 Rhaol fawr, wrth i â llwyddiant, gyd-dillud y mhwyslach pa mor Young Comexarion ond yn ymwneud efallai yn ymddiolol sowitai sgwpeth, am ddiddio ym mhwyslach. Efallai, mae'r mhwyslach cynhyrchu cyf新i Willywaith yng Nghaerdydd Cymru yn gair bach ac yn llefrifon reliedr. Efallai, mae'r mhwyslach yn gyrfaen hwn yn gweld ar gyfrifon na'i ei ddilydd yn gweld ar gyfer балol hefyd, wedi eu gwirio argoi cyfnodau mae gen i'n dd grossechwyrm i'r ddweud o ydych chi wedi gweithio'n ddweud y ddweud o ddweud o fynd ynunes. Felly dydych yn ddweud eich ddweud o fynd yn etymu'n cyfrifiadau gysylltuedd. Felly dydych yn ddweud eich gysylltuedd. Felly mae Gwynllu Datblygu, MAgwynddon, I-State-State-State-I-State-State-State-State-State-State-State-State-State-State-State e ffigurau mewn cyrchan cyfnodol a ddweud o'r gyfnodol mengdain, Yn ystod y instrument, Jenny Gilruth, Minister for Transport is joining us this morning. Minister, welcome, thank you for taking time out to join the committee. The minister is joined by Kevin Gibson, Solister Scottish Government, and Bill Reeve, Rail Director Transport Scotland. Good morning both, thank you for being in front of the committee. This instrument is laid under the affirmative procedure, which means that Parliament must approve it before it comes into force. Following this evidence session, the committee will be invited at the next agenda item to consider a motion to approve the instrument. Minister, I understand that you would like to make a short opening statement. If that's the case, I will hand over to you. Thank you, convener, and good morning to the committee. As you and committee members will be aware, ScotRail came under Scottish Government control on 1 April this year, and the Government-owned holding company, ScotRail Holdings, is overseeing and managing on behalf of Scottish ministers the delivery of services by its wholly owned subsidiary, ScotRail Trains Limited. ScotRail Holdings Limited is a private limited company established under the Companies Act as an executive non-departmental public body. ScotRail Holdings and its subsidiary, ScotRail Trains Limited, were established by Transport Scotland on behalf of ministers to further discharge of their duties under section 30 of the Railways Act 1993 with effect from 1 April this year. Scottish ministers are the sole shareholder of ScotRail Holdings. As a matter of policy, ScotRail Holdings, as an executive NDPB, would be expected to have an accountable officer as part of good governance, and SRH is not part of the Scottish Administration in terms of the Scotland Act 1998. That means that, for the purposes of the public finance and accountability Scotland Act 2000, the permanent secretary as principal accountable officer is not automatically able to appoint an accountable officer to ScotRail Holdings as a purely administrative exercise. To enable that to happen, an order is required under section 483 of the Companies Act 2006, requiring SRH accounts to be audited by the Auditor General of Scotland, which engages the relevant provisions of part 2 of the 2000 act, including the power to designate an accountable officer for SRH under section 15. ScotRail trains Ltd will have its accounts treated as part of the ScotRail Holdings group account, being a subsidiary company in terms of section 479A of the Companies Act 2006. As I outlined during an evidence session to the committee last March, we were finalising the chief executive of SRH being designated as the accountable officer at that time. I also confirmed that we were putting in an interim arrangement whereby the Transport Scotland AO would remain as AO for SRH until an order under section 483 of the Companies Act 2006 is approved by a Parliament. That would ensure that SRH would be able to operate from 1 April. The S.483 order was laid before Parliament on 29 April, and the contingency arrangement, which I have just outlined, remains in place until that order is approved. Audit Scotland was consulted during the preparation of the order. Responses have been confirmed from the Auditor General of Scotland, who is willing to assume the auditing role, and Audit Scotland has helped to assist with best timings for the introduction of the order. I would seek the support of the committee in relation to this order, which is a necessary part of the governance process for SRH as an NDPB to fulfil its functions. Thank you very much, minister. As you said, this instrument relates to the nationalisation of ScotRail. When you appeared before this committee less than two months ago, you told us that the main reason for the nationalisation was, in your words, to increase accountability to make sure that ministers are held to account. Given that main reason for the nationalisation of ScotRail, do you accept responsibility for the significant service cuts that we are seeing across Scotland? The service cuts that we are seeing across Scotland at this moment in time relate to an industrial dispute between ASL, the train drivers union and ScotRail, the employer. ASL train drivers, as you may know, are refusing to work on the rest days at this moment in time. As a result, ScotRail took the decision to reduce the number of services because they do not have enough train drivers to fulfil the previous timetable. Therefore, a reduction of the timetable was introduced from yesterday. I had to say that that is not what this order relates to today. It is not directly relevant, my question, to the order, but it relates to the nationalisation of ScotRail, which this order does relate to. As you know, Scottish ministers now own 100 per cent via holding company. The question is why are Scottish ministers getting directly involved in this process to ensure that we do not see massive cuts to rail services in Scotland? Why are Scottish ministers getting involved in helping to resolve this issue? Two points, convener. I do not think that that is an accurate description of what has been happening in recent days. On Friday, I spent a considerable part of the day with ScotRail. Yesterday, I met with ScotRail, along with Mr Reef, to discuss some of the challenges around the current situation. It is not the case, though, that Scottish ministers are in the room. Of course, ScotRail, as an employer, will be in the room negotiating with Aslef, and I think that Aslef will be meeting later today with ScotRail to move talks forward. It is absolutely central that we get to a restoration of the previous timetable. However, you will appreciate, convener, that ScotRail cannot fulfil the current timetable or the previous timetable, because it does not have enough drivers to do so. ScotRail does not have many train operators across the UK. It depends on drivers working on the restays. Drivers working on the restays is a historic thing that exists in the rail industry. It is not something that has come into existence under nationalisation of our trains. It relies on, primarily, goodwill of drivers. I understand that, as I have been in dispute with ScotRail, I absolutely respect that. They have balloted their members on the pay offer. That is a separate issue, because drivers are choosing not to work on the restays. If drivers want to spend time with their families or take part in leisure pursuits, that is in their gift, of course. However, it is also the case that ScotRail cannot run as many trains as would usually be the case under the previous timetable. That is why ScotRail took the difficult decision to reduce train allocation. That is why we have a reduction in the timetable at this moment in time. As minister, I am committed to working with both our trade union partners. As you know, from my previous evidence session, I spent a lot of time with the nationalisation of what that means for them, whether they want to be part of that vision. I sincerely hope that they do. They campaigned for a long time for public ownership of Scotland's trains. However, we need to get to a resolution on that dispute and we need to get to a better place with train drivers in terms of their availability to work and us being able to restore ultimately the timetable. I am working closely with ScotRail to see where we might be able to lead to restoration of a number of services over the coming weeks and months. Thank you. Final question before I bring in other members. These rail cuts are costing Scotland's economy £80 million a day, which I am sure you will be concerned about. Do you have an idea of how long this dispute might last? Do you have a provisional timetable for when you would like this to be settled? I would like it to be settled today, convener. However, as you will be aware, Aslefer is in dispute with ScotRail, the employer at this moment in time. We need to get to a resolution and I am absolutely committed to working with both parties to ensure that we can get to a restoration of the previous timetable. However, that depends on both sides coming to compromise with regard to reaching a settlement that will meet the needs of all passengers. Let me bring in other members. Liam Kerr, to be followed by Monica Lennon. Minister, can I clarify something that you said is a genuine clarification? When you say that ScotRail is the employer, is that ScotRail trains limited? That is the employing entity. Under that order, the function of Audit Scotland, when it does auditing, it will be doing ScotRail rail holdings and it does ScotRail trains as a part of that audit. Audit Scotland has power over ScotRail trains as well. Is that correct, Grant? The only question that I have, substantively, convener, I sat on the Public Audit Committee for quite a long time in the last session. I think that there was a report laid at the end of last session by the Public Audit Committee that said that they were getting these section 22 reports coming through that were fairly blunt and challenging for the organisations that had been reviewed. Having laid the report, very little was done. When, as seems inevitable, Audit Scotland laid a section 22 report on the nationalisation of ScotRail, can you help the committee to understand what will you, as the Scottish Government and you as the minister, do with that report and what action do you take in response to that report? I might bring in Kevin on the specifics of the legalities involved in that, but it would be for the Scottish ministers to consider any publication from the Auditor General and to scrutinise the publication of that material to ensure that we have trains that are running for best value for money, that are meeting passengers' demands and that it will be incumbent upon ministers to scrutinise the detail of that accountability through the reporting process, as happens across a number of different organisations in Government. I do not think that there is any difference in terms of the way in which ScotRail trains and ScotRail holdings will be held to account via this process, if that answers your question. I might bring in Kevin on the specifics of how it operates elsewhere. I do not have a great deal to add to that. The reports are given to ministers and ministers that are obliged to lay them before Parliament, but that is how the legislation operates anyway. Thank you for your opening remarks. I think that people who welcome the nationalisation of Scotland's rail services want to see improved accountability and clearer lines of responsibility. On a point of clarification, I welcome your intention to have good relationships with the trade unions, but I have noticed that the RMT in the press has accused you of lying, which is obviously not a good allegation to hear. They also said that the buck stops with you, minister. Can you explain to the committee on that point of accountability which is what we are here to look at today? How can the public be reassured that when things are going badly, it will not be a case of officials and managers who will take responsibility and when things are going well, ministers will take credit? How can we be sure that the lines of responsibility are clear? How do we get to a place very quickly where trade unions that I know you respect have confidence in you and are not accusing you of lying, which is a really unfortunate headline to see at this early stage of the project? I have read in recent days some press reports, as you may understand, and I have participated in numerous media appearances on this, Ms Lennon. I will say in terms of the respectful tone between Government and trade unions. The use of that word I do not find particularly respectful. I do not think that it is accurate either. I spent a lot of time, as you know, at the start of my appointment with our trade union partners, to try and bring them into the conversation about the future of Scotland's trains. They have to be part of that to make it a success. We are not in private ownership anymore—it is public ownership—and the Government, of course, is accountable to all of Scotland, not just in terms of Scotland's trains or Scotland's holdings. In terms of my accountability, I am a transport minister, so I accept responsibility, but at this moment in time we have an industrial dispute, and it would not be appropriate, as it does not happen in any other part of government, for ministers to be in the room taking part in those negotiations. ScotRail is the employer. I am absolutely committed to working with ScotRail to make sure that that works, and we get to a quick resolution. I think that that is what passengers want to see. I know that that is what passengers want to see. I want to see it as well, I have got to say, as somebody who takes the Edinburgh to Fife line pretty much every day into Parliament. Those are challenging times, and I think that it is also important to illustrate that it is not just happening in Scotland. There are other parts of the GB rail network that are impacted by driver shortages at the moment as a result of industrial dispute. Of course, later today we will hear from the ballot with regard to the GB rail and the RMT, which affects a number of train operators. There are challenging times ahead. I recognise for the rail network, not just in Scotland, everywhere in the UK. The UK Government, for example, can take a view on how it wants to engage with the trade unions. I heard some of that in the press reported over the weekend. I am committed to working with our trade union partners in a respectful dialogue, which understands that ministers cannot be in the room. Equally, I will work with ScotRail to ensure that we get to a resolution that leads us to restore services as soon as possible, taking me back to the convener's point. We must restore services to allow passengers to get to their work, to go to late night concerts wherever they may be in the country. I recognise right now that passengers are scunnered. I said this yesterday, the services that they currently are experiencing are not good enough. We need to restore services, but it is also true to say that we will not get to that restoration of services until we get a resolution between ScotRail and ASLEF, and I am committed to ensuring that we get to that place as quickly as possible to give passengers that reassurance they need to make sure that nationalisation is working. I am sure that we all agree that we need to see that dialogue happening. We want it to be respectful. We want to see services restored. My last question is, because you have made a distinction between the Scottish Government and what happens elsewhere in the United Kingdom. The Scottish Government is very committed to fair work, and I know that you have a good relationship with the trade unions on that matter. You mentioned rest days, and I think that the public want services restored for the convenience of all of us, but we need that to be safe. What is the position on rest days? I know that you have said that it is a historic practice that happens elsewhere, but, in your mind, is it good practice for workers to feel under pressure to work on rest days? I agree with the sentiment of Ms Lennon's question. I do not think that any worker should feel under pressure to work on the rest days, but I will go back to my initial point to the convener. Rest day working is not something that suddenly occurred as of 1 April 2022. It has been in existence for a number of years. It is how our trains, right across