 Fwrdd gwrth i chi i ddylai'r gwesteitiau gydaeth Cymru yw ni'n athlawn a ddedweithio'r gwasanaeth gydaethol yn cyd- network gwastrach yn cymryd? Rhyw gwrth i chi ddweithio'r gwesteitiau gydaeth, os y maen nhaw fy yspoir yn cymryd ddigwydd yr agendaeth yma yn cigfyrpaethau i ddiwg gwn, ddigwydd yr agendaeth yma yn cigfyrpaethau i ddigwydd yr agendaeth yma yn cymryd yn cymryd, rhai i fwy ar gyflymu? Rhaid i chi ddweithio'r digwydd yr agendaeth yma yn cymryd. Yn ystod y cyflau sydd o'r instrumentau o gyflinwyr, ysgol ynghylch i bwysig ynghylch, ysgol ynghylch i'r newid ynghylch i 2022. Felly, rwyf i chi'n gweithio i'r Mycallin, ymddangasgwympu a'r ddechrau i ddechrau i'r cyflinwyr joined us remotely. I also welcome officials, first and bedos, head of agriculture transformation for environment and climate change, and Dr Tom Rossin, head of climate change legislation. Thank you for attending this session, everyone. This instrument is laid under the affirmative procedure, which means that Parliament must approve it before it comes into force. Following this evidence session, the committee will be invited at the next agenda item to consider a motion to approve the instrument. I now invite the minister to make a short opening statement. Good morning, everyone, and I hope that you can hear me. I am very pleased to join you today to give evidence in support of draft regulations to establish Scotland's nitrogen balance sheet. Nitrogen is present right across our economy and environment. The benefits arising from it cannot be overstated as nitrogen is essential for the production of food, on which we would agree that we all depend, and many other processes. However, the harms associated with losses of nitrogen into the environment can be significant. Those include contributions to climate change through greenhouse gas, impacts on human health, through air quality pollutants and impacts on biodiversity, through excess nutrients entering terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. All of that means that the efficient use of nitrogen is a very important matter with far-reaching consequences. To give just one example, the efficient use of agricultural fertilisers helps to reduce waste of nutrients thereby minimising environmental harms and also realising economic benefits for those who produce our food. The importance of understanding nitrogen use at a national scale was recognised by the Parliament during the 2019 climate change bill process, with a commitment to develop that, which we are discussing today. That has been taken forward by the Scottish Government in a way that has provided key stakeholders across a range of sectors and interests with opportunities to input their views. I would like to take the opportunity to record my thanks to all those who have contributed and to the scientific experts who have supported what is a very technical and complex piece of work. In December, we published the full dataset for the first version of the balance sheet, accompanied by a comprehensive report setting out key findings. The draft SSI will, if agreed by your committee today, serve to formally establish the following key aspects in law. First, we have prepared the balance sheet to be as broad in scope as is possible within the constraints of data availability. It covers not only the core engine of nitrogen use that is associated with food production, but also transport, industry, forestry and others. It also, very interestingly, not only looks at nitrogen flow within Scotland but into and out of where that data has been available. The broad scope allows for a truly economy-wide calculation to be undertaken of efficiency of nitrogen use in Scotland. That term is defined in line with international scientific guidelines, meaning that the ratio of nutrient nitrogen contained in useful output, such as foodstuffs, to the total input of nitrogen through both human and natural processes. However, I like to think of it as being the deficit between what goes in and what comes out, although perhaps my officials will be cringing at that very simplistic thought process. Application of that calculation to the initial nitrogen balance sheet, that data sheet, which mainly relates to about 2019, leads to a 25 per cent baseline figure for national nitrogen use efficiency. However, I emphasise that any single metric can only capture a very small part of what is a rich and complex landscape. However, if members are interested in the detail that I suggest reading the accompanying report, which is very interesting indeed. Very quickly, convener, a second feature of our proposed approach is for the balance sheet to be reviewed and updated annually with associated reporting to Parliament. That will support the on-going development of the evidence-based, as well as keeping track of progress in Scotland's nitrogen use efficiency. We are, through our knowledge, the first country in the world to enshrine in law a nitrogen balance sheet that is both economy-wide and regularly updated. We would all agree that it is a further example of the Parliament's determination that Scotland should lead the way in the climate emergency. It will provide Governments and Parliament with a powerful new tool to support evidence-based policy making at the interface of several strategic areas. I am very interested in the extent to which we have a balance sheet that shows us how climate change, air quality, water pollution co-existers that we can pull to make some of our policy objectives. Striving towards the efficient use of nitrogen helps to ensure that economic, environmental and wellbeing outcomes can be achieved alongside one another. Having established the balance sheet, we have provided an innovative new evidence base to support that. It is a very early stage in the journey, rather than a final destination, which is why we have committed to maintain a review. I very much look forward to continuing to work with Parliament and others with an interest in nitrogen as that work continues and as the balance sheet develops. Indeed, as we see other countries around the world, perhaps following where Scotland's led international comparators will arrive. For now, I will leave it there, convener, and my officials and I would be very happy to answer any questions. Thank you very much for your opening statement, minister. If members have questions if you could indicate in the chart bar, and I see that some members have indeed indicated that they have questions for the minister, I will start with Mark Ruskell to be followed by Liam Kerr. Mark Ruskell, over to you please. Thanks, convener. Can I just welcome this? This is a world first. The previous committee spent a lot of time looking at the impact of nitrogen on climate change and air quality and water quality, so it is really great to see this coming through climate change act and now actually coming into law. I wanted to ask the minister just about the application of that. You said that it is early days, and it is a world-leading approach. I am just thinking about how the balance sheet and how the action plan that will be associated with it will be used by regional land use partnerships or through river basin management plans in practical management of nitrogen. In Scotland previously, we have had nitrate vulnerable zones. There have been attempts to try and manage nitrogen in areas where we have particular problems in terms of air pollution or water pollution. How does that provide a change in the way that practical land managers at a regional or local level can go about their work? How does it inform that work going forward and the options that are available? Thanks, Mark Ruskell. It is a really good point. I would begin again by reiterating it as early days. It is complex and will require review. As that review continues, as the evidence is gathered, it will become a more useful policy development tool. In the meantime, however, I think that it is primary use and something that I am most excited about is the extent to which it shows us how all those areas that you have identified interact with one another. If we think about the state of play just now prior to having the balance sheet, we know that there are actions being taken right across government within the climate change plan update—for example, with regard to agricultural emissions, within Cleaner Air for Scotland 2, as regards air quality. Those actions are being taken in their individual areas. What the balance sheet will allow us to do in government and external to government will allow us to see how those actions interact. Not only does that help what we are doing in the individual areas but it also allows us to see, for example, what actions can we take that provide the most co-benefits across those strategic areas. In terms of the trajectory, having established the balance sheet will allow it to develop with greater information, with more data. Its use within government will be about complementing those actions that we are already taking across the piece. I hope that, in addition to that, it will be a really important tool for analysis and suggestion of outputs outside of government by all the folk who we know are working very hard across all those important areas. If you are involved in a regional land use partnership, you have got all those land managers and stakeholders together right now. Can you use that right now? Could it help to inform decisions about what farms are doing around riparian habitat management or nitrogen application on a catchment scale? Yes, it is helpful. Can you take it down to that granular scale at this point? I would suggest probably not, particularly as regards that 25 per cent baseline figure, because that is a high-level figure. Those are not regional-level data sets, they are not farm-level data sets. That might be something that we would hope to develop in time, but what we have established is a high-level Scotland-wide, economy-wide picture from which developments will come. Okay, thanks. Thank you very much Mark for those questions. Let me bring in Liam Kerr to be followed by Fiona Hyslop. Yes, thank you convener. Good morning minister. This does really strike me as welcome but extraordinarily complex, so I just wonder if I might ask a couple of things to clear up in my own mind. Section 85 defines nitrogen use efficiency as meaning use set comparing what goes into what comes out. Regulation 4 sets the baseline for that at 25 per cent. Can you explain to me, what does that actually mean? 25 per cent of what is going in precisely where and coming out of precisely where? Why was 25 per cent felt to be the right or the appropriate figure for the efficient use of nitrogen? Thanks, convener. You are asking the questions that I asked myself at the beginning of the process. I said that my officials would be cringing that me describing it as what goes in and what does not come out, but that is how I like to think about the processes. You can imagine how that would happen, for example, in food production, the nitrogen that is put into the food production system, not to be crude, but what is excreted, essentially, is how we calculate the deficit, as I have been calling it, as regards that 25 per cent figure. That is essentially the baseline that has been calculated as where we might see we are across the board just now with the economy. That is explained really nicely in the report, which is probably better than I can today. However, I understand that we have figures for nitrogen use efficiency across, let's say, food production, and we can break that down into livestock farming and crop production. I understand that the overall figure for nitrogen use efficiency in agriculture is 28 per cent, so you can see that that national 25 per cent figure is quite heavily dominated by the agricultural figure. However, because it is the whole economy, we build in the figure for forestry, for waste, for industry. That is what gets us to the 25 per cent figure. I can bring in Dr Rusyn as well, because he is far more into the detail of this than I am. However, what that 25 per cent figure represents is the state of play on average across the board within our economy just now. I am not sure whether that is helpful, but I am happy to bring in my team as well, if you would like a little bit more of a scientific explanation on that. It is helpful, minister. I am very grateful to you. I would not mind if one of your officials is there with an answer, but I did follow quite clearly what you said there, so it would be great to hear from your officials. On the second element of the question about what does the baseline represent, I would not really have anything to add to how the ministers expressed it very well. This is the state of play that the best available data leads us to. On the first aspect of the question about unpacking a bit what those key outputs and inputs are that give you that 25 per cent. I am happy to spend as much time as the committee's patients will allow on packing those things. There is a huge amount of detail in the published reports around those things, but, as the minister alluded to earlier, the key outputs that are forming the top of that ratio of calculation are predominantly to do with foodstuffs. They also include wool production, which contains nitrogen, and forestry products, many of which contain significant amounts of nitrogen. Those are the main useful outputs coming out of the economy-wide calculation. The input side that forms the bottom of that ratio is, in many ways, more interesting in that that represents a combination of anthropogenic inputs. By far, the largest one is the application of fertilizer for agriculture, but there are other things too, such as the amounts of nitrogen contained in fossil fuels that are combusted for the purpose of transport and industry and energy supply. There are also purely natural processes that are adding nitrogen into the Scottish environment. There is nitrogen being deposited out of the air onto ecosystems, and there are processes such as biological nitrogen fixation, which is directly converting nitrogen from the air into part of plant material. Both the anthropogenic and the natural processes form part of those inputs into the system. That is another way to look at the point that the minister is making. It is a very complicated system that is bringing together both human interventions and purely natural processes. In thinking about that 25 per cent baseline, it is really worth unpacking quite a bit of that and thinking about it very carefully. I will stop there. I will be happy to expand further, if that will be helpful. I am very grateful to you both for that summary. Thank you very much. Liam, if Fiona Hyslop has a question to be followed by Jackie Dunbar. Fiona, over to you please. That was a detailed question that I am interested in the context. I wonder if the minister can briefly expand on why nitrogen is so important and perhaps in relation to emissions of greenhouse gases generally, but I am conscious of time, so a brief answer would be helpful. The first and foremost point is that nitrogen is one of the fundamental building blocks of life, meaning that it is present everywhere. As we have said, it is the vital underpinning of food production, which we all agree that we need to eat. However, what that balance sheet shows us is that it is not just food that is so important for other economic processes, such as the production of natural fibre, as Thomas just referred to, and forestry materials. While that means that some nitrogen in some situations can present very real challenges, including greenhouse gases, nitrous oxide, for example, and impacts on water quality, it cannot always just be viewed as a problem, so we need to be prepared to take a nuanced approach to what that balance sheet tells us. For example, as I mentioned, nitrous oxide is a greenhouse gas, the emissions of which we know contribute to climate change. Although that is a helpful dataset that demonstrates nitrogen across the economy and coming into and out of Scotland, what we need to be prepared to do is to understand that nitrogen is ever present. It is not always a negative thing. We need to identify where it is and work on that. It was in relation to Mark Ruskell's question that I mentioned that there is policy work, as you know, Ms Hyslop, which is happening right across Government, most particularly through the climate change plan update, which already seeks to pull all those levers to reduce the negative effects of nitrogen as a greenhouse gas. Thank you and back to you, convener. Thank you very much. Fiona Hyslop, Jackie Dunbar has a question, and then the final question that it looks like is going to come from Natalie Dawn. Jackie, over to you please. Thank you, convener. This is really, really informative today, so can I thank you. It was just briefly to ask if the minister can maybe explain the timeframe for the immediate next steps for the balance sheet going forward. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Ms Dunbar. So if the committee are able to indicate your support for the draft SSI today, we will be on track to fulfil the legislative requirements well in advance of the deadline of 23 March, and that was to have the initial version of the balance sheet formally established in law, that's what we'll do today. Then, as I've said in my opening remarks, the process will be on-road review and updating to Parliament of the balance sheet moving forward, and that will begin from next year onwards. Thank you very much. Back to you, convener. Thank you very much, Jackie. And final question, I believe, is from Natalie Dawn. Natalie, over to you. Thanks, convener. Yeah, I agree with my colleagues that this has been very informative today. Minister, I'm just wondering if you can clarify, we've touched on this already a little, but we understand that food production obviously lies at the heart of the balance sheet, but can you expand a little on some of the other areas that it covers as well? Yeah, of course. Thank you, Ms Dawn. So a really important point, and I've tried to make it throughout, but just, I suppose, again, food production is at the heart of this, because nitrogen is at the heart of food production, but it is not the only flow, and we've sought to reflect that in the balance sheet, which is categorically not just about agriculture and agriculture. The balance sheet covers the use of nitrogen in forestry, as well as flows of nitrogen associated with fossil fuel combustion in sectors such as transport, industry and energy supply. It also looks to waste management processes that serve to recycle nitrogen, take it in through human nutrition and back into parts of the wider system. Here we have a picture right across Scotland and where data allows into and out of Scotland. It's a very broad scope approach. It is unique in the world and I very much hope that other countries will follow where Scotland's led so that we can have that international comparator of how Scotland is efficiently using nitrogen, as compared with our friends and neighbours across the world. Thank you. That's very helpful. Great. Thank you very much, Natalie, and thank you minister for those answers. I believe that there are no further questions from members, so we will move to agenda item 3. Agenda item 3 is formal consideration of motion 02578, calling for the net zero energy and transport committee to recommend approval of the climate change nitrogen balance sheet Scotland regulations 2022. Only the minister and members may speak in this debate, so I therefore invite the minister to speak or to simply move this motion. I'll move the motion, convener. Thank you. Thank you very much minister. Let me ask members, are there any final contributions or questions from members? There are no final questions or contributions, so the question is that motion 02578 in the name of the minister for environment and land reform be approved. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. The committee will therefore report on the outcome of this instrument in due course. I invite the committee to delegate authority to me as convener to approve a draft of the report for publication. With that, let me thank the minister and the officials for joining the meeting today. Thank you very much. I will suspend the meeting briefly for the setup of the next panel. For our next item, we welcome our second set of witnesses for our inquiry into the role of local government and its cross-sector partners in financing and delivering in net zero Scotland. We are hearing today from representatives of sustainable development within the public sector and also from community groups. The first panel today comprises representatives from the Sustainable Scotland Network and I am pleased to welcome George Tarvat, director of the Sustainable Scotland Network, John Wincott, chair of the Sustainable Scotland Network and environmental services co-ordinator at Fife College, Mark Williams, vice-chair of the Sustainable Scotland Network and head of sustainability and climate change at Scottish Water and Lorna Jarvie, student group member at the Sustainable Scotland Network and co-ordinator sustainability and fleet at South Ayrshire Council. Thank you all for accepting our invite this morning and for joining this panel. It is very good to see you. We have just over an hour for this panel and I believe that Mr Wincott will briefly introduce the Sustainable Scotland Network. All questions should then be directed to him in the first instance and he will nominate one of his co-panelists to answer questions from members. Mr Wincott, I will hand over to you for a brief opening statement. Thank you very much. Thank you, convener, and thank you very much for inviting us here today. We really appreciate the opportunity. First of all, I would just like to apologise for not having any advanced papers available for the committee. The invitation, unfortunately, arrived on Christmas Eve and our staff were already away. We did try to get some papers in later, but I believe that there have been problems with the email system as well at the Scottish Government, none of which has helped us, but apologies for that. I just want to briefly introduce SSM, because I am not sure exactly how much the committee understands what SSM really does. It has been said that if we did not exist, you would need to invent us. I think that that is more important as we progress with this climate emergency. I would like to compare our function, for instance, with the CCC. I tend to regard the CCC as very much a critical friend. In that regard, we are different. SSM is regarded as a delivery partner working with the Government and with Parliament to try and deliver on the climate emergency and climate change mitigation goals. SSM is made up of practitioners, people who work at the coal phase. You can see from the panellists today that we are all actually active in working in the climate change sphere. If you look at the last six months, we have been heavily involved in working with the Scottish Government on producing the guidance, the public sector leadership climate emergency guidance that was released late last year. There is an indication of the type of people we use or we have as members in that. The membership for that piece of work was selected from our dealing group panel and included people from Scottish Water, NatureScot, local authorities, colleges, the NHS, universities, obviously the SSN secretariat and Scottish Government officials. Then, on December 8, we had our post-COP conference, which was titled COP26, What Next? We used that conference to launch the guidance into our membership. We had around about 200 people attending that. We launched the guidance to explain how it would work and also use workshops to try and start to address the challenges that people were facing when it comes to the challenges that we face on climate change. We also worked very strongly with the Government on the public body climate change duties reporting. In that area, we provide support, we provide resources and we provide analysis. The analysis that we think is particularly important because when public bodies submit these reports, they are very detailed spreadsheets and what SSN does is pull key data out from that. For instance, in our 1920 analysis, the public bodies reduced emissions between 2015-16 and 2019-20 by 28 per cent, which was no mean feat. Local authorities on their own reduced emissions by 10.7 per cent between 2017-18 and 2019-20. Local authorities also saved over 54,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2019-20, with projects that they implemented then. SSN is also heavily involved in addressing the challenges that we are all facing regarding climate change mitigation. The challenges are often labelled skills, delivery and finance. Clearly, those are major challenges going forward. What SSN provides is an atmosphere of collaboration, support and trust. I have underlined trust in my notes because trust is so important in the acceleration of delivery that we are all facing now. I noticed one of the panellists last week who said that we need to be able to make mistakes and we do because we are working in a very difficult environment and learning as we go. The trust element that SSN brings with our members and steering group means that we can talk about things that have not gone well and stop other people from making the same mistakes. We deliver those by providing rules, tools and training, rules that you can see from the guidance that we have produced with the Scottish Government. Tools behind that are what we are producing a manual at the moment that will be delivered to our members to enable them to use the guidance better and training will be sharing best practice. We deliver those by bringing a breadth of perspective, experience and maturity from the membership that we have in SSN and all our members, effectively, provide contribution in kind by virtue of the time that is devoted to our efforts. We will try to give our answers brief on wind-up shortly. We will follow up with Britain's supplementary information, should that be necessary. Thank you again for giving us the time today. Thank you very much, John, for that opening statement. It is a pleasure to have you and your colleagues in front of the committee. We will now move on to questions and let me begin with the first question. During the previous two meetings of the committee, we heard from the UK Climate Change Committee, which you mentioned, and from a range of local authorities. The evidence given during those sessions highlighted concern over a lack of strategic consultation between the Scottish Government and local authorities and partners in relation to net zero implementation, a lack of detailed policy guidance and called into question whether the 2030 targets for the heat and building strategy were achievable. Do you agree with those concerns and what do you see as the main challenges faced by your members in reaching net zero targets across the different sectors that you represent? I think that I always have to agree with concerns expressed by the CCC. They are experts and they provide a tremendous amount of analysis and detail. If they are expressing concerns, we have to take really strong cognizance of that. We are all aware of the tremendous challenge that we face. It is not easy. Achieving the target for 2030 and the ongoing target for 2045 is going to take a huge amount of effort. We like to think that the guidance that has been released late last year will provide a lot more help and assistance for all public bodies. For the first time, it really starts to break down in detail what people are aiming to achieve, but beyond that, there will be statutory guidance produced, I believe, this year by Government officials and obviously the department. We will be producing the manual and the much more detailed approaches that can be used. I think that we are all concerned that the changes that we are facing and the efforts and challenges that we will be facing both technically and also socially are tremendous. Anybody who is not concerned maybe does not understand the problem. John Lennon, thank you very much for your point. The other common theme emerging from the evidence sessions that we had with the local authorities was that they did not expect the Scottish Government to finance the transition to net zero at a local government or a local authority level. They make the point that the vast majority of funding will have to come from the private sector. Do you agree with this approach or do you agree with this statement? If so, what concrete steps are being taken by your organisation and the partners and members that you work with? What steps are being taken to leverage in private sector funding? Are we just at the beginning of this process or are you seeing good examples of public-private partnership where some of that private sector funding will start to feed in to the transition? It is early days for the leveraging of private funding. The thing to bear in mind, as I said in the introduction, is that SSN is all public bodies in Scotland. Although local authorities are no other focus of the investigation by the committee, what we are bringing primarily is that collaboration is working better together as public bodies across the piece. Funding is an element of that as well. At the moment, funding is very much given to each public body. It could be that there are opportunities for better funding change, where funding that is in one body's bank account, if you like, could be better spent by sharing opportunities with another public body. However, SSN is always open to talking to the private sector and we have private sector companies and organisations that we are talking to. However, it is very early days for certain. Again, I am sure that we recognise that the Scottish Government is not going to be in a position to fund all the changes that are necessary. Just a brief follow-up on that. Presumably, among your member organisations, there will be a high number of public sector buildings that will have to be converted to meet the heat and buildings strategy by 2030. Aside from the channeling of private sector finance, has work started by identifying the number of buildings that have to be converted and how that might work across different local authority areas? You mentioned that some of the buildings and some of the projects would best be served if they were across local government areas. Has work begun with that initial step of identifying the buildings that will have to be converted to meet the 2030 targets? Absolutely. It varies across the piece. Some local authorities are more advanced than others. Some colleges are more advanced than others. NHS has done a really excellent piece of work on looking at their buildings. I must say that the recent release of funding that was originally announced £95 million, which was then increased to £200 million in grants for primary colleges in the NHS, has been a big boost to our efforts, especially the fact that it provided pre-capital funding, if you like, pre-capital spending, which has enabled, for instance, five colleges where I get people who pay my wages and my day job to start looking at how we can put together projects now that we were not able to look at before. Some of the CECON funding, if you want to call it that, where we can start looking at projects and getting the term shovel-ready projects available so that when funding becomes available, we are ready to go. That is good. Let us not pretend that the building situation is easy because it really is not. Just on my estate alone, one of my campuses has got a mix of old and new building. The old building has only just managed to replace single glazed aluminium frame windows with double glazing. It is gas-fired boilers. If we are going to take out those gas-fired boilers and put in something else, there is going to be a massive insulation programme required on the basic fabric of that building. Or we are going to look at things like hydrogen instead, and if we are going to look at hydrogen, what are the plans for hydrogen long-term, when will it appear in CACODY where that campus is? Or are we looking at other technologies that are perhaps in their infancy at the moment? Buildings is a huge programme, but everybody I talk to is really heavily engaged in buildings. Everybody is looking at it as a serious challenge for certain. Thank you very much, John. You have touched on some issues that other members will want to pursue. Let me bring in Fiona Hyslop. Fiona, over to you. Thank you for joining us. I want to talk about conservation designation areas and ask the panel about the challenges for buildings, particularly around glazing insulation options and potential restrictions. I also know that Historic Environment Scotland has been very active in this, with innovations working with Edinburgh City Council. Do you think that a balance can be struck between historic, urban environments, celebration and preservation of those, as well as future proofing them for climate change? We know that there has been a very successful conservation area regeneration scheme across Scotland. Is there anything more like a conservation area climate change scheme that would enable us to tackle conservation areas in particular, but I would be interested in your views there, and if you can direct who might be most appropriate to answer that. Thank you. Just by introduction, you have hit an earl on the head with a really difficult challenge. This is one of those areas where the Scottish Government has some of the levers that are really important. For instance, I have seen planning application being submitted to change buildings from single-glazed, wooden frame to double-glazed, with plastic flames that look identical, but the frames are rejected because they are not the same as wood. Whether you say that you should conserve the original material, which may not be the most suitable for climate change purposes, or whether you say that you should conserve the original look is a really interesting question. That is probably the decision that the Scottish Government working with Historic Environment Scotland could potentially look at. What are the best solutions to this, which provide a good answer regarding climate change mitigation and carbon reduction, but also do not detract from the historic nature of the building? I do not know if any of my colleagues want to add to that. I am not seeing any waving hands, so I may be it. Is there anybody else who wants to come on that? I know that, because of my previous experience as a minister, there is work on this. I suppose we need to find out more from local authorities why it has not been as rolled out as much as it could be. I will move on to my next question, which is actually a bit different. Say George, you just wanted to come in. He was just slow with his review, but not so well. Just a very quick point to emphasise the fact that the SSN is a planned public sector, so Historic Environment Scotland has been a very active SSN member over the years, so we have probably worked with it and it probably lends itself to the work that the SSN does in terms of local place collaboration, recognising that those are significant challenges. There is probably a need for a shift in terms of how local authorities address those issues in terms of planning regulations, but our role would be to bring our members together to say how we tackle the problem together. It was really just a point to the fact that Historic Environment Scotland has been a very active SSN member over the years, so we have worked with it to get the right advice. Thank you very