 Gwdaith y cyffyddu, and welcome everyone to the 24th meeting of the next zero energy and transport committee for 2022. I'd like to welcome Edward Mountain, who is joining us this afternoon for the first time as a member of the committee. Edward is replacing Dean Lockhart on behalf of all the members. I wish to thank Dean once again for his contribution to the work of the committee this session and, as discussed at our last meeting, I have written to Dean on yng Nghymru? As Edward Mountain is joining us for the first time today, our first item of business is to invite him to declare any relevant interests. Thank you very much, Deputy convener. The members of the committee will know that I've made a full declaration of my interests in the declaration of interests, but I would like to bring to your attention some key points. First of all, I am a member of a family farming partnership breeding pedigree cows, and growing barley for whisky, that industry employs three people. I have ancillary property letting business, which lets cottages that used to be part of the farming enterprise and mainly consists of old farm cottages. I'm also a partner in a family fishing business, letting fishing for wild salmon on the river spay, and that business also employs currently three people. I would just say to the committee that I get no financial benefit from any of the organisations that I'm a member of, but I am a member of the National Farmers Union Scotland and the Scottish Gamekeepers Association, and I am a member of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveys through my previous profession as a qualified surveyor. I think that's a full declaration. Committee members, as you will do, will declare any interests at any future meetings, if they're relevant. Thank you very much, Edward. We now move to the appointment of our new convener. On 15 June 2021, the Parliament agreed to motion S6M-00393, which resolved that members of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party are eligible to be chosen as convener of this committee. I understand that the Conservative nominee for a convener is Edward Mountain. Does the committee agree that we choose Edward Mountain as our convener? I agree. Congratulations, Edward, and I will now pass over to you to convene the remainder of this meeting. Thank you very much, musical chairs. I hope that I can stay in this chair for a bit. First of all, I'd like to say thank you. I've been reading back on the committee's work in this inquiry, and I saw that you called for evidence on 21 November. It seems an awfully long time ago, and up until today's day, you've had 11 meetings, I think. You've received over 51 online responses and received responses from the Accounts Commission, COSLA, and various other individuals. Now, I think when I was looking back, and I will make an admission to you, I haven't read the official report for all of your meetings, but I think it was Councillor McVey who said in the first one that there was an elephant in the room when it came to this subject. Well, I'm going to say my elephant in the room is that reading 11 meetings worth of officials' report is a bit like a Jacob's Cracker, very tasty to start with, but it can only be done in small doses. So it will take me a bit of time to get through the official reports, and I apologise if it takes me slightly longer, but if you try reading them, you'll see why. I'm looking forward to joining the committee who've done a huge amount of work, obviously, on this, and I'll look for their guidance and help as convener, because you've done so much more on this than I have. But we will move, therefore, to agenda item 3, which is a consideration of whether we take items 5 and 6 in private. Item 5 is the consideration of the committee's work programme, and item 6 is a discussion on the appointment of an adviser to the committee on environmental regulations and standards. Do we agree to take these items in private? I think we're all agreed, so we will take items 5 and 6 in private. So we'll move on to a gender item 4, which is the evidence session part of the inquiry into the role of local government, and it's cross sectoral partners in financing and delivering a net zero. I refer members to the clock and spice papers for this item, and, as I said earlier, the inquiry was launched in December to look into the progress at a local level on reaching net zero targets. As I said, and I've still been part of the, what I'm going to say here earlier, is that there have been phase 2 of the inquiry, which we're at now, is looking at depth at the key themes emerging from the initial evidence sessions and the calls for views. Today we're going to start with a panel focusing on an overview of the operation of local authorities, and I welcome our two panellists who are joining us in the room today. Andrew Burns, who's a member of the Accounts Commission, and Stephen Smylay, who's vice convener of Unison Scotland. I'd also like to welcome Louise Marricks, Evans, who's the director of quantum strategy and technology, who's joining us remotely. Thank you, first of all, to all three of you for accepting our invitation. We're delighted to have you here in person and on the screen. Members will be asking you questions in turn, and I'd say to members it'd be helpful if you could direct your questions to a specific individual. And what I would also say is to, I'm sure members don't need to know this, but to panellists, to keep your answers briefly as possible. Now, when I was convener of the previous committee, I used to wiggle my pen, which I think was a nasty habit, which I got from Christine Graham, which means that you're actually coming to the end of when I think you should be giving your answer. I never actually had to let go of it in the person's direction, because most people have got the hint, but it's a pretty good steer for you to know when it is time for you to start wrapping up what you're saying. I, as convener, am going to take the privilege of asking the first question, and I'm going to probably ask this to all three of you, and I'd ask you to be brief. I'll go to Andrew to start with and say to you, where do you think are the biggest concerns for reducing emissions in local authorities? In which sectors are there opportunities for innovation, learning and partnership? Andrew, do you want to go with that, and then Stephen, and then I'll come to you, Louise, if that's all right? Andrew. Thanks very much, convener. Congratulations on your appointment, and thanks to the committee for welcoming the Accounts Commission and inviting us to today's session. As members will be aware, the Accounts Commission holds councils and other local government bodies in Scotland to account, and we help them to improve by reporting publicly on the performance. We operate, as I'm sure you all know, independently of councils and the Scottish Government. You all will be familiar, I'm assuming, with the better-known products of the Accounts Commission, the best value reports of individual local authorities, but we also produce what are called performance audits, which are based on themes. I'm delighted to say, just in the last 12 to 18 months, the Accounts Commission and the Auditor General for Scotland, who, by chance, has given evidence to another committee this afternoon, have started to look at climate change as a theme for the first time. I'm really pleased that that's happened in the last 18 months, and that's my welcome for being invited here this afternoon, convener. I'll turn into your specific questions. This may sound a little trite, but I'm going to start with it, because I think that it is the focus of the piece of work that we've just done, the performance audit that I've just mentioned, which has been circulated to the Committee Scotland's Council's approach to addressing climate change. It's the first piece of work that has been done, by the Accounts Commission, looking at all 32 local authorities. I mean, I won't rehearse the main recommendations and findings just now. I'm happy to come to those when we get to further questions. One of the key things that comes out of it is the lack of collaboration. I don't want that to sound as a negative, because it's not meant as a negative. There's lots of really good work going on in local authorities at the Scottish Government level with partners, but if we sense from the work that we've done, if there was better, more fulsome collaboration across the levels and within the levels of government and the bodies that are responsible for reducing climate change emissions, then a greater progress could be made, which I think is really what you were getting at in your first question. If you were to press me on what single thing, I'm not going to point to this emission or that emission. I think that it's possibly as simple as, but not as easy to crack as it sounds, much more enhanced and effective collaboration, as I say, across and between levels of government. I hope that that helps for now, convener, but as I say, I'm happy to expand on the recommendations and the findings in the piece of work that's been circulated. I'm interested to hear from Stephen and whether he agrees with you. I certainly agree that collaboration is an important issue, but before we address any issue, I think—and this will be like a broken gramophone record from UNICEF, nor any question relating to local government. That's a lack of finance that local government has, and I'll not go over all the detail. We can produce documents of great length explaining the history of underfunding of local government, but in terms of what we all hope that local government can achieve, they won't be able to achieve that unless there's proper funding. In terms of the biggest concerns in terms of their own carbon footprint, building is a significant factor in that. I worked for Cycle Anarchsure Council, the chief executive recently, and made a statement that in order to retrofit all the buildings, just the non-domestic buildings, just the schools, the swimming pools, the sports centres, the halls and all the rest of it, to bring them up to a net zero standard, would cost Cycle Anarchsure £500 million. Cycle Anarchsure, in case it's a surprise, doesn't have £500 million, and if you extrapolate that across the country, it comes to a much bigger figure. Fundamentally, there's an issue there that needs to be addressed, I don't know if it's in some rooms, convener, but that's certainly one thing that can't be ignored when we talk about those buildings and fleet is the other area where councils themselves need to address. However, there are opportunities, just by signalling out those areas, there are opportunities that, when they have to address the scale of that, Cycle Anarchsure has got some 140 schools, some of those are some of the most modern school estate in Scotland actually, but some of them, most of them, all of them, I think, don't match up to net zero. We continue to build buildings, which will be unfit for purpose within a short space of time. In terms of opportunity to address that, if we had sufficient funding and collaboration, as Andrew was saying, we couldn't, within the public sector, not only start to address the retrofitting of those non-domestic buildings but expand that because of the skills and talent that would then be brought to bear and that then expand that into the housing, which is a major issue for retrofitting, but also within the wider community. There are opportunities by using that. I see your pen begins to wag. Can you hear us all? I'll leave it at that at the moment. I didn't wag my pen. I was smiling slightly to one of the official reports. I read that Glasgow were estimating that the cost exceeded £1 billion to achieve that. Louise, do you want to come in? Thank you for your presentation. I understood it, and it was very interesting. Do you want to make a brief opening comment on that? Yes. Thank you. Can you hear me all right? Perfectly. Thank you. When you asked the question about the biggest concerns and opportunities, I mean, emissions for local authorities are about two between maybe at a push five percent of local area emissions, so that's obviously an opportunity that they've got control of. The biggest areas where that action is needed is in housing, energy efficiency, and heat decarbonisation, and in transport. Those are the areas where local authorities are critical, because they bring together infrastructure with the way that people live their lives, and we have to do that at a local level that's appropriate. I think that another big opportunity and a big concern is the planning process, and the fact that we are, like the previous speaker, Steven just said, we're building buildings that are not aligned to net zero, so that I'll need retrofitting later. If I had a magic wand, I'd be getting that planning system aligned really strongly to net zero, so that local authorities don't have to go into negotiations with developers for all our new buildings and net zero, but the only way we can do all these things, I think, is by this collaboration or alignment through a framework of national, regional and local working, and I think that I feel like a broken record, I've been saying that for two and a half years, and although I think your working is better in Scotland than England, and we're all really jealous of you, I think it could still, from what I hear back from authorities, it can still be managed better through some kind of framework of formal collaboration. Mark, we're going to come to you for some questions now, if that's right. Thanks, convener. One thing that's quite struck by reading your submissions is just the lack of consistency across councils in terms of setting targets, in terms of the scope of those targets, in terms of the kind of plans that are being developed to meet those targets. Why is that, and is that a problem? Can we start with, can you go back to yourself, please? Please. Yeah, that's something that really jumped out in our climate conversations, it's well actually recently, working with people who work at a very much a national level. Local authorities really went for it with their climate declarations, I think, and found different ways of working out what they felt their contribution to the Paris aligned targets, the Paris targets are. Some looked at remaining carbon budgets, and others went for a figure earlier than the national figure. They also scoop up different emissions baskets, so some are just looking at their own estate and what they think they can do, and others are looking at the wider area. I think that the Audit Scotland, is that what you're called, Audit Scotland? That report that's just come out, that has a nice diagram showing this kind of wide disparity between local authorities. I think some of it was politics and some of it was looking at science. Why is it? I think it's because of local democracy, and local areas are in control of that themselves so they can set their own targets. We have the same thing in England. To be honest, I don't think that it really matters, because what it signals is there's a big ambition, there's a strong political commitment. Local people largely wanted this and campaigned for it, which is why we got some quite knee-jerk targets in there. I think that some authorities really see it as an opportunity to have a green recovery, grab really good jobs, local jobs, deliver those co-benefits of health, cleaner, great housing. Hang on, I can't see the pen from here. I'll just quickly say this. If you look at the sort of speed by which we have to bring emissions down globally, doing it as fast as we can between now and the sort of 2030s, especially in line with the Scottish target of 2045, it's okay to go that fast. I don't think that we should dwell too hard on it really. I think very much Mark the point that you've raised speaks to what I was saying right at the outset, and I was pleased to hear Louise echo the words collaboration as well, and Steve mentioned it as well. I don't disagree with the point about funding, I think that it's important to say, but in terms of why is it happening, I mean that councils all 32 authorities are working in this area, but they are often working alone, absolutely individually, and not working across the boundaries of local authority areas. I don't need to tell anybody in this room or anybody outside this room that climate emissions do not respect council boundaries, never mind national boundaries, and we all know sitting in this room that we've got a 75 per cent reduction by 2030, which is perorously close now, we're weeks away from 2023, and net zero I think is Louise just said as well by 2045 at a Scotland-wide level, and I'm pleased to say that those individual councils that are working really well in Scotland, there's a UK-wide organisation, I think it's called Climate Emergency UK, which has done a piece of assessment