Great Britain, I have to say, not just in Scotland, operate. They depend on drivers volunteering to work on their rest days. Should it be phased out? I think that it is a historic practice. I am perfectly committed to working with the trade unions to have those future discussions as we move forward. However, it is something that has existed historically in terms of how train drivers work and operate. Bill, correct me if I am wrong that they are compensated for working on their rest days. It is perhaps also worth adding that the level of rest day working that has been required of drivers recently has been complicated by absence due to Covid-related sickness and the fact that, although 134 drivers are currently in training in ScotRail, their training programme has been delayed by restrictions. It takes about a year to train a driver, and their training programme has been delayed by restrictions caused by Covid. A train cab is a confined space. Imagine that there have been periods when putting a trainee alongside an experienced driver has just not been possible. There is a lot of work to recover that, but the last year or so has not helped. I imagine that we do not have much more time on this item. I just wonder ahead of 1 April, what advice was given to ministers on those issues? Did anyone for sure that that was going to happen, that services would be reduced by one third just a month after we moved into public ownership? No, I do not think that anyone first saw that that was going to happen a month after public ownership. As I outlined to you and the convener and the committee in March, I spent a lot of my time over February and March meeting with the trade unions, listening to them and making sure that they were part of our vision going forward. I am still committed to working with them on a number of areas. For example, as we know, we have heard from the trade unions concerns about their staff and their safety on our trains. There are concerns about women's safety on our trains. There are concerns about what the vision is for Scotland's train going forward. I want trade unions to feel as though they are part of that. I am quite clear that they did not feel as though they were part of that under the Abelio franchise. To answer your point, we need to get to a resolution. No, I do not think that it was the case on 1 April that we could have first seen this. I think that there were perhaps rumblings, but I worked very hard to build relationships with our trade unions, so I am quite disappointed by some of the most recent press reports that we are hearing. Ultimately, we need to get to a resolution between Scotland with the employer and the train drivers union to allow for that restoration of services to come back. That is what I am committed to working with both parties on to ensure that we get to that place. There are no more questions. The next agenda item is the formal consideration of motion 04466, calling for the committee to recommend approval of this order. I now invite the minister to speak to or simply move this motion. Do members have any further contributions? No, I now invite the minister. If there is anything else that the minister would like to add, if not, we will go to formal consideration of the motion. Thank you. The question now is that motion 04466, in the name of Jenny Gilruth MSP, be approved. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. The committee will now report on the outcome of this instrument in due course. I invite the committee to delegate authority to me, as convener, to approve a draft of the report for publication that is approved. Thank you very much. We will move straight on to the next agenda item, where we have the same panel as for the previous instrument. Our next agenda item is consideration of a legislative consent memorandum, or LCM, on the high-speed rail crew to Manchester Bill. The committee has had a targeted call for views on the LCM, which attracted just one response. It is likely that this will be our only evidence session on the LCM before reporting to Parliament. Minister, again, I understand that you would like to make a short opening statement, and I will hand over to you. Convener, I will be brief. The Scottish Government has consistently supported high-speed rail, but not just to Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. To realise its full benefit, high-speed rail infrastructure needs to be extended further and faster to reach Scotland, but notwithstanding, we welcome the proposal to locate one of the HS2 train, stabling and light maintenance depots in Anandale, so near Gretna, and the highly skilled jobs that this should create. Scotland will also immediately benefit from faster train services upon completion of phase 1 of the HS infrastructure. Whilst our position is one of support for the bill overall and the depot too, it is also right that we take the time required to scrutinise the implications of legislative consent. That is why the cabinet secretary, Mr Matheson, only recommended that the Scottish Parliament give consent to some of the clauses at the time, while we were to work through the other issues with our UK Government counterparts. I am happy to cover the detail of those clauses along with my officials as part of your questions today. Thank you very much, minister. We will now move to questions, and the first question is from Liam Kerr. The cabinet secretary has said that we are supportive of high-speed rail. We do not think that we want to recommend supporting clauses or five elements of it. Can you help the committee to understand how the UK and Scottish Governments come to such different views on the extent to which the provisions in this bill require legislative consent of the Scottish Parliament? In the first instance, I may bring in Kevin on the technicalities, but I should say that that is a hybrid bill, so there is time yet in 2022 and potentially into 2023 to resolve some of those issues. As you have outlined, Mr Kerr, we are in agreement with the UK Government on a number of the clauses that require legislative consent of the Scottish Parliament, but there are nine clauses in total that the Scottish Government has identified. That is in addition to those that the UK Government has asked the Scottish Parliament for legislative consent on. My officials met with the UK Government team to discuss that point after the bill was supported by legal advice. The view of the Scottish Government is that the Scottish schedule—there are nine clauses, as I have mentioned—relates to matters that alter devolved legislative controls have a devolved purpose. For example, they might be in relation to water environment, building standards and planning. In line with section 28 of the Scotland Act, the devolution guidance note 10, the Scottish Government view is that the clauses require the Scottish Parliament's consent. Many of those clauses relate to land use planning, and planning permission is required. The development of land is regulated for planning purposes, that is regardless of the nature of the underlying project. In summary, I think that both Governments have different interpretations of the SEWL convention, but the practical implications are not yet clear at this time. However, we are working through those issues, as I mentioned. That is a hybrid bill, so over the coming months and potentially into 2023, the SEWLs are working very closely to try to get to a resolution on some of those issues, recognising our support for the overall purpose of that. Reservations around some of the specifics that I have outlined today. I do not know, Kevin, if you want to say more on that. I have nothing specific to add to that, I do not think. Thanks for the answer, but can you tell me what are the practical implications of taking this different view? People watching this will presumably watch it and say, everyone seems to support this, but on a matter of interpretation, there is a potential conflict and potentially notwithstanding that you say there is time, but potential delay to something that everyone seems to want to happen. Well, I hope that there is not a delay. However, it is of course for the UK Government to directly state its position to the committee, but the position that they have taken in discussion with Scottish Government officials in particular is that because of those additional causes and they are directly in relation to the authorisation of high-speed rail project, which is a reserved matter, they do not need legislative consent. They are quite pure in terms of their interpretation of that. They consider that any impact on devolved matters is entirely incidental, so our view is that this is really too narrow an interpretation with regard to the legislative consent given the potentially significant impacts on devolved matters. I do not want us to get to an area of conflict, but there are months, if not years yet, to resolve that because it is a hybrid bill. I was in discussion with Kevin about this ahead of committee around about timescales. We were not yet clear from the UK Government what the associated final timescales would be because it is a hybrid bill. It is quite an unusual feature in terms of legislation, and Kevin can say more on that because he is a lawyer. However, because of that, I do not want to get us into a conflicted situation. The timescales associated with this are really in the UK Government's gift, but I will say that Scottish Government officials will work very closely with UK Government officials to get to that resolution, because we all want us to work. People watching might be thinking that it is not really in the UK Government's gift, is it? Because they have set out their position and said that this is the bill, and it appears that it is the Scottish Government that is saying, will we disagree with that interpretation? It is not really about the UK Government, or is it? What am I missing, minister? We do disagree with the UK Government in terms of its interpretation of some of the legislation, because it overcuts devolved competencies and we can go into some of the specifics, I am sure, in the questioning later on today. However, we want this to work, and we want officials to work together to make sure that it is a success, but that should come at the cost of devolution being eroded, Mr Kerr. I am sure that, as a member of this Parliament, you would agree with that. The minister is suggesting that devolution would be eroded, but, of course, that is the Scottish Government's interpretation of this, and I think that that is clear, isn't it? Thank you very much. Liam Neill, next up, we have a question from Natalie Donne, who is joining us remotely. Natalie, over to you, please. Thank you, convener. Good morning, minister. Yeah, I am just looking for clarification on where we are with the discussions that either yourself or your officials have had with the UK counterparts to resolve the concerns that we have highlighted today in the LCM. How far along are we and has there been any progress? To answer Ms Donne's question, officials have been working really closely with DFT and UK Government counterparts most recently on 19 May. It has been really good collaborative working. Also, good progress has been made in respect to the provisions relating to the Crown Estate and the Crown Land. I am grateful to all of you for that. I hope to be in a position to write to the committee fairly soon on this matter, hopefully later this week. Detailed discussions on the water and building regulations and some road aspects will follow. As I mentioned to Mr Kerr, that is a hybrid bill, so there is enough time available during 2022 and potentially into next year to carefully work through some of the issues and concerns. The discussions are on going between Scottish Government officials and those in the UK Government. Thank you. I have no further questions, convener. Okay, Natalie, thank you very much. Next up is Mark Ruskell. Mark, please. Yeah, thanks. Can I ask about two of the aspects here that there is a bit of contention around? One is about the water environment, controlled activities, regulations effectively not being applied through this bill, which seems a bit odd. Surely there aren't a lot of rivers passing through what is quite a small site. The other one is about building standards. Are there any risks to the environment or to building users for not adopting those regulations through this bill? To answer Mr Ruskell's question, although it might be normal practice in England to discipline the environmental regulations for major construction projects, that is not the policy in Scotland that you will know. The current Scottish Government position is that any potential impacts on the water environment must be authorised by SIPA and carried out in such a way as to protect our water environment to the extent that this is reasonable. In other Scottish infrastructure projects, the requirements of car have not been disciplined. For example, the Waverly Scotland Act 2006 and the Fourth Crossing Act 2011 and hybrid bills passed by the Scottish Parliament, which gave both of them the powers to construct the border railway and the Queensbury crossing, respectively. The overarching aim of the building Scotland Act 2003 and building regs is to secure the health safety and welfare of building occupants. Further details about the depot are needed to evaluate how the proposals would impact on those building standards that would normally apply again. That topic will be discussed in detail between the relevant teams and a position will be reached with the relevant ministers, which I have to say. In this instance, we have included my colleague, Patrick Harvie, given his responsibilities in this area. Presumably, given the size of the site and the nature of the project, those would be fairly simple matters. The requirement for the project developer to speak to SIPA, would that really require a huge amount of work to be done? I might bring in Kevin on the specifics, but I think that the assumption that they should be supplied is fundamentally wrong. We have not done that in the past, and we see no requirement for that to be the case here. We have not yet seen the details, as I said, on the building regs and the depot in Andale, so those details need to be forthcoming for us to reach, perhaps, a clearer view on that, but Kevin can perhaps say more in the detail. I think that the feature of the discussion's official level at the moment is on exactly that question. What are the practical implications of the dis-application here? Clearly, the bill just takes a blanket approach to those matters, as it does for works in England and Wales, which are far more extensive, but what we need to get to the bottom of, I think, is if this were to be dis-applied, what would be the practical impact on the water environment, for example. We have already set other provisions that are dis-applied in Scotland, our protections for historic buildings, and we have already been able to, world ministers, to be able to recommend consent for that, because we have been able to confirm with DFT that no historic buildings will be affected by the works in Scotland, so those are the kind of discussions that are happening at the moment. Acts passed by the Scottish Parliament authorising new rail lines such as the Waverly Railway Scotland Act 2006 gave project promoters wide-ranging powers to build much of the necessary infrastructure without the need for further authorisation from other public authorities. You have recommended in the LCM that the Parliament should not give consent to provisions allowing high-speed to build the rail depot without building standards and controlled activities consent. Is that consistent with previous practice, and if not, why have you chosen to pursue that approach? To answer the minister's last question, the approach for similar projects authorised by Acts of Parliament is that building standards and the car requirements continue to apply. As I mentioned in my response to Mr Ruskell, both the Waverly Railway Scotland Act and the 4th Crossing Act conferred wide powers on the promoter to construct the works but did not dis-apply car or building standards requirements. Given those precedents, we are not in a position to recommend at the moment that Parliament