 Fy nesaf, ac ar y dweud i ddynistrwm 14 o'r 2022 o'r Economy a Ffair Work Committee. Fy ystod, ymgyrch yn ymgyrch yn fy ngyfgrifennidau ffaselig, yn ei ddweud i'w ymgyrch ar y tîm i'r trafodau a'r cyfnodau. Fy rydyn nhw'n ddwyf yn cael ei ddweud i ddweud yn ei ddweud i'w ffocus o'i ddweud i ddiweddol, i ddwylo'r rhysliad. I'm pleased to welcome our first panel, Martin Avila, chief executive of Community Enterprise Scotland, Dr Allison Orr, senior lecturer in real estate at the University of Glasgow, and Pauline Smith, who is the chief executive of Development Trust Association Scotland. Welcome this morning. As always, if members and witnesses can keep their questions and answers as concise as possible, that would be helpful. I might ask the first question. The evidence that we have gathered so far, and we have been on a number of visits as well, the importance of community involvement and community commitment and community leadership and the change that is taking place is recognised as important, but perhaps there are issues of capacity to be addressed and that maybe not all communities start in the same place when it comes to their level of engagement. I have been interested in what more can be done to support less empowered communities. I recognise that, on the panel today, that as part of your role in your bread and butter has been engaged in that kind of work. For example, how do we support—you know, you have the local place plans as being kind of key and one of the key pillars in trying to drive change. How can we make sure—or how can we support all communities to be engaged in that? Martin, if you would like to go first. Welcome. Thank you very much, convener. Thank you very much, committee, for giving me the chance to speak this morning. I think the question of how do we engage those less listened to communities is a bit of a wicked problem. Of course, communities where individuals and families are spending more of their time working to be able to earn the wages that they need to survive and obviously have less time to be involved in other civic pursuits and engagements as well. However, when it comes to community owned enterprises and social enterprises, there is a track record in Scotland that shows through the Scottish Government-funded social enterprise census that there are more social enterprises and community enterprises based in areas that feature higher on the Scottish multiple indexes of deprivation list. I think that there is a willingness within all local communities to get involved in their civic life, especially when it is focused around place. Part of the problem is that the emphasis is often placed on the communities and the problems that the communities face themselves. However, I think that there has to be an understanding that the institutions themselves are often based quite far away from the communities in which they want to engage. I think that there is a recognition that community engagement does not necessarily work. That sounds like quite a controversial statement. What do I mean by community engagement does not necessarily work? If you do not have the links and the social capital in any given community to make any sort of progress in that community, it is quite difficult. Members who have come new in any situation will recognise that. As your social capital builds over time, as your network of relationships builds over time, it becomes easier to gather political will to get things done. I think that it is exactly the same problem when the institutions are faced with engaging with communities. If they are not based within those communities, if they do not have existing ties, they will find it much more difficult to know where to go and have the credibility to be able to engage with communities. What is needed is a programme of community development. In one of the last evidence sessions, UNLEACH from surf mentioned how, over the last number of years, community development work seems to have fallen by the wayside. However, if we work with an agenda that seeks to build relationships, to build capacity and to build links within and between communities, that gives us the best chance. One of the biggest changes that I would like to see as a result of the hybrid working environment that has been made possible through the changes over the last couple of years is the direction that I feel that we are going. I do not think that we can have the levers of powers and the institutions of powers so separate from our communities. We have to start to think about how we embed decision making processes and how we embed officers and others with the possibility to take forward changing initiatives within the communities themselves. I think that it was UNLEACH who mentioned, or somebody else, at the previous committee that having planners based in Inverness when you want to make decisions on islands, which are quite far from Inverness, does not work. We work in an environment now that is much more conducive to having institutions spread throughout the communities in which they are supposed to serve. That is something that I would like to see changed, convener, in the near future. You referred to our evidence that we heard last week, so I think that we are going to come to Alison. I do not know if you had a chance to look at last week's, but the Scottish Property Federation and the surf were in as well. Related to the points that Martin has raised about increased capacity in local communities and whether that is planners or whether that is community development workers, is that a change of practice or would that require additional resources? Last week, we heard about the shortage of planners that we have in Scotland and the pressure on those departments. Is there a resource issue here if you are going to make the kind of changes and decision making that Martin has outlined? Thank you, convener, and the committee for inviting me along. I certainly think that there is an issue there with regard to the resourcing within planning departments that are expected to take on more and more. There is a general feeling that they lack the resources and expertise to deliver on some of the plans that tackle the challenges that are facing them now. A lot of my work comes from the perspective of real estate, and one thing that my research identifies as the growing fragmentation of ownership. Financial institutions, particularly when it comes to city centre, town centre retail, are no longer wanting to be active in those markets. Many of them have moved out, a trend that started going back in 2006. There is a major issue here with regard to incentivising investors. Those financial institutions are the ones that are capital rich. The ones that currently own many of our properties in towns and cities are smaller investors. Often, they are very naively involved in the property. Their view was that they can buy a property, collect the rental income and they do not have to do much. I think that there is an issue there with regard to co-ordinating those owners in order to actively manage their assets if they want to see a physical and invisible change within our town centres and our city centres. I will come to Pauline. Do you want to say a bit about the development trust organisations and what you remember about how they engage with communities? And how important they are in terms of town centre regeneration? Members are right across rural or urban. They differ drastically from each area that you go into. I think that when you were saying about the less represented individuals in there, sometimes it just takes one person, but they need the backing and the powers to be able to change things. Our members have been heavily involved in the local democracy conversations that we have and the bill that has been coming around and the powers that come with that. They have all got pretty excited about what could be because sometimes it can be a lot of talk and if you do not see the action and people voice in their opinion of what it is that they want to see, they do not have the powers to do it and lots of hoops to jump through. They lose that will. They lose the incentive to do it and also the length of time that that takes becomes a struggle. We have all been through when it takes a long time to get through to keep the motivation of individuals up in that. Our members in general have a wide variety of assets. Our community ownership support service has been heavily involved in all of that and I am sure that you guys are aware of all of the work that the community ownership support service has done across Scotland. Huntley Development Trust was one of them. I think that you have been to visit a couple of some of the development trust members as well. Huntley Development Trust, taking on some of the shops in their area, has been just outstanding to be honest with the creativity of what it is that they want to develop. I think that our members definitely have that creativity of once you give it over to the community the ideas start to spin. It is not all about planning and classes of what you have to have in those areas. Once you hand it over to the community and development trust members, you get creativity. You get the historic, the artisan crafts, the clothing, the recycling, the reuse. You get all of that together by giving the power to communities to make that reality. From an enterprise side of things, being on a town centre, possibly lots of them did not look at that previously because of the price and the cost involved in doing that within a social enterprise. You probably did not have the money to spend on that. I think that it is interesting that you are reading a lot of the papers for the town centre action plan, looking at the price and structures of that and letting charities be able to enter into the town centres without the financial burden that might have been but giving them that chance to actually grow and create their own money and circulate that money within the economy, so community wealth building, etc. I will allow other members to explore some of those issues in more depth, but I will ask the committee of people quarter that we went to visit. It is a complicated process to undertake. It is quite a lengthy process and, as you say, it can cause fatigue. If there is one or two things that have to be changed to make that process easier, one of the suggestions that we have had is that we have a central resource that is funded by Government or one of the enterprise agencies where there are experts that communities can draw and to give them support when needed. Would that be helpful, or what other things have to shorten the time to make it easier? Obviously, I am a bit pressured about community ownership support. I think that that is a go-to thing, but there are other areas to be able to access support. It is that trusted partner that knows the expertise and knows all the hopes that you have to go through. The minute you come into legal, we will talk about people in deprived neighbourhoods, etc. The legal structures of some of those things are just very scary. You need someone there to handhold you through that, so yes, it is definitely a go-to support service for that. Thank you very much, Claire. Good morning to the panel. Thank you for joining us this morning. Pauline, you mentioned community wealth building. As you will be aware, the Scottish Government is committed to introducing a community wealth building bill. I know that legislation does not solve all the problems, but I wonder what you see as the opportunities in that, either around generating the incentives that you were talking about, thinking about building social capital, supporting community development. I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about the opportunities with that piece of legislation, and I suppose also what the risks are if we get it wrong. I mean, when we sit in Ted Howard this afternoon, he's coming to us, so I think he's the guru of community wealth building. He's doing a tour at the moment of things, so pitfalls are, I suppose, if things don't see reality, they don't see things coming through, so I think there has to be a fully commitment on actually making things happen. The local democracy stuff is similar, you know, like so. We've had lots of conversations about actually making it happen, and I was looking at the call for action for the town centre action plan. I think that that's great. It's just about making it happen, you know, and also the period of time that it takes because, again, the fatigue that we were talking about, if we don't move things forward, then people lose that interest, you know, so it's hard to gather that momentum up in a community because it's hard in the first place to do that, so I think there's got to be an absolute power of that community wealth building agenda, actually has to make reality. I think that the assets side of things make it easier, like we're talking about, so community assets make it easier and make it open. I was having a conversation yesterday about common goods assets, et cetera, so I think that's a bit of a minefield I was hearing, so I was only getting a bit initial of conversations about that, but let's look at it, though. There's lots of common good out there, so, and listen to the people, I suppose, that's the main aspect of it. Thanks, Pauline. Alison, could I bring you in on this as well? In just thinking about how, if we're talking about creating liveable town centres and town centres that are vibrant and thriving and actually support the community that live in and around them, what are the opportunities for community wealth building for the legislation? I think that we need to bear in mind that where there has been growth in some of the cities that I've studied, there has been a change in the number of residential units, but what's not happened is there's not been the same community and public services that's kept pace with that growth, and it's a bit of a chicken and egg. In order to attract people to come and live in our towns and city centres, we need to be able to provide the services, but the services follow the people. There's a certain threshold that's needed there to justify those services, so I think that that's certainly something that is needed to encourage greater city town centre living, as well as the provision of a range of housing, particularly housing that caters for affordability. Going back to the property markets, we're seeing in Edinburgh, Glasgow, some of those major cities now developing and implementing the bill-to-rent model, but it really does depend on that bill-to-rent product and the market conditions to substantiate that, taking it further into towns. Investors are very nervous at the moment, so somehow that needs to be de-rissed to help them, because affordability is an important part of the picture, because if you look at successful examples in the international market, a very good example is Vancouver. It has, for the last 30 years, tried to drive their living first strategy. It's taken them 30 years, but they're now gaining momentum and being quite successful there, but they still have an affordability problem. Okay, thanks, Alison. Martin, along the same lines, what are the opportunities in that legislation for us to really drive that kind of community, enterprise and community engagement? If it's okay, first I'd just quickly speak back to the idea of pitfalls. I think sometimes there's a false equivalence that's put forward to community-run enterprises and general business enterprises. Anybody that started a small business, a new business or tried to scale a business will know that it's very difficult and it takes time. That's just part of that journey. I don't think there's ever been a community landowner who's gone bust. I don't think there's ever been a development trust that's gone bust. There's never been a community-owned pub that's shut in the survival rates for community-owned retail, far outstripped purely commercial retail. Sometimes we're asking socially-focused organisations and socially-focused enterprises to be able to hold themselves to a standard to which nobody could deal with the most wicked of problems where market and state failures came in, do that with a bit of sticky back plastic and make us all feel good about ourselves at the same time. In terms of the opportunities for community wealth building, as somebody that sits on the steering group for the legislation that I probably should put out here—I wouldn't call it skepticism, but I would say that I don't believe that legislation on its own has the possibility to change everything or sometimes even legislation on its own has the possibility to change anything. I don't think that's where the opportunities lie. I think the opportunities lie for community wealth building principally and how we start to bring those principles into practice and policy as well. So, at the minute or in the last programme from government, I think it's the first time through community wealth building, we've seen that the social impact of economic development starts to be considered in the same place. Up until now, what we've had within the programmes for government is that here's where the economic decisions are made. This is where all the big boys and girls come and talk about the important stuff. Over here, this is all the nice community stuff that you do. You often hear things or people talk about that that's a great community project or that's a great community building. I sometimes think that that can be a little bit pejorative in the way if somebody said, she's a great female architect and you say, no, she's