being in contact with local FSBs and local other business organisations to see what joint operations, joint working could be done to help within communities to help those communities to help themselves? We have got lots of examples of that kind of partnership taking place. When part of the development trust approach is encouraging partnerships and redefining what we mean by partnership. It is partners to achieve whatever aims the community is trying to achieve. A lot of them are private sector partners, and quite often it is small and medium sized businesses we are talking about. Sometimes they are informal arrangements, but they can range right through to joint ventures. I can give you lots of examples of that happening. If we are trying to encourage a more enterprising approach, there is a good—lots of lessons and experience to draw from that particular sector. I ask Eric. Obviously, in terms of big lottery funding, you have put money previously into community capacity building. What more can you do to help disadvantaged communities to participate? There are various things that are involved in so many different levels and the area that I am interested in is community asset transfer. Obviously, this comes from a background that started in rural communities, but it has developed over the 13, 14 years. We have been involved in this now. As Iain was talking about, there are a lot more urban communities. Deprived communities as well are not just the well-to-do communities that are doing this sort of stuff, and we try to help them right from the very early stages all the way through. We provide the feasibility study money—the £10,000—that they can go and consult with their communities, go and visit other projects as well. It is a two-stage process that comes into us. If they get through stage one, we can give them more development funding to go and do lots of the technical stuff that they need to do. As I have spoken to the committee about before, we have a social enterprise that is there to help them with the financial side of things. That will kick in between stages one and two, but we do not just leave it there. If they get an award, that social enterprise will work them after they have got the award as well. That is just one example of how we deal with it in one investment area. I am getting into jargon again, sorry. I have talked to you this morning about our place, which is a different approach. We are trying lots of different things than to learn lessons from these. We are very much taking this asset-based approach and fitting that to a community of learning. We had the first meeting of that about three weeks ago, where we were bringing people together to learn from each other's experience and pass on the lessons and see where a wider community goes—not just a big lottery fund but a wider community—can go with it. Thank you. Felix, please. I will answer Stuart's question about the grant dependency. It is worth highlighting. We were from Community Land Scotland recently, which looked at the community land trusts and the role they have with the grant funding compared to their business income. What it showed is a lot of economic development through community energy and situation like that. It punctures that myth a bit about community land trust, development trust etc. being grant dependent. It is well worth looking at that piece of research. To the point about joint working between business organisations and the community sector, the business improvement district model is a good example of that. In Kerluk, which has been recently passed, it is development trust led, but with the involvement of small business owners and within the bill in any associated documents, there was a slight omission in that the bid model brings people together in a specific locality to deliver additional services for the business community, which also benefits a wider community. We are a grant giver, but we are not in the business of trying to create grant dependency. It is our grants that kick things off and get things started. We are also looking a lot more at social investment. We are asking projects to take a much more enterprising approach. Quite often, those things will not get off the ground unless they have some grant. It is not grant dependency that we are talking about here, it is injecting grant into it until it gets started and then making them enterprising. Stuart, you want to come back briefly? Very briefly. Thank you to Mr McCulloch. I gave the example of Kerluk, but do you have any examples of that type of activity in places like maybe Easterhouse or Craig Miller or elsewhere in the schemes across the country? Craig Miller. To be completely honest, in many areas where there is deprivation as local authority led in many cases, because the capacity has not been there in the past, but as the bill represents and shows community empowerment and involvement, it requires a step change. From our perspective, it is how small businesses play a part in that and contribute to that process where they can. Mark Ruskell, please. I think that it is just thinking about the outcomes that we were speaking about and how the success or otherwise of the legislation would be measured. Obviously, empowering communities is one thing, but those communities then, using that empowerment and how they use that empowerment is something very different. Different communities will have different ideas about what they want to do. Sometimes ambition and what can be achieved will not tally, and that is going to be the case whatever legislation is put in place. So I guess it is about how do we ensure that when we are looking at how the legislation is operating in practice once it has been passed, how do we ensure that we are measuring correctly what is happening so that we do not say that either it has been a runaway success and that does not match what communities are saying. Also, we do not say that because some communities have not been able to realise the ambitions that they would have had for perfectly valid reasons, we do not fall into the trap of suggesting that the legislation is therefore either failing or has not met what it was supposed to be doing. Any comments on that? I will make one specific suggestion. In my last comment, I talked about a duty to involve. In guidance, you could suggest something that we talked about in the commission on local democracy is more citizens' juries approaches. Why not drive into the community planning system and annual citizens' jury process or in terms of setting the agenda for community