 Good morning everyone and welcome to the sixth meeting of the local government community's committee. Can I remind everyone to turn off mobile phones and as the meeting papers are provided in digital format tablets may be used by members during the meetings so that's what you'll see as you're doing if you see on the electronic devices this morning, we'll get a full house again this morning and no apology will be received from MSP members and we move straight to agenda item 1 which is subordinate legislation. The committee will take evidence on the council tax substitution of proportion Scotland order 2016. I welcome this morning councillor Kevin Kearney, spokesperson for resources and capacity and Jonathan Sharma, policy manager at COSLA, Paul Manning, Scottish local government partnership and executive director of finance and corporate resources at South Lanarkshire Council, Derek Yw, director of finance, Highland Council and current chair of SIPFA, finance. Finally, Dave Watson, head of policy and public affairs, Unison Scotland. Good morning, gentlemen. Thank you for coming along to give evidence on this statutory instrument. We will get a few opening, hopefully brief statements to allow us to get more time for questions. Can I ask councillor Kearney to make his statement? Thank you for that. Obviously, COSLA welcomed the opportunity to come along here to present our case. Given the written evidence, we are here to take questions on that in way of support. If I can just say a few things that we think the reform does not go far enough, we believe that the Government needs to publicise the increases that they intend to make in band E and above by a way of multiplier. We need to clearly know whether there is a multiplier factor going on to water charges, and perhaps some or other colleagues will be able to talk on that more technically. We think that the changes that are imposed on local government by a way of tax to fund a national project breaks the link between local taxation and delivering local services. We believe that there could have been a much more fairer and more equitable way to deliver those level of changes. Indeed, the commission that was worked on between COSLA and the Scottish Government had a number of proposals that we would like to see implemented that would have been much fairer moving forward. I will just leave it at that. Thank you very much. Thank you. Again, I welcome the opportunity to give evidence this morning. Similarly, our point of view will come from the professional perspective and the challenges of implementing. One of my focuses would be on the accountability of the tax proposals and the perceived fairness of those and some of the challenges that that might present. Again, I would highlight that the water issue is one issue that we feel the Scottish Government has not addressed in the proposal set at all completely silent on that issue. In terms of ease of implementation of the proposed changes, clarification of that, we would see as a major issue depending on how the Government wishes to proceed. That is all that I wish to say at this stage. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr Vio. Finally, Dave Watson. Can I say at the outset that Unison welcomes the end of the council tax free, something that we argued for some time. We also welcome some improvement in the progressivity of the bans and we support anything that helps low-income households cope with increases in council tax. However, there is a but as you will not be surprised. That is that we have always argued for a full review of the council tax, not just frankly a few tweaks. We do not believe that the ban changes are progressive enough. We are particularly concerned that there is to be no revaluation leaving the bans at 1991 values. We do not like the proposals, essentially for ring fencing of the 100 million revenues from additional banding or the cap on the council tax increase. We believe that that undermines local democracy. Essentially, we believe that the Government should treat local government as local government and not as local administration. Thank you very much, Mr Watson. I think that Mr Watson is making some reference to the council tax reduction scheme in terms of helping lower-income families. For clarity, although we may need to ask questions in relation to that, we have some comments to make on it. Any information that we get in relation to that, we will give to the Social Security Committee, who is looking at the statutory instruments in relation to that. To put on the record the terms of reference of our call for evidence, which does not restrict you from additional comments, we asked overall, do you support the principle of the Government's plans to reform council tax? To what extent will the Government's proposed reforms make the council tax system fairer? To what extent will the changes be straightforward for local authorities to implement? Do you support the Government's plan changes to council tax reductions and any additional comments? Of course, we will get written evidence around those headings. Thank you very much for that. Can we move to our first question from Graham Simpson? Just to start off, I will declare an interest in that I am a councillor still in South Lanarkshire. Can I ask you, Gents and any one of you, or all of you, can answer around the costs of implementation, what you think there will be and do you think at the end of this that any councils will lose money? We are delighted for you all to answer, but you do not have to all answer. I should point out that there are five of you, but who would like to start on that? We are hoping that councils will not lose money and that you would be supportive of the suggestion that the Government should pick the tab up for any administration cost. We believe that there will be administration costs and there is on-going work at the moment to gather those costs together. A plea would be that councils do not lose out and that the administration costs are picked up by the Scottish Government, perhaps somebody can give them their technical coverage on how they believe that those costs will be accumulated but at the moment they are being gathered up. Thank you, that is council care. Derek Yl. Thank you. To add to that, as council care says, costs have been collected just now. I think that one point that I would make is that I think that probably every council in the country would say that they are not fully funded for the administrative costs of council tax reduction scheme at the moment. Again, we would stick with the request that the changes are fully funded. I think that I would refer to the point that I made earlier about water, because in terms of system changes and the cost of changes to our systems, we see that as a fundamental issue if the multiplier were not to apply to water charges. I think that there is a possibility that we would end up with two different sets of billing if we are applying different bannies for council tax. While we are collecting information, that is a major point for us in terms of further clarification required. If water is treated differently from council tax, there are huge efficiencies at the moment in collecting that together in a single bill. If we introduce differential charging, that will create a major problem. To add to Councillor Keenan's comments on the administration costs, in terms of council tax reduction, there is obviously going to be an additional caseload, and there will be a processing and administrative cost for that. You are also likely to have more people contacting authorities to say that they do not understand the system, and there will obviously be an administrative burden in trying to deal with that. Potentially following on from that, you will have issues around people lacking the ability to pay the increased charges, and that may spill over into a cost for councils. Keith, thank you very much, Mr Manning. Mr Shalmer? Yes, it was just to add to the comments, just to say that we are undertaking an exercise at the moment with a number of representative councils to look at the costs. The Scottish Government officers are quite well aware of that, and they are anticipating receiving something from us fairly shortly. We are committed to producing something that is robust and recognises the genuine additional costs that we think that councils are going to occur as a result of this, so that is the piece of work that is happening at the moment. The only small point that I would add, too, is that we represent the staff who would have to administer these changes, and I have to say that they are already under considerable pressure as a result of the salami slicing and staffing levels, so any additional workload would need to be funded. Mr Shalmer, interesting what you say there. Have you got a time scale for this piece of work? Effectively, within the next week or so, we will be producing something back to Scottish Government. We will then need to discuss the process for how those costs then get looked at further and how that feeds into any of the spending review discussions that are going on at the moment, so we will have to find a way how that goes into that process. Are you trying to get an overall figure of additional costs across Scotland, or is it authority by authority? We will work it up from the sample, so we have tried to make sure that the sample is representative, covers city councils, covers rural, covers the different types of council and their scale. We will build that up to give a full Scotland picture, and that is what we will put to the Government officers. It will be useful for the committee to have that information, I think, convener, once it is ready. Thank you, convener. I will carry on from what we have just discussed. For that to work effectively, there needs to be a good communication policy at council level and at government level. I am not quite aware yet what the Government is planning to put out, but what are you planning to deal with in your own areas to ensure that there is a good communication network between yourself and your taxpayers to ensure that there is no confusion, because otherwise you will get an awful lot more phone calls to your call centre, you will have to deal with the whole aspect of relief that people may have to deal with in that whole process, and time is tight between now and its implementation. What areas in communication do we have in hand and what areas in communication do we see as potential problems in pitfalls as we move forward? That we believe that the Government is its tax that will increase the extra burden on the bands from EU upwards, that they need to clearly publicise what they intend to do and make sure that individuals across Scotland know exactly what is expected and what they will pay. Obviously, we are here today to ensure that whether the multiplier is added to water, and if that is the case, then that will be another part of that communication that the Government needs to put out. We feel that it is its responsibility as it is its tax and its programme of work that it intends to fund through using local government, although we think that it breaks the link to that local tax being used in local areas, because it might be collected and handed out in other parts of the country. We will maybe get some more comments on that in a moment. I know that some other members want to ask about public awareness and communication. I will move on to that in a second, but just to finish on the line of questioning that Mr Simpson was going down, has there been any discussions between COSLA and the Scottish Government in relation to administrative costs? Personally, I have not been part of the spending review costs, but I would imagine that a meeting that will probably happen today is something that the president of COSLA will be raising with Derek Mackay. It is on our radar to make sure that we try to get a resolve. It has not been formally raised yet, but you intend to do that, possibly even today? No, I am not sure what it is formally. I am no part of the negotiating team that is negotiating on the spending review at this moment in time. However, as we see costs coming in the direction of COSLA, we are usually quick enough to try to address them with Government. Clearly, the committee would be keen to know that the Government is listening to the representations that you are making, which is why I was specifically asking whether those representations had actually been made yet. Obviously, you are not in a position to confirm that. It would be quite helpful if we could get that information, because that would help to inform us when we take evidence from Derek Mackay. I think that it is next week that we do that. I suppose that the only other thing that I would say—it is me asking this question, but there is a running joke with MSP sometimes that when additional responsibilities are put on to local government that COSLA goes high with the actual cost and the Government goes low with the actual cost and the actual cost sits somewhere in between. It becomes a negotiating position almost in terms of cost recovery. I am just wondering, in terms of the discussions that you have with the Scottish Government, will you share with them your modelling work in relation to cost and sit-down with Scottish Government officials to see if you have an agreed methodology and approach in framework to that, rather than just a number of merging? I think that that has always been the case where we would share the method of how that is collected. You obviously heard from Mr Sharma on how that was intended to work up the figure that we intend to present. We are not trying to hide anything and the costs that we present. I do not think that we would give overly inflated prices when we try to recover the actual costs, but that will be a matter of opinion. I just wanted to give you the opportunity to put that on the record. I might add to that. My expectation would be that, through COSLA collating the information, the world would agree of sense check applied to the figures to see that there is a consistent approach coming through from councils so that the figures look reasonably robust and are justifiable. Certainly, in experience in previous Government fundings, I recognise the point that you make. Certainly, I have been aware of fairly robust challenging from civil servants in terms of what local government is putting forward—an equally fairly strong defence justification of figures that are put forward. I would have anticipated a similar sort of discussion taking place. I think that it is important before we put forward figures that they do have that sense check applied to them, first of all. I shall help on Mr Manning. You represent four local authorities, not in COSLA. Are you looking at costs for your local authorities? What is happening with the Scottish local government partnership? We are looking at costs for our authorities. In terms of what I can tell you, it is reflected in the submission that we have given. The software suppliers that we are working with have advised that the main amendments should be deliverable within the timescales that they have to be. The risk issue—this is what gives a difficulty, I think, in defining a cost in part relates to the waste and wastewater issue. Again, as we have said in our submission, if we are left in a position where we have to maintain dual multipliers, as in different multiplier rates for water and for council tax, that represents an additional and a significant challenge. It is that uncertainty at this point that I think prevents me from giving you a definitive figure. To be fair, I do not think that we are asking for the figure, but we are asking that those discussions take place with the Scottish Government. Just finally, in relation to the methodology that the Scottish local government partnership uses, will it be the same as the methodology that COSLA uses? In essence, we are working with the same software suppliers. We are going to be dealing with the same administration issues. I do not see that there would be any difference in methodology in terms of working out the cost. Okay, so we should not expect variation