 Artur 19 i nyfodd Mwynhynolwrs Gweithio â Llyfrgellolol Cymru yn 2023. Rwyf y ddechrau'r oedd yma yna yn mynd i chi… Yr eistedd yn grwp ffurgyrch am 5 a 5, mae'n gwneud yr eistedd yn grwp ffurgyrch am 5, ond mae'r eistedd yn grwp ffurgyrch am 5 a rwyf yn gynyddiadol ar hyn yn rwyf. a ddod i dnow ш gas i weithio ddau o'i ddesig. We will then move on to the second item on the agenda, which is an evidence session following our inquiry into the role of local government and its cross sectorial partners in financing delivering in net zero Scotland. The committee reported to the Parliament in January after a major inquiry lasting over a year, ranging over a variety of issues relevant to local government. On 14 March, we held a debate in Parliament to highlight the conclusions of the inquiry. We received a response from the Government on 20 April and agreed to invite back COSLA and their partners in sustainable local governments to share their views on the response and the way forward. I'm therefore pleased to welcome Councillor Gael McGregor from COSLA, the Environment and Economy's spokesperson and the leader for Dumfries and Galloway Council. David Hammond, the representative for SOLIS, the head of sustainability, corporate property and transport for North Ayrshire Council, and George Tarver, the director for sustainable Scotland Network, and Silca Eastbrand, the policy manager for the environment and economy team from COSLA, who, unfortunately due to an accident at the weekend, is joining us remotely this morning. I hope that you are fully recovered and I wouldn't say fighting fit, but fit for the session this morning. Thank you, all of you, for accepting our invitation. We're delighted to have you here, but before we begin, Councillor McGregor, I think that you wish to make a short opening statement. Thank you, convener, and thank you very much for the invitation today. It's lovely to see all of you, or most of you, that I've seen before again. I was going to do a short opening statement, but I'm really keen to hear from members, so I will keep it very short. I think that the key thing for us today, I'm delighted to have David, George and Silca with me, because they'll bring the expertise and the sort of detailed knowledge that I think you'll need to hear. I can give you the political element, but I very much rely on them to give you the information that you'll require. For us today, it's how we can collectively capitalise on the report and how local and Scottish Government will work together in achieving our goals. The Environment and Economy Board at COSLA is absolutely behind this agenda. We have a very enthusiastic 32 cohort of representatives from all councils, and I think it's fair to say that I've never seen such an enthusiastic bunch who contribute brilliantly and will be able to bring some of their views and thoughts to your committee in the future as well. The key thing here today is to reinforce our commitment to our just transition to net zero, that we need to have a very frank conversation today about what we can do as local government, what we expect Scottish Government to do and all parties across the chamber and all partners across Scotland. This is a massive agenda. We only have less than seven years now to get to 2030. It's an enormous hill for us all to climb, so I'm really happy to be here today. Be kind to me, and I will defer to my very brilliant experts when needed. Thank you. Before we go any further, I'm just going to check if there's any declarations of interest. Yes, Jackie. Thank you, convener. I just refer members to my register of interests because I was a local councillor up until May last year, and it is on my register of interests. Thank you very much for that. And so the first questions are actually going to come from me, Gail, and I want to quote back if I may something that you said or some words that you said. It says, this report by the committee on the just transition to a net zero economy is potentially a watershed moment for Scotland in tackling climate change. He then went on to say, the report is clear that Scotland will not meet its ambitious climate targets without a more empowered local government. Do you want to just start off by fleshing out those two sentences for us? Yeah, I think we all understand the challenge that we have ahead of us. I think up till now, we've been tinkering around the edges. If I'm going to be very unsuttle here, we have a lot of good initiatives. We have cabinet secretaries, we have ministers sitting within an enormous portfolio. And what I'm not seeing at the moment at all the time is that intertwining between individual areas that are going to get us to that just transition to net zero. So as an example, I'm dealing with six, seven, as I say, ministers or cabinet secretaries. They all have elements of this portfolio. How do we get them to link together and then us to link together with them? So I think we have a massive challenge where we need to see more co-ordination, active travel working in conjunction with transport, working in conjunction with infrastructure, that there's massive challenges. And until we can get that strategic overview much clearer in Scottish Government and the Parliament's mind, we don't really know what we need to do to help you deliver that. So we can do things at local level. We can bring in initiatives. We've had a lot of bid funds, for example, where individual councils can bid in for individual projects, but that's not looking at the problem in its totality. And I think what we've very clearly said from day one is that we need a fully-costed road map, which is co-produced between us, Scottish Government, wider partners across Scotland, and it needs to be a very clear road map with timelines and direction. And I think until we get that absolute certainty around what we're all doing, we're just going to continue to tinker around the edges. And that is not going to achieve the goals that I think we need to achieve. I think that's well put. Just explain to me as well how you're getting on with the Scottish Government on the new deal for local authorities. You can tell us all. I think we're making really good progress. I, as you know, have good relationships, I hope, with ministers and cabinet secretaries. We've obviously had a change. I think I've seen a bit of invigoration with the new minister, Mary McCallan, and a bit more direction. If I'm being honest, I think she's brought a real glow to the portfolio and a clear understanding of what's required, but now we all have to walk the walk. So I think that the relationships are good, but what is very clear to me is that whenever we're doing things, it has to be in co-production. It cannot be them dictating to us what we need to be doing, because then we simply won't achieve our outcomes. I'm going to ask this question. The report came up with a lot of recommendations. How much money is it all going to cost? Have you worked that out? If it's going to cost more money than you're getting at the moment, do you have an idea of a percentage increase that you think you'll need in the budgets to start delivering on the things that you've been asked to do? I'll defer to David or Silker possibly on that. I think clearly that it has to be fully costed and it has to be fully funded. The only thing that will prevent the ambition is insufficient funding, but I don't know if David, if you know of it. Happy to Councillor McGregor and thank you for the question. Convener, and I recall a previous meeting of this committee, a similar question coming up around that cost, which really is, if you'll forgive the pun, the million-dollar question. I think across the local government family, and so far as the public sector goes, that local authorities are now starting to grasp that nettle to articulate what is involved. So speaking for my own authority, we have now clarified and quantified the costs that are involved with decarbonising our fleet, so our public sector fleet within the council. And we have a figure around that. We're also undertaking work actively at the moment to do the same piece of work across our property estate, and we will have an answer to that question over the summer. And other local authorities are at varying stages of being able to quantify that gap as it exists at the moment. And I think then, as that information crystallises, it will be really important to link back to what Councillor McGregor talked about in terms of that road map and that co-production, so that we can feed in that information to that road map and share with Scottish Government colleagues the scale of the task, the nature of the investment required, and also get into a conversation about how we fund that, including leveraging in private investment and working with other partners, like the Scottish National Investment Bank and Scottish Futures Trust, to help brokerage innovative solutions. I mean, just on that, I mean, I did some figures across Highland, and, you know, 60 per cent of their houses don't meet EPCC standards. So if you do back-of-the-fact calculation, which I'm not in favour of, but it comes up with about 350 million to get those houses that are below EPCC up to EPCC, which is a huge cost. And if you put that out across the whole of Scotland and all the local authorities, the costs are going to be eye-watering. And I think it's, from the committee's point of view, it's keeping a handle on that. So do you think, Gail, that your consular will be able to give us an indication of the cost? So we know the size of the problem. You can't fix it until you know the size of it, surely? I'm not entirely sure. It's entirely down to local government to establish the cost of a just transition to net zero. We've got lots of other partners that are involved. There's also the private sector involved. We have councils that no longer have housing stock, so that will be a problem for some councils, but not for others. And the problem will pass to social landlords in those local authority areas. But I think what we can do as local government is establish around fleets, around our own estate, around our schools and our buildings, all the things that we have control over or can help and facilitate communities with, such as EV charging points. We