 Good morning and welcome to the 12th meeting of the local government housing and planning committee in 2021. I would like to ask all members and witnesses to ensure that their mobile phones are on silent and that all other notifications are turned off during the meeting. Our first item this morning is consideration of whether to take item 6 in private. Item 6 will be an opportunity for members to reflect on the evidence that they have heard earlier in the meeting on understanding barriers to elected office. Do members agree to take item 6 in private? The second item on our agenda today is an evidence session on the Scottish dog control database order 2021, and I would like to welcome this morning Ash Regan, the Minister for Community Safety. Welcome. Jim Wilson, licensing team leader and Louise Miller, the solicitor from the Scottish Government. Welcome. We're going to take evidence from the minister before moving to a formal debate on the order, and I'd like to invite the minister to make a short opening statement on the order. Thank you, convener, and good morning to the committee. Thank you for inviting me here this morning to speak about this draft order that has been laid for Parliament's approval. I very much welcome the opportunity to give evidence today, and I'd also like to thank the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee for their recent consideration of the draft order earlier on this month. The control of Dogs Scotland Act 2010 introduced the dog control notice regime, and local authority dog wardens are able to issue a dog control notice on a dog owner who allows their dog to be out of control. The notice is a civil notice that can contain a number of conditions such as muzzling the dog or keeping the dog on a lead whenever it is in a public place, and breach of a dog control notice is a criminal offence. Section 8 of the control of dogs act provides an enabling power for Scottish ministers to make an order to establish a national database of dog control notices, and the intention of the draft order is to provide for the establishment of such a database. Each local authority already has a statutory responsibility to monitor the effectiveness of every dog control notice that they've issued, but the national database will bring together the records of all the local authorities into a centralised database that's accessible by the local authorities and also by Police Scotland. I think that this will be a valuable tool to improve the effectiveness of the control of dogs act, and the information that is held on the database will include such things as the name of the person to whom the dog control notice applies, the address of that person and information relating to the dog itself, for example if it is microchipped and the name of the animal. This provides a brief overview of the draft order, and I'd be happy to answer any questions that the committee might have on the draft order. In response to the 2019 consultation on the control of dogs act 2010, local authorities raised a number of issues, including the difficulty of working across all the different IT systems used by different local authorities, and questions about who would be responsible for maintaining and running the database, who would have access to it. I'd like to ask about how you have involved or intend to involve local authorities in the design of the database and how have their concerns been addressed. Do you have a plan or have you already involved other stakeholders in the database design as well? We have, yes, that's right. We've had quite a large amount of consultation, I would say, with local authorities and with others about the design and the implementation of the database, and I'll ask Jim to come in and give a little bit of a flavour in a moment about some of the more detail of that. I initiated direct engagement at the beginning of the process with councillor Kelly Parry. She's COSLA and she's the spokesperson for community safety and wellbeing. That was just to make sure that they were cited on what we were doing and to get their involvement with the plan of initiating the design of the database and so on, and just to make sure that COSLA were fully involved in that. I think that I've met her twice, is that right, over the last year? Last year and a half, I would say it was. So, we've had quite a lot of engagement with local authorities and other stakeholders. The committee might be aware that we have a Scottish-led, Scottish Government-led working group, so that's on dog control and on dangerous dogs as well, which covers the other part of legislation, which is the 91 act on dangerous dogs. There's lots of members of that group, so COSLA are involved in that as well, but we've also got the Scottish Community Safety Network. We've got a victim's voice on that as well, because we thought that it was important to have that. It's also got the National Dog Wardens Association, and obviously Police Scotland. You were asking about local authorities' raised issues and what we've done to work through those, so a couple of things that I can think of that did come up. There have been issues about the migration of data, so I think that some local authorities, and I guess that makes sense. There's quite a bit of variety. If you look at the data, some local authorities are giving out—obviously, local authorities are varying by population, so I guess that's a factor. Some of them have very large numbers of DCNs, and others have really quite tiny numbers. I think that there was some concern about pressure on local authorities to migrate this data onto the database. We're working with them, and the improvement service is also working with them to make sure that we're not putting undue pressure on them, but equally that we get that data on there so that we can start to use it. We think that we've got sufficient time in the roll-out plan now to make sure that that happens in a timely fashion. The other issue was really the one about costs, so obviously the cost to do with developing the database itself, the setting up costs, and the running costs. We have funded the set-up costs, so the Scottish Government has funded that. We've also agreed that we will fund the running of the database for the first two years. We're in on-going discussions now with the stakeholders about a fair funding model, a fair funding model going forward, and how that will go there. Further discussions are underway on that. I'll ask Jim to come in now and give a little bit of a flavour about a lot of the engagement that we've done with local authorities. I'll go back to the convener's point about engagement. I'll come on to that very shortly, but just to add to the minister's helpful comments about migration, we asked the improvement service to do targeted engagement with the six local authorities who have the highest number of served dog control notices. There was a migration workshop that was conducted on 18 November. There will still be further discussions with all 32 local authorities about the timescales when they have to transfer across the data that will be populated into the database system. I thought that it would be helpful to give the committee a flavour of what to expect in terms of numbers of dog control notices that have been served across the country. The latest data that we have suggests that they should be in the region of 1,465 live dog control notices that will go on to the system. I just wanted to touch on the engagement that stems back to January this year. We put out a number of joint communications between the Scottish Government and the Improvement Service. There was a dog control notice database workshop session that was delivered in January this year that was attended by 27 or 28 local authority representatives. We then decided to do a scope and study to try and understand the landscape as to what type of processes are in place. I will pick her up on your point, convening around the different systems and technologies that are used across the local authority estate. That was an eight-week scope and study that the Scottish Government funded at a cost of £15,000. Building on that, we decided to do a proof of concept, which was the creation of a dummy system to prove that it would be possible for information sharing to take place. That was a joint funded between the Scottish Government and the Improvement Service at a cost of £30,000. That involved direct participation from six councils. We also had eight separate drop-in sessions that invited every single local authority to speak directly with my team and the Improvement Service and Police Scotland to consider any issues around process. Those sessions were really well attended. We have managed to have 31 out of the 32 local authorities that participated in those sessions, so one still to catch and engage. In addition, we have also got Knowledge Hub, which has been set up for everybody who has a direct interest in the system itself. That is to ensure that there is regular communication on any matters that require clarification as we move towards the final development stages of the system itself. Really, just to support local authority, operational staff and indeed Police Scotland operational staff, we will be producing an FAQ document in the coming weeks, which will really just set out any issues that are raised on Knowledge Hub just to provide absolute certainty as to how the system should be used and operated. Thank you for that. It sounds that you have certainly covered a lot of ground on that to make sure that it is going to be a workable system. I would like to move on to another question. This order restricts access to the database to only those who require access to the information under the 2010 control of dogs act. The policy note states that this is local authorities, Police Scotland and Improvement Service staff who will manage the database, but some stakeholders, including dogs, trusts and animal welfare law expert Mike Radford, recommended that the database should also be accessible to the Scottish Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Judiciary. I would like to ask whether the SSPCA and the Crown Office will have access to the database and, if not, why was this not considered to be appropriate. The control of dogs got on to act. I will just call it the act of 2010, so we do not get muddled up. The provisions in that act control what we can do with the establishment of this database, so it is very specific. It sets out in the act what data we can hold and who can access the data. We are only able to enact at the moment what the provisions have given us the powers to do so in the 2010 act. That is what we have done. We have gone as far as we can and we have followed the provisions in the 2010 act in order to lay the draft order in front of you. That is why that is all that is in it. You are right to say that there is a potential here for other organisations that might have an interest in being able to access the data that is on there or for additional data to be held on there. Certainly, when the committee was looking into that before, there were questions about should it hold additional data, should it hold all the complaints that had been made about the conduct of a certain dog, for instance, should it contain, if the DCN has been breached and so on. At the moment, that data is not able to be held on there because we have to be specific about what we are allowed to enact at the moment. However, I am also going through a process now. At the moment, we have just looked at the 2010 act. We have looked at what needs to be done to improve the enforcement of that. We are going through that process now and this is part of that. It was also committee recommendations and that was the Papples committee from the last session that did a report, which I am sure that the committee has seen. As part of that, we have now moved on to a review of the wider regime of dog control. That includes the act of 1991 and that is on dangerous dogs. I am committed to reviewing that. We have a number of steps that we are going to go through to do that. Once we have done that, we are going to bring forward, hopefully, within this session of Parliament another bill on the control of dogs regime, if you like. At that point, it would be appropriate, because if we want to change the database and allow different information to be held or additional organisations to be able to access it, we need to change that by primary legislation and the forthcoming bill gives us an opportunity to do that. Those are all things that we are actively considering at the moment to put into the next piece of legislation. That sounds great that we have got this opportunity to actually look at that as you call it, the wider regime of dog control. That is very heartening news. I would like to invite colleague Paul McClellan to come in with another question. Thank you. Before I ask a question, I refer everyone to my register of interests in serving councillor on each of them. There is an extension on the question about the database, and it is just really talking about how it will be ensured that the database complies with GDPR requirements, just about the points that you mentioned. That is an important point. As we were going through this process, we obviously involved the information commissioners office. They have been with us right from the beginning of the development of the data, because it contains personal data. There is that requirement on there to make sure that it is used appropriately and held appropriately, etc. The Government also carried out something called a DEPIA, so if you are not familiar with that, that is the data protection impact assessment. I would hope that the committee has that as part of the documents that accompany the bill, so that you can have a look at that if you are interested in the detail in that one. The ICO as well were also involved in the preparation of the draft order, so they have looked at that and they are content with the policy as it stands at the moment. Additional to that, obviously, with the data and the joint data sharing and so on, there is a little bit of complexity around that, which needs to have a process and to be worked through. The improvement service has got what they are calling framework service agreements. That is going to cover the data sharing between all the organisations and the data controllers, so they will have to have them in place with all 32 local authorities. They will be issued with that. They have a statement of work that they need to sign up to, and that will cover everyone, and that is before the database goes live. James, is there anything that I have missed out there on that? In a brief, it was just a couple of points to add. It was just to stress that before on-going engagement with the Information Commissioner's Office, we invited representatives from the ICO to what was called a show-and-tell session that was jointly delivered by the Improvement Service and the Scottish Government. That was an opportunity for local authorities and police to be kept up-to-date on the latest developments in relation to the delivery of the system. We have also got further engagements planned with the Information Commissioner's Office. We will just iron out any issues that might be GDPR related. As things stand, I am not aware of any significant issues that have been erred, but we just want to make sure that the information that is held on the system is held securely and appropriately. It is just to stress that there is a further engagement plan with the ICO in the coming weeks. You mentioned the local authority signing up. Do we have an estimated time scale on that at all? Or a target date? There are three phases. We are now in the final delivery development stage, which will be between now and December. The timeframe for phase 2 will be between the end of December and the end of January. That is when we will have to finalise any documentation. That is with a view to the system going live. The target date is 11 February, but it is a three-stage process. I would like to now move to BlueJeans and invite questions from Willie Coffey. Thank you very much, convener, and good morning to the minister and to the panel. I was really pleased that there is a wider review taking place of the DOCTROLAG 91 and the 2010 act, which was a subject of the work that we did in the Public Audit Committee, as you will recall, in the last session. I am delighted to hear that. I am sure that the members who serve in that committee will be listening in to us, too. First, I want to ask you if you might clarify for me if a person has served DOCTROLAG 91 in one local authority and then perhaps moves to a different local authority with the DOCTROLAG 91. Does the DOCTROLAG 91 notice cease to take effect in the second authority, or does it still take effect? That was our understanding of the way that the regime is functioning at the moment. That was one of the reasons for implementing the databases to make that enforcement easier where someone is issued with the DOCTROLAG 91 in, let's say, Fife, but then they move to Lanarkshire. That is one of the reasons we think that the enforcement process will be easier, so we hope that it will be easier for local authorities and Police Scotland as well. Access, as you have said, to the data and the database is national access. Any authority can access the database anywhere, even if a person moves around with a dangerous dog that is already subject to a notice. Should an animal come at a second offence in a neighbouring authority, does that become the first offence in that neighbouring authority, or is it a second offence if you know what I mean? You have said that the notice itself is a civil notice, but breaching it becomes a criminal offence, so it is probably important that a person knows that, if a dog commits a second offence or a second offence, whether that becomes a criminal offence in the neighbouring authority or not. A couple of things to add to the minister's answer, really just in relation to the digital transfer of dog control notices. It depends on circumstances. If Jim Wilson moves from Fife to Edinburgh, I could seek a variation of the dog control notice that has been served because my circumstances have changed. One of the key concerns that was raised by local authority staff was the enforcement difficulties. Although there is an obligation on the owner, the proper person, as defined by the 2010 act, there will be occasions where there could be challenges around information not being fed in to the new local authority who would have to consider whether the notice that has been served by a local authority still stands. You could have specific conditions that have been set out in a dog control notice. For example, the proper person or the dog owner must avoid particular places or must ensure that the dog is on a lead in particular parks within a local area or community. Of course, if the person moves to a different local authority area, they would then have to work out well. The 2010 act itself has national effect, so the dog control notice can be done nationally. That is one of the points that we looked at in relation to the updated statutory guidance that was produced by the Scottish Government in December 2020, to try to clarify the transfer process. I will pick up on something that I said earlier around the frequently asked questions document that we are developing at the moment. The transfer of digital notices is something that we want to provide more clarity to operational wardens. At the moment, they are scrabbling about thinking that we have enforcement responsibilities under the control of dogs act 2010. Suddenly, the person goes off their radar, so to speak, and they are wondering whether the person is still leaving in the community or whether they have moved to another area. We do reckon that one of the benefits of the database system will be to support their enforcement duties and to support wider work that might be undertaken by Police Scotland. There is a welfare angle to be brief, so that the microchip and information that was made possible through the prescribed order form that was passed by Parliament in 2011. For example, if you have a stray dog and it is obviously reported to the local authority or maybe the police have been asked to intervene and investigate, the microchip and information will be key to help to reacquaint the dog with the proper person and its owner. I am just finally just to clarify, if I may, on that point. If a person whose dog is subjected to a DCN does move to another authority, who is it that is obliged to tell the authority? Is it that person who is obliged to report to the authority where she has moved into? That person has an organ that is subject to a DCN, so that can be recorded in the database. Is that how it works? It is. It is their responsibility as the proper person to notify the new local authority that they have moved into and give their new address. If they do not do that, does that become an offence under the act? No, it is not an offence under the act. It might be something that we will look at as part of our review for potential future legislation. Okay, that's great. Thank you very much for that, minister. Thank you. Back to you, convener. Thank you, Willie. And thank you, minister. Does anyone else have any further questions? Thank you, convener. Good morning, minister. Good morning, panel. I have a couple of questions, and I wanted to follow on from Willie Coffey's line of questioning. I wondered if you were also capturing a change in dog ownership, so the people moving between local authorities is one issue, but in terms of dogs potentially changing hands, I just wondered if that had also been explored? Yes, absolutely. We do recognise that there will be situations where, even within, there could be a family dog, and for whatever reason, the family has decided that it's not in a position to care and look after the dog in question, so then they may ask someone else to take the dog on. But, of course, to Mr Coffey's point, it's a critical part of the process that, if there is a change in circumstances, the person who has been served with a dog control notice does notify the local authority. Again, I suppose that one thing to stress is that the provisions within the 2010 act could be someone who takes on responsibility for the dog. However, they feel that the conditions that were set out in the dog control notice no longer apply. They may view themselves as a very, very responsible dog honour, so they could seek to have the dog control