not, she's a great architect and after that everything else flows. So, where are these opportunities? I think what we're seeing here is an opportunity that's afforded to us by the fact that socially focused organisations and also economically focused organisations are starting to recognise for the first time that we cannot focus solely on the development and the value created by economic capital. We have to think about natural capital, we have to think about social capital and we have to think about economic capital in similar terms. And there's a real opportunity here to drive civic innovation by creating a civil society in Scotland that controls and develops real economic assets of value for social purpose. And I think that there's also an opportunity to colleagues around the table today for some real political leadership. I think the idea that economic decisions and social decisions both have a ramification and something that can really unite colleagues from across the parties. We're not seeing here a false division between economic enterprise and state intervention. What we're seeing here is an opportunity in Scotland to start to build something which is fundamentally different in which communities and community organisations and socially focused organisations play a stronger role not only in the civic governance within their communities but within the local economy as well. And I think colleagues from across the benches but from around the chamber will be able to find here points of consensus that may not have been possible before. And so I think that an opportunity is to be afforded to Scotland to say actually if we want to build capacity within development trust community organisations and communities themselves we have to support them to own, control, develop and seek value from economic assets of real importance because at the minute a lot of the community asset transfer process is really around transferring economic liabilities. It's around transferring sports centres that never worked even with central government funding, buildings that have suffered from the lack of investment but actually through the work of community land Scotland, its members through the work of development trust association Scotland, the registered social landlords we have examples of socially focused commercially driven organisations who control real economic assets and have been responsible for important economic developments in their community and that I think is the real opportunity that's afforded Scotland and colleagues from across the sectors at the moment. And good morning everybody. We've heard that every town's unique and that any solution really has to be unique to the town and we've also heard from yourselves pulling you to refer to individuals that you mean that strong, I suppose strong and creative individuals as well but looking at organisations that support that whether it's development trust, other community led organisations or indeed business improvement district what combination or what is the you know there isn't necessarily a one-size-fit all but what makes things work and we've heard that business improvement districts are having an advantage because they have revenue and they have they can pay people to do things that isn't always the case with development trust so how do we get the most out of organisations to support the individuals and what should the relationship with councils be and do we need like town champions and where's the resource needed for them that interplay between the different organisations so Pauline first then Martin and I've got a separate question for Alunson. I mean I think that the ball lands with us a little bit you know we need to be working together with Bids, with DTA, with CI you know we need to be working together to support and pull on our expertise that we've got in general so when we're asking communities to pull together you know us as organisations also need to work together and we do you know so I know the Bids are Scotland loves local so yeah so we've been integrated with that you know and a lot of our development trusts are working in partnership with Bids to actually put that out to local communities. I think that the community lands commission you know we've been working alongside the community land commission with asset transfers so what needs to be done you know I suppose when Martin was talking there about community wealth building I'm sort of thinking actually we're not reinventing the wheels some of this you know there is a different terminology but development trusts have been doing community wealth building for for years you know and the same way you know development trusts and CIS and other support agencies have been supporting these organisations to create the community wealth building to to make things happen in their communities so we're asking you know that so I think we need to just need to work together related to be honest I think there's an importance there's a bit for all of us to play within that and that's just about finding you know where your expertise are getting the funding in that we can then allow that to strengthen the development trusts out there create new vibrant development trusts and so yeah I just think there's a partnership working there I think. And what about working with councils and what is their role and what is your like, what is your like for councils? Yeah well we've started our community ownership support in our community shares departments have both been going out to local authorities recently to do some training or information I don't know if we want to call it training but it's the information gathering you know and sharing good practice etc to try and build that within the councils so again I suppose the councils hopefully would embrace that and we'll share our knowledge for them to be able to understand exactly why people want their assets what do you know if there's a wee bit of a reluctance to do that then we're explaining why it's so good and what they can benefit from it so I think there's just that there's a learning and that's on both sides from the councils from the communities and from ourselves you know to share that good practice around so we've been doing cpd training within I can't don't ask exactly which councils right this time but we have been working into um none of the local authorities to actually share that. I can just say to Martin you said that you needed more than community development that's council base or town champions planners we've heard but if resources there it might not miss they'd be available for community enterprise development associations so how do we get that balance right or where do you think the resources need to be you can say both but they'll have to yeah that's the challenge that colleagues I think around the table face is that we have limited resources and we have to be able to understand where to direct them I know it's a bit of a vague response but realistically you know what kind of leadership do we need and who do we need to be in leadership it really depends on who's there at the time because the individuals will step up and the organisations will step up what could some of the key components of that be I think we need to see strong community land trusts and development trusts you know we should have a name to make sure that every town centre and every town in Scotland is served by a strong community development trust I don't see any other way than engaging citizens directly in their economy within the civic structures that they've got there as well but we also need to see that partnership working we need to see that alongside local authorities I think we need to be quite bold there as well I think we need to move past this idea that it either has to be the state that directs it or it has to be local enterprise that directs it I'd like us to see I'd like to see more work in Scotland developing things like public commons partnerships where special vehicles are set up between the the the relevant actors in any one locality to develop economic assets and to take the town forward and I think we have to bring in actors like the Federation of Small Businesses as well because local traders care deeply about their towns and their in their local communities as well so what we need to see is a blending of those which will change in a in a town to town basis because also the economic models for each different town won't be the same either there needs to be a kind of ecological approach whether it takes into consideration what are the what are the social financial and natural capital assets that each set of local communities have and there needs to be a blended working approach between local authorities small private businesses and community focused organisations social enterprises development trust to take that forward and I think I know I've kind of avoided the question there but if there was support to be put in I actually I think we're also talking about a step back that we have to support community development trust and social enterprises to have a stake in schemes which deliver real revenue into them and not just out the coffers of the state all the time because that inherently is a limited pot if I look at the onshore wind capacity I think there was a study out recently and forgive me colleagues that I can't remember the name that looked and said that there was three and a half billion pounds worth of value it was delivered by onshore wind capacity in Scotland in the last two years and through community benefit clauses which are welcomed there was 22 million pounds that were given to local communities if we get to a stage where local development trusts and special purpose vehicles which are publics commons partnerships had a stake in every single wind farm that was going on 350 million would be a 10% stake in every single wind farm that went in in Scotland so I think we have to be really bold here and say actually how do we create economic enterprise which has an element of common control within our communities because in that way they'll be able to develop efficient and effective businesses that will continue to fund them well past the limits of what the state would be able to provide certainly within one parliamentary term or under one administration. Can I move to Alison in terms of your concerns about rent here experience previously we're now going to be moving into community asset transfer that economic model where there's an economic revenue stream a stake in places potentially that have cut community social benefit but perhaps have rented housing accommodation above it etc as a model what advice would you give and what do you think would be the opportunities but also the pitfalls and what needs to enable that kind of economic model that allows community and social enterprises to get a revenue stream that they can be independent from you know as a state dependency because if that's the model we're going to what would be your advice as to what's enabled us and what would be the inhibitors. In terms of enterprises I think an important part is a cultural change in terms of landowners and I think we've started to see that cultural change through the pandemic in fact I think it's even started before the pandemic where landlords are increasingly more willing to let properties to independence and what we're also seeing is a major change in lease terms rents have come down in the marketplace lease terms have got shorter and there's also been this move towards turnover rents which incentivise landlords to work closer with their tenants and I think that that's a positive step forward whether or not it stays in the market is another issue because as the market picks up a lot of landlords particularly the smaller ones are very very nervous very uncertain about these types of leases mainly because they don't understand the businesses that their enterprises their occupiers are running and they're expected to support them so it's another new set of skills that they're expected to have but also a general lack of transparency was in the property market picking up on a point that Martin said you know stakeholders working together collaborating how can you do that if you don't know who the landowners are so I think that's a major major issue within the Scottish property market and that transparency for going back to the the previous question with regards to planners they're now expected to evidence base any local plans that are created in the future how can they do that without understanding who the users and occupiers and the owners are within their properties so I think there's a real issue there with data transparency and that would be an important hurdle to get over in order to support further development okay convener thank you thank you sorry in one point if it's brief we will try to get progress made this morning yeah no sorry convener I think just to say miss us a lot that also we have to kind of end the false equivalency that happens as well because with some of the previous Scottish Government rental guarantee schemes that were there for developers to be able to take risk and go on and develop new housing stock they weren't necessarily open to community owners to be able to do you know so we were saying to the private sector actually you know you take a risk and the state will underwrite it because you know we will guarantee that through the the rental income guarantee scheme that you'll receive an income here and that wasn't open to socially focused organisations so again we're often saying we understand that we understand that private enterprises risky so we're going to incentivise and de-risk it for you as part of the state and you will get to you know privatise the the value capture within that but then when it comes to community organisations we want to socialise the economic value that they create we say well we don't really know sure that you can do this without you know without failing and so it's just to say we I think we have to try and end some of that false equivalence and treat socially focused enterprises in the same way that we do private enterprise so are you recommending rental guarantees for social enterprises that are doing housing in town centres? Yeah and specific there's a there's a great report that came out by community land Scotland called urban dwelling a vision for community-led housing and I think there's some recommendations in there again about specific funds focused on the development of community-led housing and so I think you know whatever funds are there for for community housing development we need to for housing development we need to make them also available to social enterprises and community land owners so any madam convener. It brings us neatly to Colin Beattie's line of questioning and I will bring Jamie Halcro Johnston in after Colin Beattie. Thank you very much. It all comes down to money at the end of the day doesn't it? How much we can invest into the communities and where that money comes from and a good chunk of that money it's quite clear is going to have to come from the public purse in other words from the taxpayer us around the table. Given that budgets are really tight nationally and locally where should that taxpayers money be focused in order to see the best result in improving our town centres? Martin maybe I'll ask you to start off. Yeah I suppose I throw down the gauntlet and so why not have it back. I'll answer the question in a second but I also think that we cannot just focus on state intervention all the time and so that brings me in to the idea that we need to focus on investment that allows common and social ownership common local cooperative ownership of schemes which will deliver real revenue into the future and so whatever each town whatever potential each town has to be able to generate income through the assets which are available within that town and that for me is what community wealth building is all about it's about saying you know not only can we focus economic development on attracting external capital which then extracts value we also have to look at social economy development and through the the grown-up lens of economic development. It still needs money in the first place to prime this because yes once it's generating income that's usually a little bit down the line and even when it first goes at whatever the community enterprise is but whenever it when it goes into operation it usually takes two three maybe maybe longer years in order to start generating the kind of revenue that would enable you know sustainability into the future so. Yeah yeah for sure I mean every single enterprise deputy can be. So where does the money come from the first place if it doesn't come from the public plus are you saying that you'll be able to get private investors to come in. I think there are a range of different business models now that are looking at shared ownership as well and I don't think any of these things are off the table but if we come back to the question of where should the money go from the public purse I think what I was saying is that it has to be invested in schemes which have the potential to deliver more economic value in the future. What are the asset classes that deliver the largest economic return? It's simply land ownership property ownership and at the minute energy ownership so that's where I would like to see investment focused is allowing community development trust and social enterprises to gain a bigger stake in asset ownership shared asset ownership because only through asset ownership and the development of those assets