consents to the dis-application of those regulatory requirements in Scotland. However, the hybrid bill process in the UK Parliament, as I have mentioned to other members of the committee, is a lengthy one. We are continuing to discuss those issues with the UK Government, and I am happy to keep the committee updated on the progress of those discussions. Is it your view that it would be preferable that you can come back with an LCM approving consent? Should those discussions be over this moment? Yes, it would be preferable, absolutely. Great. There are no more questions. I thank the minister and officials for taking part in this meeting and providing us with background for our report on the LCM, which we will publish before the summer recess. I will now briefly suspend the meeting for the setup of the next panel. Thank you very much. A couple of seconds. I just want to make sure that you have some water. Welcome back everyone. Our next item is an evidence session in relation to our inquiry into the role of local government and its cross-sectoral partners in financing and delivering in net zero Scotland. Today we are going to focus on local government's role in expanding the renewable energy sector in Scotland with five panellists joining us this morning. Good morning everyone. Three of our guests are in the committee meeting room today, Stephanie Anderson, head of regulation, Scottish Power Energy Networks, Randall Brazier, director of innovation and electricity systems, energy networks association and Morag Watson, director of policy Scottish Renewables. Joining us remotely we have David Hammond, head of sustainability, corporate property and transport, North Ayrshire Council and David Roger, chief executive officer, Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group. Good morning everyone. Thank you very much for being before the committee. Your attendance is very much appreciated. We have allocated up to around 75 minutes for this session. We will move straight to questions, but given the size of the panel we will direct questions to our particular panel members. I am not sure that we are going to be able to address every question to every panel member, so we will try to keep our questions fairly succinct and if we could have fairly succinct answers that would be great. We can make sure that we cover all the topics. My first question is a general one just to set the scene. What are the main challenges that you face when dealing with local authorities in terms of delivering net zero targets in your areas of responsibility? What can be done to address those issues, to help local authorities and to help your own organisations to deliver net zero targets for your own organisation, but also generally? In terms of bringing in our guests, perhaps I could start with Morag, then Randolph, Stephanie and finally David Roger. Morag, go over to you please. Thank you convener. Good morning committee. It's lovely to be here. In terms of local authorities, the work that we do for Scottish renewables, the challenges fall into two main areas. The first one is about planning. We need to double, perhaps even triple the amount of renewable energy generation that we have in Scotland by 2045 if we are to meet our net zero targets. None of those projects can be built without planning consent. We have seen the number of planners in local authorities go down by 20 per cent in the last 10 years, just as the level of planning applications around net zero is about to ramp up. We are seeing long delays in the planning system of simply lack of capacity. I would defer to my colleagues in the Royal Town Planning Institute who are doing detailed work around a work plan development strategy for planning on what needs to be done there, but that is a key issue for us. The other thing that we are seeing, and this is particularly a challenge for onshore wind, is that we have about eight gigawatts of onshore wind at the moment. To keep us on track for net zero, we will need 20 gigawatts by 2030, which is just eight years away. That is a very challenging target to hit, but one that can be done. The moment that we are seeing planning applications taking seven years, so those two things are just not going to match up. One of the key issues is that although every time we do independent research, we find that onshore wind has an approval rating of around about 80 per cent, with around about four to five per cent of the population objecting to it. Almost always, if an onshore wind application is rejected, it is rejected on a visual impact on the understanding that people do not like how it looks, but that is not what comes through in the independent research. We have a real dichotomy there that we are wrestling around with of how we will reach the levels of deployment that we need when we keep hitting up against this barrier of visual impact that is not supported by the independent research around people's attitudes to those things. I will not go on any further on planning. I was before this committee on 1 February when we said a great deal more about it and there have been detailed briefings to this committee, so I will not dwell on that one. The other issue that is going to be a key barrier for us going forward, and this is just one that is starting to kick in, is around the decarbonisation of heat. Heat makes up over 50 per cent of our energy use in Scotland and we need to decarbonise our homes over the next 23 years. That is 2.4 million homes and 230,000 non-domestic buildings. Just looking at the homes, if any of you are fast on the maths, that means that we are decarbonising 285 homes a day every day, 365 days a year, for the next 23 years to hit that target. It is a huge challenge. One of the ways that we are looking at doing this is through local authorities leading on local heat energy efficiency strategies, known as LHEs for short. Those have been piloted in all 32 local authorities. It is a very useful approach and it is working, but there were some major challenges that came out for the local authorities and the first one is resourcing. There simply is not staff in the local authorities at the moment who have either the capacity or the specialist expertise to do this. The expertise particularly falls around data collection and data analysis, around heat use, building types, efficiency standards and so on. That is a huge challenge. To give you an idea, if you commission an external organisation, for example the energy systems catapult, to do an LHEs style report for you, that is a quarter of a million pound ballpark figure that you are looking at. You can understand the capacity challenge for local authorities. The other thing is that this is not statutory. In a time of great challenge for local authorities, when we have this huge challenge of decarbonising our buildings, where minds are very focused on this, given the current cost of living crisis around energy and particularly heating costs rising, the local authorities are not required to do this and they are having to prioritise it, so it is very difficult for them to prioritise this. The other thing that they are going to need is specialist support around how you do this. This is a new area of work for local authorities. There will need to be professional development and support externally. In particular, there needs to be support to help local authorities to work with the stakeholders. Again, I would defer to my colleagues around the energy networks who are going to need to do the grid reinforcements around all of this work. To strike a note of optimism, there is a capacity hump here. Once a local authority has the staff in place and is able to get something like an LHEs in place, that enables industry to then come in and invest. If we look at the example of what has just happened in Bristol, they had their city leaps strategy that they have developed. They then put out to the industry for concessions to do their heat decarbonisation. Vattenfall won that concession for 20 years and over the next five years they will invest £200 million in Bristol in heat networks and heat decarbonisation. Once we get those plans in place, once there is someone in a local authority to connect with and they can begin to do that engagement with stakeholders and industry, that is how we then unlock that private investment to bring in the private sector money that we will need to be able to achieve those targets. I will stop there, convener. Thank you. No, thank you very much. Morriga, you have raised a number of issues, which I am sure members will want to explore later. Randall, if I could address the same question to you please. Yeah, thank you convener and thank you for having me here today. It is really good to be here just for those of you who do not know the ENA, where the trade association for all of the gas and electricity networks in the UK and Ireland are including colleagues here. I will probably raise three quick points and I will try not to repeat what Morriga said because I do agree with quite a few of her points, particularly around planning. I think one of the key challenges we are seeing as energy networks is particularly siloed thinking. So what has historically happened with local authorities and planning in general is that different sectors are treated independently, so transport, heat, buildings, waste, agriculture have largely been treated separately. However, when we plan energy networks, we need to take all of those things into account. We do not just build an electricity network for electric vehicles, for example, or electrified heating. We build it for all of these sectors, so what we think is key going forward is to take what we term a whole systems approach, which is taking into account all of these different sectors and ensuring that when we do planning for energy, we consider all of the users of those energy systems, both for what they need now but also for what they need in the future. That is a key focus of ours going forward and it has to be a key focus of local authorities because they obviously have a good view of all of those different sectors when they are doing their planning. That is one point. I think the second point from an energy networks perspective is engagement with networks. Although engagement with networks is improving across local authorities, it is very different across the country as to how good that engagement is and particularly how early that engagement is. There are many examples where there is, say, a new housing block or housing development, but we as energy networks only find out at the 11th hour. Water, telecoms have already been engaged with and we are having to dig up the road for a second time six months later. That is just not acceptable going forward. That goes back to that whole systems approach, but engagement with local authorities is key. Leading on from that, when we work with local authorities—this is something that Morag touched on as well—we often find that, from an energy perspective, they have varying levels of skills and abilities. We think that they need to be adequately resourced from an energy perspective so that they understand energy and understand their needs. There are a number of ways that you could do that. Obviously, there could be Government support, but equally from a networks perspective, within our business plans for the next five-year period, all of the networks, and particularly those in Scotland, have put in dedicated local authority support. There is a range of different techniques for doing that. Some of them are thinking about effectively seconding energy experts into those companies. Some of it is dedicated workshops and support people, and I am sure that Stephanie will talk a bit more about that. That is absolutely critical going forward as well. They need the skills in-house, either from their own organisations internally or it could be support from networks, for example. The last point, which I will not repeat too much of what Morag said, is around planning. That is absolutely critical. We have to speed up the planning process from a networks perspective. When we are looking about new overhead lines, new cables and new substations, they can often take years, and we need to speed up that process going forward. That is absolutely critical. I will end there for now. Thank you very much, Randolph. If I could ask you the same question, please. Thank you, convener. I am supportive entirely of what Morag and Randolph have just said. However, just to add a couple of points. From an energy networks perspective, we see the planning regime as being probably our key barrier just now in terms of enabling us to meet 2030 targets. I will provide a couple of specific examples for SP energy networks. For example, the Buley Denny project was a high-profile example, where the consenting stage should be longer than either the development or construction stages. Most recently, SPNs application for a consent under section 37 in relation to the Ken Doon de Tonglen reinforcement will enable 1.2 gigawatts of renewable generation. It is currently going through public inquiry. Once we take into consideration all of the work that we have done at the start of the stage around two to three years, we include the planning process. By the time we get to the end of that, we expect that that will be seven years. Obviously, with that in mind and meeting 2030 targets, we are keen to work alongside our colleagues on to accelerate the planning regime. I think that that is probably what we would see as a key barrier just now. We work very closely with our local authorities and there is clear ambition within all of the local authorities that we work with. Specifically, in relation to the local heat and energy efficiency strategies, they are definitely feeling powered to move forward with those. However, I think that what we have seen is the lack of technical expertise and resources against Morag and Randolph have touched on. We have proposed an energy networks. We go through five-year cycles with the regulator of GEM where we negotiate what investments will come forward for that five-year period. We are currently going through that discussion with OFGEM. We have proposed what we call strategic optimisers. It is effectively account managers for working with local authorities where we offer up our technical expertise that the local authorities will not often have and to give an example of where that expertise has shown real value for customers and local authorities. Working with Transport Scotland and two other local authorities, North and South Lanarkshire Council, we rolled out what was called project pace. That was using our dedicated teams of expertise. We worked to look to see where charge points would be most optimally placed in councils where the market might not deliver. As a result of the additional support to local authority, we have saved £45,000 per electricity grid connection, which equates to £2 million worth of savings just for those two authorities. If we were to roll that out across Scotland, that would equate to around £26 million worth of savings. If we work together with the local authorities to complement their expertise, we think that that would be a good manoeuvre. Thank you very much, Stephanie. It is not the first time that we have heard that the seven years timeline for project completion, which is obviously a big concern. If I could bring in David Roger on the same question, please, who is joining us online. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for having me. Again, just a few quick words on Areg, for those of you who do not know about Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group. Very briefly, we are in our 20th year as a not-for-profit association with over 230 members. We are perhaps best known for our work with Aberdeen-Bainwood and Farm, working with Batonfile to help to deliver that. Over the years, we have been involved in promoting Aberdeen and the whole of the north of Scotland from a sort of energy capital perspective with things like the all-energy show and many other engagements. We are there to support all forms of renewable energy, from wind to solar, from biomass to wave and tidal. We are seeing a real broadening of interest in the group in terms of not just primary energy but community and household, and that really does reflect the sort of broad interest in the energy transition. I think that Areg is a great example of an organisation that has worked well with local authorities, in this case Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire, over the past 20 years. We have supported various initiatives, whether that is from heating developments through to new transportation initiatives. Of course, Aberdeen City is very well known for its progress on the hydrogen bus fleet and other incoming technologies. In terms of creating that sort of space of where can we work together? Where are the key areas that both association like Areg, the wider industry and indeed the local government and wider government organisations can work together? Some of the key issues facing the industry include investment, grid connection just in terms of meeting the demand for the future and also that public acceptance piece. I will add a fourth one, which is skills and getting a sort of diverse and inclusive workforce around us as we progress the various projects in the energy transition. I am going to leave it very briefly at that, because I know that there will be other questions, and there are some other speakers to follow. That is great, David. Thank you very much. Let me bring in Liam Kerr. I think that Liam Kerr has a brief supplemental in this area. I am very grateful, convener. Just on Morag Watson on your opening remarks, you said that we need 20 gigawatts by 2030. Last week, the cabinet secretary wound back on the Scotland commitment by saying that it was all contingent, reaching our targets on Scotland and was contingent on the national grid. That rather sounds like getting the excuses in early to me. What is your view? Can we achieve that, or has the cabinet secretary been making promises that cannot be delivered? I will separate out those slightly. I am talking about 20 gigawatts of onshore wind. When we look at the phasing of the capacity that we need to bring on to the system, in the coming years we need to be focusing on solar and onshore wind, because they can build out fastest. As we go into the 2030s, that is where the Scotland project starts to kick in. The cabinet secretary is absolutely right that grid is critical around that. I will defer to my grid colleagues on that. What we are dealing with at the moment is onshore. The regime for planning grid in the UK, the rules were set 30 years ago in an entirely different situation with entirely different goals. They were not designed for net zero. That is a big challenge. That is one that we have put to the Westminster Government and Off-Germ on many occasions. The other issue around Scotland specifically is that there is no national grid in the North Sea. It has to be built as we go. Again, it is about how we make the most efficient use of offshore grid, how we do not end up having every single wind farm having to build their own grid connection, and how we get a much more integrated and co-ordinated system. However, because those wind farms are building out in different timelines, we are trying to get everything to match up as a challenge. Can it be done? Yes, absolutely it can be done. Can it be done at the pace that change is happening at the moment? No, it cannot. That would be our major challenge to Off-Germ and to the Westminster Government that the pace of regulation and change around grid needs to pick up exponentially if we are to hit our targets. Those projects that we need to be bringing on wind on Scotland usually take nine years to build the grid for those. We need to start building that grid next year to be able to bring those projects online. That is a big challenge. More angst is 100 per cent right. It can be done, but the challenge is the pace. That is absolutely spot on. It takes a long time, particularly when you are talking about transmission grids and higher voltages to build out the grid. We really need to be able to invest ahead of need and invest basically now to start getting the grid in place for these big projects. We also need to speed up the planning because it is not just building the grid out, it is getting the planning rights, getting the right routes, getting the way leaves for that, the land ownership rights etc. There are also other things that we can do as networks to help get things connected quicker and cheaper. For example, flexibility is a key focus of ours, both at transmission and distribution. Flexibility is where we can basically say to a connection, look, we want to connect your full capacity in the future. You will have the full capacity in the future, but for now we can connect you for maybe 95 per cent of the time and 5 per cent of the time. You might need to ramp down your capacity by half during really peak periods. If you can do that, we can connect you now quicker and cheaper. For that 5 per cent where they have to ramp down, they might be able to, for example, pair it with a battery, pair the wind farm with a battery, for example, to cover that. That then buys us time to build out the grid. That is one option that we can use. That is called a flexible connection. Another option that we are doing particularly at distribution voltages is running flexibility markets. This is where we have a constraint, a grid constraint in an area. We basically say to the market, we have a constraint in this area during peak hours in winter effectively. We will then say to the market, look, can you provide us capacity during that period? Can you provide a service to us? If you can provide it to us cheaper than the cost of us building out the grid, we will pay you to deliver that service for us. That could be a battery, for example, injecting power back into the grid. It could be demand side response where technology agnostic. That buys us time because we can run that market while we are getting all this planning and consenting right and building the grid out. The planning is key. Building ahead of need is key. However, we have the tools and techniques that we can use to buy us time to get the grid ready. I understand. Thank you very much. Thank you. Liam, I think that Jackie Dunbar also has a supplemental in this area. Jackie? Not in this area, convener. Sorry, we miscommunicated. It was a form of questions later on. Do you want to come in a bit later then? Was that okay? Yes, please. That is absolutely fine. Thanks for those comprehensive opening remarks. I have a brief second question because the committee has heard evidence that there is a lack of strategic alignment between and dialogue between local authorities and the Scottish Government in terms of aligning policies and agreeing specific actions to implement net zero targets. We have heard that the road map, sorry, the targets have been set, the destination has been set out, but there is not a road map to map out precise actions in terms of how to get to meet the targets 2030s as well as 2045 targets. Let me bring in David Hammond, who was not there for the first question, or I did not bring in for the first question. Perhaps I can start with David and then bring in Morag Watson. David Hammond, would you be able to address that question? Thank you, convener. Good morning to you and good morning to the committee, and thank you for having me here this morning. I was happy to try to address that question. I was really listening with interest to colleagues at this morning's session and it is really enlightening hearing the different perspectives. I suppose that my hope for what I could offer the committee this morning is something of that practical perspective from the local authority at the coalface. Here in North Ayrshire, in terms of our own net zero journey, a huge part of that is a renewable energy programme that we have, a pipeline of projects that we are seeking to deliver to help not only meet the Scottish Government's targets around net zero but our own local policy objectives as well. I think that what I would like to make very clear this morning is that I have a strong view that the public sector and local government have a huge role to play in renewable energy generation and a huge role to play in reaching net zero. That is for a number of reasons—the level of land assets that we hold that could be suitable for renewable energy generation development. We have a different lens within the public sector to the private sector—a complementary lens, I would say, but we can look at projects quite differently in terms of not only their financial return, which is important to us because we are accountable for how we spend that public pound, but we can also think about the non-financial benefits that a project might be able to bring so clearly carbon reduction, for example benefits to the local economy through construction and other job creation, potential benefits around biodiversity, for example, depending on the nature of the project. In terms of our practical experience at North Ayrshire Council, we have at the leading edge of that renewable energy programme that I mentioned to solar farms that we are seeking to build on two former landfill sites that are since closed. We are very much looking to bring sterilised land back into use. I echo some of the comments made by colleagues just around some of the challenges that are not so much planning for those two particular projects, not particularly contentious, but certainly in terms of grid connection and grid capacity. That has been a challenge. Scottish Power Energy Networks is the distribution network operator for the area that we occupy, certainly on mainland North Ayrshire, and I must say that SPEN has been extremely welcoming to our approaches. They have worked with us very constructively, but I would underline the points made by colleagues that there is definitely further work to be done in terms of engagement between local authorities and grid network operators to help a mutual understanding for us and local government to understand the complexities around delivery of grid improvements, grid reinforcements, the timescales involved with that, the complexity involved with that, the resources required. Similarly, for the grid to understand the challenges facing local authority in terms of the things that have been mentioned already, we are operating in an area that we have limited experience of, admittedly. That is somewhat uncharted territory for us. I think that there is definitely scope for further mutual understanding, and I think that there are some practical suggestions around how that might be achieved, shared already this morning from colleagues. I think that around timescales or delivery of our grid connections is definitely a concern for us about really how quickly we can realise those projects and then in turn realise those policy objectives. I think that the other point that I would like to make quickly, convener, is around the other side to the renewable energy equation, which is the sale of energy. Again, it is not an area traditionally that local authorities have operated in. We have a resource and knowledge gap there. That being said, how we tend to address that with the local government is to procure in technical expertise where it is required, and that is available to us, and we have taken advantage of that. Certainly, the complexity of the energy market and how we actually get a route for our projects for sale of energy, whether that is through a traditional power purchase agreement or through more creative means—for example, slaving, which we are talking to colleagues in the Scottish Government elsewhere—is definitely a nut that local government needs to crack for us to help to understand more fully the full business case landscape that we have to help to deliver renewable energy projects. I hope that that gives a bit of insight into some of the practical challenges on the ground from a local authority perspective. I will stop there. I can bring you in briefly on that concept or concern about national targets have been set, but there is no particular road map as to how to get to the 2030, 2045 targets, please. You have absolutely hit the nail on the head that we do lack those plans at the moment. There is work on going to begin to put them in place, so the LHEs that I have already spoken is the mechanism by which we start to develop road maps of how we are going to get there on heat decarbonisation and energy efficiency. We are beginning to see policy start to emerge. The Scottish Government is working on the onshore wind policy statement, again mapping out that route map, how we will get there. The Scotland wind announcement is very new and very fresh. Again, there will need to be a road map of how we get there. The other thing is that we know that the Scottish Government is just starting to look at a solar energy strategy. Again, that will be needed. Picking up on one of Randolph's points from earlier, our big concern about that is that it ends up being done in silos. We are moving from a space where we had three separate energy systems for electricity, for transport and for heating, and those are all converging into one system, but we still tend to look at them as three separates. This is something that we are looking for the Scottish Government's energy strategy to begin to address. In parallel with that, again picking up on something that colleagues have said, we do not just need to be looking at a road map of how we do the infrastructure and the plans, we need to be looking at a road map for skills and jobs around this as well. We know as an industry, for example, those 12 gigawatts of onshore wind that we are looking to build, that is 17,000 jobs for the next 20 years after those things are built. We need to be able to ensure that we have the people coming forward with the skills that we need to take advantage of those opportunities. Again, what we need to see is a flexible workforce that can move between onshore wind, offshore wind and solar, the heating people being able to move around as well. Those are really big challenges. I agree with you that that is very much needed. We are beginning to see the green shoots of this work, but I reiterate a point that I think will be made again and again, the speed is of the essence, that we cannot be taking two or three years to develop those things. We just do not have those timescales any more. Okay, thank you very much. Let me bring in other members to explore some of those issues. First up is Fiona Hyslop. Fiona, please. Thank you. On a positive note, the LHEs have actually now become a statutory requirement just at the weekend following a statutory instrument that the committee passed, so that is a good news item. Less positive, I think, is the challenges facing our distribution network operations. I have concerns about the preparation of those. There is going to be a significant increase in electricity required for renewable heat and electric vehicle charging. If there are challenges now for grid connections and capacity, what is that going to mean for the scale-up that we need? What is stopping that in advance preparation of networks and how does it get fixed? Ultimately, what was stopping it is that networks were not really allowed to invest ahead of need. We just invested effectively as and when required. It is a bit crude, but it was kind of historically treated as like a TV. When the TV breaks, you just go and get a new one. You do not really think about it. You do not really plan ahead. You just wait until you need it and then you do it. You cannot really do that with networks for all of the reasons that we described around planning timelines. I think that mindset has shifted and you have got the Committee on Climate Change, for example, saying we need strategic investment. They say to get to net zero, we need to build it once and build it right, which is very much what we endorse. We have put forward, as the six distribution networks in GB, we have put forward £24 billion of baseline proposed investment in the distribution networks over the next five years from 2023 to 2028. We believe that that is very much going to be an absolute foundation for net zero. We have very much planned that investment based on net zero and we need the regulators to approve it. We effectively need the regulator to approve this strategic investment and do it ahead of need. Once we have that approval to do