of the vast majority of all local authorities across the whole of the United Kingdom, and the two biggest cities in Scotland, Edinburgh and Glasgow, come out really really well in terms of their plans for tackling this, but some of the other local authorities do not come out well in comparison to not just counterparts in Scotland, but other counterparts in England, and there is a distinct lack of consistencies because councils are working in their own silos and not collaborating across the boundaries. It's important to say that 28 of the 32 have declared a climate emergency, which I presume everybody would welcome, not welcome the fact of this emergency, but welcome the fact that we recognised it, so that over 80 per cent, and many of all of those have set targets of different levels. Even within those different levels of targets that individual councils have set, there's further confusion added by whether the target reductions for greenhouse gas emissions are for the local authority emissions or for the area-wide emissions. Only 17 of the 32 councils have set targets for area-wide emissions, and just that very fact alone just illustrates how there is confusion and a lack of co-operation and collaboration across the local authorities. I don't mean that in a negative sense, I think it just needs a bit more leadership and a bit more steer from the appropriate channels to make that happen, and it would make a significant difference because those who are doing less well could learn from those who have got best practice. That bottom-up collaboration will help to build that consistency. I would make a strong argument from the work that the Accounts Commission has done when you look at how well, comparatively, cities such as Edinburgh and Glasgow are doing, other local authorities could learn a lot from what's happening in the two big cities in Scotland. That's not to say that Edinburgh and Glasgow are perfect or not. I'm certainly not claiming that, but yes, I'm agreeing with the gist of what you're prompting me on that if there was a bottom-up. There's also some more steer from the Scottish Government level. I'm still Stephen Cymru on the point about funding as well, but it's just a collaboration, as I said, in the statement in response to the convener, across and within the levels of all government in Scotland and the UK would really help. Thanks, Stephen. Do you have any points to add to that? Yes, I would, and as Andrew predicted, one of them is about finance. Within unison, we have in our membership many of the carbon managers, the property managers and all the rest, who are actually doing the work on the ground and trying to implement plans within the councils. There is a fair amount of degree of, perhaps more, collaboration, but exchanger information. They talk to each other. They have their own networks, but within unison we have a green network and many of them come to that and talk. So they're aware of what's going on elsewhere. If you actually picked up all the good ideas from the territory of local authorities and were able to replicate them in everything, now all the territory authorities would be steaming ahead, but the problem is that we don't have the capacity to do all the good things. Councils largely do finance, so I'll get that one over. I will say, well, we can't do everything, therefore we'll focus on what we think is the most appropriate for us in our local area. We'd like to do what they're doing elsewhere, so on and for, but we don't have enough money, so that is a fundamental problem. Some of the funding streams that they have to give grants, for example, are in the scheme of things good and some really good projects, but they're all very bitty. They're all very localised and that's not a criticism, it's just that's the funding stream. The other part of that, which prevents a greater consistency, is skills. We have a skill shortage in a whole number of areas within local government. Whether that be our planners, for example, in terms of the requirements to be able to plan there, we do require greater training, carbon literacy or whatever you would call it specifically. How do you plan for this kind of net zero future? We have similar skills gaps, training gaps and other parts, so that a number of councils have to bring in outside consultants at considerable expense to try and figure out how we take these steps forward. One of the collaborations that it seems to me that we would certainly argue for is developing that kind of public sector excellence that can actually draw on the expertise that is being developed in different areas, but draw it so that it's not just kept within that local area. Within the lack of capacity, the skills and the finance, I think it's part of the reason why you look at a picture and it looks inconsistent across the board that's because I think people are doing what they can at a local level. Do you have any further questions on that? I think that we've come to Jackie next. You've got some questions, I believe. Thank you and welcome panel. It was really in regards to how the councils have responded to the climate change transparency and reporting part of this. Do you think that the councils have been adequately assessing and mitigating reporting the risks to the climate change in their area? Thanks very much for the question, Jackie. I think that on balance from the evidence that we've got, my simplistic answer to that would be yes. They are doing their best with the resources that they've got available to report on the emissions and their emission reductions that are happening across the local areas, but without wishing to repeat myself, as I said to Mark, there's a lot of inconsistency across what they are reporting in terms of whether it's area-wide or just council emissions in regards to the targets that they've set. It's not quite 50-50, but it's about 50-50 or 17-15. I've got a different approach to the targets that they've set, but the actual reporting is happening, but it is constrained by resources. I agree with Stephen Latter's point that it's not just about finances, about skills and human resources. I think that I'm correct in saying that just in a few months in November, all public bodies are going to have a statutory and climate change report that they have to submit. That could well be a mechanism for helping to improve the consistency across all 32 authorities in Scotland. I'm not familiar with all the details of how that annual report structure is going to be put together, but I suspect that it might be something that the committee could take an interest in in terms of potentially using that as a tool to help to improve consistency, which I think is really the point behind your question. I hope that that helps. If you ruled the world sort of thing, have you got an idea of how to improve that consistency? What would you say to the local authorities that they need to be doing to ensure that everyone is reporting the same? The one big change that could be made is that the net zero targets, whenever those targets are, all 32 authorities, they are either all report for their own emissions or they are all report for area-wide emissions. At the minute, as I've said, it's 1715 and it's split almost right down the middle. I think that Louise mentioned the figures. Council emissions are relatively small in the global scheme of things, but area-wide emissions are really significant to Scotland, achieving 75 per cent reduction by 2030 and net zero by 2045. If it was me and I could insist on something like your hinting at, I think that it would be that there is a consistency in terms of which one of those is it that councils are setting a target for, is it overall emissions for the whole area or is it just reduction in emissions for the local authority? Clearly given what I've just said, the more important one to focus on, given the scale of what I've just mentioned and I think that Louise hinted at, it's the area-wide emissions that really need to be looked at because they form a significant part of the overall emissions for Scotland. Okay, if Stephen, I could ask if you would agree with that way forward, especially as you were speaking about earlier about the housing aspect of things, so that's going to be huge moving forward. Yeah, I would agree with what Andrew said. I think my previous point about lack of skills and knowledge I think is what's one of the points. I mean, local authorities have been stripped of capacity over many, many years and therefore when they're asked to do things such as the area-wide corporate emissions, that's quite difficult and that's a skill gap which we don't have. In other areas, procurement for example, councils are huge procurers of all sorts of things, food and all the rest of it, but they're tied into procurement processes which don't actually make it easy to assess what the climate impact is. So I would think that the scope to improve on that and improve that skills base and I think that's probably best on a collaborative basis to what Andrew's been saying because unless we have that, we won't be able to be. They can be as transparent as they want, but they'll be vague. Thank you. If I can just finish off by asking Louise, you were saying, in your submission Louise, that finance directors need to understand what is actually needed before we can progress further in regards to that. Can you maybe just elaborate a bit more about what you were meaning when you were saying that? Yeah, I'm just picking up on the data point as well. Local authorities, at least in Scotland, they do report, which is more than we have to do in England, interestingly. We can have an issue where you might have reported lack of data on housing, but transport data for a particular city or area might be extrapolated from national data, so it's not actually that helpful always. We can get buried in the need for more and more data without thinking what data is useful here that will help us deliver the things that we now have to deliver by way of housing energy efficiency or modal shift for transport. We can pin everything on data, we can waste a lot of resources on it, whereas good enough is sometimes got to be good enough to get going fast enough. On the piece about finance directors' understanding is that they and, when it links back to the point that Stephen just made about procurement as well, there are ways local authorities can really unlock transformational change. It needs more than just the climate person or the housing person to understand how to do that. There are often finance solutions, which once your finance director or treasurer has gone through carbon literacy training, for example, the penny drops. Why are we investing in gas boilers in these schools when we've just dug up a playground and could have put in an air or ground source heat pump? That'll be cheaper to run in the long term. Getting everyone across the leadership team trained up and getting hold of those models of what's working in certain other councils, of how did other ones do this to fill in those gaps is really important. There's a base level of skill and awareness and a way to go and get hold of expertise through exchanges like Sustainable Scotland Network or UK100, which some of your local councils are members of. You've got an energy managers association. As long as they understand the principles, they can go and get the answers or the business models or borrow the sheets off someone else. Then they can be very solutions focused. I think that's really important. You've got speakers in the next session from those kinds of organisations. You can help to really share that and make that happen on a practical level. Can I just ask a question, Stephen? You and other panel members have made the point that some of the people lacking the skills in the areas that are required took me four years to get trained in planning law and planning. How are we going to train these people up in the time? Have we changed our training at the moment to make sure that new people coming in are properly trained? I can't comment specifically on the current level of training for planners, not an area of expertise. The point that I was making is that the current staff, the current planners, the current property managers and so on, who are professional trained to that degree, many of them trained at a time when these issues weren't really pertinent or what should have been but weren't. It's about training. The carbon literacy training that Louise just measured, for example, I know a number of councils have rolled that out across a number of staff and I also agree with Louise's point that it's not just about training the planner or the the carbon manager, it's about training the finance director and the chief executive and all that. So I think that that's the correct question. You need to speak to the universities and the professional organisation specifically about the training of the new professionals, but I think we need to find ways to bring up to speed and enhance the existing skills of the existing staff and the existing local government leaders. Thank you. I'm a little bit concerned that we're not running as fast with that as perhaps we should be. The next question has come from Liam Kerr, Liam. Thank you, convener. Good morning, panel. I'll direct my first question to Louise first and then I'll come to you, Andrew. Louise, it's very clear from your submission and from what we've heard from the panel this morning that local authorities are working in a very difficult financial environment due to what you and your submission call things like short-term funding settlements, which you suggest leads to financial teams not being focused on the whole life costs of a project. So the question I have for you Louise in the first instance is how well do you think local authorities are linking their strategic carbon reduction plans and delivery route maps to their actual budget setting and what more could they be doing to align projects and investments to their net zero ambitions? I don't know how well all of them are linking that together because I've sort of not done an audit of Scottish authorities but I'd say based on the authorities which I know quite well, which do, it does include some of the Scottish ones, I'm not aware of local authorities linking their budget setting very strongly to that. I think there's probably a few leading ones so I'd move that maybe Bristol and Manchester and Glasgow might be starting to, but I have to go away, I can go away, yeah, I will go away and find out because I can't tell you who is and who is, well I don't want to miss an episode because somebody might be, but what I will say quickly is someone like Glasgow City Region Council are aligning economic development plans due net zero and that should filter down because if they've got an overall place strategy that really picks up on net zero as well as adaptation and inclusive growth then that will cascade down through other strategies or action plans across directorates and then we'll start to see it get a grip on it and we're seeing that in Glasgow and some other members of the inclusive growth network and I think there's a link to that report I've done on that in my submission that we're beginning to see it get embedded. Some of them are using things like the doughnut economics model but I'm not aware of any Scottish authorities doing that and again I could be wrong so I'll go away and do some homework and come back to you. I'm very grateful. Andrew Burns, your thoughts? Yeah, I mean I think from the work that the council commission has done and I referenced how well comparatively Glasgow and Edinburgh are doing compared to the other not just static authorities in Scotland but sister organisations and councils down south as well. They are linking decisions around budget to climate reduction targets but it's not consistent across many other local authorities and I was pleased to hear Louise mention the Glasgow City Region area because I think that's referenced as one of the case studies in the piece of work that the council commission has done as a good example of how economic decision making can and should be linked to climate greenhouse gas emission reduction targets and Edinburgh and a few other local authorities in Scotland are also doing likewise but it's very very few, it's not consistent and it's not very prevalent in Scotland at all. I couldn't speak to the wider picture on the rest of the UK, I'm afraid. Thank you very much. My second question and Stephen, I'll bring you in in a second and you might want to address that first question then but stick with you, Andrew Burns. Given the financial situation that we've heard so much about, what impact do you foresee the pay increases, the Scottish Government spending cuts and the current inflationary pressures having on local authorities ability to deliver on their net zero ambitions and