in figures. I think that there is a conversation that takes place between the four local authorities and COSLA in relation to that. In terms of dialogue between the four local authorities and government on spending review issues— Sorry, sorry, with COSLA. Right, with COSLA, and from the perspective of dialogue with COSLA—no, I am not involved in direct dialogue with COSLA on this—we make representation to the Government through the settlement and distribution group. I want to follow on a little bit from what Alexander Stewart was talking about in terms of awareness. There has been no change in the multiplier since 1993. There has been no change in the rate of council tax since the freeze in 2007. There are new council tax reduction liability criteria being introduced. There is a question of the redistribution of receipts to other local authorities. There is a question that you raised about water and sewerage charges. The question that I have is that there are two distinct elements of public awareness here. There is one of general public awareness that is happening and those changes are coming into play. Then there is a question about how you communicate that directly to council tax payers. To what extent do you think that we need a public awareness exercise that alerts people to the fact that those changes are all being made and to anticipate them? To what extent do you think that you can communicate the actual changes and why they are being made on the actual council tax billing that you send out to people? One of the comments that we got in the tax commission that I sat on was that council tax payers did not feel that they were getting as much information as they could or that it was not presented in a way that was easily digestible with modern infographics. Is there a job that you could do there? The first question is about the general awareness campaign to anticipate that the public can know that this is all happening. Can we come to Dave Watson first? Was it sure that members in the front line would have to deal with those telephone calls explaining why bills have changed and altered and increased? Mr Watson? Yes. As we said in our evidence and into our evidence to the commission and elsewhere, one of the challenges of the council tax is that people receive a bill, it's not like VAT or income tax when it's deducted from source and therefore people are going to be faced this year with some, in many cases, quite big changes and there's a huge amount of concern among the staff. A range of staff, it's not just those, there is some work in call centres as Mr Stewart pointed out but there's an awful lot of staff also in what we call the front line in terms of the one-stop shops and places like that who people just come in off the street and obviously raise those issues. Staff are concerned that there's going to be a heightened concern when people get that. People frankly don't always understand it, remember we've come off a very long council tax freeze and therefore this will be a change, albeit there has been the water element as colleagues have indicated. What we are seeing more generally has been an annual survey of abuse and violence demonstrates a significant increase in recent years in both verbal and physical abuse towards local authority staff. It's gone up fairly significant year on year and clearly therefore we're very concerned about that. What we accept that at present there are a lot of uncertainties are still things to be sorted out and therefore the detail might not be there but we do think with this type of communication exercise you can't start too soon and therefore we would urge and we don't frankly care what it's a government council whoever does it but we would urge a very major communication effort to explain the changes so that it's not our members who get the grief on the doorstep. I think that if local government make a choice to put up council tax themselves and they're held at 3% then a band E in that area could see itself going up to by 10.5%. I think it's incumbent on government to make sure that they take the responsibility for the part that they're putting up. That being the 7.5% that they're adding and that they need to communicate that to people. Obviously within the sort of limited letter that goes out via council tax no doubt council will try their best to explain that that proportion is in relation to the government policy but that's pretty limited. I think that the government itself need to take the responsibility and try to make sure that people that are likely to see a 20 odd percent increase because the higher band that they sit on having had a council tax resource along that that change is happening and that they should expect a bill. Any sort of increase at that level will need to be alarming no matter how much money we believe someone sitting in a band E to F or whatever have got in their pocket. People live to the expectation and I think they'll appreciate having a bill like that coming in their direction but it's a responsibility of government to make sure that they're aware. I would strongly advise the Scottish Government to take responsibility and ownership of the policy and to explain that clearly. I think that councils will do what they can but you will end up with 32 different messages going across there. I think that I would strongly advise the government to put out a message that it clearly explains what the policy objective is. I think that one of the points that I made in the submission was about accountability and for any tax system to work well there needs to be clear accountability and I think the fear that I have is the confusion that will be created in the public mind if councils take the opportunity to increase tax by 3 per cent so the government has placed a cap on that so it won't just be the impact of the multiplier it will be the up to 3 percent increase as well that will cause confusion in the public mind and I think the fundamental policy change of the redistribution of the 100 million nationally I think we've already seen how the depressive reacted to that funding in one council area going to another council area and how that's been perceived so I think that potentially presents us with additional challenges in collection not just in terms of the scale of the increase but how public perceive what it effectively up to now has been a local tax for local services the idea of that being redistributed in the money going to other council areas will give an additional challenge and I think how the public react to that will have to be fairly very clearly explained to them. Okay thank you much Mr Neil. Anyone else want to come in relation to that Paul Manning? The risk of repeating what Derek just said essentially there is likely to be confusion over what is increasing in people's bills and I think on behalf of the four councils we would look to the government to play a part in publicising the reasons for these increases in the logic behind them. Okay I've got a supplementary on that but Andy do you want to develop that line of questioning? Thank you for that. In relation to the water and sewerage charges you say that the government's been silent on any changes to that can we assume therefore that given this order has been tabled and orders need to be tabled in good time to be ready for the next financial year that any changes to the water and sewerage charges would themselves require an order as I understand it under the Water Industry Scotland Act 2002 and therefore if no such order has been tabled or no information has been given that it will be tabled it's fair to assume that there will be no change to the charging regime for water and sewerage. I have no reason to doubt Mr Wightman at all but that would seem fairly clear if accurate so did you have any more information on that I mean you just said you didn't know so that's and I think that's basically we don't know and I think the point that you make is entirely right it's the uncertainty I think my understanding is yes it is a separate order for water that charges set nationally I suppose we're trying to differentiate team what the actual charge is and how that's applied at the moment to the eight council tax bans and it's the banding question I think we probably have most uncertainty over my anticipation I guess was that the multiplier would apply as well and there's potentially significant additional income will be raised in terms of water and sewerage charges unless the government reduces the actual actual rate the proportion I couldn't tell you off and what the proportion is but if the multiplier is going to raise an additional 100 million in council tax then there will be significant additional summaries for water and sewerage unless the rate itself is lowered okay thank you mistery can I just check you said the legislative position you're fairly certain there would have to been order laid for a multiplier to be added to to water and sewerage that's great that's your understanding that's my understanding yes I would have expected that and I think we do need clarity on that that hasn't happened no right that hasn't happened have you asked the Scottish Government not personally no no we haven't raised that with them yet I thought I think through cosley that the point has been raised with civil servants that they are aware of that but there's been no response yet to and I think that's from the civil servants in the water water element of the Scottish Government that we would be expecting clarification of that well hopefully we'll get clarity next week off off the cabinet secretary but it would appear that if you need to lay an order in relation to making this happen the order hasn't been laid it's not been intimated it's going to happen as far as we understand 100 million pounds raised isn't based on water or sewerage charges then it would appear that it's not going to happen so could it be a red herring I don't think it's a red herring in terms of the administration of the water charges because to me there's a question of how much you raise as a as a charge and how it's applied to the property bandings as they stand at the moment so there's two separate elements of that either way there's uncertainties yes yes sorry Andy White we'll call you back in there yes just as you said you mean the bands are not changing there's still eight bands and there's a rate charged by Scottish Water for that band the question is whether there will be an impact on Scottish Water's charging regime which may not require a separate order that may be Scottish Water who decide that for themselves I don't know no I think that's right it is generally matter for them I think the question I'm posing is how it's implied what the implications are if we're applying the existing council tax bandings which are applied at the moment to water as well or whether the multiplier is applied to the elements charged for water okay um on this point Graham Simpson yeah yes so if the new multiplier isn't applied to water that makes it all the more confusing for you to implement that would give us a major problem I think we potentially envisage a doubling up of the bills we'd have to issue separate bills for water and storage or they would be significant software implications of that and that would give us concerns in terms of the timescale for implementation okay so we definitely need clarity on yes on that point can I follow up on it's the same sort of issue if it's on this this does anyone want to go in the public are we on this aspect of it before we before walk point well it's the public awareness really um so from what you what you were saying gentlemen um what are we right in thinking that you'd you would like to be able when you send out the council tax bills to say an element of this is down to the scottish government so this bit is down to the scottish government this bit is down to your local council I would suggest that it would be fair to do that I would hope that the scottish government would put out publication in advance of that to make people aware of an awareness programme to make people aware in advance of the council task going up that's the bit that is set by government once it goes through parliament it will be in play the the other part of the bill that will come with be if council increased their council tax within the cap that is put on from the scottish government as well but we believe that council that the government should go out early and make sure that people are aware while I'm asking councillor Kenan is is when the council tax bills go out and perhaps the finance directors here may know this are you actually allowed to separate it down in the way I'm suggesting now might be answered fair point fair political point of view I think that a few year ago Aberdeen done something differently obviously got challenged and I don't think there was any backlash on on that so I would suggest that council would be in a position that the 32 different messages that go out are probably based on 32 political differences and hence the reason that the message would be better put out for the government in which case it would be clear. I'm going to hold back from my supplementary on this Kenneth Gibson I mean I think public awareness isn't going to be an issue there's a local authority elections next year and I think there'll be plenty of coverage of this in the media and no doubt political parties will certainly mention it on their on their campaign literature. I mean so councillor Kenan are you suggesting that the Scottish government should say we're responsible for X percentage increase in your council tax for example to band E tax payers do you think they should then put also put out a letter to people in A to D saying by the way we're no go putting your tax up as a local council's fault that it's going to be 3% I mean that's the other side of this coin isn't it becomes too surely it would be interpreted as far to political you know vertically political in that regard with by you're suggesting the Scottish government effectively takes the blame for putting council taxes up after nine year freeze for people from E to H but should that not mean they should then for take the credit for nope for continuing to freeze it from A to D? Well influence what the Scottish government puts out is in their communication but I think that there is a message that's incumbent upon them to make sure that they are responsible for telling people the taxes that they intend to implement you know and if they want exercise about further or go about further than that and claim some other credit in some way they can feel free to do so. Okay Dave what's other MSPs wanting to have a supplementary on this if you've got their interest with those answers Mr Watson? If I could I mean our position has always been that you know and we said it in our evidence that the council tax is difficult politically we understand that the challenges with politicians which is why we've always argued to seek a cross-party consensus on on reforming the council of tax because we understand this ain't easy. I think you know frankly we're we're our members certainly would be less interested in who's to blame I understand the argument that obviously this is Scottish government I think an argue on wisely ring fencing a chunk of that money so that the I think councils are entitled to to explain what we'd call for however is is that for government and councils when you're going to when the tax is going to increase particularly after such a long freeze I think it's very important we don't just focus on the fact that it's going up it's what it pays for you know what it's doing a good communication is about saying to people that actually I know it's a difficult message but tax is actually a good thing it's council tax may be tricky but it's a good thing it pays for good things it pays for the things that you and your children want whether it's education social work or anything else and I think we should be focusing on that as a communication message rather than frankly getting into a political rami about who's responsible for what bit of it. Okay, I don't know if Mr Maring wants to to add anything