planning, but also testing against what has been delivered? I think that what you can do is set the enabler in the legislation but then in the guidance look at the specific suggestions about how you would test that in an on-going fashion. In which case, I thank you very much for your evidence this morning. I think that that has been extremely useful. I apologise for the breakdown in the broadcast system. What I would be interested in hearing from you and if you could feed it into the clerks is whether or not you think that the round table way of taking evidence suits you. I know that many of you have given formal evidence before in different ways. As a committee, a number of members like these round table sessions, but I am keen to get your feedback and empower you in that regard. Thank you very much. I suspend until 25 past for a change in witnesses. I now welcome our second panel. I welcome Alistair McKinlay, head of community planning and community empowerment unit. Alistair, I understand that you are going to introduce your colleagues and tell us what their remit is when it comes to the bill. Thank you, convener. In fact, I will ask something to introduce to myself if that is okay. I know that there are quite a few of us and we each have different responsibilities, so maybe we can start with Norman. I am Norman McLeod. I am from the Scottish Government legal directorate. I am the building leader. I am Amanda Fox, food and drink team, and I have a responsibility for the allotment section of the bill. Dave Thompson, land reform and tenancy unit, I am responsible for the part 4 elements right to buy. I am Rachel Rainer from the Scottish Government legal directorate. I am dealing with the allotments and the right to buy provisions. To make any opening statement, first of all, no thanks, convener. In which case, obviously, you heard the evidence from our previous panel. One of the things that was raised by Annette was a roundabout statement of intent when it came to dealing with empowering disadvantaged communities. Has there been any thought to that? Certainly, it is something that we have been conscious of in the wide ranging engagement that we have done on the bill. The first thing to say is that the bill provides opportunities for all communities in Scotland around asset transfer and participation requests, but we recognise that capacity to benefit from those opportunities will not be evenly spread across the country. Although I was particularly heartened in the earlier discussion, the recognition that just because people are in disadvantaged communities, it does not mean that they are not able to do a lot of things for them. However, at the minute, the Scottish Government already invests in a range of things that some of which were mentioned earlier. The community ownership support service, which provides some of that technical expertise that was mentioned as important, is focused on disadvantaged areas around asset ownership. The strengthening communities programme would be another one to highlight, which was again mentioned, which is doing direct investment in the community anchor organisations to use the shorthand jargon briefly in those disadvantaged areas. It is something that we are conscious of. As you said at the outset, convener, the bill will not do everything, and those are policy responses that I suppose to try to address that issue. The final thing is that we have been conscious, and it is in the legislation, that the public authorities, the duties that they have in the new legislation, also have to fulfil their equalities duties set out in other legislation. We heard a lot about culture change in common sense, and although it is possible sometimes to legislate for culture change, it is not so easy to legislate for gumption. How do we ensure that, as we go through this process, we get the maximum amount of gumption out there? Beyond the bill, what do we need to do to ensure that logicality comes into play? The first thing to reflect on—again, it came up in the discussion, so it was helpful—is that the bill tries, in the way that any legislation can, to find itself on some gumption. It does try to reflect some of the things that we know are already happening. Beyond that, I think that we will have a very important job to do. Again, trying to adopt the approach that we have taken to be inclusive in developing the legislation on promoting the bill and recognising that it is a piece of legislation, some people will struggle with some of the language and concepts. In the clearest possible language we can, in the way that we did with the easy read version of our policy memorandum, we have a big job to go out and promote what the bill is about and what opportunity it provides, and perhaps explain to people the committee's interest in the fact that a lot of that is common sense. In terms of framing the draft bill, how much attention has been paid to stakeholders? Let's look at the allotments scenario, Ms Fox, where, obviously, we have had a number of responses back from folks who are involved in allotments and the various societies. How much attention has been paid to what stakeholders have said in terms of coming up with the draft bill? We have had quite a substantial amount of consultation specifically on the allotments area. The first was through the consultation on the community empowerment and renewal bill back in June 2012. Subsequent to that, we had a consultation that solely looked at potential duties and powers relating to allotments. That was in April 2013. The individual provisions in different areas were then again consulted on in November 2013 through the community empowerment bill consultation. In addition to the written exercises, we have also gone out to stakeholders and had quite a lot of meetings with both the growing community and our colleagues in local authorities and COSLA. One of the more complicated aspects of the bill deals with common good. Fourth right opinion is about common good funds and what should and shouldn't be done. Can I ask what stakeholder consultation there has been in terms of that part of the bill? That was not addressed separately. It was part of the two consultations, the explorality consultation and the secondary consultation. It is important to say at this stage that, because the nature of the bills is around community empowerment, our focus there has been on participation and transparency in common good—what it is, helping to establish what it is in local authorities and how it is used. It was not done separately from the