 Ffwrdd, i datgymuno i ddiwethaf ddechrau gwrdd 24 i ddullhau Cymru yn 2014. Mae hyn yn brydol yn arddangos rymd mewn ffófonoedd, ac oes dechrau gwrdd elec ond, sydd yn gweithio ar gyfer yr ymdily �ineithiaeth. Rwy'n sefydliadau'r Cyngorau Cymru yn arwyr bod gennych i ddweudio i gyrtho, ond mae wrth gweld y rygawr yn siarad. We have apologies from Stuart McMillan this morning. Stuart Stevenson is attending as a substitute member, and you're very welcome, Stuart. If we can turn to agenda item 1, which is our second oral evidence session on the Community Empowerment Scotland bill, we have two panels giving evidence this morning. I'd like to welcome the first panel. Danny Loog, director of operations at Skills Development Scotland. Stephen Kerr, interim head of North Community Health Partnership, NHS Lanarkshire. Linda McDowall, executive director of Scottish Enterprise. Superintendent Alec Irvine, licensing and violence reduction division of Police Scotland. Welcome to you all. Would any of you like to make any opening remarks? No, in which case we'll crack on with the first question. Community planning Aberdeen has stated in their written submission that the bill provides an opportunity to ensure genuine community engagement, consultation and active participation by citizens in identifying local needs and involvement in setting priority outcomes and how they should be addressed. Do you agree with that statement and what do you think of the proposals in terms of community engagement in this bill? Superintendent Irvine, do you want to go first? Yes, thank you, convener. From a policing perspective, one of the things that is articulated in the policing fire reform act are the policing principles that establish that we as an organisation need to engage with communities across Scotland in order to develop and drive services that make community needs. As an organisation, we have already established a national consultation process that looks at over 31,000 people in Scotland in terms of seeking their views at local community level. In terms of the act and the proposals within the bill itself, it actually fits extremely well in terms of the intentions of the organisation to consult and engage and drive local service forward. In terms of police involvement in community planning partnerships previously, some areas, the police presence and involvement was greater than others. Do you intend to ensure that there is uniformity across the country in terms of participation? Yes, I think that one of the things that you would rightly see across Scotland was the integration police and services at community planning level. I think that there is a positive track history of community involvement and engagement in community planning, but I would agree that there are different levels of that commitment and engagement across the country, but it is certainly something that is at the forefront of our minds in terms of how we engage appropriately with community planning partnerships and drive towards common outcomes through the single outcome agreement. Ms MacDill, what do you think of the Aberdeen CPP statement? I very much welcome the statement and I very much welcome the bill. We are very committed at the Scottish Enterprise to support community planning, and we already sit on all 27 community planning partnerships with our most senior people allocated to each of those partnerships within our region, within Scottish Enterprise's geography. I also welcome the focus on the evidence-based approach that they talk about and real tangible outcomes that can be agreed by partnerships working together to line against a common goal, which I think both at local and regional level would be very welcome. It is certainly areas where we have a lot of examples we have already engaged at that level. We can clearly see the opportunities around that table where each of us bring our own strengths and we can then look at a single agreement where we can actually have business community involvement, local community involvement, key partners and stakeholders around the table to deliver real tangible outcomes, and I think that that is very, very welcome. Thank you, Mr Log. Just to echo Linda's comments, but I very much welcome the bill and also recognise the comments that you mentioned from Aberdeen. Again, as a national organisation, we have been very actively engaged with all the local community planning partnerships and all the relevant subgroups that are associated with them. Because being a national organisation, we want to make sure that our focus in terms of service delivery and the outcomes that have previously been mentioned are reflected within our own local planning to make sure that its local needs are actually addressed and we are flexible across all the 32 local authorities. That very much involves, as has previously been mentioned about, that level of engagement with the community and stakeholder level across all areas. In terms of your written submission from SDS, you say that you are extremely happy that the bill recognises the valuable contribution that we can make to community planning by being proposed as a statutory community planning partner. Would you like to expand on that and tell us what that difference will make? Yes, the difference, convener, means because initially, when community planning partnerships were first established, SDS as an organisation had just been formed as a result of the previous conjoining organisations where we came from. So there had been no reference or recognition to the creation of SDS and since then we have worked actively with all 32 local authorities in relation to how we can input into community planning partnerships. What we feel now is that a formal recognition of us as a key stakeholder gives us a four more formal involvement and consistency right across all 32 because to date we are on 24 of the community planning partnership strategic boards and we are on 32 of the local employability economic development subgroups. So that gives us a more formal recognition as a strategic partner in the role that we can play in referring our outcomes from our local planning within the local CPP arrangements. Mr Kerr, please. Thanks, convener. I can perhaps bring a local perspective as I am here on behalf of NHS Lanarkshire and the North Lanarkshire Partnership. I think that we definitely welcome the opportunity to strengthen community planning and to make it more something that people have a clear focus on. I think that all of the partners are very keen to work in that way and at times I suppose other priorities get in the way. If we are really serious about our aims in terms of improving health and tackling inequalities we need the full input from all the partners and a much more rigorous look at the single outcome agreement and how it actually reflects the local priorities within the localities and indeed some of the sublocalities in our area. Okay, thank you very much. Anne McTaggart, please. Thanks, convener. Good morning, panel. You said mentioned within your statements the seriousness now as opposed to, I mean, CPPs have been around for a while and you have been involved in, particularly Ms McDyll, who is getting involved in 27 of the CPPs. Can you tell me why we would need legislation and make that statutory? What difference will that make? I think perhaps in many of these situations where things are done on not necessarily a voluntary basis but there's an expectation that people will participate and across the country you might see a variability in participation and in the success of the community planning partnerships. I think putting it on a more solid base will help to reduce that variability and improve the outcomes across the country. In what way, sorry, can I ask? In what way do you think that will change? In our own scenario I think we have, we would say that we have a very strong community planning partnership but I think what we don't have is complete connectivity between the aims of all the organisations and I think this would perhaps just make it more of a priority even though it's a high priority just now. I think we could make it a higher priority and link it more clearly into the objectives of those organisations and make the single outcome agreement more reflective of the needs of the communities. I think just now in some areas there's a tendency to have outcomes in the single outcome agreement that reflects existing requirements, targets, standards etc. And maybe not so much of the actual specific local priorities in terms of inequalities and health. OK, Anne. Do you feel then that there will be a difference made in community involvement then with the new CPP structures and the legislation that will follow? Mr Fair, do you want to answer that? Welcome to the others in a minute. I believe that there's an opportunity for that to be strengthened. And how will you do that? In our own area I think we are currently reviewing our partnership agreement. We're reviewing our structures and we're working with local communities. We're beginning to bring a focus much more to defined sublocalities, smaller geographical areas, smaller populations where we think the greatest need is. And we're finding that bringing that focus is proving to be very helpful. But I think if there was a statutory framework for the community planning work then I think all the partners would be more likely to be engaged in a stronger way. It's hard to express what I'm trying to say, but that's basically what I'm trying to say. OK. Superintendent Irvine, you're itching to come in there, I think. Thanks, convener. I think in response to your first question about the strength in the legislation to make it more effective, I absolutely agree that that is needed. I think my experience at a national level would be that effective partnership working and the collaboration depends on the individual rather than the process where you've got an individual who understands the benefits that work collaboratively can deliver in terms of outcomes, communities. It works pretty effectively. Where you see an absence of legislation, you've got individuals who, for whatever the demands are on them in terms of their own internal organisation, I think it's less effective. So I think that the strengthening of the legislation to reflect a more collaborative approach, a more articulating the benefits of more effective partnership working are useful. And I think by doing that, I think what you do is you strengthen and link into communities and I think that engagement and consultation part is absolutely critical to agreeing what local action should be in pursuit of outcomes. And I think again, I think there are some good examples at a national level where there's consultation, there's engagement in helping shape, some of those outcomes and I think there's an absence in other places across Scotland. I think the consistency of approach would be exceptionally beneficial. Okay, Ms McDowall. I think also making it statutory gives people collective responsibility to make things happen. I'm a great believer that it's people that will make things happen and maybe not structures. And clearly I think this gives an opportunity for people to really rally around these local outcome plans, see some real tangible outcomes that can come out of that and genuinely collectively agree to deliver those. And for me that's where you'll get the greatest involvement in the community, both the business community and the local community. I'm going to play a devil's advocate here because you said people and not structures and yet here we are having to bring forward legislation to try and improve a situation. Some folks have said previously that they feel that some of the bodies involved in community planning partnerships would try and push all of their responsibility on to the local authorities saying that they were the lead bodies that was up to them to do this, that and the other. Would that be fair? And why is it that we need these changes? And why is it that people thus far have not managed to make them work to the degree that they should in many areas? I can only honestly speak of my own involvement in the community planning partnership in Perth and Cunross for example and that clearly isn't how it operates and we have each agreed to map out the assets of that area to look at it both locally and regionally in the wider Tayside area and each partner then agree where they can help to deliver those outcomes that have been identified in the greatest opportunity. I genuinely do believe that sometimes you maybe need that structure to get people to come round a table to then appreciate what they each bring to the table and where they can each play a part in delivering those outcomes and involving the local community. And I think where you've got very specific tangible outcomes and we've lots of examples where we've worked with Team North Ayrshire, we've done some work in the south of Scotland and other areas in Renfisher where partners genuinely have worked together to deliver those and at very little cost because it's people's time but people can then see the benefit of pulling together that collective resource to make a difference locally and again collectively that then makes a difference to the Scottish economy overall. You said that you agreed to map out assets and you know I was involved in a community planning partnership previously which agreed to map out assets but actually failed to deliver in doing that. Did you actually achieve that? We're still in the process of doing it and we've got a number of workshops planned particularly around Perth and Kinross and then looking into the wider Tayside region. So when did that process start? It's been going on for about three or four months now and we're beginning