 OK, good morning and welcome, everyone, to the seventh meeting of the local government and communities committee. Can I remind everyone present to turn off mobile phones and does meeting papers provide an digital format tablets? You may see members using those during the meeting, that is our general appeal at the start of every meeting that we promise you, that is why you see us looking at our phones in our tablets, ok? No apologies have been received yet again we have a full house, good stuff, MSPs, and we moved to agenda item 2, with agenda item 1 have been conducted in private gyda'r public session, which is the Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland's fifth electoral review. The committee will take evidence on the Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland's fifth electoral review and the Scottish Government's subsequent response. Professor Ailsa Henderson, the commissioner, Isabella Drummond, Murray secretary and Laura Cregan secretary at the Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland. I also welcome Ian Gray for taking the time to come along this morning, Ian Gray MSP, and confirm that I would intend to bring Ian in towards the end of questioning, because he's got some scrutiny questions that he would like to ask. I'll maybe say at this point to members that we've got a fairly tight hour in relation to questioning, so I would be intending and leaving a bit of time at the end, no matter how furiously we're asking questions to make sure that Ian gets a bit of time to come in and ask the questions that he wants to ask. Good morning. Thank you very much for coming along. We'll get started. Can I invite the commissioner to make any brief opening remarks, and then we'll follow through questions? Sure. Thanks very much for the invitation to be here today. The Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland's responsibility is to make recommendations to Scottish ministers, which comply with the statutory requirements placed upon us. The rules under which we work are set out in the Local Government Scotland Act 1973. They require us to identify boundaries that are in the interests of effective and convenient local government. They require us to pay attention to electoral parity above all other things, but subject to that we have regard to local ties, to easily identifiable boundaries, and to special geographic circumstances. The fifth reviews were the first time councillor numbers and wards had been examined together since the third reviews almost 20 years ago. This is because the fourth reviews, which resulted in the introduction of multi-member wards for STV, didn't revise councillor numbers. Given the changes in population across Scotland and within council areas, changed boundaries were inevitable. Against this background, the commission considered it right to take a fundamental look at how best to conduct a full review of councillor numbers and wards, and this included examining the methodology that we used. The commission had consulted previously in 2011 on how councillor numbers might be determined, and the outcomes from that showed support for a consistent Scotland-wide methodology, a call for more equal representation across Scotland, and a call for fewer categories of councils. It also suggested that we continue to use a measure of rurality, but also that we consider the use of deprivation, and we believe that the methodology we've introduced is robust. We've reduced the number of categories from seven to five. We've changed the indicators that we use to better reflect indicators currently in use by the Scottish Government, and this includes the proportion of a council's area of population living in settlements of 3,000 or more, as well as a Scottish index of multiple deprivation, which is a basket of measures that looks at the socioeconomic, but also the geographic, circumstances in a council. We've reduced the range of ratios for electors to councillors, making them more equal. We've amended the minimum and maximum council size, so it used to run from 18 to 80. It now runs from 18 to 85, and to minimise disruption, we've implemented a cap on the change in councillor numbers in any council area to 10%. It's a statutory requirement for us to consult with local councils and with the public, and we've done so in two stages, first on councillor numbers, and second on ward design. In terms of our outcomes, we believe there's no single correct way to determine how many councils are needed, either for Scotland as a whole or for a particular council. If we have a statutory duty to consider electoral parity above all else, then we believe that we've fulfilled our statutory responsibilities and that the final outcomes of the review deliver an improved electoral position. The reduced range of ratios mean that there's less variation in the value of one vote across Scotland. We have lower levels of deviation from parity in the aggregate, which means representation of the electorate is more evenly shared, and specifically more wards are within 10% of parity, meaning there's less variation in the value of each vote within a council area. And furthermore, fewer electors will be underrepresented by 10% or more relative to the council average. We believe we've complied with the legislative requirements in both letter and in spirit. We've prioritised parity. We've consulted widely. Indeed, we extended consultation periods where we were able to do so. We've been responsive to the consultation both with respect to the 2011 consultation on methodology, but also to suggestions to boundaries, and we've made significant changes to those boundaries where we felt that the suggestions of councils and the public have offered us an improvement. In terms of outcomes, we believe we've produced solutions that offer greater equality and less underrepresentation. Of course, we're now happy to take your questions and to follow up in writing as well if it would be more useful. Thank you very much, Professor Henderson. We'll move to our first question. Ruth McGuire. Thank you, convener. Good morning. The question I have is around the cap that you used, the 10% cap for changes. I'm wondering how you got to that figure as 10% being a magic number that didn't cause disruption or caused minimum disruption in changing. Sure. 10% surface is twice. 10% surface is in the sense that we are using the Venice Commission Guide on variation from parity or 10%. That separate 10% figure looks at cap. For us, we felt that, given the range of council areas, 10% would get us to whole numbers a lot better. We were also following best practice in other councils, weren't we, or in other commissions, weren't we? Yes. I believe the Welsh Commission uses 10% as well. I suppose that we've got examples of where greater changes would have been needed if a figure feels a bit arbitrary. You said that it was best practice there. How has it decided that that's the right number? I think that what we wanted to do was minimise disruption. The 2011 consultation from the public suggested support for a consistent Scotland-wide methodology. There was no overwhelming call for a significant increase in councillor numbers, but also no overwhelming call for significant disruption in the number of councillors for each specific council area. The 2011 consultation on methodology suggested that if there was a chance for us to minimise disruption, we should probably take that. All the correspondence that we've had with Government officials and the minister suggested that that was the best way to go. Ruth is obviously referring to the North Ayrshire. The boundary commission proposals in terms of the numbers were better than they were put forward by the North Ayrshire council itself. We should have been widely disruptive in terms of my constituency, but one of the things I want to ask is that you talk about parity, obviously, in your submission. Ruth represents Clangham South, which under the new