board of consultation. I stay on the topic of allotments just now. We had received evidence from the Scottish Allotments and Gardens Society. I will summarise what they are saying. The bill repeals the existing legislation, so some of the protection for plot holder and allotments sites contained in the provisions of the old legislation appear to have been lost. The bill updates quite a lot of provisions. There are a number of powers and duties that have been removed from the bill. I can just go over those briefly if that would be helpful. The duties and powers that have been omitted. There has been a duty to provide access to allotments that has been removed. That duty was not restated in the bill, since it is already provided under a general law of landlord and tenant. In terms of powers that have been omitted from the current draft of the bill, the use of local authority rooms for discussions on allotment-related business has been removed. That was as a result of consultation with local authorities, who indicated that buildings for this purpose could be made available, but there should be a requirement to pay, as is the case with other community groups. Also, the powers of entry on unoccupied land for the purpose of providing allotments, the powers for compulsory purchase of land, the power to enter unoccupied land for the purpose of providing allotments reflects the post-war area in which it was written. It came into force to drive an increase in food production, and it was viewed that this was unnecessary at the present time. Local authorities have also indicated that they are unaware of any situation where these powers have been used for the provision of allotments. They considered them if they were to use them, that they would be a last resort, and that was mainly due to the financial costs involved with such action. The Scottish Government views bees as being draconian and rather difficult to justify due to the costs. Additionally, such action would deprive a person from their right to the actual peaceful enjoyment of their property and could not be justified in the wider public interest on the basis of the provision of allotments. Moving on to the next power that has been removed, the power of a local authority to charge a fair rent. The Government believes that land values and the costs associated with managing allotment sites are very likely to vary between different sites, depending on where you are within Scotland. Consequently, decisions made about the level of rents would be best made at a local level. As such, the bill requires local authorities to make regulations that relate to rent specifically. The power for a local authority to purchase plants, seeds and fertilisers to sell to tenants has also been removed. That is a rather outdated duty and reflects the post-war era in which it was drafted. It came into force at a time when there were not many garden centres or agricultural suppliers around at the time. That has been excluded from the bill, but it does not prevent local authorities continuing that practice should they so wish and should they so be in need. The next power that has been removed is the improvement and adaptation of land for allotments. That was considered unnecessary to restate as it is part of a local authority's general powers and the subsequent legislation. The rating of allotments the power allows a local authority to deem itself the occupier of a land despite it being lit for allotments. It was considered unnecessary again to restate the provision as subsequent legislation has excluded allotments from the ratings regime. The provisions relating to a land lease for allotments have been updated and are reflected in the bill. Just to make the committee aware, the provisions in the bill that relates specifically to private landowners, which ultimately deal with the termination of leases and compensation, have also been removed from the bill. The rationale behind that was, if you bear with me what I refer to my notes. The Government believes that these arrangements are actually better suited to be dealt with under individual lease arrangements, and it was difficult to see what justification there was for interfering with such private arrangements. In addition, general law on landlord and tenants would apply to these arrangements. To support private landowners with lease negotiations in 2013, the Government actually supported the production of a guide for landowners, which was developed in liaison with the community land advisory service. This encourages landowners, and I should say that it applies to both private and public landowners to make sites available for growing food. It gives comprehensive information and suggestions about background details in relation to trying to equip landowners to play their part in making more land available to local communities in Scotland for growing food. I am happy to provide that detail to the committee if they would find that helpful. Just another small point, a huge point. The financial memorandum attached to the bill, some of our sector bodies have highlighted the difference of opinion, shall we say? It is very difficult because of the different ways that allotments are managed across Scotland. It was very difficult to get definite costs for the individual duties and powers that were required in the bill and what those implications were on local authorities. We have made estimates of them, but they are only estimates. It was very difficult to get tangible information relating to the different impacts, but we have tried to identify the areas that might incur costs. Just a supplementary point, Dr Fox. I am glad that you are going to provide us with the briefing that you have just read from. You will be aware that there was a major campaign in Glasgow, particularly around the tenemental properties, where residents tried to take over vacant and derelict land to create small areas where residents could grow their own food. How would the changes that you have outlined in relation to legislation post-war, and what is proposed before us today, change the actions of the individuals or groups that want to take over vacant land to put it back into productive use for food in those areas? I will say that, under the wider provisions of the bill—under the asset transfer and the community right to buy—there is scope for communities, such as the ones in Glasgow, to approach the relevant authority to take over that land. I will defer to my colleagues in relation if they want to add to that, but there are scopes in the wider