to see real benefits from actually being aware of what that asset base is and indeed how it builds into the collective picture for a sustainable growth in Scotland. Mr Log? You just picked up on the earlier question about the difference in terms of legislation. We're currently on 24 of the 30 local authorities at the CPP strategic level but initially when the SDS was created we were very, very few. We ended up creating a parallel structure called the service delivery agreement and that was our attempt from the SDS to try and align ourselves to single outcome agreements that have previously been mentioned and since then we've now successfully been members of a very large majority of them and in fact our chair, John McClelland has actually written out to the CPP partners strategic boards that we're not on to ask for an SDS representation that moved some early feedback on that as well so I think back to the point about formalising the help, I think it helps that consistency it helps with the collaboration that's been touched in earlier on in terms of having the key partners that are there and also I think it's very worth mentioning that the community planning partnerships that I'm involved in quite a few of them personally is I haven't experienced any notion of partners offloading any of the responsibilities to local authorities and in fact if anything it's been very much about a collaborative basis about different assets, the resources, the services and the priorities that we have because our local plans that we have within Skills Development Scotland are very much aligned to the single outcome agreement in terms of the accountability of partners within there and that's why we've now been able to establish that devolve local resources to local partners in terms of what's actually spent within each of the CPP areas across the Skills Development Scotland resources. Alex Rowley, please. Morning. Somebody might be forgiven for for listening to the evidence this morning and thinking what this bill is about is really just forcing public bodies to work together because currently they're obviously not doing that I mean what would your view on that because that sounds a bit like what you're actually saying is that we need to legislate in order to get public bodies within a given geographical area to actually work together. Superintendent Irving, you want to go first please. Thank you, I think he got back to the point I think he made earlier on in terms of that consistency across the country I think we do have some very strong examples in areas where effective collaboration and effective working together functions very very well I think I would question the consistency of that approach across the country where for a variety of reasons there's no inherent value seen in that whole process I also think it's quite patchy in terms of that good practice and I think that we as a public sector need to capture that good practice and try and promote it more effectively across Scotland and I think the legislation perhaps provides a framework to enable us to do that more effectively Ms McDowall, I think there's lots of good examples of where it works really really well I mentioned earlier for example Team North Ayrshire where we work with North Ayrshire Council and looking at the challenges that North Ayrshire faced, we've been building business capacity there, we've been looking at further investment into the area, we've been looking at town centre improvements and they actually then formed an economic regeneration strategy for North Ayrshire and also a board and now we have a Team North Ayrshire which was established in December 2013 which really looked at a one-stop shop almost for both the community, the business community to come in and really look at the outcomes and the assets and the opportunities in Ayrshire and I think that's a great example of where partnership work in and at local community planning level is actually achieving results I could give you other examples where we looked at economic exporting opportunities, there was more signposting to each other's services it was making it clearer to the business people and to the local people about where to get help and support so that collectively we did receive results but also that we had joint responsibility and collective responsibility to deliver where we each knew we had the expertise around that table to make things happen Mr Loog I think that one of the couple of points and it's already been mentioned about the consistency across all areas because it does vary and I think there's a need for that that greater consistency and link to that is about that genuine collaboration in terms of all the key partners that are around the table because in the many of the CPPs I'm involved the membership differs in terms of organisations and individuals who are involved so you tend to get a mixed view a mixed involvement across them across the areas and the final point is the agent of partners so you all feel you've got an equal contribution to that discussion around the table and you're not there as an afterthought there's another partner there's a genuine example of us being involved in one of the areas that we introduced two years ago was co-commissioning in relation to establishing skills pipelines for young people across each of the 32 local authorities and that involved us co-commissioning for example the employability fund and some of the services that we deliver and the services that we provide in that local community Mr Kerr I would agree with the points made earlier about variation and trying to bring all the partnerships up to a standard where they're working in partnership I think there are as people have said there are very many examples of where it works well and indeed in our own area in Shorts community the living centre and all the partners are contributing to that and it tackles lots of related issues around physical activities activities for young people helping them to access services and leisure crime in the area has gone down, youth disorders has gone down we've got community transport in place that helps people in terms of employability we have a lot of health inputs in terms of health promotion in the area and social opportunities for older people we've got early years work going on we've got a food co-op where people can not only access food but learn cooking skills and that helps to tackle things like obesity and we have I don't want to stop me a bit, we get a flavour of what there is Alec do you want to come back? I've got a couple of points but if we pick up on that point where we come from I think some of the criticism that has been levied previously looking at community planning partnerships is that there is a lot of projects out there it's not necessarily a view that I hold by the way but there's a lot of projects out there that community planning partners could say in my area there was a living well project that involved all the different partners and it was often used but the criticism is there's a lot of projects but that doesn't necessarily show public services and that seems to be a criticism and I just wonder what is it in terms of making the partnerships more transparent for example could it be the case that every budget whether it's in a local authority a health authority or whoever that it clearly references where that budget fits within the community plan and the strategic outcomes that are being suggested you know how do you actually at the end of the day demonstrate and make transparent that these public bodies are actually working to a common agenda whatever that may be Mr Kerr you would expect the current single outcome agreements to do that to a certain extent in terms of identifying the common priorities that we're working towards but I agree that there may well be ways of doing that and certainly linking the objectives of each organisation to the community plan and the single outcome agreement would be a good way of doing that and the finances also may be an identification of where contributions are being made Mr Kerr, before frienders comes in on that I mean could you reach a stage where each organisation has to bring its budget to the community planning partnership board and demonstrate how that budget is actually delivering for that area Mr Kerr we're beginning to do work around joint resourcing in our partnership and I think that it would be perfectly reasonable to expect that each organisation could report to the community planning partnership on how its spend of its budget or how its activity contributes to community planning can I come in there as well cos I think this is an extremely important line of questioning and one of the things that the committee has been told previously in terms of outcomes and let's stick to health the community planning partnership has agreed an outcome on health and yet the NHS boards heat targets are something different than that outcome I think the point that Mr Rowley rightly makes is where is the budgeting emphasis of the NHS going to be in that regard is it going to be to achieve that heat target or is it going to be to achieve that outcome that's within the single outcome agreement I think that what it should be is the resources and the attention of the organisation should be on achieving what's in the single outcome agreement in terms of improving health and reducing inequalities but I do agree that heat targets have a tendency to mean that resources and activity are targeted towards those specific targets and not necessarily towards an outcomes based approach so I don't quite get what you're saying there cos you're saying both things at the same time that the priority should be achieving the single outcome agreement aim but at the same time you said that that heat target I suppose what I'm trying to say is that from a purely NHS perspective sometimes our resources are targeted specifically at achieving heat targets when in fact the outcomes for individuals might be improved more by taking an outcomes based approach linked to the single outcome agreement so for example if you looked at delayed discharges and I'm not saying this happens universally or in any specific location but it's quite possible that in trying to achieve a delayed discharge target that people might be discharged from hospital to a care home whereas if they'd had a period of time for further assessment they might have been able to go back to their own home and that's something that we're working on locally in Lanarkshire but I think certainly some heat targets can drive resources and expertise towards a very focused point in a person's journey through the healthcare system OK Do you want to come back in there? I think that's the next example that you actually gave to delayed discharges Can I just finally switch it a bit and back to this sort of engagement in the community and involvement in the community I don't know if you're aware that under the previous five chief executive Norma Graham they set up a model that basically how it worked was that every two months they would go into a community a community meeting, pick up three the three priorities of that community and then two months later report back on the progress that they had made and they led the way in that I mean the local authority and others were sort of following behind and then obviously the changes came about but that model in terms of actually engaging the community and getting on board the community priorities and that's why I really wonder when we're talking about single outcome agreements and we're talking about this high level outcomes are we in the same breath talking about engaging the community and what is the role of the community in all this Superintendent Irvine? I think the example from five is an exceptionally good one because I think it does effective policing where there is good community engagement that drives local priorities to make safer communities again there are other examples which I think follow that similar model and I think in terms of how we're going to as organisations work in the public sector how we deliver sustainable solutions we have to deliver that type of model I think at a strategic level within community planning partnerships I think there are examples where there are investment decisions taken between programmes but my experience of those are that because of a disconnect between that type of local service that we're saying is really effective where policing if I use that example is speaking to local people but what they want to see at community level is actually there's a bit of disjoint between some of the programmes that exist that are driven strategically and I think the challenge for us all about how we join that up because I think unless we're delivering and it's actually understood about how we're driving our business through community engagement and shaping what we're trying to achieve I think there will always be a disjoint between what community planning is seen at through communities and what we are actually doing in terms of working on the ground OK I just want to comment on that that relationship between we talk community planning and the word community would suggest people but actually is it a much higher level or are we are we kidding ourselves in the sense that somehow this is about the community set and the agenda Doug? It's both at the strategic level and also at the community level as you mentioned as well certainly our particular organisation has been heavily focused on local delivery because often national organisations can be criticised or have the national focus and it doesn't really reflect local priorities and even very much it paints to reflect that and that's been done through a number of areas we have ongoing customer