it, we then need the planning to be sped up and agile enough to allow us to do it in time. It does take time to build the networks out. It is big infrastructure. It is heavy infrastructure. That is where we use those techniques I talked about earlier with Liam around flexibility to buy us time while we do build it out. Ultimately, what we need is the support from the regulator to allow us to invest ahead of need. What is stopping that? Ultimately, it is up to the regulator to approve it. I do not think that they are necessarily going to stop it. We are hoping that they do approve it. We are waiting for the final approvals in July, I think that it is, and hopefully they will approve that for the next five years. If they do, we will crack on and do it. There is criticism that it disadvantaged Scotland yet again in terms of your plans. Have you got any views on that? No specific views on that. I looked to my colleague to talk about Scotland's specific issues, but that £24 billion is across the whole of GB. I will come to Stephanie Anderson now. What stage are you at in planning and upgrading the distribution network? What role has often played in approving and regulating your business plan? What are the challenges? What will make sure that you can provide the capacity and the network capability that we need in advance of need? As Randall has said, we go through the price control processes, and we have submitted a business plan to the regulator of GEM just in December last year. Within that plan for the central Scotland region, we have proposed £1.6 billion worth of expenditure, but on top of that, as you rightly recognise, this is a really agile moving at pace network, especially at the low voltage side that is directly connected to the customer's homes. As part of that package, we have proposed to off GEM that we have flexible mechanisms that are, effectively, additional investment will be granted to us as required. So, as long as those mechanisms are approved, as long as that £1.6 billion is approved by the regulator of GEM, we very much stand ready to deliver that from a low voltage perspective on the distribution networks, but there is the other angle in which Mr Kerr picked up on earlier on from the transmission network side as well to enable us to connect directly to our customer's homes, to enable these heat pumps and electric vehicles. We need the transmission network to, obviously, the artery in the system to transport that from north to south in terms of the energy flows, so significant work will be required at both our distribution and transmission levels. From a transmission perspective, it will be the planning regime currently that it needs to be a key neighbour for us. For projects to meet 2030 targets, we need to be shovel-ready absolutely no later than 2025, so that puts into perspective we need the regulatory approvals in place, the planning approvals in place imminently to enable that, but we stand ready to deliver. It is really down to regulatory and planning approvals at this stage. Even from your own organisation, I have heard some basic criticism that you perhaps may not have enough wayleave officers, for example, in terms of that planning process. How are you gearing up as an organisation to deliver that? That is part of our business plan process. We will be looking at reorganising how we are set up for net zero, depending on what our off-gen funding is, and that will be released at a draft stage at the end of June, start of July, as Randolph said. At that point, we will look to see how we are structuring our organisation to meet. Do you think that off-gen will be ambitious enough and fast enough to deliver what you need? We certainly hope so. We will see that at the end of June and July, and if not, at that point we will be engaging very closely with our colleagues. I will come to David Hammond. What do you think of the implications of improving those distribution networks for communities and local authorities and public agencies? What needs to happen to minimise risk and disruption, but to keep that pace and ambition that we have heard of? Thank you for the question through the convener. I think that the implications for communities are severalfold, because this is about unlocking the potential that I talked about in my previous points about the role that the public sector can play in municipal energy generation. I think that those benefits to communities are certainly indirect through the role that that renewable energy generation potential can play in helping to meet our net zero aspirations, but there are also potentially direct benefits, again, as I indicated when I spoke previously, around perhaps the different lens that local authorities can look at those projects through. For example, working in partnership with communities to help to deliver community energy, renewable energy generation proposals, where we would potentially see some of the income from those projects recycled back into local communities and potentially community organisations co-owning or indeed owning outright their own renewable energy generation infrastructure. That is certainly very much aligned to Scottish Government energy policy in a number of areas, as well as local policy objectives. The implications for communities around that investment is about unlocking that potential for them to receive those direct and indirect benefits that I mentioned. I think that, in terms of the points made just around risk, that is key to the public sector's role in providing renewable energy generation. Clearly, we are very risk aware as a sector because of our democratic accountability and our audit and scrutiny of that public pound. I think that the more that we can de-risk projects and the more that we can understand how projects can be delivered, minimising risk is beneficial. Clearly, when I look at the renewable energy programme pipeline that we have in North Ayrshire Council, right at the top of all of my risk registers, there is a great connection in terms of capacity, cost and timescale. The investment that has been outlined by colleagues this morning is absolutely welcomed. I think that local authorities will be welcome here in North Ayrshire to help to realise and help to deliver more quickly our own specific renewable energy projects. That theme of de-risking is coming loud and clear throughout this inquiry. If I can now move on to looking at leverage of support and private finance and perhaps more of what's on with your overview, you might be able to comment on how well you think the public sector currently leverages in support and finance from the private sector to deliver net zero. What do you think of the barriers and how does it need to be overcome? Perhaps we need to use existing vehicles to bring together in order to de-risk, I suppose, some of the comments that we have just heard, whether city region deals or other mechanisms are needed to de-risk this, but also to generate the huge amount of finance that is required, because, quite clearly, it will not just be the public sector and it can be the public sector that delivers this. When it comes to leveraging in that private sector finance, we see a really mixed picture across local authorities. As Stephanie has already touched on, what we often find is there may not be the capacity and skill set within the local authorities. We are moving into very new areas of expertise and responsibility and it takes time for the capacity to catch up. Where that capacity exists, we do see a really good connection happening there. The key thing to say here is that we are in a very unusual situation. From somebody who has come from the climate change background where there was never enough money to do anything, we are now in a situation where there is a lot of finance looking for investment opportunities. There is more money than there are opportunities to invest it. What we are seeing is the investment community's attitude to risk is going up. They are prepared to take on riskier propositions than they previously have done. Earlier, I gave the example of Bristol and Vattenfall, where there is a local authority who is able to leverage in £200 million at the short term and many more millions over the long term. They were able to bring the skill set and had a clear plan that reduced the anxiety that any investor would have. It becomes an investable opportunity and in comes the money. We have seen that happen in onshore wind, offshore wind, solar energy and it can happen in heat and energy efficiency as well. It is very much down to the needs to be somebody in the local authority who has this responsibility, who has that skill set and who has the capacity to go out and start engaging with those stakeholders because once that engagement starts, that unlocks many things. I have huge sympathy for my local authority colleagues that, if we ever thought in the climate change sector that we were trying to do too much with not enough resource, that is very true of our local authority colleagues. That is again where we find ourselves on the horns of a dilemma. We need them to have more capacity to unlock that investment, but until they can unlock the investment, it is very hard for them to find the capacity and we find ourselves in a catch-22 situation. That is very well poot. David Roger, with your perspective, how do you see that interrelationship between the public sector and the private sector is leveraging the necessary support and finance to deliver net zero? It is really important to look at this from a sort of Scotland basis as well in terms of attracting the right levels of investment and the right projects. We are going to see a very exciting period for Scotland in terms of wind, hydrogen, in terms of that broader societal energy transition. I have been fortunate enough to work with companies such as Batonfall to see the difference that those kinds of projects can make to, for example, Aberdeen with the Aberdeen offshore wind farm, a £230 million investment. Alongside that—I know that it is not a material consideration for the planning process—there is a very good annual fund that the public bid into a future fund, which in turn is funding a whole series of community projects and other things that may or may not have taken place. I have seen that happen on the island of Skye with some of the onshore wind farms as well across Scotland. It is a slightly untold story of the benefits of wind farms and that sort of transaction with the public. Just to take a step back in terms of bringing all of those projects through, the planning process is extremely important, both for grid and for the projects themselves. Renewable energy projects should have the same scrutiny in terms of impact on environment as any other project, whether that is onshore or in a marine environment. Something that I experienced on Aberdeen Bay, just in terms of that level of detail that needs to be gone to around very many disciplines and studies and analysis of data, there is a big piece that needs to happen to see, for example, that the Scotland projects go through their planning and consenting process. However, I think that I would like to connect what we would end up with, with a successful Scotland wind route. For example, you will end up with a series of world class projects in Scottish waters, some fantastic engineering ahead in terms of floating offshore wind. The key bit for me is that if we have world class projects in Scottish waters, what we also need to see is a kind of world class approach in terms of our grid systems and our infrastructure and the way that we deliver that as a combined force. Just a final point for me, which is a bit back to the consultation piece, but we have to take the public with us on various journeys in terms of helping to join the dots and also helping to synthesise so much information and so many activities happening around Scotland right now in terms of net zero, renewables, low carbon and transport. I can reel off the list from a home area that is probably about 20 to 23 pieces long. The point here is that we have to make sense of that for the public to help them to understand the changes that lie ahead, both in terms of primary energy but also in terms of the impacts on everyday life that appear to be fairly soon done in the line. Thank you very much. I'm back to the convener. Thank you very much. The next up is Jackie Dunbar, Jackie, please. Thank you, convener. Good morning, panel. If I can just follow on from David Rodger and David Hammond in regard to the consultation process, I think that on a positive evidence has suggested lately that communities are more than ever motivated to make changes to their lifestyle moving forward towards net zero, but I'm also very conscious that local communities have got a bit of consultation process fatigue, if you don't mind me saying, so they get consulted on an awful lot but very rarely see the outcomes to that. If I could maybe just concentrate on David Rodger and David Hammond just now, how can you see us moving forward or the local authorities moving forward to ensure that they take the local communities with them rather than just them having the reaction of not another consultation? If I could maybe go to David Hammond first, please, and then maybe David Rodger? Again through the convener, thank you for the question, Mr Dunbar. I think the issue that you've raised is really a perennial one particularly for local government given the breadth of services that we provide in the increasing and rightly so community participation and empowerment that we've seen in recent years and our desire to understand more and more clearly about what it is and how our communities wish to see our services designed and delivered. I think the question you raise is absolutely a right and albeit difficult one about how we do that in the most effective way without introducing consultation fatigue. I think there are mechanisms open to local government around that. For example, in North Ayrshire we have locality partnerships which are a combined partnership of local democratic representation, so local elected ward members, but also representatives from the local community who come together and meet regularly to discuss issues of local concern, proposals and also undertake an element of participatory budgeting as well. That sort of decentralised democracy is certainly something that we are seeing that communities engage with, particularly younger members of our community, which we very much welcome, which I think is a positive thing. In terms of consultation as well and how we design that particularly around our journey to net zero, we are already pushing an open door in terms of people's emerging and increasing understanding of the climate change emergency that we are facing. We have had a number of successful area-wide events in North Ayrshire where we have seen massive engagement and feedback in people looking specifically not only to share their views but also to get directly involved. For example, we have had a tree planting programme to help to deal with carbon absorption for any residual emissions, if that is part of our journey to net zero. We have seen people across the spectrum willing to get engaged and to speak with us on that and to volunteer and get involved directly. In summary, Ms Dunbar is a perennial question and challenge around how we engage. I think that the advantage that we have around the climate change emergencies is that it is affecting everybody across communities, particularly with the cost of living crisis that we are seeing at the moment and the pressure on people's energy bills, their attention is even more now on our energy landscape and what we are doing nationally around that. I think that there is a willingness. Lastly, the practical drivers around consultation and approaches to consultation have to come into play in terms of us making it easy to consult with people using online and digital platforms as far as possible, as we have been doing clearly through and as a result of the pandemic, and also providing feedback on the points and concerns that have been raised with us in terms of the action that we are taking around that, and closing that kind of feedback loop is important as well. David Roger, have you got anything you would like to add? I know that