powers, so the allotment section will not necessarily help them per se, but the wider provisions of the bill will. I think that that is one of the examples, Mr Wilson, that we heard a lot and strongly influenced part 5 on asset transfer. In terms of linking back to the question about engaging with stakeholders, it was actually the community growing, some community growing colleagues, who took us from a place where we were focusing very much on community bodies owning assets to the broader provisions of the bill around lease management and, indeed, use, because some people said, well, we won't necessarily want to own a piece of land in the public sector, but we would love to be able to grow on it. Part 5 provides a process where that case can be made, the benefits of community growing be made and the duty on the authority to respond to that. That is obviously public sector owned land, if that was the vacant, early land. Amanda says that the extension of the community right to buy now across the country would be another tool for communities to use in that circumstance. Stuart McMillan, please. Just as regarding the consultation, what type of activity took place to try to have as many consultees and responses from schemes across Scotland? As we heard in the previous session, there are challenges in trying to get information and get feedback from various parts of the country. The whole bill is about community empowerment. What activity did you undertake to try to get information from people in the schemes of Scotland? The first thing is that we relied a lot on some of the people that you heard from this morning. Working through intermediaries such as the Development Trust Association Scotland, the Scottish Community Alliance and the Scottish Community Development Centre, an organisation called Community Development Alliance Scotland ran a conference inviting along a number of community activists. Obviously, there is always more that you would like to do. We did not, for example, go out and visit specifically about the bill, a range of our most disadvantaged communities. That is partly resource because we were a small team. However, I certainly feel that we tried extremely hard to ensure that we had a wide range of voices heard. Ministers and officials had 40 meetings during the second stage. We obviously did have the first stage of consultation where, again, that was not a case where we wrote out our ideas, sent them out, put them on the website and waited for people to reply. We were very proactive and tried to get out and speak to people face to face. I would assume that you spoke to the various community councils across Scotland as well. Community councillors were involved in a number of the sessions that we were involved with. It might be better if we provided you with a fuller report on the consultation. Would that be helpful, rather than trying to remember what you were afforded? That would be extremely useful. What would be useful, as well, is that we have heard from community councils in terms of some of the other work that we have been doing on the lead-up to this, which feels that some local authorities are not adhering to the legislation and guidance as it stands. It would be interesting for us to get an idea of what kind of feedback that you guys had in your consultation. I can also, because it came up in the earlier conversation, we did a survey of local authorities about community councils. We have details of how many had contested elections and how many are active. If you like, we can make sure that you have that information. It would be extremely useful if that could be provided. We would be very grateful. I guess that we were discussing earlier on how success, if you like, of the legislation could be measured and what would be the outcomes that would be sought. Obviously, sitting alongside that is the issue of expectation management as well. During your discussions and soundings with communities, do you get the feeling that there is an understanding that this bill, while it will have a significant impact in communities and empowerment of communities, has to be a degree of expectation management from communities and legislators as well around what can be achieved and how that will look? Yes, I think so, but my experience working with communities for a number of years now in policy is that it does not take too long for communities to understand precisely those issues around expectation. In my experience, community activists are some of the most reasonable and sensible people you can speak to, as long as the conversation happens in a respectful, open and trusting way. Certainly, through all our consultation, we have been working very hard to explain to people that the bill is only one element of how we might go about empowering communities' culture and resources that Mr Mackay brings up all the time. It is important that we do that, although we are not seeking to underplay the part that the bill can play in empowering communities and culture change and so on. I expect that that will be a fairly straightforward thing to do. The follow-on from that and the reason why I raised that is obviously that there was the discussion as well around community capacity and how community capacity is developed. I made the point that there is a feeling out there that community capacity is required in some of our most deprived areas. I think that those are some of the areas where you see the most activism in communities. It is just a question of the support that those community organisations are given and have available to them. Obviously, you cannot legislate for everything, but there will be a role for legislative guidance in setting parameters and expectations for public bodies as to how they work with community organisations that want to take forward some of the elements of community empowerment. Do you envisage guidance that will spell out to, for example, local authorities what is expected of them if a community, for example a deprived community, where there is not ready access to some of the expertise that might be required to enable the drafting of a business case or the handling of a transfer of an asset? If that is not within that community, would there be an expectation on public bodies to provide that support and that would be spelled out fairly clearly in the guidance that follows the legislation? The first thing to say is that all the guidance and it is an important principle that we will develop in very close partnership with the kinds of people that you listened to this