to deliver future economic value can this situation be turned around. Alison could I turn to you and ask you a question on this because you know we've looked at different town centres and there's some which are in relatively affluent neighbourhoods that seem to be able to be self-sustaining and so on because people have money to spend but what about the communities which are perhaps in a majority where there isn't that spare cash the amount of money that's going to be coming through is restricted by the community itself and the wealth that it has now the regeneration will help create more wealth in the long term but how do you deal with that disparity? How do you get the what sort of model do we need for the more deprived communities to make them sustainable to give them something that they want and which will generate money and attract them in? That's a million dollar question isn't it? I think certainly you're right once you have a viable place it becomes self-sustainable and it keeps going that the trick is to initiate that so I think really you're down to redistribution of wealth in some way whether it's through the tax system. Certainly if you're looking at towns and city centres there's been a lot of criticism with the business rates and the burden there that falls upon retailers in the leisure sector but there's a counter argument that there's an opportunity to raise revenue through an online taxation system where the target is online retailers who a lot of the time benefit from high revenues but lower costs because the situation is out of town and if that money was raised it would take some of the burden of those businesses and occupiers within town centres and that money that could then be redistributed within town centres so targeting places that you were referring to where the wealth isn't there in order to help establish them. So an online digital tax which would be hypothecated to a particular use in this case regenerating town centres? Certainly that's what a lot of the property industry have been advocating for a while they feel that the burden for many years has fallen on retailers within town centres and that's no longer viable because the retail model that they've operated is no longer viable because of the competition and other rising operational costs. The argument's been made that the retailers in the centre of town want their rates reduced using an online digital tax. Now we're suggesting here perhaps that that money should be hypothecated to regenerating the town centres which means there'll be less revenue for central government. How do we work that one out? That's a difficulty. Yes. Money is always difficult. Yes. In America what they do is they have a tax credit system whereby they encourage development particularly within residential accommodation. In order for making that investment they get tax credits against their corporation tax liabilities. That's another option that's not been considered within the UK but it certainly proves successful in America. Pauline, how do we ensure sustainability? Money can't be going into the community for 10, 20, 30, 40 years. There's so many communities that need help and support. It would be probably beyond any government to do. How do we get sustainability in place, especially in the more deprived communities, where it's more difficult to achieve and may take a longer period? How do we do that? I'm feeling a personal experience. I've worked for the last 17 years in Greater Easter house in Glasgow, so that was your number one deprived neighbourhood. My experience of working in the development trust and managing that development trust is that you need a mix of everything. You need a mix of start-up funding that allows you to do the youth projects, the social activities, the confidence building, the employability, all things that maybe don't make money. You also need a mix of the funds that will allow you to trade and create a business idea. Development trust has managed the strengthening community's funds for many years. The element of that was always going to be time limited, but it was about business models. How are we going to help you and give you the advice and the support to create something that is enterprise is very much what Martin is saying. Development trusts are creative and innovative about what they do. Social enterprises want to be sustainable, but they need the start-up investment to allow them to do that, and the business support to go alongside that. A lot of community enterprises will have the expertise and the drive of the client group that they want to do, the creativity of what they want to do, whether it is reuse, recycling, making clothing, whatever it is. There is an enterprise area of all community enterprises or development trusts, but they need that extra additional support. It goes back to what I said about legal requirements or VET, all of that. Those expert things allow you to get to that next level and to be sustainable. It goes alongside the asset side of things as well, because lots of communities will see exactly where there is derelict land or vacant land that they can do something with, whether you put a tie on that, whether it is community benefit clothes, it is fine for private, but for community enterprises, let us talk about what is going to make you money right from the start. Years gone by, money is getting plowed into deprived areas year after year after year, because there is not a business model there. A lot of us do not like to talk about business model because we are charities, we are community organisations, it is all about the people. However, the reality is that over the years, more and more organisations have had to think business-like of how I am going to sustain this because that money is not going to be there forever. It would be nice to see some of that start of money move to another area. Development trusts and community organisations understand that they do not want forever. It would be nice to have a pot of core funding that you have invested in your organisation, but you also want to earn your own money, so you have the freedom to do that with what you will in your organisation, in your community. Funding has ties of criteria and outcomes that you have to meet, so there is not that flexibility. The minute you start earning your own income, you have that flexibility to say, do you know what, actually, I am going to try that idea, I am going to do something with that. I do not know if that really answered your question. I just think that there has to be a mix of it, though. I do really think that the Shrenton community fund has definitely, because it has got that business element to it, it has been a real success for the organisations that have had it, it was very time limited, so more investment in that and business support with that, so I am not sure if that answers the question. Let me ask another aspect of this. If you are just brief, please, because I do want to make some progress. My experience of regeneration in my own area has seen where organisations start off to a great start, with lots of ideas and so on in the community, and then they get some property and maybe give them to them at a peppercorn rent or whatever, and suddenly they are bogged down in maintenance, they are bogged down in renting and they lose their focus and they become a rather desperate landlord. How do you avoid that? It is when you say that a landlord, though, depends on what you are doing in that building, does not it? I have personal experience and other experience of where people are thriving, because they have the freedom to do what they will with that building. Yes, there is maintenance, cost and everything else, and we talk about net zero, etc. Here is a great opportunity to allow organisations who own an asset, if again it does come down to money, but investment in how to make buildings net zero, you have your refurbishing, maintenance, all of that gets sorted because a lot of assets need a lot of work, do not they? There is a reason, sometimes, like Martin said, why local authorities are giving them away, because they need a lot of work and they are the derelictors, so there is an opportunity there to fix some of those problems, that sometimes it is just that sticking plaster that people are fixing the whole on the roof and they are doing this and that, but to refurbish net zero climate change, all of that all comes into one with me. Facility management, there is investment in that, but I think that there is a long-term solution to that for the environment as well as for community organisations sustainability. I have a couple of questions, and if I can direct them firstly to Pauline, the first one to Pauline and then to Martin. We are talking again about public funds, we know that Scottish councils are under real financial pressure at the moment and have been for a number of years, but I was wondering if you could give your opinion on the Scottish Property Federation and SERFs calls for more resource for local authority level, particularly to look at town champions, development officers and others within those communities to support regeneration and new ideas on that side. If I can come to Pauline first on that and maybe then to Martin afterwards. I will be honest, I am not 100 per cent up on the town champions side of things, but what I would say is, I have said that a bit earlier, we do not need to reinvent the wheel. We have talked to community anchor organisations, development trusts within those neighbourhoods. I would say that we could invest them and we could develop those organisations. They are not exclusive, they are always looking for new people to get involved. I do not think that we need to reinvent the wheel, I would say. I think that local authorities, if they understood the importance and the power and embraced the power of community anchor organisations already in their neighbourhoods, I think that we could do things. There are lots of levels of things that have come in over the years that I have seen in communities. If we just built on what we had, I do not think that we need to create another layer. I worry very much that sometimes there are layers upon layers and nothing goes. Yes, you can invest money but you are still probably investing in the thing that was before that. Although I am not against the community champion idea, why not make it a community anchor organisation? A something that exists might not be for every neighbourhood, but if we are talking about start-up, you can create that elsewhere. If it does not exist, but if you have something that exists in community anchor organisations that work together, that are strong together and have a strong local voice, I would say build on that. That is more about local authorities embracing that, I would say, instead of wanting to create something new. Does that answer your question? Yes, I mean just very quickly on that point. One of the issues that we have seen in a number of areas in terms of economic development has been almost too many options and opportunities in different parts. Do you think that that is a problem particularly as well within this area that, if you are a local community, a high street or a local town, it can be quite confusing to be able to find the right support for your area? Yes, definitely. If you are a manager of a community organisation, you are asked to go to maybe three, four or five different meetings and network sector meetings, hub meetings, planning meetings, et cetera. To try and work all that out is very difficult and to get right around the table to make the decision. Yes, I think that it is an issue. Just before I move that to Martin, can I ask around some of the larger national bodies? There are a lot of public bodies that have a role in helping regeneration and support, whether it is tourism or arts or economic bodies. First of all, what are the key bodies that you think in terms of that regeneration and support? How well do you think that they coordinate and engage with communities? It is hard to say, because I do not have personal experience of all the ones that you are talking about. It would be unfair to me to have an opinion on all of them, to be honest. I know that DTA works with various bodies, but it would be unfair to me to say to each individual community how they are. I have experience of the heritage trusts and some tourism things in the communities that I have worked in, but it would be unfair for me to say exactly when that is, so I would be worried to say that. We would go back and say that the local democracy bill has been, if we can put some of that in it, with six panels that have been talked about in various other things. It is an excellent opportunity to revise and revitalise things. Although I am saying let's not put another layer in, let's revitalise the layers that are even there or restructure them a bit. I think that the democracy bill, and I did read it in the town centre, has got to be moving forward. Everything that you are all talking about with town centres all goes hand in hand with the democracy stuff as well. Mark Ruskell, you are first around the local government support aspect, how well they are funded to support that very much on the high street support in some of the areas around local champions or development officers and the like. The wider role of perhaps the larger bodies such as heritage, arts, tourism and other economic bodies, how well they co-ordinate and whether there is an easy enough approach for those entering the field to be able to get the help and support that they need. I don't think that there are many colleagues who would argue round the table today that it wouldn't be welcome that local government has more resources to invest in local communities. That's simply the situation that we've been in for the past 15 to 20 years. However, I'm not convinced that the time-limited creation of a specific post with a specific name stuck in every single local authority across Scotland is going to have some sort of transformative impact on our high streets or the economic levels within our community. What is important is that there are specific measures not only in terms of dealing with the actors that happen to be on the ground but are specifically focused on what they want to try to achieve. Some short-term limited posts with vague outcomes which are cookie-cutter applied across the country are simply not going to work. If you're asking which are the important institutions that play a role in local economic development and the development of a social economy, every single one of them has a role to play. How do we fund that partnership working and what's important in there? I'm just going to take colleagues back to an example in Goulson, where up in the Isle of Lewis there's a community-owned estate, which is I think the largest community-owned estate in Scotland, and it owns a significant amount of land in the north-west of the US. They talked about how they were able to create effective partnership working within their local community and alongside local authorities. You simply cannot change the power dynamics because what's important is that we need to put those community anchor organisations in charge of that partnership working. Not that there's somebody that's parachuted down from the outside that decides that everybody's supposed to work and get along in a way that just doesn't happen either in the commercial sector or, quite frankly, in the political sector either. We need to empower community organisations that are already based within those communities. For what it's worth, my point of view is that where it changed in Goulson and where it will change is fundamentally when you put those commonly managed and co-operatively managed community organisations in charge of significant economic assets. Once they had a wind turbine that was generating several millions of pounds in revenue, they decided what they were going to do and they told the public bodies and their local anchor institutions that this is what we're doing. Are you coming along? That fundamentally changed the power dynamics. Realistically, we were talking earlier about how we changed the dynamics within deprived communities. It's quite simply the asset ownership and the revenue outflows. We have to reverse that. Typically, those have been under-invested in communities and that's why they're deprived in the first place. One, because they've been under-invested in development of locally-owned economic assets. Two, because they generally suffer from negative capital outflows. There are two things that fundamentally we have to address. Are communities creating wealth that flows back into those communities or is it an extractive model that exports economic value? What's the asset ownership like, both on an individual level and on a social and co-operative level? That's a brief question. Next week, the Scottish Enterprise Agency is coming in and you mentioned a Highlands and Islands project. It has Highlands and Islands Enterprise Board and the South of Scotland has South of Scotland Enterprise Board. The rest of Scotland is serviced by the Scottish Enterprise. The focus of the two regional enterprise boards are different. They are involved in the community trust. Do you see the benefit of having high and South of Scotland Enterprise when it comes to that type of work? Rather than providing an individual assessment on each of those organisations, if I re-frame the question slightly different to say, is it worthwhile that the enterprise agencies focus on the development of social capital alongside economic capital? Does