your remit is slightly different to what David Hammons was, but I would be interested in your take on things. I very much agree the point on design and using technology. I am probably a veteran of 60 or 80 consultation events from my involvement in renewables over the years. It was interesting to see how some of the visualisation technology changed and how the developers took the proposal to the public to see things in different ways and to challenge the thing as necessary with information and evidence, but also for the developers to present the environmental implications for the project. The consultation events that I have been involved in have been very healthy debates about the merits and perhaps demerits of one proposal or another. It comes down to it for the developers and I guess for the planning authorities and the councils involved to find the right technologies and the right location. For onshore that is certainly one of the challenges, and for offshore it is not too dissimilar to finding the right locations for those projects. The public consultation piece is so important to get right. For the public and the statutory consultees to have their view of incoming new projects, whether it is wind or hydrogen or local area heating systems, transportation systems, et cetera, the public has to be kept on side in terms of the timing, the implications and I guess the visibility around cost is really important here as well. I will probably leave it at that on that point. Thank you very much. I should have maybe mentioned that I am a former local councillor, so that is why I am aware of consultation fatigue. If I can move on to the other three panellists, if you do not mind, and ask you in regards to your involvement with local authorities, I know, and other public agencies of course, if you could maybe tell us a bit more of what your involvement has been, what the barriers have been in regards to delivering the renewable projects. I know that you have all mentioned planning and the lack of planners, but if you could maybe just delve down a little bit more for me, because I think that the lack of planners has been well documented now in the evidence that we have been given, but I would be interested to find out what else is there a barrier, but also what has been the positives, what have you got on out of it, if there is any. If you do not mind, I will just maybe start with Morag and then move along. Thank you. This is a question that I may defer to my colleagues, because as the trade body we are representing 300 different organisations engaging in 300 different ways. It is hard to pull out a hard and fast rule. I have spoken many times about planning, and just to one last point around that, one thing that would be very helpful to my members that does not happen at the moment is actually pre-application engagement, where you speak with the local authority and with the statutory consultees as you are developing your design and your project, and if any issues come up at that point, they can then adjust the design as they go. Again, picking up on my previous answers to Ms Hislop there, this is where we find ourselves in a catch-22 situation, that the officers are so busy dealing with what is already in the system that they cannot find the time to do the non-statutory pre-engagement. Once things come into the system and they are asking for changes, it goes back out, and we end up going round and round in a loop where we have to iterate the design to meet everybody's requirements. What has worked well with SPR colleagues is that they, for example, managed to bring together all the statutory consultees, such as NatureScot, SIPA and so on, and Historic Environment Scotland, for a group workshop where they got all the statutory consultees' feedback in one go. To have that kind of workshop with local authority officers where they can work through their concerns that they may have with the scheme and then, before it even hits the design stage, all of that can be incorporated would really help unblock quite a lot of capacity. However, as I have said, this is where we find ourselves in a capacity dilemma because you need to find capacity to do that initial piece of work that then reduces the capacity that you need later, but finding that initial boost of capacity to do that is very, very trying for a lot of local authorities. I will stop there. That is something that I had not actually thought on, so thank you very much for sharing that with us. Randolph, have you got anything that you would like to add? A couple of points. We are also a trade association, so we do not plan directly with local authorities, but we run some dedicated support sessions for them. One of the challenges that often comes up with local authorities is that they do not even know who the networks are or where to start. Where do we go to engage? Who do we engage with? How do we engage with them? We have got some dedicated forums that we run. We call them the community energy forums, where we welcome along community energy groups and local authorities, local area planning authorities as well. We basically educate them about who the networks are, what they do, what is the grid, how do you get a grid connection, what are the timelines, what are the processes, et cetera. What we have also done recently is we ran a big workshop with, I think we had over 100 local authorities there from across all of GB. We basically are trying to understand what would a whole systems planning process look like across different energy vectors like gas and electricity, heat transport, et cetera. We basically run that workshop and now we are producing effectively a whole systems planning tool that people can use and local authorities can use and use alongside networks to understand how that whole system planning process could work going forward. That again goes back to that whole systems thinking piece that I was talking about earlier, where we cannot think about gas and electricity and heat and transport separately. We have got to bring them all together and understand how you plan for all of those options. When you are making a decision on something, what is the best solution? Do we look at electrification? Do we look at some sort of green gas? Do we look at district heating network? What sort of process would you go through to make that decision? That is the tool that we are working on. That is actually a part of our open networks project, which is effectively a project that is looking at how to roll out the smart grid across the country. Are you finding that you are getting buy-in from all of the local authorities and not just, well, that would not work for us or that would not work for us because, you know, is there a joining together? We had over 100, so that is a pretty good buy-in, but obviously there is only a quarter of them or something like that. What we are finding is it is often, sometimes they do not even know about ENA, but they will know about other local authorities. So once they find out that we are running forums or they hear from other people that we are doing something, they will often talk to other local authorities and get us involved. So when they do know about us and do get involved, we are finding good engagement, but sometimes it is just that first step is a bit difficult. Okay, thank you. Stephanie, have you got anything else to add? Thank you, Mark. I think that I might just add an example. Across the board we have very good engagement. It is fair to say that there are differing levels of engagement depending on resources coming back to the earlier point, but we have many different projects that have been extremely successful. Obviously the EVP project that I mentioned earlier on, £2 million worth of savings just with working together, but even just Edinburgh City Council, Soft and Park, we did a project quite recently where we helped the City Council to install a microhydro plant, and as a result we are now saving around £15,000 to £18,000 a year in energy costs. So it is some of these smaller projects that do not make the headlines. We do a lot of these, and with various councils we could have replicated examples. I think that these are the smaller things that should not be lost as well, but I look forward to engaging on the LPs now that that is a statutory requirement. Okay, thank you very much. I have no further questions. Okay, great, Jackie. Thank you very much. Next up is Liam Kerr to be followed by Mark Ruskell. Liam, over to you please. Yeah, thanks, convener. Good morning, panel. I'll direct my question to David Hammond, but if anyone is interested in coming in, just indicate to me please. David Hammond, I'd like to develop some comments that Morag Watson made earlier, which I thought was particularly interesting. The committee has heard that the general long-term underfunding of councils and specifically a lack of funding to deliver net zero could really hinder process in this space. So is it your view that more resources alone could solve this concern? In any event, what would it cost for North Ayrshire council, and if you're able to speak to it, the rest of the Scottish local authorities, to be in a place where they have enough resources to meet the net zero challenge? Thank you, Mr Kerr, through the convener in terms of your question. I think absolutely I would agree with the challenges that have been presented and articulated by colleagues at this morning's sessions around underfunding of local government, particularly around net zero and the different resource pressures that we have and how we need to prioritise our attention. In terms of the specific point of your question around, are more resources alone sufficient? I would answer to that question, no. I think that additional resources are required, but I think that that also needs to go hand in hand with skills. I think that there's a question about how we work with education institutions, how we work with the private sector as well, and how we develop a pipeline of individuals to move into the space, including within the public sector. I think that resourcing in skills development absolutely needs to go hand in hand. Again, I refer to the whole systems approach, and I would use that term in a different context that has been used already this morning. I think that it's relevant to your question, Mr Kerr, in taking a whole systems approach to this net zero question. Resources is one part of that equation. Skills is another part of that equation, but equally, if we can meet those requirements within the local government family, there are other parts of the system that need to be addressed that have been well rehearsed already this morning around the planning system, around grid connection, grid capacity, grid connection timescales and the like. I think that we have to take a whole systems view of this challenge and how we engineer the resources that are available across all sectors, stakeholders and actors at play. On your specific question about costs using North Ayrshire as an example of what resources we would need, that's something that I would probably wish to reflect on and to feed back to the committee. I think that it's a very helpful question, but I think that it's multifaceted in terms of whether that's revenue funding, that will be an element of it. Capital funding would be another and grant funding in terms of specific projects that we want to deliver in terms of supporting the net zero agenda would be another aspect of that. I think that we would need some time to reflect on that particular question in order to provide a coherent response, but hopefully that's helpful. Thank you. Thank you for that response. It is very helpful, Mr Hammond. Yes, Morriga Watson, would you mind? Of course. One thing I would add to what David has said, it's an often overlooked thing for local authorities that often the officers do not get the opportunity to network and speak with each other. There aren't always mechanisms to do that. If we look at the example of the sustainable Scotland network when the best duty for sustainable development came in, it was a new area for councils, they were trying to upskill, and the fact that they had that networked body funded by the Scottish Government that enabled the sharing of knowledge and expertise between officers across local authorities who were doing similar roles really helped to leverage up what was possible. Again, looking at what's come out of the LHES pilots and so on and picking up on what Randolph said, that once someone in a local authority finds that something exists and it works, they tend to be extremely generous with their knowledge and expertise and wish to share it with their colleagues, but they don't always have the mechanisms to do so. In terms of, do we just need additional people? No, as David has said, they also need capacity building, but they need the opportunity to communicate with each other, and that does not happen spontaneously. You need to put in place a structure to enable that to happen to share the learning. I'll direct my second question to David Roger, but, again, if other pano-members can indicate if they're interested in coming in. David Roger, the answers that we just heard, I thought were very useful, but one of the things that wasn't mentioned, but this committee has heard about previously, is that a dedicated net zero resource, a dedicated net zero person within a local authority might be key. Do you, in your experience, agree with that, particularly in your interactions with Aberdeen and the Shire councils? In any event, are there any policy levers that you, David Roger, think that local authorities don't have that they usefully could have? Perhaps in both Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire very positively. I think that there are certainly teams and there are people. Given some of the growth that we've talked about earlier, I think that those teams will grow over time. More people and different skillsets will be called in to be able to manage the traffic, as it were. I just briefly wanted to reflect on the piece around consultation. In a way, it is a lever. I've just been thinking about this as we've gone through the session, but the opportunity from the developers and the council, etc., are going out consulting with the public, whether it's onshore or offshore project. There is an opportunity there to include the reference to the overall 2045 net zero target, and almost to give a sense of how that sum total of initiative is adding up, just to provide a context piece for the project, or perhaps even a grid connection consultation, if it's a new piece of wire or even a line. I think that joining the dots is really important. I'm not within a council organisation as such, but I think that, on the lever side of things, particularly considering the public dimension, it's almost where is the information centre for your net zero ambitions as an individual council organisation. Is it the web portal? Is it individual personal contact? There are ways of going through all of that with the being pretty organised around the information flow, and I guess that goes from everything from the web-based information to social media to just the broader media piece as well is really important in all of this. I think that if we can get the comms right or communicating with the public, we will take them with us on this journey. When you consider the things that we're asking the public to accept as changes in the years that will follow, I think that that clarity of dialogue, that clarity of information will help to take some of the fear perhaps away, and ultimately, this links to something that we've not necessarily heard the phrase this morning, but the whole sort of just transition piece, the information flow and the understanding and the getting the commitment from both the public and the business and the council communities that that's really important from my perspective. Very grateful, Randolph Brazier. Yeah, just the one thing I would add is that on top of the dedicated net zero resource, which we do think they need, they're probably going to need dedicated network resource as well. That's why, you know, which and the networks are really willing and keen to get involved and deeper involved with local authorities. That's why all of them