to that. How do we avoid a political rami Mr Maring? That's a leading question. What can you do to avoid that happening Mr Maring? Right, I feel on the spot now. With the council tax bill there is an obligation to put out amounts to an explanatory accompanying note or letter which details the background to the council tax figure and local authority expenditure. I would have thought in each of the 32 local authorities given that this is the first time in almost 10 years there will be any increase in council tax and it may come from two different directions there is going to have to be or there is going to be within each authority a step taken to say this relates to the amount which is coming from a decision taken by the council and this relates to an amount coming from a decision taken by the Government. That would be an explanatory accompanying material that goes out but I don't think on the face of the council tax bill. Can I just check something? I know witnesses here may have wished the Scottish Government to go further than they have gone but I am assuming or maybe I shouldn't assume that witnesses here support local authorities being able to increase the council tax once more. Is there a general consensus in relation to that? The consensus may splinter in relation to where that should be capped at 3 per cent. We might explore that later but is there a general consensus that the council tax should start to increase it again? Is there a consensus that the multipliers for bands E to H should be more progressive than they have been in the past? Is there a consensus in relation to that? Does anyone disagree with having an additional multiplier put to one side who gets the money and how the money is used? Does anyone actually disagree in relation to a rebanding multiplier for bands E to H? I do not disagree with that but I do not think that it goes far enough with the point of view that if there will be quite a number of properties across the country that have been extended by an endless amount and a revaluation scheme. When it comes to discount schemes or whatever, local government's proposals are the proposals that were moved forward. There are more checks and balances to see that the thing was delivered much more fairly. Do you want to check on this one? I want to get to a final point in relation to this. Everyone here agrees that local authorities should be able to increase their council tax against their choose to. Everyone agrees that there should be valuations to one side, revaluations—I have no doubt that we will come in to look at that this morning. Everyone agrees that there should be an alteration to the rebanding multiplier for E through to H. Does anyone disagree with that here today? I do not need a case of just doing E to H. There needs to be a review across all the bands. At the moment, £40,000 has a £400,000 and the difference is only three. If you look at, for example, the spice briefing and the commission's report, they showed a number of different modelings. We urge Government to look at those modelings rather than just look at those four bands. If your question is, are we in favour of greater progressivity, then the answer is yes. I do not think that COSLA agrees with the fact that it is only within those three bands that there needed to be someone that went further. If everyone agrees that there should be council tax increases again, if everyone agrees that there has to be greater progressivity, what we are debating is whether the current Scottish Government proposals go far enough. I put to one side, and I think that Elaine Smith is going to look at this in terms of local democracy in relation to how that money will or won't be spent. The conversation that we have had for the last 20 minutes seems to be in relation to everyone agrees that council tax should go up. It should be more progressive, it is going to happen, but we seem to be in a blame game about who is fault it is rather than collegially working between the Scottish Government, COSLA and the local government partnerships. I ask whether there have been any discussions between COSLA and the local government partnership and the Scottish Government in relation to how they could work together to promote the system. Having for a friend the letter that drops through the letterbox of every household with their council tax bill could have an agreed insert between the Scottish Government and each local authority. That might even be standardised to make it more efficient to produce. Is that outwith the realms of achieving in taking some, where we can, some of the politics out of it? For the point of view of me representing COSLA, I would like to see local government having the ability to decide whether it raises or freezes or whatever without the Government imposing those things on them. It is really COSLA's position. It might well be that we have members who can continue with a council tax freeze for a period. It might well be that others would have preferred to put it up more than the demand that it has been. It is about local democracy and local accountability and what is being presented by a Government does not allow that. I will take Elaine Smith in for the next question in relation to that in a second, but that is not the question that I asked to be fair. The question that I asked is whether there have been any conversations with COSLA and the local government partnership, with the Scottish Government, saying that we all agree that the direction of travel is correct. There are significant caveats in relation to revaluation, whether all the bans should be looked at rather than E to H. We can have discussions about the council tax reduction scheme and how we move on in relation to that. I hope that that question goes up from members here today, but in some respects there is significant agreement between Government and local authorities. Have local authorities via COSLA a local government partnership spoken about a joint approach to publicising that? We can have a debate about who pays for that government or otherwise. I am not suggesting that councils should necessarily pay for it, but has there been any representation that the Scottish Government is saying that it lets to a joint approach and that it lets the politics out of that, because there is a huge amount that you agree on? Has there been any representation? I do not think that there has been any. There has not been any move from Government either to suggest on how it would prefer us to handle it in any way, either. I will ask the same question to Derek Mackay next week, in relation to that. Is that Mr Yotite in a second, but Mr Manning, I did mention your organisation as well? Yes, I am not aware of any dialogue. Would that be a good thing for local government partnership to do? I think that it is a step that represents common sense moving forward. That is really helpful. Do you think that that would be a good move as well? Partnership working could still happen even in relation to this. Mr Yotite, sorry, I cut you off. No, it is fine. I think that I was going to succumb it from a practitioner perspective rather than a political perspective. I think that it would have helped if there had been an early dialogue for us to understand what the Government's thinking was behind this. I think that it appeared as an announcement rather focusing on the 100 million, and then we got into all sorts of debates about what that meant for local accountability and what not. I think that we would have liked to have understood what the reason behind why was the figure, what was the political directive behind that. One of the accusations or jokes that I always made about accountants is that you look at an issue and say, what is the point of view of what the answer is, and it struck me as the answer was 100 million, and then it worked backwards to see what changes we have made to the multiplier to get there. I think that we would have liked to have understood why that was being proposed and, as I said in the submission, I think that we would like to go that further, but we are more than happy to work with the Government in terms of how we can best implement it. Thank you for putting on the record. Before the ladies, thank you for your patience. Before we move to the local democracy angle with McGuire, do you have a final supplementary relation to that? Thanks, convener. We have moved on a little bit, but it was around the directorate of finance evidence in that it would be fairly easy to implement, but we have heard some stuff there about the complications around actual collection. I just wanted to be clear what those were if it was around the clarification that was needed on the water and sewage and whether there would need to be two bills. Intuitively, the thought of having messages about where your tax was coming from on people's bills sounded like it would not be helpful in a practical sense in taking the political out of it, so that was really just what I was wanting to hear about. Okay, anyone want to come in in relation to that? I think that that was the point. From the discussions that we have had with software supplies, we do not think that there is a particular material change in the core structure of what there are very few council tax systems, and there are only a few suppliers of the software. It seems to us to be a fairly straightforward change to make. Without going back to what I said, I think that the big complication would be if you had a different multiplier effectively of bandings in relation to water charges. I think that it is something that we are very strong to emphasise. The economy is the scale of doing billing on behalf of Scottish water for water and sewage. It is a much more effective way of collection, and we would certainly want to see that continuing. However, I just want—it was important for the committee to understand that. What we would anticipate has been the single biggest challenge in implementing the proposed changes. Anyone else need to add to that? Okay, no takers. Alexander Stewart, sorry, I missed my list. We have had such a lengthy freeze. Is there any anticipation that when the new bills go out and the charges change, council tax collection varies across the 32 local authorities? It has been quite standardised because of the freeze. Is there anticipation that there could be a backlash and that there may be a reduction on the collection rate that councils may end up having because of that? I would flag it up as a risk. How big a risk it is, I am not entirely sure. We have had some insight to the Government's calculation and it assumes a 97.1 per cent collection level, which is a Scottish average. I think that you are also looking at the upper end. In terms of ability to pay, we would see that as a stronger group in terms of payment. I know from my own authority that we have a significant proportion of customers in those four bannings paying by direct debit. I would highlight it as a risk. I think that my key point is round about accountability and how people perceive the fairness of the changes. You are talking about significant increases. I think that it is back to the communication. If people understand why they have been asked to pay more, then you have more chance of collecting the tax if people accept it. I think that you only have to go back to poll tax or community charge to see what happened when you had a tax situation that people did not accept. I am not suggesting for one minute that these changes are anything like that, but I think that it highlights that people's perceptions of a tax, whatever the taxes, has to be seen to be fair and understood. Otherwise, you get into potential challenges. Any other witnesses who want to add to that before we move to Elaine Smith? Thank you, convener, which brings us nicely into moving on. I thank you all for coming to help us with a scrutiny of that. If we put the 3 per cent to one side, just in terms of what everyone has been speaking about, because if local authorities decide to use up to 3 per cent, then they will obviously justify that themselves and justify what they are going to spend on, what their decisions are, to the local communities that they serve. I will set that aside if we look at the changes to the higher bands. We took some evidence last week. Questions were asked and answered about whether it was more progressive or less regressive. Was it a fairer thing to do? I would be quite interested in comments on that. I have specific questions for Dave Watson, but could I just pick up on something that was being explored earlier with Councillor Kenan? So, back to the issue of, I suppose, blame justification, who is responsible for this element of the extra funding that people are going to be paying. Do you think that the councils would be happy with—would they think that it was more progressive? Would they be happy to implement those changes to the higher bands, if in fact they then decided where the funding was going? Is it the issue around local democracy and local decision making, that in some ways it may be seen as a sort of reverse—I think that I used that term last week—a reverse ring-fencing whereby councils are going to be adding the funding on? The Government is going to then rather than give you extra money for ring-fencing for some policy decision that they want delivered, they are actually going to then take that and deliver it on the attainment fund. Is that the basic issue? I think that there is a real issue in local democracy. We are obviously elected and we should have the ability to make the decisions to deliver for the individuals that we represent. I think that there is, at times, a need for a collective in the best interests of Scotland and that these could be discussed. That looks to be something that is imposed on local government. The attainment challenge looking to improve attainment levels is something that is at the forefront of every local authority. I think that we would be looking at ways to deliver that. We talked earlier about how we could do things differently for the partnership. I think that there would have been that level of opportunity if there had been a level of discussion. Clearly, the COSLA and members of the Scottish Government got involved in looking at a commission to decide on how to replace council tax, and we do not think that that goes far enough. It does, in some aspects, look like there is a ring-fence money across government. You might hear that from a number of other councils that say teacher numbers, police numbers or other areas where they feel that local spend is curtailed because there is an element of demand of government. There needs to be some level of demand of local government if we are moving in partnership together. Would you be more relaxed with this change to the bands if your members then got to decide what to do with the extra funding? I think that there is an element in local government that we prefer to deliver fairness, and hence the reason that there was a number of checks and balances that went into the proposals that we put forward jointly. That would have seen the ability to discount in areas. Allowing that local amount of flexibility, we believe, would have made a difference and brought around a much fairer tax. I think that it is very much a political issue in terms of Government policy, but it is fair to say that councils generally would have welcomed the additional flexibility budgets that are becoming under greater and greater pressure. I think that that is where you get the difference between what is local spending priorities and what is national government priorities. One of the issues that I would flag up is community empowerment, and that policy direction of travel, because the Government has also indicated that it wishes 1% of council budgets to be determined locally. I do have a question as to where that sits on one hand against something that would perceive as maybe a greater centralisation of policy there. There seems to me to be a slight conflict there, and I think if we are looking at 1% funding to be determined locally, how that sits with something or policy that is raising council tax, which is then going for a national