notice discharged. That's one of the provisions within the 2010 act. However, from direct experience in dealing with local authority dog wardens, that has been one of the challenges around the 2010 act. There is perhaps an overreliance on people who know to find the local authorities of change, change of circumstances. However, by picking up on the minister's point about the opportunity to strengthen the 2010 act, I know that there is the commitment around the review of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991, but we are also mindful of some of the responses that were made to the consultation on the operational effectiveness of the control of the dogs act 2010. One of the things that we were looking at was an obstruction offence, similar to provisions that are contained within the Dogfowl and Act Scotland 2003. There would be an opportunity to serve a penalty if somebody didn't comply and give the information to the local authority in order to allow them to do their job. Local authority wardens felt strongly about that. We have had some discussions around the opportunity, if there is the primary legislative vehicle that comes along, to look at not just the 1991 act reform, but to strengthen the 2010 act regime. Thank you for that. That is very helpful. The wider review is probably now presenting far more opportunities. I think that I was right in saying this minister in your opening statement that the information will include microchipping information, which is going to be shared. In terms of other opportunities that this database presents, we have heard a lot of that, but we know that social services often would also be interested in looking at some of this information, specifically the linkage that we have seen between animal welfare issues, domestic abuse and violent crime. Is that something that would also be pursued within the review? It is. That is what we are committed to. I want to get to a place where we have the most effective dog control regime. Obviously, we have the two acts here, the 2010 act, which is envisaged to act as a preventative regime. If we can get people to be responsible, dog owners, to handle and when they have their dogs out, they are behaving, they are under control and they do not go on to become dangerous dogs, which is what is obviously covered by the 1991 act. It is quite a complex interplay, obviously, with dog wardens at one end and Police Scotland and the Crown at the other. That is the opportunity to look at everything in the round and see where does this need strengthening. I think that we would all agree that it needs strengthening. There is an opportunity to consider all of these factors, and I think that you have raised a good point there. With regard to breeding of dogs and puppy farming, which has been an issue that the Parliament has also investigated, would that form part of the future review, or can that be recorded within the system that will be up and running? That is also often sadly a linkage between a dangerous dog and any breeding that takes place of that dog. I think that that would probably come under more to do with animal welfare. We have got the animals and there is a reporting duty in the Animals and Wildlife Act 2020, so that was not an act that I worked on, but I think that there might be opportunities for justice and animal welfare to work together on those things. I know that Jim does work with them. Jim, is there anything that you can update the committee on? It is a really good point that Mr Briggs has raised. We have mentioned the Scottish Government-led working group, which includes a presence from the Scottish Government animal welfare policy team, because we understand that we need to look at development in relation to dog control policy through that cross portfolio lens. I think that that is really important. I know that, going back to the last session, it was Emma Harper's MSPs, Members' Bill on the Protection of Livestock, so we were able to be brought into discussions and even gave evidence alongside it was Mary Gougeon at the Rural Affairs Committee. We are keen to work with welfare colleagues because there is a cross portfolio interest. Just picking up on the earlier point, one of the questions that was posed earlier around engagement with other stakeholders such as SSPCA. I have recently had quite a number of discussions with Mike Flynn from SSPCA. We are keen that, in terms of our work to look at the review of the 1991 act, that we bring in probably Mike from SSPCA to enhance our expertise in relation to the Scottish Government-led working group once we get into the nitty gritty of potential policy changes in that space. That is very helpful. I would just put on record across Scotland and there are so many smaller charities. The minister and I will know the work that Edinburgh Cat and Dog Home does. The minister does a lot of fundraising for them, which is very appreciated and welcome, but I think that a lot of those charities do not necessarily have people working on policy like that, so I think that it would be useful to also make sure that they are supported in understanding how they can play an important part in that as well. Absolutely. I have had conversations with Edinburgh Cat and Dog Home about this. I think that they are very interested, as I think that a number of the smaller stakeholders with expertise in this area want to contribute to the development. We are going to expand the working group. We want to make sure that we have the right level of expertise on that. Now, we are moving from the operational issues of the 2010 act into wider policy changes and legislative changes, so we will keep that in mind. That is all our questions. Thank you very much for responding to them so thoroughly. We are going to move on to the next item. The third item on our agenda today is consideration of motion S6M-01888, in which the Local Government Housing and Planning Committee recommends the Scottish dog control database order 2021 be approved. I invite the minister to speak and move the motion. I formally move, convener. Are there any members who wish to speak? The question is that motion S6M-01888, in the name of Ash Regan, be approved. Are we all agreed? Agreed. We are all agreed. Thank you very much. I will suspend the meeting for a change over of panels. The fourth item on our agenda today is to take evidence as part of the committee's inquiry into understanding barriers to elected office. We will take evidence from three panels this morning. As a committee, we wanted to find ways to support promoting more diverse local representation, identify the barriers to this and find ways to dismantle those barriers. Every sector of our communities should be represented at the decision making table and, as Councillor Everson said at our meeting in September, when that is the case, we can really see the difference that it can make. With that, I would like to invite Councillor Everson, president of COSLA, Alex Campbell, policy and participation officer equalities from COSLA, Sarah Gadsden, chief executive of improvement service, Laura Hutchinson, principal from the compliance team Scotland equality and human rights commission Scotland. Thank you for joining us today. We will, in the interest of time, move straight to questions. Those of you who are joining us on blue jeans, if you wish to respond or contribute to the discussion, please add an R in the chat box to indicate that. I will start with the first question. Given that the Macintosh commission in 1999 and the local government committee in 2000 both highlighted a lack of diversity in local representation, why has progress, from your perspective, been so slow? I would like to start with Councillor Everson. Thank you very much, chair. It is good to be here to talk to you about this important issue because we need to work together on this one. Joint work is crucial. You highlight very accurately that the last 20 years' progress has been very slow and we need to do all we can to work together in partnership to address it. I would say that the barriers that we have got come under three different headings. Firstly, they come under the heading of working practices. At COSLA, we have done all that we can do internally to address those working practices as an organisation but also individual councils and the work that they are doing to address what needs to be done to encourage people to stand and serve as councillors. Secondly, there are barriers related to financial remuneration of councillors. We cannot do something about that on our own. The way that things are organised takes operation and working with the Scottish Parliament in order to achieve improvements to remuneration. At the moment, you can see that councillors, if you compare their workload to the amount that they are earning, they are earning far less than the real living wage is the bottom line. Obviously, a lot of people cannot consider doing that. That is a real barrier to many people. We need to look at remuneration of councillors as well, not only when they have been elected but also in the process of standing for election. It costs stand for election in terms of campaigning and the time that it takes. I had a couple of representations this morning through social media about that very issue. We need to look at how we can use free post to support people who want to stand for elected office. We need to think about how we can make the whole campaigning process an even basis for people. The third issue is a barrier. We, together, plus the wider society, need to look at is the culture. Culture around being an elected member at whatever sphere of government and the particular experiences that are happening in civil practices, in abuse, in people feeling very vulnerable in the work that they are doing. That is something, again, that takes everybody to work at. Over the last 20 years, there has been a desire to improve the diversity of people standing for elected office, because we know the difference that it can make. We know that it is important to have that lived experience voice at our decision-making table, as I have spoken about before. Unless we continue to work together on those three particular areas, we will not see changes. We are really here this morning to say that we need to work together. Thank you for that. It is clear that we need to work together. I am just curious to come back with my question again, which is that, as you mentioned, it has been 20 years. There is still a lack of diversity, but could you point to why progress has been so slow on that? I think that progress has been slow because we need to get those voices at the decision-making table to make that difference in the first place. We need to have those of us who are standing here in our positions at the moment to take that responsibility, to take that leadership role and encourage others to stand. In the past, that has not been the case. I know that, in local government, in particular, if you look at the picture that is staring down at you in town halls, their white middle-class males staring down at you, you have not got that sense of role model, that sense that I could be there. I could do that, too. I think that those of us in the elected office now appreciate our responsibility to create those role models, to show the images of people and to show the difference that could be made. Over the past 20 years, I think that we have had such a mammoth change to do. It is not just in local government, obviously, until this recent election of the Scottish Parliament. Diversity was not so obvious in the Scottish Parliament, either. I know that there has been rapid improvements this year, but that is very recent. I think that we need to work together to encourage others to stand, to be those role models, to be the change that we seek, to borrow a phrase from elsewhere and to encourage others to stand. That has not happened over the past 20 years because the change required has been so big and those voices around the decision-making have not been the voices of diversity. We need to work in partnership with everybody around that decision-making table to persuade them of the value of the change and get that change to happen in a way that has not, unfortunately, for the past 20 years. Thank you for that. I am going to ask another question, which may seem obvious to you and myself and other colleagues here, but it is important to draw this out a bit. What are the benefits that have been accrued from having a more diverse range of candidates stand for local election and then likely be elected? Councils are the democratically accountable voice of our local communities. They make decisions with and for our local communities. It is important that we have a range of people with a range of experiences around that table because we work for those communities and unless we have that breadth of experience there, decisions will not be touching every corner. There are too many underrepresented groups in our communities at the moment and it is crucial that we get those voices at that decision-making table. We have seen the difference can be made when there are more female voices, for example. We have had recent legislation nationally and huge engagement locally in communities over period poverty, for example, and establishing period dignity. That has happened as we have had greater voices from diverse areas of our community able to raise that voice. We have huge challenges at the moment in areas such as fighting poverty and tackling inequality. We can only meet those huge targets that we have and we must meet them if we have those diverse voices at the table. I think that we can all draw examples of what happens when we have those voices. We talked about lived experience. The social renewal advisory board had a huge emphasis on the importance of lived experience. What better way than to have a democratically accountable lived experience voice at the decision-making table? We need to have communities in place, communities of interest or represented there to get the right decisions. Thank you very much for your thoughts on that. I wonder whether anyone else wanted to come in on either reasons for a lack of progress or other benefits that we might see with diversity of people standing for election. Laura, would you like to come in? Hi, thank you. Good morning, everyone. I do not disagree with anything at all that Councillor Everson has said, and I just wanted to add something, if that is okay. I think that the role that political parties themselves play in relation to contributing to the slow and inconsistent progress that we have seen and to remind everybody that political parties are covered by the quality act 2010 and therefore have responsibilities around non-discrimination and advancing equality for their members. I think that they can play and there is a real opportunity for political parties to build on some of the work that they have already done, particularly in relation to gender balance, to tackle some of those inequalities facing particular groups. There are a number of things that have not happened that could be done in terms of collecting and using data about their members and taking positive action in relation to underrepresented groups to improve the diversity of candidates and ultimately elected officials at local government. I just wanted to quickly make that point. Thank you very much for that. I would now like to bring in Elena Witton with another question around the similar theme. Thank you very much, convener. Before I ask my questions, I would just like to refer members to my register of interests. I am Stella Servant, councillor in East Ayrshire Council. Good morning, panel. I am lovely to have you with us today as we discuss these really important matter. Obviously, we had the Macintosh commission and then subsequently after the 2017 elections, the Equality and Human Rights Commission their report, which we have had sight of, and there is a huge plethora of recommendations that came from that report. My question to the panel, and if I could start with Laura and then maybe go to cause the president, Alison Evison, after that, is how have all spheres of government and local parties responded to those recommendations? Have you seen any changes as yet? We were a few years out from 2019, so I am just wondering if I can start with Laura, and then go to Alison. Thank you very much. At the time when we published the reports on political participation, there was absolutely a lot of interest from political parties. We worked closely with COSLA and the Scottish Parliament around looking at ways in which data about the protected characteristics of elected officials could start to be collected and used. We also had a number of approaches from political parties themselves who wanted to understand more about how they could use the positive action provisions in the Equality Act to help to address some of the under representation. At that time, it definitely did stimulate a lot of interest in the topic. I think that what needs to be seen is how the findings from our research are actually taken on board going into this next set of elections to see what action is taken. It would be really interesting to have an analysis of what political parties have done. I would encourage the councils and COSLA to collect the protected characteristic information about those people who are elected as well following the elections in 2022. There was an initial enthusiasm, but I am not entirely sure how much has changed on the ground. I think that that is to be seen and we will hopefully see some improvements around that next year. Thank you very much. I do not know what Allison, if you have anything that you would like to add to that. Yes, thanks, Elena. Yes, collecting data and understanding the landscape is crucial. Obviously, we have had this set of data from 2018 and moving forward, also in the improvement service, are looking already about how to collect data from 2022 as well and move forward with that. The point that was made by Laura was important as well about the differences that we see on the ground and what is done with that. We know that in councils in 2017, we only had 29 per cent of councils that were elected as women, for example, which is obviously a not acceptable figure. We need to do what we can to address that. At COSLA, our work is focused on what we can do to make the difference. We have worked as an organisation ourselves, but also with other organisations, because working in partnership with that to address the whole landscape is important. We have worked with the organisation Elector, we have worked with Engender, we have worked with Inclusion Scotland and with others to try and understand the picture and develop a process that helps people stand. It encourages people to feel that they have support to stand. I think that it is always important to bring the stand to individuals and support to an individual to stand, supporting them through mentoring, through encouragement. The important line is that if you do not want to stand yourself from an underrepresented group to support somebody else to stand instead and to do that particular work. At COSLA, we have developed our family leave, we have developed lone working guidance, we have looked at civility in public life. We have addressed all the issues that we can internally to look at this. We are encouraging our councillors to step forward as mentors to help other people to stand in order that we can together take those steps that Laura pointed out as we immediately see those changes on the ground. Obviously, we are working cross-party bases at COSLA, and what parties do internally is another matter. We are working cross-party, but we do appreciate the particular problems faced by independent councillors who do not have that party support. We must make sure that we do not have too much of an emphasis on the parties and miss out independent councillors. We are developing our own guidance to support people standing as independent councillors to give them all the encouragement that they can. councillors like Emma MacDonald and Shetland are doing a lot of work to help that because she is in a key role as a leading independent councillor herself and also as a woman. Just last night, Shetland council ran a session to encourage people to stand there as candidates next year. The emphasis on parties and what they are doing is important, but we need to widen the perspective. Some people who want to serve their local communities, being coming democratically elected to be that voice of lived experience in their communities, will not want to stand for a party. I think that we must not miss out in this conversation the huge contribution that they can make to that. Thank you very much. I will hand back to the convener for the moment. We are going to move on to our next theme for this morning, and Miles Briggs is going to lead on that. Thank you convener. Good morning to the panel. We have already touched upon some of the questions that I want to ask specifically with regard to the fact that 14 per cent of councillors in Scotland are independent, so in terms of the party support structure not being in place. We know that in more traditional areas where independence is being elected on mass, for example, in island councils and highland councils. That is an important question about what support could be put in place. You have outlined some of it already, but I wonder if anyone else in the panel had any thoughts on that. Maybe Laura, if I could come to you first. Hi, thanks for that. I was just wanting to mention the access to elected office fund that the Scottish Government and the pilot project that I think was run around about 2017 by the Scottish Government that was around about providing financial support to disabled people who were interested in standing as candidates for local government elections and actually the support that was provided by that national fund to individuals, regardless of their political parties. I am sure that other people who will be giving evidence later on can give more detailed information about how that fund operated, but my understanding and memory from back in 2019 was that the fund was quite successful in providing that financial support in terms of things like reasonable adjustments that would be required. I suppose that there is a line to be drawn to make sure that it does not stray into paying for campaign activity, but it is about providing the additional support and sometimes financial support that candidates may need so that they can participate