given how councils are funded, what can they do about it? Well frankly it doesn't take a mathematician to realise that it makes it harder. You know there's huge pressures on local authorities, surely we can be apolitical about this as well you know that no matter where you're coming from it must be obvious to anybody, all of us are users of local council services that the pressure on delivery of those services is enormous at the moment and you know whether it's pay settlements or establishment of new national care service or you know we could go through a whole host of things, you know it was really necessarily the remit of this committee but they do cause pressure to then be forced on to the resources that are available to achieve greenhouse gas emissions and net zero targets so you know that they do all have a cumulative impact and that cumulative impact is negative. Anything you think that they can do about it given the constraints of what's the funding? I mean I wish I could sit here and give you you know one word you know golden sort of rule answer but I don't have that but but again in danger of slight repetition but what would help it wouldn't solve everything but what would help is that improved collaboration across local authorities and between the different levels of government in Scotland. Now my statement of the obvious you know if more funding was available that that would of course also help but if we put that to the side for the moment and potentially assume that there's no additional funding then you know that that effective more effective collaboration would assist it's not going to solve all of these challenges and you know maybe not in response to yourself only but it might lead us onto a bit of a discussion about adaptation in a minute because you know that that's one area where I think there's potential for improvements around all of the local authorities plans as they stand at the moment. Very grateful. Stephen Smyll, your thoughts? Yeah I think it's very difficult and the last time I was in a meeting with Government Ministers we had the Deputy First Minister and the First Minister about the pay settlement and that was very clear to us that if we were getting extra money on the pay which we did which we're obviously very grateful about there was consequences for that and that's for the reality of both Scottish Government and local authority spending I think there are clearly things which could be done in terms of increasing revenue raising powers for local government which Unison's very supportive of and has done over a number of years. There's other things that Scottish Government could do in terms of raising additional funds locally. Before we get into discussion about what Westminster should be doing and additional borrowing powers and so on and so forth so there are things that could be done none of them are short-term fixes it has to be said but they need to be looked at. The other thing is priorities I mean all Governments will have to make decisions over the next period of time. I'm going to back to your first question if they don't link them to the net zero objectives then we will end up going backwards not forwards because they're making short-term decisions on basically a financial so the new swimming pool that might be going to get built will be the cheapest available swimming pool or will we build this one and build that and that will meet our net zero targets for the future and that for a finance director that's a very difficult choice to make and for any councillor elected on a four-year, five-year term again these are difficult choices so we could start making priorities. For example move I talked about a skill shortage I mean we could actually move people away from rebuild you know improving roads for example or creating new junctions to actually move those those kind of engineers into doing more work on you know safer travel and more active travel pursue so there are things like that that could be done within current arrangements simply to say well we won't build more roads we will instead devote that money to retrofit in our buildings to make them more efficient energy efficient and so on and so forth so there's things like that that could be done. I understand I'm very grateful unless Louise Marricks Evans has anything to add I'll hand back to the convener thank you. Louise was too slow in looking up if she did but maybe Monica I think that's got some questions on this so she might be able to come in on that. Thank you convener and thank you to our panel. I have a question on procurement which has been mentioned already but I'll just come back to this issue of capacity which we hear about often in very sort of broad terms but I think what Steven's described is you know very sort of lean model of local government where we have shed a lot of staff over over the years I just wonder briefly if each of our witnesses could maybe let us know if we're doing workforce plans across local government do we know exactly in ideal worlds you know how many staff we need and in certain roles we talk a lot about workforce planning for the NHS for example but not always negative detail in terms of what local government actually needs so I'll become to Louise first and then around the table to find out if that work even if it's happening perhaps in England Louise and if you've got any good examples of that but just a sense of what do we actually need and what kind of jobs should we be training people for and thinking maybe Steven in terms of just transition how those agendas link so I'll come to Louise first. I think I'd say that rather than saying you need this many climate change officers per council or per head of population I think it would go back to having everyone trained so that everyone knows what their role does towards net zero and understands what the co-benefits of that is so that if they look through a net zero lens at the work they're doing then they're contributing towards that so that's the first thing I'd say rather than siloing it off into a climate change department that you've got your highways people your economic environment people doing things that run against net zero whilst you've got a little climate change team trying to pull the other way and we do see that councils. I would really invest in my housing team and I'd invest in people who begin to understand how to develop business models towards I think knobbling the to nailing the owner occupier retrofit challenge building up business models for and skills basis for people delivering retrofit and I think you've started on that journey with your energy efficiency programmes in Scotland so I'd say those are really important and I think the other one is about getting for the modal shift piece getting people in who really understand about active travel and I think a bit of a mindset change from your traditional highways engine so that we we have proper engagement and really good design of very high quality ways of traveling actively or moving ourselves differently and so that's completely different to the kind of people who want to just stack cars in car parks or keep traffic flowing those are the kind of people I end up sort of tearing my hair out over so yeah I think those are two important ones and the last one I'd say is people who are really good at engaging with local communities and working and building other partnerships because it's not all on local authorities to deliver it has to be done with partners at a much more micro level community level and that takes resources and is totally worth developing and we saw that in Dundee and we see that we see that in Glasgow as well putting resources into people who can do the practical stuff on the ground and build partnerships so other people can deliver that thank you Louise I suppose when I asked the question I was making an assumption that that everyone working on local government is part of the mission in terms of net zero goals and that we are trying to mainstream this so it's not just about somebody who's got green or climate and their job title it's trying to embed that so thank you for that I'll come to you Stephen yeah I mean I think that's a critical point I mean although it has to be said that local authorities with the funding streams they've had recently where they've been trying to recruit specific people to take forward some of these programmes or competing against each other and struggling to recruit people with green in their title or that kind of specialist knowledge that is a difficulty that is that is out there and it can't be ignored but I do agree that it's about training up the people we've got who could do the job better or green or more greener in that local government doesn't have a workforce planning mission if you like it's not something that's 32 local authorities who are effectively competing with each other and indeed in some of the areas that we're told up here are competing with the private sector to recruit that kind of talent and that's one of the things which is getting clear that within that kind of professional level it's difficult to recruit and difficult to retain some people because the pay has been suppressed for a number of years we're not brought up particularly but it's just a fact that there are difficulties in retaining staff within those areas because there are better pay jobs elsewhere so there is a need for us to look at that I can back to the point about training existing staff and as Louise has made the point about training the whole team and you've made the point yourself Monica but everybody in local government should really have this as part of their job and they should have an understanding one of the things that I'm keen on promoting is engagement greater engagement with the workforce in how they can transform the way in which they deliver services and we've various examples across the country of where that's been tried where people you know for a very simple book in the past just started to a number of years ago we talked about you know moving to paperless what does that mean and yet you know when staff are starting to get into it then they start coming up with their own ideas and the home working that we all had were forced to do over Covid has opened up people's ideas well maybe we don't need to travel to all these different meetings of issues so there's a whole not if you engage with the workforce they can come up with ideas without necessarily them getting in their job description and you mentioned just transition one of the things which we are very pleased to see in the latest just transition commission report is when they talked about the need to invest in the social infrastructure of the country by that I mean health and social care and things like that and of course local government has a critical role in investing that and training up social care workers and others to create the kinds of jobs that we need to create in the future which are green jobs we don't tend to think of them as green jobs but they are they don't they don't cause climate greenhouse gas emissions as long as they've got an electric car to be able to go and visit their services as I suppose so there is a role for local government in developing that kind of transition into that kind of economy that we need in the future so that the local government also has that and again as you say that should be part of the workforce planning and also the the financial planning of all local government that's really helpful thank you Stephen Andrew your thoughts and reflections thanks mark I mean I wonder if I could try and link your question about workforce plans to adaptation which I mentioned earlier on because I really think there's an important point to try and get across on that from the work that the council commission has done so I think yes individual local authorities as Stephen Lewis have already indicated do have workforce plans I mean the council commission knows this from the best value work that we do for all 32 individual local authorities but the individual workforce plans within the needs of local authority but the something that came out really really powerfully in the work that we did was that there is a big focus on greenhouse gas emissions without hardly any sort of serious focus on adaptation and I think this is a point that doesn't often get discussed enough but I think I am right and say I'm sure that we are never going to get to net zero never there's always going to be residual emissions greenhouse gas emissions and if we don't have adaptation in some forms of sequestration then we're never going to be able to remove those residual emissions and that linking that to your point about workforce plans and the need for training of the workforce from the evidence that we've got before us from the survey we did with all 32 authorities that is something that is not being given the level of attention and it's not just councils in the public sector it potentially is private sector as well but if I was to ask everybody in the room to put their hands up if they had a gas boiler I'll bet you to heat their house I'll bet you more than half of us would have to put our hands up and we're nowhere near ready from the evidence that we've got in tackling that problem going forward and I think therefore there is an issue around appropriate workforce planning for dealing with residual emissions because we are going to have residual emissions greenhouse gas will never be zero net zero doesn't mean that and we're going to have to have adaptation and adaptation I don't think he's been proper from the evidence we've got isn't being properly assessed and looked to in the workforce planning of individual authorities I hope that makes sense Monica do you want to come back in very briefly I'm glad we didn't have a vote on care spoilers because it's not something in the Highland we see much of but yeah I mean I'll move on to procurement but just keen to ask Andrew why you know adaptation that's not given that priority why is that can you put your finger on it or your pen on it yeah I mean regrettably I'm not sure I can you know it's just it's just a statement of what a fact of what we found from the piece of work that we've done I mean I don't doubt it's linked to the pressures that are on local authorities and they've got greenhouse gas emission targets and net zero targets that are working towards and they've identified those but I don't think there's enough focus on just dealing with what's going to be a small element of residual emissions because they're not going to go away Stephen just on the adaptation two two things I'll be brief councils are manage lots of land and they have required their responsibilities for doing that and many have projects to plant more trees, engage children for example in schools and G plant and stuff like that that's a small part of it but that's the kind of work that needs to be a greater investment and the other thing about adaptation is adaptation in the sense of adapting to the current climate change. Low authorities have to plan for the extreme weather conditions that we see more frequently the flooding that takes place the water shortages that we get. Local authorities are hard to plan for all that in terms of their own infrastructure we you know fixing the roads and rebuilding the bridges and all that kind of stuff adapting their buildings. We along with STEC and Adaptation Scotland developed some training material for workplaces about how you audit workplaces for adaptation, how is climate change impacting on us now ever from temperature to ventilation and outdoor working and all the rest of it. So I'm just right there's not enough done on that but there has been work done by the trade unions along with Adaptation Scotland to start getting that understood in workplaces and I think that's if we had sufficient time and we don't but if we had sufficient time then we could see progress by engaging in the workforce and one of the things just very quickly one of the things which I think local government could take a lead on is identifying within the workforce the green reps in the way in the same way as under legislation of health and safety reps who get the facility time to inspect and all the rest of it. We could actually start developing training up people to be either green reps and violent reps whatever we would call them to carry out those kind of audits within workplaces working with management but represent the workforce and how we should do that and that would be a key step forward in trying to get this message into every workplace initially local government but for the reason why that wouldn't then be an example that could go elsewhere. I'm going to come to Natalie now who's got some questions. Natalie the microphone is yours as it were. Thank you very much convener. Yeah I'm going to come to Louise first with this question and I'm