the inclusion of a social mission within the enterprise agency make a difference to the outputs? That's helpful. I'll now bring in Michelle Thompson to be followed by Colin Smyth. Thank you, convener. Morning, everybody. My first question is to Pauline. We've heard in other evidence sessions that there's an oversupply of retail premises and you talked very positively about the Huntley development trust in terms of community-empowered creativity. I suppose that my question is what role do you see for development trust and social enterprises generally in terms of repurposing properties? You also mentioned earlier that around some of the complexity in the legals of which that's one example of a barrier, but I suspect that there'll be others as well, so those two areas. I think that Huntley is a good example, but there's many, many more. Like I said earlier, the minute you give over something to the community and say, here is a shop, it can be yours, here's a building, it can be yours, what are you going to do with it, or if they don't have their idea already. If we're talking about town centres saying this is open to ideas for you guys, I think that they will come up with things that none of us have thought about. So it could be the granny sitting in a knit and sewn club, the youth making pizzas, it could be anything, and I think that when you open it up and give the freedom to people without saying it has to be a retail shop, it could be an upcycling shop. It could let people have the creativity and the freedom to be able to do it. Huntley's got a cinema for instance, and there's plenty of examples of community run businesses. The minute you put them in the town centres, I think that it was Alice who was saying earlier that it totally revitalises them because they bring the community with them. So it's not just Marx and Spenton, it's a faceless enterprise that's going in there, it's an enterprise that's being created by probably 20, 30 local people in the community. They bring their family, their friends or everything else, and it trickles out from there. So I think that that's the power of it. You see their primary role then as the ideas generation, which then leads me on to my next question, which I think is probably for yourself and Martin. I think that there's obviously a great deal of sympathy, and that's been endemic throughout Government and in the committee about community-led initiatives such as this. I think that we all agree on that. I suppose that if we looked at it from the other point of view in terms of risk, if we were thinking about Government funding for some kind of partnership, there'd be really quite a stringent due diligence process and any initiative that had been set up, not just in terms of funding but also experience in operating in this market, risks therein. I suppose what I'm wondering is we've seen community-based trust come and go for exactly the reason that's been pointed out earlier that people come in, then they lose interest. So I'd appreciate your reflections of how we can get the balance right between incentivising from a social point of view and a capital point of view, but also making an accurate assessment of risk going back to the backdrop of money's not infinite. There's a role DTA in CIS and others. That's what we're there to support with, and it's catching it early enough in providing the training and support that's available for people. No matter if you're in a deprived area or an really affluent area, there's a training element there, whether it's governance, whether it's legal, whether it's finances, et cetera. I also think that there's maybe a mix of private businesses. I think that one of the banks gives staff time away to go into community or enterprise, et cetera. There's a private investment there potentially as well, just time and expertise. Development and community organisations in general and development trusts have a mix of different people on their boards now because they realise they need the expertise and things like that. So community-led is community-led and the majority of what will be, that's the core of it. That will never change. However, bringing in an accountant or a legal representative or something to sit a co-optied on your board can be really positive. I wouldn't want that force because there's also the experience in a deprived area. I know accountants and everybody else that are in a deprived area. The skills are sometimes there, but the backup support from agencies like DTA, CIS, et cetera, is very important to have that there and to have that handholding when required or even just the frustration that someone just vent to sometimes and just say, look, I'm going through this. Working in a community can be very, very hard. Not everyone has the same opinion, so you're always going to run up against people that may be got a slightly different opinion or a different vision for it. Having someone that can come in and just be there for you to support you can be very, very helpful to actually get the vision and not let it fold and not let that fatigue negatively affect what you're actually trying to do. Can I have some reflections from Alison and Martin about risks associated with development trusts, whilst emphasising that it's a good idea, but I just want to explore that a wee bit. I don't have any experience with development trusts, so, okay, Martin, have you got anything to add? Yeah, thanks very much. I think there's a couple of things that I'd like to say. You asked off the bat, what do you see the role for social enterprises and community development trusts? I don't just see it at an ideation phase. I think that risks kind of going back into the space where we say, well, that's the kind of nice community stuff over there, but actually the hard economic development questions are here and that's where everybody else makes the real decisions. I think quite simply I see a role for social enterprises and community development trusts as part of a pluralistic mix, owning, managing and developing assets within our towns and cities across Scotland. If we want to talk about risk, the situation that we've got just now where I look to say that one in five are the properties owned by overseas investment vehicles and one in four are the properties owned by institutional investment vehicles are lying empty. I think there's a real risk that if we rely solely on distant economic institutions and financial institutions to play a role in the civic development of our towns and cities, that we'll find ourselves in the situation that we are just now, that we're having to have a public inquiry into what's went wrong and how do we go along and change it. Of course, there are community enterprises and development trusts for whom their growth cycle is not entirely linear. It follows periods where they're strengthened, it follows periods where they don't grow so much, they might even go backwards sometimes, but I think that's exactly the same story in any economic enterprise. The idea that every single economic enterprise has to be successful has to continue to grow. I understand that there's a level of scrutiny that should be afforded investments from the public purse that might not need to happen when it comes to people risking their own capital under their own steam. However, in the long run, we have to have a long-term vision for how we see the folks who gave evidence that the last committee said that everybody is absolutely on board with the idea that we need to have mixed use within our town centres. There was nobody, even the Scottish Property Federation, didn't argue that point. We need to have a greater mix of ownership within the city centre as well. My last question is, are you aware that data is being collected? You've given an example of institutions' properties lying empty. It's just an example of data that we might gather. Are you aware that anyone is collecting data that adds weight to the opinion? There are a number of think tanks, some of which are based down south. Power to change, centre for local economic strategy, commonwealth, they all gather a great amount of data, and I'd be quite happy to submit some of those reports. I have that data set for Scotland as well. I'll bring in Colin Smyth, followed by Gordon MacDonald. Can I follow up on some of Michelle's questions about ownership of properties in our town centre? A big issue for us is that people constantly raising their properties. If I can bring in my Alison first of all, the often needs can be absent landlords. Martin has obviously mentioned ownership there that are asking unrealistic rents, unrealistic prices for the sale of that. We visited the Mistable Court and done face recently in my hometown. One of the properties that they were interested in was probably valued at about £100,000 and had been sold a few years earlier for £700,000, and the owners were still asking an astronomical fee. Why do those pension funds and others hold on to properties that are clearly declining in value and what do we need to do effectively to wrestle those properties off them or to do more to make sure that they bring them up first of all their deli into a suitable standard and make them habitable? In terms of the data that I have been collecting looking at Glasgow and Edinburgh city centre, institutions do not hold that much property within those city centres any longer, particularly when we are looking at retail assets. They have moved largely out to the market, they have been replaced by smaller property companies, they have been replaced by overseas vehicles and a lot of overseas investors, particularly private investors investing for SIPs. There has been a real change in the ownership structure within our cities, and I expect that that is the same at the town level also. Is it incentive for an overseas investor to hold on to a property that is sitting empty in Daryl at the high street? The issue of an empty unit, I question the logic of the argument that it is because they are holding out for too much rent. My research has identified the fact that rents have come down, many landlords are now leasing their properties in zero rents, are pretty close to zero rents. What is putting off a lot of occupiers is the burden of business rates. Those who are sitting there with unrealistic expectations are few and far between, and the pandemic has brought a lot of landlords to their senses. It might have been the case before, but a lot of them have adjusted. Why would they hold it? Because it is opportunistic capital, they are waiting for the opportunity to redevelop those units. Certainly, we are seeing a lot of shopping centres within Glasgow. As an example, Buchanan Galleries is talking about being knocked down and being replaced by a neighbourhood district, so that is the land sector that owns that. That is a large property rate. At the bottom end of Buchanan Galleries is the SNP centre. That was owned by an American private equity company that subsequently handed the keys back to the banks. The banks are drawing up a master plan, which involves basically dividing the asset up and redeveloping it over to a 10-year strategy. Those large property companies that have the assets, the skills and the expertise are being proactive. They realise that their asset values have fallen and that they are doing something about it. The ones that are sitting there are unable to do it either because they are naive into property and they did not realise that that would be what was expected of them at some point in time, or that they just do not have the assets because they have bought that asset on the back of debt. The banks are very nervous about lending any more. There is a difference between Buchanan Galleries and Dumfries High Street. There is nobody queuing up to build a shopping centre anytime soon in Dumfries High Street, so why do they hold on to those properties? Is it just at the same point about that they do not have the money to do the work to them on them? The notion that investors are holding on with unrealistic expectations has changed in the market. I think that they cannot find occupiers who are prepared to take on the burden of business rates because that is something landlords cannot do anything about. Landlords are motivated to rent their property out because they themselves have to serve as that business rate. That is a large holding cost that they do not hold on to properties just for the sake of it a lot of the time. If I can bring Martin in, so ownership maybe does not matter, but you probably do not agree with that. You think that those properties should be in community ownership. That would be the real incentive because it would be the community that would be driving it as opposed to absent landlords. I think that there are a couple of things. I think that Dr Orr clearly understands much better the statistics and the facts around property ownership. I think that in the end what we need is a greater mix of ownership within our town centres. When you look at the successful developments, there are clearly issues around fragmented ownership, so we need to have concentrations of ownership. By providing a concentration of ownership, which is either locally, socially or co-operatively owned, that can often start to provide the catalyst for the development of the rest of the city centre because when everything is so fragmented and it is not clear who owns it, it is very difficult to build that critical mass. I would not say that ownership is the fundamental question, i.e. if there is anything other than non-community ownership within a city centre or a town centre that it is not going to work, but I think that for vibrant town centres that are locally driven, there needs to be a strong element of community ownership within that. What is the barrier to having more community ownership in our town centres at the moment, is it access to funding or just? I think that it is growing over time. The idea of urban community ownership is much newer than the highlands and islands community ownership, which has had much more type of develop. In answer to some of the questions that were made before, there is a much stronger tradition of community owners starting to take on more assets once they have developed one successful asset. It will take time to grow that sector. It needs support and it needs collaborative work with local authorities and other public anchor institutions for a community wealth-building methodology that says how do we really try to capture and develop economic value and keep it within the town? That has not been the case. We have had an economic model over the past 20 or 30 years, which has been about how we can attract out external capital and understand that that means that a lot of value is going to leave the town. I think that we need to try and reverse that and say what value do we have in the town, how do we capture the most of that value and how can we use that surplus value to create stronger economic development in the town over time? Can I ask Pauline? Obviously, the Development Trust Association has been working with the Scottish Land Commission on the vacant derelict land project. In fact, I visited the High Mill in Carluke, which is one of the projects that was supported by fantastic projects around derelict buildings. Can you say a wee bit about that work? In particular, when you reviewed the work, you made a number of recommendations. Where are those recommendations now in terms of being taken forward by us policy makers and what do we need to do to support the types of projects that the trust was supporting? I have just started to say that we will forward on the report, but you have obviously seen some of the evidence and things. As far as I can, there have been a lot of pilot projects in that project that we are doing due to finish July. I suppose that until it finally finishes, I will not have the total fines. In general, I do not know why people hold on to the assets, but I know that there is a shopping centre in Glasgow that has a PEO box address, and there are still five or ten years down the line trying to find out who the hell owns it. There is an absolute problem there of how that is, but the vacant derelict land project that you are talking about is part of one of the solutions potentially or one of the ways of trying to find out and giving that elbowing hand to communities to do it. Sorry, I do not have much more information on it though. I am sure that we will make follow-up just where we are with the organ. That would be great. Excellent. Thanks very much. We have talked a lot this morning about how we can keep town centres alive and well. Much of the evidence that we have had is about improving hospitality, leisure facilities, encouraging more independent shops, including start-up units and so on. We have touched upon some of the barriers regarding getting people to live in the town centres, lack of services and derelict buildings, but I am conscious, Alison, that you have been looking at this for a long period of time and you have got a lot of data. I am keen to understand what has been successful among those initiatives in our city centres, and what are the barriers to improving leisure facilities or hospitality in our town centres? In our town centres, we have seen a contraction within mid-market retailing, so that is particularly fashion that has been a hard hit with regard to online competition. Some sectors have done quite well, such as luxury. We have also seen the value sector doing quite well. Independence has started to gain a bit more momentum. Landlords are more willing to accept an independent, mainly