policy and being redistributed. I think that there is a potential conflict there. I think that that is back to that point about communication and how those varying policies fit together. On flexibility, had that been given to local authorities or had they had the discretion to use this money, it would have been much-needed flexibility during a period of time when our finances are being squeezed, but the perception is that it has gone towards a centrally determined priority. If there was extra funding found for the centrally determined priority that wasn't the funding in these bands at local level, would that be more acceptable? If it was separate money that was coming from the Government towards the local government settlement, I think that that would be more acceptable. That would be a move back to ring fencing, but with extra money for a Government priority to be delivered by local agencies, if you like. From the perception that it is Government money funding a Government priority. Okay, thanks. Could I turn to Dave Watson, convener, if you don't mind? Just looking at unison submission, is it on the same theme, unison or shame on the submission, that you're supportive of the Government's aim to close the attainment gap, ring fence, while you're supportive of that ring fence and money raised by local taxation contravened to the principle of local control over local taxation? Could you maybe just expand on that? Our position, we've always opposed the ring fencing of funds. You can argue that it's a sort of reverse ring fencing, but nonetheless it's essentially a form of ring fencing and we're actually welcome. Scottish Government made some moves some years ago to reduce a lot of the bitty bits of funds and we welcomed that, but then when putting back in with police numbers, teacher numbers and the council tax freeze, of course, was all a form of ring fencing. Local Government is not the same as an NDPB or another Government department. You know, councillors are directly elected, they're responsible to their electorates. Local taxation, I think Andy Wightman and others have made the point about the charter for local government. There are principles here, which do apply across Europe and elsewhere, that local government raises its taxes for its local priorities. I think if central government wants to identify its own priorities, it wants to influence policy, it can do it a number of ways. It doesn't always have to do with money. I mean, there are other ways that it can set national standards, we don't have any problem with that, but in terms of the local taxation, that should be applied to local priorities and councillors should be responsible to their electorates for those local decisions. I suppose that the same question arises. If the Government, who is overall responsible for education, will take the blame for what goes wrong with education across Scotland, if children aren't attaining, then obviously the Government will be subject to questions in this place day in, day out on that. If they were to find funding themselves, because that's what they want to prioritise, but given that education is delivered at local level, they were then to identify that as extra funding. From what you say, you seem to think that that is ring fainting and that would be a problem. To be honest, in my many years in this role, I have to say that ministers frequently use the not-me-gov defence when approached on these matters. It's why, frankly, we have NDPBs and many others who are all set up for exactly the same purpose. I do have a difference with local government because of the direct elections to them, and I think that the Government does need to reflect that. There is a debate that we've not really got a grip of when we're touching upon it here with funding, but there's a wider issue about the role of local government and the role of central government. Inevitably, with different administrations, there are different pressures, but we're very clear that in our view that local government is a good thing, local decision-making, some sidiarity should be the principle that should apply here, so decisions should be taken at the lowest possible level. That should be the principle, and I don't think that taking money out of local taxation raised locally is consistent with that principle. Nilly, you say in the submission that the reformed council tax is still a regressive tax. Yes, we can get, and I know that I think that from memory you had some interesting academic debates with the professors on the meaning of productivity. I'm a mere lawyer, so I don't engage in the fine points of that. To me, I think that the council tax is not accepted in that sense purely progressive. I think that it is possible to make it more progressive, and I think that if you look at the chart that Spice have helpedfully extracted from the commission, that shows a way—well, I would call it a more proportionate allocation to avoid any academic rails. If we apply that sort of proportionality, we get a better scheme. That was helpful to put all that on the record, Mr Watson. The question that we asked in our call for evidence will be in your submission. We tried to see whether it was more progressive or less regressive, and that was the debate that we were asked last week. We were simply asking, is it fairer, and what we seem to get from last week? Yes, a bit, is kind of what we got. Is that a reason why they want to take a miss on to your trip? I'm always happy that you're putting words in my mouth, but I'd have to say that, yes, I think that it is more aggressive. It's slightly fairer. Not surprisingly, we always want to go further. Absolutely, and I can understand that. There are no other bids from—oh, we do have bids. Far be free to put words in the mouth of my MSP colleagues, but I'm conscious that we haven't touched on council tax reduction or revaluation, and we've got about 15 minutes left, but let's see what you ask. Mr Gibson will take you first. Thank you, convener. I was going to ask about those really. I'm intrigued that the submissions talk about how local government should raise about 50 per cent of its income on its own, and that's been consistent across the board for a number of years. How realistic is that? Mr Watson, you've said in the last line of your submission that it's time to stop tinkering and act on the recommendations for a new fair property tax, but over what timescale could that be delivered, even if there was cross-party support on that? The figures that have been presented, 15 per cent of local government income is council tax, and 7 per cent charges. Unless you were to return non-domestic rates to local authorities, which could be an argument, although there are issues about how much Edinburgh would raise relative to, for example, where I am in North Ayrshire, you would actually, to get that 50 per cent figure without non-domestic rates, you would have to increase the council tax for 15 to 43 per cent of income, which would be a tripling. Unless there was also a concomitant reduction in income tax, which the Scottish Government now has some powers over to do, that would be horrific for council tax payers, as I'm sure you would appreciate. We can always say that it would be great if local authorities raised 50 per cent, but how realistic is it to do that? In terms of raising the council tax, because of that 15 per cent, to raise a local authority's budget by 1 per cent, you effectively have to now raise the council tax by 6.6 per cent, because of the gearing effect, all else being equal. Is that a blunt tool that is passed at sell-by-date? Should we look at other, more innovative ways of funding local government? I think that, obviously, you read our submission. Our view is that there needs to be a broader reform of the council tax, which is why, obviously, we think that this tweaking doesn't quite do it. Members of the council tax used to be 20 per cent. It's now down to 15 per cent because of the council tax freeze. Although in fairness, charges weren't as high as they are now, there's been some plugging in the gap by charges, which we would argue is a regressive way of raising local government funding. We do favour the return of business rates to local government. We've long argued that that should be the case. The phrase return to is important there. In fairness, that wasn't this government that's done a long time ago. I think there is a case for a broader reform. We broadly favour the BERT proposals, the property tax. In my view, that was a very, very thorough piece of work. I think that there's been useful updating by the recent commission. I think that if you look at business rates, you look at a new property tax, which may raise different sums of money. There's always been an element of charging there. Yes, it is true, and we do make the point that the risk with a lot of these is that rich areas gain more than poor areas. I think that that's where equalisation comes from. I think that there are equalisation schemes historically have been placed. They're not easy because inevitably there are winners and losers. I would say that one of the reasons I think where this tends to be is that we tend to focus equalisation schemes on whole local authorities. The problem with Scotland is that our local authorities are a rather strange mix of big regions and quite small areas. I would restructure the equalisation regions by going down to almost a postcode areas and build them up. It might not result in massively different changes, but I think it's more realistic because even in councils that generally have a very high proportion of low-income households, that's not true for the whole council area. There are wealthy parts of Glasgow. There are lots of parts which are not the same in your own area, the three towns, etc. There's a big difference between that and LARC. I think if you build up from local postcode areas and build up a formula based on that, I think that would get you a more realistic formula, which would target resources where they're most needed. I agree overnight that even if you gave me a blank check and we rewrote the whole of the local taxation system, we would introduce some additional, give councils the power to raise additional local taxes, for example. The bed taxes are a well-known version of that. We think that some merits, possibly as a national tax, are things like land value tax, not as a replacement for the council tax. For a lot of practical reasons that our members in valuation point out are difficult, but if you pull all those together, you could get somewhere fairly close to around 50 per cent an arbitrary figure. All we're really saying is that more money should be raised locally and we think a broader reform, hopefully on a cross-party basis, that may be my wishful thinking, but nonetheless that's what I think needs to happen and I think then we would get closer to that local government ideal. That would be commensurate. I would take it with a reduction in national taxation, otherwise you'll end up with your members' analysis being burdened with additional taxes right across the board. Would you see it as a kind of commenting exercise, basically? I think yes and no. Because we favour a property tax, I don't think. I mean if we had a local income tax, for example, then that would be a double hit on working people, but I think by having that basket of taxes as it's sometimes called, you minimise the risk of that. Mr Gibson, I think it's only reasonable to give the other witness an opportunity to talk about how we broaden out that tax base to get close to 50 per cent, so I know that Councillor Keenan is maybe keen to talk about that. Of course, I had a commission on strengthening local democracy and within that paper, obviously, there's quite a number of thoughts on how we can bring around closer to local government having 40 to 50 per cent of its tax-raising powers, as we believe we play a vital role in the government of the country. We offered government probably over a year ago to do some modelling work on business rates and how we realised that that would need to be some equalising factor across different areas. Some industrial areas have an ability to raise that much more, so we would look to do that. In no taking up that opportunity, then we're probably a year or so behind where we could have been. We would have had an indication of where those figures were if that joint work was gone. I would suggest that Coslow would still be keen to do that if government would take it on board, but we would like to see a better property tax and more powers. At the moment, some colleagues within council will not be happy at 1 per cent going into local areas. I haven't got an issue with that. I think that decisions are best made as local as they can, and the centralised agenda for Governments is no overly helpful at the moment. Derek Mackay wants to add to how we broaden out that tax base. I think that most of the points that I would have made have been covered. I think that Mr Gibson has probably highlighted exactly that. If you wish to move to near 50 split, then returning business rates to local control would be probably the only way to do it. I think that it's probably fair to say that we have mixed views about that, because we do recognise the financial risks associated with that. I'm aware of some areas of Scotland that have been major closures, particularly if they have a significant impact on a council's finances, if they are exposed to that risk. Although it's probably a welcome direction of travel, I think that we do have to recognise the risks associated with that. I think that it's also very keen to explore additional means of taxation. I think that the bed tax or tourism tax is one that I know from my own council area. It's something that I'd be interested to pursue. When I see the way that the local hotel industry has responded to demand, supply and demand and variations in price, I think that that's an area that's certainly worth exploring. Mr Marring, do you want to add anything to that? Andy Wightman? Just for completeness, I think—my apologies for running out of time—a few of you mentioned revaluation at the outset. I know that there will be evidence and written submissions. Maybe one or two of you want to pick up just a little bit and say something in relation to revaluation, which is clearly the Government's not doing. We got evidence on that last week, just to get something on the public record, perhaps, any takers in relation to that. We'll take Dave Watson and Councillor Keane. I think that we very strongly believe that there should be revaluation, except that there are some risks involved in that, but with responsibility always comes risks in terms of volatility. To tell people in this communication exercise that you talked about earlier is crucial. To then say to people that actually a property is going to be valued on 1991, it's going to make it twice as difficult to make that change. When 57% of properties are in the wrong band, you just can imagine what people are going to be turning up in front of our members and saying. We really do believe that, if you can say to the Government, look, we really do need to tackle revaluation, tackle that as an issue, get it right and then let's start to talk about regular revaluations, because my question would be, when is the Government ever going to do it? If we're going to do it another 10 years or another 15 years, we've really got to do it now. I want to get some of that on the record, Councillor Keane. I think that it's just about deliver and fairness. I think that if there is somebody that's extended their property by three or four bedrooms and other endless facilities in there, chances are that that would have been in a much higher band. It's about them obviously paying what they should in the direction of the services that they use in local government. Only because we're running out of time, I apologise for not going to other witnesses. I know that Councillor Keane wanted to put that on the record earlier and I moved on. Council tax reduction scheme estimated at 54,000 households, I think. I think that clearly already is a council tax reduction scheme, but