interested around the role of communities and whether you feel that there's a mismatch between the scale at which local government and local community groups operate in relation to delivering net zero and if so how you feel that this should be addressed so evidence gathered today in the inquiry suggests that partnerships between councils and community groups is variable dependent on the area so how should local authorities change culture to ensure that communities become key partners in the delivery of net zero? I think it's really important and I think when you're looking at the scale of what's got to be delivered and you're looking at you know numbers of houses that need to be tackled by retrofit and then you're looking at a little nice little community partnership for you know bicycle refurbishment and getting people on bikes it feels like a tiny cram compared to this fast sort of cake we've got to tackle but I think it's absolutely critical for people to be empowered and it goes back to Monica's point about the just transition is we can't really accept this transition being done to us particularly when we get into the areas that are going to change the way we move the way we live the kind of jobs we have what we buy and eat so you can change the electricity system without us particularly noticing that the cost might be an issue but I think a partnership or a way that local communities can feed in and really engage and co-create ideas and solutions with local authorities or with with government as well is really important so that we can help shape what is going to happen what this better future should look like for us that we can see what the benefits are the opportunities and again we think of communities maybe as people in houses but communities are also made up of businesses small businesses enterprises and then they might see opportunities to develop new services create new enterprises so where local authorities go into partnerships with quite an open mind rather than saying we are engaging with you so that you agree with our plan we engaging you with you so that you consent to what we're going to do in your town or local area that's no good but where they come in and say look this is a problem we've got to change the way we're moving around here in spite of Dundee or wherever how are we going to do it they can come up with solutions and that gives support to the elected members to go well they want it let's do it it means more people have a voice so it's not just the noisy campaigners who can sort of say I want this and I think it's empowering and the people we've met who've been part of community climate plans or engaged in different ways maybe through arts as we see with creative Dundee that it's well I mean it makes you feel like you have agency and I'm not being very articulate sorry but I do think it's really important and I think for big high-level policymakers it can seem like it's not a big nice infrastructure thing or a big chunk of money that you can spend and deliver emissions like that but it is absolutely critical and I think we see more deliberative democracy coming through by way of climate juries and things like that and the CCC the climate change committee have really started looking at this in earnest now which I think is great so it's very important thank you yes so as well as knowing the area best you feel that that cooperation between local authorities and communities is going to be key to ensuring that sort of buy-in from local people and citizens and actually you touched on my next point which I was going to ask what other forms of democracy might help to ensure community involvement and how should these be initiated and supported but you have touched on that so I'll maybe turn over to Andrew for your thoughts on that please yeah no thanks thanks Natalie I mean I would say from the evidence that we've got before us in terms of the council commission survey of local authorities across scotland this is an area of the partnership work between local authorities and communities there's actually a strength in Scotland I'm not wanting to claim for one second that it's perfect across the whole of Scotland but it is a strength there are various case studies in the submission the report that we just put out a couple of weeks ago that was submitted to the committee that show this you know Dumfries and Galloway Aberdeenshire Glasgow region city region we've already mentioned where there's lots of really good work and good partnership going on with local communities and in many ways it's all about empowering below tiers below or not equivalent to the tier that you represent and we've been making that discussion and having that debate in some ways about Scottish Government local government level we've got to make the same arguments and have the same discussion about local government and community level and I think it is a strength in Scotland but it's not perfect I wouldn't as I say wouldn't like to say and claim it's perfect it could be improved but there's lots of good practice and I do agree with the latter point that Louise made there's things like deliberative juries and so on that could and deliberative decision making that could all help and many neighbour partnerships inside the 32 authorities are working well on that with partner bodies like police boards fire boards and so on and it's not something we drill down to in detail but I'm sure the committee could establish fairly easily some further examples of what works well at a neighbourhood partnership level as well as the work that we've done at the council commission thanks very much Andrew I'm not sure if Stephen if you have anything to add but otherwise I'm happy to pass back to the convener on this one I think Stephen does have something to add briefly Stephen I wasn't sure I couldn't see you there sorry yeah I have to declare to clear an interest my background isn't community development work so I do have lots of ideas about communities and what we should do I think my view every community should have its own net zero planner should be working to how does our community our village our scheme whatever how do we address these issues herself and what does it mean for us and one of the things which I mean there's lots of good examples but on a relatively small scale because the community let's be honest with it don't actually get involved um they um they either don't feel empowered to get involved or the conference evolved or they don't have the resources and one of the things which local authorities can be good at and it's very patchy community development workers is one of the areas which has been stripped out of local government over many years speaking personally um but where it's where it works it's when you actually are able to engage with local communities and think and get people starting to think about what's what's of concern to them and how does that then fit into a wider agenda so at the moment lost people will be talking about energy and the costs now there's not there's ways in which local government could be engaged with communities on as they have done in various parts of the country in terms of community energy schemes now that could be magnified in great ways what much of the um the local authority land for example could be worked with local communities to see well whether local district heating schemes and local energy production could be there the the roofs of everybody's house could be solarised and so on and so forth and if most stops people doing that themselves individual is the cost of it but if you were actually given support to community organisations street by street by street village by village they could collectively come together with some support and they could start making real progress on that and people would be feel that there's a gain for them in a relatively short period of time and that would lead on to a greater development so that kind of notion of I mean unison's in favour of public energy but that's a different committee no doubt but community energy would be part of that mix of public energy and rather than big companies being the ones to always get the benefits from these things of big landowners who you know are able to provide the land there's no reason why communities couldn't do that as well and similar with transport networks one of the one of the real concerns at the moment for lots of people despite you know people of my age get free buses and all the rest of it which are very grateful lots of people and particularly in rural areas and I come from a psychological action where there's large rural areas where there isn't a decent bus service transport services are something which a local community should be part of the design and local authorities should be able to work alongside communities to develop those services thank you thank you very much is that you finished Natalie did you just have one follow-up on that if that's all right? well I'm nervous because the deputy convener hasn't had her questions yet and there's nothing like upsetting the deputy convener at your first meeting so Natalie if you perhaps allow me to go to the deputy convener and I may come back to you at the end thank you convener thank you Natalie and I'd like to talk about the barriers and opportunities for councils in leveraging private finance we've heard from councils that yes there are public pressures we understand that but the scale of this means that they don't expect the Scottish Government to provide all the funding so therefore how do we use private and green finance so I'd like to come to yourself Louise first on that and whether in terms of the skills and abilities and that framework of collaboration is there something that more can be done in this if you've got any recommendations for us oh I am unmuted yeah I mean we know that the the transition is not going to be funded by the public sector it's going to come from largely from the private sector I think we we can look at local authorities already obviously work work with the private sector and they they might have deals we see see British Bristol City Leap for example sorry non-Scottish example setting up a joint venture to deliver a big heat network as well as deep retrofit in buildings and I think there are joint ventures for heat networks that you've but in Scotland I believe Glasgow has been working with the climate cities investment commission which has modelled you know how much it's going to cost and you think yeah fine I could have told you that actually before you did the research but the next stage of it now is exciting and I think there's a conference that was due but was probably cancelled last week to actually bring together investors with with the city to say what are the opportunities but I think this is maybe where it gets really hard for local authorities because you've some people who understand all these finance models and joint ventures and special purpose vehicles and so on and then you have ordinary people like me you think well who who's benefiting are we just paying more like with a private finance initiative are we paying more over longer and somebody else owns it if they go bust we carry the risk so there's a lot of there's a lot of thinking about aggregating mixed risk bags of investment that we then bring bring investment in from the private sector to deliver this long-term infrastructure challenge but the problem is so much of it isn't rapidly investable so energy is that's fine but things like the sort of long-term impacts of housing retro if it takes a long time to get that payback and to get that revenue stream back to service the debt so I still think it's under developed we get little little things we see like green bonds maybe they raise a million quid through community bonds we've seen that in barchshire and warrington I don't know if there's a Scottish example but that's only a million quid and it's often for just a solar farm or something it's not for the really difficult stuff to make a payback and we're not yet able to sell those sort of carbon emissions or the health benefits through social bonds so there's a lot of talk about it and there's lots of really clever people in smart suits who talk about it but I still don't see it kind of being a true example that I can get my head around yet so it's sort of to me it seemed a bit smoke and mirrors and I think it's certainly a skill that might exist in authorities and I'm sure Kit England in Glasgow is busy recruiting somebody to do this kind of stuff and he understands it but until elected members and ordinary members of the public can get their heads around it I think it's going to be difficult I think it's coming and it's there in some places but it's not is by no means everywhere and it's a big gap and I think it's a gap the government might be able to help but I think the finance industry really needs to help us and is that something you see a framework you know between national and local government regional government addressing I think I think it could but I think a lot of the time private investors say you have to do risk it and then we'll invest and that's fine but where the risk lies I suppose that's not for me I'm not an elected member but I think I think there is a pipeline that needs developing and it has to be a very wide pipeline because getting the project away is a narrow funnel so we lose a lot of projects in the process I'm a bit out of my comfort zone on this but it's something that really exercises me because I don't see enough happening and I hear a lot of talk about it but it doesn't strike me as transparent or practical enough there's a lot of theory and I'd like to see more real projects coming through so when we turn to Andrew Burns now what's your view on this leverage of private finance and is there a conflict between councils being responsible for their own estate but at the same time we're saying we either need to commute to you and or place-based investments in which case the council should also be leveraging private finance for things that are actually income generating or there's an income source that might not be generated obviously from their own stock. I think it's a really important point and I think given everything we've just been discussing around the fiscal pressures that are on local authorities and the slim chance of that magically we're going to become you know markedly better in the short term then leverage in an access in private finance is absolutely essential and I know it's been referenced a couple of times by various members who have been given evidence this afternoon but I would just reference the climate ready Clyde example that's in our submission the piece of work that the council commission did because it does involve the whole of eight local authorities across the Glasgow city region plus I believe six or seven other organisations some from the private sector it has had Scottish Government support and funding it could be something that could be rolled out across the other because I think I'm right in saying these only specific example where there's been that cross authority and inter private public sector collaboration in Scotland with Government support and it's not necessarily a magic bullet but I would encourage colleagues to have a look at the case study for in this submission from the piece of work that we did just last or we published just last week because it does illustrate that it's potential there to leverage in private sector finance and city region deals they're not everybody's favourite mechanism but they have already illustrated in a different arena I acknowledge how private sector finance can be leveraged into local authority areas and if the climate ready Clyde can prove that that can have an impact on climate greenhouse gas emissions emissions and adaptation targets then I think it would be well worth looking at that carefully in terms of potentially a model that could be rolled out across the other city region deal city region deal areas because I think there's now one that covers every local authority area of Scotland and is that the way to make sure that the finance expertise can be shared because clearly smaller local authorities may not have that yeah I mean I think in particular small local authorities without wishing to sound you know urban central you know they do struggle because they do have a lack of capacity and a lack of access to those human resources and so yes I think it could be a way of making sure that small local authorities have access and some of the eight local authorities inside the Clyde climate ready Clyde city region deal that I've just referenced will be relatively small in comparison to Glasgow and they will be leveraging in expertise and private sector human resources as well as capital through this mechanism and Stephen finally I can ask you about what your view on the origin of private