much, and partnership is the seamless inquiry. If I can move on to the area of water. I know that you talked about innovative partnerships with local authorities and public sector agencies, and I would be particularly interested in the area of work with Scottish Water, particularly if your members could comment. Some of the challenges about working together—for example, on flood prevention—have been some very good work with local authorities and Scottish Water and Scottish Canals, but I know that, from the Scottish Canals perspective, more can be done with West Lothian and Edinburgh, for example, councils, in helping to prevent work there. If you could comment on some of the opportunities there, and I know that there is a limited time, if you also want to address any issues around rivers and Scotland's waterways, we know from the Environmental Audit Committee in England about concerns around levels of pollution, and the Scottish Water's net zero route map, for example, might be helpful in that. Again, there are views on partnership working, but the area of water, in particular, would be interesting to hear your views. Thank you. That is a really good, very broad question, if I may say. I am sure that I will pass over to Mark shortly and he will keep it as brief as he can, but that is an excellent question. Rivers, especially in the pollution rivers, is very much a hot topic at the moment, but Mark, would you like to comment on that, please? I would like to. First of all, the key point that you raised there was about the partnerships, and that has been a theme of the last couple of questions. From my perspective, we cannot deliver net zero as a single organisation any of us. It is really about the partnerships to help to deliver the on-the-ground improvements that we need to see to the geographic scale that we can deliver net zero on. When we look at those partnerships, we look at, for example, the things that we have had to do over the years in Glasgow around things like the metropolitan Glasgow drainage programme. That recognised that we cannot, as Scottish Water, wrestle with the drainage issues in Glasgow. We need all the multiple local authorities, roads authorities, developers and various other partners around that table to help us to make the strategic choices that enable Glasgow to sustain and drain its infrastructure in the future. Out of that, we also call things like Clyde Gateway and the opportunity to bring in things like district heat into that sort of approach. Getting those partners together is really key to unlocking both the finance in terms of the investment that is required to deliver this. We are also joining together the sources of heat, the recipients of heat, and enabling that the projects to work appropriately. The Scottish Water involves being open to those partnerships, whether it is in the Stirling district heating programmes or the advanced manufacturing innovation districts that are developing around southern parts of Glasgow and the airport area. From my perspective, partnership is really key to deliver the issues and the investments required that was referenced earlier on. From a water perspective more and more generally, I am really keen that we see water more reflected in the goals of net zero. The use of water in the home, how we heat water, how we drain our infrastructure, we bring together both climate adaptation and mitigation together when we start to look at that sort of scale. As Scottish Water, we will actively and are actively seeking partnerships and working with local authorities, both on the drainage side and in looking at how we use water in the opening and environment and so on. When we look more broadly, the other area that partnership is really key is in the landscapes that we operate within and in terms of what we can do to improve the natural capital of Scotland, to improve the ability of Scotland's landscapes to lock up carbon and to improve the water quality and management of water and natural resources. Scottish Water is again about partnerships, the partnerships that we are building with Forestry Land Scotland around some of the lands that they lease from us around lock capturing and how we work with them on the land management plans to support the delivery of improved carbon capture, improved quality and improved biodiversity into that environment. Throughout the entirety of net zero, partnerships have to be about how we, as public bodies, work together to first understand the issues, because it is complex, as was mentioned earlier, and to find those solutions to build the capacity to deliver that both in terms of investment and the skills and the capabilities. That is a very high-level walkthrough on a number of different issues there, but I am happy to take any further further questions. Let me ask you, Mark, just what challenges are. What would enable that to happen better? We have got some good examples. We have got to see how we can move them at scale now, to scale them up to deliver more around these different areas. I have mentioned the advanced manufacturing site in Glasgow. I am not particularly close to it, but it is something that I look at. That is a great example of bringing multiple partners together to start the flywheel and to start that generation of ideas, investment and capacity-building to deliver more. From my perspective, I think that making the connections, looking at national and local and regional planning and seeing how we can join this up even more. I am speaking a fair bit recently with Lewis Barlow at the Scottish Government, who is looking into driving the carbon agenda for the city region and regional growth deals. Looking at how we build that carbon thinking into the initiatives from the Government and local government is one of the key opportunities for us to understand the problem, to understand where carbon is and to join the partners together to look at how we leverage that investment and those opportunities to deliver low-carbon infrastructure going forward. From my perspective, it is about starting to generate more activity. Generally, the flywheel will go in a bit further, so we can start to see that spring up all over Scotland. We look at what works well in the existing partnerships. Why have we been able to deliver some of those things around Stirling and the Aquilibrium project working at Campbelltown, for example, to support the heat and the ledger centre? It is about how we look at those opportunities and the partners. What works well? How do we learn from those? How do we apply it further? I think that there are some great examples there that we just got to get more recognition of. When you mentioned the smart canals or the Scottish canals, looking at how we can integrate infrastructure to support the collective outcomes, it is not easy, and it takes time and effort to engage and build those networks, but that is the sort of thing that we need to have across Scotland to drive the net to your agenda. That is very interesting, Mark. Chair John, have you got MDLs that you want to bring in on water before I hand back to the convener? Is there MDLs that wants to come in on that? No, I think that I did it really well. Thank you. I will hand back to Dean Lockhart, the convener. Thank you very much. Fiona, let me bring in Monica Lennon to be followed by Liam Kerr. Monica, over to you, please. Thank you, convener, and good morning to all of our panel today. My interest today is waste management and the role of public bodies in Scotland's journey to a fully circular economy. How do public procurement practices need to develop to achieve a circular economy? How well has this work been co-ordinated across the public sector? Where is innovation happening? And what do you see as being the main challenges? Thank you. A huge question. Again, somebody should have warned that this committee has big questions. Circular economy, where do you begin? I listened to last week's presentations and there was a lot mentioned there about the original, the starter door consumption. What are we buying and how easy is it to buy products that are circular economy products? Just on a personal level, I bought things that are refillable, and when I try to refill them, the shop I bought them from doesn't sell the refill, I have to order it by mail, which costs me £2 more than the original product. That's not a refillable product. Nobody is going to spend £2 more for the refill than they did for the original. Once you've got tiny things like that causing the issues, how a big organisation is going to move on? However, you're right to tackle it. Look at procurement and the public pound, how can we leverage that? Obviously, if public bodies are initiating better thinking from suppliers, those suppliers will then roll that out to their other customers. We can start to use our spending to say to suppliers, look, we want reusable, we want minimum materials, we want no packaging, all of these things. That means that they'll adopt those practices across the broader piece. It's a really good point about how we use procurement to drive that forwards. Waste is a huge challenge. I know that the target for zero waste to landfill was pushed back because of the challenges around being ready for that. I know that there's a lot of talk about whether energy from waste is really a better way of waste disposal. Clearly, it's better than putting it in a landfill, but how sustainable is energy from waste? There are a lot of questions around that. Again, looking at what SSN can bring, if it's determined that waste is a key factor for public bodies in general, SSN then starts working on that, looking at that as part of the guidance that we've already produced, part of delivering the manual behind that and looking at workshopping. To be honest, nobody around the table at SSN has all the answers. That's why we exist. However, when you put us all together, we're much bigger than the sum of our parts. That's where the strength lies. I don't know if any of my colleagues want to go in. We are hearing lots of examples across the public sector of good practice, but one of the frustrations is that it's scaled up. I suppose that thinking about that innovation question, because there will be some of the good stuff. How do we unlock the opportunity to scale that up? Maybe your colleague can pick up the innovation part of the question. What I was saying about workshops and sharing best practice, it's a matter of time to be honest. SSN secretariat is a very small team, and although the steering group and the membership provide a lot of contribution in kind, there's a finite amount of priorities that we can address. If waste becomes the priority for SSN, we will workshop that and share best practice and innovate. I was just going to invite you in there, because I know that you've got experiences around that, potentially in your local authority as well. Thank you, John, and thank you for the opportunity to speak to you this morning. When it comes to strict local autonomy and procurement, it goes without saying within my own local authority, but within it as well. We are trying to work with procurement colleagues, but also with colleagues across local authorities, because one of the things that's easy to sometimes forget is that procurement takes place right across the local authority staff compliments. Even looking at issues as we have in our local authority around single-use plastics, the challenge isn't about working that through with a small group of staff, but it's often about working that through with the entire procuring staff body, which is vast and scattered across many different services. It's a difficult challenge, and you have to take a lot of people with you. It does come back to a lot of the things that we spoke about earlier on, about communication, about dialogue, about everybody understanding the big vision of where we're trying to take this. That links to the climate literacy agenda, which we have to scale up to be able to tackle the size of the problem. It's really important in our organisations whether it's the local authorities that we work with, or the other public bodies that we work with in SSN, that that vision of where we're trying to get to with this agenda is clear for everybody and that we can understand our role within that, no matter what service of a local authority we're in, what level of officer we are, we all have to recognise the part that we can play. That goes for the work that we've been doing regionally as well. We've been trying to do work across the region I'm from, across the Ayrshire region, and that came out of a question asked at our community planning partnership about what is it that we need to do to help fulfil this vision of net zero for Scotland. What's our part to play in this? It's the same question when we come to procurement circular economy. To be successful, all of the players, and there are many, need to be clear about what part of this are we playing. Is it the dialogue that we might be having with suppliers quite far down the supply chain that's going to unlock this? Is it just for an officer what they buy on that particular day within the small task or objective that they've got? Everybody needs to understand how they can contribute helpfully to that. I think that we still have a lot of work to do to get that consensus. It sounds like perhaps there's not enough clarity at this point. Clearly, making that transition to circular economy is a really important mission for all of us. I suppose that you're sticking with procurement, and I know that it's quite a specialist area. I apologise if you didn't get your document in time because of the IT problems. I wonder what are some of the barriers and challenges around procurement. I was hearing for example that some local suppliers who provide goods on a leasing basis and can refurbish goods often find that they can't supply the public sector because of the way budgets are measured and local authorities' public sector end up buying brand new, which might sometimes be the right approach but not always. Are those the kind of conversations that take place and how does that then feed up to cause the Scottish Government etc? Mark Ruskell has volunteered to answer that. I know that procurement is an area that Mark Ruskell has particularly focused on. Mark, would you like to come in, please? I put the R in before we asked about some of those barriers for local authorities from the Scottish Water perspective. I'm not so particularly experienced in the local authority side of this, but I just wanted to pick up on the point around the innovation side and how we take that into the supply chain. Procurement is obviously tremendously important for us at Scottish Water towards driving net zero because, within our net zero goal, we have included investment emissions from our capital programme. Whilst those are emissions that come from the supply chain, within the umbrella of what we regard as the influenced emissions that we have, we have captured those as part of our goal. The key thing that we had to do there is in creating the delivery partners and the frameworks for the current programmes is to ensure that net zero and our goals on net zero, as stated in this group of the Government, are properly locked into the kind of procurement frameworks that we have. The partners that are coming on and working with us are committed to supporting these goals and are committed to having their own carbon management plans for the products and services that they provide. Now, we recognise that within that there's a very broad range of skills and experience within the supply chain and knowledge around what that actually means for their products. Obviously, some of the big, major supplies, major construction firms, they're relatively well engaged, but then knowledge decreases, tends to decrease as you go deeper into the supply chain. What we've had to do is look at how we build that capacity within our supply chain to one, understand what we're asking of them, which is to come forward to us with those low-carbon or alternative materials that will deliver low-carbon outcomes, but also how we build the low-carbon designs into all of this. As part of that, what we've had to do is create the challenge to the supply chain, but also to build the capacity to create the knowledge with them and give them the tools to help them to understand how much carbon is in the materials that they procure or the services that they provide, so that we can then start to look at what's good, what's bad, how do we drive down that carbon factor. What we're trying to do is bring them on that journey to do that. Those tools that we've made available were the embodied carbon calculators and various other things, and we've certainly shared that more broadly within the Spain to Scotland network group. One of the key things that we're looking to do there is to build that awareness across the wider public sector in Scotland, because from the Scottish Water perspective, it's not just a Scottish Water supply chain. It's obviously supports broad ranges of the public sector when it comes to delivering investment. Procurement is one of the key things that we have to get a grip of as a public sector, and that's one of the areas that has been a priority for us in trying to drive down the capital investment emissions. Your question on the procurement rules as regards to local authorities, I'll maybe defer that to somebody else around the group, if that's okay. Could I suggest that, Lona? Do you want to come in on that? Yeah, I think that the points made by, for example, leasing and versus buying new, this is, yeah, these conversations do take place, and we hear about them in our own local authorities at SSN and from other public bodies, I think, as well as local authorities, a question of scale and whether or not we can come to