have built it into their business plans for the next five years, and hence we urge the regulator to approve that, because that's going to be critical to get that network's knowledge in there as well. Like I said, range of different options, but ultimately it all comes back to working very closely with the local authority to make sure the energy networks are ready to provide the energy they need to meet their net zero plans and targets. Thank you. David Hammond, do you have any comments particularly on the policy levers that local authorities might usefully have? Mr Kerr, if I could perhaps come in maybe initially on the point just around the networking point that Morag made, which I think is a valuable one, and I think there are a couple of networks out there that could usefully be leveraged further. I think that they potentially are likely to mature as time goes on, and as we move further into the net zero journey and landscape that we're embarking on currently, we have a Scottish energy officers network within the local government family at present. I don't think that there's a particular focus around renewable energy, but that's something that members of that sea on group, as it's known for short, are actively looking at at the moment. I'm including to develop up a picture of renewable energy generation in terms of public sector pipeline of projects, which I think could then help in turn address some of the conversations that need to be had between local government and DNOs and national grid, as has already been alluded to this morning. We've also got tomorrow the Sustainable Scotland Network, SSN, which is a public sector organisation, which I'm sure the committee and other attendees this morning will be most familiar with. They have their national confidence, which I'm attending tomorrow, but I would definitely support Morag's point that more needs to be made and maybe perhaps to formalise some of those engagement structures that we have within local government. I would certainly echo the point in our own particular renewable energy projects that we've had, where we've engaged with other Scottish local authorities, but also English local authorities as well. They have been, as we are, very forthcoming with any information, knowledge, sharing copies of business cases, for example, because we don't have that same level of commercial confidentiality or issues that perhaps exist in the private sector in similar fora. In terms, Mr Kerr, of the point about policy leavers, clearly there have been a number of national consultations of late as the Scottish Government has developed their energy policy, and that's something in North Ayrshire that we've been very keen to engage with and respond to and influence where possible. The requirement to prepare an LHEs for every local authority is very much welcome. I think also that, if I'm not mistaken, there has been indication of some specific resource to help with preparation of those LHEs documents on offer from the Scottish Government to local authorities, which I think will be very much welcomed. I also suspect that the preparation of those LHEs will help local government colleagues to articulate responses to that question that you've asked around what potential policy leavers, additional policy leavers, that might be welcomed within local government to help on that next single journey. Very grateful to you all. No further questions, convener. Okay, thanks very much. Liam, next up is Mark Ruskell, to be followed by Monica Lennon. Mark, over to you please. Thanks. Thinking back to some of the evidence that we've taken on the national planning framework, there's obviously quite a major tilt there towards climate and nature emergencies at the very high level, but I'm thinking about how this then translates into local development plans, many of which, well, they're all existing development plans, they'll all be going through a period of review and updating. How fit for purpose are those 32 local development plans across Scotland? What's your sense of whether there's enough space and enough policy within those plans to facilitate 12 gigawatts of onshore wind? Maybe, I don't know where we're looking at, four gigawatts of solar? How fit for purpose? Is there a gap between what the NPF is saying and what's actually on the ground in terms of those 32 LDPs? Can I start with more on that one? If you've got examples of where you think LDPs are particularly facilitative of renewable energy, that'll be useful, or even ones where you think there isn't enough action, that'll be useful. We see a really mixed bag around the local development plans. We are still under the national planning framework 3 regime. We've seen quite a difference in what is in national policy and what comes through in local development plans. We can clearly look at a map of where onshore wind has been built in Scotland, and we can clearly map that against the local development plans that are not supportive. Specifically, if you look at Aberdeenshire Council area, for example, there's very little onshore wind and their local development plans historically have not been very supportive of it. Whereas, if you look at something like North Lanarkshire, for example, they have been extremely supportive of onshore wind and now have about £900,000 a year in community benefit coming into the local authority. Theoretically, the national planning framework 4 will start to address those anomalies and bring some consistency across the piece. Again, this has been a key issue that we have with planning. You can put into very similar planning applications into adjacent local authorities and get two very different results. What we've always asked for in the planning system is consistency. Please set rules, and we will follow the rules, but we just need the rules to be applied consistently and clearly, so everyone understands where they stand. At the moment, as I've given evidence to the committee before, as written in its current draft, the NPF 4 will not do that. It will bring more ambiguity and more uncertainty. The top-level principles that have been put into it are very good, and we are fully supportive of them, but the detail is simply not underneath to bring clarity and certainty to the system that we need. Is some of that inconsistency down to policy in the way that policy is interpreted, or is it down to politics? Will there be councils where elected members don't like onshore wind farms, reject it, knowing that the Scottish Government might pick it up on appeal and reconsider it? It's hard to get specific data on that, but we do consider that there is quite a degree of politics that goes on within that. Again, this is an interesting area for us, along with our sister organisation, Renewable UK, which will operate out of London. Specific research was done in the run-up to the local authorities to understand does supporting, particularly onshore wind, impact on how people vote and who they support in a local election? We find no evidence that it does, but there still seems to be a deep concern among elected officials at local authority level that supporting onshore wind is not a publicly supported thing, and it will somehow affect the public support, and that will be reflected in the ballot box. As an industry body, we really need to understand how the public thinks about what we do. That is why we always use independent research to understand not from industry but from externally how people view us. That is where we keep getting this consistent pattern of very high levels of public support for what we do, but the dichotomy in the planning system is not reflected. That is an on-going puzzle and dilemma for us as an industry. David Hammond, I am not going to ask you about the politics of your council, but is your LDP fit for purpose in terms of the aspirations that we now have for renewables? Will that need to go through further revision in order to create a space for renewable projects, or is it already forward-thinking in terms of the targets that have been set and where you want to get to? Thank you for the question. In terms of our own local development plan, it was adopted in 2019, so we are going through a process of reviewing that at present. Clearly, the position with national planning framework 4 will play very heavily into the policy context that we set within the revised local development plan. I think that our feedback from a North Ayrshire council perspective would be that NPF4 needs to have teeth to try to find a less crude term to put it. We need a very robust policy framework because things start to fall down in terms of local development plans as if there is not backing, and then we get into an appeals process for a particular renewable energy project, etc. Where there is not that robust policy framework to defend what planning application is in question. That is where, as far as I am probably prepared to go in terms of a statement on local politics, the technicalities of that appeal find themselves. I think that local development plans can certainly do more with that robust policy framework if that is set by NPF4. We need to have resourcing to do that, to repeat that point that has been made already. I would also make the point that there needs to be integration with the local development plan and the planning policy framework nationally with building regulations. We are looking at net zero or net zero friendly technologies within property, within buildings and where a building warrant is involved. I think that we need to have a tie-in then with planning policy and building standards policy and building regulations as well. I think that that would be helpful being tied together. David Rogers, Aberdeensha has been mentioned already. Do you have anything to add on your local experience of your members in working with LDPs and councils? First, I have just done the onshore wind piece. I think that attitudes are broadly changing because of the increased awareness of the impacts and the symptoms of climate change. I think that some of the historic views are there to be re-engaged with potential other developments. When I say other developments, they do not necessarily mean large-scale onshore wind. Even community-based wind farm operations are very beneficial to smaller groups of people and smaller communities, so I do not think that we should disregard those. On the planning piece, I wanted to comment on the short-term view and the long-term view for some of that. I just wanted to flag the work that Nestrans has done in taking a 20-year view of regional transport and creating a strategy there. I can share the link to the document after the session just as information for the submission. I would say that those are going to be issues that will face the generations ahead of us and those generations. We need to be thinking in the long term about the landscape in front of us right now. John Kerry made a quote when he was at COP26 last year. He talked about the need for unparalleled investment and collaboration to have any chance of abating the impacts of climate change and the symptoms of climate change. That is very true. We have a planetary objective that is all over the plans and the intentions in terms of delivering on a net zero future. Just as the starting point, we have a bit of custodianship of the planet to look forward to after those targets and those years are achieved to retain a longer-term ambition of a more sustainable planet. I think that if we can bring people and technology together in a way that we can make some of this work faster, it will be for both the societal, environmental and economic benefit all round. Thank you for that. Ultimately, it is about getting that route to market with individual projects. In terms of energy networks, Stephanie and Randolph, presumably some of your projects are not going to go near local authorities, because they will go straight to ministers for approval, but where do you see local development plans and that local planning role coming in? I do not think that I would add anything beyond what Ms Watson has already mentioned in terms of alignment with NPF4 and the wider duties. I am not sure that Randolph has anything to add. The only thing that I would say is that, from what I have seen, it is a completely mixed bag. The reasons for that, I am not really sure, but it really is a mixed bag. The level of network engagement in those plans is also mixed. We would very much advocate for there to be network involvement in them. In terms of the overarching national framework, having more detail makes sense. However, you do need to allow local nuance, because if you are looking at something like heating, you are going to have a real mixed bag. Some places will be electrified, some places may have district heat networks, some places which may be near a hydrogen cluster, for example, may end up having hydrogen heating. More detail in the overarching framework to drive consistency, but equally allowing enough local nuance. Final question is about the national public energy agency. It is obviously very early days with that, but as we are talking about development of LPs and a lot of the co-ordination and support that is going to be needed across public and private sectors, you would imagine the agency will have a role to play. Are there early indications about the role that that agency will be taking? Any early discussions? I do not know. I think that the most precise thing that we could say about it at the moment is that it is an emerging picture. That is very much reflected across the whole of heat energy efficiency and decarbonisation policy. It is emerging at the moment. It is our views, trade body, that there are some gaps that need to be joined together. We are looking at that gap analysis and speaking with our members. We expect the local energy agency to be part of the picture and to be one of the key pieces in the jigsaw, but precisely what form that will take at the moment is very much for us an emerging picture. It is hard to say with any certainty. Does anyone else want to come in before I head back to the convener? Similar view to Morag, to be honest. I guess the other thing is that the scope needs to be well defined and understanding the scope of that versus off-gem versus departments versus the future system operator, which was also announced in the Queen's speech, etc., is quite critical. Okay. Thank you very much, Mark. Let me bring in Monica Lennon to be followed by Natalie Dawn. Monica, please. Thank you, convener. There's no questions left. It's been a very long and interesting discussion. I want to thank the panel for your contributions, returning back to the open remarks from yourself, Morag Watson and Stephanie Anderson. You described planning, I suppose, as a barrier to development and you described what can be quite a long and slow process, but to put that into some context, do you have any up-to-date figures on how many applications are successful? The impression that I have is that it is still very much a pro-development culture that we have in Scotland and that the majority of applications are approved. Is that fair to say, Morag? Again, it's a bit of a mixed picture. If we speak with our members who work internationally, Scotland is seen as one of the best places in the world to develop onshore wind. It is well acknowledged that the Scottish Government and our Parliament are very supportive of net zero, the first country in the world to declare a climate emergency. That makes us a very attractive place in terms of things going through planning. One of the things that is quite unique around how onshore wind particularly is treated is that in planning system going to a public local inquiry on a planning application is very, very unusual, but it is very, very common if it is a renewable energy onshore wind application. Anything between a third to two thirds of them can go to public local inquiry, so those are very long processes. This is a real question mark that we have as an industry and something that we are starting to talk to other stakeholders about. That is a long and expensive process and very demanding on all parties involved. Is there a way that we can stop ourselves constantly ending up in these long legal processes? Yes, our planning regime is very good. It is very