can probably do a fairly reasonable assessment of what the totality is going to cost, but when we start to look at transport and infrastructure and active travel and all the other areas that need to be covered to achieve this, some of that will sit out with our remit. So I think our role is to give you a reality of what it's going to cost to local government and then Scottish government can work with us to deliver it at our end, but we're all going to have to work together with other partners to achieve that. I don't know George if you want to say a bit more globally. I think it's fair to say more work needs to be done in this space. I think part of it relates to the clarity around the route map. So certainly in the COSLA comment on the the net-sec committee report and the Scottish government's response to that is still this call for clarity in terms of what are the delivery route maps around these different areas. Then you've got the cost structure. We definitely need to do more work in that space. I think the other thing that the SSN is aware of is how do we make better use of existing resources. So I think the political leadership, the corporate leadership so we're actually taking the existing resources within the public sector and aligning them to the outcomes that we're trying to achieve will take us some distance on that journey. But it's fair to say, further work needs to be done. We're doing a lot of research at the moment through the SSN membership to pull the information in terms of what studies are being done by colleagues like David across the 32. Happy to share that in due course. Okay. I think the deputy committee wants to come in piano. Thank you very much for joining us today and respecting clearly the independence of local authorities. The role of the committee was to try and bring together suggestions that would be helpful for both the Scottish Government but also local councils. One of the clear points that came out is not going to be all about public sector funding. It's going to have to also leverage in private sector funding. But the scale of that is enormous. And for smaller local authorities, for example, like maybe Dumfries and Galloway, even your offer, even for the big infrastructure issues and housing and transport might not be collectively big enough necessary to be attractive for financial investment. The Scottish National Investment Bank won't be able to work directly with you until they have a number of the market authority approvals. So therefore, what steps do you think have taken place recently to help mobilise this? How plugged in are you with the Green Finance Task Force in order to make sure that you're going to be well placed to access the private sector funding, which will be billions that will need to be invested. We know that, but to do it in a sensible and place-based approach. I think that the challenge with private sector is that they will follow the money. We know that now. As you say, there will be parts of Scotland where it's very lucrative for them to do that. I think that one of the biggest challenges we probably have in smaller rural areas like Dumfries and Galloway or Moray or Argyll and Bute are skills. Capacity within local authorities to be able to work with partners. South of Scotland Enterprise we're very lucky in the South of Scotland to have them. They have an expert within their workforce now that is very focused on net zero and is looking at businesses that can come into the region and will work closely with them. But I do think that until we can improve the skills and the capacity within some councils, we're going to see a wee bit of a lag. There will be other authorities that have plenty of skill and plenty of capacity. But bringing in that private sector investment is not just going to be about the conversations that we have. That's going to have to come I think from Government and other areas as well. Can I just ask maybe David? Yeah. From the officer's point of view, is there a building up of skills and capacity in the financial investment area within local authorities? I think, Deputy convener, that's at early stages. As Council McGregor's outline, there is definitely a skill shortage across local government in terms of the climate change sector. And that is building, but it's building slowly. And certainly we want to reach out and work with education partners about how we build that kind of talent pipeline across all matters. Not just finance, but technology for example as well. And turning to the other part of your question, Deputy convener, which I think is an important point about the varying sizes of local authority and the role of public sector emissions. For me it's about scale and it's about scaling up and how we work in partnership across authorities to build up a package that's attractive for investment, whether that be across council housing stock or indeed working in partnership with RSLs, again as Council McGregor outlined around decarbonising heat. But also working with other partners to leverage in private sector funding. And I think when I've addressed the committee previously, I drew upon the example of EV, electric vehicle charging infrastructure and a partnership project across three Ayrshire authorities. Where that's exactly it, Deputy convener, we've tried to work together to package up investment proposition for the private sector to come in and invest in and that's progressing at the moment and it's that kind of learning that we would like to scale up and replicate across the country. And can I just, in looking at the wider parameters of our report and Coss's response, what was the response from your 32 colleagues about the suggestion that councils weren't just responsible for their own properties or their own fleet, but that they were well placed to co-ordinate a place-based response that would actually be about co-ordinating sectors that weren't part of your direct responsibility, but you were really well placed to help facilitate that kind of climate change response on a place-based approach. I think, deputy convener, that's a fair assessment in the sense that local government is absolutely again, as I think we've previously outlined, more than happy to play a role locally. We understand where the delivery arm for decarbonisation and that we provide leadership locally across a number of sectors, including local business for example. I think there is a challenge, though, in resource again, in terms of our ability to do that. Our resources are limited and reaching out and working in partnership in forging new relationships and identifying new projects to work across sector with, for example, again, private industry to undertake a decarbonisation project. That's going to take additional resources and expertise as well and that is another dimension to the challenge that faces us that we're not currently funded for. Just before we move on, I think that Silke wanted to add to that, so if you want to come in now. Thank you very much, convener, and deputy convener, both for your questions and absolutely supporting 100% of what has been said. I think that I wanted to add in terms of the two issues that have been put forward, your question of how much, to which extent, can cost the size of the challenge. I think it's really fair to say that a lot of work is going on right now and your report has really shifted some significant ground here. A lot of work is going on in terms of starting to cost individual pieces, individual envelopes, but what is absolutely required, and this goes back to what councillor McGregor said earlier on, what is absolutely required is for that to be pulled together so that we get, and that you as a committee get that clarity of what the sort of price tag overall might be. And unless we pull this all together, we can also not fully establish the potential co-benefits, also the potential conflicts that we have. So as an overall view, I think a lot of work is going on, but we do need this one roadmap, this overview of the whole picture of how this major economic transformation is going to happen. And on the back of the area-based sort of like activities, I think David Hammond is completely right. There are a number of councillors who have absolutely formulated that ambition because councillors are realising that that is possibly some of the biggest impact they can have is to take that steering role at the local level and to have that political drive. But it is also absolutely correct that this requires yet more resources because it steps into a very new area. So I just wanted to make those two points. Thank you. Liam, I think you've got some questions. Thank you, convener. Good morning, panel. One of the things the committee felt would help both the co-ordination and the provision of skills would be what's now being called a climate intelligence service. Now we've heard from the Government that COSLA, the Improvement Service and the Government are in active discussions around establishing this and the Government has told us that they plan to establish it later this year. So a series of questions around the climate intelligence service. Are you in a position yet to tell us when that is likely to be operational, where it will be and how local authorities will draw down on the facilities available? Yeah, the climate intelligence service is quite an exciting piece of work, I think, Liam, and thanks to the question. We've actually got a report going to leaders on Friday to get their agreement to progress with that because obviously there's a funding implication as well. Scottish Government have confirmed that they would fund 50 per cent over the next few years towards the cost of setting that up. And I think what's exciting about it is that it will be done in conjunction with Edinburgh University and academics. And what we'll then be able to do is gather real data from all 32 authorities into a single space and then we'll be able to really analyse that data and look at good share practice and benchmarking and we'll have a sort of one-stop shop for what needs to be done across Scotland. So I think it will be a really, really good piece of work. As far as the rolling out, obviously we need agreement of leaders on Friday. But I would hope that they would