equally. That is a good example of an intervention that could be made to support people to participate. Thank you. Did anyone else want to come in on that question? I can't see if—no. Moving on from that, it was also important, I think, for us to look at how data around candidate diversity and equality characteristics are also recorded. I wondered if the panel could outline how currently this information is being collected and if there are better examples from the UK or other parts of the world about how that could be recorded, for example, for it to become mandatory for that to be recorded at nomination stage, for example. Sarah, can I bring you in? Thanks very much. We have tried to gather data through surveys that we have undertaken since 1999 to examine the demographic profile of councillors, and we have looked at age, gender, ethnicity, and we have also looked at questions relating particularly to the councillor role. One of the challenges that we have had is the response rate. In 1999, we had a 56.6 per cent response rate, but by 2017 it was a 33.3 response rate. The data that we have been able to gather up until now is not representative of all councillors in Scotland. Furthermore, since 2007, we have not been gathering data from unsuccessful candidates. What we are aware of is discussions with Scottish Government colleagues and others that have been involved in. It is a recognition that, without data that is reliably collected at successive elections, it is not possible to fully assess the diversity of political representation in Scotland to effectively monitor change over time and to ensure that policies and initiatives are appropriately developed and targeted. Currently, there is no commenced legal requirement to collect or publish information on the equality characteristics of candidates for both the Scottish Parliament and local government elections. The committee is aware that the five largest parties in Scotland have signed up to inclusion Scotland's access to politics charter, which includes a commitment to voluntarily do so. That covers the local government elections. As far as we are aware, none have published information yet, and Scottish Government colleagues do not know yet that any or all of the parties will meet the commitment. However, to address that, Scottish Government colleagues are currently scoping up projects to work with partners and stakeholders, including ourselves and COSLA, to look at how we can improve the completeness of the presented characteristics data on election candidates as well as elected representatives. The whole aim of this piece of work would be to develop a process for collecting data in the diversity of candidates that is robust and replicable at all future elections, and it would provide consistent data to monitor progress over time. We are aware that colleagues are in the process of scoping a proposal at the minute that will come back to us and COSLA and others for further discussion. There are also discussions with the political parties panel, and depending on how that progresses, hopefully there would be a process in place to gather that information in advance of the 2022 local government elections. Yes, thank you. Sarah has given a very good answer to the work that we do in joining the COSLA Improvement Service on that issue, but it needs to be added as well in points of what we do with the data. One important thing to do with the data is for councils to have that appreciation that it is okay to spend money on supporting councillors from diverse areas of the community if they have particular needs supporting. It is okay to spend money on safety issues, for example. It is okay for spending money on accessibility issues. It is okay to change the standing orders, to amend the times of meetings and whatever so that it is appropriate for people with caring responsibilities and other demands on their lives. Those things are okay to do. The data itself is important to show the need for that, to show the people who wanted to stand and get elected and the people who did get elected and how it is okay to spend that money. Moving on from the data is also crucial. Thank you. That is very helpful. Thanks very much. I know that Laura you want to come in as well. I wanted to expand that question slightly more, because one of the things that the committee has been trying to get an understanding around is why some people have decided to stand down after just one term in office. If there was any data, you would also looked around that. Laura, I will bring you in if anyone else wants to comment on that specific point. Can you let us know? Sorry, I cannot answer that specific point. I do not know if you want to go to someone else immediately on that. I was just going to talk about response rates. Yes, the response rates when the work was done around 2018 have been very low. The importance is that every part of the process looks at where they can collect data about the protected characteristics of those people who are participating or attempting to participate in the political process. I think that there are some examples that we can look to. You can look at the Scottish Youth Parliament and the census of sitting members. You could look at that while section 106 of the Equality Act is not enforced that requires political parties to collect and publish the data. Political parties themselves could look at whether they could have specific rules around collecting equality monitoring data for their members. It is important to speak to party members and politicians to understand why the information is being used and why it is important. That goes back to Councillor Everson's point. If people are clear and confident that the information will be used for good, they might be more likely to complete the forms or participate in any other forms of research that is trying to understand that. Thank you. That is helpful. Councillor Everson, you wanted to come back in on my point. The question about why people do not stand a second term. The consular has just actually completed a survey on barriers to people standing again and other issues around remuneration. That will be published in January. We are going to see the detail then. Obviously, we will share that information with you when we can. However, a big issue that came out from it is the financial remuneration for councillors. People have given their five years of service and struggled with what they are getting for the amount of hours that they have put in. I mentioned before about the real living wage. If you analyse the hours that councillors are working and compare it with how much they are earning, it is way below that real living at wage. We need to address that key point. People with caring responsibilities, people with families to bring up and find that remuneration is a real difficulty. We are not going to get diversity in politics until we address that point and make it possible for people to earn money. Related to that, MSPs and MPs benefit—I think that it is a benefit—from case workers and people supporting you in your work and having that wider office surrounding you. Councillors do their work on their own. Councillors have no one looking at their emails, no one supporting what they are doing, nobody following up their casework. Everything that a councillor does is the council themselves. If you are serving your community as the way councillors wish to, there is a huge amount of work to do, a huge amount of emotional stress and a huge amount of commitment to doing that job and doing that job properly. That is tiring. Something else that has come out from the work that councillors have told us is the need to try to address this, the support work for councillors as well, somebody to support the work that you are doing in the way that other spheres of government have that work. That challenge is impacting councillors as well. Although the details of the survey will be published later on, I think that looking at levels of remuneration, looking at the amount of burden on individual councillor for their own work are two of the main reasons why people give five years and happily give five years, but the prospect of giving 10 years is a lot. We need to make sure that we can have things put in place so that we do not lose that wealth of experience and knowledge that is developed up and the community connections that are developed during that time as well. That theme that you have touched upon is something that I want to come back to later on, because I think that support services is an important point that we should discuss as well. I am just going to pick up on that. Councillor Everson, you have mentioned remuneration quite a few times already this morning. The vast majority of councillors who responded to our committee's questionnaire felt that councillor pay is not sufficient, with one councillor stating that it falls way below the national minimum wage for those of us who take the role with the seriousness that it deserves. Renumeration is also a significant barrier to tackling underrepresentation amongst councillors in Scotland. In light of that, I would like to ask other members of the panel whether they agree with the questionnaire respondents that councillor pay is a major reason why the local election candidate pool is not more diverse. Your responses could also include your thoughts on the right amount of pay and how that issue is specifically relevant to female representation and how that issue affects the quality of local government decision making. If anyone else would like to come in on that. I am not sure that I can answer all of your points, but I would add that the findings from your survey are not a surprise, and they chime with the findings from the research that we undertook in 2015, in terms of looking at some of the barriers and the barriers in relation to the resources available to people to be able to participate and stand in election. Personal finances were seen as barriers, so understanding that different groups of people all have different experiences of their level of income, their own personal finance and how much they are able to participate in a political activity that does not provide a kind of standard, a kind of high standard of income in terms of that, so they found that not only was that difficult for, we found that that was difficult for particular groups who may be more likely to be experiencing poverty, but also that some protected characteristic groups do experience additional costs that other groups do not. For example, disabled people may have additional costs in order to participate in an equal way. Also, as you touched on about women with caring and childcare responsibilities who may also have additional costs if they are trying to participate in terms of the timings around some of the events and meetings for standing to stand as a candidate in order to be able to participate in that, they may have costs to do with childcare or caring that other people might not. It is quite a complex picture, but it is definitely one of the common recurrent themes in relation to our research. Thank you very much for that. I do not think that anyone else wants to come in on that, so we are going to move on continuing the theme around barriers, remuneration and other challenges and invite Eleanor Whitham to come in on that. I myself have been subjected to online abuse as a councillor. The level of online abuse as a councillor has proven so far to be significantly more than any online abuse I have experienced so far as a parliamentarian. Sometimes it is because it can be very personal, so it could be your friends and your family and your community who are taking great exception to decisions that you are perhaps taking at a local level or things like snow can actually give a flurry of complaints. This is something that respondents have said is a major barrier to them or something that is making them not want to stand again as the level of online abuse. Do you think, as a panelist or anything, that public bodies can do better to address the online abuse that, as received by councillors, will perhaps start with Alison if I can? Obviously, councils are the sphere of government closest to our communities, so things have become that personal sense, which is an important context for it. We have already started work to show that your addresses do not need to be made public, for example, because until now that has been the case in many council areas, so people know where you live, which adds to the dangers of that. I think that this is not something that we can do on our own. We have done lots of work. We have worked with the other local government associations across the UK to develop a work on civility in public life and make commitments ourselves to that. We have developed a set of rules for engagement for social media that people can use on their own social media to show that it is okay to not engage with things. It is okay to delete things that are abusive and other aspects of how to maintain your own social media. However, the wider issue is something that takes all of us to address. It is not something that we as councillors can address on our own, because it is about how people perceive the politicians. It is about how people perceive their local leaders. It is about general respect. It is about general civility. If the message is going out there that it is okay to abuse somebody, that abuse will continue. All of us together need to call out everything when it occurs. As soon as it occurs, we need to support each other to develop the right working practices. Generally, keep going at this. Keep going to give support to each other and call out what is wrong, because it is not something that any sphere of government on its own can address. It takes us all working together. Thank you very much for that response, Alison. Did anybody else want to come in on that? I will move on to the next question that I have. Alison, you have already touched on this about those who perhaps do not want to stand for elected office for a political party. Do we think that there are those who are really community minded and want to be that community champion but are actually put off by party political conflicts that they feel are distracting from the aim that they have? Is that something that you have encountered or you are having respondents come back with that? I will direct that to Alison again. Traditionally, people have stood for the political parties to stand for the council, and people feel that the process has to take place. Yet they do not feel that that is what is appropriate for them. They want to be that community champion. They want to be that voice for their local communities, democratically elected. We need to do more to support people to stand as independents. We already spoke to Emma McDonald and the great work she is doing. We are developing our own guidance. It is important that we shake up the system. It does not have to be politically party-based. It has to be community-based. It has to be that voice of lived experience from the community. It has to involve diverse members of our community. People who have not engaged in a political party do not have to feel that that is the only way forward. We are doing a lot of work on it. We have strong voices within COSLA that are supporting us in that work. The more work that we are doing on things such as the democracy matters work that was done as part of the local governance review, all that work helps to raise the profile of what being a council is actually about. The democracy is essential. The democratic system is the bottom line of everything that we do, but you do not have to stand as a party to be democratically elected. We need to stress that point. I think that Laura MacDonald wants to come in on that one. My point was on the previous question. No, come on, that is fine. It was just very quickly. I agree with everything that has been said, but I think that there are really practical things that political parties and councils can do around codes of conduct and training, and awareness-raising, and demonstrating inclusive leadership around those issues and making sure that there is a zero-tolerance approach. We have seen, over recent years, some examples of political parties making a stand and supporting their party members who have been subject to abuse, but more needs to be done. It is about the parties and councils looking at what they can do to make a visible difference, so that it is not just words on paper, but actions and practice. Thank you very much for that contribution, Laura. It is very important that you reflect the practice that needs to change in terms of modelling that inclusive leadership that we require. Finally, the last question that I have is whether witnesses feel councils and the way that council businesses are currently conducting the way that it operates is conducive to a good work-life balance and is it really truly inclusive to people with caring responsibilities? I will ask Alison first. I think that it is important to remember that the working practices that councils have were established in a previous era when there were previous demographics around that table, and it was done to suit them. The standing orders that were set up in those times can be changed. They are not things that have to stay the same as they always have done. That is the message that we need to get out to councils. The times meetings are held at the length of meetings, the amount of papers you get and when you receive those papers to read them before the committee, the sense of time and whether you have the time on the day all that kind of thing can be changed, can be altered. That is why I came back to the point in that more people are on the decision making table aware of the value of diversity in elected office. We can work together at an individual council level to change it and make things appropriate for that particular council. At the moment, no, a lot of the practices are not conducive to people with caring responsibilities. We have only just, for example, at COSLA in the past few years, developed the family leave guidance to encourage people who have families, children or adopted children or other aspects in their family life that need time from them. We have just developed that guidance and put it into practice and various councillors across Scotland have benefited from that guidance. We need to encourage more councils to adopt that, but the bottom line on this one is that practices were set up under a previous demographic for different purposes to meet their needs. Things change. It is okay to change them, and I think that that is an important message that we need to develop as we move forward as well. If we have and we want greater diversity of people being elected, well, the practices of operating democracy locally need to suit those people who are then elected, so let us have this concept of change accepted and explored and developed. Thank you very much for that, Alison. Just before I bring Sarah in who would like to contribute, I think that it is worth again putting down on the record that under your leadership as COSLA president, we were able to have co-spokespeople who job-shared the role for the community well-being, spokesperson, myself and councillor, Perry. I think that it is important to recognise that that was the first, but by no means should be the last time that we see roles like that divvied up, so I just want to put that on the record. I would like to bring Sarah in now to respond to that as well, thank you. Thanks very much. Just building on what Alison said, I suppose that we are picking up anecdotally that there have been some benefits of the way that councillors of working council business has been conducted during the pandemic with the opportunity for hybrid meetings and remote meetings, so it is just to let the committee know that we are currently doing a piece of research with the University of St Andrews to look at the political governance arrangements that were in place during the pandemic, working with half a dozen local authorities, speaking to council leaders, opposition leaders, backbenchers and so forth to find out what has worked well in relation to the processes that were in place during the pandemic, what we can learn from that going forward. As I said anecdotally, we have picked up that the hybrid ways of working have actually been more conducive for some people in terms of their own circumstances in relation to getting involved. There have also been some virtual surgeries conducted by councillors, which we have had some positive feedback about in terms of it being easier for some people to participate when things are done virtually. I guess that we are really keen that the lessons that we can learn from the pandemic how can we support councils to go forward. Thanks very much, Sarah. I will hand back to the convener. Thank you, Eleanor. I am going to bring Miles Briggs in with a question around barriers. Thank you, convener. I suppose that this was more about the other challenges that Council Everson also touched on earlier. I wanted to ask a sort of two-point question, firstly. Do you know what support services are provided by different councils? I believe that my own council here in Edinburgh, for example, provides pooled secretarial support to all council groups. I just wondered if there is any information that you had with regard to what that picture is like. Secondly, as part of that question, around personal security, sadly, we have seen in this country a councillor's house being firebombed, which is under investigation. That is a publicly seen public, which I think does put people off if they are worried about their own security or worried about people knowing where they live within a community. Yes, we have brought forward changes that home addresses will not be on, but people live in their communities and are known, so I just wondered if you also wanted to comment on that issue as well. Thank you, Miles. On support services, that varies from council to council. It is an individual council decision about what support services they offer, and some councils do support support to council groups. Others do not at all. My council does not offer that example, whereas I am a self-service councillor. It is something that needs to be looked at in its own particular context. I said before that it is okay for councils to spend money supporting councillors from the health and safety at work point of view. From all those aspects, that is a point that needs to be made as they move forward. Your