get the range of products or services that we're looking to get and the numbers that we're looking to get. I know that we have certainly looked at whether or not we can buy certain, for example, local food supplies in our own local authority and needed to look at the question of scale and the responsiveness of suppliers et cetera, and sometimes that can be a barrier to some of the more new, smaller, more innovative, circular economy solutions that are appearing. I think that the challenge is on us in terms of, as local authority officers, but also the network, it's a single Scotland network, looking at different ways that we can perhaps buy and set and lock some of these challenges, but I think that these are real challenges that we need to get better at looking away from new, deep solutions that are on bulk from large suppliers and beginning to be able to be more flexible in that respect, but it isn't easy. These are difficult challenges. Within the network, we certainly have been having conversations about procurement for a long time now, for many, many years. I've been a member of the network since 2006, and I think that sustainable procurement has been a constant theme over that time, so these are absolutely not easy challenges, but there are things that there's a will and a desire to get beyond where we are just now. We have strength in the network in terms of bringing people together to have some of these conversations and have those conversations with other partners and stakeholders. Indeed, some of the conversations that I was having are getting beyond just the public sector that we're talking to businesses, we're talking to different sectors that we weren't before. For example, from our region, we're moving into the realms of food and agriculture, and that started with a conversation about food procurement. It is something that's developing, and it's something that we need the ability to do a lot more work on to get past some of the challenges that we've got. Thank you very much. In the interest of time, I have to hand back to the convener. Lorna mentioned food waste and procurement, which I'd love to ask questions about. Another colleague might pick that up and I might come back at the end if there's time, but back to you, convener. Thank you very much, Monica. Let me bring in Liam Kerr to be followed by Jackie Dunbar. Liam, over to you please. Thank you, convener, and good morning panel. He raised funding earlier on and the need to leverage private finance. The Scottish Government proposes to deliver its heat and building strategy using £336 million this year and £1.8 billion by 2026. In the panel's view, is that going to be enough? As far as you're aware, is there a sufficient plan to leverage up to the £33 billion that's apparently going to be required? That's a very difficult question. At the moment, we're quite early in the process of working out exactly how much it will be costing per building. As I said, we've only just managed at five colleges to look at how we can reduce the carbon output to some of our buildings, because that seed corn funding has only recently become available, if you like. It's difficult to say. If you say to any local authority or public body, will there be enough money to upgrade your buildings? Almost certainly the answer will be no. Nobody will ever say that you're giving us enough or too much. However, it's more a case of, well, how much do you need then? Where is the data that shows what you need to do with those buildings? The NHS has done a lot of work on their buildings and universities and colleges have done the same. George, I don't know if you wanted to just come in on that. The point that I was going to raise was in relation to procurement, but it might relate to the issue of finance. I think that at the session last week you heard a lot from the council leaders about the fact that it's how the public sector works together to identify what the effect of interventions will be and then how we use that as a portfolio for investment, whether that is public sector investment or private sector investment. There was a lot of comment last week about the fact that it's not going to be purely government spend that's going to meet these targets. It's some sort of combination of public sector spend and setting the right signals, private sector meeting us on that journey and then the role of, I suppose, individual households in terms of what steps they need to take in terms of moving this agenda. There's always obviously a lot that would need to be addressed around the macroeconomy in terms of the right pricing signals, the cost of carbon in this process, et cetera. I think that those issues are all bearing down on us as we try to pull those plans together. One of the critical things that struck me over the years is how the public sector gets the consistent project register together so that the public sector bodies both individually and at a place level understand what the interventions and the projects that they want to take forward are. Then you can get into the detail of actually costing them and getting the right technical advice to say, is that the most cost-effective way to take this agenda forward? I think that all of us on the banner would say that there's an awful lot of work yet to be done in terms of actually closing the gap between the policy, essentially the climate change targets, the policies that are coming forward and then the actual process of delivering and answering those questions into who pays, how do we pay and over what time frame. Again, SSN is playing into that space. Our final session at the conference back in December, we were looking at both finance and skills, and there's an interest in the process for public sector bodies in terms of skilling up in that space. It's certainly something that a lot of public sector bodies haven't had the capacity to do actively over the years in terms of actually pulling together business cases at the scale that we're now looking for between now and the targets towards the back end of this decade. An awful lot of work to be done there. Some of it does come down to embedding this. It's a corporate priority long-term. A lot of the efforts that we've seen across the network and across the public sector over the years has just been a little bit too sporadic. Good practice in pockets and what we really need to see is the embedding and the drive in this action forward. I'm very grateful for the answer. I think that what I'm hearing particularly from your answer, George, is that, in answer to the second part of my question, there is not yet a sufficient plan to leverage up to the £33 billion. On that note, John Winkott mentioned in an earlier answer to the convener that the Scottish green public sector estate decarbonisation scheme, so just taking on your previous answer there, do you think that that scheme is sufficiently funded to decarbonise the public sector estate? Thank you for getting all the right words in all the right order. I struggle with that acronym. It trips me up every time, so I won't say it again. Frankly, I did do a little jig of joy when the £95 million was first muted, especially when it was then effectively ring-fenced for organisations that had not had access to funding before. I'm sure that you're aware that organisations like Colleges and the NHS conference in Sparrow under Salix have not been able to access funding in the past that would enable us to do those building works that, for instance, other areas of the public body could do. When we got that, and when there was short-term and long-term planning money, I thought that that was a really positive step. Obviously, the increase from £95 million to £200 million is also extremely welcome. I think that it's too early yet to save that enough. My hunch is probably not. I know that, if you look at the NHS, the initial estimates of building refurbishment requirements are quite a large spend. At the moment, we don't know. At Fife College, where I've leveraged some of the money in, we've been given the grant, we've done our first sweep of project planning, and we've come up with budgets and costings. We're looking at about £600,000 for the first tranche of works, and, after that, there will be more. Once you start delving into those, and this is where pre-capital funding is really important because it gives us a chance to bring in experts and look at what we need to do, put together project registers, as George said, and then work from that point. I think that it's early days yet. I would hope that, if solid projects come back to deliver on the goals that we're all trying to achieve, that the Government will again look at the now to 100 million and, potentially, increase it again. My hunch is probably not, but I would rather see the actual figures once people start doing these project registers and actually have proper quotes as to what we really, really need. Next up is Jackie Dunbar, to be followed by Natalie Dawn. Jackie, I will hand over to you. Thank you, convener, and good morning, panel. I'm interested today roundabout planning obligations in land value capture, so I'd be interested to hear if land value capture should be directed and used proactively for achieving net zero, and what you think a robust and successful system for the land value capture would look like in practice. I'm in your hands in who you think would be best to answer. Thank you for that question. I think that all of us recognise that planning is one of the key levers in the hands of the Scottish Government. I would say that my panel, we're not planning experts and there are planning experts available, but I think that possibly Lorna, would you like to kick off with this and then I'll come back at the end if necessary? When it comes to planning in that particular land value capture, as John says, I'm not an expert in that area, but in terms of planning generally, I think that the importance of planning framework of MPF4 and that really being grasped and taken forward to its full potential is really, really important for that agenda. I think probably in terms of specifics around land value capture that's probably for better place than need to provide the detail. Thank you Lorna. I mean, if it's okay with the committee, what I would recommend is that we take that question away and come back all more detailed answer, but I know that land value capture is a serious challenge and I know that it is one of the issues that does need to be addressed. And I would say that planning has the opportunity to bring joined up thinking, if you want to call it that, into the environment where we plan for 2050 and beyond, we don't plan for 2025. So houses shouldn't be being built today that are not fit for 2030. That ought to be really automatically captured by planning. The land value capture is especially subject and I wouldn't want to pontificate on that. Thank you and I totally understand you not being an expert because I am absolutely no expert myself, which is why I'm finding these questions quite interesting. Delighted if you could get back with a written question. My next question as well, if I'd be happy for a written response, if that's more appropriate in its own regards to the section 75 agreements and the land value capture, should they be working together to deliver the infrastructure that is future proofed and adapted to the climate emergency? Again, I'm happy for a written response of that if you would feel that that would be better. We will add a written response behind that, but all I would say is having watched last week's presentation, I think that section 75 is an old tool. Was it 1997, that act? The requirement has moved on tremendously. As I was dean found, when it tried to broaden the scope of section 75, it led to a court failing, which I think was a lesson for all local authorities that at the moment section 75s and the way they're written doesn't provide that degree of flexibility. As I said, we will provide more detail behind that, but you're absolutely right to start questioning some of these historical planning legislations and frameworks and to say how can we now bring planning into the fold of climate change. I'm not saying that it isn't, because I think that would be unfair, but I think that some of the tools in planning although were written before climate change was the issue, it wasn't before climate emergencies were declared, so there is a need for modernisation for certain. I'm still a servant councillor at Aberdeen City Council, and I was there when that happened. Back to you, convener. Sorry, not unless Lauren, I was wanting to come in. Thanks very much. Jackie, next up is Natalie Dorn. Natalie, over to you please. Thanks, convener. Good morning panel. I'm interested in climate change reporting this morning. I'm just wondering if you can provide some extra information on how public bodies have responded to statutory emissions reporting requirements and whether you feel there's any gaps in calculating needs and reporting on emissions, and if so, how you feel these might be addressed? I'll just thank you for the question. It's Excel spreadsheets, climate change reporting is the tool, and it's my favourite thing in the world, so no absolutely thank you. I believe that climate change reporting has tremendous possibilities when it comes to assisting public bodies in progressing. Unfortunately, I really don't think it's been used to its fullest yet, and I think that this is one of the things that I've got a wishlist written to bring to the committee at the very end, and that's one of the things that's on the wishlist, is to better use climate change reporting. The reporting system at the moment is a little bit clunky, if you're honest. It used Proxed as a platform, which was not originally designed for that. The actual reporting system itself is set in a statutory instrument, so you can't change any of the questions or even any of the answer frameworks without changing the law, so that's all awkward. However, we are working at the moment with Government officials on refreshing the whole reporting process. It is used by local authorities and public bodies in my organisation, Fife College. We work with other colleges and compare reports. We swap each other's homework, mark it, and then see what each other is doing and how to improve and do things better. Local authorities do the same as well. Public bodies of similar ills share best practice using the reporting, but could it be done better? Absolutely. One of my suggestions would be that, for instance, we will bring a conference together that will bring the report back to our membership and will be running a conference looking at the reports and engaging with our members on sharing best practice. I would suggest that that would be something that the committee might be interested in looking at as well. It could be a session looking at the reports, comparing like for like and delving into a bit more detail in that. I am not aware that the committees haven't done that in the past, if I am wrong, but no, thank you for the question. Those reports could be a vital tool and are used by organisations, but they could be used more extensively. Do you feel that the duty to act sustainably has made a material difference in the way that public bodies plan and operate? How do you feel that we saw additional requirements brought in last year in terms of climate change reporting? How do you feel that those additional requirements have been received and equally being implemented? Rory, if I cut you off there, I apologise. We have a system that will flag me if she needs to speak. It has been in law since 2009 that public bodies must, in exercising its function act in a way that is best calculated to deliver on climate change mitigation goals, adaptation goals and acts sustainably. I do not think that that was necessarily rolled out into public bodies with sufficient emphasis when the law was adopted. It is now much more at the forefront of public bodies' minds because, for instance, it is in the new guidance that we have produced, we stated very clearly that this is a public body climate change duty. The fact is worded as you must leave very little wiggle room. There is still a piece of work to be done on that, if I am honest. Public bodies in general need to look at embedding those duties in everything that they do. I think that there are areas of really good practice and areas that could be improved. A really good question and another one of my favourite topics, so thank you for that. I have no further questions unless anybody else wants to comment on that. Let me pass over now to Mark Ruskell. Mark Ruskell, over to you please. Yes, thanks very much convener. A couple of areas that have not been covered yet, perhaps a few wrap-up questions last week have added to that as well, so I can ask about transport. We have not really talked about transport this morning. Obviously, post-pandemic, a lot of public sector bodies are now looking at provision of office accommodation, about transport, about different work-life balance. I am just wondering how that is impacting. I suppose that related to that is the Government's target for 20 per cent reduction in vehicle mileage related to the climate target. Had you reduced that mileage down, and for travel that is essential, how are we progressing with procurement of electric vehicles, decarbonising the essential travel that is required? John, I do not know who you want to direct that to, but I can see Lona nodding her head. Yes, Lona, do you want to come in on that? Yes, I am happy to come in. The questions around transport are so critical, it is such an important area to tackle and it is not easy. Much of this jigsaw is not easy. In terms of work-life balance and green recovery, I think that looking at transport right now where we are, I am still home working, there