agree to that, particularly given that Scottish Government have agreed to their end of the deal. But I think what we do need at the moment is rich data because we have a wee bit of a scatter gun, we have different data coming from different authorities, it's feeding into different areas and I think if we end up with this one-stop shop we will have a clearer assistance in a road map almost and then more importantly on the delivery. But I don't know maybe Silca wants to add a wee bit to that. I'm happy to come in absolutely supporting 100% of what you're saying and we would actually be delighted to be able to get the service up and running this year. I'm very grateful, Gail. You correctly predicted my follow-up question on cost. And you talked about the Scottish Government is funding 50% to the cost of setting up. So do we know yet how much it's going to cost to set up what the on-going running costs are? And you said the Scottish Government will fund 50%. So who's going to fund the other 50% and who's going to fund the on-going costs? Silca will have accurate costings in front of her. I don't have them in front of me, but from memory it's the same amount per year. So this would be a part year, so it wouldn't be the full cost in this year. I think it's about £1.6 million per year, is it? I think for the first year we're looking at a range of the £1 million mark and obviously that will take into account the setting up of the service. I think one of the key things that we're trying to do again is align the resources that exist in this space. So it's very much a co-production between stakeholders here and my colleagues at Edinburgh University, building on the play space climate action network, which was a research project that had resources behind it. The other thing that's playing into this space I think is the longevity of funding and stability. At the moment we're talking about almost a £1 million set-up scenario, but the question is how do we build and prove the value of the service moving forward? The SSN steering groups received presentations on the CIS and colleagues here would be very much involved in the process of steering that project and moving it forward. And the critical thing for me is that the beneficiaries of the service actually have a process to feed in and co-design that and co-develop it. So that would be the SSN members working on the sharp end, like David. So just to be clear in terms of who's going to be doing this operationally, so is this going back to my earlier question, is this going to be based in Edinburgh then? And who is it going to be staffed by? Are these new posts that you'll recruit for or are these being transferred in, let's say, from other council areas? Yeah, I don't know, I'm partly looking at SELCA, SELCA's been closer to the actual discussions about the proposal and how it's going to be put into operation. But at the moment it's a combination of, I think, the key stakeholders are the improvement service, which is an established sort of improvement service for local government. That would be one of the obvious routes to take this. Another key stakeholder is Edinburgh University, where we were the brains behind the notion of having this sort of collective service. In some senses it's a scaling up of what the SSN's done over the years, but with a very distinct focus around the area-wide agenda. I think that the thing that I'm aware of in terms of the committee's interest is how we translate from the data to the plans to the investment, and how do we get to that point of shifting the dialogue on delivery on the ground? So I think that the project has to get up and running, we'll go through that whole process of establishing it, recruiting staff, security of employment etc, that will all play into it. But at the moment I think it's looking like Edinburgh base for those key stakeholders. Just a final question for me, just which arises from the deputy convener's question earlier. The remit of the CIS will be, as it says, to help councils reaching at zero and embed climate impact that we've heard just now about the importance of the private capital to enable this. Do you anticipate the remit of the CIS actually being about helping to leverage private capital as well? I think so, I would think so. I think we need to get up and running in terms of looking at the data and the planning, so we're clearer in terms of what we're looking at in terms of delivery across Scotland. But I think the ambition in terms of the stakeholders, including ourselves, is to take very much a systems approach to this challenge and not assume that we can do just data to the public sector and things will radically change. So I think it has to play into that. How do we actually shift the systems in this space and open up that conversation? I think to the private sector but also to the community sector. We've heard from the minister there is an investment at the community level. The SSM members in local government are looking at how do we actually make good value from the, I think it's 4.3 million going into community hubs. The last thing I would say about the CIS is there is a regional component to that. So your question of 8, are all the staffs going to be based in Edinburgh? That's not the intention. So there is the notion that we'd have a sort of regional component to this. Very good. I'm very grateful. Thank you. Thanks, Liam. Mark, you want to come in briefly. A thought on the back of that about how this then works with the Scottish Government's energy agency and has there been any discussions? Because obviously the energy agency is being set up right now. Are there opportunities to maybe a line around? I think one of the critical things that we'd probably all say is alignment. In terms of scale and pace, we need to get the alignment to happen. However that comes about, I think the energy agency, but also things like LHIS. We've got people in local government and the wider public sector looking at heat decarbonisation and that needs to be again a place-based systems approach. The CIS has to play into that and the last thing we need is a CIS which sort of sits in a bubble and doesn't interact. It's quite a rapidly moving landscape. I think we're all challenged about keeping up to speed with the policy agenda and the various funding streams that exist, but I think the CIS and the stakeholders behind it have to play into that sort of ecosystem and make sure that it's better aligned. Thank you. The next questions come from Ash, hopefully online. Good morning, committee. Thanks, convener. Good morning to the panel as well. We've spoken a little bit this morning already about the new deal. My questions are primarily about funding and particularly ring fencing. I'm wondering what effect you think that the new deal will have on levels of ring fencing. Thanks very much for the question, and as some of you will know, my previous five years in my role at COSLA was in the financial, so I'll probably take this one. I think that the key thing through the new deal, as you can imagine, is that we're working very hard to try and get multi-year settlements. I think that if we can get that stability within local government, it will enable us to do better longer-term planning as well, and I think that that's one thing that we've had as a problem for a number of years, is short-termism and the inability to invest over a longer period of time. I think that the other aspect of funding is that we've had a drip feed of a lot of bid funds, which again make it easy for larger authorities that have the skills and the capacity within them to apply and bid into those bid funds, but it puts the smaller authorities that don't have that capacity at a disadvantage. I think that our other ask through the new partnership and the new deal would be that we have less bid funds, we have more totality pots, which are designed for specific things, and then the funding is given to local authorities through an agreed distribution model, and we have a tried and tested model with that. I think that the key thing for us in terms of funding is stability of funding, longevity of funding and an assurance that years four and five will be funded and we're not left. So my hope would be that we'll see less ring fencing, and I think that to achieve our goals on this, it will be absolutely essential. I don't know if you have a view, David, from an officer's perspective. Yeah, I would agree with that councillor McGregor, and I think that it comes back to my colleague George's point about, you know, just having the data through the climate intelligence service does not mean action that will happen. Similarly, ring fencing does not necessarily automatically mean that investment will happen because there is then an impact on other local government funding in terms of other services that are provided, and I think that there is also a question here of chicken and egg and around all of the threads across this landscape are emerging as we speak, and it's rapidly moving landscape. I think that one of the key things for me that we need to understand first is the scale of that financial gap that's required, and then we can enter into discussions subsequently about the best means of being able to fund that. Okay, thank you. I'm picking up that correctly there. Can I summarise that COSLA's view of ring fencing, particularly in areas such as net zero goals, maybe isn't entirely appropriate that you'd like to see less ring fencing there? You can correct me if I haven't got that, if I'm summarising you incorrectly, but if that is the case and if ring fencing isn't as desirable in these areas, how then would you suggest that Scottish Government and local Government work together to achieve those shared national priorities, particularly on things like net zero, without ring fencing? What would be your suggestions there? I think that we need to differentiate between ring fencing and targeted spend for particular things, and we all know that education has a large budget as does social care and others. What we're hoping to do, particularly through the climate intelligence service and all the work that's going on elsewhere, is assist in developing this road map. I think that once we've got the road map and we know where