evaluation, local stakeholder engagement with partners and with individuals about the services that we provide and one good example that has been the local employability partnerships where the third sector for example are heavily involved in those local employability partnerships of what's actually delivered locally in other community organisations as well and again that reflects back to the example I gave earlier about the co-commissioning then of the services particularly employability funds and how we deliver them and how we deliver them locally so that's really really important that we do that and finally I think it's important that we reflect two things, one is local performance in terms of how we deliver our services to local areas and also we have a very detailed communication strategy and plan that reflects SDS as a national organisation but more important what we're doing locally and that forms for example on the basis of partnership agreements with local schools, parent teacher councils that are involved to make sure we do get that communication that comes out to local partners and stakeholders Ms MacDowell I think from Scottish Enterprise's point of view our main engagement has been with the business community and clearly that's a focus we will continue to have because the business community I think until now have found it quite difficult to engage with community planning partnerships again perhaps because it's been very high level and I think with the evidence based local outcome plans I think it will be easier for them to engage we can then work with them to hopefully create jobs in the local area to build a business capacity to compete for other opportunities and even to escalate up to a regional area where again you can look at travel to work patterns for people you can look at various skills assessments that SDS are delivering for industry we've got industry advisory boards and regional advisory boards which again is involved in the business community and I think this opportunity will allow them to have a much greater involvement and a greater role in delivery of those tangible based outcomes Superintendent Irvine you talked about the strategic level of the community planning partnership during the course of that I would have expected to hear you know how local ward policing plans form the basis of the outcomes that community planning partnerships are actually after because at the end of the day this is proactive community engagement in terms of coming up with those plans and yet at that level at that CPP level we've not heard you talk about them at all I think that's the important part how we deliver our business and it goes back to those 353 ward plans for Scotland are based in that consultation process that I spoke on earlier on those local ward plans the local police plans for each of the authority areas and again we should see a linkage between the local police plans and the single outcome agreement I think that structure there allows us to have a degree of confidence at what we're doing in shaping service that helps inform our partners and helps us to collaborate more effectively our partners as well at a community planning level in terms of the delivery of local service I think it goes back to me in terms of the different accountabilities of local police plans a link into the Scottish Police Authority plan and the national police plan while I think they're positive I still think it goes back to that dilemma like the health sector but what is precedence in terms of how we're pursuing outcomes at a local level I think they all add to that jigsaw and enrich the picture but it then becomes of that kind of and not unusual that kind of operational decision making how we balance the need to deal with national priorities versus the local priorities that are driven through that process so I'm saying that this legislation will have to make all of your organisations rethink possibly governance structures but certainly some of your own priorities as you see it to fit in to the priorities of communities and community planning partnerships would that be a fair statement to me? and how do you think your organisations are going to look at all of this after this bill has enacted? I think there's an inherent challenge and it goes back to some of the funding challenges that we face policing budget goes to the Scottish Police Authority who make investment decisions based on that money but we're talking about giving more power to local community planning partnerships to require investment from local partners and those commanders who don't control the purse strings in terms of how much money comes in at the local level how they actually then support the community planning agenda locally given the degree of control that they actually have and I think that will create a challenge within the organisation I think it's probably a positive challenge One of the things about community planning partnerships is they were supposed to end some of the duplication that went on so why in terms of that scenario of pooling budgets why do you think you need extra resource when in some cases you could be actually saving quite a bit of money? I don't mean to be an additional resource in what I'm saying is that the investment model for the organisation goes to the SPA who then determine how that money is funded so for example if a local police commander in Fife or another authority is the key component of how we engage at community planning level what they can actually control locally in terms of the amount of money to invest there are a resourcing level which will by and large be the people involved but not necessarily a financial contribution it's how if there's an expectation from a community planning partnership that we have to invest money in it that will create an inherent difficulty in that because the commander doesn't in fact control the purse strings of how much he has to spend at a local level so we're going to have to look at a situation where the budgets are devolved to the local commander level which some folk would quite like to see Mr Kerr, do you want to go next? Yeah, I think we do have community planning structures that are replicated in localities and each of those areas has a locality action plan which is reported back to the partnerships I suppose there is a link there with what's actually important within communities but I think that there's a new player in town coming up in that integrated health and social care partnerships and I think it will be important that the strategic needs analysis for all of the communities and the strategic plans of the health and social care partnership the community planning partnership the NHS board and the local authority actually are reflective of one another in terms of the priorities and actions So there will have to be governance changes to make this work Miss McDowell I don't see the priorities changing as a result of the bill we're an opportunity driven organisation we're an economic development agency I'm not talking about priorities Miss McDowell, I'm sorry to interrupt I'm talking about governance arrangements to make it easier for you to focus into cooperating within community planning partnerships and getting the outcomes that that partnership wants rather than some of the scenarios where you probably have other targets to meet elsewhere We're already involved in 27 at the community planning partnership and our involvement would continue Let me ask you a simple question about the involvement in those 27 partnerships at this moment in time How much money has Scottish Enterprise put into individual community planning partnerships at this moment in time? I can't answer that question, convener However, our resource is very flexible and it's based on an opportunity driven organisation so we need to better understand the assets and the opportunities in each of those community areas to make sure that they then collectively contribute to the economic growth for Scotland and a lot of our contribution around that table is in staff resources I wouldn't like to think that it would be specifically around a percentage of a budget because as I said earlier it's around people bringing expertise around that table to make things happen Let me change the question slightly then How much money has Scottish Enterprise given to community planning partnerships to fulfil their priorities rather than Scottish Enterprise priorities? I can't answer that specific question I think it would be interesting for us to get a flavour of that In terms of governance arrangements we wouldn't see any necessary change in governance arrangements because our focus has been as a national organisation but we deliver locally our structures are local our local teams, our local planning is all done at the community planning partnership level As I mentioned earlier we're involved in a large number of community planning partnerships at strategic level but as I mentioned the chair has written out to the other local authorities in terms of being members of the local authority CPPs we're not being involved in so our very much sure focus has been at the local level and we are now able to report the deployment of resources at each local authority level in fact we'll be including that in our annual report this year for what we spent in each local authority last year and that would include all the skills programmes and it also includes all the delivery of the careers service in the local authority areas as well Keith Stewart Stevenson, please Thank you very much, convener We've just had the word focus at local level and that's been a theme throughout many of the contributions but just listening carefully to what people have said I've heard from example from Mr Kerr, reduce variability from Superintendent Irvine we heard a similar remark from Danny Loog I heard the words greater consistency Are we actually being told that Castle Douglas should get exactly the same as Castle Milk? He wants to go first on that one Superintendent Irvine I think it depends on the make-up of the community we've spoken about some of the assets that exist there and I think we also need to look at the evidence base that exists from a policing perspective the levels of crime and disorder and what actually exists in the ground in there in terms of community cohesion from a policing perspective we would expect a community police officer and other response officers to operate in that community but I think in terms of level of investment in terms of that level of investment the number of officers that we have dedicated to that area there's clearly going to be a difference based on the level of demand that we have and what the evidence base suggests to us You are saying that variability is good Absolutely Is that the opinion of the whole panel's nodding heads? Right, that's fine we don't need to ask everybody else but I just think it's quite revealing of thinking that I'm able to write these words down that suggest that the bill is a way of imposing uniformity Would community planning partnerships have the view that actually their contribution to delivering for their communities is to have absolute variability to ignore or place in a secondary position in national priorities and elevate the local and specifically in that context should single outcome agreements be determined before the CPPs determine what they're going to do or after Mr Kerr When I spoke of variability I was really speaking about variability and the level of engagement in community planning I think you're absolutely right in that the amount of the amount of resource the amount of effort and energy that goes into a local area should reflect the needs of that population Mr Loog Again, when I was talking about consistency two things were not involved in the old CPPs there was a plea in there about that they do vary in terms of the make-up the membership and the maturity of the partnership in terms of the outcomes but the other point that's worth making is that we are all keen to see rather than all different organisations in different plans there's all a line of sight in terms of the single outcome agreement and in terms of priorities and resources we then work with partners to reflect what are the local priorities and the local needs in terms of Castle Douglas or Castle Milk and there's a number of factors we would build into that in order for us to deploy resources in terms of skills or careers advice that we would supply Sorry, I don't want to let you off the hook on this Should the CPP decide what should happen before the single outcome agreement or are they in the business of implementing the single outcome agreement which comes first? Sorry, I apologise I haven't said the CPP in terms of identifying there are national priorities but how you've got to deploy them to local needs and local issues and to be able to then gather and ring friends all the various resources that the partners are in that, operating in that particular area because we also as an organisation deploy our resources in terms of needs and we've got to make sure that's aligned with all the other partners in terms of what they're actually doing within that local outcomes focus Well, let me, and we can pick up others views as well but just sticking with yourself does this bill carry with it the danger that by creating a national framework that elevates the decision making upwards rather than making it driven from the bottom upwards is that danger there and how do we manage it if it is? I don't think there is a danger there I think because of the extent of the CPP the single outcome agreement focus has been for the last number of years has established that framework within the local areas to address some of the issues we've all talked