proposals will have 17 councillors, and I represent Clangham North, which will have 16, but I've got 56,000 electors at risk of about 50,000. I'll have about 3,500 electors per councillor, whereas Ruth will have just slightly under 3,000. How does that go with the view that each vote within a local authority area should effectively be in parity? I know that there is deprivation when you look at councils per council by council, but within a local authority and you talk about parity, surely there should be the same number of councillors per head within a local authority, and that's certainly not the case in North Ayrshire. Sure. No, it's a good question, and it's what we've tried to do. There's a number of ways to look at this. One is to look at it on a Scotland-wide basis. People living in different parts of Scotland have very different ratios that they're living with. The value of one vote in Edinburgh is worth about nine votes in the Western Isles. There's variation within Scotland already, and some people would already say that that's too much variation. Other way around. If you're looking within a council area, we try as best we can to stay as close to parity as possible, but we do use that 10% best practice measure. We try as best we can to keep the number of electors to councillors the same within a council area, but we do get variation from that. Sometimes that's because we're trying to draw the boundaries, not just strictly on parity, but within the 10%. Are there places where we can draw the parity to capture local ties? Are there places where we can draw the boundary so that it's an easily identifiable boundary as well? We're also allowed to deviate from parity subject to special geographic considerations. Again, local ties should be broken by making a particular boundary. Some of the boundaries don't make any sense at all. You've got a weak community called Bar Mill, which is a 40-minute drive from West Kilbride in the same ward. The other point I was wanting to make was why do you have a situation whereby proportionality varies within local authority areas? For example, North Ayrshire at the moment has two three-member wards and six four-member wards. East Renfusure was 20 members, had I thought. We just have five four-member wards, but no, no, it's got two fours and four threes. Now that makes a significant difference in terms of the election because a three-member wards, you need 25% plus one to get someone elected. A four-member wards, you only need 20% plus one, so surely if you're talking about parity within a local authority area, there should all either be three member wards or all four member wards. I'm not really sure why you have this disparity in terms of the number of councillors representing a locality because it does have a significant impact on representation. Presumably that would be true across Scotland as a whole. We're given three and four member wards to work with, and so we work with them. In fact, we've noted that there are instances where having two member wards and having five member wards would have been very helpful to us and able to capture local ties and special geographic circumstances better. Sorry, I don't know, but you've got your work with three or fours, so why not make it within a local authority every ward, a four-member ward or within another local authority, a three-member ward? Why are you varying them between threes and fours in a local authority area, which obviously has an impact? Well, sometimes we're doing it because it's already a three and a four-member ward, a mix of three and four-member wards, and we're trying to minimise change in terms of where the boundaries are, so we're trying to keep them where we can if we need to. Why did you have them that way in the first place? Why did the fourth reviews come out with the results of they did? Surely, when this was set up, you would have wanted much more straightforward, sensible, easily understandable by local people to know that a vote, because the whole point is about parity in that a vote in one part of a local authority should mean the same as another, and quite clearly it doesn't when you have differences in terms of number of voters per councillor and also the ward sizes. I've either got three or four members, which limits the number of, for example, four parties in a four-member ward, you'll only ever get three in a three-member ward, so what I'm trying to say is why can you not have parity within a local authority area in terms of ward sizes and representation. And maybe give Professor Henderson just a chance to put her position to the committee of the Boundary Commission's position to the committee in relation to those points. Sure. I certainly can't comment on why the fourth reviews found the results that they did. Mathematically, you can't always have just three-member wards and just four-member wards, but the times we feel that a mix of three and four-member wards makes sense because we're trying to use easily identifiable boundaries and we're trying to reflect community ties. When we create boundaries, what we're trying to do is use the boundaries that are already there, the community council boundaries, for example, that are already there, or the previous ward boundaries that are there, or sometimes we look at what the Scottish Parliamentary constituency boundaries are, or what the Westminster parliamentary boundaries are. We're trying to use other boundaries that are in place so that we're not just drawing a line that makes no sense to divide up people into equal three and four-member chunks. If we've had any public representation on this, it's that we should be paying attention to things like that. We should be paying attention to local ties where we can. I'm not sure that a bunch of exactly portioned boxes that exactly have the sufficient number for electors to have four councillors throughout a council area is necessarily a solution that would have been well received in all cases. Can I just follow up on some of that, Professor Henderson? I was looking through some of the criteria and guidelines that you're using. There's inherent contradiction as they're not between respecting local ties and boundaries and having an arthmetically pure formula which provides parity, or some would say conformity, rather than parity. I could cite, but I won't, in relation to my constituency, where there's less co-alignment with Scottish parliamentary constituencies and ward boundaries, but that could then be argued that the new ward better represent actual communities. But there seems to be no black and white in relation to this, and there needs to be a degree of latitude. So, if you could say a little bit more about the contradictions that you face in coming to these decisions, but I suppose ultimately what I'm trying to draw out is, does it come down to a judgment call where you could have when there could be five options in front of you, and two or three of them might be acceptable, but ultimately you just have to opt on one. And what we're trying to get is the methodology behind how you get towards that, and where sometimes you just have to kind of, I don't mean bypass the methodology, but just accept that in certain circumstances there's a compelling argument to ignore parity and go for local ties and boundaries. So, to what degree do you find a conflict in coming to any of these decisions? No, I think you're absolutely right. And the tension is in the legislation. So, it says we have to pay attention to electoral parity above all else. And so, in a way, there is no tension. We have to pay attention to electoral parity. And the only time we can deviate from parity is if there are special geographic circumstances. So, the local ties is not there set up in the legislation, it's not set up in tension. It says once you've, you know, having regard for parity, then you can pay attention to easily identify all the boundaries and drawing borders that will not break local