finance can be mind you yourself identified issues around community bonds which is private finance but from communities and the committee was meant to unfortunately you know we had to cancel a visit which was to Linnisco which has already done that in a solar bond exercise so what you know is the big ticket items are housing and transport and you've talked about how you can mobilise the workforce and the expertise what can we do in relation to private finance and what the barriers that you see but also what are the opportunities because we're the best one in the world nobody's saying that you know public funding will be able to tackle net zero I think that you know coming to a surprise I'm a bit of a skeptic when it comes to private finance I don't think there's any record any evidence of private finance going to be coming in to rescue in this situation our history of experiencing using private finance and for public infrastructure PFI Louise mentioned in passing was not successful I don't think anybody would go back to those days when PFI was the only game in town as we used to be told in local government and we're still paying off years and years and years later in fact the government have had to extend the period of times when we can pay off that so I don't think that there are and in fact the the whole history of moving to renewables internationally is evidence that actually unless the public purse actually funds it subsidises or allows you to charge significantly more for the energy the private sector don't come in because they only find the private private sector not interested in generating energy or indeed in saving energy they're interested in generating profits in a situation where financial public finances are tight why would we commit to a strategy which essentially just means we're going to hawk for even more years so I am a skeptic of that I don't think there is much evidence that that will come to a rescue and therefore I do think we do need to start thinking about public sector responses to this community engagement is fine and there is room for it at small levels but it is small bear in terms of the bigger the bigger picture I don't think is any getting away from the fact that the public sector using borrowed money and appreciate the difficulties that they have low authorities can borrow money if they're allowed to in certain circumstances we don't have that capacity at the government level in scotland we do need to start addressing those kind of issues because I don't think unison does not think that the private sector will deliver on these these kind of issues on the scale that would be necessary and I'm sorry to be so negative about that but that's that's our assessment can I just find a very brief ask does unison agree that councils should be leaders in a place-based approach to tackle net zero or should they only be interested in public services and public sector responsibilities I think your unison is very firmly of the view that local government has a very key role to play and they should describe a place-based solutions absolutely engaging with local communities engaging with businesses and integrating effort with all the rest of them but that's not the same as saying that they are going to be able to bring in private finance the private finance isn't there okay thanks thank you now the two members who've asked to ask questions say when I let them both in first for monica but I'm going to say to you both at the outset a short question to one panel member to allow Natalie to come in after you monica okay I'm going to ask a question about the Scottish National Investment Bank so I don't know maybe if Louise or Andrew can indicate if they're the best place to answer but I think it would be good if Steven Smiley could follow up maybe in writing to the committee because unison did publish a report last year on decarbonising public sector and I'm certainly keen to hear what engagement there's been with COSLA accounts commission and others about that report but the role of the investment bank we've not heard about that today do we have anyone who can maybe speak to that very very briefly. Andrew looks like you're up and if your brief Steven might get in as well so that depends if you're curing favour with him. Thanks very much monica I'm not sure if I can be overly helpful on this I mean it's not something that was looked at in detail as part of the work that the accounts commission undertook I think it's a good question though and one that the committee I hope will further pursue because my understanding as an individual is that that was one of the aspirations behind the establishment of the national investment bank was that it would be able to invest in assistance for climate gas emissions and adaptation as well which we've referenced a couple of times this afternoon so it's not something we've looked at I don't think yet in detail but I think it's a good point and it is a body that could potentially assist. I would refer to the STUC submission which actually does address this issue of the role of the national investment bank I wouldn't pretend to be an expert on it either. The other thing I would link into that however is we have in Scotland a social funding in the local government pension scheme so billions of pounds which currently invests in you know continue to invest in fossil fuels which there's an issue there about divestment to lot authorities have a key role they run the local government pension scheme so there is an issue there as well about how that kind of money could be invested. It has to have a return the same because of my pension that we're looking for after not primarily about investment infrastructures but there is a there is a social and one of the things which we campaigned for is actually to review 11 funds with lots of duplication there's about 100 million pound could be saved every year by merging those funds into one so in terms of an immediate well tell you about time put in place as we said but over a period of a few years we could actually be looking at significant savings in that which would come directly to local government that would be some Okay, Natalie do you want to come back with your your question to one one individual please? Thank you convener. Yeah it was just on the back of what you were saying Stephen so I apologise I didn't realise your background and it was just in relation to who you said that one of the biggest challenges for communities is is the finance side of it so it's just do you feel there are any other challenges for community led emissions and what can we do to help that and what action can we as policy makers take to reduce these barriers? Just very briefly I mean in your previous question you asked about levels of democracy and I agree that you know having engaged finding ways to engage people in the local community and whatever community they identify because it's not all about you know the village they live in or whatever sometimes communities of interest and so on and so forth our workplace communities as well but engaging people in that and partly educating partly raising awareness but also giving them opportunities to say well how their situation could be improved upon would elicit all sorts of ideas some of which would be daft there's no doubt about it some of which would be unrealistic because of the finances involved in it but there's no doubt that people given the opportunity and given a bit of a bit of funding we're not necessarily talking about lots lots of funding in some of these aspects we're giving a little bit of funding they could come up with solutions to their own immediate problems and a lot of authorities I think are best placed to be able to harness that coordinate with other communities and get back to Andrew's point about collaboration communities also collaborating to achieve their own improved energy sources or transport networks which would help to address the net zero in the wider sense within the community so I think there are real opportunities there which if we're able to unlock them would bring a lot more talent and a lot more ideas to the table. Thank you. Thank you Stephen, thank you Natalie for that and I haven't had to throw my pen at anyone which is great news. I want to thank Louise, Stephen and Andrew for your contributions and members I'd like to briefly suspend the meeting to allow a changeover of witnesses so I suspend the meeting. Government inquiry we need to hear as we near the end of our evidence taking we'd like to welcome COSLA and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities Solace the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers and today to offer their perspective on local authority leaders. Now we'd also like to welcome back a representative of the Sustainable Scotland Network so welcome our panelists today who are all joining us remotely. There's Councillor Gail McGregor of COSLA, a spokesperson on the environment, economy and of all Dumfries and Galloway Council. David Hammond, the representative of Solace and head of sustainability, corporate property and transport, North Ayrshire Council. Silke Isbrun, the policy manager for the environment, economy team of COSLA and George Tarver, the director of SSN. Thank you for joining us today and taking time today as we had to rearrange the panel. Now the problem is is you're all remote so I can't wave my pen at you because you won't be able to see me so it just if you get too verbose I apologize now I'll just have to cut you off so if you could just bet that in mind that'd be brilliant. The first question then for local authorities is in this section from me is what do you think the biggest challenges for reducing emissions in local authorities are? Now just a very brief answer from each of you would be really helpful because then I'm going to ask Mark Ruskell to delve into that so Gail McGregor do you want to go with that to start with what are the biggest challenges? Thank you very much convener and good afternoon members and congratulations on your recent appointment as convener. I'm sure I'll see your pen wagging it if required. This is a massive agenda we've spoken at length about it in previous committees but we're sort of really reaching a verge now to contextualise it. We're less than 100 months away from 2030 targets which I think is quite a focus book for the mind and really contextualises the pressure that we're under. I think in reality to enable us to reach our targets and there are many obviously resourcing is an issue, a skillset issue as well. I think in the previous session Monica mentioned workforce and the pressures around that so the two main issues at the moment would probably be resource and ensuring that local government has the resources to place where it is required and when required and then obviously having the skills within local government to deliver on that as well. A lot of ambitious projects are going to take people that truly understand the delivery of them and at the moment we're seeing across councils that there is definitely a shortage in skilled workforce but probably and I'm afraid it's always the case resources and finance will be the most pivotal one but I have to say that local government is completely signed up to this but we need to do it very much in a greater collaboration with Scottish Government as well and obviously direction from the Parliament. Thanks Gail. David, what are your views on that? Thank you convener can I just check that everyone can hear me okay? Perfectly. Thanks for your question convener. You'll not be surprised that my answer will be very much along the same lines as councillor McGregor and the sole-ass view is very much that local government are geared up for the net zero challenge but the most complex part for us is that resourcing issue and the flexibility in that resourcing so ultimately the net zero challenge has a price tag and it's about the ability of local government to play its role in meeting that it's not something that we're funded for at the moment. I'm sure as we get into the detail we'll talk about some of the options around that funding including private sector leverage I was tuning into the previous session there so I'll touch on some of that later but to summarise it would be very much resourcing and flexibility in that and any resourcing that's available thank you convener. Thank you very much David Silker. Yeah can you hear me? Yes yes we can hear you perfectly. Thank you very much thank you convener and absolutely just to to to underline what councillor Gail McGregor and what David have just said there we've very much looked at at at the whole sort of like funding issue and especially the the the the flexibility of the funding I think you heard sort of like in the earlier sessions that were held in the spring very clearly for example from Glasgow you know we do understand this you know this is a funding issue no one level of government has got all the funding not not local government not Scottish government not even the UK government so it is very much about being able to bring another other funding sources and in order to do that effectively we need we need flexible funding I think we've gone much much deeper and and I'm aware you've got our submission and where we go into into details round about capacity, national infrastructure, behaviour change, skills, public sector frameworks, data base lining and a lot of these issues speak to to your question here as well without me at this point in time wanting to go into detail. Thank you. Thank you very much and I'm going to bring George in very briefly if I may George. Sure just I suppose just to touch on one thing that came up in the previous session which hasn't been mentioned by colleagues so far and it is it's the assuring collaboration but really deep collaboration we've got good collaborative structures in Scotland you know we do actually collaborate quite extensively through SSN and across Puzzle us all as the improvement service and the likes but I think there's a real desire and I need to keep in that collaboration and really align the sort of strategies plans programs that we see within local government and the wider public sector to deliver on net zero so I think we've got a lot of the foundations in place we just need to invest in some of those some of those solutions more actively. Okay thank you very much and I'm going to come straight to Mark for your questions now Mark. Yeah thanks that convenient I think just picking up on that last point I mean we're aware we had some evidence in the last panel that there's a lot of inconsistency between local authorities you know the majority of them don't have area wide targets you know the majority of them do have targets for their own emissions but can ask you what your organisations are doing to try and you know develop that that more coherent approach across local authorities you know common understanding of net zero common understanding about how target should be applied. Could I ask perhaps Gail to go first please on that one from a causal perspective? Yeah I think it's it thank you very much for the question I think it's also from an individual local council perspective at the moment as we are as we've already said collaboration and that more unified approach is required and that needs to be done in conjunction obviously with Scottish Government we have a lot of targets to reach we have a lot of initiatives and policies coming through from Scottish Government but it's then how it is developed and delivered at local level and you will see some differences and disparities between individual councils that's absolutely right and proper they should be able to develop initiatives that work for their their own local areas there's been some criticism of some councils for not even having an environment committee and again I think that comes down to localism because there's a lot of councils who are simply embedding the climate change agenda and the net zero agenda across their entire operations so it almost doesn't require an individual committee to do that it's the responsibility of every committee and every department within the council to embed and intertwine our net zero targets into all of the work we do across councils but I think an awful lot that comes from ring fence funding individual policies that maybe don't suit a particular area and then that local council has to modify and adapt that to suit the locality so really you know going back to resource again it's not all about the amount of money we're getting it's how that money can be used flexibly and again you know we do have a challenge of attracting still people into our councils whether it be through planning or economic development or people who are filled up on climate change agenda there is a recruitment issue across scotland and I think until we address that it is going to leave us slightly