about in terms of consistency in terms of that focus on local outcome agreements and in terms of back to the point about resources as well in terms of how we deploy them locally so I still see there is that local maturity and that local involvement of all the partners within each of the CPP areas to address a lot of the local issues I don't see it as a danger in terms of it being coming down addressed on high so for example Skills Development Scotland get a letter of guidance from the Scottish Government every year to say we're asking SDS to deliver X how we deliver that X is through local yes we know what the priorities are but our annual operating plan would then take that locally and discuss that with CPP partners to make sure it fitted in with the local needs, local priorities and the other plans and resources that have been deployed within that area That's a similar approach that we would take to Skills Development Scotland but I think the variability question is really based on where the assets and the opportunities lie and that evidence based approach to really then see where those tangible outcomes lie and you can both complement and enhance you know the single outcome agreement based on that local knowledge and that evidence base then I think there's a win-win for both of you In fairness I think you were the only member of the panel I wasn't able to write down Thank you I think in a positive way as soon as you start engaging with communities you introduce a degree of variability because different communities want different things in terms of what they expect from public service and I don't think that's anything we should shy away from Would you in fact agree that the evidence of variability is likely to support the argument that there is good local engagement? Yeah absolutely as I said I don't think that's a negative I think as soon as you start engaging in consultant communities it drives services in a different way I think the challenge around that how does that consultation and engagement then drive your single outcome agreement I've seen some good examples where a lot of the outcomes identified in single outcomes have in fact been driven by consultation on the other hand there are others there that I've seen where it's simply been driven by a set of strategic priorities put on the table by the organisation and it's how we make sure it's the right way around in terms of community driven in terms of outcomes John Watson please Thank you, good morning panel I wonder why we're here if things are working so well in terms of the CPPs that we need legislation to actually improve things with the exception of maybe Mr Loog's case that SDS gets a seat around the table in the community planning partnerships that's not the experience that we're hearing when we're taking evidence from communities the experience quite clearly contradicts what we've heard today and Mr Stevenson made reference to the top down approach or the bottom up approach and clearly three of the panel members here today belong to national organisations that have national priorities set in terms of the work that they do and Mr Loog outlined that he gets a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Finance in terms of his organisation telling them what the priority X is if that's where do you think the conflict that we're picking up between communities and the CPPs the direction of the CPPs the single outcome agreements and the other work the CPPs are doing why do you think that conflict seems available but we've picked up apparently exists the communities feel they are being ignored in the decision making process and they have very little control or very little say over the priorities of the community planning partnerships Mr Kerr I find it difficult to answer that other than from a local perspective and as I say we have local community planning arrangements in each of our six localities in North Lanarkshire each of which engages the community forum in that area and each of which has a local action plan that reflects the local priorities that have been agreed with with the local population I don't sit here for one minute and say that we are a perfect example and I would say far from it indeed and we appreciate that there are many improvements that we can make both in terms of how we organise ourselves and how we engage with communities and how we focus into some of our more deprived areas but I guess that the answer to that question would lie within each of the partnerships Let's look at North Lanarkshire because I think one of the points that Mr Wilson is making was probably most prevalent in North Lanarkshire in a committee visit to Cumbernauld where folks didn't feel they were involved in the process a lot of folks didn't know about the local planning community planning arrangements certainly didn't know anything at all about the community planning partnership so where does that failure lie and I have to say that most of those folks that we talked to were very very heavily involved in their communities in one way, shape or form with many of those folks involved in many many organisations I think that the arrangements aren't by any means perfect and I'll take that information and look at it very carefully but as I say we do engage with the community forums in that area as part of our process around community planning and indeed in the NHS specifically so if there are still perceptions that there's not enough engagement then perhaps we need to improve on that Mr Loog I think one of the issues is in terms of that level of engagement that Steven's mentioned in community forums and I'm involved in a number of CPPs Western Martenshire and others that's involvement of community forums and community representatives at the CPP and I think the other interesting where I've seen a number of developments has been around some of the substructures which I alluded to earlier on particularly around employability and some of the other issues where there are local community representatives actually on the local employability partnerships will be delivering locally so I think it's down to quite often it's about that community engagement that Steven talked about but it's also about the involvement in the membership of community planning not just the strategic bodies but in the number of the subgroups that address some of the local outcomes that are there to make sure there is that level of stakeholder engagement in particular I mentioned earlier on about the third sector involvement and some really good examples we're really an evidence led organisation and therefore the community involvement is mainly with the business community and we have a strong track record of involving the business community in various forums to look at the services we provide so we're not actually engaging with the local community as such as far as our remit is concerned but hopefully the engagement we have with the business community will benefit the local community by way of job creation or building business capacity etc for me the participation request I think that might come from the community to Scottish Enterprise certainly from this bill I'm not sure they would be of a huge volume but we certainly would be happy to look at ways from which we could involve the local business community where that to be something that they felt they could participate in Mr Superintendent, Erwin I think, convener, if I can use another North Lanarkshire example where in terms of the Geithraple area just outside Motherwell where there is an exceptionally effective model of joined up public sector delivery linked into community engagement which I think you could hold up and say it meets all the principles and all the intentions of the contents of the bill in terms of how it wants to strengthen community links public service in the community planning process and I think that there lies a challenge for us all in terms of public sector delivery because I think there are some exceptionally good examples so there's one that exists if you get this dilemma between what it looks like in Cumbernauld and what it looks like in North Motherwell why have we got that because it's the same local authority, the same policing partners that are engaged in the same process there's certainly a communication issue in there in terms of how we're articulating some of our intentions within that area but I think what that does it highlights the need for us all in terms of that engagement process with communities to make sure that it's fit for purpose and tailored to meet the local community itself Mr Wilson The follow-up question is really around the issue that the implied issues arising from the bill mean that maybe the CPPs are looking to national bodies to contribute funding to the delivery of services within the CPP area Given Mr Superintendent Irvine's earlier comments about the budgetary constraints on local commanders and Ms McBill's comments about the financial contribution from Scottish Enterprise would be hopefully through staff time devoted to working the CPPs If there was a demand made by the CPP partners to actually ask national bodies to contribute more to local funding initiatives so that the CPP could direct the work of those organisations or work around those organisations Do you think that would be generally viewed as favourable or do you think that there may be some concerns about particularly existing tight budgets in organisations and CPPs' demands on those budgets to help them Mr Loog, do you want to go first this time? I mentioned earlier the letter of guidance that we received from Scottish Government that lays out the priorities for SDS within any given year in relation to whether it's careers advice, modern apprenticeships, employability fund, regional skills assessment, skills investment plans etc We take those asks and the resources that we have and many of them are in the shape of staff as well and others have to support businesses and other employability funds in terms of any resources in the year that are flexible for other local deployment that are already committed in terms of priorities that we have where we do have the flexibilities on the ground in terms of how we deliver those career services how we deliver the employability fund regional skills assessment skills investment plans and the big focus around that is, yes, the finance and the budget the resources are important but even more important is about the focus on local outcomes it's about what we're trying to achieve the resources, rather than necessarily the discussion of pound shillings and pens and if we're all signed up to a local outcome agreement a single outcome agreement that specifies in details here are the outcomes how do we actually achieve those outcomes and what ways an organisation would be doing this and well here are the resources we have to deploy within a particular geographical area to meet those local outcomes Ms McDaryl I think for Scottish Enterprise if we're trying to achieve a sustainable growth for Scotland then again we need to go back to understand locally where the assets and the opportunities lie I would be disappointed if we put a percentage of a budget against actually trying to deliver on what was a local outcome improvement plan because I think if you get the right people and we identify the assets and opportunities then our resources should be challenged to make the most of these regardless of where they lie so that collectively for Scotland we can give it to the growth of the Scottish economy and I think there would be a danger if we said 10% of the budget had to be spent on that then what happens if the opportunity demands 50% of the budget we really are an opportunity driven organisation and I'd like to think how resources were fed into where the greatest opportunities lie for the growth of the Scottish economy A little supplementary from Stuart Stevens in there then please Given that I'm someone who doesn't believe that we should restrict ourselves to everything that we already know will succeed what proportion of your budget are you knowingly putting aside for the higher risks in support of community needs? I can't answer that question again I'd have to find out the exact figure Let me phrase it more broadly Do you think there is a figure? Without knowing the specific amount do you think that that is something you are prepared to do? I think we would again we'd look at where the assets and the opportunities lie and be driven by where those greatest opportunities are for growth of the Scottish economy and clearly that's really where the public purse should best be spent to achieve that growth, to create jobs and hopefully the benefits to the local communities You've opened up a can of worms, Mr Rowley The Scottish Enterprise terms if the key economic opportunities sit within the central bell and the key economic drivers of the Scottish economy is Glasgow, Edinburgh and that city region area is that not where your priorities are therefore going to be? Definitely not If you look at what's happening within the southern cities in Scotland there are opportunities to drive the growth of the entire Scottish economy based on that and I talked earlier about what was happening in the south of Scotland for example where they've been looking at pulling together the work of the south of Scotland Alliance and the south of Scotland economic forum to really drive through the M74 corridor looking at open up Stranra for example as a sailing gateway they're looking at various economic development projects and looking at where the assets lie in the total for Scotland because it's all quite different you've certainly got assets in the run of cities but you've got assets around various regions and other areas that I think collectively