because they have had their fingers burnt with multiples, what was their rationalisation of their portfolios and also CVEs and administrations. They are much more willing to see that cultural shift towards independence. Independence tends to also be a bit more nimble when it comes to what the consumer wants, to be able to adapt to create that experience economy, because that is really what the customer, the client wants now. They want an experience, they want somewhere that is attractive, somewhere that will draw them in and encourage them to spend their money and dwell there. That mix of different uses, whether it is leisure hospitality, is what city centres and town centres need to develop. There is always a but. Independence has had their fingers burnt with the pandemic, a lot of them are sitting in a lot of debt. We are also seeing footfall falling because of the cost of living crisis and the impact of inflation. Any further growth going forward will be slow, so that is one of the biggest barriers that we face. The burden of debt banks are nervous lending to city centre, town centre, occupiers and property. That is another barrier that we need to overcome. We need to encourage greater long-term investment within our towns and city centres. The natural place to look at that is really your financial institutions, but the risk and return profile in investing in the property market within those towns and cities has changed and it has put them off a lot of capital now. From their perspective, they have been moving to the logistics sector to warehousing. They will invest in a bill to rent property, but when it comes to leisure and retail, they are very wary. We need to incentivise them there. What about the likes of local authority, local development plans and classification, class 1 retail, class 3 hospitality and so on? We have heard some evidence along the lines that there should be a more general town centre category that allows a greater mix. I am a bit nervous about that. We have looked at three city centres in England and we have seen since 2014 in the introduction of development rights, so that is enabling the conversion of offices to residential. There has been growth there, but there has also been a study done undertaken by UCL, particularly in the London market where it has been greatest. What they have identified is that the quality of those builds tend to be quite poor. The units that they are building tend to be quite small and they tend to be in the wrong place. A lot of planners are very nervous about moving towards an E-class category. The property industry certainly sees a need for a bit more flexibility, but it is achieving that flexibility in a managed way. I personally believe that we need a much more holistic strategy towards city centres, possibly a master plan with a very clear sense of a vision for what that town centre is trying to achieve. Is it about tourists or is it about a place to work, live? I really think that that vision, that clear framework needs to be in place for each of our city and town centres. Just out of curiosity, how many of our local authorities have town centre master plans in place? I am not sure in terms of towns, certainly in terms of city centres. Glasgow and Edinburgh are moving towards creating a master plan. I believe that Glasgow City Council receives some recovery funding in the process of devising such a master plan for the city centre. I do believe that we are running to catch up, but it is not there. We have lots of frameworks, lots of action plans, city centre living strategy, but we need something that is coherent that pulls it all together. Another thought that I have is that we now offer master plan consent areas. The legislation relates to schemes that suggest that it was devised for perhaps a housing development, but if it is possible to harness that framework that is in place to link it in with a master plan, where there are clearly identifiable areas within our towns and city centres, where we want to promote more hospitality or more creative uses or leisure, I think that that does offer an opportunity there. Another opportunity is those public services that are missing, such as the medical practices and the dentists. They can also create football, so getting them into the empty units is a major way forward. That is the last question. That would be helpful. We have talked a lot this morning about the changing structure of ownership of commercial property. You mentioned something about incentivising investors. Can you expand on what you meant by that? Well, just walk round our towns and our city centres. They are looking pretty neglected. There are a lot of buildings with plants growing out of them that are clearly in need of a bit of loving care. In those smaller investors, they have struggled over the past two or three years. I know that there is not much sympathy for them, but they have not been collecting rental income. In the past, they were able to pass off their repair liability to their occupiers, but their occupiers are looking at renting space on a much shorter-term basis. They are not interested in maintaining the built environment around them. That incentivisation needs to be there to those smaller landlords to look after those assets and to stop the blight occurring before it has a major impact. You then enter into the downward spiral. I will now briefly suspend while we change over the witnesses. I now welcome our second panel this morning, Ian Buchanan, a quality and access manager disability equality Scotland. Nicoleta Primo, a research and policy officer at Sites Scotland, and Adam Stracura, head of policy and communications with Age Scotland. I welcome everybody this morning. If I could start with the questions, you will probably all be aware that there are a number of different strategies from the Scottish Government at the moment, the retail strategy, the national economic 10-year plan, the response to the town centre action plan that the Scottish Government and COSLA have recently given. Do you feel that the needs of your members have been recognised through those plans at the national level? On the local development plans and place plans, do you feel that there is awareness of the needs of your members? The initial engagement that occurred with our members and with Transport Scotland for the town centre action plan was good, but what we want to see is a true universal design process being implemented. It is great to strive for fully accessible town centres. However, there are a whole host of things that come before that to make sure that people can get there. Is the public transport accessible? Are there shared spaces involved with that? Is the social housing in and around town centres accessible? Those are all the factors that can have an impact on people being able to use accessible town centres. Yes, the work that has happened previous to the committee has been good. There has been good consultation with disabled people, but we want to make sure that that continues through with Disability Equality Scotland being the umbrella body for the access panel network. Access panels being there front and centre essentially as with their lived experience feeding into how accessible town centres can benefit everybody from a universal design perspective. Adam, if you might want to comment on that. Could you tell me a bit more about how local authorities, when it comes to local development plans and local place plans, feel the needs of older people that are recognised within those? Thank you very much, convener. Ian said many things that I think I would agree with. You mentioned at the beginning of various strategies that exist, but there are more than that that exist as well, which have an impact, not least the national transport strategy too. We have in terms of planning, national planning framework 4 coming down the line, we have even looking at housing in 2040, all of these things will interact, and maybe that shows a challenge there. There are so many strategies that aim to do things and how well they link together or not. There is a common theme that comes out from older people. We just surveyed over 50s just in this last week in advance of this committee, just to get a feel from them about how they buy things, how they use the town centres and the perceptions of it, and the overwhelming perception that town centres are dire and failing. I think that there are lots of good examples of good town centres, but it demonstrates that we have got quite a long way to go. The reasons why they were disappointed in their town centres were the same as other generations, or were there particular differences with an older population? I do not know how different they are between different generations. Obviously, older people are so broad anyway, so let's go with 50s. I know that you just say over 50s as a concern by that. For me, Scotland, that is our market, if you will, for older people, whether they identify or not, but embrace it. It is a good thing. It is a type of retail spaces that are there, or the lack of them, derelict units. Looking back to 2018, we had worked in our early-stage dementia project with communities across the country about what they thought they required for either dementia-friendly town centres and towns, or age-friendly towns, and the lack of things like public conveniences, proper transport links, places to seek, green spaces, mixed use spaces, whether it is not just retail but other types of things, and having housing in town centres. Maybe not necessarily always on that town centre stretch but just behind that, and a lot of that exists already. That was the kind of things that people wanted to make their lives a lot easier. If we look ahead to 20-minute neighbourhoods, for example, as a good idea, how do you make that a reality for folks? They want to do those things, want to travel less distance to access the services that they need as well, but as everything or many things that people use go out of town, whether it is supermarkets or large retail chains, they want a bit more of that in town as well for their ability to travel and take things away. They might not have access to a car or a line on their free bus pass, for instance, but it can be pretty hard, particularly in rural areas, to get where you want to go. Those are the type of things. It is about the mixed use, but people do recognise in our survey and other conversations that we have had that are big challenges for that. One person once might not be what somebody can either provide or what other people do not want. Businesses thrive on having customers, so it can be quite a tricky landscape. Sorry to go on too long, but the Scottish Retail Consortium report out this morning was pretty interesting looking at how town centres could be impacted by a drop in sales, but it has now got a consumer price index at the highest level in 40 years. The big challenge is for retailers to go in in the first place to fill units. It is not just retailers—housing, entertainment, hospitality, arts—lots of different things that can be used, but there is certainly a challenge in our town centres. Good morning, Nicoletta. Do you want to say a bit about the amount of strategies that are around at the moment and whether they recognise the needs of your members? Thank you very much, convener. I think that this morning, obviously, I am speaking here on behalf of Site Scotland, and that is the capacity that I will be responding to and looking at the challenges that people with site loss have when they are accessing their town centres. I would really echo the comments that have been made by Ian and Adam already, and I will not repeat those. I would say that one aspect that we have found, and I think that we have seen it with the introduction of spaces for people's schemes during the pandemic, is that they have been at some points rushed through quite quickly, and they have not always taken into account the needs of people with disabilities and particularly the needs of people with site loss. For example, having shared spaces is not always feasible for many people who experience site loss. Not knowing whether the curve ends or the road begins is extremely dangerous, and that can mean the difference of a person who is blind or partially sighted, leaving their house or not at all. I think that an example of that would be very much here in our city, if you look to the new Omni St James Centre quarter, where there is a very busy area, as it is already, and there is not a particularly good delimination between a cycle path and a pavement. For somebody with site loss, that is a real difficult thing to navigate. It is something that members here in this Parliament have raised before. We need to be mindful of that. We want our town centres to look and be aesthetically pleasing, but I feel that the feedback that we have had from the people that we work with is that they are not serving them particularly well. I think that when we look at the figures that we have of people who are experiencing site loss in Scotland and we take an intersectional approach and we look at the amount of women who are experiencing site loss, ethnic minorities, that obviously ages are contributing factor to those with site loss, as well. When we take that into account, we really have to think that those groups are proportions or characteristics of people who are more likely to use our town centres, and they need to be more at the forefront and we need to do better to reach out to them earlier and throughout the process when we are designing what a city looks like and what a town centre provides in order to make sure that it meets their needs. We have found one in five people age 75 who are living with site loss, one in two people age 90 who are living with site loss, and two thirds of women are living with site loss. People from black and ethnic minority backgrounds are more likely to have a greater risk of losing their site. It is important that we do a little bit more to reach those people. They are not hard to reach people. It is our job and it is the members in this Parliament's job to make sure that we and local authorities do a bit more work around that. A good example of that is the address and connections project, which is a cycle path project that we have commented on. They have an interactive session happening in Glasgow, and a couple of our outreach workers and habilitation workers are going to that to provide comment about what they think this new cycle path, this new scheme, would look like in terms of how accessible it is, not just for people using it but for also people interacting with it from the perspective of site loss. I think that time is so valuable, because ultimately that brings about a better result for everybody in the community, not just for people using that particular element of it. Good morning to the panel. Thank you for being with us this morning. Apologies, I might need to leave before the session finishes, but I thank you to Claire for letting me get my question in early. I also refer colleagues to my register of interests. I worked for a vision impairment charity for a while a few years ago. You have spoken in your introductory comments around access and the need to be better in mind. I am wondering what your thoughts around support for people with disabilities or older people who are looking to be business owners and start companies, start businesses, so that shift between passengers or consumers to business owners and business operators. Is there enough support? What are the barriers that you and your organisations and the people that you represent have identified? I will start with Adam, if I can, and then I will go along. Yes, look, thanks for that. I am sort of thinking back to the work that we do at Age Scotland in workplaces, which is a large part of some of our social enterprise work and supporting older workers. Look, we have got an aging population. We have got a population that will be working way beyond the traditional state pension age years. There are lots of opportunities in that to do that. We have got 1 in 5, 55 to 64-year-olds in Scotland living in poverty, which is scandalous. 