we're going on the journey and what needs done, as an example, active travel, I think that it has a £1.7 billion fund over the next, over the period of this Parliament. We don't know where that's going to be spent yet, or we don't know where the totality's going to be spent yet. The crucial thing for us is not saying that we ring fence funding for specific things, but that we know what journey we're going on and then how much that will cost, and I think that that will be a better way of doing it. As you know, there's been initiatives come through government where a specific pot of money has been allocated to it, and once we've done all the legwork at local authority level, that's not been enough to deliver it, and they've had to then rail back slightly. I think that the challenge is not ring fencing, it's establishing the cost of delivery in partnership. I think that the flip side of taking away ring fence funding is making sure that there's a corporate and political commitment to outcomes. I think that a lot of the conversation in the SSN and the steering group, which is local government and the wider public sector, is about how do we align around outcomes and be less ring fenced in terms of particular challenge funds for projects. That comes with an issue, which is a political and corporate leadership and a clear plan, which can be audited and scrutinised. We've seen the audit regime within the public sector step up on climate change, and we would welcome that. We do collaborate with Audit Scotland's ESS or the SSN conference tomorrow, so we're very keen to make sure that the funding does become aligned to the outcomes that we're trying to achieve. My problem is that it's a bit of chicken and egg. You don't want it ring fenced, and you're going to give an assurance that it's going to be paid to the right direction providing this long-term funding. The Government will surely come back and say that it wants to ring fenced, and there will be a long-term funding. Is that an oversimplification, George? I don't know. On one level, I might defer to colleagues who are a little bit close to this on the grain, but, certainly within the SSN, there is a desire to be far more outcomes-focused, and a lot of reference to the Christie commission principles and preventative spend, and trying to look at climate change is not just a cost but also an opportunity. Tomorrow at the conference, we've got a lot of conversation about public health benefits, so I think that there's a more systems approach and sophisticated way of looking at the costs and benefits around climate action. At the end of the day, we need to see the public sector. We are clear in terms of the outcomes. Some of those are very measurable around emissions reductions, have a clear plan for delivery, and then have a conversation about how is this going to be paid for. That definitely goes beyond public sector spend. We're not going to be purely spending our way out of this problem through public sector expenditure. Sorry, Ash. I jumped in. I apologise back to you. I'm not talking here, and that's covered my area of questioning. Thank you. Thank you very much. The next question then will come from Mark Ruskell. Mark Ruskell. Thanks. Can I turn to fiscal levers and what the discussion is within COSLA about adopting potentially new fiscal levers to bring in finance? I'm interested in what areas are being discussed. Transport demand management is an obvious one, but potentially waste, and potentially land management in other areas. It would be interesting to know where COSLA is at on those issues. I might defer to David and Silcorn on specific detail. COSLA is working through its fiscal framework at the moment, and the resources spokesperson will be dealing with that. It is certainly looking at other ways of bringing in some more contentious than others, as you can imagine. However, I don't know specifically in terms of transport, David. I'm happy to make some comments. Councilor McGregor and I'm sure Silcorn will want to join in as well, particularly around the fiscal side of things in terms of levers. One comment that I would make in response to Mr Ruskell's question is a couple of good examples there, public transport and waste. I think that a local authority view would be that fiscal levers need to go hand in hand again with investment in making sure that what we're actually trying to encourage people in terms of the behaviours for them to adopt that the alternative is in place. For example, if we are introducing fiscal levers around demand management of transport, are the alternatives there and is the infrastructure there in place? That's a reasonable alternative and an affordable alternative for people, whether that's public transport, electric vehicles, et cetera, or active travel indeed. Similarly for waste, Silcorn and I have had previous conversations in different roles around the infrastructure being in place where people have recycling facilities that are clear, that they have robust arrangements for collection of waste, et cetera, and that they can make the right behavioural decisions that we're seeking them to do in response to those levers. Silcorn, is there anything you would want to? Yes, no, thank you very much. I think it's been very well outlined. I think it is again fair to say that there's a huge amount of work going on in the local government family around what the concrete instruments would be, what financial levers would be, what legislative levers would be anything from workplace parking levies to other instruments. So I think there is a growing focus by the local government family of what the tools would be that would be required to help with this change, but it is also going back to we need to keep the overall view of the whole system transformation. That's where we're coming back to what you convener very early on referred to as the local government empowerment, that local authorities have the ability to draw on these levers as and when they are needed. I would say there's a very active discussion developing here and they will be crucial to which extent individual financial levers will be needed is something we will probably have more clarity on in the next sort of like 12 months. It would be interesting to know if there is a point where there'll be an ambitious sort of conclusion to that. I'm reminded by the first reflecting back on the first inquiry that was ever done in the Scottish Parliament 2005 into climate change, there was a recommendation that ministers should bring forward a workable system of road user charging by 2015. That was 10 years, nothing happened, we're now years on from that. So you're saying within the next year there'll be a clear view from Culsar about new fiscal levers that can be used and that'll be a clear ask to government about where they could potentially be extended? It's very much a work in progress as you can imagine. I do co-chair the national transport strategy as well with the new minister so that that'll be a different dynamic and we've certainly been looking at things like vehicle charging in cities and rural areas, various types, various ways of doing that. The crucial thing for me as a local councillor and for yourselves as elected members is that we have to take our communities with us. What we are finding I think quite a lot at community level is when EV charging points are rolled out in a community that go down like a lead balloon sometimes. I think that 13 per cent of the population have electric vehicles so a huge percentage don't or don't have cars at all. What we need to do as elected members is to take our communities with us and when we look at things like vehicle charging make sure that it's done in a way that's more carrot than the stick. I think that that would be our priority within Culsar. That behavioural change is going to be really important if we're going to be a bit more punitive on people to make them change their lifestyle. That's another piece of work that we're doing at a community level within place planning as well. It's not just about what we're doing at a higher level, it's are we taking our communities with us. We have found that projects that are developed from the community up are brilliant. They are really well received, but projects that are imposed upon communities don't go down to the well. I think that we're all on a bit of a journey at the moment. Okay, that's useful. Let's move on to city region deals. A number of these deals were worked out what, seven, eight years ago? The world's quite different now. The climate emergency is getting more severe. The targets are in place now for 2030, which are very stretching and you alluded to that in your opening remarks, Councillor McGregor. Are these regional deals still fit for purpose? Is there a point where they need to be looked at again in individual projects, for example, Sheriff Hall, perhaps might not meet a carbon test now, or maybe it would. Who's doing that analysis and assessment? Yeah, COSLA hasn't been directly involved in any of the city deal creation or border lands or the rural growth deals. It's not an area that COSLA's been directly involved with, but obviously local authorities have. I think it's fair to say that I've just recently taken over as leader of Dumfries and Galloway and we're doing a scan of our capital investment strategy because we know that quite a lot of the infrastructure projects that have been on the list for five or 10 years are probably obsolete and really need to refocus, and I would expect that borderlands and city deals would be doing the same. Obviously, we had local elections last year, so we'll have 32 councils who are probably, certainly we've already agreed ours, developing their five-year council plans, and that will be a very different looking plan to the five years previously, so certainly within hours the economy and the environment are much more embedded as a priority than they were in the previous five years. I would hope that councils individually, but I can't speak on behalf of COSLA, will be doing exactly that because I know that I certainly am. That's good to hear. Lastly, I was going to ask you about community and third sector partnerships. I suppose that the deal that you're striking with Scottish