each of the local communities within the geography of Scotland can benefit from Back to Mr Wilson's original question Superintendent Irvine I don't feel qualified to answer that because I think that's a question that should be levied at the SPAA However, what I would say I think if you look at the policing principles within the fire and reform act I think it drives us towards delivering services at a local level and that should be absolutely integral to policing and therefore I think it's a challenge that the organisation should be up for Mr Kerr Whether or not there's a percentage identified or a number identified I think that's perhaps a material in the sense that if we identify the correct needs and the correct communities then I think it's about the partners bringing whatever assets they can and also identifying and harnessing the assets within the communities themselves Mark McDonald, please Thank you, convener I mean, most of the ground has been covered but I'm interested mainly in what CPPs can do to drive down inequalities between communities So, I guess I would sort of put this into three questions in one Are CPPs doing enough to reduce inequalities what more can be done and how can that be done Mr Kerr, please I guess that the simple answer to that is no because we still see health inequalities in our communities I think that we've done a significant amount of work to improve some of those issues I think that we're now beginning to see that certainly in our own partnership we're beginning to see the need to do much more focused work highlighting very specific areas very small populations where the inequalities are perhaps at their highest and putting much more of a focused attempt into those areas and certainly increasing the community engagement in those areas to try and bring about improvements and help people to engage in these activities Before we carry on specifically in terms of the outcomes that CPPs are drawing up do you think firstly is there work done to make sure that these are essentially linked to the inequalities agenda and the reduction of inequalities and where that is not happening should that be essentially every outcome should be tested against what impact it will have on inequalities within communities Mr Kerr We do do that in the sense that we have locality, health and wellbeing profiles that identify a range of indicators that would indicate that the areas are less equal than others and we do focus our attention on those but I think all of our plans should be able to drill down into our plans to see how the inequalities agenda is focused An example last week at committee here Mr Kerr about the priorities of local people versus the priorities of organisations the example was the priority for the health service and one of the areas deprived areas that Mr McDonald represents was tackling mental health the priority for the health service was getting folk to stop smoking and the community of course said it would be much easier to be able to stop smoking if some of the mental health problems within the community were actually addressed how much cognisance do you take of local communities and folk within those communities when coming up with these priorities in local health areas Part of it is looking at the evidence in the wellbeing profiles that just gives you the specific information but there is definitely work going on in the local areas to work with the community to identify what their priorities are We've currently got an initiative in the Craig and Newke area where all the agencies are in working and very much with the community with a lot of community engagement and we're hoping that that might be a model that we can use in other localities within North Lanarkshire Back to Mr McDonald's original question about tackling inequalities Mr Logue, please I would recognise Mr McDonald's comments about an equality's impact assessment and all outcomes should be undertaken rather than a separate bolt-on activity within a number of areas If you have that pair making right across all the focus of the outcome agreements that would help in terms of the quality impact assessment The second thing that's worth mentioning is a number of organisations We all have action plans inequality action plans and priorities to make sure that within this single outcome agreement process they're aligned into one within that local community and the third point it would make is about a point that I mentioned earlier about resource deployment and to make sure that when we're prioritising resources to areas that they do tackle issues in terms of equalities and I mentioned earlier about the employability fund as one example we have with him and careers advice in terms of how we deliver locally and making sure that they're weighted according to local issues and local challenges Mr McDaryl I think is in answer to the question whether they're doing enough to address inequalities I think there's always more and clearly we've talked about health inequalities and other things that Danny's mentioned but I think if we do test every outcome then I think that would be one way to try and make sure that we address it as much as we possibly can and I'd welcome equality impact assessments et cetera being carried out from each of the outcomes of that local improvement plans I think this is one of the critical fundamental challenges for community planning partnerships in terms of how they tackle inequality Inequality for me means it's a motivator for crime, criminality and its social behaviour but if we could tackle those underlying causes I think it would have made a significant difference to communities I think what I would like to see in terms of what more we can do is probably a shift away from for some organisations a drive towards annual targets because I think tackling inequality requires a longer term more sustained approach and I think it's how we measure and hold ourselves to account against that type of drive rather than short term targetism Mr MacDonald I think it follows on from the question my colleague Stuart Stevenson posed around the castle Douglas versus castle milk and we hear a lot about postcode lottery and complain about postcode lottery The postcode lottery that concerns me the most is the fact that if you're born within a certain postcode your life chances are dramatically different to if you're born in another postcode the postcode lottery that concerns me so is there a need maybe to move from looking at postcode lottery to postcode priorities and is there the nerve within community planning partnerships to have those focuses in terms of where resources go and where priorities go into those postcode areas where life chances are so dramatically lower than in other postcode areas Superintendent Irvine I think we're always ready starting to see that shift I think if you look at the single outcome agreements in their current iteration and that focus in place I think that there's more a more robust discussion around where the actual level of demand is and how we invest in resourcing there are examples already at a national level in Fresenborough Edinburgh Renfisher where some of that discussion is taking place within the community planning partnership about how you actually drive forward your business based on that level of demand and trying to take it back to tackling inequality because there is inequality what can we collectively do to deal with that Ms McDowall, please I agree moving from a postcode lottery to postcode priorities and again it's back to understanding where the assets and opportunities lie and particularly from our point of view being able to help job creation that again can hopefully improve the quality of life of the communities in those local areas Mr Loog let's talk about the postcode priorities for example the one big area we look at at school leaver destinations, young people the 54,000 approximately school leavers leaver every year in terms of those destinations into a positive destination university college modern apprenticeship training etc and how do we make sure we address any of those inequalities and end those priority issues there by making sure that we deploy our resources to meet those particular needs locally and it's not just for one single organisation and that's the benefit of having community planning partnerships in a single outcome agreement how do we collectively pool focus on that priorities to deal with those in each of the postcode areas that you mentioned Mr Kerr, please Absolutely, we need to focus on the areas of greatest need and where the greatest inequalities are and I think that's a process that we're starting to see more happening now Okay My question to the convener was whether I think we all recognise that the difficulty is that I think we would all accept that there is a difference between those in the most need and those with the most capability to express desires and needs of their communities so the question was really not whether we recognise that need but whether there is the collective will within community planning partnerships to make that step change in terms of where resources go Mr Kerr I think that's there is that will locally and I think that's why we're beginning to focus more on these communities where people perhaps have the greatest needs there's the greatest inequalities and perhaps they're the least vocal in terms of their needs as well at times Does everybody else agree that there's that collective will? I see nodding heads Okay, thank you Cameron Buchanan, please Thank you very much indeed, convener Somebody said earlier that people not structures make things happen and I was very conscious of the fact that how can the CPC be perceived as an extension is it perceived as an extension of local authority it needs not to be perceived as an extension of local authority Could you comment on that? It's been partly answered by my colleague Mr Rowley but it is perceived as an extension of the local authority and it's people rather than structures Mr Loog I'm referred to that point earlier on about our particular involvement and I would say certainly from the community planning partnerships that we're involved in there's been a genuine level of engagement from the local authority and other partners to make sure that each organisation locally plays its contributing role area in the area and not been given outcomes from the CPP but to actually help shape those particular outcomes in each of the community planning partnership areas so I would definitely see as very much an involvement of other partners, other organisations within that CPP infrastructure I think there needs to be leadership in terms of community planning partnership and I think local government act and the whole structure drives towards local authority being that leader I think without leadership there's no governance without governance there's no activity so I think it's a critical part of what we need to strengthen at local level Ms McDowall please I think if all the partners are clearly explicit in what they bring to that table then it is people genuinely who will make these things happen because they will agree to have collective responsibility to deliver on those local outcome improvement plans and tangible outcomes that clearly will make the greatest benefit Mr Kerr As well as the local community planning arrangements we work very hard to make sure that our front line staff for example district nurses are very aware of community planning so when they're doing addressing in somebody's leg they'll be talking to them about employability they'll be doing a financial assessment they'll be if there's fuel poverty in the house they'll be identifying that they'll be referring people for sex by the fire service etc so I think we're trying to embed it in all the staff groups within the organisation Cameron I think it's the perception not the reality and that's what I think you said there it's the perception that it needs and leadership is the key in that would you not agree? Lots of nodding of heads Is that you Cameron? Yes thank you Finally the bill itself do you think it includes all of the right partners to be within CPPs? Are there any additional bodies that you would like to see around the table? Are there any bodies which you think should be removed from the bill? Superintendent Irvine I think what's including the bill is entirely relevant I also think that it should be a degree of flexibility which I think the bill does include for local authority partners to identify who's relevant to sit around the table Ms McDowell I do agree as well, I think the relevant partners are there but I would like to see a stronger emphasis involving the business community Mr Loog What an issue we mentioned earlier about the third sector involvement which has been addressed I think the other issue as well as about the involvement of DWP given the resources at DWP actually bringing to the table in relation to the priorities that they have which is very much in partnership with others including ourselves I think would be welcome Very quickly Cameron More involvement in the business community What do you mean exactly by that? How would you, what business community is missing? Well I think just now within community planning partnerships the community, the local community are involved but I think because of the high level nature of the community planning partnerships that generally the business community find it quite difficult to find a way in which they personally can engage and I think if we made it much more explicit what that mechanism would be within the bill then I think you'd find much more of the local business community wanting to participate in those discussions and how they can help to implement the outcomes from