15 per cent of pensioners are in poverty. Folks are going to need to work back. Some of the barriers are where you start, or the perception that you are too old to start. Some of the institutional barriers that exist in order to older people, whether it is, for instance, going into further and higher education, or accessing finance at a certain age, and the barriers that you can get there, not least in personal finance, but actually the banks and institutions thinking that they are at the risk levels of doing that. However, there is opportunity. There are a lot of older people who will have assets and wealth that might want to do such a thing, but they are also changing career. Let's go back to the end of the pandemic. At the end of the furlough scheme, the largest group of people on the furlough scheme at the end were older workers, who were probably hanging on to the end. We are not entirely sure yet what has happened to them. There is a cliff edge of whether they will be taken back on or what is going to happen. That has a big impact on what will happen and their chances in later life. There is a group of people who could contribute tremendously there, but, if I am perfectly honest, I think that if you were looking to set something up, you will not really know where to turn in the first instance. Again, we have huge numbers of older people who are digitally disconnected—half a million—over 60s in Scotland do not use the internet and 600,000 do not have a smartphone, pretty much. If everything is just online, have a look at this website and look at our Twitter feed. It is immediately exclusionary. I think that there will be lots of fiery hoops for people to jump through to get there, but that will be consistent for all ages. However, if you are looking at older people too, there are some particular issues that might exist more than for other ages. Thanks, Adam. Nicoletta, do you want to come in on this as well? Thank you very much. I think that what Adam just said is well around some older people not being connected in terms of digital connections. I think that was well when you coupled that with site loss, for example. You are really just alienating a huge amount of people. The majority, for example, of the veterans that we work with through site Scotland veterans will not have an email address, they will not access the internet and, if they do, they will require support and help with that. I think that they are looking more broadly not just at older people with site loss but more generally. I think that there is a real role for town centres and a huge potential for them to provide spaces for people, to provide employment for people with a disability, not just site loss but other disabilities. Having a disability should not be a barrier to work, it should not be a barrier to achieving quality employment, fulfilling employment and developing your skills and your careers. An anecdote that I will give yesterday, Kevin, is that he sits on our reception, amazing guy, with site loss. He said, if I did not have site loss, maybe I would have become a police officer, maybe I would not have stuck around here for so long. That is very telling, because of his site loss. The role that he is currently in was the only one that he felt he could do, and that is where he felt safe and supported. We are a disability supported employer, but that just proves that there is a huge amount of potential there. The role of town centres could play in that, in helping to develop people's skills and provide them with meaningful employment. If it is the case that people are moving online to do their shopping, that is what people are choosing because of convenience, we have to answer a much bigger question around what the role of town centres is. Are they traditionally being places of social connectedness, of hubs, of getting together and meeting people, of getting out and being part of a community? That is something that perhaps has been missing a little bit. I think that there is still a need for that, a huge need for that, particularly when we think about older people especially and loneliness. More generally, I think that there are perhaps not as many tailored programmes of employment for people who do have site loss, who are blind and partially sighted. If profit businesses are moving out of our town centres, could we replace them with things such as social enterprises, with grants specifically for people with a disability to set up their own business? Is there support there for people to do that? I think that that is a massive question, but it is a huge area of potential. It would also have knock-on effect on people's health and wellbeing, particularly around the idea of social isolation and purpose and feeling like you are part of a community, which I think that a lot of people are missing still. That is really helpful. What would be your ideal in terms of the support that is available for people with disabilities who want to start or grow their business? I completely agree with the points that were made by Nicolaus and Adam. We know that there are disabled people out there who want to start their own business and who want to be able to run their own business. At the moment, I am not aware of anything in my capacity as a quality and access manager that can offer targeted support to disabled people who want to set up their own business. Something similar to the access to work scheme or the access to politics scheme, where disabled people are supported and guided through that. I know that we have the small business gateway side of things, but we worked with them a few years ago about how to make their policies and practices more accessible. The key thing is that it covers town centres and that the barriers that are built in are built in by choice. We make those decisions—architects and town planners—to build those barriers in. There is no malice there, it is just the attitudes. Getting to the attitudes is absolutely key. If you can win people's hearts and minds and show them that there is an issue here with the accessibility for the steps at the front of a hotel and demonstrate that it can be a real benefit for disabled people. Something similar to access to work could be beneficial. I know that Inclusion Scotland has done a lot of work with that as well. That is really helpful. There is something about culture there, isn't it? You mentioned perceptions, so culture is a big part of this. I will leave it there. Fiona Hyslop followed by Alexander Burnett. We want our town centres to be vibrant places to live, work and play, and that means work. Retail and hospitality employers are a major part of our town centres. What can be done further to ensure fair work opportunities for older people and people with disabilities in those sectors? What benefits will the town centres have if we can get this right? Thank you for your submissions to the inquiry, which have read the very interesting ones. Maybe Ian and Adam—I think that Nicolaus has said quite a lot on this already, so if that is okay, Ian and then to Adam. Something that we hear quite a lot from access panels particularly, and our members, is that the Equality Act just isn't being enforced as it should be, and the onus is on the disabled person, for example. If you are providing a public service, you have to provide that in the same way to everybody. How often do we see disabled access around the back, next to the bins, through a shabby door that has not really been kept up? I think that the feedback that we have had from panels is that, as disabled people, they want to see Government and stakeholders on their side supporting them to be able to access the same services and the same provisions in their town centres to save them having to get in their car and drive to Brayhead, for example, or Silverburn. Employees as well. In terms of being supported as an employee in an organisation, we pulled access panels about a year or so ago and asked what would your ideal job be and what are the barriers to holding you back from that ideal job. We didn't necessarily want to know the specifics, but we wanted to understand what are the general barriers that are holding disabled people back from gaining meaningful employment. The most common ones that came back were inclusive communication. Disabled people struggled to understand where to get the bus or where to get on and off the bus, which trained to get what times their shifts were at and maybe their information was not being provided to them in an accessible format. There was the accessibility of the building itself. That goes back to choices of planners and architects. It feeds into how the Equality Act is being held up in terms of the employee side of things. It is all interlinked from our perspective for that. I am reflecting on just before Covid reached our shores. We had been working—we are still working with business and community under different projects at work. It was a bit of a look at older workers in hospitality, where folks who might have retired from their regular job might be in receipt of state pension but still want to be needing to work and where their hospitality was an attractive proposition for people. I also bear in mind the changes to our workforce, where people from the EU were leaving after post Brexit and a gap in that workforce. A lot of that stalled, but the aim would be to demonstrate an attractive proposition. Realising that the folks themselves have fantastic assets—not least their experience and customer service—would be fantastic the ability to graft their too, but their understanding of what is available to them. In terms of projects on pilots, it is to try to see how to do that so that people can be recruited into that but understand themselves as something that they could do. They could work flexibly. If you are retired, maybe your Saturday is not as precious to you as if you are working 9 to 5 Monday to Friday, you just change what your weekend might be. They might also be caring for grandchildren or partners to be able to support them. I think that a lot of that work is still to resume, but there is scope there. I think that that fits into an age-inclusive workplace, which is for everyone, but how do we recognise people's role in caring and everything else around that? I was thinking back again to the fairly recent launch of the national economic transformation strategy, which highlighted that our population of workforce changes. We have a hugely growing retirement age people, a stagnating and shrinking working age people in the next 10 years, but there is barely a mention of how to support older people and older workers. There is a big focus on entrepreneurship, which, in that sense, could be a place for that. As I said before, some of the barriers that might exist to becoming an entrepreneur there could be a challenge, the transition to net zero and the oil and gas jobs in the future. That is where the things were, but I think that we missed a beat on how we support older workers and get the most out of them and demonstrate value to our economy. I know that the strategy itself was a far bigger beast than just that, and everyone will have their own niche areas, but it was an emission that I thought when I was reading it, a pre-published meeting with the cabinet secretary on that and reflecting on what the future looked like. Is there not something about disposable income? If we want our town centres not just to be places where young people go, people might quite like the idea that it is a definition of over 50s, I am embracing my older age. People like them serving them in bars, restaurants and shops actually become more inclusive and there is also spend there. Who has disposable income? So there might be an economic attractiveness. Absolutely. I think that we also realise that young people do have money to spend and if there are barriers to actually going to spend it, that does not help the economy. Getting there, spending it and having places to do it is about checking an egg. If things do not exist, you do not go there. If you do not go there, new things will not open up because there is not a market, so it is actually quite hard to get there. We remember from some of the schemes that were in place during the height of restrictions and protections on people checking in to venues and having to do so primarily with digital devices, although the Government made it clear on paper form too. A lot of older people were finding themselves excluded from that because it was not made available to them. Our own chief executive was at a restaurant once with his family. He said to me that he could check in online but made the point and asked about a paper copy or something. It was not available as they left. I think that there is an example of how businesses are inclusive to all people but you make a very good point about what the potential is there. Alexander Burnett, followed by Gordon MacDonald. Thank you, convener. My questions are about design and delivery and improving town centres. A lot of the stuff that we discussed here is high-level policy and legislation, but most of the issues are quite small things on the ground. I wonder how you communicated at a local level. A number of questions around that. Do you rate individual town centres? Do you provide awards for the best for those that you represent? Do you name and shame the worst and give examples? A lot of the organisation has a huge variety of organisations looking at improving their town centres. It is not always a simple process to find people, but it could be bid teams, community councils, business associations, development trusts and how you feed in detail to those. Is it possible for me to see, for example, how bankering my hometown rates according to those that you represent and, given the scale of bodies out there to communicate with and given the overlap between your organisations and limited resource, how much do you work together in communicating with those groups? There is quite a bit in there, but it might be of each of you an opportunity to answer that starting left-right Adam first. Thank you. We do not rank them. I have not even thought about that and I am probably slightly unfair to do so. For us, it would be a way beyond the kind of capacity that we have to do that, but what I will say is that the work that we have done on whether it is age-inclusive towns and cities, which we are looking to do more of, and I think that nationally and in Scotland we should be doing much more of this than looking at examples in Manchester and London as well in terms of how they have tried to achieve those statuses. We spoke to a lot of older people, particularly those living with early-stage dementia, about their town centres and what was not right for them. I said it earlier on that things to do, places to set green space are all very, very important. It is not just the actual shops themselves, although, from the recent survey that we said, that was also part of it, the things that I want to spend money on are not there. That kind of relationship with the local teams, we do not have that necessarily. We talked to Nicolette about Ardross, for example. We have been engaging there when it comes to us. There are so many fragmented initiatives on the go. That is a good thing. I think that the initiatives there are all done with the best intentions and those really good people behind it, but there will also be just a big challenge of investment. Those things will cost money and there will also be structural challenges there too in terms of what our town centres actually look like. What can you do with that? There will be a move at times for pedestrianisation of areas. There are people with accessibility needs and we need to use their cars in part close, but we cannot. There is a really difficult balance. However, that is something that we hear a lot, but perhaps, since it is a good challenge, we could and should be doing more in that kind of over across Scotland part. We know that there are towns like Presswick and bigger and others that people mentioned specifically that look good and that they are spending time there. That is just two of the hundreds that exist and are sorry for missing out on various people's constituencies. I will have a look at Dumfries and I will check if anyone on our survey mentioned Bancree specifically. However, there is a good challenge there in terms of what we can do. We have also got to recognise that there are many things that organisations at age school are asked to do and feedback all the people's views on hundreds of them every single year and it is pretty challenging. However, what we can do is ask all their people across the country and their views and things and try to feed that back and make sure that their voices are passed on. That is an interesting example of what people really think. Nicola, maybe add a bit more on how you communicate into those groups. I mentioned like BID teams and the same way you lobby MSPs and send us briefings. Do you do the same to those organisations? Thank you very much. I will echo Adam. There is so much consultation at times, which is not a bad thing. It is a great thing, but we have to also be mindful of what we are asking of people, particularly of disabled people and of just general people to give up. They are volunteering their time. There is only so much capacity within our organisations to co-ordinate that to be able to reach out and go out to people and ask people with sight loss, oh, can you give your views about that? It is great that they have the opportunity, but that is also quite burdensome and it is tiring for people to constantly have to give their feedback on things. We are even considering models within our organisation of whether there are options to be paid almost, to have a youth enumerated in some way for giving up your time, because it can be time consuming to be involved in those things. I do not think that everybody would necessarily want to or feel that they had the confidence to even. I think that reaching people can be challenging in that aspect, because we also do not want to, as I said, provide services at the end of the day and so much more to the people that we support, but we also need to balance that out with ensuring that their views are heard and are at the forefront of policy change. I would say as well that between our organisations, we work closely together, and that is a real beauty of Scotland's third sector. We are really collaborative across disability charities and other organisations that work with people, for example with sight loss. That is really valuable, and I am pleased that Scotland is a place where we collaborate and share views and ideas with each other. Going back to that aspect of how we reach people, I think that decisions about local areas and towns and centres should be made locally as much as possible. That is where you get the real quality. It is conveying the fact that people when they give their views or share their views and opinions, that they are meaningful and that they are