second point about personal security, yes, we have had horrific stories and incidents of what has happened to some councillors across Scotland, and that is totally unacceptable. We need to call out all those incidents entirely. All of us need to do that. Over recent weeks, I must praise the work of Police Scotland and how we are beginning far more safety work with Police Scotland. They have run webinars for councillors, and we are currently discussing with them ongoing safety work that can be offered. I must commend that partnership work with Police Scotland, recognising the role of councillors nationally across Scotland, as well as encouraging councillors in their local areas to work closely with the police as well. We are at the beginning of a journey on that one, but the fact that the partnership is being established and we are working with Police Scotland needs to be acknowledged. We, a councillor, are also aware that councillors often work on their own, totally on their own. That lone working aspect of councillor's life is something that we need to address as well, because it has developed lone working guidance for councils to adopt. Different ideas about how systems can be in place, where councillors register where they are going and register when they are safe again, and all that technology that we have to support councillors going about their work. That aspect is maybe something that puts people off that a lot of the time you are on your own. We need to acknowledge that we can use IT, we can use the technology that we have, we can work in partnership with the police and others to give support where it is needed. However, your right personal security of councillors should not be an optional extra. It should be essential that we deliver on that. I am not sure if anyone else wanted to come in as such. I would like to bring in committee member Willie Coffey with another question. I wonder if I could ask a question. It is really about another barrier that we perhaps have not explored yet, and probably Alison might be best to answer that question. Alison, we know that we have great difficulty attracting people into local government. I am thinking about people who are perhaps lucky enough to be already earning, working in a job, earning more than the salary level that councillors get. How do we get more of those people into local government? It touches on inevitably the time off for public duty issues. When my time as a local councillor I found it incredibly difficult to continue with my day-to-day job, let's call it, but also to do my council work given the really hopelessly inadequate time off that I managed to get from my employer to carry out public duties. Have you any thoughts about how we can begin to address that issue? Should we be thinking about fully paid sabbaticals for people so that they do not lose the money that they earn from their main job? Should we be thinking about that? Otherwise, how do we attract people like that to come into local government and make sure that their employers do not lose their service or that they do not have to pay for the loss of the service, but that people do not feel as though they are being run off their feet trying to do two jobs at the same time? That last point that you make is crucial. It is doing two jobs at one time when you work outside on something else. I have been a councillor since 2012 and the job of a councillor has changed in the time since I was elected first in 2012. It has become a full-time job. The work and engagement with the community, especially at the moment with that localism agenda, is so crucial. We are talking and we are following through policies on things like community wealth building, on place planning, on the 20-minute neighbourhoods. All the policy direction is about the local. That means that our local councillors, as a democratically elected local representatives, have a key role to play in leadership. At COP26, we were talking about the importance of the leadership role of local government and the importance of having local government mentioned in the final agreement of COP26, and it was mentioned there. That just underlines the variety of the work that we have to do. The social renewal advisory board talked about the work that we have to do supporting lifting people out of poverty and developing our communities and developing jobs and supporting economic development. This is all the work of a councillor on a daily basis. That is not part-time work. That is something that fills your life and quite rightly fills your life in doing that. Those people that have other jobs end up working hours and are not healthy and are not conducive of mental health and well-being in any way when people are doing another job as well because hours they end up working are huge in every week of their working lives. That comes back to the issues that we have raised before about basic remuneration for councillors doing that important democratic function of being a local councillor serving their community. The subfinance that is needed to give them to that is absolutely crucial. Sabaticals from people off work—maybe that would not address the diversity issue that we are talking about—we want to have a remuneration level for local councillors that everybody from every work of life feels they can step forward and represent their communities. The key qualification to be a councillor is to be a member of a community and to be able to be that voice of that community. It is important that we recognise the remuneration issues and pick up again on the issues that were mentioned before about support for councillors doing their job. They have administrative back-up support to enable them to do that work properly. I think that that comes back to the basic remuneration issue, so we can address the huge diversity issue in the elected office. On the issue of time off for public duties, do you think that that is pretty much down to the employer and the councillor and the employee to agree what that is? My experience of it was that the employer wants to give you as little as they can give you when, in fact, you actually need much more to do your job correctly. As you have said, do we need to look at that area about what is proper and recognise time off for public duties that allows a councillor to do the job properly? I think that I have turned the answer to that round because I do not think that it is something that can be done in the way that the councillor role has developed in the 10 years that I have been a councillor. It is not something that can be done in that time off for public duties. Being a councillor is a full-time job in itself. Maybe you should be looking the other way in the time off from being a councillor to do another employment. As we are moving forward in serving our communities and working with our communities and engaging with our communities in consulting, developing on wellbeing agendas, on prevention agendas, when we are developing on that net zero target work that we are doing, when we are working together to address poverty and support economic development across our areas, when we are looking at all the regulatory services that we are now responsible for having left the EU, that is a lot of work coming to councils as a response to that. When we are looking at all the responsibilities that a councillor has, that is full-time work. I think that what we need to do is properly remunerate the work that councillors do rather than looking at time off for public service because it is not public service in that sense. It is a far greater role and it has evolved. I have seen it evolve in these last 10 years and I think that for very good reasons and very much fitting in with the national direction of the recovery programme with Scottish Government policy about localism, it is very much fitting with all that but we need to ensure that councillors are remunerated to do that work. Many thanks for that, thank you. Thank you Willie and thank you Councillor Everson. We are going to move on with our questions and just in the interest of time we are running out of time but I think that these next few questions are important, so I am going to pass over to Paul McClellan and we are going to direct our questions to specific people for responses. Thank you convener. It is really just talking about awareness and support for new candidates and you are aware that the online questionnaire came out with a few key things and one of them was potential new candidates did not understand the role of what councillors do. I suppose that the question is probably to yourself first of all Alison, is how can we make people more aware of that and how can we also ensure younger people in our communities knowing about local politics and their role as opposed to becoming new members as well and Alison will probably start with herself as well and just obviously for brevity of time as well. The other question I was going to ask was around about community councils, are they a good source of people moving into local politics and if so how can we support that also? Alison Paul will come to your side. Lots of questions there Paul for being brief. The first one I think there's an awful lot of work being done on terms of mentoring and giving advice and help to new councillors but I'll actually pass to Sarah to answer that because it's done through the improvement service so I'll let her answer those ones. Encouraging young people yesterday we had the announcements of the Scottish Youth Parliament elections and we have had new Scottish Youth Parliament representatives across our areas and working closely with our MSYPs is something that's crucial and also working within our councillors in the UN Charter about other children is really important that we give children their voice and not just on specific issues but on whatever is important to them. We've done work as well through care experience young people and showing that voice is heard so a lot of work is going on on those areas let's do more of it. Community councils yes they a lot of councillors have have worked served as community councillors and and from that develop that sense they want to give that service and they want to have that wider decision making role and that wider sense within the area in which they work. Engagement community councils is essential as part of our work and serving together in our different areas is important but not everybody not everyone is certain that a community council will want to be a councillor either I mean I come back to the point maybe Willie was making about public service maybe that's where the public service lies and being a councillor is is is that full-time commitment to the work but certainly links to the community councils are really important to get that voice heard I'll pass to Sarah for the specific answers thank you. Thanks Alison I'm just in terms of raising awareness of the role of a councillor we're working closely with COSLA and we have a local councillor site up and running and it's supported by a local councillor Twitter handle and again we've worked with all 32 local authorities to ask them to raise awareness of this website and work they're doing round about attracting potential candidates so this website really helps people understand the many different aspects of a councillor's role and it provides them with information to help them decide if being a councillor is for them and to ensure that they're well prepared of elected we have videos on it from current elected members we've been doing some pieces on a week in the life of a councillor and have a mix of male and female councillors talking about that and we've also got a whole range of resources available for candidates for new councillors and then experienced councillors as well and interestingly in terms of the highest hits 50% of people who visit that site are actually wanting to find out what councillors do and 10% are interested in becoming a councillor. We also have developed a political mentoring development programme so we're working with current elected members to support them to develop their knowledge and skills to become effective mentors and that's not only mentoring new elected members next year but also mentoring individuals that are looking to stand for election so that they've got somebody there who has been an elected member to support them as they think through what being an elected member might be for them and what's involved and we've also been running some bespoke mentoring workshops for for political groups too so there's quite a lot this year that we're trying to do to raise awareness of the role of the local councillor. In terms of community councils I just wanted to add that we also run a community council website to provide information and support to community councillors. I think the point that I would stress is that some of the challenges that councils face in attracting underrepresented groups equally apply to community councils as well so they face barriers in relation to the age profile, the make-up of councillors too. Sadly we have now run out of time it's been very very helpful to have you all come in and share your perspectives with the committee so thank you for being here this morning and I'm now going to suspend briefly for a changeover of panel. Welcome back and we will continue taking evidence on barriers to elected office and I'd like to welcome our second panel this morning. We have Jesse Duncan who is a development officer within gender, Alice Mumford who is the chair and steering group member from women 50-50, councillor Soraya Siddiqui from elect her, Ethan Young, a civic participation manager from Inclusion Scotland and councillor Junad Ashraf, community engagement officer from the council of ethnic minority volunteer organisations Scotland. Thank you very much for joining us today and we are going to move straight to questions and witnesses if you wish to respond or contribute to the discussion please add an R to the chat box to indicate this. We will also we've got a bit of a practice here on the panel of direct maybe directing our initial our question initially to somebody but if you want to come in on something please do indicate and there might be times where I have to cut you off because we've got a lot to cover this morning and we really do want to hear from everybody so I'd like to start by asking the panel from your perspectives what are the structural and cultural reasons for women being underrepresented in councils and perhaps if I could start with Alice Mumford and then hear from Soraya Siddiqui. So I think firstly I would agree with everything that was you know said in the previous session around some of the barriers and Alison I think laid out really nicely looking at working practices looking at remuneration and looking at culture. Obviously from women 50 50s point of view a key barrier to equal representation for women is the lack of quotas that's something that we really need to see. We call on the government to push for the devolution of the powers to allow legislative quotas in councils that was a recommendation from the national advisory council of women and girls. We were told it would be further considered and we've not heard anything yet. Are you able to hear me? Thank you for that and thank you for that and Soraya. Very much. So some of the work that elect power has been doing through various workshops and ear support sessions and what we found is that there's various barriers, structural and cultural barriers as you ask about. So in terms of some of the feedback that we got was gatekeepers to elected office. Most of Scotland follows a political party system in local election and most parties ask that you remember for about 12 months before being considered a candidate and candidate selection processes have non-varying timelines. We are quite a bit of an investment in that process and there's women are sometimes subjected to political manoeuvring, misogyny, racism and that's some of the feedback that we got. What some of the women did say to us that the party, political, cultural, is simply unappealing to large waves of women that would likely make excellent candidates and elect excellent councillors. That's something that needs to be looked at as well. We also found that there was a lack of access to information about how to go about standing for selection and election. There were levels of low literacy as well, so we did education programmes as well where we upscaled and we have programmes on information online as well to support women to stand for selection and election and to understand the selection process and the various levels of government. Finance came through and I know it's previously being discussed as well. Cost of standing for election given up time to volunteer as an activist, a campaigner, sacrificing income, paying for printing, buying drinks and sometimes coffees and pizzas for campaigners, which is something you want to do and you like to do, but there is a level of cost that is associated with that. There was knowledge that there is occasionally support from political parties but the feedback was that that isn't always enough. Women with childcare came across as well that there was an additional cost. If a political party was giving specific funding to support a campaign, it didn't always take into consideration that there was an additional cost for childcare. Also financial remuneration, that was what I've got to say when you're a councillor. The fairness of what was expected from the demands of the job and the finance that was associated with the job was very clear that that was not enough. It's coming across in various spheres from councillors and councillors that are not standing again. That's one of the things that's coming up over and over again and it's clear that many have to keep second jobs. There's a fundamental challenge of how to balance. One of the quotes that the attendees at one of the programmes said was, how in earth am I meant to take on all that responsibility and the abuse that sadly comes with the role these days for that little financial reward abuse. There's concerns about the negative and divisive atmosphere. Women in public office are at much greater risk of online abuse than men and those numbers exist thematically for women of colour. Globally, women are 27 times more likely to experience harassment online than men and black women are 84 per cent more likely to be mentioned in problematic and abusive tweets than white women. If you look at the 2017 general election, Diana revealed 45% of all abusive tweets towards women. Diana added 45% of that. Again, it's very off-putting. Lack of flexible options. There isn't an option that we're aware of where there is job share, so that could be quite key in opening up the environment to more flexibility. Parental leave and key roles. Those were some of the barriers that women shared with us at the various programmes that were held. I want to apologise to Alice. Sorry, I was conferring with a clerk when you asked, could we hear you? I didn't catch that that's what you were asking, and yes, we could hear you, so if we could just come back to Alice Mumford if you have anything else you'd like to add. Thank you, and I won't take up too much time. I know there's lots to get through, but just to echo what Soraya was saying there, that there are huge, whether you call them structural or cultural issues, around councils that make it. You asked the question in the last session, are they incompatible with caring duties, and we would say yes. It really is incompatible. We see 10-hour meetings. We see lots of evening work, unexpected additional work, which means that it's very difficult for women, and particularly women of colour. Women of colour's representation is staggeringly low at local councils. To make the point that it's not just equality for equality's sake, although that is a good thing, it's that we get better decisions when we have diverse representation, and therefore we get worse decisions when we don't, and that is doing a disservice to people across Scotland. Thank you for that. Jessie, I think that you would like to come in on this question too. Yeah, absolutely, and thanks to those who answered this already, some great points. Just a couple of things I would want to add. I just want to point out that when women enter politics or try to enter politics, they are competing with this huge historical backdrop of exclusion from public life. That is not something that can be solved quickly or easily. It requires sustained efforts to examine where the inequalities stem from, what the cultural barriers are, and it really requires sustained effort to address those. The gendered socialisation of roles within political parties, which has been pointed out, are the gatekeepers to representation often within political party settings. Once women become councillors and enter into councils, women are often held to a higher standard. There are greater expectations on women in terms of their time. Women are often expected to become spokespeople for issues that are seen as women's issues, which adds extra pressure to the already sizable workload of a councillor. The press and the media scrutiny that councillors face is disproportionate for women councillors who often face scrutiny over things such as their physical appearance, their personal life, their family. As has been pointed out, the risk of abuse is much greater for women than for their men counterparts. The family leave issue has been mentioned as well. The fact that there is no legal guarantee for elected representatives to family leave, the voluntary guidance that has been created, is a great step. It has not been universally adopted and the guidance itself welcomes development. It falls short of what many women experience within their workplaces at present. It recommends six months. A lot of people who are perhaps considering becoming councillors, who for whom family leave would be a priority, are likely to have a better offer in terms of family leave within other employment that they are already engaged in. That has an off-putting effect. All of that creates a situation in which there are lack of role models in local councils and in politics in general for women. That has a compounding situation. It is important to note that, as has been pointed out, that women are obviously not a monolithic group. Those barriers are faced to greater degrees when you look at minoritised women, including black and minority ethnic women, lesbian, bisexual and trans women and disabled women. It