that plan Mair, please I don't think there's any need to specify any others specifically but I think locally we would generally welcome any partners who are relevant to the agenda that we're trying to address Okay Can I thank you all very much for your evidence today I suspend for a change of witnesses and we'll commence again at 25 past, please Okay Thank you We now move on to our second panel for this morning I'd now like to welcome Jim McCafferty, junior vice president of the Institute of Revenues, Rating and Valuation Gary Clark, head of policy it's the Scottish Chamber of Commerce and John Mundell, chief executive of Inverclyde council Welcome gentlemen, would you like to make any opening statements at all? We'd like to make one if I may, if you don't mind, thanks First of all, I'd like to thank you for inviting me along to give some evidence this morning I fully support the principles of the bill itself, obviously it's trying to achieve a lot for local people and obviously the whole thing is about our services being community driven and designed to meet users' needs However, I think the bill itself will bring certain challenges in this time of austerity Not all communities have the capability to take advantage of the provisions within the bill this is particularly true for disadvantaged and marginalised communities and it could lead to an increase in inequality if the partners don't succeed in the aspirations of the bill Resources are required in order to ensure the effectiveness of the bill funding is key to increased capacity or building increased capacity in communities, especially the disadvantaged communities There are also resource implications for councils and local partners in terms of officers responding to participation requests as well as providing money to set up allocments in support to other aspects of the bill of particular concern is the ability of community groups to take full financial responsibility for the assets passed to them and the sustainability of the project when costs arise from repairs and maintenance to work-disciplines no longer want to contribute to the project Local authorities will be expected to provide financial and professional support throughout this and obviously when we are reducing resources over the next two or three years that's quite a challenge but nonetheless I certainly support the aspirations of the bill Mr Clark, do you want to make any opening statement? Only to thank the committee for the opportunity to address you on this bill My interest in the bill is with regard to the effects on non-domestic rating but of course we are also very interested in the aspects of the bill which would potentially allow the business community to take a more active role in local democracy Mr McEfforty, just again to thank the committee for inviting the IWRV here as you would expect my interest is in part out of the bill so it would be interesting to compare and contrast my views between us Of course this session is looking at the main part 8 of the bill however I'm quite aware that members may have some questions Mr Mundell about part 2 with your good self and I won't stop members from doing so but can I start off with part 8 and can I ask what potential advantages could result from this power Mr Clark, would you like to go first please? Yes First of all we have looked at the response of the Scottish Government to last year's consultation on the future of non-domestic rating in Scotland and obviously one of the key aspects was the power of local authorities to implement their own local reliefs and exemptions to potentially assist businesses in their area and incentivise business at a very local level that's something that's to be welcomed I think that it's something that probably has to be looked at in conjunction with the business rights incentivisation scheme which has had a bit of a bumpy ride over the past couple of years since its introduction and I think if local authorities are going to take full advantage and pass on potential benefits to local businesses as a result of the powers within this legislation then they will have to be sure that there is an incentive for them to do that and particularly I think that they will be looking at potential financial incentives to do it so in other words I think that many local authorities will be looking to perhaps apply reliefs and exemptions in order to perhaps encourage more businesses to come to the area to set up in the area and potentially to increase their resources as a result of that but that would only happen if the business rights incentivisation scheme is operating effectively and I think there has been some progress on that this year but it is a scheme that has had a bumpy start. Mr McArthur, do you please? Thank you. The institute welcomes the local flexibility and also I think the opportunity for better community building I think listening to the first set of first session of your committee hearing today I notice the difference often between a business community and a local community and I think through proper consultation about what could be done with this relief between the local businesses and the local community there is a real chance to move things forward. I might even shed some light into the darkness of the local government budgetary process which in my mind would do no harm at all. There are, however, drawbacks and I am quite sure we will come to those later in the session. Mr Mundell, please. To increase fiscal power for local government is a good thing. There are existing mechanisms in place to help support businesses and I do wonder if there is an added advantage with the proposal in here within the bill and the reason I am saying that we incentivise businesses locally within our area there are other opportunities through business grants etc and bearing in mind that any revenue goes back to central government at the moment I am not so sure that there is a major advantage from a local government's perspective but anything that will help business start up in a local area has to be a good thing. The other thing that is in the back of my mind as well if we all start alleviating business rates for businesses, attracting them to different council areas there is a risk of obviously your increasing competition that is potentially a good thing too there is a risk of a downward spiral I might suggest. Do you think there is a particular advantage in this power for disadvantaged communities often in many of our poorer areas there are empty businesses some of which have been empty for a long time and often the fact that those premises are empty or that there are no no local shops stop folk from moving there and thriving there so do you think there is an advantage in terms of this being enacted for disadvantaged communities? Mr Mundell if you... Yes I do, I think any incentive to help people in disadvantaged communities develop skills or build businesses, small medium enterprises and bearing in mind I certainly believe that we need to do much more for small medium enterprises and encouraging people from disadvantaged backgrounds to set up in business so anything that will help them do that has to be a good thing I'm just not so sure that this is necessarily the only way to do it especially bearing in mind councils do have powers to help local people through grants or whatever at this moment in time and I'm not sure what the specific advantages are and I'm not wanting to say no to this because it increases flexibility but I'm not so sure that's the only way to do what we're trying to achieve Mr Clark I think it is a useful tool in the box I mean that as others have said there are other methods which can be used to incentivise conduct of business in a particular area or in particular sectors but I think that what this power would do is to allow a local authority to fine tune the non-domestic rating system in their area to perhaps target a specific area target a specific type of business that they want to encourage target individual potentially could be individual streets in an area and that's a a definite advantage to this particular measure but it has to be seen in the context of the wider both non-domestic rating environment and as we mentioned other incentives that are available to businesses for different reasons Thank you, Mr McIferty, please Picking up on the other incentives and indeed other reliefs I wonder about the partial empty relief that's given in a reduction of rateable value via section 24a of the local government Scotland Act 66 that would be in some ways in direct competition to some possibility of relief in this area and I could see local government might be drawn towards this type of relief and away from the 24a relief because the 24a relief will possibly impact on the business rate incentive side of things so I can see that the two things might be in conflict with one another however we do welcome the idea of having some kind of relief that can be targeted to specific areas and indeed gives the councils providing they do not tie themselves up too tightly in setting their schemes to be much more flexible to the individual one-off type of event Stewart Stevenson, please Thank you, Cymru Perhaps Mr Mundell wants to address this first and then Mr Clack how many businesses in Inverclyde did not proceed with business development because of business rates in the last five years Mr Mundell I can give you that specific answer Ok, so that suggests that that is not such a big problem that it has assumed any prominence in your entry My personal entry but obviously one of my colleagues deals with these types of things all the time so generally the amount of business development within our area is not good enough and it probably never will be we need to make sure that we do much more and any tool that we can actually bring to the toolbox will help I'm just trying to test whether this particular tool really is addressing a problem in your experience that's what I'm trying to test and while I accept and understand that the co-face experience of this lies not on the chief executive's desk I take from the fact that it's not on your list of priorities that you're interesting yourself in that it doesn't seem to me to be a particularly big problem for in the client. I'm only asking that in the client Well again you're asking about the specifics there's a whole range of issues that do come to my desk and I am particularly interested in and it's down to employment especially employment for disadvantaged communities and anything that we can do through our community planning partnership we are obviously doing and I actually think that we are having a degree of success in that respect but as I said earlier I don't think it's anywhere near enough now this particular power that's going to be brought into the bill I've already mentioned I'm not so sure that it's necessarily the silver bullet that we need and I do think that there are other mechanisms that we're using through our community planning partnership with partners at the moment through grants and all the rest of it are helping and obviously in the backdrop we've always got to bear in mind depending on the scale of the businesses we're trying to attract to the area the state aid rules as well so that's something else that we have to bear in mind the level of grant that we can give businesses but at this moment in time the specifics of business incentives or whatever through business rates is not something that is on my desk all the time but it's in the mix of a number of ingredients that we need to resolve to help businesses come to our area Right, let me reposition the question a bit if we were to ask business would they benefit from a reduction in business rates, we'd get a 100% positive response so let's accept that and not go there I wouldn't expect the committee to hear specific business names for commercial confidentiality reasons obviously are the chambers of commerce aware of any specific developments that have been kiboshed by the presence of business rates at their current level whether in the generality or in specific areas I think it's very difficult to put any decision on the basis of not proceeding with one project or another at the foot of any one particular cost pressure but the fact is that cost pressures are affecting businesses very strongly continually in the current environment is a major issue for businesses as well in that context business rates are usually the number 2 or number 3 cost for many businesses clearly there are a number of businesses that benefit from the small business bonus scheme and for them it's not an issue at the moment but there are many businesses out there who are facing cost pressures facing cash flow issues and their number 2 or 3 cost after staffing sometimes rental any measure which tackles that number 2 or 3 cost to that business will free up resources within that business to invest Let me just test what you're saying there because I got the sense that you were leading me on the committee to the idea of using this mechanism to support businesses that already exist and I instinctively might be persuadible feel uncomfortable about that because if we were this to have a value it would be much more related to making something new happen and enabling the cost benefit analysis to just cross the boundary to create sustainable business and I really want to just pressure you again are you hearing of specific examples where just that ability to nudge across the boundary would mean that actually more businesses would start I'm not posing this by the way I'm merely asking a line of question so that we can get the case on the table I think there's two aspects I think both supporting the creation of new businesses and sustaining existing businesses are