the enhancement of it would be extended roughly to around 54,000 households in bands E through to H for net incomes under £25,000. Apologies, we'll correct the record if I've got those numbers wrong, with potentially a tapered scheme, which we have no details on yet, the tapered scheme above that, to be fair. Just any comments on that. I mean, it's like saying, aren't good things nice. I'm assuming you welcome that. I'm not putting words in the mouth, but what's it's more about challenges in relation to implementing that and getting that right and making sure that those that already don't get council tax reduction apply for it, anything? Would some evidence last week in relation to that, so anything maybe to put on the record? It's probably a potential for another administration cost that was not there before, but I think that you need to ask that perhaps one of the directors of finance to give a comment on that, as to where they see the costs involved in that. Anything that delivers to someone that's a bit poorer, then I would welcome. In terms of the changes for the higher bands, in terms of council tax reduction subsidy, it's there that provides a mitigating effect for those people, but it's only going to be as effective as the level of uptake. If there are people who don't engage, they have to know about the ability to get that benefit. There's going to be a resource required in order to generate an awareness whereby they make contact with us. I look at Mr Euler and Mr Sharma. That might be the last opportunity to have a comment that the committee wants to add anything to that, Mr Euler. I think that the generalist is supportive. I think that it's important that the Government recognises that there will be people in these top four bandings who will be entitled to our way of impact by the changes and their ability to pace. It's important that that is recognised. That change is welcomed. I think that the points have been made about additional administration associated with that. We do recognise that, but generally terms we would welcome the proposals. Mr Sharma, do you want to add anything? Only really to say that we are collecting information from the councils around the council tax reduction administration cost as well. Okay. I thank all five witnesses for coming to the committee this morning. The last few questions were quite condensed. I just wanted to give you the opportunity to put some of that on the public record. That ends the consideration under agenda item 1. We will of course hear from the cabinet secretary next week as we continue evidence on the statutory instruments. We'll move on to agenda item 1 just now, but we'll suspend briefly. Good morning everyone. When I move back into public session and we move to agenda item 2, which is the draft second climate change report on proposals and policies RPP2. The committee will take evidence and progress made with the second climate change report on proposals and policies. Today's session is a precursor to the committee's scrutiny of the draft third climate change report on proposals and policies RPP3, due to be laid in January 2017. Today's evidence session will take place in a round-table format to allow for a more free flowing discussion of the issues. It doesn't always work out this way, but usually a success of a round-table event means that MSPs talk less and they might not see talk more, but we'll see how that actually goes. I would normally introduce the witnesses at this stage, but rather than do that, I think that we should all introduce ourselves, and then we'll move to the first question after that. I'm Bob Doris, I'm convener of the local government committee, and thank you for coming along here this morning. Hi, Chris Wood, I'm vice-chair of the Sustainable Scotland Network, and for a day job I look after energy and sustainability for Dumfries and Galloway Council. Alexander Stewart, MSP, current councillor on behalf of the Scottish Council, and a member of Mid Scotland and Fife. Hi, I'm Mike Thornton, I'm the head of the Energy Saving Trust team in Scotland, and the Energy Saving Trust delivers some significant programmes for the Scottish Government, which help to deliver the policies under the RPP, not least the Home Energy Scotland Network. Andy Wightman, MSP for Llywyddian. Fabrice Lebec, I'm an energy climate policy officer at WWF Scotland, and I'm here today representing Stop Climate Chaos Scotland, which is a group of organisations that campaigns to tackle climate change. Good morning everyone, I'm Ruth Maguire, MSP for Cunningham South, and I listen as well as I talk, so this will be a good session for me. Good morning, I'm Craig McLaren, I'm director of the Royal Town Planning Institute, covering Scotland and the Republic of Ireland, and I'll be the professional body for town planners. Graham Simpson, MSP for Central Scotland. Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Cunningham North. Lane Smith, MSP for Central Scotland. Harry McGwigan, councillor of North Lanarkshire, and the community wellbeing and safety representative of COSLA, chair of COSLA. Silgee Sprun, COSLA housing portfolio. Okay, thank you everyone, you're most welcome. Before we move to the first question, can I just intimate to the committee that Councillor Harry McGwigan and Silke at his brand will need to leave around 12 o'clock, so when you slip off quietly, thank you very much in advance for your contribution here this morning, we'll get a chance to do it at the end of the evidence session, so just to put that on the record, we'll move to the first question, Andy Wightman. Good very general question about moving from RPP1 and RPP2, and what we've learnt from that to RPP3, and whether you think that RPP3 is going to be just a continuation of a similar scale of increase in effort, or whether you think that we are now at a stage where we need to make a much more dramatic step change in efforts to tackle climate change. Okay, Mike Thornton. What we've done with the previous RPPs is lay some solid foundations, but there is now a need, as you intimate, for a step change in order to maintain track. So I think the lessons that have learnt can drive that step change, which probably needs to be in things like renewable heat and district heating, and in energy efficiency, which obviously is voted well by the strategic infrastructure priority in that area. But yes, I suppose we would say there was now a need to crack on, if I can put it colloquially. Okay. Yes, Chris, would you? I think I would endorse that it's working with the local authority perspective. We've got good foundations in there. We're starting to record what we're doing much more effectively. That information is available, but we know there's big gaps in particularly demand reduction, particularly the renewables, in actually trying to get more on the ground and to increase the scale of what we're doing to meet the targets we've got. Thank you for the piece. Yeah, I think it's helpful to look overall at the picture of emissions reduction Scotland when we're looking back at the last RPP and head to the next one. I think the last couple of years since the RPPT was passed, we've had good emissions reduction, which shows policies can work, and that's reflected in this year's first hit annual target. When we look at the how those emissions targets have been met, we see good progress in some sectors, so electricity and waste, and that's showing the benefits of the deployment of renewable electricity in the electricity sector. However, some areas of the economy haven't seen quite the same emissions reduction. In particular, I'd say buildings, especially housing and transport are areas where we haven't seen significant progress. For example, if you adjust for recent winters and weather, housing emissions have only fallen about 4% since the climate act was passed in 2009, which compares to 30% of electricity and 50% of waste. I think the challenge of the RPP3 will be extending the good work that's been done in those two sectors to these other areas, and I think that a priority for this committee in my mind would be looking at those housing emissions and reflecting what Chris and Mike have said. Looking at the energy efficiency of our buildings, I think that that's a really key area. In specific policy areas like that, I think that there's a lot of work to be done, and the RPP is a really great opportunity to actually step up our game. I don't know if any other witnesses want to add to that. We would also endorse the need for a step change in order to ensure that we tackle the issues in a purposeful and effective way. However, we also need to be in early in working between the national aspirations and the local in order to show that there is a synergy that will enable us to make sure that we are tackling things in a complementary way rather than in any confusing way, and that can sometimes happen. We would endorse it. There is a need for a step change, but we should never move away from the reality that without the necessary resources and without ensuring that locally we are able to engage fully and use the skills and the knowledge that are out there in the localities, then it will be very difficult to effect that step change. I think that, like others, there is a good progress being made on that, and we should build upon that, certainly. I would like to see something that allowed us to become much more transformational in the change that we are trying to achieve. One of the things that I would like to see is to plan for it much more. I think that it is interesting to me to look at RPP just now. It is 322 pages. There are four paragraphs on planning in it. There is a system there that can help you to achieve what we are trying to achieve, but it has probably been underutilised and not been held up and recognised enough. If you have something that allows us to take forward a planned approach, which is coherent but at the same time focused, that would help us to achieve those targets. I might have a supplementary here, but Andy, I would rather give you the opportunity to develop your line of questioning. Thank you very much. Those are just an opening dialogue as we move towards seeing RPP3. I was interested in the point that you made, Craig, about planning. It strikes me that we have a new planning act coming along, a new forestry act coming along. Is there potential to take the basic statutory frameworks for things like forestry and planning, both of which can make contributions to climate change, and to put the necessity to tackle climate change as a core purpose of those systems? Would that help? I think that there have been some changes that have already helped. If you look at the national planning framework, which was published in June 2014, and the Scottish planning policy, which was published at the same time, it is now working to four outcomes, one of which is based upon a low-carbon economy. That is central to what we should achieve. The issue that I have with the national planning framework and the Scottish planning policy is that it is seen very much as planning documents. The action has been much more influential than that. It should be there to try to co-ordinate how we approach our development in different places, how we develop our infrastructure, to try to make sure that we take forward a low-carbon economy. That is not really the case just now. In my mind, and you would say that, I would say that that is a planner, but I think that having a national plan that does not have that influence, which does not have that ability to influence decisions, policies and where we put resources, I think that we are missing a trick there. There is, of course, going to be a new national planning framework and a planning bill coming forward to this Parliament. We will be scrutinising that anyway as we go through that scrutiny. What should we be looking out for? Give us some tips on what we should be looking out for. We mainstream RPP3, if you like, in the work of this committee. If you want to follow that, Mr McLaren, or anyone else, I will take you in a second line yet. I think that there are lots of things that we should be doing. The planning review that is under way just now, to be honest with you, is focusing more on the processes and procedures of planning. We are doing some work by trying to look at what the big picture issues are, what we are trying to achieve, what type of Scotland we want and what type of planning system we need to have to do that. We will be publishing some stuff on that in the next few weeks. The key to that is a low-carbon economy and planning can be helped to provide a route map to try and get to elements of that. I think that there are some issues in terms of how planning is perceived and how it is used, which might help us to do that. We have talked about in the planning review how the system has to be a much more corporate and collaborative system. As I said, it has to have much more influence in local government and in Scottish Government. We need to front-load things much more. We need to have the discussions and debates about what we want to achieve at the start of the process, where we all can work out what we can contribute and what we can do. Rather, at the end of the process, we are immediately in some form of conflict. We have also talked about the idea of planning being much more focused on delivering things. It is linking resource to the vision, which is not always there just now. Things like that would help us to meet the targets and the objectives that we have in terms of low-carbon Scotland. Okay. Thank you very much, Mr McClaren. I am going to take Elaine Smith within a second. I should point out to witnesses that I can be a bit dim sometimes if people do not really blatantly catch my eye to speak, then I will not know who you want to speak. Before I go to Elaine, you need to speak on planning, but that would be your opportunity to feed something in at this point. Anyone want to comment on that? Yeah, thank you. I think just more generally in terms of what you can do with the RPP once it's out and continuing the scrutiny, like you say, mainstreaming it. It's not a document that should sit in isolation. I think one of the problems of RPP2 is there hasn't been any process where we've gone back and monitored or verified whether policies are actually implemented and whether the emissions reductions have been delivered. So I think it's really key for committees and for the Parliament to continue the work of the RPP. It will contain lots of policies and proposals and it's the keys to look out for the implementation of those through other bills. So the RPP should instigate and set in motion some new policies. They could end up in all sorts of different consultations and bills, but it's really key that the pressure's kept up, because what we've seen with past RPPs has been policies and proposals which have been in the document and then have sat there and haven't been implemented. So, for example, if we go all the way back to the RPP1, we had a proposal to apply regulation to the housing stock, so for minimum energy efficiency standards. That was in RPP1. It was in RPP2 and it still hasn't been consulted on. So it's been endlessly delayed. So I think more of the ways you can mainstream it is to look out for those key measures and see if they are actually popping up elsewhere. Again, sort of conflating that point with the one about planning, I think that in the initial two RPPs what we've had is a sort of national plan with a small p and we've had some policies at useful scale to deliver the first steps on that plan, but I think there is a need both in planning and things like regulation of energy efficiency of domestic stock to have a national framework which supports the policy delivery. Of course, those are the decisions which are large scale. They obviously have winners and losers and they are perhaps more difficult decisions, but I think that we have now reached the stage where those sorts of decisions need to be made and implemented both in planning and in other bits of national legislation. Okay, thank you. That's helpful to Elaine Smith. Thanks, convener. It's back to what Mr