ties. However, in practice, I think you're absolutely right that there's a tension between electoral parity and local ties. But the legislation requires us to err on the side of parity. In terms of options, you're absolutely right. We had multiple options for each council area. And when we went out to consultation on ward design, in the first instance to councils, sometimes councils were back to us and said, you've selected this option. But actually, we think that option better reflects local ties in the area. And that's, we did that in Dundee, for example. So, we had an option that we proposed. And in the council consultation, the council said to us, actually, you know, this other option you looked at, we think better reflects community ties, better reflects local ties in Dundee. And so, that's the version we changed to and went out to public consultation on. Most, if you knew what the next question was going to be, Professor Henderson. At this point, can I bring in Elaine Smith? I know what's to follow up in terms of how you actually use some of the evidence submissions that you receive, Elaine? Sure. So, thank you very much for joining us this morning. Professor Henderson, I suppose the specific question is, when you made your opening statement, you talked about being responsive to submissions that you received. So, specifically, could you tell us about the extent to what—I know you've mentioned councils, and maybe you could come on to that—but, in particular, the extent to which the public submissions would impact on your conclusions? And could you give us examples of where that would have influenced your conclusions? Yep, absolutely. So, we had a number—Laura's got the figures in terms of the number of representations that were made by members of the public, but also by different bodies or different individuals. Our reaction to them in about a quarter of cases, I think we made changes, and we made them in two different ways. So, no, it was a quarter of cases on councillor numbers. There were more instances in terms of ward design. The reactions, the changes that we made were largely in two categories. One, it was people calling for their community to be within a local—within a single ward. So, that was an instance of, say, Collington in Edinburgh, but also Houston and Renfrewshire and Bridge of Allen. So, people there wanted their community to be represented in a single ward, even if that meant they would have fewer councillors than otherwise would be the case. And then, the other change we made was when electors in communities wanted to be paired with another community. So, around Hoig, for example, we made changes with Newcastleton. There was a change around Codor, as well, near and in Codor. So, we were responding to public demand and trying to make these two changes. I think it's worth noting that we did get contradictory advice. So, on the one hand, while we got in some communities a desire to put communities all within a single ward, in other instances, we got people from communities saying, we don't want to be in a single ward. We would like our community to be divided, even if it means that we're connected with other communities on either side, because we think that that will mean we will have more councillors keeping an eye on the area. And so, that was an instance with Hoig, but it was also the case with Musabra. So, we were getting representations arguing for completely the opposite thing. Some people who want to be together in a smaller ward, some people who want to be separated out in divided wards with more representation. And so, we just tried to do what we could. And if we found a way to make it work, we did. And so, further to that, was it important then the responses you got from councils and were those responses timely for you? In what information did they give to assist you with some of this? Absolutely. We had representation from councils on councillor numbers, but also on ward design. And we did make changes. I mentioned Dundee earlier, but we also had the case on the Scottish borders where we had an option that we put to them on ward design and they said, you know what, actually, we think we can do a better job. So, they took four days and they drafted something and they brought it to us and the solution seems to be a good one. And we believe that they were able to create a design that better reflected local ties given their knowledge. And so, that's the version we went out to on public consultation. So, we've got evidence of how we've changed our proposals on councillor numbers, but also on ward design following the consultation with the councils, but then again following the consultation with the public. And so, just further to that then. I mean, obviously, you talk a lot about the numbers and the consultation and the design in communities, whether they're naturally kept together. But could you tell us a bit about the measures of deprivation that you used as well and how that impacted? So, we used two measures to categorise councils. In the previous reviews, the two measures to categorise councils were both measures of virality. One was about population distribution and the other one was density. And we felt that those two were measuring pretty much the same thing. And so, in the consultation in 2011, certainly there was continued support for the notion of categorising councillors, but also a call for us to think about the measures that we were using and deprivation was used. And we were looking also at other bodies at the time that were also creating categories of councils. And so, we were looking at the SLARC research, the remuneration committee research on how it was banding councils. And it was using the Scottish Index for multiple deprivation. So, perhaps unfortunately named because it leads people to believe that it's a measure of poverty, but it isn't. It's a basket of measures that capture not just people who are living on particular incomes or people who are on incapacity in different forms of benefit, but it also looks at school enrolment population. It looks at the proportion of people living in a particular zone in higher education. It looks at crime rates. But critically for us, it also looks at public access. So, it looks at transport times made by car to different services and the shops and amenities. And it looks at public transport times in terms of access to schools and shops and public services. And so, the SIMD deprivation index isn't a measure of poverty as has often been assumed. It captures a range of socioeconomic and geographic circumstances in a local area. And we believed that because it was a measure that was also being used frequently by the Scottish Government, and critically had been used by another body that was also banding councils, that it was a useful one to use. Thank you. Alexander Stewart. In a minute, can I just declare an interest as a serving member of Perth and Canos Council? Just following on from that, Professor, we understand that the consultation process was quite lengthy. You wanted to try and engage with as many individual councils, organisations, community groups as you could, and I think that that very much did take place, especially with a number of councils and the war designs that you talked about. You decided to extend some of the consultation on some areas because it was obviously so successful. Were there areas that were unsuccessful that you felt you could learn from the process because some council areas were much more engaged than others? Was that because they were much more active or they took a bigger interest? There seems to be quite a difference across the country geographically about how people got involved. In some areas there were small meetings and in other areas there were town halls full of people making representation. And how you managed that process and how successful you felt that process was to ensure that you had that public consultation and that engagement. Yeah, no, that's