supportive, but it does have some anomalies and it does have some things that we could iron out what we want. Again, planning should always be a test. There is a series of tests that you must pass and if those tests are clear and you can pass them, you should get your consent. However, as we have said, one of the problems is that the tests are not always clear, sometimes they are open to interpretation. When you think that you have passed all the tests but it is interpreted that you have not, then we end up in these long-winded processes where it gets difficult. The clarity is the key thing. Are you saying that a disproportionate number of wind farm applications end up in a public local inquiry compared to other development? If you look at other developments of similar scales of similar kind of infrastructure, we certainly see more public local inquiries around onshore wind. When speaking to our legal members about this, onshore wind is unique in terms of infrastructure in our country. As the person I was speaking to said, it is big and it moves. There is nothing else in planning that is of a similar scale and also moves. It either moves and is smaller or it is big and static. That again is quite interesting in how our planning system deals with this particular kind of infrastructure and it seems to deal with it differently from how we deal with other things. Over the last decade or so there have been reforms to the planning system. We have seen that in primary legislation and there has been an emphasis on front loading so that there are lots of dialogue with applicants, developers, communities and planning authorities at the early stage. That is supposed to be the place where you can thrash out some of the detail to make sure that there is robust information and that that is reliable for everyone involved. Is that part of the process working as well as it should? As an industry, are you reflecting on what more you can do to build that confidence at the start? We know that planning has a difficult job to do to look at all sorts of competing interests. We know that those studies, whether it is looking at biodiversity or flooding, are expensive and they do take time. Can more be done to front load planning and is that something that you guys can contribute to? The answer that I gave to Ms Dunbar is that pre-application consultation is really valuable. The whole consultation process that we have in Scotland, again, is much admired around the world, particularly the public engagement aspects of it and people look to learn from what we do. We are, for example, in dialogue with our colleagues down south of the border. They are looking at our guidelines and our good practice guidance around that. It does work, but, as we have seen, when people become constrained for time, they will begin to retrench back into what they are required to do. Pre-application engagement is not a requirement, but it is very helpful. Again, that is not about a portioning blame. People have found themselves in very constrained circumstances. We had a financial crisis, and then we got hit by a global pandemic. That has been challenging for everyone. Those processes do work very well, but finding the capacity to do them can be a challenge. You have made an important point about time constraints. Perhaps I will come to David Hammond about that in a second. More earlier on, you talked about community benefit funds. You gave an example of £900,000. Do you agree that there is an opportunity for community benefit funding to increase? That could perhaps plug some of the gaps that we see in capacity building engagement in communities, but also with public sector partners, not just the planning authority. However, as we have seen and heard in the inquiry on the role of local government on the journey to net zero and looking at financing, it needs that cross-sectoral approach. Is there more that can be done to perhaps make community benefit funding a bit more generous? There is a blend of things that are happening in that space going forward. As the Scottish Government is considering a target for onshore wind of between 8 and 12 gigawatts, we as an industry advocate for 12 gigawatts. That is in line with the advice from the Committee on Climate Change. The Scottish Government is looking to do a sector deal, so we would expect forward thinking about community benefit to go into that sector deal discussions. At the moment, the current guidance stands, and that is what everyone works to. The other thing that the Scottish Government has a target around, which the industry fully supports, is that at least 50 per cent of new onshore wind developments that come forward should have an offer of a shared ownership with the community. For the recent projects that have come forward, that percentage is 59 per cent. That is beginning to become rather a familiar message for me. It is around capacity. While the developers can offer those opportunities, the capacity of a community to engage in them, particularly when onshore wind development can go on over several years, and that is a discussion that the community is trying to engage in over several years, often with people in their spare time and in a voluntary capacity, that can be a big ask of a community. Community Energy Scotland plays a very important role in that, in helping communities to take advantage of those. As we have already heard from other people on the panel, particularly David in the local authorities, there are different ways of communities getting involved, so it is not just that voluntary contribution in terms of finances, but that they are beginning to be able to have shared ownership to be able to look at what capacity the developer can bring into a community in terms of their expertise in helping communities to reach those aspirations that they might have, whether or not the money that comes via the developer can then be channeled into other net zero things such as, as we have seen in Fintree, where they did a huge amount around energy efficiency and so on. As an industry, we are keen that there should always be flexibility for the community, that it should be about the community having their own aspirations and what they want to do, and what capacity can we bring as an industry to that. That is always a balancing act between having guidelines and guidance, so everybody understands the rules of the game and there is good practice consistently, but still leaving that freedom for it to be done in different ways depending on what best suits the community where you are working. I will turn now to David Hammond. In this inquiry, we have had a lot of discussion about skills, expertise and capacity within local government and there is lots of good practice to celebrate, but I want to pick up the point that Morag Watson made there about time constraints and my questions for David Hammond. I can see David Rodger on my screen. David, you work in North Ayrshire Council and clearly the demands on the time of officers across the council are very high. To do that, the networking and engagement that we have heard about how do we free up time of local government officers so that they can engage in that work in a meaningful way and how do we get to a place where we do not just think of pockets of best practice as being the exception, how do we make sure that we can cascade that across local government and across the public sector so that we can learn from the best and improve David Hammond's questions? Thank you for your question, Ms Lennon. You have hit the nail on the head of your summary of the challenges facing local government officers. Sadly, there are no easy answers to that particular dilemma, but it is a question of prioritisation along with resource. I do not want to repeat what has already been said about the challenges around resource. We have already discussed the small nine and some of the options and opportunities to address that, but it is also a question of prioritisation, as I have said. Increasingly, within local authorities, we are seeing net zero and the sustainability agenda coming more to the four, and I think that that is to be welcomed. That aligns with national and emerging local policy objectives. To underline that with an example in my own home authority, we have just had a resurfle of chief officer remits to include sustainability within that chief officer portfolio, within my own portfolio, for the first time. To give it that profile, that level of attention and to help to divert what available resource there is to that. I think that we need to see more of that across the local government landscape and supported by elected members. We have got an opportunity to do that, obviously, with new administrations coming into play over the last couple of weeks following local government elections. You also raised a point, Ms Lennon, about best practice, which I think is a really important one. Morag has also mentioned that and about how we better share that experience and understanding so that other authorities and colleagues do not need to then do the same legwork for one to the better term that has already been done. For example, I mentioned that we have two solar farms that we are quite advanced with in terms of our planning consent, in terms of our grid connection application, in terms of our procurement process and specification, etc. We are probably in that area on the leading edge of local authorities in terms of those that we have spoken to in Scotland. We have had several approaches when that information is out there in the local government domain for us to share our experience really and to help other authorities to develop up their own similar projects. I suppose that what has come to our attention is that we have had several of those conversations now. Would it be easier to have one of those conversations once in the proper forum to share that experience? That comes back to Morag's point earlier about what infrastructure can we put in place to do that and to help to make it more easy for local government officers to find that platform, to share information and receive feedback. That would help to address your point, Ms Lennon, about efficiency and making the best use of officers' hard-pressed time by enabling those conversations and helping them to happen once. That is certainly a suggestion. I will pick up and mention my attendance at the SSN conference tomorrow. We have a few plenary sessions, so that is a question that I will pose to some of my colleagues at the conference tomorrow. I hope that that is helpful. That is very helpful, David. I am wondering what Moral is like in local government across the board. When we hear about planning for example in local government being a constraint in a barrier, I suppose that is quite demoralising for those who feel that they are probably working really hard and trying to be really helpful. How do we attract people into local government? We have had some really good discussions in this inquiry about the opportunities and the contribution that those who are working in local government can make to those really important national priorities. It is not just about those who are leaving school and leaving early education at a younger age. How can we attract people in who have got experience in other jobs and industries into local government? How important is that link between industry, education partners and local government to make sure that people know about those opportunities and those really exciting jobs? To give it a mention, there is a solar energy debate in the Parliament tomorrow, so hopefully the work that you are doing in North Ayrshire around solar farms can come up, but we do not want that to be a bit of a secret for those in the know. It is about making sure that that is more widely known. I think that people would feel that local government is an attractive and dynamic place to work. How do we get more people into local government? I think that that is a really welcome question and you will know that it is a question close to my heart as a fellow time planner by background. I think that my own observations on that question would be that I do not think that the public sector and in particular local government is necessarily an employer of choice for those who are graduating or working their way through higher education or looking to move into different spheres. I think that that leap from the private or the exchange between the public and private sector is generally or can be one way. Having made that leap personally from the private sector to the public sector, I think that I certainly had my eyes open to the criticisms that I had, myself, levelled at local government when I was working in the private sector and found myself with quite different views, experiencing the pressures and challenges facing public sector officers. I think that there is a body of work to do, as you suggest, within the education sector to help to educate around what various roles are available within local government, what local government has to offer in terms of alignment perhaps with people's values. On being a public servant, on contributing to issues and challenges facing society, for example, net zero and how working in local government you can play actually quite an important and direct role in helping to address those challenges. I think that that narrative is not yet as existent as we would like within the education sphere and that is something that collectively we would want to take a look at and how we get those messages in and to help to promote local government as an attractive place, which very much is to work. Despite the issues facing us that have been articulated already this morning, the colleagues that I work with are very much up for that challenge, very much thirsty for that challenge and very much picking their hands to the plough in addressing it. I would say that despite some of the criticisms that have been levelled at local government across the piece and where that has an impact on officers, we do develop a thick skin in the public sector, as you will know, and we are quite resilient to that. I think that you make an important point about how we flip and reframe that into more positive messaging about helping to be part of the solution. That is really helpful. Thank you. Natalie Dawn has confirmed that her questions have already been addressed, so that brings us to the end of our allocated time. Thank you very much for your patience and for taking part. Sorry that the session overruns slightly, but we covered a number of very valuable issues, so thank you very much for your insights. I will now briefly suspend the meeting to allow our panel to leave. Thank you. Have a good day. Welcome back everyone for the last item of today's public meeting, which is the consideration of a consent notification for a UK statutory instrument. The instrument is the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020, exclusions from market access principles regulations 2022, which has not yet been laid. The Scottish Government proposes to consent to this instrument, which, as the clerks paper explains, would facilitate its new legal regime banning most single-use plastics. A protocol has been agreed between the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament to address situations where the Scottish Government is proposing to consent to certain types of secondary legislation made by the UK Government. The protocol sets out how the Scottish Parliament may scrutinise those decisions. There is a statutory requirement that the Scottish Government's consent must be sought for this proposed instrument, and I refer members to paper 6. I now move to the substantive question for the item. Is the committee content that the provision set out in the notification should be made in the proposed UKSI? Are we agreed? Yes. That is agreed, thank you very much. We will write to the Scottish Government to that effect. Does the committee agree to seek further information in the letter that we write to the Scottish Government to clarify certain issues? That is agreed. Thank you. Is the committee content to delegate authority to me to sign off a letter to the Scottish Government informing it of our decision today? That is agreed. Thank you very much. I now close the public meeting. Thank you.