is a huge potential right now to get this right. I think that it is so important that we do it at this point in time. There has been a lot of change over the past 18 months to years because of the pandemic in terms of transport. Some good things have happened, some bad things have happened, but if we do not move quickly now to make sure that we are embedding the good stuff and moving away from some of the negatives, then we are only keeping building up challenges and giving ourselves more hurdles for the future. We are working well to bring EVs into our fleet and local authorities. Now we have done that with funding and support, and we are now at the stage where we are moving into doing that with less necessity for that, because it is having a main student effort. However, there is clearly still a long way to go. Electric vehicles on their own cannot be the answer to this when we talk about reducing that 20 per cent. We have to understand that they are not the solution for everything. We need to look at sustainable and active travel and transport as well, especially in our towns and cities. We are aware of that. It is not easy. As a network, it is something that we do talk about and it comes up frequently. It is absolutely completely bound up with the questions around planning and how we deal with planning in the way that we make significant changes. That is not about a tweak here or there, it is about huge changes in the way that we do things and the way that we think about things. It comes right back to that question at the start about whether we are communicating about that enough. It is not just necessarily about between the Scottish Government and local authorities. It is about between local authorities and our communities as well, in fact. That needs to understand dialogue and conversation about that to have everybody on the same page moving forward. I do not know if I have the answer to your question. That is useful. I have had a few conversations with public sector bodies in the past few months. I know that a number of them are questioning whether they need large office spaces. We talk a lot about the cost of carbon reduction and whether there are savings to be made or whether there is a particular trend in looking at assets that organisations have and perhaps thinking about service delivery in a different way. Definitely. That is absolutely what most local authorities are talking about right now. If using the different models of home-working, agile working or hybrid, we can release the needs for some of those assets. I mean that we do not need them going forward and that we can get put to other uses. Essentially, we can focus on having a more appropriate estate for our needs and more moving towards the notion of 20-minute neighbourhoods. People can work closer to where they live and, in a lot of instances, they need to access offices. There are lots of potential there, but it is a significant change. At the moment, within my own local authority, we are going through a process of looking at what we can move to and what savings that will bring us. I think that it is fair to say that the challenge in terms of the investment that we need to make in our estate to meet the 2038 target is significantly greater than any savings that we will make through the reduction of the estate. It has to all be part of a green recovery from Covid. There is no way that we can separate the challenges of meeting net zero, of adapting to climate change, of just transition and of the green recovery. Those things absolutely have to be a mesh. In every conversation that we have, that is the messages that we get back. It does not matter what piece of work we do. If we focus on one of those nuggets, it is the others, the other pieces that will come back in the responses in the conversations. So, not just a single budget yearly conversation, but more of a transformative change around how organisations are working? We have tried to use our data, our information about our estate and our emissions, which essentially we started on that journey with the reporting. I think that to hark back to the earlier question on duties, it has been so important to have those duties and to have that reporting to start that data collection in our local authorities. Then we can drill down into that to look at it on a service-by-service basis for the buildings that they use and the fleet that they use and the mileage that they generate. That has been able to start a conversation about what it means on the ground, what it means in reality and how each service, no matter what they are, whether they are estates or asset management, energy management or whether their social work or education are catering to what their own emissions are and what the implications of delivering their service means in terms of their direct scope 1 and 2 emissions, but also their wider emissions scope 3 through procurement or transport and all those other aspects, where they have influence and the potential to show leadership. I think that George, you are not going to come in, but I do not know. Mark Williams will come in shortly, but I want to add that home working is not carbon free either. That is one of the things that was picked up in the reporting this year. When we reported, our reports included home working carbon, so public bodies needed to estimate the percentage of staff working from home, and then there was a proximate figure applied to that as a factor, but it means that we are reporting home working carbon. Mark Williams, if you want to come in, I am conscious of time, so obviously, if you can, please be brief. I am coming on to the problem, but I will just build on that in the context of transport. What I want to make is that our public bodies reports, the repository that there is now, is such a fantastic dataset of how public bodies and local authorities have regarded this over the years, what has been our transport emissions over the years, what has been our energy buildings, et cetera. I think that using that and getting more value from that, and looking at this in the context of our office strategies, our transport strategies, our procurement, our green fleet, the reporting side and maybe to beef that up and get that proper comparator, really where are we as a sector, and what can we learn from each other as sectors, because it is that kind of share of knowledge and that repository of data that is sitting there is happy to be corrected and unparalleled for a public like Scotland. I am not aware of that level of data existing anywhere else in the UK. It is such a tremendous resource that we have got here to help to target and understand what the problems and the challenges are going forward. The more we can leverage that value to target those areas, and then, as we go through this transformative change, in our hybrid models, our office strategies, our transport strategies, as organisations—and, obviously, there is a wide range of honour called on in terms of the broader transport agenda in Scotland—I think that that is something that we need to keep a close round and look at how we use more and more beneficially in the future to support that. Mark Ruskell, we have a couple of minutes of time, so let me ask you a question. Mark Ruskell, I have one more question, and I was not sure if George— Mark Ruskell, go ahead, Mark Ruskell, that is fine. I will put my final question and then maybe if George can come back on other aspects. Susan Aitken made an interesting point, your leader of Glasgow Council, last week. It is just about the capacity within Council. She was talking about the capacity within her own council and the largest council in Scotland, but it is clearly an issue across multiple councils, and for smaller councils it will be an even bigger issue. I suppose that I wanted to get your reflection on how councils can work together. How can there be a sharing of capacity across the public sector? SSN is obviously one route to do that, but in terms of creating vehicles that enable councils and public bodies to work together to create more investable propositions, whether we are talking about heat or transport procurement or any of the issues that we have spoken about today. Is there enough collaboration? Sorry, George. John, I think that you are on mute. George, you are on mute. Am I off mute now? I suppose, Mark, that is essentially why SSN exists and why it survived, I suppose, and why the members continue to support the network. We have shifted from being a programme based on the charity and now we are hybrid funded across the public sector. There is always more that needs to be done, and we do a huge amount of sharing. The core membership of the SSN is the lead climate change officers in the public sector, so that is a huge asset for Scotland to drive the agenda forward with. The critical thing for us is to network beyond the network, so we are extremely well plugged in with other bits of the public sector. I think that one of the key messages coming up from this is the fact that climate change needs to be taken out of the green sustainability ghetto and mainstreamed into the public sector. We are seeing that on the back of the strengthened legislation, clarifying the policy landscape, and stepping up of leadership. I think that the conversation that you had last week with the leaders from the council is a reflection of that. The mature approach that Scotland is taking around climate change and recognising the need to secure co-benefits, as Lornaw has mentioned, the green recovery, the just transition, is the recognition that by taking action on climate change, we are going to build a better Scotland. The SSN has always played a role, which is to create that trusted space for professionals to come together. On top of that, we do a fair bit of work in that space between the likes of the Scottish Government, COSLA, SOLAS, which is the chief executor's network, and supporting leadership within the public sector. It is a case of building on what we have. SSN is a fantastic asset for the public sector. As has been mentioned, if we did not have it, we would have to invent it. Now we need to invest in it. It creates the platform through which participation and collaboration can be accelerated. The targets that we are facing in the next eight years are dramatic and hugely challenging. That is a rallying call for further collaboration and more and deeper and broader collaboration using the network to support that. There are a lot of policy areas that we have touched on today. We have contact with a lot of other stakeholders in the public sector and the local government that we can pull on to provide further evidence into the committee. We are more than happy to do that. In short, it is a case of investing in the asset that we have well established and well trusted in the public sector. Mark Ruskell, do you have any other questions or are you finished? I will take that as a yes. Just one brief wrap-up question for me. More of an observation on the evidence heard today reflects something that the UK Climate Change Committee has told the committee. It sounds like in a number of areas where fundamental change, transformational change is required, sustainable procurement, the circular economy, heat and building strategy, but, in large part, things are still at the conversation stage for understandable reasons. The question is when do we move to delivery? When do we move to implementation so that we can start to see some fundamental change? In that respect, do you think that the 2030 target for converting all public buildings is achievable, or do you think that that is something that is going to be very challenging? John, perhaps that is a question for you. Thank you, convener. 2030 will be tremendously challenging. I think that it is still possible. I think that the CCC thinks that it is still possible, but I think that it recognises that there are huge challenges ahead. You are right, procurement. As somebody said earlier, we have been grappling with procurement for a long time. The frameworks are still not the best they could be. They are still based on pound spend, and the cheapest product is not always the most carbon-efficient product, so we need better metrics on procurement, but at least we are moving in the right direction now. Procurement is highly on the agenda for SSN to start to address this year in 2022. It is going to be part of our operational plan for 2022. As George has said, one of our key challenges is capacity. We effectively come up with a list of areas that we would want to tackle in the coming 12 months. We negotiate with the Scottish Government, we cherry pick from those which are the most high priority and which can be afforded at that time. We are funded by a hybrid funding model, so some of the money comes from the Scottish Government, some from local authorities, some from NHS. We are not hugely worth the organisation, and we do an awful lot of work based on the contribution in kind that our members provide rather than relying on money. I mean, all I would say is that if there are barriers to collaboration, they need to be removed wherever they are found, and it needs an agility that perhaps this committee in the Government hadn't had to face before, because some of these barriers have been in place for a long time. We would also say that we invite you to better utilise the knowledge that we bring to the situation, SSN's membership and our officers, obviously. And as the questions earlier indicated, use better the tools that already exist, so use the Climate Change Scotland Act 44, use it more formally, more forwardly, so that people are aware that this is actually a duty, and use the Climate Change duties report more. These are all public documents. If you go to the SSN website, you can download every public body's duty report since 2015. Anybody who is interested in how public bodies are performing on this can just go online and download a spreadsheet or a PDF document, and yet I don't see it being used anywhere near as often as it could be. Those are the key asks that I would bring to this committee to look at taking forwards. That's very helpful, John. Thank you very much indeed, and thank you to all our panel members for joining us this morning and helping the committee to better understand the role of local authority delivery partners in the transition to net zero. I will now briefly suspend the meeting to allow for a change of panel. Thank you once again. Welcome back, everyone. I now welcome our second panel, comprising representatives from community groups across Scotland. These organisations are all members of the Scottish Community Alliance. I welcome Philip Rebel, convener of the Scottish Communities Climate Action Network, and Elsa Raeburn, chairperson of the Scottish Community Alliance. I also welcome Mark McRitchie, interim chief executive development trust association Scotland. We have about one hour for this panel discussion, and we will move straight on to questions. My first question relates to a discussion that we had in our previous panel. We had a discussion about the level of funding available at local authorities for the transition to net zero. It would be good to get your views on whether current funding available from local authorities match community aspirations for reducing emissions and adapting to net zero. What are the key barriers to community organisations in accessing private finance, and what action can policy makers take to encourage more private finance to assist with community activities? I will ask each panel member to respond to that question, and I will ask Philip Rebel first to address the question. Sorry, am I—can you hear me? You're on, yes. Right. Okay, thanks. Sorry, I'm not sure I quite understood the question, actually, convener. I'm sorry. You're asking about what funding communities receive from local authorities, or are you asking funding to local authorities to support communities? It's the first question. What funding is available from local authorities to community groups to assist community groups in your different projects that will help you to deliver a local transition to net zero? Right. I think the answer to that is almost none. There's a tiny bit of funding that's sometimes available through local community planning partnerships that I'm aware of, but otherwise there's minimal funding that I'm aware of. I guess the question then would be how do you raise funding if you're able to do so? What other alternative channels of funding do you have available to support community projects? Well, there are very few and far between at the moment. It's partly directly from the Scottish Government. Up until now, for most of our members, that's been through the climate challenge fund, which is now coming to an end. Otherwise, it is through other government funds that are more directed at disadvantaged communities, such as the investing communities fund, which is not currently running. Otherwise, it's other sources of finance like the national lottery or charitable grants, but that has a real issue. Lack of any meaningful long-term funding for community-led action is a huge issue. Most of our members are dependent on volunteers for a large part of what they do. Thank you very much. Maybe I can address the same question to Ilsa Rayburn, please. Thank you, convener. I hope that you can hear me. Thank you for the invitation to come along and speak today. I would agree with Philip. There's very little funding directly from local authorities. Most community landowners who we represent across Scotland have been able to access central government funding. That is the climate challenge fund that Philip says is coming to an end, things like CARES funding for renewables, and then through different funding sources for active travel. Community landowners have been really quite successful