a great question. One thing we're going to be doing is having a look at the fifth reviews and looking at how things have gone, both from the methodology perspective and from the public consultation perspective, so that we can write up what we think our best practice is so that the people conducting the next reviews have something to work with. In terms of the public consultation I mean we tried as best we could to create a system where you were not disadvantaged in terms of participating if for example you were not online readily. So we were sending information out to information points and we did do a kind of survey ourselves in terms of how frequently those pieces of information were in fact displayed. It was a bit patchy I have to say and then we created an online portal that allowed people to comment on the ward design and it was, I mean it's an incredible piece, we're using it again for the Boundary Commission for Scotland in the Westminster boundaries. You can highlight an area, you can redraw a boundary yourself, you can highlight points where you think it might work better or worse. So we've tried to use kind of low tech and high tech methods to engage as much of the population as possible. I think you're absolutely right that participation was not even across the council areas so we had you know over 800 responses in some cases. There is not necessarily a relationship I think between the number of responses and the number of serious concerns because what we did find is that there was a lot of miscommunication and I think we do have to reflect on how we communicate what the boundaries mean. So we did have people saying you can't put the boundary there because it means I'll have to send my children to a different school, it will change my post code, it will change my house value, it will change where I buy my you know where I go for my messages and none of that is true and so I think we do have a task in terms of improving our communication so that we make clear what the consequences of certain boundaries are but certainly that is exactly something that we're going to be looking at when we look back on that on the process. Is it specifically on consultation because I want to ask another question on consultation if it's on that it will take you in first Mr Simpson? Well it's actually to do with subjects that have been covered I wanted to come back in on the deprivation. Well maybe we'll come back on that we'll just maybe finish exploring consultation and I'll take you back in on deprivation Mr Simpson sorry about that. So in terms of consultation you could argue that this committee is now performing a scrutiny role to the end point of this process. Now I'm not saying we should be a statutory consultee, we've only been on this committee for a number of months but the process did start back in 2014 there was a previous local government committee who would have had the option to scrutinise or work in partnership at the start of the process. I'm just wondering is there a back story there that we should be aware of about representations from the previous local government committee or representations that the Boundary Commission for Scotland made to them? Not so long as I've been a member but that's only since October 2013. And the process started in 2014? The current commissioners were all appointed towards the end of 2013. I won't dwell on this point because there was much of a responsibility for the predecessor local government committee if they sought to do a piece of work on this as there is for this committee but I'm conscious of this committee scrutinising the end point of a process. Do you think it would be worthwhile in the future having whatever subject committee had the remit in relation to local government to be scrutinising at the start of a process and would that be helpful in terms of public awareness and understanding? Certainly improve enhanced communication would be very welcome. I think in explaining the approach it might be very helpful because we would remember our independence from political considerations that might be of interest to you that aren't things we would be taking account of at that time but clearly yes at explaining our approach and having those discussions it would always be helpful. I think that's really helpful that you mentioned the concept of political considerations and the role of this committee today is to examine the process and the robustness of that process rather than necessarily have any political considerations within that but in terms of that process and I'll move to Mr Simpson in a second, it's an opportunity perhaps to respond just once further to this. It's like scrutinising an end point where a process has ran for two years. Do you think there's a role not as part of a politicised process but in terms of a political accountability and scrutiny process for a subject committee such as this to be in at the ground floor of scrutinising the remit that you're under, the initial approach that the Boundary Commission for Scotland is taking and if the committee was to have any concerns helping given that there is strict independence perhaps making any concerns that may be flagged up with us in relation to that at the start of the process rather than waiting to an end of a process and saying well here's what you should have done better? I mean I take Isabel's point that we we wouldn't necessarily be able to make changes but certainly the opportunity to discuss our methodology and to explain what we're trying to do and also to to emphasise the rules under which we work and how we are an opportunity to explain the logic of our decision making would have been would have been very helpful and I think sometimes we did find when we were you know we went out and we visited all 32 councils and there was a you know not always but a bit of misunderstanding about what we were trying to do and what the measures were as well even though we would explain you know that we're using this very particular measure. I think there was a number of misconceptions about what we were trying to do and what we were doing. I think that's something that we might return to that you are duty bounding statute to have a very clear remit and that that remit's independent and that process has to be allowed to run and where political representatives can make appropriate representations and scrutiny and indeed checks and balances in the system and no doubt that's something that we'll return to in the future but I think it is one of the issues that we'll have to wrestle with as a committee so thank you for for that answer Mr Simpson in my poll just for taking answer now Liam Simpson. No problem convener I'll probably come back to what you've just just been touched on there um can I just ask about this this deprivation measure because I'm it not really clear where where it's come from was it your idea? No no no no no um it well in deprivation or SIMD in particular? To use the deprivation measure in deciding how many councillors should be in a particular council or a particular ward? In terms of the categories no I mean that the 2011 consultation was on methodology and so the first um discussion as far as I understand it the first discussion of deprivation surface then in 2011 in part because the two indicators we had been using to categorise councils before were measuring the same thing they were both measures of virality and so this was seen as a way of capturing not just virality which which is relevant um but also the socioeconomic and other geographic um circumstances of a council. Sorry I'm so I'm so confused as to where it's come from and why it's there why it was used as a measure? Well we we need to categorise councils we can't have all councils with the same ratio of electors to councils because it would mean that you would have to radically change the council sizes in the different local areas so you would end up with very tiny councils in western islands and