Government, the third sector, would say, needs to be replicated with councils as well in developing new partnerships. The Government in response to this inquiry has announced additional funding into climate hubs to scale up the ambition of what third sector can achieve in communities and make a huge difference. Is there a commitment from local authorities to work with those climate hubs and where do you see the third sector? I would say that, through the SSN, there's definitely the appetite, the interest, very keen to align. There can be bumps along the road in terms of often a gap between a local authority or a public sector that approaches climate change and communities. A lot of our work is about trying to build those bridges and creating the space for our own members to have the conversation about how we get the community investment and energy aligned to the scaling up. A lot of community projects can be fantastic but they face the challenge of their own sustainability and the scale of impact. You'll know from a range of examples across Scotland where there can be fantastic at a local and very local level. The challenge is how do we scale up in terms of regional and linking to some of those national agendas. We're all faced with that scaling pace issue. Speaking on behalf of the SSN and SSN members, we've got a conversation coming up in June just to create the space for our own members to say how are things playing out across Scotland, what's the experience so far and how can we help with the alignment and co-ordination? I think that it comes back to resources, sorry to mention that word again, and local authorities' ability to work with communities, however, on a positive. There are organisations like Keep Scotland Beautiful that, increasingly, local authorities are working together with, so they have initiatives, including climate action towns and a number of pilot settlements across Scotland to develop a community-based approach to tackling climate change. They also provide support to local authorities around developing community climate action plans as well. Those are the kind of models across the local government family that we will need to increasingly look at over the next 12 to 24 months to embed action within communities and to work with communities to understand, as Councillor McGregor referred to earlier, what their particular priorities are in terms of climate change, what the particular challenges are within those communities and how local authorities work as enablers to help them to deliver that and to help to enable behaviour change, etc. So there are frameworks and models out there, Mr Ruskell, that I think that local authority will increasingly draw upon to come up with proposals on how we work with community and third sector. There's a lot of good practice and I think that we heard quite a lot of that during the inquiry. The next questions come from Monica Lennon. Good morning to the panel. I want to pick up on transport. You will know that in our inquiry report the committee supported stronger regional transport partnerships models to try and get a more joined up and strategic approach to public transport and active travel at the regional level. The panel has talked a lot about alignment today, which is good to hear. I'm just wondering what additional powers or resources do regional transport partnerships need to plan and deliver effective regional public and active transport systems? Gosh, a really good question. George's answer is good. Don't all speak at once. That's the question. Who wants to go with that? David? I'm happy to put it back by some comments in response to Ms Lennon's questions. It's back to that system's approach and I think that that has never been more apparent than people gradually making a transition, for example, to electric vehicles. I think the regional transport partnership approach to Ms Lennon is going to look very different across the country when we're in somewhere like Edinburgh where we can really encourage people to potentially move away from private car and we've increasingly put infrastructure in place to enable people to do that. Whereas in our more kind of rural and island geographies, clearly the landscape is very different and people will have a reliance on private cars. So it's about how we help again co-produce solutions that suit different environments and how we do that through regional transport partnerships and about how we improved how joined up our transport systems are. I think that the challenges are increasing now with, for example, people moving to EVs have a lower range generally, so they have to plan journeys more clearly or they maybe have different modes that they're using. They'll drive to a certain point, pick up a public transport node and I think also post Covid and agile working, et cetera, that has completely shifted the dynamics of how we travel not just in this country but elsewhere as well. I think that coming back to your question, regional transport partnerships will absolutely be a key partner and there will be, I think, different focus and priorities in different parts of the country about how we respond to that. Thank you for that, David. I know that electric vehicles will be mentioned a couple of times but we know that the Government's target is to reduce car kilometres by 20 per cent by the end of this decade and we had a debate in Parliament last week about buses and the role of bus services but we've seen a big reduction in both passenger journeys and the number of bus services over quite a long period of time. I'm just wondering how confident are you that bus partnerships and the bus partnership fund will increase bus patterned across Scotland regions and how might those arrangements be improved? Transport has been highlighted locally and nationally as one of the biggest levers for us achieving these goals and I think one of the challenges that we do have is that obviously some of the routes are driven by profit and if the routes are not viable it then turns to the local authority to pick up the slack on that. As an example it would take you 14 hours to get from iMouth to Strunrar by public transport so across the south of Scotland public transport is a massive massive challenge and I think what we need to be looking at when we're re-tendering bus contracts locally and we're looking at the routes that are required is are they fit for this transport transition to a cleaner way of working it's really challenging particularly in rural areas much more straightforward in urban areas I would say but Georgie might have something to add. Just a very quick supplementary to that we've through the SSN helped support the establishment of a new climate leadership group so it's leaders within the public sector sort of coming together on a more regular basis and they had a focus on the transport issue just at the last meeting both the kind of broad scale the reduction of car kilometres and then what we actually do is public sector bodies to sustain the travel benefits of the impact of the pandemic you know making sure that we don't go back to sort of old ways of working so the climate leaders group is is certainly looking at the transport issue the other reference point for the SSN is the the work that the Scottish Government's promoted over the years around behaviour change using the individual social material model and we find that very very useful not just for behaviour change but to again think systematically about the work that could be done in this place so even just on a on a related issue in terms of bus transport there is the kind of social dimension to this the just transition element and sort of picking up on campaigns you know I know this kind of love my bus campaign was active recently just there's a role for the public sector just sort of picking up on some of that communication and public engagement kind of role so we'll be looking at sort of promoting some of those issues you've just reminded me George I think this is love my bus week I think my colleague Mark Buswell might be promoting an event in Parliament this week so that's a reminder to colleagues I know that the deputy convener has questions on this topic as well but you know carrots and sticks have been mentioned a couple of times in behaviour change so you know we have a big opportunity with more people able to access the national travel concessionary scheme you know the free bus passed now for 22 rows and under but some areas in Scotland we're hearing about emerging bus deserts where there are no or very few bus services so I just wondered to what extent are you seeing a you know a renewed appetite for people to use bus and is there an appetite with our councils to get stuck in and to basically run and operate municipal bus companies because we know about the powers and the transport act we know about those levers but the conversations that we have sometimes with local government is that oh but we don't have the funds oh but you know we don't have that capacity is there a willingness or is it just going to be too difficult I think there's an absolute willingness and I'm not going to repeat the funding and all the other challenges sort of within that the reality is that if we want people to come out of their cars and reduce car miles by 20% we have to offer as Scotland not just local authorities government everybody an exemplary public service public transport service and we need to look to other countries and other cities that have that in place Amsterdam would be a prime example there's a multitude of ways how you can get around Amsterdam at the moment it's half the price to travel a car mile than it is to travel a bus mile so what incentive is there for people to get out of their cars if they have a service so the other thing I think we do need to look at particularly is the linkages between bus service and road connecting to rail service and other areas of transport because what we have at the moment is a slightly disjointed system where the bus is an example from Lockerbie to Dumfries to Lockerbie arrives 10 minutes after the train leaves to go to Edinburgh now that yeah it's simple things like that at local level that I think there's a real willingness to try and improve but it will ultimately come