morning, colleagues in COSLA, colleagues in the community sector, because we want that guidance to reflect the best possible practice that we can. We are already in quite a positive position with things like the statutory instrument that now exists on community learning and development, which places obligations on local authorities to assess capacity in communities and to do things about that. There are also other things that I am sure we could discuss with people around how we ensure to take a specific example around the participation requests, which I think is one of the very new and has been warmly welcomed aspects of the bill because it puts the communities on the front-foot-racing issues that are on their agenda. In guidance there, we could talk about the quality of engagement and the requirement to use existing tools that promote quality engagement, for example. The guidance is another opportunity to really lift people's game in terms of participation and empowerment. Have we looked at or have you consulted with a lot of the groups in my area, community groups, around the medium of sport? Have you spoken to the people in sport? I think that I would need to refer to the detail of the kinds of people who came to the events that we ran. I have come across people like Beath community development, trust me, who have a very close interest in sport. I would have to look at the detail of who we have spoken to about that, but we recognise that an interest in sport is a very positive thing in terms of empowerment of them. For the reasons that involve huge parts in our community, and obviously for very good reasons, I think that that should be a valuable partner within it. If we could get that information out, it would be useful. It may well be that the committee will write to you and ask for other pieces of information after that, but I think that that helps us in terms of where we are going to. HIV Scotland and Inclusion Scotland highlighted possible unintended negative impacts on those that are currently marginalised from engagement. Inclusion Scotland stated that communities should not be defined by a narrow definition based on location and residence. Disabled people are often excluded from traditional communities or have specific needs and interests that are best addressed by their own community. How do we ensure that communities of interest are best served by the bill? What does the bill do to ensure that they are included? Well, interestingly, convener, you're early. We have a question about consultation. We've got half a dozen little examples of things that we think we changed quite significantly after we heard from the consultation. One of them was about improving the definition of community body in the elements around participation to do two things. One was that people felt that the draft bill would define community body in different ways and it was getting confusing, so we've simplified that to have the same definition in different parts of the bill. And the second thing was that it is now drafted in such a way that you could be a community of interest. Again, interestingly, the discussion about top down and bottom up and the challenges of empowering from above, which in a sense some aspects of legislation will always be, but the definition of community body leaves the community to define itself. So a community body has to be certain things, but how you define yourself as a community is left to that community. We'll make good use of the time while they're here. One of the issues that is pertinent to the bill is the community asset transfer debate. Communities are being, in some areas, actively encouraged to take on buildings, particularly sports facilities. We had part of a discussion earlier about the long-term financial viability of those assets. What thought has been given to ensure that where communities do take on those assets, they do get the financial support, because when you get a community asset or any organisation, I'm not just talking about communities, it sometimes takes several years for them to build up a financially sustainable asset. What support do you see being given to communities where they do take on sports facilities particularly in the longer term? One of the suggestions that was made by one of the local authorities was that we can give the community the asset, the community can go and get the grants to do the asset up, but if they're not viable after two or three years, the asset transfers back to the local authority at the value of the transfer, despite the fact that there may be a couple of million pounds worth of improvements carried out in that asset. How do we ensure that communities are allowed the time and the opportunity to develop the economic case and viability to sustain that asset? If I may, I'll make a broader point first, which is that I'm sure Iain Cook would support me on this, that we've got to be very careful and there was some anxiety when we were developing the bill around this, that somehow the legislation signals that we want all communities to take on assets. For some communities, that will not be the right way to develop their communities. We have heard and can fully understand that what might look like an asset on the face of it can be a liability. We try to build that into the process of the bill. It's all about a business case. It's all about ensuring from the outset, before you transfer an asset, that you've asked those questions about sustainability and viability and that it's a really clear view that people are being taken. In terms of existing support, Eric Samuel mentioned the growing community assets fund. There is the Scottish land fund in rural communities. In terms of revenue funding, which is often the case raised with us, that's the issue going forward. Iain Cook raised an interesting point about community organisations being enterprise. That's a fundamental part of this approach going forward. There will be other ranges of funding such as the climate challenge fund, which is very popular among many communities that people might be able to access. However, that business of looking at the hard sums is a critical part of that. Just to follow up on that, Eric Samuel gave an example of where he had extended the funding from two to three years for some organisations. Some community organisations, and I have to declare a particular vested interest on that, because I'm actively involved in the community, my own local community. We're going to take on a community asset, and part of the long-term planning of that community asset and