McClaren was saying. I just wonder whether talking about maybe getting it right at the start of processes, I don't know what members around the table and guests around the table think about maybe conflicting aims. I would give an example of a proposal, a plan proposal for an incinerator in a local community, for example, so that might be argued for by meeting some of the aims of RPP, but the local community may not want that in their community. Where does that leave local government, for example? Does that do the arguments around RPP, then override the community empowerment arguments that we're trying to make about people in the local communities? I'm not supposing it just as a question to Mr McClaren, I'm just putting it out there as something maybe for consideration, although you may want to have a comment on it. It's a perfectly valid point, and it's an issue. We have a local level in trying to implement a climate change and low-carbon policies. Planners are almost up against other priorities and other issues as well. A key thing, just now, you could probably argue, is delivering more housing, planning professions under the cost to try to make sure that it delivers as many housings as we possibly can. Does that always mean that we're going to locate them in sustainable places? There's a balance and a lot of work to be done to try to make sure that we can make that happen. The planners' job is often trying to navigate its way through those different conflicting interests to try to come up with something which either suits some people or to be honest with you, sometimes they will not meet the requirements that some people want and need, and they might not be happy with it, but that might be the public interest or the greater interest. I would go back to the RPPs and the effectiveness of them. I think that they have been a very useful tool to have operated in the delivery of what we are talking about here, carbon emission reductions and so on. We have to try to make sure that the resources that are needed to effect what is being highlighted in the RPPs are well understood. We shouldn't pay lip service to something that we quite like the idea, we like the aspiration, but the resources are not going to be there to make that happen. That's territory that we have to get into very, very early as far as our PP3 is concerned. We will commit. You also have to bear in mind that local authorities find themselves in a situation in which we are also having to deliver in the 50,000 homes. We want to do that. It's a desirable thing. The resources are scant. We set a budget last year that was a horrendous budget locally in my area, something that I never thought I would see as a politician in all the years that have come. We need to have the assurances from the RPPs that resources can and will be found. I know that I'm hammering the point a little bit, but that's crucial. We're kidding ourselves on if we don't raise the profile on that one. Thank you. We follow up on some of that. You mentioned the 50,000 affordable homes target in a significant investment of taxpayers' money into funding that ambitious commitment. Are you confident that those new homes that will emerge will have suitable energy efficiency as standard? It's an assumed fact that new social housing tends to be the most energy efficient in the business, so to speak. I think that 35,000 of the 50,000 is earmarked at least to be social housing. The balance, some could be social, some might not be. I'm speaking for the mignons here, but I apologise. What about the balance of energy efficiency for others, say, up to 15,000? Will they be built to the same energy efficiency standards as social housing? Will the council be going into that, Mike Thornton on that? It's great if that were not the case. If we were to apply a two-tier system, we would be fighting to make sure that we did tackle that. I mean, I'm not saying that there is. I just don't want that. That's a good point you make to each project, yeah. Whatever the tenure, therefore, because of their new houses, they will be 45% more carbon efficient than if they had been built in 2007, which is obviously a significant gain. I suppose, however, from the point of view of the domestic housing stock, this does slightly highlight the two things. First of all, that most of the houses that we're going to live in by the time the climate change targets have to be met are already built and have people living in them. So energy efficient new housing stops things getting worse, but only retrofitting existing housing can actually make them better. So one is a necessary condition, but it's not a sufficient condition. I think the other point that you made yourself about social housing being the most efficient sector by tenure, which it is in terms of carbon and therefore in terms of energy bills for the people who live in it generally. That's the case, and the reason is because the government has regulated for that sector and it's regulated for energy efficiency, and that's the reason that I think that there's such a strong consensus. Certainly, I would imagine around the people around this table as witnesses that there should be an extension of a regulatory approach beyond that sector, because, basically, it works. We might come and explore how we put greater regulation on the private rented sector or on their occupiers or by to let in a moment, but sticking with the £50,000, I suppose, at the moment, just about how we can maximise the benefit from that, I know Craig McLaren had indicated that he wished to add something. I just want to say, as we've heard already, that there are fairly stringent building standards for new housing now, which means that there should be a high quality in terms of energy efficiency in there. The thing that we don't often take account of, however, is the location of those new houses. We need to think about how they can be made to work in a way that minimises any impact in terms of carbon. We need to look at the fact that they're linked to public transport or the extension of existing settlements that build on the infrastructure that's there, which minimises the need for new infrastructure, or we managed to open up sustainable sites through investing in infrastructure as well. I need to think not just about the housing unit, which I think is one of the things that RPP does. It doesn't think about where we put those units and how important it is to think about locations in terms of that being about sustainable development as well. Have we came full circle? We mentioned the planning review, and from this committee's initial looks at that work around the reforming of section 75 agreements and planning gain in the idea of an apology at the terminology on a levy on that money so that it's then banked to then go for infrastructure and other types of sustainable development. Is that maybe something any comments in relation to how we use procurement, be it through the affordable housing target, or just the large housing developers picking a field somewhere or whatever and saying, I'm building 400 units there and they're seeking planning permission for that, about the kind of levies that we can put in relation to building against sustainability. Is there more we can do in relation to that? Mr McLaren? I'm happy to come in again. We've been saying for some time now that the section 75 model is in a bit of a crisis because developers are crying full that it's too expensive for them to deliver those other facilities as well as housing and it's left to the state to try and pick up the pieces. We think there's maybe more of a role for the state in taking this forward, a bigger role for Scottish Government and for local government, to use almost a continental model where we actually provide the infrastructure, we red carpet the infrastructure in and we de-risk sites, we pick the sites which we think are developable and we leave house builders to actually develop those sites, which are essentially service sites. The issue with that is a change in culture, it means that we have to do much more up front than we do just now and it's also an issue in terms of finance because it means more up front finance at a time when we're not in the best position in terms of finances. In a second council, is that almost in terms of a positive way directing the market so you red carpet the sites that you believe will lead to sustainable housing developments with all the benefits for the future RPP-3 as well? Absolutely, absolutely. Okay, Cousin McGwigan, do you want to add to that? I couldn't add to that, that's exactly the sentiments I wanted to express and well express to. Chris Whitty, did you want to add? No, there are things to comment and that sort of things happen with industrial development in the past where the sites are pre-started but particularly if you're looking at things like heat networks, the additional infrastructure across the pudding heat pipe networks round it would perhaps help with developing local heat networks for new housing developments because by the time the planning is in it's almost too late to get that sort of infrastructure in place so I think that sounds a really positive idea. Elaine Smith, did you want to comment on that? Thanks Cousin, I don't think that this is moving you on to the regulations we're going to move on to but it's just someone mentioned earlier the building regulations, I just wondered if they're still for purpose for all of this. What is the role of building control officers? Do we have enough of them or are the companies now more self-regulating with building control standards so I'm interested in that whole area too and how that fits in? Okay, then I want to take up on that. Oh, a couple of birds in that. Mike Thornton to you. One of the things that we mentioned in this area in written evidence was I think the building regulation pathway that the Scottish Government's adopted has been a good one. We would argue that the trajectory should continue if you like into the future but I think there is another aspect of it which is also perhaps worthy of the committee's attention which is that basically when you build a house to a certain standard you assume that that standard is met in the house and that's a perfectly reasonable policy but at the moment it's not necessarily backed up by the sufficient testing and monitoring to be absolutely sure that the carbon savings that if you like the Scottish Government is booking against its targets are actually being achieved and we think there's a need for some attention in that area. Okay, any additional comments in relation to that? Is it specifically... I'm keen to move on to other questions about land units specifically on that. Okay, can I just mop up something around... I think it was Craig McLaren that mentioned... Did you mention community heating power initiatives? One of the witnesses might mention that yourself Chris mentioned that. So the committee visited the Weinfeld estate in my constituency to look at a community heating system in there and that was maybe a 50-60-year-old development that's then retrofitted using grants and monies from power companies and the like. The 50,000 new affordable homes, is there an anticipation that it's much easier to put in a community heating power system or a new community heating system from scratch as you're building 600 units in a community? Is there an anticipation that that will just happen? Is there an indication from the Scottish Government that when housing association others go forward for housing association grants they're looking to expect these kind of things to be part of the mix and perhaps that requires funds from another source rather than just conventional HAG funding as well, a cocktail of funding to achieve that. So I don't know if there's any comments in relation to that or if you've got any information. Fibris? I think... So the Scottish Government did conven a group to look at the role of regulation to support district heat networks and looking at... Mike was actually on the group so I put up prejudice in your comments but they looked at what needs to be done to improve the rollout of district heat and do local authorities have the powers and the report, the group makes several recommendations and I think there is a lot more that could be done to give local authorities planning powers and others to require district heat networks in new developments likewise to obligate people who might have waste heat to contribute to those district heat networks. So I think in answer to your question is a lot more that could be done and I think there is a proposal for a warm homes bill within this Parliament and I think that would be a great opportunity actually to take forward the recommendations from the group to increase the powers that local authorities have. So the kind of example you've just given we're more likely to see these new developments have district heat networks. My guess is that the new builds that we're talking about probably won't have district heat networks because they do take a lot of long planning and a lot of upfront investment. That would be disappointing obviously if there was not a way to make thawnted forward by a silky after that. I should declare an interest because I did chair the Scottish Government's special working group on district heating regulation as Fabrice alluded to. But I think taking this back to a comment that I made earlier and the comments that have been made about the planning system that the answer to your question about the 50,000 new household houses is that some of them may be on district heating that may be planned into those developments or it may not. There's no decisive policy structure that will make that happen at the moment despite the Government's commitment to renewable and low carbon heat and the fact that district heating is a key route to that. On the working group on regulation, which had stakeholders from all sides, private, public sector and so on, the consensus was very much that unless something more forceful is done through the planning system and more forceful done through the regulatory system then we accepted that these were harder choices that they would require if you like more political capital to implement. But without that sort of choice being made and fairly directive regulatory background being put in, then you won't see the progress that the Scottish Government wants which is to have a step change in district heating. So there are some very specific things that can be done and in our view they should be done. Just in relation to the 50,000 target, it is now a Government target. There's a timescale for that. You mentioned that to try and have additional developments as part of that 50,000 with district heating systems might cause delays and longer to go through a process. Governments like to meet targets, they don't like to meet targets and there's this dance every month or every quarter about housing new starts and housing completions and what number of best suits one political party over another. If we take all of that out of it, is there a way around this? Is it more important to make sure that we maximise the amount of homes from this 50,000 to have such things as district heating systems rather than hit bang on the 50,000 target within the timescale? I would slightly sidestep that question because we've covered already that new houses are built to higher regulatory standards and so they use less energy in the first place. The economics of district heating are much more compelling for existing homes. I'm not saying that it would not be a good thing if new houses were used as a stimulus to put in district heating networks but the real challenge is to get existing properties onto district heating networks. For that you need the sort of regulatory instruments that say for example that if you have a large building and you are upgrading its heating system then you have to actively consider district heating as an option and if it is of equivalent cost benefit to other systems then you should go the district heating route. For example local authorities who buildings, maybe they should be a requirement that they should form the