very large ones in the larger ones and so because we misunderstand you've used deprivation as a measure to decide numbers. No we've used we've used deprivation as a measure to categorise councils so I'm explaining why we're categorising councils to begin with because some people would say what bother so we've categorised councils and in 2011 the consultation said why don't you think about deprivation but also why don't you reduce the number of categories because there's too many so we've reduced the number of categories from seven to five and we've used two measures to categorise councils but those measures are not strictly determining the council or numbers the ratios determine the council or numbers and the population in a local area determines the council numbers. SIMD data and the proportion of the population living in settlements of 3000 or smaller that's those are the measures that we use to categorise the councils to create councils that are broadly in similar circumstances so you have very urban ones that have higher levels of deprivation and you have very rural ones that have lower levels of deprivation for example and you have you have different categories of councils that are broadly similar and so those councils that have broadly similar characteristics share a ratio in terms of the number of electors to each councillor. So a council in a particular category would get the same kind of ratio so you actually have used it because you've categorised it. We wanted to know what the impact of deprivation was so we ran the methodology in a number of different ways so I looked it in and I ran it let's assume that we used the old categories let's assume that we used the old indicators of density and distribution and we just updated the ratios because we were always going to have to update the ratios because the number of councillors stayed the same but the population has increased so if we had done that and we calculated the numbers for that and then we calculated the numbers for what would happen in our new way of categorising things and what we find is that in 16 of the 32 councils the introduction of the new indicator the introduction of SIMD data has absolutely no impact on councillor numbers at all. You would have had exactly the same number of councillors had you just used a new an updated ratio but kept the old way of categorising things. In terms of comeback feedback that you got from councils what would you say was the proportion in which you changed the initial recommendations as a result of that feedback? At the first stage it was seven wasn't it? We changed councillor numbers when we started to consider the ward boundary implications of certain councillor numbers so there was nothing set in stone as a result of the methodology per se it was when we started to look at you know what are the distribution of communities etc and how we could take them on board and in some cases we had to change councillor numbers to to get a better result in effect. Seven councils. We changed councillor numbers in seven areas. So as a result of feedback from seven councils you changed your recommendations? No, when it came to ward design what we found is that sometimes the numbers that we had proposed just didn't work. You end up with wards that are a strange shape or you end up with wards that you have a leftover ward that has too many people in it and so what we find is that sometimes we have to increase the number of councillors by one. You mentioned Dundee and they came back with proposals did you accept them? Well there's two things. One is we came up with our option and the council said we prefer your other option so we did adopt that one. We said okay fine you like that one we'll go out to public consultation on that one so we did make a change on that. In response to the public consultation there was concern from primarily West Ferry that it was no longer with Broughty Ferry but the problem with multi-member wards is if you have an area that is probably worth about six councillors you can't make that a single ward. You have to divide it and so what we did was we had a four member ward in Broughty Ferry and we put the boundary over as far as we could and the people in West Ferry were then put in a boundary with those in East Dundee. So we had calls to change it but we couldn't create a six or a seven member ward. Right but you accepted the recommendations from the council. Yes. So that then leads into what the convener was asking about because the minister rejected those final proposals. Yes. And you could some people could argue well that was political interference so should but what's your view of that? Well the minister has that authority to accept, reject or modify proposals and so it hasn't ever been done before but it is within the minister's authority and so in that respect I suppose we can't be surprised if someone uses the authority that they have. With respect to the islands I suppose we weren't particularly concerned because it was in the S&P manifesto that an islands bill would be coming and so we I suppose would have seen that coming perhaps. So with respect to what the convener was saying it's a final point. The line of questioning you're about to explore we agreed that Mr Wightman was going to look at at the start of the session which is how we move from boundary commission recommendations on to ministerial approval of otherwise. I'll give you a latitude but you know other members are specifically going to be raising this point in a structured fashion. Final point convener and then it might lead to Mr Wightman. Well it will do so. That's fine. So could there be could we have a system where the final check is not a political check but an independent check? Well certainly there are other ways of doing things. There are other ways of approving boundaries with the administrative reviews that the local government boundary commission conducts the minister can also accept, reject or amend but with the with the Scottish parliament boundaries the minister has no power to direct the commission to make any changes and the same is true for Westminster boundaries there's also an affirmative resolution procedure rather than a negative resolution procedure so what's distinct here is not just ministerial role but also the relative absence of a parliamentary role I would say. And that's absolutely something that this committee will explore and just be careful and we're used to the language because the relevant minister will be giving evidence to this committee in a few weeks time and I think any suggestions of a political role are best placed to that minister but it's reasonable to put on the record that the position was made as a government minister rather than as a party political one but we can explore that with the minister when they give evidence and we have to look at whether there's an appropriateness in terms of the process that exists but that is the process that currently exists which I know Mr Whiteman wishes to explore further Mr Whiteman thank you for your patience thank you convener um you're required to review these boundaries every eight to 12 years and um we've been doing this process largely unchanged since 1889 um do you have a view on whether the public can still have confidence in this process given that the final decision is in the hands of a politician and that there is no parliamentary role for determining the final boundaries and the second question related to that is about the timetable for your review and the knock-on consequences for the ministerial decision in relation to that review and there have been concerns expressed that your reporting in May 2016 the decision being made by the minister in September 2016 was just a little bit too close to the May 2017 elections given the of sometimes complex processes that political parties have to go through to select candidates which in multi-member wards and all the rest of it can take a little bit of time