down to service need and funding okay we're happy to late just before Fiona sorry just before you go on just a quick question on that and I've noticed it said a couple of times during this meeting improving bus services in urban areas there can be as good as you like in urban areas but if those people who live in rural areas can't get into the urban areas they're actually pretty much useless to those people so how are you going to take the rural areas along with this ambition if they lack the services you're absolutely right I had to drive up this morning because the 10 past seven train from Lockerbie was not running so yeah I've had to do a two two hour drive and that's not a good thing so we need to look at the totality of transport across Scotland and how it interlinks now obviously we have challenges with north of the border south of the border services and the scot rail and English services and it's very challenging but if we don't as you say sort out that connectivity from rural to urban we're only solving half the problem I would say and I would love to come in by train every morning on a Tuesday morning but as long as I'm happy to arrive after this committee started that's possible there were quite some chairs of excitement before what on that basis I'll move to the sexy convener Fianna it's just still on the issues of connectivity and that point about who organises this and who should organise this because it seems to be a bit of a past the parcel between individual local authorities, regional transport partnerships and I'm not even sure transport of Scotland has a role in this or you could tell me otherwise so you know if you take what you know my constituency area in Westlothian semi rural but you could take a lot of cars off roads if there was better connectivity in relation to towns and park and ride and you can see that what's happening with Fife into Edinburgh for example there's so much focus on the cities but we've got in this region we've got Eastlothian we've got Midlothian we've got Westlothian but it that seems to be a bit of a disconnect and that really needs co-ordination so what is happening to try and change that and is there something that can be done with regional transport partnerships to give them real targets of what they need to do and who are they accountable to and how do we get that exactly the co-ordination that Councillor McGregor was talking about happy to take that question miss Hyslop I think it's a real challenge and what you've outlined there I think is a really accurate assessment of the landscape across transport and it touched on Ms Lennon's points as well just about roles and responsibilities between regional transport partnerships SPT transport Scotland local authorities and indeed commercial providers and it is quite a mixed landscape we have had legislative changes to provide additional opportunities to local authorities and as Councillor McGregor has said we're very much a willing partner in that but again it comes back to resources we don't have resources to run services that are not viable commercially and they're not viable commercially for a reason because they're not profitable and then there is a subsidy issue and about where that funding comes from let alone the skills and expertise required in order to operate those so it absolutely is a challenge there has been a willingness and I know even in my own authority municipal bus services is an option that I've been involved in personally but not without its challenges but I think back to miss Hyslop's question and the points that we've made around systems thinking this is about part of the reset of relationships across stakeholders Scottish Government local government other partners including transport stakeholders as well about what is it we're actually envisioning what is it that we want the country to look at what is our baseline position and how do we get from here to there and part of that will be a refresh I think and reset of roles and responsibilities and more alignment and more clarity but we also need to be realistic there will be some public transport services that aren't viable so in those rural areas we can't make the country completely connected by public transport that's not a realistic vision there wouldn't be the patronage to do that and it's I think back to what I mentioned earlier about bespoke solutions in different areas and about a toolkit or a menu of transport options and one point lastly that we haven't touched on is indeed community transport as well which is emerging as communities again take action into their their own hands in terms of providing some essential services they require and reading on therefore to the that my next question is about local franchises which could be either community I'm assuming and again this issue how to support them and the bus partnership fund and what is your understanding of the interrelationship between those to make the step change that we need because your £500 million is a lot of money to go into to help support local authority bus either local franchises or indeed community owned buses but how do we lever that in because it seems to be most councils just now are just on their scoping kind of exercises within that so what do you think is going to happen or what do you want to happen to help you know make sure that local franchises can one exist but also are funded and do you think the bus partnership fund can do that happy to come back in on that question miss Hyslop I think one of the the challenges is around regulation so it's really daunting to actually provide services in a different way because the regulation that is around the system is rightly so robust and complex so there are various regulation requirements from the traffic commissioner and various permits that communities need to engage with if they want to provide community transport in accordance with the legislation and I think that can sometimes be intimidating or daunting in terms of innovative solutions around the legalities and then how franchise solutions or community transport solutions sit in juxtaposition with commercial provision because it's about meeting a gap and not providing necessarily competition where there's a viable commercial alternative so again I think that comes back to the learning journey that we're on collectively about trying to find innovative transport solutions but I do think one of the barriers around that one of the challenges to get to grips with is regulation which could be an area to look at in terms of how we would stimulate more franchise provision and community transport provision I could just check where would the bus partnership fund sit within a new deal discussion with local government if the bus partnership fund is to help fund local councils I'm not entirely sure yeah that that's a question I think I need to take away okay if you could do that absolutely monica very briefly funding so there's also the community bus fund um Scottish government's funded that to the tune of one million pounds but that again is across 32 local authorities so what is being achieved from that sum of money you know and if there was more than a million pound available what could be done it doesn't seem like a lot yeah I think again it's emerging Ms Lennon I think there's a real appetite from local authorities to work with communities because certainly the feedback again from personal involvement earlier this year with some community engagement sessions transport is absolutely a challenge and that is the feedback from communities about how they get from A to B so we do have a toolkit some options out there in terms of funds and access I've mentioned already some of the challenges around regulation but I think local government we are absolutely looking to work with communities and take advantage of these funds and get schemes and creative options for provision of transport up and running so I think we're at early stages speaking from again to draw on my own authority example and we're looking at a community transport option with an existing community transport provider literally as we speak and about how we widen that out to help respond to some of the challenges that have been fed back to us in terms of gaps and provision across my own authority area so there's a real appetite there from community transport providers there's an appetite from local authority there's an appetite from communities there's funding there to help with that so I think we'll see progress in terms of that community just a really quick point of clarity that £1 million community bus fund is that being shared equally between the 32 local authorities or do you all get a different share I'm not entirely sure misslennan in terms of the allocation of the fund whether it's pro rat or distribution thank you okay Jackie I think you've got some questions yes thank you my questions are going to be regarding the heat programmes if you don't mind in response to the committee's report the scottish government stated that it's working to embed local heat and energy efficiency strategies and area based approaches across its heat decarbonisation programme can I ask what in practice does this mean this is and what is the scottish government doing to make sure that it is embedded support folio with a lot of acronyms isn't it i'll defer to george on this because i think that yeah and again probably so can david are close to this as well but certainly from an ssn perspective our members are involved both through ssn and the energy officers network everything from establishing elehys officers starting to do the planning starting to do the zoning um so that a lot of it is scaling up in terms of getting to grips with the data the demand and the plan that needs to be put in place and i think there are specific targets in terms of having those eleys plans in place i think by the end of this calendar year so there are challenges there in terms of just it takes us back to this issue in terms of systems thinking tackling things that we've never really had to tackle before very much working on a play space not just your corporate estate so i think that there's a lot of things just taking place across the country which is just the challenge of getting the right