both very important and I'm not sure whether we should be prioritising one over the other both need to receive a high priority because clearly existing businesses are potentially growing employing more staff new businesses yes we need to provide incentives there and there are some incentives within the global scheme that the Scottish Government already operates to support new businesses coming into properties for example Can I just finally test in what you said there what you appear to be suggesting is there be merit for existing businesses getting the support when there is an intention to create new employment I take it you're not making the case for supporting continuity of employment continuity of employment or creating new employment or investing in a business to perhaps extend the premises to open up new areas of operation for that business all those things require investment from the business and all those things therefore impact on the cost of the business and anything that will reduce the cost could incentivise the cost of making change the cost of investing in the business whether that's in new services new products new staff or securing existing employment all those things require investment from the business and the cost pressures on many businesses therefore if we attack that particular cost then we can assist businesses in doing any of those things Is the institute got anything to say on that? Just one thing convener the situation is about any rate relief given the nature of how the set up of properties are with a high level of rental rentally occupied properties it is to make sure that the relief goes to the business that is intended to rather than seeps into the landlords side of things there's plenty of evidence particularly in the 1980s the enterprise zones in England how they did not perhaps bring as much to the table in the promotion of businesses as they did to help landlords to let their properties in itself is no bad thing but it's to consider what the aim of any relief is Well just very briefly convener do you think the bill is currently constructed actually is more likely if this is adopted by councils to help businesses as just saying from help landlords who are rarely anybody's favourite person I think any business rate relief there is a true danger in that some of it will if not initially at rent review times end up with the landlord rather than the business themselves and I see that there is an inherent danger with this relief as well so could the bill therefore I don't know if this is legally competent so just do forgive me could the bill therefore without this being a consideration in rent reviews would that be a or am I making this up and stretching too far I think that would take us into rent legislation and I'm not I don't feel competent to cover that well I most certainly am not so that's for sure thank you okay thank you morning morning in terms of the I know that the federation of small businesses draw the comparison with England where these powers already exist and make the point that they are fairly neutral in the sense that rarely are they actually used and it's difficult certainly in the current financial climate to see where where local authorities would have the resources to be able to finance this and therefore is this really just a bit a toothless PC legislation that's been put in by a government who would not have any the cost to bear and the knowledge that the local government most probably would not be able to finance it Mr Clark I think certainly as I alluded to in the opening remarks that I had earlier it's difficult to see what incentive local authorities would have simply to spend money to no end other than to benefit a number of businesses in the community I think what they would want is to see something some return from that certainly the business rates incentivisation scheme which the Scottish Government has put forward potentially allows to benefit from if for example local authorities choose to reduce rates for particular businesses in their area and attract more business or new businesses are created within that area and are paying more rates as a result then BRIS would allow the local authority to retain a proportion of that but clearly there's been teething problems in terms of setting that up in terms of the levels of expected appeals etc in the first year of operation but I think as that progresses and as local authorities become more able to benefit from additional economic activity in their area and the proceeds of that I think that's the point where this additional flexibility to allow local authorities to incentivise business in their area could result potentially in a positive return for that local authority and that's when I think it would become more attractive to local authorities I just support what's been said just now I've not really got anything to add to that particular point but any grant or support that would be given by the community planning partnership or indeed the council would have to be tied to some performance measure so that we actually get some transformational change through that process to help the businesses grow and indeed attract businesses to the area Mr McAffordy, I would say that it could feed into the single outcome agreements at some point in the future looking at this in terms of community empowerment would the logical conclusion not be to allow local authorities to set their own non-domestic rates in their own areas given that the local elected bodies in those areas what would the view be on that? Mr Mundell I personally think that again going back to my earlier statement about increasing fiscal powers for local authority so that the resources can be applied in a more effective way to the most disadvantaged or whatever I think is a good thing and obviously the rate-boundage issue is important through that Mr Clark it does have very strong advantages being applied throughout Scotland but the ability for local authorities to make adjustments to incentivise business in their area would be a definite improvement on the current system Mr McAffordy I think that whilst it's an attractive option to go for localisation of business rates it would have to go hand in hand with some equalisation policy on local government funding otherwise as was mentioned earlier on the central belt may very well prosper to the detriment of the rest of the country OK Can I maybe follow up on that because the proposal and the bill North Lanarkshire Council has suggested that it may create a race to the bottom do you think that being local authorities to set their own non-domestic rates may lead to a race to the bottom as North Lanarkshire has suggested that this proposal might be I actually made that comment myself at the start, I think that is a risk increasing cross boundary local authority boundary or community partnership boundary competition obviously creates that potential risk of trying to compete in a particular area and obviously that might have an impact on a regional area and it's about making sure that that's done in the right way my own view is that the bill is focused on the most disadvantaged communities and I think that's what local government and the public services are all about is trying to equalise disadvantage and I think what we need to focus on is trying to get those that are unemployed being long unemployed and if we can help them to generate their own business to start with upskill them, I think that's an excellent thing but there is a risk of a downward spiral where we're all competing against each other for the same potential businesses to come to areas respective areas Mr Clark, please in terms of race to the bottom I think that's one of the reasons that we do the current uniform business rate is something that we would be prepared to stick with but giving local authorities the power to make specific measures that would specifically address issues in their own areas which potentially this legislation could do is something that we would certainly find attractive I think that we do need to sustain businesses that are already out there help them to grow and as Mr Stevenson has already mentioned encouraged the creation of those businesses as well because it's the combination of those circumstances that are going to give Scotland the best economic opportunity so I think the most sensible route is to allow a degree of local incentivisation to meet particular local needs but to maintain that within the broad spectrum of a uniform business rate Mr McCafferty, please The race to the bottom is part of it and we see that as a real danger but there's something that happens after that if we go back to the strong connection between rates and rents what we would get after that if you had an area where rates were reduced for a period of time and you couldn't contain the behaviour of landlords what would happen is that the rents may very well increase which would be picked up the next time and the base, the tax base or the rateable value base would increase in that area so I agree with Mr McCafferty and Mr Mundell about the dangers of it but there is a phase 2 in the long term I wonder in 2011 57% of businesses in Scotland either paid zero or reduced business rates which is a fairly significant number thanks to the policies that are being put in place have we seen since that point the introduction of the small business bonus and various other incentivisation schemes have we seen rent rises because of these rates being reduced any evidence at all? there's only anecdotal evidence in some types of property that where there has been evidence in the relation and why there isn't evidence might very well be the overriding impact of the recession where there is evidence in the perverse behaviour of a relief upon rents is within the charitable retail side of things with the 80% mandatory relief that goes out when there's sufficient evidence prior to the recession of landlords from the private sector not being able to compete to fall on rental bids for retail outlets in certain areas because they were effectively outbid by charities who knew that they were going to be getting a cushion on the right side of it thank you Anne McTago please thanks still good morning panel are there any changes what could be made to the provisions to enhance the power and then after more likely for it to be used to be more user friendly accessible transparent Mr Mundell I can't think of any at this particular moment if you're talking specifically about the business rates I'm not in a position to give you an answer on that one I think that the bill is fairly wide ranging in terms of the possibilities within it and it gives a fair amount of leeway to local authorities so I wouldn't have any specific worries about the scope at the moment Mr McAffordy please I do wonder if going back to a point I made earlier on about seeing in the locality a single community rather than a business community and a non-business community can we bring the two of them together because we already have mechanisms where there's consultation with the business community and you could say in the wider sense of things every time there's an election there's a wider consultation with the community but how do we get people together to recognise the interests of a single community in an area okay Cameron Buchanan please Mr Mundell you mentioned earlier about monitoring businesses for performance how do you monitor a business or the uncertainty for performance my comments specifically related to a council or a partnership providing some form of a grant to a business and basically that grant would be tied to some kind of outcome either going to expand the money may well be for some form of equipment or an extension to a property or assistance with moving to a different property basically we would like to see that the proposed outcomes through the business plan will be met and basically if we are offering a grant we would like to see that there is some return on that investment thank you I was also going to ask you spoke about the fact that the grant relieved any types of rate payer for businesses as they see fit employment silicon valleys and in business parks and things like that I'm just concerned at this race to the bottom that how do you grant relief to businesses it's rather overriding condition of granting relief to businesses seems to worry me I can understand why and again in the context of this particular bill which again going back to what I've said about disadvantaged communities where we can focus help and support within a particular location I think that's an important issue an important matter and it will help us as partnerships to develop a particular community area so that's on one hand on the other hand again normal processes would be adopted in terms of bigger business but again through Scottish Enterprise who were here earlier obviously there are approaches that they apply and mechanisms they apply to help attract businesses to different different areas we've just had a success with a new business an American firm coming to our area with the prospect of 500 jobs and again that's through support through Scottish Enterprise grants etc through that mechanism as opposed to the council okay yeah we just can I just add one other point for example if you've got something like a business park in one area and a business park in another area do you anticipate that you would try and match those rates that's a disadvantage people might move because business rates are a very high percentage of business costs that's a concern attached to a race to the bottom and I'm not quite sure how you square that circle because again you might succeed for a period of time and then somebody else adopts a different approach after a