so the second question is about the timetable and are there any improvements that could may could be made there in terms of public confidence I think there's a number of things to point out one is one is our independence so we um we work within the statutory framework that that we are given and and we followed it very very closely so from that perspective I think absolutely the public can have confidence in in the reviews in in terms of whether they can have confidence in the judgment of a Scottish minister well I would assume that that would be the case of any policy decision I don't know why it would be any different for this one so um in terms of timetable improvements yeah I think I think you're absolutely right um and certainly um there is no time for us to conduct another review save on um in Dundee or in Scottish borders or Eigal and Butte in time for the 2017 uh elections the I mean it's not quite as much of a surprise given that we have been uh we we put our ward design uh proposals out very very early and so while we have made some modifications that would have given political parties some idea of what the landscape would have been like for the for the 2017 elections but I I take your point that it it could be earlier just on my first question I wasn't suggesting that the public may not have confidence in the boundary commission I was questioning whether the public can have confidence in the process as a whole when you make properly independent recommendations but the final decision and this relates to people's communities and where they live the final decision is in the hands of a politician elected politician but parliament does not have a role in determining the final look of the boundaries so I mean you may not have a view in that because we've been doing this for 100 years or more um but I'm just flagging it up as possibly needing change particularly in the light of your comments that you made in relation to your stat to the statutory framework around what the Scottish Parliament and the Westminster Parliament elections yeah well I mean it could well be something worth exploring in in part because the position of the local government boundary commission is about to change in that we used to just deal with the boundaries for the for local government elections and the boundary commission for Scotland used to deal with the boundaries for Westminster and Holyrood but following the Smith commission recommendations and and the act we are we will now also be looking at the boundaries for Holyrood but there's a very different process in terms of how those recommendations are approved the minister has has no role in terms of amending any boundaries we propose for Holyrood elections and there is um there there is a parliamentary role so it might well be the case that um there is a desire to at least make it so that the process for the boundary commission is the by which boundary commission decisions are approved is the same regardless of whether you're looking at local government boundaries or Scottish Parliament boundaries but which you choose is is up to you. Thank you. Can we perhaps explore that a little bit further and actually take Mr Gibson first and then I'll myself and Mr Simpson perhaps come in to explore that a bit further and then I think we'll have to Mr Gray because he's got some questions he'd like to ask Mr Gibson. Well I was just going to ask you a wee bit about flexibility convener if that's okay because you know I was talking about local authorities in four or three member wards throughout but there's and other things obviously come up which is an anomaly whereby some communities feel completely detached from the other part of their ward so for example among constituency the Isle of Arran 10 miles off the coast is attached to Erdrossan and neither community feels that that's a happy arrangement that clearly under the legislation they have to be fitted into a three or four member ward. Do you think there is a you know there should be more flexibility in legislation in terms of maybe having one two or five member wards possibly? Is there a room for that for communities such as that? No just that but there'll be other communities around Scotland in a similar situation I would believe. No that's a good question and we made a point of noting in our discussions where we felt that actually the ability to just use three and four member wards maybe prevented us from having a better solution that managed to balance parity and local ties so we were focusing not on single member wards because we were thinking within the framework of STV of multi member wards we were thinking about instances where say a two member ward and a five member ward might be more helpful and specifically we were thinking that that would be helpful in Perth and Cynros but also in the Scottish Borders in Western Isles in North Ayrshire but also in in Argyllin butte. Yes because what happens in and the situation like that is you have a de facto single member ward the council of whichever party and it's been three parties and an independent in the last four elections however actually resides on the island effectively represents island in the mainland councils don't take any interest in vice versa so you do effectively have that situation in any case and it would be better for the authorised but just my final point convener when we talked about parity and I talked about the fact that my constituency will have 16 and Ruth's 17 councillors and there's a three and a half thousand electors per council and mine and three thousand hers you talked about the fact that you're only really looking at a 10% change and don't want to be disruptive but the first the fourth review is the first to look at proposed representation multi member wards so surely if those wards were not actually constructed appropriately should we not kind of go back more or less to first principles rather than build on what effectively wasn't done perhaps properly in the first place in order to ensure that the parity which is so important in the legislation is carried through because I don't really think that that's happening in settling my neck of the woods I'm sure that we must be the case in other parts of Scotland. Sure I mean I think there's another tension there in terms of an ideal solution I don't think there's one ideal solution and also disruption so we have some councils that have used the the wards that were created in the fourth reviews as the basis for economic committees or regeneration committees in their area and so if we if we draw them in radically different places from one review to the next then we can we can introduce disruption that I think local councils wouldn't necessarily find helpful. Our legislation requires parities a number of electors per council we didn't really look at proportionality in the way you're describing I mean that's the legislation doesn't require us to do that so again it just comes back to the hierarchy of bits within schedule six of the act and that puts parity and it doesn't define proportionality as something we should look at. The point I've been making is there is no parity in my own local authority area because the waiting is towards the south of the authority rather than throughout. Mr Gibson just a tight time constraints I think both myself and Mr Simpson who will give the opportunity to come back in will both have to be brief I want to turn just to the process and the end point of the process again in relation to ministerial decision in relation to the boundary commission's recommendations and there seems to be a conflict again in relation to this where if a minister accepts every recommendation it could be seen to rubber stamp if it doesn't accept every recommendation it could be seen to interfere and there's a tension that sits between those two compass points if you like so I suppose I'm asking about whether you believe there should be a check-in balance in the system because