people in the place to do to do the job and actually the one thing i would say is ssn the improvement service cosla the energy officers very very active conversations to make sure that we're not duplicating efforts so i think that the other challenges around contracting so some of this work will be done by consultants so you know the number of consultants available to do the work at the same time that is something that we play into this challenge in terms of actually meeting those targets but okay you mentioned about the the eleys being in place by the end of this year are all 32 on track for being in place yeah thanks councillor McGeiger i think that would be fair to say miss dunbar i think on the whole local government has welcomed eleys and the resources that have come with it in order to deliver and they have been specific and local government is there a variety of approaches being taken whether that is outsourcing for external support to consultant or indeed insourcing by hiring anelhis officer to help with preparation of the strategies and the delivery plan i think for me eleys at its heart is about systems thinking again and about looking at the geography across a local authority to understand the areas of heat demand and to start to outline through the delivery plan opportunities for decarbonisation and to provide actually the as george said the data the intelligence in one place working across sectors and partners because it's not just local authority based it's geography based across the local authority area so what we would expect to see emerging from that is outline projects for perhaps a new heat network a new district heating system and an area that has sufficient density and sufficient heat load and heat demand or for example looking at archetypes so that's a term that has been increasingly common currency and it comes back to to convener your point about council housing for example there are archetypes of council housing that you see whether you're in one part of the country or another that all require similar solutions in terms of investment for decarbonisation of heat similarly across our school estate there are archetypes of school construction from certain periods that whether you're in a school in East Lothian or in Argyll and Bute they will have a similar construction type in floor plan so the idea behind eleys is about aggregating these archetypes across a local authority area but also looking more broadly across eleys regionally to scale up what we talked about earlier in terms of identifying propositions for investment including through decarbonisation of heat. I've done that as well through you convener just very briefly. Yeah but I think you may upset silker if you don't bring her in she's waiting very patiently. That's fine that's fine I was just going to say that I think eleys has been a really good example of co-production and it was one of the first things that came on my desk last June and the work that's gone on behind the scenes is clearly going to deliver something on target and on time which is great so that was pre-new deal so that's all I want to say. And silker now's your moment when Gail lets you in. No that's it no just wanted to confirm to the committee so that you do know so all 32 local authorities are running in the eleys there's been a long process of working with Scottish Government towards making these the useful instruments so just to confirm that is happening by the end of the year 32 local authorities will have their strategy more or less in place. I think what is maybe of interest to the committee here is that the level of collaboration between local government and Scottish government is is is is much improving in the heat and energy sector and at the same time as you will all be aware from looking at the climate change plan the heat and energy portfolio is one of the key things with with a massive massive challenge and and and if we want to meet these hugely ambitious targets we still have to step up step up the collaboration step up the co-production step up the resourcing in all of these areas if we want to meet these massive these massive targets. Is the budget that is in place just now 2.4 million do you think that's going to be adequate to deliver it? Is it enough money? I think in terms of the my understandings. I know that. Yeah it's a really specific question I think terms of my understanding local government as I said earlier have have welcomed the additional resource that has been aligned to Elkies and colleagues are working within that envelope to deliver the strategies and delivery plans. The Scottish government also responded to the report by saying that they are working with wider stakeholders to align the current and future delivery and funding programmes with with Elkies to support a strategic approach to the decarbonisation of heat reflecting local context and tailoring support to specific needs of communities. With that in mind can I ask what work is being done to ensure that the current and future programmes are being aligned and does it reflect the place-based approach that they're wanting to happen? I can comment briefly on that and colleagues might have views on it as well. I think it is, I think you certainly get that sense of a kind of place-based approach and not one model fitting everywhere. The other thing I was going to mention was we're trying to do this in a way that's not completely myopic so we're bringing in expertise from out with Scotland so again tomorrow at the conference we've got a place dedicated session on place-based approaches to heat and energy efficiency and that's pulling on the expertise of the wider UK so the energy systems catapult colleagues are playing into that conversation so making sure that we're not just doing it purely in a sort of Scottish context but in terms of the alignment of effort the other thing I'm just aware of is the role of the network distribution companies the SSEN and SPEN and I think colleagues in the public sector are very conscious that we can only do heat and energy efficiency measures if the grid responds and certainly recent conversations have indicated that partly through regulation and partly through a desire there's more appetite for community engagement, engagement with the public sector around how to actually make these transitions so again taking that systems approach thinking about the material and systems elements to heat and energy efficiency delivery. My final question, you don't mind, convener. It was just asked you what the impact it is of pausing the Warmer's Home Scotland scheme. What impact will that have on new applicants? David Orr still could possibly pick up on that. I don't want to come in on that sort of like detail of the Warmer's Home scheme. I think these are all elements in a big picture and I think what I wanted to reflect back here is that there is growing integration between different funds, between different initiatives but I think the central message that we are keen to relay to you is that if we really genuinely want to make the 2030 target we need to move in this space much faster, much quicker and we can't just go on with business as usual sort of like trying to find more synergies and a little bit more alignment but we really need that absolute step change in what we have called for which is the empowerment of local government for just the big tickets, the big steps, the big resources for local government to actually be able to create in this place with a lot more flexibility and a lot more impact but I'll pass the question on the Warmer's Homes. Do whoever may wish to answer this specific one. Everyone's talking. It's not an idea that I'm familiar with but I can get the information to you absolutely. I just think that it's been paused because what they're wanting to come in is with expanded help and maybe some different rules so they've just been keen to find out. Sorry just so I can get to the bottom of that. Gail, you're undertaking to, you'll write to the committee with the answers to that specific question and the effects of the pause on it for us to understand that. Mark, you want to come in briefly and then I'm going to have to go to the depth. I was interested in this work on the local heat energy strategies whether councils are actively considering becoming energy generators municipally owned energy companies or are the strategies all about co-ordinating opportunities locally? I think that Mr Ruskell, there's absolutely an appetite from a number of local authorities to become municipal energy generators including ourselves in North Ayrshire and there are a number of authorities with projects, energy, renewable energy generation projects and also heat district heating schemes at various stages of development and some of the challenges that we've had around that. I think that there's been a focus of the committee previously on some of the planning aspects in terms of through the planning process. I think not so much in terms of public sector generation, the issues come back to George's point around grid and grid capacity and timescales and complexity in terms of application processes but I would like to think that through LHEs that will be another incentive or encouragement in terms of unlocking some of those barriers because I do believe that local authorities have a real and other public sector partners have an absolute role to play in the energy transition and the emerging draft energy strategy and just transition in terms of providing municipal energy generation. Okay, I'm going to come to the Deputy convener now who I think has got some questions. Yes, if we can maybe move on to natural capital. We took evidence and I recall Highland Council being quite strong in terms of some of their concerns around this area. So what work has been done by local authorities to attract private investment into tackling natural capital and its contribution to our net zero targets and are there any specific examples where local authorities are working with the Scottish Government or other agencies to realise this? Do you know examples? Yeah, give a couple and then maybe George will come in. I think that that's particularly emerging area around natural resources and how we work with other partners. There