is important to remain aware of the different extents that those barriers manifest and present in terms of contributing to reduced diversity and representation. I wonder if I could bring you in on the same issue around structural and cultural reasons for ethnic minorities and people with disability being underrepresented. If you could speak to that, too, that would be great. That is fantastic. Thank you so much for having me here. I want to say that. I am wearing about two hats in this situation. One is representing the council of ethnic minority launcher organisations. Secondly, as a city councillor, I have not been elected in 2017 at 20 years old, so reflecting on perhaps the youth perspective as well above and beyond the race perspective. Above and beyond understanding the issues that are impacting us, it is better if the committee understands the context in which we are living in when it comes to representation of ethnic minority councillors across Scotland. Across Scotland, according to the improvement service, about less than 1 per cent of councillors across the country of the 1,227 councillors that we have are ethnic minority. They estimate—I believe that I read from my call to report that they estimated—that there were about nine councillors of 1,227 across the country, so styringly low numbers. That is reflected not only within the numbers of people who are being elected but also who are being promoted as candidates themselves. Reflecting on 2017, there were across the entire country about 2,614 candidates being run for elected office for the local council elections, but only of those 2,600 were 42 from an ethnic minority background. To put the context as to how styringly low this is, if we were to reach a racial parity for ethnic minorities across local government and say about between 5% to 7% of visible and non-visible ethnic minority communities, the number should be about 100 elected councillors across the country. Pipping that into context, if all 42 candidates who are standing in 2017, as they are from an ethnic minority background, were elected, if all of them were elected, we would still only be less than halfway towards racial parity within Scotland for ethnic minorities. I think that I am going to the reasons as to why that impacts all of this. I think that we need to look at the reflection of the first ethnic minority councillors who have been elected in this country back in 1978, the sheer man, who sadly passed away a couple of years ago, and to the issues that he spoke about when he was running for election, saying that there was only the belief that he would only be elected by members of what could or was suggested to him by his opposing candidate, where he would only be elected by members of his own community by referencing specifically the Scottish Pakistani community. I believe that there needs to be an onus on political parties to ensure that they are actually doing all that they can to support and promote ethnic minority candidates within their communities. As I said earlier, we are from our communities, we are living within our communities and we should be seen to be two representatives of our people that we are living in here. It is my perspective that, considering the fact that there have been 18 local council elections since 1970, there has only been an additional eight. There are significant issues for us to overcome. A wide range of those have to do with the culture that there is within political parties in terms of how candidates and general party structure support the inclusion of ethnic minority members of society to get involved in political structures. We need to understand the fact that historically speaking, for example, my own grandparents have come in the 1950s and they are after that public bodies and society as a whole were not inclusive and there were heightened levels of racism across society. Although it may be for my white country parts that their grandparents may have been excitedly involved in political structures due to a wide number of issues to do with trade unionism or perhaps like Margaret Thatcher, something within Scotland or some issues to push back against other specific ideas that come from working-class backgrounds just as a generic example. For a lot of ethnic minority communities, they were pushed out when they faced racism. They had nowhere to go in terms of local government, within political structures, within the police, within wider society. That has continued on within people like my grandparents and to my parents to feel as if they cannot get involved in political structures because traditionally groups of state, for example, trade unions have not been inclusive of ethnic minority issues. When we come down to the modern day perspective in terms of issues such as the Black Lives Matter movement that has been inclusive and supported for ethnic minority communities to come out of society and to have our voices heard, we are starting to see a positive movement of ethnic minority members of society getting involved in politics. However, the system of being nurtured by political parties who are not having the onus pit upon them to ensure that they are actually supporting candidates to come forward and to be supported into what is the role of local government and what is the role of their position in the positive impact in their communities. Thank you for that, Junard. Can I bring Ethan in on the same question? Yes, thank you very much. I would just like to note for committee that I am also an elected member, a councillor as well, but I have all very much had my inclusion hat Scotland hat on, but I would not be able to help, but I have lived experience of being a disabled person very much in the situation that we are talking about today. Attitudes and all barriers are still very much the biggest barrier for disabled people, and that is not just negative attitudes towards disabled people, but negative attitudes towards changing an environment for disabled people to be able to participate, for example, in making reasonable adjustments. We are trying to fit disabled people into a system that needs to change. It is not disabled people who need to make those changes. We also need to look at a very grassroots fundamental levels of human rights. Access to independent living for disabled people is a big barrier. When we have 50 per cent of people living in poverty that are disabled or have a disabled family member, how do we then expect the proportional number of disabled people to think that, you know what, I am going to run for elected office. I have got something to say. I could really represent my community here because I understand the barriers. When you have people who do not have social care, when you have people who do not have access to their basic needs to housing, to get into the shop independently, to get a loaf of bread, when you have that level of setback at the very beginning, you are never going to get a proportional number of disabled people through a point where they say, you know what, with all the other barriers that we have heard today about remuneration, about the stresses, the workload, the public scrutiny that you are under, how do you ever get people to that point to say, well, we can organically get a representative number of disabled people into elected office. There is a whole range of barriers from a grassroots level all the way up to the more detailed elected office of functioning within political parties or as an independent candidate, which we will probably go into later on. I would be happy to expand on that, but there are so many levels of barriers that disabled people face and intersectional barriers, when you have multiple protected characteristics, that picking it apart is difficult. However, having a platform and a foundation of meeting people's fundamental human rights is really key. The UK Government has signed up to the UNCRPD, which is there to support the removal of barriers to people participating in politics at all levels. Thank you very much for that. I hope that more of the complexity can come out through our questions as we go on. I will move on to a new theme and invite Miles Briggs to lead on the questions for that. Thank you, convener. Good morning to the panel. Thank you very much for joining us today. It is following on from what we have already heard with regard to data and diversity. I wondered specifically whether the panel had views on how we can collect that data. We have already heard that that is patchy. I wondered what your views were with regard to at nomination stage this data being recorded or to be made mandatory so that we could look towards that. Ethan, you touched on that earlier, so can I bring you back in? Actually, Inclusion Scotland has worked with the five main political parliamentary parties to encourage them to take advantage of where equality law is direct. It is voluntary to publish data on protected characteristics. We have worked with the political parties to support them to collect data at all levels, because we need that data. As has been said before, we do not understand the problems until we can define it data-wise. We need the numbers and the stories. To my knowledge, none of the political parties have published this, but all of the political party leaders have signed up to say that they would do that. We still expect the parties to come out with that information on a voluntary basis and present that to everyone so that we can have better analysis of where the problems lie. It is really important to understand that not just which candidates were successful—also, at that earlier stage in the process, it helps us to understand more about where barriers are and where work needs to be focused. I thank you for the questions on miles. I think that what needs to be done is that for all political parties to be recording information from the very outset. When it comes to understanding who is trying to run for vetting within political parties, we need to understand how the numbers of women, disabled people and ethnic minority candidates are coming through and going through vetting and are failing, whether or not this is disproportionate as an disproportionate low of these protective characters is making it through the vetting process and anecdotally a part of a number of issues being put forward by women, for example, about the references that perhaps a lack of leadership, but some of these candidates themselves have been lecturers for 10, 15 years at a time of teachers and I'm not sure how that can be evidenced within vetting, whether or not they are lacking leadership or whether or within that we need to ensure that the number of ethnic minority candidates coming forward who are standing for election of putting themselves within internal selection processes also needs to be recorded and then above and beyond that setting targets for future years for the number of members that are running within each local authority. We're at the point right now where, as I referenced earlier, if all ethnic minority candidates who are standing in the last local elections were elected, it would still be less than half of them to reach racial party, should be the bare minimum, not just the general aspiration, but above and beyond that, that would still mean that less than half of all local authorities would still have no representation from ethnic minority communities. In terms of data collection, of course, there needs to be thorough data collection and I do agree with that. However, considering the data that we already have in front of us, it's already reflecting the fact that only across Scotland that there is a severe lack of representation from ethnic minority communities and, in further questions, we can talk about what can be done to progress this. Thank you for that, Janad. Jesse Wight would like to come in, followed by Suriah and then Alice. Yes, thank you. Data collection at the moment is, as has been noted, it's inadequate at the moment. Much of the information that we have in terms of data on protected characteristics is anecdotal. We're not working with the most robust information and without really knowing where we stand in terms of those things, without knowing the specifics of how many people with protected characteristics are involved within parties and within our political institutions. We have no baseline of which to measure progress. There's work, hopefully, on-going ahead of next year's local elections and that there are plans for some data gathering, some equalities monitoring at nomination stage that I believe that people in Scottish Government are undertaking. This is great progress. We would want to encourage any data that is going to be gathered in this process to be able to be disaggregated for gender and other protected characteristics to allow an intersectional analysis. This is the only way that we get a full picture of where things stand. People and representatives have intersecting identities. We need to understand the complexities to understand where the gaps are and where the progress is. Right now, often, with equalities monitoring processes, people's identities are recorded in static and separate categories, and we need to be able to see the picture in the round to be able to understand where the issues lie. As has been pointed out by both Ethan and Junad, the parties should be gathering this kind of data themselves, at an organisational level. The project that I work on, the equal representation in politics project, which works with a coalition of organisations from across the equality sector, created a pledge in 2016 that the five largest parties all signed up to. They all committed to the ethos and to the specific items in the pledge. One of the pledges was to audit the diversity of party members, activists, staff, candidates and elected representatives at all levels to create a benchmark against which to monitor change. We know that there is will there to do that, but action remains to be taken. We are keen to see how that can be pushed forward and perhaps enforced within parties themselves or other methods. What I understand is that the section 106 of the Equality Act 2010 requires all political parties to publish diversity data on candidates standing for election to the House of Commons, Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly. We could introduce systems across Scotland to effectively monitor the demographic make-up of electoral candidates. It is a small but important step towards improving the diversity of political institutions. At elect her, they were looking for information on the number of women of colour that are elected in Scotland. Out of 1,227 councillors that were elected, they were unable to have access to that information. What they had to do was go through each local council and go to the pictures and the names and to gauge it from that. It is not acceptable, it is not the ideal way to go about things. That data and that information should be available. It is important that we make evidence-based decisions and that requires factual data, so it is important that we should be taking that forward. Thank you. Again, I mentioned the Equality Act 106. That needs to be enacted. It needs to be enacted at UCerville, but how to enact it in Scotland needs to be devolved. The reason that is often given for not enacting that is that they do not want to burden political parties. What we have heard from evidence here is that parties are willing, parties have signed pledges and are seeking support through projects such as the Equal Representation Project. However, it is on a voluntary basis, which means that it is going to be using different methodologies. It is not going to be comprehensive. It is not going to take in all of the stages that were mentioned. That absolutely needs to be done. It is worth just pointing out two things. One, because representation, particularly if people of colour, is so low in Scotland, there is an issue with data collection that it might mean that people are easily identifiable. For example, you might be the only person of a certain ethnic group within a certain region, within a party, so there is a consideration there. Again, having that consistent across the board will help with that. Parties need to be doing it, not just for candidates but also within the committees of the party. Within everything that they do, we know that there is a pipeline to become elected. You cannot just decide if someone is going to become a councillor or an MSP for that matter. Parties should also be looking at what is the general balance of our committees, are we funneling women into certain roles to do with welfare, event organising and keeping men on the politics, roles and standing orders? Those sorts of things. However, to echo with data, you can do things. That is the point of having the data that is to set the targets is to make those changes, but we need the data in the first place. Miles, you might have a follow-up question. Just finally, we have concentrated on those questions very much on political parties, but we know that 14 per cent of all councillors across Scotland are independence. In fact, the tradition of being independent, especially in the Highlands and Islands, in terms of the panel, I would like to ask who would you then think would be responsible to try to encourage more diversity within those councils? Specifically, the committee has heard that Western Isles, for example, is an all-male council. I will maybe start with Alice on that, and if anyone wants to come in, could they put that in the chat. It is a really interesting one, and we need to be looking at individual councillors. Especially, as was mentioned in the last session, party politicians can put people off, particularly women off. When you are in a party, even though it is not much, there is a support system there, which many individual councillors do not have. For me, that is a real structural question, because, as we have heard, there is guidance from COSLA around parental leave, around those things that have not been taken up universally. We have heard that the pay is unsustainable for people. Councils fall in a really difficult position in that they are not employed by the council or a political party, but both of those bodies, if there is a political party involved, have a duty of care. A council is a workplace, and that means that if people are in line to receive abuse, if people are having unsustainable working practices foisted upon them, being put into unsafe situations, whether online or off, the council should be stepping in there and taking on that pastoral role. I think that that is really, really important, that guidance becomes more than just guidance and that all councils take that up. One thing that we hear a lot is that informal networks are really, really helpful in councils, and we often see cross-party and individuals, for example women councillors in a minority, getting together to talk to each other. Facilitating those sorts of things, making it clear that that is acceptable, that that is a resource, that there are rooms provided for those sorts of things, can be small things that can make some of that change. Essentially, we need mass changes within the structure and the attitude towards what being a council is. I think that that echoes what Allyson was saying about that. It is a job, but it is not just a civic duty, it is an employment role as well. Thank you, Alice. I will now bring in Jeannard on that. Thank you. Does it go back on to the points that were cited before about the political participation? I believe that if we are not focused on political parties and the issues that are impacted there, the only issue should be largely on political parties to be fishing directly within elections. If we are not looking towards that, then it is a wider aspect of education through, I believe, high schools and, further to that perhaps, colleges and universities that own us on high schools about participation within local democracy. We need to be starting on this journey early on, because from my understanding, when right, I am not from my understanding, I literally only left high schools seven years ago. We are taught many times what political parties are, what is the difference between right wing and left wing, but there seems to be a huge gap in terms of participation. How do we get involved in local government? What is local government? What are community councils from the elected members who are sitting here today? I am sure that if you are asked, if I asked a friend of mine, somebody from the community who was not interested in politics generally, they should be able to tell me what community council is or what the role of a councillor is. The fact that we are only really going through this level of understanding once people have been vastly involved either within civic society as a whole or within specific political parties plays into the part that there is an issue with interaction with local government. That also buys into the fact that why are there such low levels of participation with turnout and voting as well, because people do not understand what they are voting for many times. In terms of how we are supposed to impact the support for independent councillors against Highlands and Islands, but also within local parties like the one that I represent, North Lancer Council, which has a number of independent councillors, I think that it is going back to education from a high school perspective, and we should be pushing this out so that all of the services that I get understand what is a community council and what are councillors. Thank you very much for that. We are going to move on to a new theme, barriers, remuneration and other challenges. I am keen to hear your views on councillor remuneration. I have difficulty saying that word too, which has been mentioned frequently this morning, and I would like to ask what your experience is considering your work with underrepresented groups of how councillor remuneration affects underrepresented groups in standing for local government. Perhaps I will start with Soraya. My personal experience is that when I stood for council in 2012, I had a full-time permanent job. I was working in further education and it is something that does not come easily. I have worked for years in temporary jobs to achieve that. I realised very quickly in 2012 after the election that I could not keep my full-time job. I went part-time, part-time, and that was a very difficult decision for me to make because I had worked so hard to get the full-time permanent job, but it