centrepiece of new district heating systems and should put in those as part of their normal development cycle. You need to do that because if you want district heating systems that can then be built out and people, individual householders in existing homes can connect to them you have to have a way to start them off. Sometimes a new build can be that opportunity but it's not really going to be the universal panacea. You need to consider what can be done for the vast majority of existing homes. That's actually very helpful. It puts it in a context, a realistic context. Silky, my apologies. Thank you very much. I just quickly wanted to come in, not on the new build affordable housing. Obviously local government is pulling out all stops to deliver towards the 35,000 social housing here but I think Mike made all those points but I wanted to come in just on the district heating. District heating is a key component in the new C program, the new infrastructure priority to run for the next 15 to 20 years from 2018 onwards and local government is quite strongly involved in this program along the lines of Councillor McGregor saying we need to be in there early and shape program design so district heating is a key component in that. At the moment we've got 11 local authorities throughout Scotland who are involved in the so-called CEP pilots which have got district heating as a key component and in terms of supporting the overall development of the CEP program from 2018 onwards we have got a local government reference group that brings together all the different departments that would typically be involved anybody from planning, housing, sustainability, finance and so on so that's quite a high level group that is coming together to very strongly feed into program design and district heating as a key component in that in terms of contributing to overall energy efficiency. Thank you. Thank you very much. Andy Wightman, you've indicated to come in and Alexander will take you after all that, Andy. Yes, thank you, convener. Just following on from Mike's point about powers as it were for local authorities, speaking principally to local authority representatives here, I mean that there's a lot of innovation going on across Europe in cities particularly to move towards low carbon society. Do you believe that local government has all the powers it needs to be innovative, to experiment, to implement schemes, to reduce carbon emissions? The second question is, in a lot of your written evidence from all the participants here, you talk about the lack of monitoring and evaluation in RPP 1 and 2. I'm just wondering what a good system of monitoring and evaluation would look like. Councillor McGuigan, more words for local authorities? I would say that one of the very—I've been a bit repetitive on this, but one of the big difficulties is not so much powers, but the resources to enable us to sensibly use those powers in a way that will enable us to hit the targets that we believe are necessary for the particular locality that we're dealing with. I think that I've listened to some of the discussion. I think that we have to be a bit guarded about thinking that we can come up with a template, that we can hold up and say that we can apply that template right across Scotland. You cannot. There has to be that flexibility within the local authorities and the whole localism agenda. In terms of the powers, there's obviously some powers, and maybe Silky will come in, but we've been in negotiation about some of them. However, the main tool in all of this is for national government, local government and others to recognise that if we're working together and pulling together and utilising the resources in a collaborative way, we can overcome the issues that are problematic here, but we have to make sure that the resources are there to enable us to do that. I don't know if you wanted to come in on that, but you were certainly name-checked. I don't know if you want to add anything to that. Just to fully back up what Councillor McQueen has said, and it is absolutely essential that we can respond to local circumstances within a wider framework of wider national ambitious targets, but that we can have that constructive approach and that constructive partnership, where individual authorities chase challenge fund and challenge funds and use a lot of resources on that one. That comes up with often a very fragmented approach and not the most effective use of resources. Given the financial pressures that exist for local government and everywhere else, the effectiveness of the approaches is part of what can make a success here. It's very helpful that you put that on the record. Thank you for your question. I will respond to the second part of the question on what kind of monitoring and evaluation should be done. The first thing is that it needs to be regular perhaps each year. We have annual climate targets and there is a statement to Parliament whether countries met it or not. There is no real deep dive into how that target has been met and more specifically how all the policies in each sector are doing. Whilst we get a headline figure, we get, for example, this year, transport once again highlighted as an area where not much is being done. However, there is no process for either women in Parliament or within government to then feed that back in and say, well, do we need to re-look at what RPP2 is being delivered and what policies are in place? I think that yearly evaluation needs to happen. It has to be embedded within government. I think that the parliamentary process, the parliamentary scrutiny, shouldn't be kept just the RPP production itself, but it needs to be with that annual target report as well. Finally, I think, again, just embedding it within the government's own policy development. The Westminster Government does a forecast of each year of where it thinks emissions are going and how policies are performing. In Scotland, we don't have that, so we have no way of looking ahead and anticipating where our emissions are going and whether we're actually on track. Again, perhaps the Scottish Government to produce its own tracker so we can actually see how we're doing. Obviously, this doesn't answer the whole question, but certainly with the public sector, with the mandatory reporting that starts up from November this year, which is built on what we've done with climate change declaration reporting over several years, particularly within local authorities, that is starting to give us a baseline and give us information that is becoming, I think, more robust, being directly involved in trying to pull the figures together. There are challenges. Transport, even changing finance codes to enable us to report more effectively, is sort of helping to get us into the right place, but certainly in terms of our carbon emissions, for buildings, for waste, etc. We're starting to get that, and it was a comment from, I think, Glasgow University, with one of the colleagues in SSN, that it's probably one of the better data sets that's developed. It's not perfect by any means, but it's a step in the right direction. The challenge will be to pick up the bigger gap of what's happening in the wider aspects of the country. Public sector is starting to get there, but it's a good example to build on, I guess. I was going to give Andy Wightman a chance to come back, Mr Simpson. Is that a supplementary on this specific point? Moving on a little bit. I'm hoping to move the conversation on to the private sector. Okay. I think that that's come up previously. I'll maybe take you in, and then I'll go to Alexander Stewart after that, if that's okay. Yeah, so it seems to me that there's a huge issue around homes that are already built, which is probably the vast majority. I'm interested in people's views on how do we improve energy efficiency in buildings that are already there, and there are two sectors, private rented and privately owned. I had a chat with Fabrice yesterday, and Fabrice might want to comment on this, but he was telling me that there seems to be a system down in England for the private rented sector, where regulations appear to be stricter than they are here, but that doesn't apply to the privately owned sector. I think there's a real challenge there is how you get into privately owned homes and improve the energy efficiency in them, because as I said to Fabrice yesterday, if you knock on my door and tell me I've got to spend £100 on anything, I'm going to chase you. So that is a real challenge. I'll make sure that I don't knock on your door, Mr Simpson. Fabrice? I'll set out how we can tackle the existing building stock, and I'm glad to say Graham, but you recognise that in terms of housing it's probably the biggest challenge we have for emissions. I think the way you tackle the energy efficiency is we're already doing it already, but we need to do more. We have a grant system for the fuel pool, so if you're a low income household, the Government will subsidise the measures. For everyone else, we're proposing alongside regulation, which says if you're selling or renting a property, you can't do so after a certain date if your house doesn't meet a certain energy performance standard. We're saying that that should be implemented and backed up with loans and incentives to encourage householders to make these improvements. Yes, there is a cost associated with the upgrades, but let's remember that these upgrades not only do they reduce your energy bill, so obviously you're investing to make yourself better off in the long run. It makes your home warmer and it can add value to the property as well. I think a key part of how we get this going is using the energy performance certificates, which if you're renting a home, you already have. If you've bought or sold a home in the last five years, you also have. The cornerstone of this programme is the energy performance certificate, which tells you what improvements you can make. We've already made a good start in Scotland with the Home Energy Efficiency programme. As has been alluded to, the Scottish Government is developing a new programme, the Scotland's Energy Efficiency programme, to start in 2018. In order to deliver the climate savings that we need, that programme needs to be backed up with regulation and a proper programme of loans, information and incentives for all householders. Otherwise, we'll see emissions from housing stock flatlining as they currently are. Graham, do you want to come back on that before we together? Anything specific in relation to that answer? I think it's all very well if you step in when people put their houses up for sale or up for rent, but what if you don't? What if you live there a long time and you're going to live there a long time? How do you get to these people? Yes, please. There are different ways around that. There are proposals to have a backstop, so all homes have to be brought up. After the initial regulatory requirement for later date, any homes that haven't been back into the market and improved would need to be. That would have to be enforced by local authorities. There are solutions to that, and that is one of the smaller issues of the programme, but we do have a way around it. The RPP policy horizon is quite long, the climate change target is quite long, so this wouldn't be about what happens to your home in the next two years. You put in the intention to regulate, and you are now in what we might call regulatory shadow to influence people, so they know that eventually there will be a regulation when they sell their home, and that gives them a significant number of years to actually take action at a time that suits them. I think that the point has been made that that action will ultimately lead to them and their successes in the house being financially better off. There's a psychological resistance, but it's still a good thing, both for the individual and for the Scottish society as a whole. There's another really stark fact about this, which is that the existing Homes Alliance for Scotland's suggested ambition for the strategic infrastructure priority for energy efficiency is that all homes should be an EPC rating of C by 2025, and there are various cost element estimates of that floating about. I wouldn't like to necessarily quote them to the nearest billion, but they're in the 10 billion pound range. That's a lot of money, and the question is how's it to be found, given that it is actually required. If you don't do that, actually the climate change targets will ultimately be missed. It's that stark. Really there's a choice, and it's either to regulate which produces investment from homeowners and building owners to their own benefit, or it's some form of public sector subsidy which would be very large and very difficult to produce, I would imagine, in times of financial stringency. I suspect that, given time constraints, we can't particularly tease out what regulation would look like. I'd written down compulsion and enforcement as two significant aspects of that if you decide to regulate it, but I'll maybe just leave that hanging there. Can I just check in terms of terminology when the home energy efficiency programme was mentioned? I sat on this predecessor committee back in 2007 as a local government committee, and we were looking at that point. There's a political stooshie, actually, that's fair to say about the central heating programme for older people. The debate at the time was, should pensioners get their free central heating systems, or was it targeted at those most fuel-poor? Was it targeted at the most energy-inefficient homes? And then, through a few reincarnations, it became more and more targeted. Is that what the home energy efficiency programme is? Is that where we are now, or is that something different? Or where is that predecessor? It was the energy assistance package, I think, the last time I was particularly looking at it, so where is that just now? I suppose how focused is it, and I suspect, do we need a bit more support for the private sector, particularly things like tenemental properties and hard-to-heat homes? At the moment, there are sort of twin tracks. There's a programme of grants for highly-targeted grants for fuel-poor households, which will get them insulation and efficient heating systems, and that's a national programme. And then there are what jargon people, like myself, refer to as HEAPS-abs, the area-based schemes under HEAPS, which are focused in specific geographical areas, and local authority people aren't here anymore, but are managed and delivered by local authorities. I think these are really good programmes, and I said at the beginning that we've done under the previous two RPP periods some really good things have been done, and they're part of that. But it's again, it's a question of a step up in scale, and I think that's the dilemma in policy terms that will need to be wrestled with, how to go from some very good programmes at medium scale to the sort of truly large-scale programmes that are needed in order to get the housing stock up to, say, a C by 2025. Okay, so just in terms of just my initial questions, checking, are we, are we, there's a resource issue, and whether that's the public purse via subsidy, or whether that's via compulsion of the private market, I suppose, putting the resource issue slightly to one side? For the public funds that are available, is it, is it suitably targeted and focused at the moment, I suppose, is the question that I'm asking? I think, I think, well, it's an opinion, but my opinion, yes, I mean, the policy broadly can be described as if you're, if you can't afford to do it, but you need it, then the government programme will give you a grant in order to, in order to take you out of fuel poverty, and I think that's, that's the right, you know, the funds should be concentrated in the truly vulnerable, truly needy sector, and that is being done. But if you take that view then, and you know that the climate change targets also mean that the able-to-pay sector has to improve as well, then you need another, you know, you need another policy instrument to get that progress in that sector. Okay, thanks. Alex Anderson's