at applying for and securing that type of funding for the projects they've got. It is few and far between and it is very resource intensive. There are more opportunities for communities to work directly with local authorities, particularly in relation to funding streams that they may have or that may come online, but I think the reverse of that is also that local authorities can take quite a short term is to be. I know that is certainly not the evidence that was presented from the panel last week, but from a community perspective on the ground, there have been occasions where communities are taking this quite a broad long term view about projects and they have been hindered by local authorities who are still taking a very short term financially driven view. What is the cheapest option? That comes back to something that your previous panel were talking about in terms of how local authorities are perhaps still slightly constrained. I'm sure that this is reflected in the funding as well, but it is still slightly constrained by that procurement and financial management aspect that is not at the moment able to take a much broader picture of what these projects are likely to deliver and what the value is in getting communities involved in delivery. That is the answer to the first part of your question. I don't know if you want me to answer the second part of the question yet or if you want to go on to Mark. Mark, if you could address the second question and then I'll move on to Mark, thank you. Okay, thank you convener. There are a number of barriers to communities accessing private finance, community landowners. There have been obviously some really successful cases, but again they are few and far between, but they are great examples that we can learn from, such as Langham in the Borders, which were able to work with private funders via intermediary organisations like John Muir Trust and the Woodland Trust around issues like carbon offsetting and philanthropic donations. I think that in terms of accessing private finance, community landowners are starting down that route. There are things that governments could do to support them in that and that is around the models of community governance and they are currently under the community right to buy in Scottish Lanford, if they could be broadened out to enable more private interests on board, still with the communities being in control and leading on the development, but I think there are opportunities and I know it is something that the Scottish Land Commission are looking at at the moment to think about different models of involving more private finance, particularly around things like carbon offsetting income in the future, as well as being the chair of Community Land Scotland and I am also chair of the Isle of Egg Heritage Trust. We have been able to work with some intermediary organisations to start to draw down this type of finance but still keeping the overall principles of developing a circular economy, building local community wealth, local democratic governance etc. I think there are opportunities to move more in the direction of bringing in private finance but still obviously keeping those underpinning principles, which are really important. That is great. Thank you very much. The same question to Mark McRitchie, please. Good morning, committee. I thank you for the opportunity to come and participate and share reflections of details on our 300 community-based members that range in a whole variety of scale from firm branches to volunteer-based setup that Philip referred to right the way through to trading organisations that are asset-owning. The experience that my colleagues have mentioned is true that there have been some exceptional organisations that have worked as exemplars in terms of being able to progress us with a patchwork of funding that has come from a multiple dissociation. They primarily have not been local authority-led and there certainly is a concern as CCF comes to an end in March as to whether or not there is a bit of a cliff edge in terms of existing activity that is going on within communities. The pressure on local government budgets that Councillor Lang mentioned last week, which we recognise and we see, there is definitely an issue about capacity and resources around that and whether that is about internal expertise, as Councillor Aiken mentioned. We recognise that bit, so it is not just about the funding programme, it is about the support that goes alongside that in terms of what is going on. Having said that, there are great examples out there of work that has gone on around the whole element about net zero in its broadest sense. What we have seen as part of a legacy from Covid is some examples, for instance, around committee food provision with pantries and community fridges, which is having an impact on waste, which has come through the committee response, which is quite amazing across the country due to Covid. With regard to private finance, there are points that I can build on rather than repeating them. There is an element about bringing risk averse within community organisations. Quite often there is not an asset base and, although they are entrepreneurial, quite often the approach has been to build things with very little starter elements. I suppose that the concern is that there is an element about the finances that we pay back, what happens if things do not go according to the plan and what is left to damage if that then does. Unfortunately, we have the experience of members that that has happened and there has been damage to that kind of infrastructure. The committee is taking time to recover. It is one that organisations are quite concerned about. There has been certainly a lot of conversation about whether there is the only route or whether we can be more creative in our approaches around financing community-based activity. I thank everyone for their responses. You have touched on a number of issues that I know that my colleagues want to explore. Let me hand over to Fiona Hyslop. Thank you for joining us today. I am interested in some of the positives as in what community organisations want to do in the net zero space. However, in their relationship with local councils, in doing that, if there is not funding—streams from local authorities as yet—what support can local authorities give? I am particularly interested in the power of local organisations to help to influence and deliver on that. They might have a great possibility, but, as a regiment mentioned, we have volunteers in the backbone of those community organisations. If it is central funding that has been given and most of that is capital or for projects, is there an issue around people capacity and what is needed in terms of the people resource to help communities to do the projects? If councils are only interested in what they finance or, in short term, in very British terms, we have heard that. I would like to hear from all three of you, if that is possible, and then, convener, I am quite happy to hand back to you after that. Can I maybe come to Philip first and then to Mark and then to Ailsa? The point that I would make is that, at the moment, there is a fundamental mismatch in scale between local government and the scale that local community groups operate at. That is a fundamental problem. There is also a fundamental issue of culture and mindset. Government in Scotland generally has a very top-down, centralising mindset, and local authorities frequently at the moment do not really see communities as key strategic partners. Communities are very keen, very often, to work with their local authority, but there is that problem mismatch of scale. Just finding a way in can be very difficult for a small local community group to find a way into the right person to speak to in the council and the right way of getting support. What does not help is the fact that you mentioned about people resource. That is really what has been lacking over the past 10, 20 years. It is the way that community learning and development services have been completely slashed. In many parts of Scotland, there is really very little community development work done by councils now, and that is a vital function that communities need. I do not know if that answers your questions or not, so I will remember to give you a few points. That is a very helpful thought, and I will come to Mark. Thank you. We all agree that the vision is right. For any community organisations, we are very much at the early stage. There is an element about people capacity. Our internal work, looking at co-investment, has seen the benefit of giving small sums to organisations that enable there to be a start of synergy around activity. The net zero agenda does fit into that. There is a bit of caution at the moment where a lot of my members are still in the recovery phase, where, despite having a huge amount of work in the Covid environment, their training has not returned to Covid levels. They are now very much focusing on the year of the squeeze, so there is definitely pressure there. Net zero then becomes another thing to do. How does that fit with the current resources that they have? I will also come back to the point about local authorities not having resources. They perhaps do not fund community-based activity, but clearly what was being talked about by all the local authorities was some eye-watering numbers in terms of investment needed and where that investment might come from. I think that there are some concerns about their approach, because I am quite disappointed that council leaders continue to use 20th century approaches to a 21st century problem. We continue to look at a private finance of scale, and that is a bit about business cases. Sometimes where the key benefit of net zero might not stack up in a financial sense, so where do those projects go? There is a bit where inward investment was used by a number of particular cities as being the model, but we know that trickle-down does not happen. If there is going to be investment coming in, where are the green jobs in that? How do we ensure that those green jobs are in our communities and that we do not end up exporting that work? It is interesting that some of the moves that were announced the other day with the county state Scotland, where there is talk about building capacity in the highlands to fabricate the turbines that will come, as opposed to bringing them in from Germany or wherever. The other bit is procurement. There is discussion today on that as well as last week. There is an unwritten approach around scale. We have to do this at scale, but some of the great creativity and maximum net zero benefit comes from looking at how we do procurement. At the moment, it prevents participation and it locks us out. Research done by locality, my English colleagues, showed that there was great benefits of doing contracts at a lower scale, and we have the ability to be creative in that and using advanced learning. The local government continues to think about scale rather than a diversity that can add to the richness of what we are trying to do. Mark, if you can send in the committee any good examples that you have seen across Scotland of good projects that will be helpful, can I come to Gaelza and then I will return back to the Gaelza, please? Examples are really important because a lot of communities, particularly community landowners, really take Mark's point that without assets community organisations can be risk averse, but with assets, be they land or buildings, communities are able to take more risks. Some communities have been involved in that really successfully. We produced a report last year, which I would like to send on to the committee called community landowners and the climate emergency, and that gave six really great case studies of where communities are already at delivery stage. We were talking before about how do we move from thinking to delivery. If you look in Carlaway, a state trust, they were picked by Nature Scotland as an exemplar of peatland restoration, and they are taking forward those projects now. If you look at Bookhaven and Methil, there is a community organisation there that is running several food projects and community grain projects, local food production. If you go over to the West Coast of Gia, they were at the forefront of community energy in 2005, so almost 20 years ago, and the income they've got from their four turbines, they've used to bring their housing stock up to a really good standard and start on works around energy efficiency. They've done an active travel project, reduced car use, and then other places. The Lista Housing Co-operative in Edinburgh, they were the first organisation to get the consent for solar thermal panels on a pre-listed building. There are lots of examples of communities that have got assets, and obviously from a community land Scotland perspective, that is absolutely critical that they have ownership of the assets. They can start looking at different routes and they can start thinking slightly differently. I would like to share that report with you if I can, please, because I think there will be some useful things in there. The other issue around community-led activity and why it would be really useful to get more local authority support is that the Scottish Government's own research shows that 60% of emissions reductions is going to have to be social, it's going to have to be from people rather than technological. Again, you can demonstrate this evidence to show that community-led projects influence behaviour change. I mentioned that I'm the chair of the Isle of Egg, and Egg has its own first, certainly in Scotland, 24-hour, 365 days a year, completely dependent on renewable energy. That's part of the solution, but the other part of the solution is actually to get people to use less energy. There's lots of projects in place on Egg which are certainly scalable and transferable to other similar locations where you can educate people how to use less resources and less energy. I think there's lots of really useful lessons that can be learned. Coming back to local authority support, there are issues around the short-termism we've spoken about and the financial constraints they're working under. Revenue support to develop community capacity is absolutely critical, and Highlands and Islands Enterprise has obviously been doing that for a number of years, which has been very successful. I think those sorts of schemes need to be rolled out, particularly in the south of Scotland and further cemented in HIE area to support communities. That staff capacity, as I think you said, these organisations are, the boards are all volunteers, I'm a volunteer, and we don't have the skills and resources. With relatively very little investment in staff capacity, you can do really fantastic things. I think those would be the key messages about how, if you're going to get more local authority involvement, supporting that skills development through staff capacity at a local level would be really, really important. Thank you very much. Shares are very helpful. I'll pass back to the convener. Thank you very much. Fiona, let me bring in Monica Lennon for the next question. Monica, over to you, please. Sorry, I'm getting a message on the screen. I had to reconnect. I've missed the last five minutes, so apologies for that, having some IT problems. I wanted to pick up on the theme of waste management and the role of public bodies in Scotland on the journey to circular economy. Today I want to pick up the panel 2 about the role of communities in that. I suppose that I'm wondering, then, how well are local authorities involving communities in that full agenda? I heard some frustrations earlier on about resources and about some of that engagement. We're really interested to hear what the main challenges and opportunities are. Start with Philip, if that's okay. Specifically about waste management and circular economy. Yes, that's correct. There are lots of examples of communities and local authorities working together to intercept waste before it goes to Lamshill, for example, and then put it into reuse hubs. Generally, it comes back to my first point, but it is extremely challenging for small local community organisations to collaborate meaningfully with local authorities because of the mismatch of scale and the fact that, too often, local authorities don't see community groups as key strategic partners. That is a real challenge. My hope is that, through the use of regional networks that are emerging, which will then, hopefully, transition into regional community climate action hubs, it will be much easier to establish a more strategic approach and more collaborative work between the public sector and community organisations. There is a desperate need for infrastructure in communities to enable them to create local circular economies. That is not just about managing waste, but reducing waste in the first place and creating a more sharing economy and setting out things like tool libraries and sharing libraries in general and reuse hubs and repurposing workshops and so on. I am sorry, but I am not sure if that is a really interesting question. It is very helpful to get it started and perhaps come to Eilaf next to maybe add to that or add in some different thoughts. Thank you. I would agree with Philip that there are lots of projects that communities have been leading on in terms of local reuse hubs recycling that have been very successful. It again comes back to this whole issue. It is a local project, so you are able to influence local behaviour. I think one of your previous panellists talked about all of these things cannot be top down. They do not work when they are top down and a lot of local authorities are actually too big. They are not able to work on the scale of a local community. If I think of