was not something that my employers made it very clear that you would make that decision and will be filling your role. Is this long-term? To be honest, I could not answer that question at that point, but I made a decision that I was not able to save my communities while keeping a full-time job, so I made that sacrifice. I still find it difficult juggling part-time employment and being a councillor. I am finding that the role is more and more demanding. There are more expectations than social media, communities, but I love and enjoy that I cannot, with all honesty, say to anybody who has a full-time job that you can keep your full-time job and save as a councillor. Through the work that we have done with Elector as well, women have said how on earth I am meant to take on that responsibility and with the very little financial reward. That is something that needs to be looked at, because we are looking at a situation that we are not even sometimes getting them in among age. They feel not acceptable, especially when women have got care duties, they have got their families and so forth. Those expectations are causing a barrier, and it is discouraging women to stand in. I have heard excellent women who are community champions that will say, you know, it is something that I cannot do in this stage of my life, or I know of women that I have actually served for five years and they say, look, I cannot keep continuing this, you know, it is too much of a sacrifice, I cannot hold it, it is too demanding on me financially, so it is a real challenge and I think it needs to be considered and solutions need to be posed on this because it is a real issue. Thank you. Thank you for that and thank you for sharing your personal experience on that. I believe that Jesse would like to come in. Yes, thank you. I agree with a lot of what has just been said. I think that on remuneration, the key thing is the fact that the pay is based on the assumption of a part-time role and we know and we have heard so much this morning about how the council role is not a part-time role. I think that pay is one of the number one things that keeps the councillor role, the preserve of people who have the time, the financial security and without necessarily caring responsibilities to pursue it. This is an excluding effect on vast swathes of society, including many women. The reality of councillor duties is that it is many invaded between casework surgeries meetings of full council meetings in the community, just keeping on the pulse of things that are happening. Those tasks vastly exceed the expectation as is self-reported by councillors. This time pressure is a completely disproportionate impact on women. Women are generally time poor compared to men. They carry out a disproportionate amount of domestic and childcare duties at home. Women are more likely to be in low-paid or precarious work, and that increases the risk inherent in taking on a councillor role, which is itself low-paid and the challenges around flexibility and financial security that it introduces. All of this means that the role remains the preserve of the predominantly older, financially secure men who can afford to stay in the role. It leads to perception that the councillor job is a hobby job. It perpetuates them, and that perpetuates and justifies a low-pay. That does not serve our communities and does not serve women. Women are also disproportionately—there are a lot of decisions that are taken at council level that impact the lives of women. Women are more likely to be using public transport, for example. They are more likely to be employed in the care sector or in education. Voices are missing from the table, and remuneration is so intimately tied to that. I know that there is work going on at the moment. Within the calls that I have carried out in the remuneration survey with councillors, as was discussed earlier, I am looking forward to seeing the results of that, and I hope that the work of the committee in this discussion will begin to address that. That needs to be addressed to make a councillor role more feasible, practical and achievable option for more people and more women. I see that a couple of other people want to come in on that, but, in the interests of time, I will invite you in. If you can add to anything that has not already been said by previous witnesses, that would be great. We have other questions to cover. I would like to invite Alice and then Junard to come in. We talked about the Access to Elected Office, which is involved with disabled candidates. We could be looking at things like that for, for example, care costs, because it is not just the remuneration when you are elected that is a problem. It is the fact that you have to sacrifice a lot both financially and professional ties in order to stand. You may not get re-elected, or you may not get elected at the time, and you have already made those sacrifices. I certainly, from women 50-50, we constantly feel a bit of conflict in that we want 50 per cent of women on councils. We want to encourage women to stand, and yet we know that it is quite a toxic and unrewarding environment, so I think that it is just really important to get that across. That is known, and many many women are put off from standing because of that, because of those huge areas. I welcome beyond what has been said before. I do believe that having a negative impact in terms of how local government is being perceived by the local community because of the lack of money that has been used to support countries through their pay. We need to say what the pay is. It is £17,000 for what has essentially been called by COSLA, or Proven Service by many surveys. Some councils are working typically 30 hours a week on £17,000. I really do feel for most of my female colleagues if they have at least one child or two child a year essentially on the poverty line. If you are unable to have additional income supports there to help you. I welcome beyond that because of the difficulties that are put on you because you are having to focus on an additional job. The engagement that you would like to have with the local community cannot really take place because your time is then focused on having to have a secondary role. It also plays into the impact in terms of the half and half as to whether or not it does or does not, because I mean councils are some of the most ambitious individuals that I know who care about their communities and they will fight very hard for them. However, it does play into the fact that are we losing some level of quality from some candidates who could be standing? For myself, I was elected whilst studying at university and mechanical engineering. My friends are now typically making between £35,000 and a number of my friends between £14,500 and £80,000 plus. I want to wait about a quarter of what my friends are at the exact same time we are on. Are we losing that quality of candidates coming forward because of the pay and the 100 per cent we are? I will touch on two things, time and energy. A lot of disabled people need more time to do things, get places, get ready, get organised. It makes additional barriers to juggling two jobs, essentially there. Many disabled people have an energy impairment, so energy is limited. Your energy to do two jobs is not sustainable. I know that, for a fact, it is not sustainable. That contributes again to people saying that this is not something that I can do. I must repeat what Alice has said when she has talked about the moral responsibility that is emerging for us in the roles that we are in when trying to engage more people in politics and get more people into elected office. The reality is that it is not a great place to be. We are trying to get more people into that, but there is that burden now of we need to manage those expectations and be really clear about the environment that we are trying to promote people into, which is another big barrier that we are facing. Thank you, Ethan, for underscoring the challenges of the context of local government both in standing and being elected. I will continue with the same theme. I invite Elena Witton to come in with some questions. I will limit my questions to two questions. First, I would like to explore with Jesse if I may, in gender's point, that when women do gain access to these spaces, they are routinely held to higher standards than men in the same positions. If you can speak briefly on that, Jesse, I would appreciate that. I think that we are waiting for your mute to come off. Hi there, hi. Absolutely, it is anecdotally from women involved in politics at all levels, but women councillors, the level of, I think that was mentioned earlier by someone, the role of councillors is not what it once was and the level of abuse that is prevalent both online and offline, the level of harassment, that women are at a greatly increased risk of, especially minoritised women. The kind of scrutiny that is coming from the external world, never meant the scrutiny that they face from their colleagues and within the institutions that they work within. It has a huge signalling effect to women that politics is not a safe place for them. There have been a number of really high profile examples of that recently. Within the institutions themselves, I think that women report being cycling or not cycling, but there is an expectation that when they speak, because of the low numbers of women, that they speak for all women. That is a greatly increased amount of pressure that they are experiencing. There is often cycling into being spokespeople for software issues such as welfare, education and the kind of hard politics that is left for their male counterparts. There are a couple of issues that women face in that regard. Thanks very much for that, Jesse. The second question that I... Sorry, I think that you would like to come in on this question. Hi. Sorry, I just wanted to add to some of the question that you would ask to give some perspective of what I have seen within my role as the quality officer for my political party within North Action Council. Further to that, what I have seen within other political groups and parties has occurred. During the time of the Me Too movement, I remember being in the room where there was a discussion being held by male colleagues about what should be done to protect men within the situation that they should not be falsely accused by female colleagues by being falsely accused of sexual assault. There are also regularly times that female colleagues are only... I mean, it is typical within a meeting for us to refer to each other as councillor Asha for councillor Wytham for councillor et cetera, but regularly female colleagues are referred to by their first name as opposed to by their formal title during committee meetings. There are also, and the woman we've seen this happen by two female colleagues interrupted. Normally when we hold the floor, we hold the floor until we're completed, or if the standing orders have a specific time limit of about three minutes or five minutes, we're allowed to speak until that time's over. I've seen female colleagues being interrupted happily through their point to say, oh no, we've had this point raised already, et cetera, and to essentially have the microphone taken away from them. I've heard just amongst a lot of colleagues about the repetitiveness of female colleagues having to repeat the same issue over and over again that during meetings for them to be silenced, during the meeting in the same manner to have been said, this has already been covered in previous meetings while you're repeating it when in reality we are elected members representing our communities. They have a right just as all of us have a right within the rooms to be able to speak to that. I thought I'd just come in to give a specific context for examples of Jesse's contribution there. Thank you very much, Jenny. That was very helpful. I think that it is worth having those observations down on record for the committee because there are observations that I certainly recognise myself as well. The second question that I had for the panel, and I'll start with Ethan for that one, if I can, is the views on whether quotas and mechanisms, equality mechanisms, should be used and should they be used more. Maybe then, after that, go to Alice because you did mention quotas earlier on. Ethan, if I can start with you, thank you. Yes, so on my professional view, I think that we do need quotas, as I've touched on before, disabled people face so many barriers at grass-roots level that we would need to eradicate poverty and all the barriers that they face to get an organic amount of disabled people through to get a representative number there. We do need quotas, but not quotas in isolation. Alongside quotas, we need that grass-roots approach and we need to eradicate all those barriers at a grass-roots level. I believe that, when we have a top-down and a bottom-up approach and it meets in the middle, that is where we get sustainable change. When I say top-down, I am talking about quotas and from a grass-roots level bottom-up, I am talking about how we remove the structural, institutional and societal barriers that disabled people face. When we meet in the middle, we get sustainable change. That is a really powerful point that you have made, because sometimes when mechanisms could be in place without that real change, that sustainable change that we get, we then have a situation where somebody is maybe actually not able to sustain the role that they have gotten into because the structural barriers that are there. Alice, if you want to come in, that would be great. 100 per cent agree. Quotas are not a silver bullet to solve the problem of representation. They can get us to a certain point, but absolutely we need those port structures, we need the institutional changes, we need the culture change, we need the pay increases, all those other things to happen alongside it. As Ethan says, if we wait for that to happen organically, if we look at the increase between the last council elections and the one before it was 3 per cent, it is not going to happen quick enough for any of us, I think. So, absolutely, obviously, when we meet 50-50s pro-quotas and other diversity mechanisms, like all BME short lists, there is a challenge and more thinking to be done. Gender is certainly the most theorised area of this, and gender quotas are a very obvious choice that goes with the population, 50 per cent of the population, 50 per cent of equal rep women in those positions. However, to go to Janad's point about what the numbers underneath the demographics would actually look like, we need to do more thinking around race, disability, carers and all other protected characteristics to make sure that we are having intersectional analysis of those things and intersectional mechanisms. It is not the choice between, well, do we want to increase representation of men of colour or white women? That is not the choice, so there needs to be intersectionality throughout all of this. Thank you very much, Ellen, for your questions. I just want to bring in my colleague Willie Coffey with a question. He is joining us on blue jeans as well. Thank you very much, convener, and good morning to the panel. I just wanted to ask a question to our two councillor colleagues. First, I say thank you to councillor Ashraf for mentioning Bashir. I was privileged to serve in the Parliament at the same time as Bashir to assure you he is very much missed around the Parliament. I wanted to ask about the question that I asked previously to councillor Evison. It is about how to get more people attracted into local government who may actually be currently working. Soraya, you mentioned that you gave up your full-time job in order to become a local councillor. You mentioned that a lot of your friends and colleagues are already earning well beyond what the councillor's pay is. How do we solve this? Do we put the pay up from £17,000 to £18,000 into what level? How do we attract people that are perhaps earning at the moment and have to support their family and pay a mortgage to still be attracted enough to come into local government? Do we need to somehow match what a person's salary might be so that they do not financially lose and it enables them to do the job full-time, as councillor Evison suggests that we should do? What is the solution that you think to it? Maybe Soraya and Jean-Ed could offer a few thoughts on that. Hi. I agree that your renumeration really needs to change. There is absolutely no doubt about it. I have a science background and I know that my colleagues and fellow scientists are working in the pharmaceutical industry and education. My renumeration at the council is nowhere near match. I cannot make up with it with a part-time job either. What I did find was that in 2012 I was teaching and there were certain committees that I had to chair at one committee every six weeks or one committee every four weeks. Because there was a requirement for a continuity from my employer, there was a requirement that they said, we do not really want to slot out the classroom, the module that you are teaching. We want that continuity, so either you can do all of these or, literally, it was a case of done. I think that certainly I can have more flexibility from the employer. That would definitely help me out. I am not going to put any particular employer on the spot, but I know from the feedback that I have got from my colleagues that the process that they had to go through to their employers that I am an elected member and I have certain rights in terms of resale being the public. You feel like you are being singled out in your colleagues and you are having to almost sometimes fight that corner, so you get an understanding and more flexibility from the employer. You mentioned actually mapping salaries, so if that was possible, you would see doctors, lawyers, scientists and engineers. Certainly when it comes to the pandemic, there is a lack of medical profession and a lack of scientists in decision making. Having that broad, diverse representation is so important. The idea that you suggested previously, when Councillor Alison Evans was speaking, and seriously looking at the remeriation, it needs to be looked at because it would be much more inclusive of broadening the representation. It is so important that we have a representative voice for the communities that we represent in local government and in all levels of government. From my perspective, what I believe needs to be done is, first and foremost, the role of a councillor needs to be defined. We do not have a definition of what a counciller is supposed to do. It differs from local authority to local authority in terms of the structure of local government. For example, Glasgow City Council has more of a government role where it has higher positions, whereas, for example, Mouth Action Council has more of a committee structure with conveners attached to it. First and foremost, it needs to be a defined role as to what it is. I cannot look up a definition of what my role actually is and what my role is in responsibilities. Therefore, what the role has slowly become over time is that, in the past 10 years, we have gone from, essentially, the level of everything that is our job. If somebody gets in touch with me with an issue with their GP or something to do with their Twitter account, the usual dog mess on the floor is all the way down to having to deal with high levels of banking issues. They are all my issues because they bring it to me. If I don't deal with the issue, the constituent will not be happy, and if the constituent is not happy, then I will not be elected or will not be re-voted in by that constituent. Therefore, we need to define the responsibility for the basic pay. First and foremost, the basic pay needs to be raised. It cannot be £17,000, just as it does with the Westminster problem, where it has an independent regulatory board that comes in to define what the pay should be. I believe that that process is required to take place within Scotland. We need for somebody to look at the role and responsibilities of what councils are doing across the country and define what it is. I could throw out a random number and say that it should be £22,000, £23,000, £24,000, or it should be the median wage of this country, about £26,000 in some areas, but I am just throwing out random figures here because we do not, as I go back to my first point, have what is the responsibility of the councillor. Secondly, I believe that it is tied after the basic pay. We need to have additional sort of monetary incentives for what we are getting involved with. For example, when I was at university for my first two years of being an elected councillor, I sat on three committees. When I finished university and said going straight into a job with a mechanical engineer or a finance company, I decided to spend a year and look at the political role and take on additional responsibilities. I sat on three committees. I sat on about six committees. Instead of being on no public external bodies, most councils are perhaps in one. I sat on three instead of being involved in just having no role. In my political grouping, I took on the qualities of the role. All of that has an impact on how much time is being used by myself. For example, a colleague of mine is perhaps on two or three committees and has no external bodies and has no additional responsibility in terms of a role within our political grouping. They get paid the exact same. That is why I am getting paid. I am not saying that I am the hardest working councillor, but there are councillors who think that they are significantly more important. Sorry to interrupt you. I just need to come in because we are moving quite well over time. A few other people would like to have time to offer their perspective as well. Thank you so much for what you were saying. Your contribution is very valuable. I would like to give a little bit of time to Ethan and Jesse. Then we have one final question that my colleague Paul McClellan is going to ask. Thank you. Absolutely, there is no need to find. I would take this as an answer in this question, as an organisational report, and approach how I recruit in my job at Inclusion Scotland. We recruit by making the wages competitive with the level of work that someone is expected to do. We have a clearly defined role description. Actually, it is a really competitive environment. The third sector right now has a lot of jobs going on. You cannot advertise a CEO role for £27,000. You are not