few years and you can end up with a business and that happens at this moment in time for different reasons it's the council that should attract that should be deciding the relief isn't it, the council should be empowered to decide what they want to do with the business rates through the bill that's basically what's being proposed okay thank you John Wilson please good morning gentlemen I put this question in context so you know where it's coming from the public petitions committee received a petition from in the west end of Glasgow raised issues about the growth of the large retail sector basically Tesco metros the Sainsbury locals being created and the high streets and town centres to the detriment of some of the smaller traders we examined the petition we looked at the planning aspects to see whether or not it could be dealt with through planning but one of the arguments that's come back to the committee is that maybe it would be better dealt with under part 8 of this legislation that is to deal with the encroachment on the town centres or the high streets by those types of stores do any of you have any comments on how we or whether or not this part of the bill, proposed bill could take on board the community's concerns about the growth of the Tesco metros or Sainsbury's locals or whoever else coming into an area and decimating or potentially decimating local traders on the high street Mr Madel I think what's at the heart of the problem and I think there's different stages a big focus on out-of-town centre type developments with the bigger stores and I think that's had a bigger impact on town centres more than the Tesco metros or even Scotland and people like that who are developing a different product I do see that that can have an impact on small businesses to be honest in my mind's eye I wouldn't necessarily be using the proposed powers on this bill but the Tesco metros I'd be looking to try and assist a local butcher for example to develop in the town centre on the high street in our small towns etc I would rather use these powers in that way and be selective and focused to try and attract smaller businesses as opposed to the national networks like Tesco metros as you've mentioned Mr Clark I think certainly there are fairly wide powers potentially for local authorities within the bill clearly they could be used to address and to incentivise specific business activities within a specific area that's why that's where this fits in to the overall business rates agenda because clearly you've got a national level, national reliefs you've got the enterprise areas this is a lot more local a lot more specific to local circumstances and can be fine tuned a lot better at a local level and I think that's the attraction in it certainly in our membership we've certainly found in the retail side independent stores faring reasonably well over the past couple of years growing fairly strongly in many circumstances and that's extremely welcome and there's various reasons for that people are perhaps moving away from supermarkets particularly for meat etc in the wake of various scandals which have blown up over the piece and that's been to the benefit of smaller independent retailers but I think that's the advantage of the powers within this bill but it allows a local authority to take specific notice of specific local conditions right down to potentially an individual street or a particular community within a local authority area and target that area to help to incentivise and support business in that area Mr McAffarty, please I agree with much of what Mr Clark has said there the only rider I've put on it I question whether the amount of rates that's involved would be sufficient to dissuade a truly determined large organisation Mr Wilson That's no further questions Mark McDonald, please Thank you community I noted in some of the submissions that came in there were some concerns around the application of local tax rate reliefs rather having to be fully funded by authorities to me it strikes that if we want to encourage local flexibility with that should come the local responsibility as well, would that be accepted by the panel? Mr Mundell I don't think there's any issue with certainly Inverclyde council or indeed our local Inverclyde alliance to take the responsibility or indeed the accountability for doing precisely what you've outlined I mentioned earlier on in particular case there are other mechanisms that can be used by grants or whatever to particular communities and indeed some of the communities part of the bill deals with assets and all the rest of it as you know and there are different ways of dealing with that through grants but there's no issue in terms of the accountability with the Inverclyde alliance and I'm sure any other community planning partnership Mr Clark I think if a local authority has a power to to reduce business rates in its area then clearly that could be a cost to that local authority and that's right but I think that the business rights incentivisation scheme ought to be geared in such a way that it allows that local authority to at least benefit in part from the encouragement of enterprise within its area Mr MacGaffrey, please I think what we're saying is that local authority is concerned with the overall picture of funding and they're concerned with anything that they see as an additional cost when they're relatively convinced that the current settlements might be under threat over the next few years so I think that's one of the driver for the type of response I think maybe also in some areas of course not Inverclyde as we've heard but in some areas this partition of two communities may cause the local authority to lose focus on the fact that there is a direct benefit if it works Perhaps I've misunderstood the question in terms of any increased cost or whatever there are a number of issues through this particular bill that I do have concerns about opening comments about the local authorities or indeed the community planning partnerships there are I think yet to be determined in detail significant costs associated with delivering on this particular bill once it's approved etc and it's back to building the capacity the hand holding that's required developing the skills within the communities and indeed some of the assets that will have to be dealt with or transferred or indeed transferred back in again if one of the community groups there are significant potential costs associated with that yet to be determined and that is a serious concern certainly from my perspective I'm by no means an expert on Inverclyde and we're Stuart McMillan here he might drill down into this more but obviously Inverclyde is not too far away from one of Scotland's very large population centres I represent a constituency within the city of Aberdeen but I don't represent the city centre itself so there is obviously local flexibility within local authority areas as well as to where rate relief is applied so it need not be on a full local authority basis it can be targeted to specific areas so if for example within Inverclyde there was a feeling that investment needed to be attracted to a specific area then a rate relief approach could be taken for that specific area rather than having to be applied across the whole of the authority area so I take on board the point you make around the potential if you were to apply it on an authority-wide basis that there would then be a significant potential shortfall in terms of rates but the targeted approach that is offered surely provides some attractions to authorities such as yourself I've said already that it's a tool that could be used to advantage I've also mentioned that I think there's different methods but I would like to comment with regard to the closeness to Glasgow I was actually supposed to be at a meeting with the chief executive leaders through the city region for Glasgow this morning and that is a different level altogether where all the councils within the Clyde valley are working closely together obviously there's a billion pounds worth of investment over a number of years tied to that and all these issues of incentives will be examined and have to be examined to make sure that one council area is not disadvantaged more than the other but the whole concept of the city deal in this particular case is to look at that region and improve the economic vitality the gross value-added outcomes for that particular area so it's not just at a local council area and indeed down at a local community area we have to consider these things we have to do the joined up bit of what the bill is trying to do to make sure that all the partners join up and work closer together I think that we've made big strides forward already over the last few years since the previous legislation came in but there's always more that can be done I wonder gentlemen if you see any advantage for councils to actually consult with business improvement districts if they intend to use this power Mr Mundell Well again the main thrust of this particular bill is consultation and engagement with different communities in every area we do have the chamber we honour the community planning partnership we engage with the federation of small business and there's different engagement type mechanisms that are used that's another issue as well local authorities are required to engage and consult on a whole range of friends are seen through some of the literature that I've read before I've come here references to CLD consultation children services consultation there's a whole myriad of different levels of consultation and the bill itself talks about consultation with community bodies I'm particularly keen on ensuring we consult with the communities themselves rather than just the bodies there's another point I would like to take the opportunity to steal the opportunity to raise a point too we're being challenged through this bill quite properly I think in terms of improving community engagement I do wonder in terms of the national outcomes for example how the Scottish Government actually engage with the communities to ensure that they develop the most appropriate outcomes up at that level obviously we have to engage to ensure that we have come up with the right outcomes and performance measures etc at a local level but there are different levels there and I just think we're potentially missing a trick in terms of the national outcomes as well Mr Clark I think it's an interesting one I mean obviously one of the premises of Beds is a small supplement on the business rates payable in order to fund the scheme but certainly I see no reason the number of business improvement districts in Scotland and I would see no reason why they shouldn't be part and parcel of the the consultations in terms of the application of any of the powers under the bill Mr McAfrate I think the consultation works very well with Beds at the moment that taking Mr Clark's point up about the supplement of course where there are issues with it sometimes it's not everybody in an area is in a position to participate and so there would be an opportunity with this relief I believe thank you Mr Mundell raises the number of issues any submission that I think will be useful to the committee obviously today we're focusing on part 8 but thanks for your submission it will be useful I think finally you I think it was Mr Mundell that said that this power would not be the silver bullet but it is something that could be used with a basket of other powers that local authorities have do you have any ideas of change that could be made to the provisions as they stand in the draft bill that would make the power more likely to be used within that basket of other opportunities that are out there in terms of incentivisation Mr Mundell in relation to the business rates the only thing that really concerns me is 100% relief for businesses and how that would impact on the council financially so that's a particular issue I would like to see addressed in some way or another I couldn't give you the specific answer in relation to that other than to say that if within existing resources our partners are working closer together to apply these to remove duplication you mentioned that earlier this morning in absolutely the case that needs to be developed further in that sense but in terms of this type of thing and any other additional cost burdens within the bill we don't necessarily have the cash to deal with these at the moment but I can't give you a specific in terms of an improvement other than being aware of that particular concern Mr Clark as I've said earlier I think the key is to ensure that the business rate incentivisation scheme is working correctly at a national level I very much see the powers within this bill as being something which can be used at a very very local level I mean there are other ways of applying reliefs nationally which the Scottish Government has control of across rated properties in Scotland I think the advantage of this scheme it can operate at a very local level to address very specific needs it does not need to be hugely expensive for the local authority but I think that it would certainly help if the business rate incentivisation scheme was set up to allow the local authority to benefit from increased economic activity in its area I think that in year 1 there is every possibility that there will be a low take up I think after that if the situation is to make it more transparent within the budgetary setting that this is available under the councils to consider it and maybe even have to take partitions with regard to it at least it would give a transparency that might help its take up in future years I thank you gentlemen for your evidence today I suspend and move into private session