on the back foot but not without the will to do better and do more yeah but within your working group within um coslegale I mean is there is there political unanimity behind having a more consistent approach say around targets so obviously there's all those issues around you know how best to deliver those targets and different size of local authorities and anything else but is there would there would there be political unanimity in your working group around making things more consistent in terms of the way that targets are set and and targets are planned for I'll maybe turn to Silke in a moment because obviously she's been doing the work with the officers across councils on the targets and reporting and Brittany and the such like from the political end council leaders all 32 council leaders are absolutely signed up to this agenda and and progressing and but leaders will always work on the basis that the local individual bespoke initiatives are required so while we're signed up to the to the whole sale net zero agenda and the targets of 2013 2045 I think leaders would recognise that within that there does have to be a bit flexibility and it cannot be a one-size-fits-all that simply is not going to work for Scotland or for our communities right could I turn to Silke then just to to add to that yes thank you very much convener yes absolutely agreeing with with council McGregor here I guess in response to that question I just wanted to highlight having listened into to the earlier session so there is there are certain very clear standards the public sector reporting duty applies to all councils and actually the wider public sector and it's it's it's very consistent in a way emissions are being reported here they are very clearly reported for each council for their own emissions for their own properties and and and and and workings you will find in the in the first reports that are going to be coming in sort of like later this year on the public sector reporting duty that each council will report on its targets and will start to explain how it's aligning budget so this is something that is just running in as we speak and clearly we have to a little bit find our way here because the last thing we want to do in a climate emergency essentially is to spend most of our time sort of like figuring out you know the right the the the the right um ways of aligning the reporting between councils what is absolutely on the forefront for individual authorities knowing that we need to make rapid progress is that each council needs to know where they can have the biggest impact with the limited resources they have and that is quite different across across scotland so there are council clearly sort of like you know in very rural settings where a lot of the work in the agricultural sector is really key which is totally different Glasgow or Edinburgh for example so i would say there's an absolutely clear commitment from from from the politicians within um to put all their weight behind it there are certain base data which are the same across all local authorities and there are certain data in terms of going more wider in terms of going into the place making the the political influence in the geographical areas where we're finding our feet and where we need to work closely between the local authorities but also very good with um Scottish government we need to have you know a constructive dialogue here thank you okay thanks and david i mean turning to council officers then i mean do you think there's a need for more of a more of a framework um around how plans are developed for tackling climate change around how targets are set thanks mr usher i think he's still got his point out we have and i'm sure george if there's time we'd like to come in on this through the sustainable scotland network coordinate and administer the public sector climate change reporting duty we have i think quite a queer framework in terms of how we capture emissions activity within the public sector but there's also a silk outlined targets setting the requirement around that new for the shares part of the November round so i think we have that framework in place i think most of the priorities and then tuning into the last session the thanks commission report around how things are operating in this space within local government noted that there are most priorities now have an target place and that varies and what we need to become a bit more obsessed about actually going to be delivering those targets because i think they appear on where we need to go that we need to focus on buildings we need to focus on fleet and we need to focus on food and the government and the local government that is as a peer agenda in terms of you know influencing that directly and indirectly so i think we're we're getting there in terms of target setting in terms of how data is collated also we had the solace conference in Edinburgh just last week where the leaders checklist was introduced and again George we want to talk a bit more about that which is a sort of self-assessment tool for local authorities who you know been working in the space it's the introduction of the plan to change that more than 10 years ago now most local authorities have made some inroads so it's about how we galvanize and how we run scale and pace to that which touches on some of the themes that are around resources and some of the other aspects that's okay with the job yeah yeah George you want to add to this point yeah very much so um certainly we'd agree with my colleagues on a panel in terms of the focus on a consistent approach i'm more than happy to send the ssn strategy on to the committee that's essentially what our members asked us to do which was try and bring a lot of the complexity in this agenda into more sort of consistent approaches that's easier said than done as you can imagine that that's that's the direction of travel that the ssn is trying to pursue i think related to that though in order to get consistency we need stability because a lot of our members out there they are sort of doing things in a more consistent manner they're working to professional standards that are coming from the international protocol so you got greenhouse gas protocols that are becoming more robust and more well understood and more actively applied so it's less inconsistent than what you're probably imagining but there's certainly more work to be done here and i think one thing that would help our members is just a sort of stability and a strategic intent within the public bodies within local government to sort of build you know build that consistent approach because if there's a lot of shifting about in terms of is it a priority what's the focus etc that that gets in the way of sort of building that consistent approach and it is really a process of professionalisation so again the ssn sort of playing into that space but there's as you've heard from the previous panel and you're hearing from ourselves so much more work to be done especially as we embed this across different professions within within local government myself with the team in ssn in the second area plus also colleagues in the Edinburgh climate change institute we've been doing some work in this area especially in the area wide emissions space looking at could we build capacity in terms of more efficient and effective approaches to data the tools and the capacity building so that you know we know where we need to go in terms of a consistent approach in terms of those professional protocols that need to be applied is how do we actually build the resource in Scotland it does need investment we just need to be in a smart join that way and it's been i think very much lends itself to a sort of a classic sort of shared service approach in Scotland and i think ssn itself has a huge convening power in that space the ssn steering group itself brings together local government brings together the various representative bodies like cosla and solas but also brings in the wider public sector so there's a lot of interest in this space here from the enterprise agencies that when we come up this food you know can we get the collaboration accelerated so we can make this an investable proposition at a place level so yeah there's a range of things that we can do in this space the last thing i would say is there's been a lot of conversation today about targets i think we've got a concern about you know you can overly obsessivate targets and especially when you get into the space around the wider influence that that local authorities and the partners have in terms of using the procurement to drive action and to really take a role in terms of local governance it's harder to play targets into that equation so again in the ssn strategy you'll see we talk about corporate emissions where local authorities have very tight control over their own emissions but then they've got the supply chain influence and then they've got the role around place and the further you go into that it has bigger impact but you have less direct control so i think targets need to be very you know cautious about how we focus on targets and in many ways the focus really needs to be on do you have a plan to achieve your targets and can you get the investment in place in terms of finance and people to get the projects underway and actually make the steps towards the targets okay thanks very much good thank you uh mark and and thanks for those contributions could i just be mindful that i've got a lot of committee members to try and keep happy on my first day convening this committee and so short answers to their very short questions would help me to achieve that and i'm going to go to jackie next because i think yours are the next questions thank you convener um i'll be very quick um i'm going to ask the same question as i asked the last panel but i'd be interested in hearing your your taking the answers and that was how have councils responded to statutory emissions reporting requirements are these gaps do you think are their gaps in calculating and reporting on emissions and what role might coslan solas have in addressing these if i can go to councillor mcgregor first please thank you i think in the spirit of not using up too much time it might be better if one of the officers answered this question oh even better who would you suggest councillor mcgregor i suspect that silka would probably be very on the ball would this okay thank you very much thank you convener um i think again in the in the shortness of time i think what what our response here is is that um we are keen to develop the public say the public sector data reporting away from just the emissions of every of every council into the wider influence sphere um so these are the geographical um emissions that have been discussed here but what we need to do is to do that in such a way that um we're not tying our all our resources down in finding the perfect reporting mechanism and not leaving enough resources to do other important work which is i think the other point that was made here okay david would you have anything to add thanks mr mbar i think for for me again in the spirit of brevity in terms of gaps i think it would be fair to say across the local government family scope three emissions is an area where a number of local authorities are still getting to bits with their impact on that area but again through support that's provided by george and is teamed by ssn through the crime chain reporting duty that that's enough that we are starting to crack but overall really it's about um there's a force in terms of collation and analysis of the data that we gather okay thank you back to you convener you're going to be my friend for life if you're as short as that thank you thank you very much Liam i think you've got some questions you'd like to ask yes please thank you convener good morning panel david hamond i'll throw a question to you first which i'll put to gail migregar afterwards but david you quoted the causal submission earlier on around the financial pressures facing local authorities what you picked up was the quote net zero has a price tag which is not currently being met so similar question to the one i asked the earlier panel what will the impact of public pay settlements the recent scottish government spending cuts and of course inflationary pressures have on local authorities ability to deliver on their net zero ambitions and given what we heard earlier and the submission says a lack of flexibility of funding what can be done be mr care for that that question i think it cuts really to the the heart of the matter and we recognise as so-called said earlier that there are no easy answers and no dear government has the funding available and we're going to have to work really creatively particularly with the private sector so in terms of that that price tag as we put it that it comes with net zero we need to look at economies of scale in my view across local government in terms of buildings and fleet in particular so while some of the solutions locally may differ we have common challenges across local authority in terms of decarbonising heat buildings and electrifying or finding other types of fuels such as hydrogen for our fleet and we need to work together and collaborate including with the help of ssn and maybe working more closely between local government and Scottish government in terms of funding that is available and programmes that are available and what the criteria for those are and to keep them as flexible as possible so that we can start to move into a space where we are working collaboratively to create investable business cases for some of the retrofit that's required for buildings and for investment in charging infrastructure for electric vehicles etc so in some way i think we need to be really creative and work with the private sector i would suggest perhaps that scotch futures trust is a potential vehicle to help broker some of those discussions that are required thank you very grateful gail McGregor do you have any thoughts thanks Liam i'll not repeat what David said i think finance is very complex as you're aware currently about 30 percent of our budget is the part of the budget that we can take savings from the almost 70 percent of councils budgets is essentially unfenced or protected which makes it very difficult for councils to devire additional funding into things that have not been seen as as priorities until fairly recently so as an example we see lots of funding coming in through bid funds which makes it very difficult for some councils who maybe don't have the capacity in what i call the backroom due to successive years of cuts to our economic development departments and planning departments so we then have some councils disenfranchised because they don't have the skills and capacity to bid into those funds now if we have much more flexibility around that funding with an ability to utilise that funding locally in the way that we see fit as i said earlier on that would be incredibly helpful we do have some very high overarching sort of target driven policies which is absolutely brilliant but then we have to develop the how we deliver those particular targets and again without sufficient resource and skills within those areas it's going to become more and more challenging as we go further and further down the line so i think at the moment what we need to see is that any funding that is coming into councils has as much flexibility as possible and particularly where capital funding is required that we then have ongoing resource funding to ensure that we can then you know maintain whichever capital investment we've had because historically we end up with big pots of capital funding but no resource funding to ensure that we can continue in that so i think that's probably the biggest challenge that we have at the moment is flexibility around the funding but we also need some very very clear targets from Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament to ensure that we are all sort of working together as we should be I'm very grateful silka is brand taking gail's comments there if you would and i'm thrown this to you because of something you said earlier cosla has argued in favour of fewer but larger and more flexible funding streams to support place-based net zero initiatives what precisely does cosla mean by that in practice and in your view what specific aspects need to change so is it the specific ring fencing is it the non-domestic rate setting is it more council tax freedom what is it what it is is exactly what what gail has highlighted here in terms of the multitude of small challenge fund we find ourselves with so a lot of the Scottish Government funding that that that comes towards local authority comes for specific measures within heat decarbonisation or specific measures within transport or specific measures to increase recycling