going to get someone, because they can get a job at a lesser level with less stress or more money, or they can go and get a CEO role job for a lot more money somewhere else. We need to think about this. How do organisations do it? There is good practice out there. We could get recruitment consultants at any level of consultants. The thing is that we do not treat councils like it is a job. We are still on this. It is a public service thing, so councils do not have the right to an HR department. We have not got all that support if you have been dealing with someone, and it is potentially someone to your side of one day where it is the support that you would have on an HR department within your organisation. There is a whole level of things where we need to shift focus and say that this is a professional job. There needs to be an organisational structure behind it and support that you would get in any other role. Just a very quick point following on from what Ethan was saying. There is pay, but there are other measures that you expect in a workplace that relate to that HR-style stuff. The thing that I want to draw a bit of attention to is to go back to the family guidance, parental leave and the fact that, without having a robust and competitive policy on family leave, women are going to be—that is a massive barrier for women—largily not going to be able to win their face between choosing between a job that they are currently in that provides generous and good quality of family leave. Women are often going to leave that for what is offered within the council role, so I think that that needs to be a priority. Thank you very much for that. I am going to move to Paul McClellan with a question. Thanks, convener. One of the key things is that there was equal representation in politics toolkit that was just launched, and there were three or four organisations that were represented today that took part in that. The question is what engagement has been with political parties and local authorities in that respect? One final concluding thing would be that you have already mentioned all of your end about how we encourage women and underrepresented groups in the local politics. If there is anything else that you think you would need to add just at that stage, just to close. I will probably come to myself first of all, Jesse. I know when gender was involved in the toolkit development itself. I am the development officer on the equal representation in politics projects. All of the organisations on this panel are members of the equal representation in politics coalition. The toolkit was developed a couple of years ago. Part of my role has been working with coalition members to enhance, develop and do outreach with political parties to promote and support use of it. There has been an overwhelmingly positive response from political parties or individuals that I have contacted within that role towards the toolkit. There is enthusiasm to do something about that issue. Just to explain quickly about what the equal representation in politics toolkit does. Basically, it is a set of online resources that parties can use completely for free, and it provides comprehensive self-assessment quizzes across seven topics that can support parties to identify areas for improvement and measures that can be taken to improve to support diverse representation and involvement of underrepresented groups in politics. Parties have been enthusiastic about using that, but we really need to recognise the challenges in terms of time. Many people that are in pivotal roles within political parties are volunteers who are time stretched. There are a million and one things to get on with in terms of their volunteer role and their life outside of the party. Getting a consistent and integrating use of the toolkit and integrating the methodical way of reviewing internal practices and processes is a challenge in terms of volunteer time. It is a great investment for parties to make to develop internally appropriate ways of using those toolkits. The resources that the work has been done by the organisations that have created this toolkit and who want to provide the support for parties because they recognise the really pivotal gatekeeper role that parties have within creating a more diverse representation. There is information in the toolkit relating to a range of different things that cover party life around candidate selection procedures, looking at tackling abuse, looking at how accessible activities, events and campaigning are. All manner of things that a political party does are to make sure that it is as inclusive and open as possible to support as many people as possible to be able to get involved and crucially to stay involved. What is really positive about it is that there has been huge enthusiasm of parties using and accessing those resources. There is enthusiasm in what happens with that enthusiasm. How is it sustained and how is it built in to processes? Hopefully, it becomes a self-fulfilling thing. When the toolkit is accessed, people use one part and then they use another part, and it becomes a self-fulfilling thing. Processes grow and become more accessible. Do you have the ultimate impact of creating more diverse representative institutions? Was that the whole question? That was the first part of the question. I think that you covered it, Jesse, just about how we encourage other groups, but you have covered that in your answers in that regard. I suppose that you are opening up the question. If there is anything else to add, I think that Jesse covered that really well, but if there is anything else that anybody else wants to add, I do not know if that is going to come through. We have run out of time on that. I want to say to everybody that this is not the only session that we are going to hold on this. I think that we, as a committee, believe that this is a very important issue to address and see progress on. Thank you very much for coming this morning. I am sorry that you were not all able to get into every little bit of detail, but it has been very helpful for us to meet with you this morning and hear your perspectives. I am now going to suspend the meeting to allow for a change of our witnesses. Welcome back. We are going to continue to take evidence on barriers to elected office and welcome our third and final panel this morning. The panel is comprised of James Kelly, general secretary of the Scottish Labour Party, Councillor Louise McAllister from Ellen and District, Roslyn MacPherson, a former council candidate in the Western Isles, Councillor Kelly Parry, the local government convener of the Scottish National Party, Sheila Ritchie, convener of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, and Councillor Cameron Rose from Southside Newington. Thank you for joining us today. We are going to move straight to questions and witnesses. If you wish to respond to or contribute to a discussion, please add an R in the chat box to indicate that. I am going to ask you all up front to try to be succinct in your responses. Time is against us. We want to hear from everybody and we have quite a few questions. And also we might direct specific questions to someone in particular if that is more relevant. I would like to start with a question that could take us all day, but with that risk, I am going to ask you how and why you became involved in local politics. Maybe the person going first will have a harder time with this, but if the rest of you can be kind of thinking about that key moment that really brought you in and said, this is something that I really want to engage in, that would be very welcome. So I am just going to begin with the order that I called the name. James, if you could make a start there, that would be great. Okay, thank you, and I welcome the opportunity to participate in the evidence session. I have been involved in politics for 40 years as a member of the Labour Party. I have gone from a party activist to an election agent to an MSP and now a party official. In terms of what drove me to be involved in elected office, I suppose everybody joins a political party with a commitment. Whatever their politics, they think that and they believe that what they are committed to will make country and society and the community to come from a better place. What drove me forward was the community that I grew up in, canvas line, where I still stay. I was decimated by factory closures that were involved in politics. I enjoyed that involvement and through time people approached me and asked me to stand for Parliament and regarded that as an honour. Ultimately, I wanted to help to make my local community a better place. That was what brought me into it. I will now go to Louise McAllister, followed by Roslyn McPherson. Thank you so much and thank you for the opportunity to speak. A really interesting question and one that I can answer very briefly is that I was asked if I would consider standing as a councillor having been sat on the community council for some time. Prior to that, I had been chair of various groups in our local community. I was approached by a sitting councillor to see if I would consider standing. With that in mind, we had an event not that long ago, and it was a woman-centric group, where we all discussed how we had come to stand as local councillors. It was almost 100 per cent, if not 100 per cent, of female councillors who were standing, had all been approached by someone else to see if they would consider standing. It was very much that we were all invited, if you like, to stand, rather than necessarily stepping forward of our own volition. We all find that that was really quite an interesting take on our perspective from there. I was asked, as I think many people are, and that really sparked my interest and, having looked more into it, followed up and stepped forward. Short and sweet answer to that when I was asked. I don't know if you can hear me or see me. Yes, absolutely. Trying to keep it brief, same as James said, I believed that I could do some good in my community. I had strong opinions on lots of things and felt that I could be useful to the community. That pretty much sums it up. Thank you very much for that. Kelly Parry, followed by Sheila Ritchie and then Cameron Rose. Thank you. I'm really grateful to be here this morning. I'll keep this very brief, but I became a member of a political party, a Scottish National Party, back in 2005. It wasn't really until I got involved in a local school closure that affected my son, so many women in politics are a way that we get involved in our communities. Of course, the independence referendum was a key catalyst for me to take the next-level step, if you like, between being involved in politics and standing for elected office. I was elected in 2015 in a bi-election. In 2017, when I stood, there was a real push, encouragement and empowerment in getting more women elected as well. We'll look to stand again in 2022. It was about my community and what I wanted to change locally, but also the national politics. I approached it from a slightly different perspective. I joined the Liberal Party in Scotland in 2000—no, I lie—in 1981. I approached it from a political philosophical perspective. I think that the world is better if it's liberal. Although it wasn't the reason that I'm here, I was a councillor from 1988 until 1996. I wanted to make my area more liberal in the way that it did. Thank you for inviting me. I wanted to change the world. I looked at what was happening around, thought that it wasn't going in the right direction, so I wanted to, at least in my small corner, be a contribution to changing that. I'm not sure that I've been very successful in that, but it was significant that I had the time. I got to a stage in my life when my children were grown up, my wife supported me and I was able to do so. That's why I got involved. The next question is addressed to our three councillors that we have with us this morning. I'd like to hear—again, it's going to be in brief, but it's difficult to baby-do for the first person to take that question. We'd like to have the councillors talk us through what a normal week looks like, how much time do you spend on councillor duties and how do you fit in other things in your life, such as other work, running a business or caring responsibilities, as we've heard earlier. I'm going to tack on to that. I've got another question, but I'm going to tack on to that in the use of time. Tell us how much you're paid and if you think that councillor should be paid more for that work that you're doing and, if so, how much do you think it should be? It's a great question. What a varied answer you are likely to have from all the councillors. There is no average week in terms of being a councillor every day. It can be different. Additionally, the way that council meeting structures work, they do tend to work in six-week cycles. That means that it can be very difficult to predict what will happen in terms of your week-to-week business. In terms of what that means for me, that's a challenge. I've got two children and another paid role. It means that I have become an expert in trying to juggle those roles, which can be difficult. There's absolutely a barrier to people with caring responsibilities or family responsibilities from entering local government. That being said, I think that having more women and other represented groups is essential in terms of local government and the types of decisions that we make affect all of our communities. However, it's important that we have that lived experience in our council chambers. It is incredibly complex and time consuming. I am an opposition councillor, so I earned the very basic minimum in terms of councillor salary. I don't think that I would be able to financially survive if it wasn't for the fact that I had another paid role. I'm very lucky that I have a flexible paid role and that my paid role is within local government. However, I know from personal experience and experience of other colleagues that it's incredibly difficult to find other part-time work that not only fits in with being a councillor, but sometimes recruiters will look at your current job, such as being a councillor, for example, and that can be off-putting to some employers. I hope that that's helpful. I'm not going to put you on the spot, but maybe I'm going to put you on the spot. Would you be willing to say how much you get paid as a councillor? I know that it's difficult to speak for yourself, but what do you think we should be looking at in terms of a right level of remuneration for the work that you're doing? I'm paid like every other opposition councillor that doesn't have a special responsibility to pay £18,000 a year. In terms of what councillors should get paid, it's a very interesting question, and I think that we often debate that councillors should absolutely be paid to war, and I think that that's quite accepted. Whether you increase the councillor budget and pay everybody more or whether you distribute it differently is certainly a political question. There should be a bigger budget. I don't think that we should necessarily reduce the amount of councillors to fix that conundrum, and I think that we need better parity with MP and MSP paid, because, as was discussed earlier, the demands of being a councillor has increased. I think that the expectations from the public continue to increase in terms of what they expect from their councillor, yet councillors are often working, mostly working full-time hours, with absolutely no staff support at all whatsoever. In terms of parity, I think that what councillors do with no support is absolutely up there in terms of a level of, say, a backbench MSP. While I'm not advocating that that's what the pay level should be, I think that it should absolutely be aiming to be much better and somewhere in between. I'm not sure that I've got an answer to what we should be paid. I'm just a little bit hesitant about the professionalisation of councillors or going too far down that route. Yes, I agree. The £18,000 that we get paid as an opposition councillor, everybody gets paid £18,000 that those who have special responsibility payments. However, I'm just not sure that giving an appropriate amount or amount that's commensured to the hours worked is necessarily the answer. I don't know the answer to that. What's the shape of my life as a councillor? Well, key is flexibility. There are certain things that are fixed, like the times of meetings, but I can fit all sorts of other things round about it. We obviously work in the evenings as well. I do some weeks, I maybe do 30 hours a week and other weeks I'll do 60 or 70. It doesn't stop on a Friday and it certainly doesn't stop at five o'clock, but that also means that I can see the grandchildren or the children sometimes during a weekday as well. There's a lot of flexibility there. There's a huge amount, a huge opportunity to expand. You can spend as much time as you want and there's always a demand there. However, as we see from the profile of different councillors, some spend quite a lot less in terms of their time commitment because of the circumstances that we've talked of. Thank you for that, Councillor Rose and Louise McAllister. Thanks very much. Yes, absolutely. How long is a piece of string is how our working week looks? This is my only timed meeting today. However, I've been in my little office at the bottom of the garden since 8.30 and I'm likely to be here for the rest of the day, answering emails and chasing things up. I think that it's worth taking into account that those evening meetings, for example, I have about 11 evening meetings a month between schools and community councils that, although I might not be obliged to go, it's absolutely expected. Certainly, the people sitting on those community councils and school parents councils expect me to turn up to those things. There is that level of expectation that's there that falls far out with our scheduled meetings from a council perspective week to week. Yes, absolutely, it differs, and I think that we need to take into account—for example, I sit on education and childcare. Not only are there those meetings, they are also the pre-meetings, but there are also the papers to read through beforehand, and they can run, as anyone will note, hundreds of pages of really quite detailed information that needs to go through. They take up a considerable amount of time as well if you're to do the job properly. I think that that's key. I do know of councillors and I've heard anecdotally of councillors who seem to skate by doing the bare minimum. That's required of them, but of course that's not really what we want. We want councillors who are dedicated to their course of work and their commitments that they've made and their pledges that they've made to the people who voted for them. I have to say that I have a second job. I'm self-employed, and I absolutely could not survive on the councillor's income as it stands, again, which is £18,000 a year. How much do we need to increase that by? I would put my hat in the ring and say at least a third again, so let's round it up to 20. You're looking closer to 30,000 to make it anything like an attractive proposition for anyone. Whether we could ever match salaries, I don't know that that's the way to go. I think it's essential that all councillors across the country are paid the same, so going down the route of matching salaries takes us into a completely different territory. I was having a conversation with a fellow councillor earlier today, and she put forward the fact that she has been in receipt of universal credit as a single parent of two children. She, again, could not survive, and I think that that is a barrier, especially to women, as most single-parent families are headed up by the mother of those children and the additional barrier that presents, if you want to look upon it from that perspective. She has now taken on an additional two-day a week role, so she steps back from universal credit, but she did say to me that she's struggling with even just working on that additional two days on top of her councillor duties. Have I answered everything in that? Yes, I think that you have. Thank you very much. Thanks to all three of you for that. I'm going to pass over to Miles Briggs to continue with some more questions. Thank you, convener. Good morning to the panel. Thank you for joining us today. I wanted to ask, given the limited time, we've got two double questions almost. The first one is about what support you received from the political party that you stood for at the election, and secondly, what support you've received from the council to do the job as a councillor or any other external bodies. I'll maybe start with councillor Perry, and then we can move around. That's a really good question. I completely acknowledge the role that political parties themselves have to play in terms of increasing diversity. In 2017, I certainly felt very supported, and I know that others did. The Scottish National Party increased our women's representation in terms of local government by around 15 per cent in 2017, so I think that extra support was effective. Since then, we've ran a number of programmes around mentoring, inspiring and supporting not just women but other underrepresented groups. However, I do think that there comes a point when there's only so much that political parties can do. I think that, certainly, and there's been a huge focus of the party role that I do over the past year in terms of making sure that we can maintain that and where possible increase it. There are two things that we have an issue with. One is retention of councillors who come from underrepresented groups, and I think that you touched on that earlier, Miles. I know that a lot of the evidence around this is anecdotal, but for some of the reasons that we've pointed out around paying conditions and trying to gain other employment, along the way we have lost women councillors and other represented groups. I fear, although we won't know that until after the election, that we will see more underrepresented groups not stand again in 2022 as well, so I do think that that's an issue. In terms of what councils have done, it's a really interesting question, so just a local perspective on it from me, so Midlothian was the most gender-balanced council in Scotland after the local elections, however, every single senior position a Midlothian council is held by a man, so there are absolutely things that councils can do and should do, and the third thing that I would