under statute at the moment the check-in balance in the system is ministers having to approve that process and if we did move away and change the rules and the regulations in relation to that do you have any views on how we should move away from that and I'm just minded at some of the suggestions that have been made and we will explore those suggestions might actually lead to even more politicians having a say about their own local areas in a politicised fashion so how do we move away if we shouldn't move away from the current process that de-politicises it and doesn't lead to even more conflicts? Yeah I suppose it's two different issues one is about the ability to accept or reject and the other is the ability to amend I mean the ability to choose which are these are 32 separate reviews so in a way the minister has 32 decisions to make how up so the only tension I suppose for us is that we have created a methodology that is that offers a Scotland wide approach and seeks to create a solution that works best not only within a council area but for Scotland as a whole we have attempted to make representation more equal for Scotland as a whole we've reduced the range of ratios that are used we have attempted to reduce the deviation from parity that occurs within council areas and so by not accepting five of those recommendations some of the improvements that we've made will not have been realised so the ratios are not as compressed as they would have been otherwise the deviation from parity is not as small as it would have been otherwise and there are also challenges about remaining with boundaries from the from the fourth review in those five areas that where the recommendations were not accepted so the Isle of Bute for example has just over 5,000 people and it has three councillors well Maryfield and Dundee has three councillors and it has 12,000 electors so those kinds of disparity would not occur had all 32 been accepted that kind of was not the question the question was about whether there should be a check-in balance in the system from the 32 recommendations that the boundary commission makes and of course the boundary commission is going to support all 32 recommendations that it makes but if there is a check-in well there is a check-in balance in the system and that's ministerial decision about whether to accept or otherwise those 32 decisions if they accept the 32 decisions every single time then the work of the boundary commission has been perfect since its inception and as much as it's an esteemed organisation every organisation might not always get it quite right the issue is whether or not the check-in balance should sit at a ministerial level whether you're content with that or what the alternative should be in a way that doesn't even perhaps in theory politicise it I mean I don't think it's for me to comment on what what the approval process for our recommendations should be I'm merely trying to point out that that our recommendations attempt to get the best solution for Scotland as a whole and so therefore by going with old boundaries that are based that are using um old data there are there are certain costs to that wasn't trying to tease it whether there should be a check-in balance in the system I think it probably is for others to judge but I think I also point earlier that if we were sitting here as a commission talking about changes to council area boundaries there would be a negative resolution procedure in the Parliament so there is a different system but I think consideration of which is better or worse probably isn't for us to make that decision and I think that's a very strong point that we'll definitely return to I was just trying to tease out whether there was a position on that my apology I wasn't as brief as I should have been Mr Simpson and then Mr Gray promises you you'll come in after that do you want to add anything Mr Simpson well not really I think it's not fair to ask your opinion on this but something we we should certainly explore later absolutely and we will do Ian my apologies no no you've got about five minutes or so okay thanks convener I have two questions and they're both very specifically about East Lothian which I represent but I will try to couch them in terms of the efficacy of the the methodology East Lothian is the fastest growing county in the whole of Scotland in the last decade its population has grown by 11 percent and it's projected to grow by almost 25 percent in the next 25 years but the commission's recommendation reduces the number of councillors that we have to represent that population that just seems to fly in the face of all common sense and reduce democratic accountability rather than enhance it surely that's a failure of the process well I think if we weren't I don't think it's a failure of the process I think there are different ways to do this and and one way would be to just take whatever the population of the council area is and to work out the number of councillors based on that but we we we can't do that really and end up with council sizes that are councillor numbers for each local area local authority area that are of sufficient size they would be too small in certain cases and and too large in others we would end up with a Glasgow council that would have 166 members if we did something like if we just used population so we have to categorize them to look at councils that are in that are facing certain common circumstances and so we we looked at well what what what what puts pressure on councillors what what helps helps them what makes their workload harder or or less hard and and we we kept a measure of virality because we understand that that does make a difference and we adopted a measure that we think captures other pressures that councillors face in their workload and we use that to categorize the councils we can't just look at at population because we would end up with with council sizes that are far away from the 18 to 85 limit with which we work but population growth needs Lothian isn't marginal it's the greatest in the whole of Scotland and our number of count i'm not suggesting our number of councillors should be increased i'm asking why they should in those circumstances be reduced this is not this part of scotland is not at the margins of population growth it's the fastest growing area in the whole country i think else's point was scotland wide methodology that resulted in proposals for councillor numbers in east Lothian population growth would be taken account of the professor just said there were 32 separate reviews but there is a consistent methodology i mean it isn't that it nobody's ever argued to us that there shouldn't be a consistent scotland wide methodology it isn't what happens in england there are other ways of doing it but we do have that consistent methodology i can ask them what's what's the factor which has reduced democratic accountability in east Lothian what what if it's if pop you if it's not based on population which manifestly isn't what what is the consist what is the consistent factor which has led to a reduction in our number of councillors well it's not based on population because it can't be based on population alone because as i said you would end up with with markedly different council size unworkable council sizes that don't um that don't reflect the the number of councils and so therefore in creating in creating these categories we have used two indicators we have used a measure of rurality and we have measured we have used a measure that captures the socioeconomic and geographic circumstances of a council the simd data so it's those two together so so the reduction is based on categorizing councils categorization well not on its own not on its own it can't be based on population or rurality because we do you have a reality factor and populations growing so it wouldn't be one on its own it would be both together and it's not based on on population still has a