shot. Thank you. Can we, following on from all of this, my issue I'd like to ask about is sufficient access to finance, because that to me seems to be the crux of the matter, is ensuring that we have enough money that we can get the access to it, and also maybe tapping into the private sector to complement what we're doing with the government sector to ensure that that can actually take place. And I'd like some sort of views on how we can get that, because if we manage to achieve some of that, then the measures will be implemented in many more, and that would give us a real chance. I would ask the point that you have, Simpson, was also looking to you about upfront costs for households. Does anyone want to look at how we make this affordable for households? Financing? You've all presented the problems that finding the solutions is more challenging. Any ideas? We'll give you a slight break, Mr Thornton. We'll brief first and then we'll take you out. Within this, the HEAPS programme is being redeveloped by the Government at the moment, and it's actually already a crucial time. The RPP comes at a great time for feeding into that process. We, as the existing homes alliance, and I think Scotland supports this as well, clearly you have to provide a financial offering if you're going to compulsion on people to improve their homes. There's different ways you can do that, so you use low-interest government borrowing, provide low-interest or zero-interest loans, something that they've done in Germany with great success. They use their development bank there, and they provide very low-interest loans to people to cover the cost of doing these. There are other ways of doing this as well. It might be able to elaborate a bit more. Equity release is a different way of doing that, so there's a variety of solutions on the table. I think once more detail from the programme emerges, it would be really good to have scrutiny in the Parliament of how those proposals deliver. Can you, that's really helpful, Mike Foxon? Sorry, I don't mean to be talking so much. Just to add to that, there has to be a finance offering, and it's actually a brilliant time for the strategic infrastructure priority in terms of the financial climate. I know that sounds a bit perverse, but because capital costs are so low, the investment in energy efficiency is relatively cheap and relatively good. There certainly are options for government incentive ids, loans and so on, because I think we all recognise there aren't going to be grants, and perhaps there even shouldn't be grants for the able-to-pay sector. I think the difficulty though, and I'm beginning to sound a bit like a broken record, but if you think about it a little bit in terms of all our own experience, actually one can go and borrow at very low rates for things right now. So if people actually wanted to put, say, solid wall insulation on their home, they can probably go out and get, you know, there aren't any solid wall loans, but there's plenty of loans for general purposes, and they can get one of those, and they can probably get it at a fixed interest rate of two or three percent, and that would be a cost-effective thing for them to do, but in general people don't do that. So that the existence of a financial offering is again important, but if you don't have a lever for making people take it up, which I would argue is regulatory shadow or regulation itself, then it won't actually take the sector forward. The infrastructure side of this, I mentioned earlier on how we thought there was a role for governments at local and national level to come into the position earlier and to fund things earlier. There are some examples of where that's happened. You looked to Dundee, where they've used prudential borrowing very, very cleverly to redevelop their city centre, and it's becoming a real fantastic place. It's working progress, but it's getting there. The creativity in using prudential borrowing to invest in an area, and they'll get a return on that because they own the land, and they're in the process of talking to developers and investors about how they will use that land, so they'll get a return on that as well, so there's something about thinking about that. There's also, I think, that there are existing resources around which we could perhaps use better. I'm thinking particularly, we have an infrastructure investment plan, which, when I look at it, sometimes I worry that it concentrates on trying to get things in people from A to B, rather than thinking about how you can use infrastructure in a creative way to open up development opportunities or to try and make sure that we reach broader objectives. There's something about how we can link that into, dare I say, the national planning framework again, to try and take a longer term view and to try and get some more transformational change on things rather than a sort of short term view. The other key thing where a lot of resource is just now for development and for infrastructure is the city deals and the city region deals. When we look at them, I have a slight concern that they tend to be a list of projects that have been around for probably some time, which have not quite been picked off a shelf but have been identified as something that can be used because there's additional funding there. I would like to have seen the city deals being much more about transformational change and more thought given to how those resources are used to initiate and develop that transformational change. There might be a second round or there might be opportunities in existing city deals to look at how we best can do that as well. The last point that I'd like to make about resourcing is what we need to remember. If we use this money cleverly, it can be preventative spend and it's really important in terms of carbon and energy efficiency. If you invest early and make the right decisions early and make sure that we don't have to mop up the pieces later on, that can make a major difference. That's helpful. You got my interest when you mentioned city deals. I'm tempted to go through my personal hobby horse for my previous existence, a regional MSP covering Glasgow region in relation to the Catholic and Bypass part of the Glasgow city deal, which the communities that I represented at that time would rather have a better park and ride facilities in public transport infrastructure rather than a significant cost for some tarmac. I'll leave that sitting there, I suppose that I've done it now. The wider question, I suppose, is anyone checking the city deals to make sure that they are consistent with our climate target ambitions and targets? I suspect that they are not then, because Ruth will not have the opportunity to speak yet. I'll wait at Ruth in first then for a brief. I will take you in in a second. Convener, your interest is on that point of preventative spend. I guess when we're talking about trying to change behaviour and get people to invest from a local authority or housing association perspective, having energy-efficient buildings and homes is going to keep the stock in better quality and prevent fuel poverty. If we're able to transfer that message to private housing, there's a bit of carrot as well as stick that can be done in terms of changing behaviours around energy efficiency and investing in private properties. That's helpful for the least. Did you want to come in? On the point about the city deals and the infrastructure investment plan, to my knowledge they're not. There's no process whereby the project results from the carbon emissions that they'll have. One of the issues that we've had in the past is that there's been a focus on road building and heavy high-carbon infrastructure, and there's been no scrutiny as to whether it's aligned with what the climate act requires. It's definitely an area that I'd highlight. It's needing an improvement. I should say that I no longer represent that part of the world in Glasgow region. I'm Mary Hall Springburn now, but I thought just for clarity that that had my interest at the time. Mr McLaren, did you want to come back in? The point that I've realised about city deals is that what you've got to remember is the way in which they're structured, local authorities put forward their proposals, they're analysed for what GVA they will give to the economy, and they'll only get the money from government once that GVA is being realised. There's one point about if that will be realised and two, the fact that the measure is GVA and how that ties in with what we're talking about around reducing carbon and climate change. That's helpful. Graeme Simpson, you've spapped off that line of questioning. Do you have any reflections on that to want to come back in? Yes, I'm sorry. Oh, sorry, Elaine. Thanks very much. Just listening earlier to the conversations around investment and what happens in other countries, I think, for a brief mention, loans and interest-free loans, how does the green investment bank fit into this? Does anyone know? Does it fit in? No one's desperate to put my eye contact, but Mike Thornton has done, of course. Mike's going to tell you everything that you want to know about it, Elaine. Banking isn't exactly my specialist area, but the green investment banking theory could access capital on the capital markets, which could then be loaned out on a retail basis to individual householders. That's essentially what happens in Germany, a bank that's owned by the German national government and the German state's KFW, borrows with, in effect, government backing so incredibly cheaply on the capital markets, and then it lends that money on at a very cheap rate to consumer-orientated banks, and they then take a small percentage for their administrative costs and lend on it at still a very cheap rate to individual householders. This is a big-scale programme. It's aiming to do 2 per cent of the German housing stock every year, which is a big number, and it only lends for specific increases in energy efficiency, so you can't just say, oh, I fancy having this, but I don't fancy having that. You have to buy one of a number of packages, and then you get that costed and so on, and you get alone. I guess the difficulty of reproducing that model in the UK, never mind Scotland, is that there might be some semi-state-owned banks, but there aren't any state-directed banks. The GIB, I don't want to speak for them, but in theory they could perhaps play a similar role. That would be a policy matter, I guess, for them and the UK government, perhaps. Deshtick Heaton schemes that you were talking about, is that something that they could be doing? Yes, and again, I don't want to speak for them, but I know that they invest in a number of capital-scale projects, and I would imagine that they have an interest in district heating amongst those. They provide investment for things like biomass plants, aerobic digestion plants, all sorts of low-carbon capital-intensive projects, and they do lend a lot of money, so I guess we can all see there's a potential connection. I just don't know how close that is to being realised. Can I say to some of that out a bit more? I think that would be a good thing for us to do. Chris, would you? Quick comment. We've not, within Dumfries and Galloway, we've not explored that, but certainly within the non-domestic energy efficiency programme that's being supported through Scottish Government and Scottish Futures Trust, Green Investment Bank is one of the mechanisms that's suggested to fund the works to deliver energy efficiency across public sector buildings. However, we've not gone that far, because I think that we'd probably start with prudential borrowing as a means of funding that sort of work in the first instance. Graham, I'd previously said that you might want to come back and defend the reflections on what you've heard, because you kicked off a line of questioning with the kind that I moved on. Is there anything that you want to add? We're almost at the close of the session. We've kind of got to a point, thanks to Elaine Smith's questioning, where we end up on a very positive idea of going to an organisation that's there now, the Green Investment Bank. I think within this committee's remit housing, we could be speaking to them and seeing if we can expand on those ideas. I think that's a great way to end that line of questioning. We're about to end the entire line of questioning in a second, but what I would do is give the opportunity for the witnesses that are here, if there's any reflection you want to make or comment you want to make, just to put on the official record before we draw to a close, because despite our attempts not to speak to the MSPs, we've stood up a lot of airtime, so perhaps you don't always get to say precisely what's on your mind or the lines of questioning go off that tangent from what you were hoping to say today. We'll maybe take it in the opposite order to which we did the opening introductions, and we'll start with Mr McLaren. Is there anything that you want to add just before we formally close what is now the Saffron session? Not until anything I want to add, just to perhaps reinforce and reiterate that I think there's a role for planning in the planning system in this, which is understated at the moment, and I think if we thought about how planning could fit in a more corporate way, in a more influential way and a more collaborative way with different disciplines, different sectors and different agencies, we could take a medium to longer term view, which could have a real impact. Thank you. Fabrice, do you want to add anything? Yeah, just to say I think the session today has been really good. I'm glad to see the committee getting involved early with the RPP, just to remind that the RPP is a huge cross-government piece of work and it affects, as we've heard today, investment opportunities, the economy, health, as well as climate, obviously, and other things like fuel poverty. Looking back to the old RPP, the scrutiny process happened entirely within committees, so I guess my final thought is just to remind her that your committees play a crucial role in actually making sure that the RPP delivers what we need it to deliver, and so to keep up the good work, and when the RPP is published, obviously make it, I hope, to see it a big part of your work plan. Thank you. No, I think I've made the point that I wanted to, and thank you for the opportunity to do so. Just a couple of points. First one, that we're going to have a climate change plan, I think that's great, because RPP, if you're involved in it, you understand what it's all about, but climate change plans are a lot more accessible for people, so I think that's really good. I think it's important to make sure that we've got clear targets within that when it comes out, so we all, as a public sector, we know what our bit of that job is, so trying to go for smarter targets, some of it's a bit more woolly at the moment, I think that'll be really useful. I think the other one which we've touched on a lot as we go through, is just making sure that climate change is in the wider policy agendas across the board, because it's quite easy to ignore it, and at the moment we maybe can't get away with ignoring it, but it's so important that we do deal with it effectively, because it tackles fuel saving, all sorts of interesting ideas, and improves quality of life if we get it right, and that's critical. I thank all the witnesses for coming along today, and also draw attention to the witnesses that one way of making sure that our PP3 in climate change doesn't just get channeled to a one-off evidence session once a year or whatever, of course, is to provide written evidence to the legislation that goes through this committee on a regular basis to give us the opportunity to to to have that aspect to question ministers and other stakeholders as we look at various legislation, so bear that in mind, follow the work of the committee and please do contact as there is anything else you want to add following today's evidence session. That concludes agenda item 2, the committee will now move into private session and can ask witnesses and members of the public to leave. Thank you.