financial viability is tied into major housing developments proposed for the area. The difficulty is that, if those major housing developments don't take place within the timescale that the community asset has developed, then the financial viability plans could fall apart for the sake of three or five years before those housing developments finally come to fruition. How do we ensure, or is there any fall-back position that we can envisage that allows those communities to be able to say that their financial viability strategy was all predicated on certain things happening at certain times due to other circumstances? Those haven't happened. Could we get an extension to the funding process to allow us to continue to operate until everything is in place to make it a long term? We're not talking about sustainability in five years, we're talking about sustainability over 25, 30 or 50 years for some of those assets. It's about trying to look at that. The other issue is big lottery has indicated that it will only give funding if those premises seem to be viable long term. How do we ensure that we support communities where they take on those assets, that they can be safeguarded because other factors didn't come into play? They can turn for help from someone to ensure that they get fruition on track with the investment strategy and the sustainability strategy that they're hoping for. You cannot legislate for changing factors, but Mr McKinley, if you could attempt that. That's incredibly helpful because it's a reminder of just how complex that is sometimes and that each case is different. A point at which to welcome the committee's on-going involvement and interest in the bill has been incredibly helpful to us that you've been unearthing a whole range of examples like that through your regeneration inquiry and so on. We have to continue to listen to that and whether it's a legislative issue or whether it's a policy issue, we have to make sure that, for example, the community ownership support service that can at least help with learning and advice on those issues is picking up on them. I'm sure Ian Cooke can, where the cost is located, will do. But it is one of those things that we'll just have to keep listening and ensuring that, because fundamentally it's not about owning the asset simply for its own sake, though that can have huge benefits, we know, in terms of sense of ownership and positive view for the future. It's about achieving outcomes and if the outcomes are going to be so fantastic for communities in Scotland then we must essentially have that culture that looks to overcome those barriers in order to achieve the outcomes that people want. I was just going to ask about the common good land, alial and inalible land. Can that be used for allotments if it's purchased? Is that possible? It seems to be needing clarification on what is common good land and it seems to me that it's very unclear what it can be used for. I'm afraid we'll have to get you back because there are six of us and the common good policy specialist is not one of us. We'll have to get back to you on that specific point. Just to reiterate again that the bill really only deals with local people's involvement, including community councils. I know that some community councils felt that community councils are absent from the legislation that are specifically mentioned around common good and there is also a specifically mentioned body in the participation requests, so a recognition of their role, the important role that many community councils play, but on the specific point we'll have to get back to you. Finally, a lot of the submissions that have come from local authorities and community planning bodies have been very positive, which we often find. How do we ensure that local authorities, community planning partnerships, don't end up taking a narrow interpretation of the bill? The parts that I mentioned earlier in terms of asset transfer and participation requests I think shift the landscape significantly because it is about a duty for them to respond to rights that community organisations have. If we take participation requests, which I think in my own view has been the bit that people haven't quite seen the potential of yet, it means that a group of community bodies in one of our more disadvantaged areas working with young people who have really good ideas on how to make the lives of those young people better, they don't now sit and wait until they're consulted by children's services, they put together their case and the authority has to respond, so I think that that in itself, and I've heard speaking to local government colleagues during the consultation that they feel that this will make them up their game. They can see it coming, they can see that communities are going to approach them, so they're thinking that they have to get their own processes in order. Looking at the detail once we get into the detail of the community planning provisions, community bodies are now a more significant player. They are people who participate in community planning, not just people who are consulted on a plan. Community planning partners now are required to properly resource community bodies and forgive me the lawyer, it doesn't say properly obviously in the legislation, but the fact that there's a recognition in the law now that there should be an obligation to resource the involvement of community bodies is another significant change. That wasn't the final question. Part 3 on participation requests, the meaning of a community-controlled body, it says that in this part a community-controlled body means a body whether corporate or unincorporated having a written constitution. Why does the body need to have a written constitution in order to participate? Ian, would you be better placed, do you think, to deal with the detail of that? Ian Pye comes out from the consultation itself, where people have a view about what community involves, what community means and that you need some sort of structure when people are going into a legislative process, actually what it will be. The written constitution is, we believe, because it's not a huge amount that is required under the written constitution, it's the minimum that's required in order to be involved in the process. It's the same here as it is for asset transfer requests as well. It's very interesting to see the responses to the consultation in that regard. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for your evidence today. I now suspend the meeting and we move into private session.