being listened to. I have heard from many people, for example, with a veteran that I work with, that he moved the bus stop from one end of Perth to the other, and that meant that he could not go to the post office any more. He is someone who is very active in terms of his local community, like his local community council. He writes to his councillors and all the rest of it, and he said all that. He said, please do not move the bus stop. It makes it so difficult for me, with my sight loss, to get from there to there. He felt like he was not heard, because the change happened and he did not have his voice heard. You cannot please everybody if that is true, but I think that there needs to be a little bit more space for that and for people to feel that their views are meaningful and that they are being considered and not just a tech box exercise. We do not rank towns and centres, particularly. I know that panels carry out what they call street audits. That is usually where they spend a day walking up and down a high street and they will have a look at the general overall accessibility of the town, whether that is air or Glasgow, wherever you are. They will submit a street audit to the local council, community councils and businesses up and down the high street to say that those are the issues that we found in terms of disabled access to your premises, or if it is more to do with the street, such as the ballards or the tactile paving that there were issues here. We do not necessarily rank them, but we try to give as constructive feedback as possible in terms of where to flag that up. I agree with Nicolette as well. At times, consultation saturation goes back to a capacity issue with us. Disability Quality Scotland is a small organisation and we look after and support 35 or 36 access panels that are spread across Scotland from Shetland right down to Tweeddale. There is one of me and that is my role within Disability Quality Scotland. It supports the panels. There is sometimes consultation saturation and it is trying to identify where the most meaningful input would be placed here for disabled people and we support that by filtering that out to our members as well, but also sharing links to the Scottish Parliament where they can find further consultations that they might be interested in. Another example that I have would be that the access panel in eastern Martinshire was involved in the Kirkantillic shared space scheme and they said that that is not a good idea. Those are the issues for visually impaired people, blind and partially sighted people, but it was put forward anyway and it was taken through almost regardless of what disabled people thought. We are in the habit of excusing bad design because it relates to disability. It does not matter. It is disabled people. They can go round the back and use the entrance next to the bins even though everybody should be using the main entrance. I think that there is work here to do to make sure that disabled people are involved from the beginning and it is that principle of universal design, making sure that it is not just Parliament but it is town planners, architects and civil society as a whole, is aware of the need to bring disabled people into that process. If you get it right for disabled people, you get it right for everybody else. You get it right for ambulant disabled people, for mums and dads with prams. It has a knock-on effect. Getting accessibility right from the get-go and involving disabled people in that process can only be a good thing for society. That is the first I have heard of those audits, so you might consider sharing those with MSPs when they happen in their area. Thank you. Gordon MacDonald, Colin Smyth. One of the aspects that we are looking at is how do we get more people to live in our town centres. One of the issues that we have is empty property above retail stores, etc. Ian, you have just said that we have to have disabled people into the process and accessibility right from the beginning gets it right for everybody. What are the specific challenges relating to the needs of people with disabilities at planners and developers should address when repurposing town centre properties, especially above shops, because traditionally many of our high streets are like that? The main issue here is that we often, when we think about high streets, that they tend to be older, more Victorian and Edwardian architecture, when I think of flats and accommodation above shops, you are up narrow closers and stairways, so that is excluding a fifth of the population right there. Nicoletta mentioned that you cannot please everybody all of the time, but this is not a minority of people that we are talking about. This is one million people in Scotland who are estimated to have a disability. Fair enough, that is not necessarily a physical disability, but there is about one-fifth of people who are estimated to be disabled. On how you go about making those buildings accessible for disabled people so that they can live within the town centre, I think that that would be a challenge. I think that that is going to be consultation with local authorities, building owners and landlords in terms of how you make a steep, narrow, dark staircase in a close accessible for somebody who maybe uses a power chair, for example. To avoid that power chair user being pushed out to more not necessarily rural accommodation, which then has a knock-on effect of them being able to use the town centre, so it is all interlinked. I think that good engagement with access panels, I would argue, would be the starting point. They have that lived experience, they know their town centre as well and they will be able to tell you that these are the issues here and this is where we need to start, I think. I can absolutely put you in touch with them as well. Are you aware of any properties that have been converted successfully? I am not aware off the top of my head. It might be a case of where I go away and then think that there is an example. We cannot always come back to that. I can come back. I am not aware of anywhere off the top of my head that has been converted in a high street setting as that where people could do. There are lots of good examples of accessible accommodation, just not in town centres, unfortunately. Nicoletta, can I ask you the same question, please? Yes, thank you very much for the question. I think that what Ian said is really relevant around ensuring that people are included from the start and I would even go further to say on a really individual basis. When people, for example, are looking at their housing options or looking at accommodation or social housing, there needs to be a slightly more tailored process there to decide what that person's needs are. Normally, the person who is looking to move into a property is the best person to know what they need. There is an example of somebody that we work with who was looking to move housing in the Llanlithgow area. That was a really positive example of where the housing officer, along with ourselves, as a sporting charity, was able to put the case forward as to why that person could not live in this house because of those reasons. A part of it was—she is also a lone parent—that is because of access to nursery, bus access, bus routes and how she managed to get to the shops in order to post office to pay her bills. It was a holistic approach. It was an example of where, when you take an extremely individual basis and spend a lot of time looking at somebody's particular circumstances, you can get a better outcome for that person. In terms of converting older properties, as Iain has mentioned, that is a huge challenge. I do not think that I have the answers necessarily for you there, other than that it will be extremely costly. It does not mean that you should not spend the money on it. It is 100 per cent worth spending the money on it. It just comes down to a decision that that is something that we want to put significant investment into. Traditionally, Scotland is an old country. We have not designed buildings, particularly the excessively hundreds of years ago, but now that we are living in a modern time, perhaps that is something that we just have to accept. It is going to be costly and it is going to have to take modifications. It might take a bit of time, but it is really worth doing. I think that that is ultimately what that question boils down to. I would be interested to know whether there are any examples of that, because I have not come across any. I will have a look myself. Adam, I read your written submission. It talks about equality impact assessment on the local development plans at only 41 per cent of local authorities. Why do you think that that is? EQIAs are often a last-minute thought of how we are putting policy together. We would get asked to be a part of loads of those things, but it is often the same thing that we are saying. It is an afterthought. The fact that it is not built in our mainstream in that sense, I know that there is work on going in terms of mainstreaming equalities across Scotland, but we look at that and it is quite disappointing. We look at the fact that, in the same report, you have caught me there about the same things, but only 17 per cent of local authorities have a target for accessible homes. It is harder than more expensive, but it should not all homes be accessible for people of all ages. We are changing that, but it becomes a big barrier. Our 2020 national housing survey found that old people, in the reasons they want to move, is like 41 per cent to be close to shops and services and communities and are another 20 per cent. There is appetite there, but it is obviously hard. There are 11,000 hectares of vacant and derrick land in urban communities in Scotland. A lot of those can be small parcels or buildings that are derrick themselves. It might need quite a lot of remediation to get them to the development stage, but the bigger developers and builders might not touch that because it is small, so their return on investment is low. The smaller house builders may need to incentivise to do that. There are many who will be looking at parcels of land and looking to build 15 units, but the barriers that they may face could be high fees for doing that because of the planning work. You look across your town centres and areas, not just in the streets behind it, in terms of where there can be renovation. On older people's housing, it is not just that there will be some kind of shelter accommodation or anything else, but there are some good examples where that type of housing has been put in place. I used to work in Cooper. Next to the train station, just behind the main streets, there are older people's flats that are in high demand from people. There is not enough of older housing, but people might never need that type of home, but there is also not the right mix of type and tenure in Scotland. There are more older people who are looking to rent now. There are one in five who are in socially rented homes, not just all home owners. However, we are not building enough homes and we are not building enough of the right kind of homes that people want to live in, either. Those are the challenges that are around about, but look at all those parcels and how you incentivise people to develop them. Putting in planning stipulations, as we have done over many years of trying to build micro renewables into planned developments, will take a long time to get solar panels in many places, but that is not new technology. It is great that I have just moved to a new house that has solar panels, which is fantastic. At the same time, it did not put in air-source heat pumps, that kind of idea of a solar gas boiler. We are looking at all those different things in the future. There is lots of opportunity, but for the smaller developers who want to do it, it is a lot harder to get it done. Colin Beattie, to be followed by Jamie Halcro Johnston. I will direct my first question to yourself, particularly as you are looking after my interests as a cytogenarian. Tell me, are there any good examples in Scotland, the UK, internationally, where towns have made the necessary changes and have become more accessible and disabled friendly? I think that that is a dementia friendly town, more age friendly town. I think that the way people are using that. I think that they have gone out of their way to do this. I do not have all the details just now, you have slightly caught me off guard, but I know what we have been looking at in the past. We know that there are dementia friendly communities in Preswick and there has been a drive to do this, looking at the pedestrian routes, looking at the type of accessibility of shops, the type of mix of things that are there for people. There is an example that is worth further exploration, but I am aware that they are good and they are well thought of. There is an example in Scotland. How did they do that? I might be asking you if you do not know. I do not actually know exactly just now. I can find out more and certainly pass on to the committee. I am sure that the committee would be interested in any information on that that you had to hand. There is an example that comes to mind right now in Preswick. There will be more. I said earlier on to a question that you are looking at the called age friendly cities in Manchester and London seem to have adopted these types of things. At times there will be slow progress, but there are examples in the UK, which are that way. There will be, again, evading me just now, a bit places across the continent as well that have done this. You are looking at key things, which are transport links for people, accessibility, whatever. However you move about, there are no barriers in place for that. We have talked earlier about access to shops and not just having ramps for people who have to go around the back around the bins to get in. That is immediately degrading for folks to do that. Why would you want to put yourself in that position having to ring a buzzer? We have heard from people in banks, previously in bank branches having to ring a buzzer to try to even get in and get lifted in a wheelchair to a bank. Sadly, a lot of those have been left from our high streets, but that was a key driver for people to go and use their high streets for their own personal banking needs, not all those who are digitally disconnected. However, there are those types of things that have just been pretty poor. As Iain said as well, the attitudes at times are well-look. That is just what it is, which is not fair and is not right at all. Nicoletta, do you have any examples that come to mind where a town has been changed to become more accessible and disabled-friendly, particularly for people who have sight difficulties? I do not have any specific examples. Maybe it is telling that neither myself nor Adam can point to many of the top of our heads. Perhaps we are often hearing the negatives as opposed to the positives around accessibility. One thing that I would say is that accessibility across the board is improved with the payment parking legislation that has been passed and local authorities are now looking to implement it. That will make a huge difference, I believe, for many blind and partially sighted people as they navigate around their town centres, particularly in Glasgow, where we have seen that that has been such an issue for people trying to walk down the pavement and not knowing there is a car there. Obviously, those need to be balanced out with things such as ambulance access and other people, as we have said, who need to have access to a car. However, that is one example of a piece of national legislation that has been implemented at local authority level that will make a huge impact on all town centres. I look forward to seeing the results of that as that comes into force, because it has been identified across the board across all of our cities and towns as a major access issue. However, the same with Adam, I am really interested to go away and provide the committee with more information about any other examples where we have had feedback that this is a great place to stay and that it is really accessible. I just think that it might be unfortunate that we maybe have not heard those. We have really more heard the negatives, unfortunately. It would certainly be helpful to know of any places that have succeeded in that. Let me ask you a slightly different question. Obviously, town centres around the country have got a way to go in terms of becoming disability friendly in general. What do you see as the sort of support that might be needed, whether financial or otherwise, perhaps a council providing a resource or something to help, advise or whatever? What sort of support and help is needed to make that change, to move it over the line? You have two aspects here. You have the financial side of things to help local authorities to make the improvements within town centres that are desperately needed in some place. It is similar to what Nicolette and Adam were saying about. It is a lot easier sometimes to see the negatives than it is to see the positives. I am not aware of any kind of example of a town that has turned itself around in terms of accessibility, but it goes back to that idea that the towns are towns that can grow up. Some of them, if you think of Stirling for example, grew up through the middle ages and through the Victorian period and a lot of that infrastructure was added to and bolted on. How do you go in and make those changes from a 21st century perspective where people are using power chairs and