Highland Council based in Inverness and then the situation on EG, EG is able to organise its own facilities, but they are very remote and Highland Council itself. That is absolutely no criticism of the officers who are extremely helpful and councillors, but the system does not really work because the scale is so different. I think that is an issue. If you could look at working on a much more local scale, that would be really helpful. I think that the circular economy point is a really interesting one because I know several community landowners now who are developing really quite significant projects, often with Scottish Government support through its various funding streams. One of their key outcomes is developing that circular economy. It is how they can use local materials, how they can use local labour, how they can ensure the benefits from these projects stay as far as possible within local communities and are not leached out. I think that is something that would be really interesting to talk about in more detail from both a procurement perspective and a grant funding perspective, how that could be one of the outcomes of grant applications, is how you are going to help build that local community wealth and that circular economy to get every type of organisation, including communities who are pretty good at it, thinking about how they use those national resources to build local assets. I think that the overall impression is still that local government is doing waste management on to its residents and therefore they are passive in this process. It is interesting that there was an example that I talked about last week about reducing the number of uplifts of the black bins and that presented as a way of saving net zero and carbon when, to the communities, it is seen as a reduction in the service. The individual residents are interested in what is going on, so there is a bit about bringing us into the conversation, who does this as adults? There is an element about understanding that and let us have that kind of conversation. To the broader point about the circular economy, one of local authorities mentioned last week about the IT distribution and the re-use of computers. In Glasgow, that was very much led by the third community and voluntary sector in its delivery, because they were able to reach out and ensure that that was given to those who have just been divided, because there is an element about that, which has been highlighted in the past two years. Some examples are some work there, it is just how that gets done at scale. There is definitely social enterprise activity around the circular economy and there are development trusts that have done some work with independent social enterprises to look at repair hubs. We were actually rather than throwing away the old tool server to see how we can fix it and give it an extended economic life. There are elements that could be extended and evolved across the network. I might stick with you and then come back to Ailsa and then finish with Philip for my next question. There is an interesting comment that you made about communities often feeling that things are being done to them and that they are not fully engaged in the conversation. If I give the example of food waste, maybe each of you can give your perspective on how, with its development trusts, community groups and community landowners can be involved in driving change and action in raising awareness. I have been speaking to Zero Waste Scotland recently about food waste in particular. It is a hugely challenging issue for local authorities and right across the public in the third sector. If I can stick with you, Mark, do you have any ideas or feedback on that? I think that some of the early phases of climate challenge funding did very much support use of food waste as opposed to growing. There are some good examples. Unfortunately, we were subjected to, effectively, postcode lottery. There was an element about projects that were successful for a couple of years. Did them as a move across to those who were postcodes who were not successful and then got funded, which then left the ones that had done some really innovative work stuck. The model has evolved. It is interesting to see how pantries have come on board. A good number of members have done that, which is very much seen as a much more dignified way to look at food provision. Many are driven by surplus food and food close to the end of its dates. The Community Food Bridge network, which is a UK-wide network, but there is an aspiration to grow them in Scotland too, is a slightly different kind of model where there is potential for donations across members as well as surplus food, but it is very much at the early stages. However, we have members with assets that are also indicated across the country that could be good place to go, which are seen as trusted places. That is something that could be really interesting as it evolves. Food is very much a social thing and is therefore very powerful when we are looking at community. That is very helpful, Mark. If I can turn back to Ailsa. I wonder if that is a supplementary for Ailsa. You talked about for those councils that are larger and it can be more difficult to get engagement right. What advice do you have, or what would you like to see them try differently? We are not going to change the size of our local authorities overnight, so we are out of it. The first point about food waste is that it comes back to my earlier point about driving behaviour change. That is very effectively done at a local level. Some of the community land owners, particularly in the Outer Hebrides, Goulson and Carlaway, worked with communities around really straightforward things. Monica, it looks like we may have lost Ailsa. Do you want to move on to your next question? Yes. If we can move on to Philip, then perhaps I will come back to Ailsa if she reconnects. Thank you. There are lots of examples across Scotland of community run larders, pantries and fridges that are making food available, which would otherwise have gone to waste and community run supper clubs and so on, using food that supermarkets would have thrown out. There are also lots of projects that are trying to close the local and local composting schemes, for example, which keep nutrients locally. There is a much bigger issue around how we address food poverty and how we create a less wasteful food system. For me, that is a much bigger issue around how we really rethink the economy and how we create local wellbeing economies. I will come back to your point about not changing the scale of local authorities. I am not actually suggesting that. We need the local authorities at the scale that they are, but we also need a much more local scale of democracy that communities can relate to. That is helpful. Thank you, Philip. You will probably be aware that there is a right to food bill that has been proposed by an MSP, so that is something that you might want to engage with. Can you get out? It looks like we do not have Ailsa. I am happy to hand back to you. If Ailsa returns, perhaps we can hear from her towards the end. That is great, Monica. I think that we may have Ailsa. I am not 100 per cent sure, but let me just check to see if Ailsa is available. Monica, you are right. We can come back to Ailsa in a short moment. I hand over to Natalie Don. Natalie, over to you. You have touched on some of the challenges that communities face, talking about finance, volunteers and relationships with local authorities. I am not sure whether you feel that there are any further challenges or if we can focus on a little bit more of the positive side. If there are any opportunities for community-led emissions reductions and a just transition associated with that, in which sectors do you feel that there are opportunities for innovation, learning and partnership? I will come to Mark first and then Philip and then Ailsa if she is available at the end. That is a very good question. There are absolutely opportunities to work. The development trusts that I work with are very much can-do organisations and I am keen to work. Philip's point about scale and engagement is a challenge in that, but there are still nevertheless interesting things that are going to come through from that. It was Council leader Davidson who talked about the charging infrastructure and about putting charging points up to the cost of 500. Things like that are interesting and there is an opportunity for community organisations to be involved in that and to be charging points. With the assets that we have spread across the country, there could well be charging points around and next to community buildings, because one of the issues with charging infrastructure is not the infrastructure itself but the fact that many of them are not actually working properly. Folks with EV cars have talked about having to go to multiple charging points. We have a charging point that is the responsibility of a development trust, for instance. We might find that that is looked after because it is connected to the sustainability and there is a vested interest in having that charging point of points working. There are things like that that would be interesting to see and how that would work. I think that the element about active travel—my colleague was involved in a discussion with the Scottish Government just the other week and there was a lot of talk about active travel in terms of the quality of pavements. I am ensuring that pavements are up to scratch and I totally agree to that living in Glasgow. However, one of the rural participants kind of flagged up what is a pavement. I do not have any pavements. We have to remember that active travel means different things in different places. We have communities in which the infrastructure, whether that is public transport or pavements, is not the same. Therefore, we need to think about how that works. We certainly have members who are involved in looking at community transport and how we can effectively deal with a public transport setup that is very patchy. In certain parts of Glasgow, we cannot get to that at 6 o'clock at night. There is a bit about how does that work in terms of engaging people with work opportunities and being part of the metropolitan life. That is in our largest city. It is going to be worse in different communities. There is opportunity there, and I know that there has been some interesting work done around with our colleagues in community transport and association around community transport. The element there again comes to the technology. The policy in some ways is the head of the technology. We still do not have the high capacity of many buses that are electric. The difference between a 9-seater and a 16-seater does not really sound very much, but, in terms of a viability question at the community transport level, it does shoulder some challenges. There are initiatives that we have seen and have the potential to connect to other aspects of the broader agenda. Thanks, Mark. In terms of opportunities, there are huge opportunities. Scam has a vision of just an equitable Scotland in which communities are empowered to use their collective intelligence and local knowledge to create locally adapted solutions for a zero-carbon future. There is a huge amount of creativity and willingness in communities to try and make that happen, but they just need the basic infrastructure and resources in order to really unleash community-led action. That is not action just on the climate emergency, but the opportunities to join up a whole raft of agendas and rethink what sort of future we are trying to create, and how can we ensure well-being for all in a thriving environment? It is key that we take climate action out of its environmental silo and see how tackling the climate emergency can also tackle inequality, disadvantage, biodiversity loss and so on. I do not know if you have seen that. I sent in a short paper prior to this during the outlining of the infrastructure and resources that communities need to unleash community-led action. We do not need to keep reinventing the wheel. We know what works and, in outlying terms, whatever community needs to unleash community action, because the challenge that we face is unprecedented. None of us have been here before, so we really need to find ways to tap into everybody's collective intelligence at all levels and local knowledge as to how we can create those local solutions, but it is potentially a hugely exciting opportunity. We need to be very careful not to overwhelm people with and cause them to lose hope and fall into despair, because time is very short, but it is potentially a very exciting opportunity to transform a way of life and the economy. I absolutely agree. I am not sure if you have heard my question or if you have anything else to add. You are welcome to. Am I a new to that? Yeah, great. Sorry, I did not hear your question. Are you happy to repeat it quickly? Yeah, we have spoken about some of the biggest challenges that communities face, such as finance, volunteers and relationships with local authorities. It was just trying to focus on more of the positive side of that, looking at the opportunities for community-led emissions reductions and which sectors there might be opportunities for innovation, learning and partnership. I am stemming from that. I think that communities have decades of experience of working in partnership, because for so long they were not able to deliver things themselves. They had to do things with partners, so it is only since communities have started to acquire more assets and influence that they have been able to move ahead and take some of these risks that perhaps the public sector partners have not been able to do. I would certainly reflect Philip's point about there is absolutely no lack of ambition within communities to make their places better places. They are very focused on what can we do to make this a better place to live, to bring up our children, to ensure that young people have got decent housing and can stay here. I think there are lots of really great lessons that individual communities can share. Certainly some of the challenges that have already been outlined in terms of their often volunteer boards, you do get volunteer burnout, there is need for more skills, training, there is need for more staff capacity, but we have seen where those models work. We are not reinventing the wheel there, it is just learning from things that do work, as I said with HIE and the support that they put into community development over a number of years could certainly be rolled out more widely. I think the other point I make is that for many communities, the climate emergency is not in a silo, it is just part of everyday things that a community needs to think about to make it more sustainable in human terms and financial terms and environmental terms, so they do see the picture in the round. You do not tend to have the silos that perhaps we have talked about a wee bit with public agencies and the need to break out of those silos, certainly from a community landowners perspective, they will look at the sustainability of their community in the broadest sense and whether that is people, whether it is money, whether it is jobs, whether it is housing or whether it is the environment. I think there are lots of lessons that we can learn and scale up if we have the rights or resources invested in communities and developing some of those partnerships who talk partnerships with the public sector and with intermediate organisations, like I said, the community's housing trust has been really successful, but also with the private sector, I was involved with the acquisition of the island of Ulva and Macquarie Bank, the Australian Bank, were really keen to engage and they saw a lot of benefit in engaging in those types of projects. We are seeing more private companies wanting to invest in community-led projects because they see that broader sustainability picture. We can do a lot more about scaling up that type of activity if we have the right resources and skills in place. It is really positive that, coming back to Philip's point, there are lots of things that we can do, and there is certainly no lack of ambition. I would like to thank you all. That is great. Back to you, convener. Thank you very much, Natalie. Next up, we have Jackie Dunbar. Jackie, over to you, please. Thank you, convener, and thank you, panel, for coming today. I couldn't agree more with you when you were speaking about communities being the best place to tell us what they need in regards to the problems that we are facing in moving forward. Of course, different communities will have different problems and different solutions. My question is roundabout transport in regard to active travel and public transport. I think that they are key in moving forward to try to reduce private car use. Again, some communities feel that they will be able to reduce their private car use a lot more than what others would be able to do. How do communities think that they can work with public bodies and local businesses to encourage the use of more sustainable forms of travel, whatever that may be for their communities? If I could start with Philip, please, if you do not mind. Thank you, Jackie. There are all sorts of ways. Communities need the infrastructure, and that does not mean that active travel infrastructure such as palats and safe ways to cycle and so on. There are also car sharing schemes, car sharing clubs and peer to peer car sharing, and that sort of thing—decent, interconnected public transport. Fundamentally, reducing the need to travel is absolutely fundamental, and at the moment I think that that is not talked about enough. Getting to net zero is not just going to be a question of changing to electric cars, where we fundamentally need to rethink how