are some examples around the country off the top of my head around working with golf course operators and actually then doing joint projects around investment in the habitat and quality of the habitats around golf courses to help improve biodiversity and have that kind of golf course operation happening side by side. There are also other examples again emerging around afforestation and working with commercial forestry providers et cetera around leveraging in private investment for afforestation to help with carbon sequestration et cetera. I think that there's a real developing area in terms of that flip side of the reduction of our carbon emissions but your point is his lot about then what do we do with those residual emissions and that has to be part of the solution and part of the challenge that we're looking at across the system? I was just going to flag up with the ASSM being beyond the public sector so we certainly got colleagues in Scottish Water and NatureScot who could maybe flesh out some further information which I could bring back to the committee. There's also a natural capital on public sector land working group that's looking at what does the public sector actually own and how do you leverage in whatever resources are required to do natural capital projects. I think around the whole carbon accounting agenda the public sector is far more aware of that balancing off now that we've got the net zero narrative in Scotland you know people are looking at emissions reduction but also the importance of sequestration and the impact on the biodiversity crisis so again I'm very aware that COSLA's agenda here is very much the net zero and biodiversity challenges so but more than happy to come back to the committee with further information. If you can and we're also interested in what you see as the advantages and disadvantages and whether you think there's an adequate system of carbon accounting as part of this as well because there are advantages and disadvantages in that and we need a system that kind of works but also doesn't end up seeing a situation where every's double counting what the carbon sequestration is for private companies that are doing the investment as well as the geographic space because that would be misleading for everybody. Yeah, no I'm absolutely happy to come back on that and again I think colleagues in Scottish Water really sort of pushing the agenda here and very very keen through the SSN to sort of share that experience aware that everything's not worked out in this space so they've invested in studies trying to put some more flesh on the bones and making sure that the other bits of the public sector are not spending resource to replicate that study. And then just finally I mean the inquiry that we had was about local government and its partners because we very much see that as you've just identified there are a number of partners that have to be in this space to make sure that you can help lead a new or coordinator facility or whatever role in different areas that you may take. So looking at the report itself you've already indicated that the need for that route map is essential we very much had that as one of our key recommendations so that's probably one of the recommendations that you welcomed. Are there any others that you thought were particularly strong that helped you on your agenda and also if you can maybe be quite frank with us are there any of the recommendations that we put forward you think are more challenging and that you might want to have either pushback to us or indeed will cause more of a challenge that you might want to get a question? I think for us the route map is absolutely the crucial thing it's pulling all of the strands together across all sectors of what we need to be doing but that in of itself shouldn't prevent us from doing other things and myself and the convener have had this conversation that we can't wait for the route map to start doing things we have to be doing things but the route map will put us all on the same path it will make us understand that the scale of the challenge who needs to be doing what and how much it will cost and we said that right at the start and I think one of the biggest challenges we have is taking our communities with us. You mentioned keep Scotland beautiful earlier on and we've just had spring clean and it's amazing how much energy there is in communities if we engage with them in the first instance and take them with us so I think for us the route map is incredibly important but also taking our communities with us and if there's any other country in terms of the recommendations in our report you're welcome but those that you think perhaps you think might be more challenging for you? From my perspective I think the overall tenor of the report was really excellent as well as the sort of crunchy content that's in the report. I think just you very much were sort of banging the drum of aligning the resources that already exist we certainly welcome the references to the SSN and working in partnership and that focus on local government and its partners the SSN started as a local government network it's now pan public sector we run the mandatory reporting so we'd like to see reporting more use more actively to track progress link it up with the links of the CIS and I would say the effort that's going in through the SSN at the steering group level I think you've got leader practitioner leaders really stepping up into the space and David's an example of that I think in terms of the challenges I think we've covered a lot of them here in the conversation you know the finance skills the actual delivery on the ground you know they're the things that are keeping us awake at night I would say just in reflection of that we we welcome the the challenging issues that are in the report and the SSN agenda very much reflects a lot of those key issues if you look at the SSN conference programme just tomorrow it's all those big challenges strategic issues are in skills finance governance at a local level they're the things that the SSN is really spending its time on thank you very much thank you very much just before we go I've got one final question sorry Gail it's it's I mean it's the interest in my interest of bringing in private money to finance some of the things that need to be achieved now with an interest rate you know a relatively low interest rate you could say that we've had in previous years 4.5% now maybe increasing you know they'll be looking for a return on their money as well and there will be a significant cost to the people either who benefit from it or the users of the services or to councils so levering in is fine paying for it is the difficult part does that make you lose sleep at night as well yeah happy to I think the convener we've talked about a number of challenges this morning and even some of the solutions are not without their challenges and trade-offs as you've just outlined but ultimately we have to find a route to delivery and that's not going to come in my view without leveraging in private sector investment that has to absolutely be part of it and I suppose for me representing local government it's about us being the custodians then and about undertaking that kind of assessment and ensuring that there is really good value for the public pound and that the transition working with our partners is just and that will look different across different projects to draw on an example of EV charging that I mentioned earlier we're looking at a blend of private sector funding so a concession contractor to come in along with some public sector funding through an application to transport scotland so through the procurement of that device if you like we will absolutely as the public sector partner have our eye on the tariffs that that concession contractor is looking to apply are they reasonable are they affordable for people etc and balancing up against their need to make a commercial return in the project because that's their prerogative and why they have come to the table so I think it's about the role that the public sector plays in trying to balance those different challenges on a project by project basis and I think that will be the interest and the challenge because we haven't always got it right I mean I know Highland Council was subsidising all their charging points so that the people got free or very cheap charging across the Highland Council area just for their electric cars and and other people felt that was wrong and similarly we've seen it in other services that we provide whether it's hospital TV where people get charged through the nose for that because we've attracted private finance and I think my concern is how we balance that and how we let people know who are benefiting from it that it may cost them something in return because unless we do we don't take the communities with us I see you nodding so we're not disagree it's the entire principle of a just transition to net zeal and I think that that's the crucial word it has to be just okay thank you thank you very much uh it's been a really interesting session and I think it's interesting from the committee's point of view um how well our report has gone down and the fact that you've welcomed it and you're working on it and I think from all the committee I'd say that's good news I'd also say from the committee silka good luck with your healing um and I hope you are back to full fitness shortly so thank you very much and I'm going to pause the meeting now before we go into private session while we change over for witnesses welcome back uh and uh just say that our next item of consideration is a negative instrument the heat networks heat network zones and building assessment reports scotland regulations 2023 the instrument is laid under the negative procedure which means its provisions will come into force unless the parliament agrees to a motion to annul them no no no motions to annul have been laid do any members have any comments on the instruments no uh therefore can I uh invite the committee to agree that it does not wish to make any recommendations in relation to the agreement to the instrument we are agreed thank you that concludes our public meeting and we'll now go into private session