just point out, because it was raised earlier as well by a number of organisations, is just some of the gaps in terms of the Equality Act and what that means that political parties can or can't do. All women's short lists are a really good example, so where we've already had equal representation for women, we do have an issue in terms of that not being compatible with the Equality Act. It would certainly be good if that was one of the things that the committee could look at in terms of devolving that or seeing how we can change that. Thank you for that, Councillor Perry. I'm going to just call a stack here of the other councillors but also bring Roslyn in, so if we could hear responses from Cameron, Roslyn and then Louise on Miles's questions, that would be great. Thanks very much. I'm tempted to respond with some dissension to some of the things that Kelly just said, but answering the question, the two parts of the question that you asked Miles, not enough, I think, on both parts, either from the party or in the council. I'm a councillor in Edinburgh. I have a personal assistant who I share with five other councillors and there's just always more to do and I can do with more assistance here. And similarly, back at party level, more assistance would be welcome, but that's life, that's where we're at. I can't do everything. Thank you for that, Cameron. Roslyn, if you could come up. Let's go with Louise. You're already up on the screen. Thanks so much. I have to say that I stood in by-election just in October of last year and I felt that I was supported hugely by my party, which is the Scottish National Party. And in fact, I was urged forward by a couple of male colleagues who particularly noted that where men like to talk, women like to do, and they felt that having more women in the mix was a really positive step forward. And I received absolutely nothing but encouragement and enthusiasm during my campaign, which was absolutely wonderful. In terms of the council, of course, I've done everything in life from this little office since being elected. I've never sat in a meeting room with anyone and I've had, I suppose, minimal contact with the council, perhaps because of that. The general consensus is that I've managed brilliantly well when I speak to officers in the council and that I seem to be getting to grips with everything. However, I can assure you that, within about five weeks of after-election, I really felt cut adrift. I didn't share their confidence in my abilities and to the point where I really reconsidered my decision to stand and wondered what on earth I'd done. I'm glad to say that I've stuck in, but certainly I think that the council could do more to support councillors. That said, I appreciate that everything's done at a distance and perhaps where I am in a building with people unable to pop down the corridor and speak with someone, that might make life a lot easier. We'll see what next year brings. I'm standing again in next year's election, so it hasn't put me off to any great extent. I was taking part in a group looking at councillor induction. Whether that was someone who stood in a bi-election or stood in a wider election in 2017, there are lots of gaps in there. Of course there are, and that's always going to be the case. I don't think that an induction session or sessions can ever cover every aspect of life as a councillor. Some things you have to discover along the way, as most people do in their line of work, whatever that might be. I would say that the offers of help have always been there. Practical help, I could probably have done with more of it, and perhaps that will change in 2022. Thank you very much for that. Roslyn, would you like to come in and share your perspective on how he stood as a candidate in the Western Isles? I think that I have to disagree slightly with the party experience that has been expressed by other people, partly because my local branch was very dormant, and so there wasn't a lot of local help offered to me when I stood. The majority of the help that I got and the support that I got came from elected members and the neighbouring branch, who were absolutely fantastic at bringing people down to help campaign with me. However, the wider party, I actually felt quite abandoned, and when I didn't get elected, I felt completely ignored. I stood twice once in a bi-election and once in the last full council elections, and both times there were messages going out from the party congratulating all those who had been elected, and those of us who had stood and didn't get elected were completely ignored. It was not an edifying experience, and one I fed back, but received again no feedback on, so I was quite disappointed in the party at that time. Thank you for that. My second question was with regard to looking to the future then, and what you think would help for those who have given your experience on the council, what needs to change to actually put in place better support services? We know that some councillors don't have any secretarial support whatsoever, and others do receive that. I wonder if our panel could make any comments with regard to that. My second question is one that I raised earlier with regard to personal security, because sadly it has become an issue that we are acutely aware of. I know that most councillors will be working on their own. We are currently, as parliamentarians, looking at our own security here in the Scottish Parliament and Westminster the same, so I just wonder if you had any reflections on that as well. I'll maybe bring in Cameron Rose to start and then move right in the panel. On personal security, I don't personally feel any angst or concerns about that, and regard my contact with members of the public as very much part of my job in all sorts of circumstances. Sometimes there are risks when you're dealing one-to-one with somebody who might be volatile, but I just think that for me that's part of the job. The other part of the question was… It was regard to support services. I know that you'd mentioned you share someone with five of the councillors. Miles, it's just never enough, but I recognise that, as for many other people, resources are limited. I would welcome more resources to deal with the pretty heavy workload that I have with 24,000 electors, 33,000 souls in the world that I have. I can never do all that I want to do and need to do to serve them adequately, and more support in that respect would help, but I realise that there are other calls on resources as well. Councillor Perry, can I move to you? Yes, thank you, Miles. Really good questions. In terms of personal security, I'm often struck when we have these conversations about how many male councillors I often hear from who say that personal security isn't an issue. It absolutely is certainly for women councillors who, as we know, often face a higher level of abuse and criticism from their male counterparts. I really welcomed the response from Police Scotland around personal security for councillors on the back of the really tragic events that recently unfolded at Westminster. However, you'll probably be aware that a lot of the personal protections that councillors were asked to put in place in terms of personal safety were around having staff members present at surgeries and at particular points like that. As we've already heard from various evidence givers today, staff support given to councillors varies from local authority to local authority. That is a political, budgetary decision, and I think that that perhaps shouldn't be the case. In terms of what needs to change, you're right that that is a fundamental part of that as well. Interlinked with that, and of course, as a barrier just standing as well, is what happens on social media in terms of scrutiny to women. We need to start moving away from the rhetoric around how it's our responsibility to keep ourselves safe. Of course, we want to make ourselves accessible to the public, but we have to start looking at that from the point of view of challenging social media platforms, to earth specifically, as a particular issue. I think that perpetrators as well, people who take part in toxic abuse on social media, that should absolutely be addressed as well, so thank you for those very good questions. Thank you for that. Finally, could I bring in Councillor McAllister? You've already outlined that you've been working from the bottom of your garden for most of this pandemic and since you were elected, but I wanted to ask specifically the questions with regard to different working means and methods as well. A lot of us have moved to working from home, whether or not you think that's helped to improve the way in which you're able to undertake your role as a councillor. Again, if you have any reflections on your concerns or any information given around personal security by Aberdeenshire Council to yourself as well. Thank you very much for that and good questions. I recently attended a loan working session where we looked at personal safety and that was quite interesting. It was a discussion, I suppose, as much as anything else. We did have a presentation, but it was very much discussion led among us as councillors. Interestingly, one of the things that came forward was the seeming reliance on people who have nothing to do with us as a role as councillor, looking out for our own safety. I would list with that a couple of councillors mentioned working from schools in the evening and feeling that having the janitor in the building provided them with a level of safety. As I pointed out, the janitor is in no way obliged to stand between you and an angry constituent who might be presenting a threat. We have to be very careful when we like to be able to rely on people to come to our aid if need be, but I don't think that we can oblige anyone or we certainly couldn't hold anyone to account if they weren't willing to put themselves at risk. I think that, in terms of working from the bottom of the garden, that has great advantages. I think that the silver lining of Covid has demonstrated to many people that we are able to work remotely or, like the issues in Facetime or Zoom or whatever platform we are on, that we can still connect with people who have issues. That obviously protects everyone and keeps everyone safe. It is not ideal 100 per cent of the time, but nothing is. However, it also allows us to manage our time much better. I would take us back to our evening meetings. When I don't have to attend in person, I can spend half an hour or therebytes at three different meetings during the course of one evening. However, if I have to attend in person and there is travel time in with that, half an hour each by travel time bites into the evening and I can then only attend one meeting. I think that there are advantages with that. That also ties in with our safety, especially if the nights are now drawing in, as they say. I can be out driving around the countryside in rural Aberdeenshire. Quite some distances to attend these different meetings. It's dark when I go in, it's dark when I come out. Yes, there might be other people around, but if I want to hold back and speak with one person, I am then leaving the building in the area and that shady car park on my own at night. I have done that in a previous role. It has never caused me undue concern, but it is something that we are all increasingly aware of now that we really need to be careful and look out for our own safety. Again, as a female, as a woman, I am quite accustomed to going into strangers' houses in my other role and sitting and having conversations with them. Whether subconsciously or otherwise, I always look after my personal safety. People know where I am going when and how long I expect to be there. I position myself closest to the door. Those are all matters that I have taken into account for years and years out with my councillor role. I would then take forward with me. The loan working presentation was a useful one, but anecdotally, we have all had experiences where we have suddenly realised that we are in a bit of a precarious situation. In terms of support that is available, I did not realise that people could have PAs. Cameron, you are awfully lucky, even if you have to share someone amongst five others. That would probably be superb, but that said, we work with what we have, absolutely, as Cameron rightly points out. I will move on to a question from Eleanor Wittam. It is one of our final questions, and it is to those who are here representing their party, as opposed to being here as councillors. I will direct it to Kelly as the local government convener of the SNP, James as the general secretary of the Scottish Labour Party, and then to Sheila as convener of the Lib Dems. My question is, what are your parties doing to encourage a wider range of candidates for next year's local government elections? If you could please be as succinct as you can, that would be fantastic. Kelly First, thanks. Thanks, really good question. We have been working really hard to increase our diversity of candidates, so we have worked with a number of organisations, many who have been represented today, in giving evidence. We have had a mentoring programme, a body system, and we have done various events in terms of recruiting and supporting underrepresented groups to ensure that we have a biggest pool that we can. We have also tried to instill culture change within our party, and we have made sure that it is an important part of our recruitment process. In fact, I would say that it has been absolutely central in terms of our recruitment process. We completely appreciate that to make sure that we have a diverse cohort of councillors after the next election is really, really important. As I said earlier, we managed to increase our representation of women in 2017, and we hope to increase our representation of underrepresented groups as well. However, I guess that there is just one challenge to flag up, is that we can do our best to make sure that our candidate pool is the best that it can be, but we also need to make sure that we focus on making sure that those candidates are selected and then elected, and then able to continue on their role as well. There are lots of political parties that can do that, and I genuinely feel that the Scottish National Party has done every single thing that it possibly can in terms of increasing our diversity, but there are other things that the Scottish Parliament and, I guess, this committee can do to help all parties to realise their ambitions in terms of that work, and that is absolutely around paying conditions. Over to you, committee, as a message from me, I am quite sure that we are doing our bit, and I am sure that other parties are as well, but I guess that that is the message that I would like to leave you with today. Thanks, Kelly. If we could then have James and Sheila briefly, that would be great. Okay, thanks for the question. Specifically, what Scottish Labour has done is, in terms of target seats, winnable seats, we have said that 50 per cent of those have got to be selected for women, so their AWSs are all women's short lists. We have also run a series of engagement events in order to try to get new people to come forward. Not just women, but ethnic minorities and other groups that are underrepresented in councils. We will back that up in specific training sessions so that, again, we cannot only support and encourage those who are coming forward, but make sure that they have the kind of backup that is needed to give them the confidence to take place in such selections and also take that into the election campaign itself. We have spoken to organisations like Engender and are using their toolkit also to provide support. In terms of our local government committees, we are very proactive with them in ensuring that they follow up on candidate applications, particularly when there is a shortfall in terms of underrepresented groups coming forward. I agree with what has been said in terms of political parties. Obviously, we have a role in bringing new fresh people forward that are currently underrepresented. However, the key theme that has come across in this session is the issue of what councillors are paid—£18,604. It does not represent a full-time salary, and that is the biggest constraint for us in terms of bringing a wide range of people forward. It also means that people in the system are reluctant to retire and move on, so they do not get a refresh and do not get new people. Political parties need to take a strong leadership role in that, but the fundamental issue that needs to be addressed is the rumouration that is available to councillors. Only once that is addressed will you get a wider range of candidates and councillors. I would start by totally agreeing with what James said about barriers to candidacy. Having done a fair bit of research inside the party, the single biggest issue, particularly for young people and for women, is the pay. I think that this is a bit of a problem of being careful what you wish for, because I think that we have completely changed the nature of councillorship. I have sat through the earlier panel sessions, so I am fully conscious that you have engaged with those issues. We have done a lot short-haul of moving to all women short lists. We were hammered in 2016 in the Scottish Parliament elections, and Willie Rennie led from the front in engaging with change to the extent that we have achieved from our very high numbers, 50-50 female representation in the Westminster Parliament between men and women. That helps in a different way, because it gives us two really good role models. I think that role models are a core to having women in particular see people in political roles that they recognise as being the same as themselves. Part of the work that was done on gender diversity by Willie Rennie has subsequently been extended to groups of people with other protected characteristics. Our diversity fund was set up with a base level and is required to be increased by the rate of inflation every year, and that money is spent to support candidates, preferably candidates in winnable seats, who come from groups of people with protected characteristics. About 85 per cent of it is spent on women, but it is available to disabled candidates, candidates from minority ethnic backgrounds as well. We are seeing more of those people coming forward. We have two UK national programmes that help. Our last federal president, Baroness Brinton, set up a future women leaders cohort, which trains and brings on women not just at parliamentary level across the country every year. We set up a campaign for gender balance inside the party that does mentorship training for approval and training for selection, and generally provides additional support for women candidates again at every level. Our women's group within the party has run a women's supporting women campaign over the last three or four years. It is normal when you see a women candidate in a by-election to have poured some Scottish Liberal Democrat women turning up and helping over weekends and providing additional support that might not otherwise be available. That ties on to the 50-50 practice of Ask her to stand, which we are realising needs more than one ask if it is a women candidate. There is actually received data that says that if you ask a man to stand, he is far more likely to say yes the first time, whereas a woman may need to be asked five or six times before she is persuaded that this is a course of action that she wants to take. If I can say one other thing that relates to earlier sessions and that was on data collection, we have had GDPR problems in collecting the data that Inclusion Scotland asked us to. We have got past them because it has involved us in changing our data policies and obviously publicising those to the membership. We cannot require people to give us the information that we need in order to be 100 per cent on collecting statistics around protected characteristics, but we are absolutely going for it this time to the extent that we possibly can. I would like to think that we will be able to provide better data come the end of May next year. That issue is as important at the selection stage as it is at the nomination stage, although selection is becoming significantly less of an issue because of the barriers of pay, working conditions and culture. Thank you very much, Sheila, for your responses and for rounding up this panel. I just want to say thank you so much for making time to be with us this morning. I am sorry that it got a little bit shifted in the schedule, but your responses have been very helpful for us to get perspectives from lived and beyond experience from political parties. Thank you for being with us this morning. As I said earlier, this is one of several sessions that we hope to carry out and hopefully in the next sessions we can start to move towards what kinds of actions can we really take and get concrete there. For now, thank you very much and I am going to suspend to allow the witnesses to leave. The fifth item on our agenda today is consideration of the Scottish Government's draft policy statement and draft annual report on the use of the keeping pace power conferred on the Scottish Government by the UK withdrawal from the European Union continuity Scotland Act 2021. The Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Cultural Committee has shared those with subject committees for comment and invited us to submit comments to the Scottish Government. Do members have comments on the draft policy statement and the draft annual report? No indication for comments. Perhaps only to ask convener in the point 11 in the paper we could ask the Scottish Government if it would outline the benefits to us of aligning Scotland's law with European law. It might be worth just simply asking that and perhaps to receive a regular update on progress with that perhaps annually or something like that that might be appropriate, so that's all I would suggest to do to add to the bill of points. I would like to include a part where we ensure that local governments included in those common frameworks and that we make sure that that is outlined from the committee's perspective. If there are no further comments, do we agree to write to the Scottish Government highlighting those comments and points for clarification in the paper for the agenda item? I see that we are all agreed. Thank you. As agreed earlier in the meeting, we will consider item 6 in private. I now close the public part of the meeting and we will move into private.