we get around and why we need to get around. There are lots of opportunities for localising economies so that people are able to work and play locally rather than having to travel as much as they do at the moment. Including the way we manufacture stuff, there is no need for the month anymore to have supply changes to extend around the whole world. We can set up much more local manufacturers, so called cosmo local, where you have got global design, but local manufacturer of items that enable much more of a local circular economy. Items are rich in their life, so they can go back to the manufacturer to be repurposed and re-manufactured, for example. It connects with everything that I am saying. I couldn't agree more. Can I go to Ailsa and then to Mark, please, if you don't mind? Sorry, I should have maybe said that. Yeah, thank you for the question. Your opening statement there about communities being best based to tell us what they need and what works locally is absolutely right, because what would work on mull wouldn't work in Glasgow. I think that this whole issue about public transport is that we really need to think about that in terms of local, particularly remote and rural communities, and what is the best solution for them, and it isn't going to be the same across the country. I have already mentioned that communities are at the forefront of a lot of this type of work, so certainly Huntley and Aberdeenshire, which some of you would know, they have got a big active travel project, they are developing safe routes to school, they have got a car club over on gear. The big issue there is trying to reduce the number of car-borne visitors to the island because there is only one road on the island, so they have worked with local partners to develop a cycling, they have worked with CalMac to reduce the number of cars that are coming across on the ferry, they have developed a campsite, so people don't need to bring their car. Communities have got solutions to the local problems and have to reduce car-borne travel. As I say again, there are lots of good examples that could be scaled up elsewhere. The big thing that I would say is that a lot of the funding schemes that fund these types of projects and be interested in and marks you if he is coming after me, tend to be too short. It is like it is here and then it has gone again within six months, so communities don't get the time to plan. The funding schemes have been really successful, things like, say, the Scottish Land Fund, which I am particularly aware of. You know it is going to be there for five years, so a community can plan, it can consult, it can develop the partnerships, it can get much funding, it can talk to the businesses and then it can make an application and deliver a project. It is really short-termism and you have got a particular funding part because it is in relation to something that Scottish Government are particularly keen on at the moment. It has gone in six months and you are not getting the benefit from all the capacity building work that communities are doing around these projects. I think that that would be one of the things, there are lots of examples that could be scaled up and lots of the learning that we can use from existing communities. If we are going to have funding, whether that is from local authorities or central government, they are actually long-term, at least three years, so communities can plan because, for all the reasons that we have talked about, they are volunteer boards, they are really understaffed. It is not a local authority that can say, right, okay, we will devote one whole person staff time to doing this particular project. Community organisations do not have that luxury. Thank you. Yes, I think that I would just really echo yours's comments around time frame for development. To improperly embed them is one of our colleagues who mentioned earlier this morning that it takes time to do that and get engagement and understanding about the process. In terms of practical things, there are definitely car club models and I have members who are involved in that and they are supporting that quite actively. We have also heard about development of things such as cycle libraries, so there is an element about, again, should you have a drone bike as opposed to your own car? Is there a bike around that in terms of options that might be available? I think that the issue about localising economies is very significant that Phil makes around. We have seen really a dilution of public services in communities and, for example, health has become very much centralised. There is that element about folks having to travel further to access health. There is that element about how healthy is our high street. I have member trusts who are very actively involved with our colleagues with the Scottish Towns Partnership trying to look at what services are there, how do we encourage healthy, diverse towns across the country that means that folks genuinely have a 20-minute neighbourhood? On the more general point, I think that, again, one of our colleagues earlier this morning made the point that we are in an interesting environment now in terms of that recovery. We have had 20 minutes of local exercise in two years. For many of us, that was probably the first time that we got out of our cars on a regular basis. We are out walking. I think that there is a bit where, with families, how do we encourage them to not just dive back into the car, whether it is diesel or electric powered, but to think about what is around them? That raises some interesting questions. We have communities where the concept of a 20-minute neighbourhood is just a joke, because it just does not apply. It is just not feasible that there is an element about the pressures that that will bring by taking away their ability to access those parts of life that we need to do. It is an interesting question. On the broader thing, it was George this morning mentioned about the public register of projects. I think that that would be interesting, because that would potentially give us an opportunity at early doors to see what is being suggested and planned. If communities could help to contribute to that, rather than local authorities could almost present it as a, yes, this is what we are going to do, it is all done and dusted, there is an opportunity to say, if he did this, also that he could be added value to both the capital and the revenue, which might make things quite creative. We saw when, in community empowerment, there was a register of surplus assets, communities went, we could do X, Y and Z with it in a way that local authorities and public bodies had not even thought of. I think that the same could apply to net zero projects. Thank you very much. That is all I have, convener, so back to you. Great, Jackie. Thank you very much. Let me bring in Mark Ruskell. If I could just mention to panel members, we are running slightly up against the clock, so answers could be quite succinct, that would be very helpful. Mark, over to you please. Yes, thanks, convener. Clearly, there has been a bit of a theme this morning around access to resources. I wanted to come back to Elsa around and Mark perhaps as well, just to run access to land, because it seems that, as we are tackling climate emergency, developing renewables, putting in place nature recovery, carbon sequestration and all that, that communities could have a role there, but access to land is perhaps a concern and there has been issues raised about green layouts and private sector investment in land as well. I just wanted to ask you what you saw as the most important next steps in terms of land reform if communities are going to become more involved in both climate adaptation and mitigation. Let's start with Elsa. Thank you for that question. I think that we all know that land and land use are really going to be key to Scotland's ability to meet its net zero requirements, so it's obvious that there's going to be significantly more tree planting in long-term forest management, peatland restoration, soil improvement, retention, salt moss restoration at a carbon store, etc. All of these activities are land-based, so there are really major policy changes that we need to make to connect these land use imperatives to ensure both a just transition and to build community wealth. From a community and Scotland perspective, the land market is still dysfunctional and certainly failing in those ambitions for a just transition. As it stands at the moment, it's at least going to undermine or likely defeat the ability of local authorities and their partners to rise to those challenges of achieving net zero. More regulation around the land market, we've got the opportunity of the land reform bill that's coming to start to address some of these highly speculative investments that we're seeing at the moment, particularly in rural land, which is driving up land prices hugely and stopping, not only stopping communities but stopping other organisations like Forestland Scotland or the Crown Estate Scotland or local authorities to be able to engage in that market to acquire land to help deliver Scotland's long-term land-based net zero strategies. I think there's a real danger of all the available land that is suitable for this type of use being sucked up by this superheated private investment market because Scotland's land market is unregulated and anybody can engage in it. We're seeing these values really being driven by the anticipated future rising in capital values, which we're seeing at the moment and underpinned by public subsidy. So it's that public subsidy and the land value rises, which is helping entrench wealth in pockets that are already wealthy and really stopping other organisations in a faith, particularly from our perspective communities. But we are also seeing organisations, say like Forestland Scotland, Crown Estate Scotland, who could interact in this market and buy up some of this carbon potential for Scotland because that's what we're talking about. It's like how we're going to save some of that carbon potential for what Scotland is going to need in the future because we are never going to, we're assuming, be able to deal with all of our emissions. So we're going to need some carbon offsetting and at the moment that's all being sucked up by the private sector, which is not delivering interest transition and not delivering community wealth. So I think there are issues around things like public interest, there's more land market regulation, possibly a new right to restore type of right to buy for communities, things communities being able to list things like sites of particular interest for communities to lead on local restoration, which they have proved beyond out they can do. And again, I'll send you the study that shows that. And I think there's also really interesting opportunities for local authorities and organisations like Crown Estate and Forestland Scotland to partner with communities, so more of this bringing organisations together. So I know that's obviously my pet topic, so I'll pass over to Mark now, but I think there's a huge amount that can be done to start to address some of these issues to ensure that Scotland has the capacity within its loan land to deliver net zero. Mark, do you have anything to add to that? Yes, I think that Miles is very comprehensive. I'll just make some points about the concern about buying up of land for carbon credits and locking out communities, and the concern about that particularly from an international perspective with the offset. I think that there is an opportunity around vacant and derelict land. There is a huge scale of how we utilise that, and there's been some early work done by some of our members looking at that. So again, there's this element about how do we maximise that to the benefit, and there's been some creative work done within that. I think that it should sit within that broader context of net zero as well. Okay, thanks. That's useful. In terms of resources as well, Philip, you mentioned earlier on about the CCF fund coming to a close at the end of this march. The Government has now shifted into a new programme of climate action hubs. There's been some limited investment in climate action towns as well. I wanted just to get your reflection on whether climate action hubs, that model, is effectively taking CCF on to a more mainstream roll-out of solutions, or whether there's been any issues with that, and what the reaction has been within your members, within your network? The land is a fundamental resource and asset, and at the moment, too, often communities just don't have access to that fundamental resource on their doorstep, and that really does limit what they're able to do. That and land prices is obviously another huge issue that is really urgent and needs to be addressed, and that ties in with the planning system, which, again, at the moment, too often is totally disempowering communities. If I ask you a question about climate hubs, that's at very early stages, yet when SCAN is actively supporting the Scottish Government in rolling out community climate action hubs, we think that they can play a key role in enabling a more strategic and collaborative approach to help to link community-led action up with the wider third sector and with the public sector. We're very supportive of that approach, but it's also got to come with resources. There are different ways at the moment in which communities are being helped to come up with local community climate action plans, but unless there's resources and funding to implement those plans, then that's very rapidly going to lead to communities becoming disillusioned and disengaged, so I think there needs to be some way found of enabling the climate hubs to then fund and resource projects that are planned in their areas. At the moment, there is a big gap in funding for the next year, which is going to be a real issue for many of our organisations who are going to be changing staff and losing a lot of expertise and losing a lot of momentum around the projects that are currently running. Okay, thanks. I'll be back to you, convener. Thank you very much, Mark. Final question from Liam Kerr. Over to you, Liam. Please. Thank you, convener. I'll be brief. Good afternoon, panel. I'll direct this question just to Mark. Again, Mark, if we can have a brief answer if possible, and the others come in if they have something to add. The heat and building strategy requires homes to be EPCC rated by 2033, and the installation of new or replacement fossil fuel boilers will be phased out after 2025 for off-gas houses and 2030 for on-gas. Mark, do you think that communities are aware of those impending deadlines? Is there sufficient support available to them, to meet them? In any event, are communities aware of that support? I think that the answer is no to all of those questions. I think that there is... There are certainly some of the discussions that I have had, and we have been involved with a trust looking to retrofit new boilers into its facility. It looked at that number of technologies, including wood chip, and it decided in the end that it wasn't the cost, which was, several times, the cost of a gas boiler system. The issue was about the wood chips and the deliveries that would be needed on a three-weekly basis, and that disturbing factor to the neighbours. I don't think that there is an awareness at all. One of the elements that we had with CCF was the ability to have a conversation about what was going on. I think that this is back to one of my earlier points about the need to be the kind of dialogue treatise in residents as adults, so that we can have that kind of conversation about what does that look like and how do we make the kind of progress. New builds are kind of fine, but there is a whole retrofit element that we could actually be very creative in terms of how we link that to the kind of green jobs, but at the moment it just feels like a kind of concept and it's not linking really into things like no one left behind and that change that's coming on employability just literally months from now. Very grateful. Same question to Philip Ravel, please. Thanks very much for the question. I mean that this is a huge issue, not that there is a general lack of awareness at the moment. More to the point, though, that there's a lack of anywhere where householders can go for knowledgeable expert advice that they can actually trust, but there are models out there where communities are providing that and communities are very well placed to do that if they have the resources to do it. I mean then one of the best examples, I guess, is in Fife, where there's a cosy kingdom project which is running across the whole of Fife, which does provide tailored expert advice to householders, but then that needs to be linked with then support for householders to actually implement the measures and the need for skilled local tradespeople who have the knowledge and skills to then go in and implement the measures that are needed to drastically reduce energy consumption, which is really what we need to be focused on. So there's a massive challenge in how we do roll out a retrofit programme for the whole of our current housing stock and communities have a key role to play in that, both in terms of providing the trusted advice but also in terms of potentially local, supporting local enterprises and businesses to actually do the work that's needed. Very grateful. Back to you, convener. Thank you very much. Liam, that brings us to the end of our allocated time, so let me thank our panel members for joining us this morning and for helping us to very much understand the views from community groups in respect of the key themes of our inquiry and helping local groups in the transition to net zero. I will now close the public part of this meeting. Thank you.