recycling rates and decarbonise and waste management so this is the situation we're finding ourselves within at the moment so that has got a number of implications as as as david and and cancer McGregor have outlined it reduces local government's flexibility to use these funds to lever in funds from outside that's one implication of this the second thing is that these multitude of challenge funds with which are being balanced by by by officers within individual councils do not really allow for the effect of strategic planning for interventions where a council finds itself that it has found that an intervention in x y and z you know would be the most effective way it can't just sort of like and plan for a number of years ahead in in in these areas and it is also harder to harness the co-benefits which are of course so so so important to you because we're not just only talking about net zero we're also talking about the just transition we're also talking about of having that transition in a way where we protect the biodiversity and so on and so on so co-benefits we might be missing a lot of co-benefits that we would otherwise if the same amount of money came to us but in a different way could bring in much more i.e. we would have higher output i think the other thing is that challenge funds in themselves are very cost unaffected the amount of staff time that is not just required within local authorities and girls sort of like highlighted not every small local authorities can can can use what might be on the table here but it is not cost effective in terms of the officer time in local authorities that are applying for these and in other organisations be it Scottish government or other administering bodies who are then overseeing the challenge funds who are then assessing bids who are then you know um keeping track of this progress so these are areas where the existing money could be used in a much more effective way over and above the argument that we've made with regard to the level of funding very grateful unless anyone else wishes to contribute i'll hand back to the committee thank thank you very much leona i'm going to come to the depth to convener now for some questions you've got okay thank you good afternoon i'd like to talk about the collaboration and co-ordination and to ask first um counsel gail mcgregor what do we need to do to get that better collaboration and co-ordination between local and central government and we've had evidence from louise mary kevin's written evidence that local this is it you know across the uk she's saying that there needs to be between local government and different levels of government some kind of framework agreement so our framework some kind of framework mechanism do you think that's needed or do you think there's sufficient coordination collaboration already happening thank you deputy convener um i think we've touched on the services slightly but for me collaboration coordination is key but it's not just between local government and Scottish government it has to be between us Scottish government and UK government our communities businesses private enterprise it you know this is a massive massive issue that is going to affect everybody and i think the key thing that we need to be doing is local authorities particularly given that we are closest to the people that we serve is ensuring that we're taking our communities with us as well and ensuring that our communities understand what our direction of travel is and i think at the moment and none of us are doing that particularly well and so you know i think local government and Scottish government need to have a much clearer plan which is co-produced and jointly produced and with very clear markers over the next few years as to what we're trying to achieve and then obviously we can look at resource for that but what we also need to be doing is ensuring that our communities understand that that they are signed up to that they're not just suddenly seeing umpteen electric charging points in our communities they weren't consulted on it they don't understand why they're in that place so collaboration has to go wider than just local government and Scottish government i think it you know this is just too big an issue for it not to so yes the framework would be useful but i think what we do get into a bit of a trend over the years of doing is that Scottish government announces something and then we're expected to deliver it and actually if we have really good co-production of policies together i think we get a much better outcome so my plea to Scottish government would be through their various ministers and i've met with a few already that we have a much more defined plan collectively and that the UK government obviously has to play its part in that as well and as i say communities but yes more collaboration and coordination but it has to be meaningful and it has to be done in the co-production so the written evidence from cos the calls for a mechanism to be developed and a quote by which we can better manage the multiple decarbonisation challenges that we face and their impact on the economy and society so we all know it needs to happen so what we want to know is what do you think it would look like in practice rather than say we need to do this Yes well Deputy convener you'll appreciate i'm about two months into this role so i'm getting my head around the various massive issues within this we do have a good relationship with government and i think it will involve some some more dialogue between myself and my team and the ministers as to how we progress that obviously we're very happy to take anything to cause the leaders at any point to get a mandate from them if required um but we do need to do this at pace silken might be able to add a bit more as to what discussions have happened between officers and in that officer space and civil service space but certainly now that i've got the bit between my teeth with this i will keep running with it until i'm told to stop so thank you very much and and kester McGregor appreciate that you've only been two months in post but our committee is about to report we're coming to the end of our session so if there's something useful that you want us to include in that report it would be helpful to know what that mechanism would look like so silken time do you want to come in then at the invitation of councillor gregor yes just very quickly and an answer to your question what would that mean i think the co-production is really the key word here co-production not just of intervention but also of policy because every policy that has been co-produced is going to be more likely to be more effective and what we don't have at the moment at all is any joint oversight between the two spheres of government of the climate change plan of um of um you know the the sorry yes climate change plan the delivery frameworks and so on so there's huge opportunities which can be harnessed here and i can come to David Hammond and a new review on this is you you talked about there being a lot of collaboration already between officials but i wonder if there's anything else that you think is needed to have provide that co-production or the mechanism because yes everybody needs to be involved private sector local government national government but it should be done on a place basis is there a role for city deals here how do we actually put this into practice thank you thank you convener i think is in colleagues council i think there is potential to look at a kind of framework agreement in my own view we need some structure around this in terms of clarifying roles and responsibilities between scotland government local government and the other actors in this space i think at the moment it is quite a crowded marketplace and there is a lot of duplication potentially and overlap and what we want to try and do is is clear the way through that and then identify where the standards are and i think the point the council on the Gregor made just around co-production is a really important one so i think local government would welcome and closer and earlier conversations with scotland government colleagues around particularly building and fleet challenges and the roles and opportunities local government to deliver on those agendas but also to be clear on what local government isn't responsible for in the areas where we have less influence that's important to be clear about as well you know in terms of industrial emissions for example hopefully that's helpful and can i just finally just ask is there attention between local government delivering net zero for its own estate and its own responsibilities but also taking leadership on a place-based approach which perhaps touches on the point that industrial emissions clearly are not the immediate public sector side but if a place-based solution would require you to have some kind of we met a responsibility in that area or not and i think deputy convener this is where data is really important and taking an area-based approach so that local government as the kind of leaders locally in terms of carbon emissions and climate change are clear on those emissions in the area they're clear on where they provide leadership they're clear on where they have direct real estate and they're clear on where they can support the partner with other areas but they're also clear on where there is perhaps less influence and less of a remit so that roles and responsibilities of others that then come into play in for example industrial partners how they can work together and indeed the synergist point that i made in terms of maybe where we start to get creative when working spaces and local government that we haven't worked on previously about taking that area-based approach and understanding the source of emissions and i've talked before at this committee around for example public sector renewable energy generation where the number of authorities now are coming forward with major renewable energy generation proposals and meet stumbling blocks in terms of grid capacity, grid connection, timescales and post-eds and we can work creatively to unlock some of those and perhaps partner with major power obstacles and to help decarbonise their energy requirements as well. Thank you. Thank you very much. I think that Natalie Don is going to lead some questions now for the committee. Thank you, convener, and welcome to the panel. I just want to focus on the idea of community again. Written evidence from COSLA called for sustainable and scalable community empowerment support and we heard from the last panel how important that community empowerment will be. I'm just wondering if you could give more information on what that support will look like in practice and I'll go first to Silca, please. Sorry, can you hear me? Yes, I think it builds very much on what what Councillor MacGregor has talked about in terms of linking into the local communities and really sort of like exploiting is a horrible word using maximising the potential that is there. I mean one thing we're really really clear about is that behaviour change is such a key aspect. It's the one thing that's perhaps the most cost effective intervention that can be done and there's a lot more that can be done here and local communities interacting with local communities as the backbone for a behaviour change for an understanding of the implications of not sort of like adapting carbon reducing behaviour is absolutely critical here and then it leads into these sort of like you know projects that can be done that that David Hammond sort of like elaborated on but it's pretty clear all across the board be it transport be it waste be it whatever there's a lot here still to be done and that there's a path to be driven and that can't just be done by individual councils but that needs to be you know across and in tandem with Scottish government that people understand that carbon reduction behaviour is as much expected as we're putting on our seatbelts and that we're not you know driven anymore it's that level of understanding and that again needs to be underpinned with data with research so that we that every citizen can understand what their own consumer choices actually have as a consequence. Absolutely I mean local authorities are best placed I think to know their communities and we heard from the last panel that some of the challenges and opportunities sorry challenges are focused around finance which we've discussed today but also around education and raising awareness which which is what you've just alluded to so is there anything else that you think is important to know in terms of the challenges and opportunities for communities and in which sectors do you feel that there are opportunities for innovation learning and partnership between communities and local authorities? I'll go back to you Silky but I'll move on to Councillor McGregor after you please. Yeah I'll just be very swift I don't think we can pin it down to any area I mean I think we've seen with some of the example Dundee was highlighted here you know what actually can be done by different local authorities and what they focus on again whether they focus on agriculture or you know green belt you know tree planting or the local industry will be very very different where the biggest opportunities are so I think it is there across the board local authorities have got the best knowledge what again the biggest bang the biggest issue the biggest thing that on people's hearts are are in their local area what is absolutely important for local authorities to have the capacity to actually invest in this work with local communities so that we can underpin the transition on net zero with that firm you know with that firm commitment of the local communities thank you very much and if I could move on to Councillor McGregor and it's really just the similar points although obviously at last in the last panel so I'll ask him this one too we're obviously policymakers at different levels and it's just what do you think that we as policymakers can do to produce the barriers between the the sort of community empowerment? Thank you very much Nathalie a really good question the communities have to be at the heart of this and I think we've found we will all have found as elected members that if we have a good policy such as a zero waste policy or a recycling policy within our communities that's well expressed and conveyed to communities and done in consultation with them it works it just doesn't work when we don't have that level of community engagement and then we get kicked back and we get the bad headlines so there's so much that does need to be done in terms of energy reduction and efficiency renewable energy projects community groups that are maybe trying to achieve carbon and neutral status that all of that work can be done very easily by us because we are closest to our communities there's absolutely no question of that I think as lawmakers from from your side we come across hurdles that don't always involve resource so sometimes we find hurdles within planning that isn't necessarily because we don't have sufficient funding within that department or it's more likely that we don't have enough that are skilled to assist so what could you be doing as lawmakers to perhaps ease some of the planning processes and the regulations that can become a bit of a barrier for community groups or councils or individual households or businesses to improve and to play their part within that so I suppose it's looking back into the Scottish Parliament and saying we're all on this journey together we've all got to move together but what can you do as lawmakers just to relax or ease some of the regulation that we do actually find quite bureaucratic and difficult at local level so I suppose that would probably be one example but I think the key thing for us is to communicate well with business and industry private sector as well we have a wealth of partners across federation of small businesses chambers of commerce we have enterprise agencies across scotland we have good models within the city growth deals and the rural growth deals so we have precedent of how we can look for projects within communities that can add value but all of that takes time and resource and ultimately as I say needs to be done sort of on a co-production basis to ensure that we're all moving in the same direction. I'm happy to pass back to the convener thanks. Thanks Natalie and colleagues just in case when it comes to David Hammond speaking I'm afraid in order to preserve the sound quality we have removed his picture but he's still very much there I'm sure wanting to answer questions but I'm going to come to the next lot of questions which comes from I think it's Monica I think you're on next do you not? Thank you convener I have one question on the issue of procurement so we talked about it a little bit in