how do we make that more accessible for people? You have definitely got that financial aspect there, supporting local authorities to go in and make those changes. I touched on that earlier as well. The support is a softer side of things in terms of changing attitudes and helping people to understand that the choices that they are making in architects' offices and town planners' offices are having a direct impact on disabled people's lives. It is trying to educate them in a way, I suppose, with disabled people and bringing disabled people along in that journey and sharing their lived experience with them in that respect. Generally speaking, do you think that, from a sustainability point of view, what you are talking about here is mostly a one-off change, structural change or whatever, which afterwards would not have a significant on-going cost? There would be an initial quite—I personally think that there would be quite an expensive outlay initially to bring town centres up to an accessible standard, but it is about defining what does good look like, what is accessible, because what is accessible for one person is not necessarily going to be accessible for another. If you take the avenues project, for example, on Suckey whole street, it is dreadful for visually impaired people because you have got that quasi-shared space thing going on, but for somebody in a wheelchair it is okay, because it is flat, it is level, and there is a slight gradient up Suckey whole street. So, what is accessible there for wheelchair users is not necessarily accessible for blind or partially sighted person. You are going to have on-going costs there, I reckon, at the avenues project up Suckey whole street to, again, retrofit something that will make it safe for blind and partially sighted people to use. You should not have to go in and retrofit it. What should have happened was good consultation with blind people from the very start. So, there will be an initial outlay, but there will be, I reckon, small kind of continued costs to maintain accessibility infrastructure. You have got an example of a blind man in his dog who fell on to the railway tracks. I think that in England it was that last week because of a lack of tactile paving. How much would it have cost to maintain that tactile paving at the side of the platform? So, you have got small costs like that to avoid something catastrophic, like a visually impaired man in his guide dog ending up on the tracks and screaming for help. One last question. Is there any one template that would encompass all the requirements of all the disability groups? Has any exercise been done to put that together? I am aware of no, and I think it goes back to that. What does good look like and how do we define what is accessible? You have got different pieces of guidance, building regulations, which often you will see businesses do not necessarily adhere to even though they should do, and then you have got supplementary guidance like the BSA 300, which is about good design in the built environment, but that is not legal. That is best practice. I encourage to go beyond that as well. There are other bits of guidance from the British standard. I do not think that there is one encompassing piece of guidance to say that you could pick up, as a business owner, for example, and say that this is how you make your premises accessible. It would be, yes, definitely. I am going to tell Colin Smyth our supplementary date and then Jamie Halcro Johnston. The dementia-friendly press work is based on the dementia-friendly communities in Japan, but that was very much driven by volunteers. It was working with Alzheimer Scotland and the local health board, driving it, for example, training staff in shops about being dementia-friendly, so there was a lot of community work there. Is there any specific policy-related change that you would like to see, or a legislative change that you would like to see this committee recommend, to support the people you represent? I do not know, Nicoleta. For example, do you think that we should be, you mentioned that the pavement parking band should we be banning A boards on high streets? For example, is there a specific legislative or policy change that each of you would like to see as recommended that would drive some of this work forward? I do not start with Nicoleta. I think that the example that you give there of having, for example, boards outside shops or cafes, or even just, for example, tables and chairs. We saw a real rise of that, particularly in the pandemic, when people were looking to eat outside and that, for many people, was brilliant. They loved it, but for so many blind and partially sighted people that was extremely challenging and dangerous, because it was just another piece of street clutter to have to navigate. Ian Sturgeon said that there is a culture of perhaps not understanding or not recognising also when somebody is blind or partially sighted. A lot of people would not think twice, for example, that they would not understand that someone is using a white cane. That is what that means. Not everybody always carries the signifier that they have sight loss or vision loss. There is just a bit of a lack of understanding generally about the needs of partially sighted people in society that impacts how we think about our town centres and how we think about how people navigate. The organisation would support legislation and moves to, if not banned, but to certainly change what the rules are around signage that is on-street and on-pavements. There are already rules around that. It is just that they are not really being at hard to. I think that a really good example of one is that outside our offices there is a big mass of roadwork sign. I thought that irony of it is that it is right outside a sight loss charity and you have a massive sign right in the middle of the pavement that is incredibly dangerous and extremely challenging for somebody with sight loss to navigate around. With a policy perspective, yes, there is a lot more work to be done there, but that needs to be coupled with a public awareness-raising campaign of what it is like to try to navigate when you have lost your sight. I think that it is not a case of unwillingness to change. I think that it is maybe just a case of naivety and not having that insight. That is probably another starting point. I want to quickly comment on some things that Colin had previously said about the design of town centres and whether we have a template that fits everybody. The rules of crux there for me is that localism will look different everywhere it is. While it would be great if we had a template that would work for everyone in every place, I think that that might be really difficult and maybe not get the best results. That is why I think that taking a really local approach and working with local people to design their own communities is the best way to go about that. That probably takes a bit more time and a bit more money and more investment, but I think that you will get better results in that sense. I am just going to say that I am very conscious of the time, convener. If Adam would say, what is the one policy change that we need to make or recommend, or is it just about making sure that the existing policies are better adhered to? Thanks for the easy question there in no time at all. That is very, very tough, and I think that the last point there about what local communities in a sense that localism is also important, because four town centres across the country look very different, so that one kind of overlaying template might not work as well. It might be more expensive, but I think that there will be certain guidelines that are helpful, and the fact that the committee has invited us here to talk about this is really welcome, because often it does not get talked about enough. Looking at planning authorities as well to realise the being in somebody else's position, how that might impact them, and not just doing things the way they have been done. We are looking at a brilliant example of road signs. It is just the type of things that will have to go up, but there are massive restrictions to people. That is simple things, easy fixes, but it is often a bit daft to have them there. One thing that probably would do it in justice is that broad guidelines would be necessary to start a position. Even if you look at accessible housing, there is not a definition of what an accessible house is yet. We are working with a range of other people to try to define something a bit sharper for Scotland to do that, but looking at accessible town centres will be tricky. However, it should not be done and done by people who are far more expert than I am. I do need to make some progress. I will bring in Jamie Harcaw-Johnson. Just one second, Jamie. We will just get your microphone on. Sorry. Good morning again to everybody. Very quickly, I am looking to put questions to Ian and to Adam. It is the same other issue. During the pandemic and post-pandemic as well, there have been real issues around things such as public toilets being closed. That is obviously limited accessibility or the availability for a number of people. However, speaking anecdotally with friends and colleagues, that has been a real concern to perhaps older people and people with disabilities and others of course as well. We have seen a lot of councils cutting back and closing looses, particularly in the Highlands and Islands, where looses have been vandalised and therefore closed. Even where there are developments and plans for new toilets or upgrades, they are not always at the highest level of accessibility. For example, they may be disabled toilets, but they are not changing places. I will go to Ian first and then maybe to Adam. How we make sure that not only are we absolutely embedding issues such as facilities into plans, but we are making sure that they are the right facilities, not just a tick box exercise. Is there more responsibility within councils? We have talked about disabled people or older people having their say, but if councils are signing off the planning for this, should there be somebody in that that makes sure that the right facilities are absolutely embedded into any development? Absolutely. I thank you very much for your question. I was going to go on and speak about toilets. You cannot have accessible town centres unless you have accessible toilets. It goes back to what Adam and Nicolette were saying about that there is not an accessibility standard for housing, but there is an accessibility standard for toilets. That has existed for years and years and years. It is laid out within the building regulations. There are a few different options and layouts for your accessible toilets, but the accessibility standard is there. What we see at Disability Equality Scotland and with the access panels is that the variation between different accessible toilets is just vast. You have got ambulant disabled toilets, which are sort of accessible and are sort of in line with the building regulations. You have got changing places toilets, which are fantastic for people with profound and multiple learning disabilities. You have got a grotty little cubicle with an emergency red cord that has been tied up, so if somebody were to fall, they would not even be able to hook that with a stick. To go back to what I was saying previously, you cannot be looking at having accessible town centres unless you look at providing accessible toilet provision. That is in line, ideally, with the BSA 300, which is the accessible guidance for the built environment, which goes above and beyond the building regulations. I must admit that I am slightly obsessed with accessible toilets, and I always try to check out what the accessible toilet is like wherever I go. I had a look when I came here and, unfortunately, the red cord was tied up. That is quite common. Often it will be the cleaner that has gone in to mop the floor and then it will tie the red cord up and forget about it. However, if somebody were to slip and fall off the toilet seat, the idea is that that cord should be touching the floor or lying on the floor so that they will be able to hook it with something. If they have a stick, they will be able to maybe reach for it. Often it is tied up along the grab rails. Often we see the grab rails on colour contrasted with the surrounding walls. It will be white grab rails on white walls. Again, that is poor for people with visual impairments. My phone is full of pictures of accessible toilets, which the variation between them is just outrageous sometimes. Our members are telling us that the current guidance around accessible toilets to be enforced and for businesses and service providers to be made aware that that does exist, that there is guidance here. Speak to your local authorities and they will support you. Building control, building regulations will support you to implement that guidance and access panels will be there to support you to maintain it as well. We do not have enough good public toilets across Scotland. It is something that people tell about a lot. Covid caused many to close, but some places such as Edinburgh City Council started reopening things on a temporary basis, which was welcome. Often when it comes to budgets at council level, public toilets are first in the shopping bloc, maybe as a negotiating position, but the first thing is that they are up for grabs to save money, but good things cost money. There is a economic benefit in making people can leave their homes and they want to leave their homes, but one of the things that I have not mentioned yet is the massive impact of loneliness and social isolation in Scotland. There is at least one older person on every street in Scotland who is lonely all or most of the time. Two on every street in Scotland who go at least half a week without seeing or hearing from anyone and 50 per cent of over 50s got lonelier because of the pandemic. Those types of policies are also like loneliness impact tests. How can people get out and have that confidence? People live with many health conditions and it is hugely embarrassing if they do not have access to public toilets. We have seen them closed in train stations and other places or have bigger fees to access them. Those are core things that we should be able to do in the 21st century when Scotland has availability. On your last point on the voice of older people, we have been campaigning for with SOPA for older people's champions as councillors and local authorities. Over the past year, before the elections, we have got up to about 22 local authorities with an older people's champion. We are now looking at that being reaffirmed in for those who did not want to have such a position as a councillor to be the person in the room to raise those things that can work with charities like us and others and any other stakeholder to get those voices heard and to be embedded in those local communities. We are really welcome members' committee support on that if they have local authorities that do not have them in their patch and they want to push for this and be happy to speak to folks about that. That is a really important thing to make sure that those voices and sometimes seldom heard or seldom listened to are enacted upon. That is great. Thank you very much, convener. It is really interesting to be with you. I was going to finally ask the panel, because the inquiry is about town centres and retail. It was to get a sense of how important, you know, is town centres a priority for them? Should it be a priority for investment and how important it is to your members? Adam, you have mentioned loneliness and isolation. Should we see town centres not just as economic drivers, but are they important to people's quality of life? Is it more important to the people that you represent than to other groups? They are absolutely core to society in some way, whether it is full of shops or full of different types of spaces. Loneliness has impacted people of all ages over the past two years. We have seen more younger people found that they are experiencing it despite being the most digitally connected generation. That personal contact was important. Town centres are hugely important for that, and it is that mixed type of space, not just to spend money but to meet people. One of the rapid removal of bank branches from our town centres across the country, which I am sure all your constituencies have felt and will sadly continue to feel, if things go the way they are, has meant that there is sometimes less impetus to be there, but that further investment goes into them. It is really important to invest in them. They are core anchors of our communities. If we are going to make things like 20-Minute Neighbourhoods a reality, they have to be part of that and more of them, but making sure that there is that right mix of services and government policy to help to direct the types of things that need to be there. Those things will cost money, but it will be the right thing to do. Those are the types of things that will require intervention and focus, but there are, of course, so many priorities just now as we are dealing with Covid. This is not just about today or tomorrow, but about decades to come and how our society changes and all the things that we know as human beings we need for our health and wellbeing. It is something that is desperately needed to support it. Thank you to all our witnesses this morning. Thank you very much for the contributions you have made to the inquiry. I will now close the public part of the meeting and move on to private session.