the last session but time ran out so I'm keen to just go around all our witnesses to hear if they have any examples or views on how procurement is being used by local authorities to further the net zero goals and if there's any views on whether local authority procurement rules allow for a focus on carbon savings and if there's time maybe someone can touch on how this is helping local economies and small businesses as well so I'm not sure who's best to go first. Councillor McGregor is waving so I'll come to Councillor McGregor and then perhaps Silky and then David and then George. Thanks very much Monica and procurement is a difficult issue across that two councils because again it's all very different in Scotland itself certainly assist with that. I think the key thing with procurement is as we're working through things like the community wealth building bill that we embed within the procurement processes within that bill and the work that we're doing with Mr Arthur around ensuring that any procurement is mindful of decarbonisation and net zero targets and making it straightforward for local authorities to embed that within our processes and as I said earlier on not every council has an environment committee and that's because many are working on the basis that absolutely every single piece of work that we do or we bring through every department has to be looking at our contribution to decarbonisation and net zero so I think procurement is incredibly important around that particularly in respect of food for instance where our food is coming from where our materials are coming from buying local as far as possible so the regulations around procurement will probably filter through on a sort of just transition and a net zero basis the community wealth building bill but we can be doing things before that the stuff that we can do without it being implicit within it another bill. That's helpful council McGregor I'm pleased you mentioned community wealth building perhaps David can maybe add to that I know from a North Ayrshire experience he might have further thoughts on that. I'll come next to Silky and then David after that or unless you have David now oh I think you're confusing everyone here you're David you're on hopefully everyone can hear me a bit better and hopefully the camera's been switched off is not a different way of telling me that I've got a face for a radio which wouldn't be the first time but I'm sure that's not the case. Just picking up on Ms Lennon's points around procurement I think I want to touch briefly back on what I talked about earlier in terms of the need for economies of scale and for cross authority and cross government collaboration particularly around buildings and fleet those being two biggest areas of omission that we need to tackle so it's about how we kind of bundle up for me in terms of the solutions that we're procuring to bring those economies of scale to create business cases that are more investible and to give the committee a quick example of that the three Ayrshire authorities north where I work and east and south are working collaboratively on a pathfinder exercise brokered can everyone still hear me okay I'm just getting a message up on my screen David I can tell you that we can hear you much more clearly than we've heard during the rest of the meeting so plug on you're doing well and we're hearing well yeah apologies there was a just an error message popped up there so we're working collaboratively with the other two Ayrshire authorities to look at eb charging infrastructure and that's a pathfinder exercise that's been brokered by Scottish Scottish Futures Trust and I won't go into detail here but suffice to say we very quickly established the number of chargers the let home investment required where those chargers need to go and the role of the private sector in terms of building together a financial model so Ms Lennon there's an opportunity that we've managed to make some progress on very quickly and we're coming with an index that we can then procure collaboratively across the Ayrshars and that for me is something that we need to see more of and do more of in the other sectors that we need to tackle and lastly and very quickly around procurement rules which was part of your question we have been engaging with Scottish procurement to try and find ways around the current contracts that we have through the Crown commercial services framework for buying power where that's been a real barrier for us in terms of our renewable energy generation proposals we want to undertake what's known as sleeving and without getting into the technicalities basically the current contractual arrangements of how we buy power nationally across the sector of state doesn't allow for that and I think we would urge consideration of these types of major contracts that are retained irregularly to ensure that they're fit for purpose and that they are enabling the creativity that's required for different solutions in order to reduce our carbon emissions and that's a big part of I think the procurement journey that we need to go on so thank you convener. Thank you and just to build on David's answer Silke I wonder if you could maybe say something from a causal point of view about how we sort of a roll out good practice so we've heard some some examples here from David how do we make sure that that learning doesn't just sit within Ayrshars for example and we can learn Scotland wide. Thank you. I think this goes back to our point in terms of needing that local government needs more capacity to actually put in the structures or make the existing structures sort of like not make them more effective sorry I'm rambling a bit here but I think I was put forward before that we've got very good brown work in place but that we still need resources to actually develop some of the work areas here so we have for example you know within the SSN community we've looked at you know procurement tools that could allow local authorities to assess quite rapidly you know which of their local providers or which of their providers generally you know would offer most sort of like products with the best carbon savings and so on so it's very much about what we're talking about in terms of the tools that we that we need to further develop and that the resource that we need to have in place to develop these tools and then we can pick up either best practice from individual authorities and weave these into tools or you know develop tools but share and develop tools between local authorities so that we essentially increase that capacity. Thank you very much and finally to George. Thank you very much a couple of things just to add to what's been said so far I think there's been really good work done by the Scottish Government over the last couple of years just pulling a lot of the rules and tools together into one space so that people can find them and access them more more rapidly so you'll find you're there on the Scottish Government's website now we can point practitioners towards it. The only thing I've really added is we used to do an awful lot more work in the procurement space bringing together procurement professionals and sustainability or climate change professionals in the public sector so that they could understand each other's agendas, ways of working etc. A lot of this is less a procurement challenge it's more a specification issue you know who's actually determining what the authority decides to buy, how it buys and then how it plays procurement into meeting those objectives and we're all moving trying to push towards sort of procurement to achieve outcomes so really I would just say we could do far more in the space in terms of training and capacity building we just need to be given the means to do that we've got very good sort of connections across the public sector I'm with the Scottish Government in this space it just needs that acceleration and application. Thank you it's a very clear answer thank you George. Monica if you'll finished I'm going to come to the deputy convener who's got an interesting point on finance. Thank you we're interested in how we leverage in more private finance or support from private business to that place-based solution for net zero so maybe if we can come to silca if you could maybe address that issue some councils like Glasgow we've heard are already doing a great deal of this what are the barriers and opportunities for all councils to be able to leverage in private investment but also how do we do it in such a way that councils aren't carrying the all the risk in in terms of that because that's a concern we've heard of as well. Yeah thank you thank you deputy convener um I won't comment on the risk and leave that one to others how do we enable that it basically comes back to the simple answer of the flexibility of the finance you know having good resources available where we know that they come over a number of years that councils can use to to to to lever in you know to shape around those opportunities for bringing in other public sector finance or other private sector finance as and where there are opportunities rather than having to stitch together you know three different programmes which hold it really much with each other I think that's a principle point around that the flexibility of the funding so that it can be used in a strategic way to lever in other funding but I leave the risk element to others and can maybe ask David Hammond if he wants to address this same question but also address does he think that council officials have the skills that are required particularly to embark on those joint venture or different finance mechanisms that can be used and what's needed to help share that skill base across local authorities thank you deputy convener I think for me in terms of that leveraging in private sector investment we need solutions of scale so that the scale of what we are procuring is of sufficient interest to the private sector I think there has to be a return there a commercial return in order for the private sector to be interested in to invest in financing that partnering with us and as you rightly said deputy convener we need to have a clear understanding of risk and I think we need to be risk aware within the public sector not necessarily risk averse because the scale of the channel quite frankly in my opinion I think we do have some tried and tested methods for example there was the NDE which is non-domestic energy efficiency projects a wave of those my own authority participated in that way it was a set contract basically around how energy efficiency measures were installed in public building so a suite of buildings a suite of measures a price tag for those and guarantees in terms of the reductions and cost savings that were provided that helped finance the investment that was required but there was an element of private finance in those as well so I think I've mentioned already I do see Scottish futures trust as a potential vehicle where that has been successful in other areas for example the electric vehicle charging project that I mentioned that we are involved in and I think they have skills and knowledge in this area that might fill some of the gaps that you touched on within the public sector in terms of these larger contracts and deals and the complexity that they bring thank you and can maybe ask Councillor Mcgregor if she has any views particularly bearing in mind housing and if we're taking a place-based approach private housing and also transport and that could involve buses as well as electric vehicle charging etc and if we're going to do this at scale is this a discussion you've embarked on already with the Scottish Government and how do we get those big mechanisms available for finance at scale or is that something that you think is a definite must for the future some of those conversations have started since I came into the role I think active travel is a prime example we know there's a lot of money being committed to that over the term of this parliament now what we need to do is establish what's going to give us the best bang for our buck within our communities what's absolutely required in terms of active travel transport initiatives where they need to be the differences between rural settings and urban settings and mapping that significant investment in a way that really really delivers something for the communities that we're obviously serving again in terms of housing we have aspiration we're part of the machine that will enable additional housing within our communities but that has to come from a direction I would say from government more than from ourselves we become a partner within that and it goes back to my point earlier on anything that we do in co-production will absolutely deliver a better outcome whether it be transport, housing, zero waste all of the agendas that we're signed up to if we can co-produce those with government and with parliament and have complete sign up from all across the parliament as well we will get a much better outcome than if we have a dictat which we then look at and it becomes very difficult to deliver so active travel is very ambitious there's a lot of funding behind it but we need to be creating what our communities need as well as with an eye to our net zero targets but as they co-production there's nothing more important than that I wouldn't have thought on the housing aspect are you is COSLA involved in the minister harvey's the green finance task force that you established on housing yes yes and there's a number of schemes for yeah absolutely yeah we haven't met specifically on that particular issue but I have met mr harvey on a broad range of issues so we'll continue with that agenda as well thank you thank you unless there are any other questions I have just one if I may to put to Gail just having listened to this and read through quite a lot of the reports it's the scale of the problem that I'm and the scale of the cost of resolving the issue that I'm struggling to come to terms with and I take it to a very local place in the highlands if I may they're 873 social houses 540 of them don't make ban see so a surveyor in me tells me that's going to cost between 15 and 40 000 for each house if it's the top end it's 21 million if it's the bottom end it's about 12 million my question to you is if you roll that out across the whole of highlands we're probably talking in excess of 150 million just to get the social housing up to 100 to e p c c so my question is how do we quantify these policies that are being talked about and do we know what they're going to cost because if we don't know what they're going to cost are the policies are actually going to be valid when they're introduced and what work have you done with your colleagues on on that particular issue thanks very much convener I think you've just highlighted the magnitude and the scale of the issue that we're dealing with no question that this is probably going to be the biggest one that we deal with in our lifetimes and I think that we shouldn't be afraid to say that we've not cracked it yet and you know and it could be a while before we do and we all need to be doing better I don't have the specific and I think David maybe nodded towards this earlier on a specific cost of what this is actually going to cost because there's so many things that need to be dealt with you know we've discussed active travel we've discussed zero waste housing you know the list is literally endless and to put a price tag on all of that you know we simply don't have that data so come out but but it really really does emphasise the importance of this and the need to whilst we have targets then begin to I suppose break it down into pieces that we can actually deal with and begin to get to the house rather than the targets so we all know within our communities things like your electric charging points what can be of benefit and can be a short term fix or hit but we then have longer term aspirations but it is going to cost far more money than local government can cope with or Scottish government possibly the UK government and I don't think that we should undersell it doesn't make us weak I think in fact it probably shows a strength and a confidence that we're acknowledging that this is going to be a massive challenge but silicon may have some figures I very much doubt if we have a global figure I'm afraid I may leave it hanging because EPCs are only three to C are only three years away so if we can achieve it in three years I guess we ought to know the cost of it but I think thank you and thank you to the other panel members for coming and giving evidence afternoon and thank you for rescheduling your this meeting to allow you to be here with all that was going on last week so thank you very much and that concludes this part of the meeting which is in public we're now going to move into private thank you