role population still has a role because that's where the the ratios come in so if you have um uh two councils in the same category that have similar socioeconomic circumstances similar geographic circumstances but one is smaller than the other you will end up with the larger area having more councillors okay can i just just ask one one other question convener um we've also talked about the word design so having set the number of councillors the word design um and again in East Lodian um word design in three out of the seven words in the council really drives the coach and horses through those historic community and geographical links that you've talked about it cuts across school catchment boundaries Scottish parliament boundaries and those designs were not supported by the council by community councils by any of the political parties or by any other political representatives including myself so if three out of seven words have little or no support in terms of their design is that not also surely a failure in the consultation process yeah i i don't know if we could say that it has little or no support what we found is that we had we had limited um public engagement with with word design even in those areas where there was concern like in um Westferian Dundee and in Cullington for example in Edinburgh and in Houston we did not get overwhelming support that would suggest the majority of respondents in an area the majority of electors in an area were engaged with the issue and and were aware of the issue so we did we did get expressions of concern but fundamentally sometimes that expression of concern is not with the word but with the existence of multi member words sometimes it's actually that what people want is a single member word but there's nothing we can do about that in the examples that we're talking about the specific words in East Lodian it's exactly about the relationship between villages and towns for example it's exactly about the relationship with other boundaries such as school catchments, Scottish Parliament boundaries that was the basis of the submissions that were made from for example the local authority for example from myself but nonetheless there's been no no change to that just to end the game because of taking streets my apologies mr gray this will make this the last comment we'll have to move on this is very brief because we did make changes we increased council numbers from the methodology by one in East Lodian precisely to try and keep Trinidad and McMerry in a ward and we did do that it just becomes basically I think in a way you're advocating no change because we wouldn't if we always had to stick with a council's existing planning designations school catchments we wouldn't have a role because there'd be nothing for us to actually look at in determining parity so you know we've described the process we've gone through but of course we did move away from the methodology to give East Lodian an extra councillor and I'm not just saying it's all what's the that my apologies that we don't have time to do that can I thank all our witnesses this morning for what you have it was a really useful evidence session and mr gray to come along participating in the work of the committee as well and can we suspend briefly before we move to the next agenda item thank you okay good morning and welcome back to the government community committee's meeting we move back into public session and we move to agenda item three subordinate legislation the committee will take evidence on the draft council tax substitution of proportion Scotland order 2016 and the draft council tax variation for unoccupied dwelling scotland amendment regulations 2016 and can I welcome to the committee Derek Mackay cabinet secretary of finance and the constitution robin hains council tax and ctr reform branch and short foobaster solicitor scottish government the instruments that I've just outlined are laid under affirmative procedures which means the parliament must approve them before the provisions can come into force following this evidence session the committee will be invited to invited at the next two agenda items to consider motions to approve the instruments before we move to questions can I welcome our three witnesses again and invite the cabinet secretary to make a short opening statement thank you convener and thank you for inviting me to your evidence session today I'd like to begin by saying a few words about the perhaps less debated of the two draft statutory instruments under consideration today that applying to second homes as the explanatory notes describe under the present legislation a council may grant a discount of between 10 and 50 percent of normal council tax liability in respect of a second home this draft instrument seeks to extend this flexibility to allow a council to also decide to grant no discount in respect of second homes in other words to charge the full council tax on second homes in this context a second home is defined as a dwelling that is furnished and lived in for at least 25 days in any 12 month period but not as someone's soul or main residence so it's distinct from for example dwellings that have been unoccupied for over 12 months and for which separate legislation continues to apply unchanged importantly these regulations do not seek to alter the treatment of properties where the owner or tenant is required by their job to live elsewhere for example members of the armed forces living in barracks there over 27 000 properties defined as second homes in scotland if enacted these regulations would give councils additional flexibility and autonomy to address local circumstances whilst potentially raising an estimated of three million pounds I will now turn to the council tax substitution of proportion scotland order 2016 this seeks to do one thing only to increase the amounts of council tax payable for properties in bans E F G and H by 7.5% 12.5% 17.5% 22.5% respectively this change would affect just over a quarter of all households in scotland and have no impact on the 1.8 million or so properties in bans A to D the change is set out in regulation 2 of the draft statutory instrument it would make council tax more proportionate indeed the independent resolution foundation on report of April this year stated that these proposals would increase the proportionality of council tax so the question being put to the committee and indeed to parliament and considering this order is whether we want council tax to be more proportionate but requiring those in bans E to H properties to pay slightly more if these new multipliers were implemented with the present rates of council tax charges for affected properties would still on average remain less than the equivalent in england or if there had been no council tax freeze the measure will raise an additional 500 million pounds over the period of the current parliament it is of course not the only change proposed by the scotland government there are other measures that the committee has received representations on and some of those relate to regulations that amend council tax reduction scheme and are presently under consideration by the social security committee other changes are non legislative or can be delivered within existing powers i know that the committee has taken evidence on a number of issues beyond the subject of this order including a lively discussion last week and how the changes might be communicated to households however the resolution of many of these points is something that will be achieved through dialogue and agreement between in the main Scottish government cosla and local government revenue and benefits practitioner community these changes can be implemented in april 2017 wider change as some of the evidence to the committee confirms cannot be delivered in that time frame for either administrative or legislative reasons for example the powers under which this order are made do not extend to such issues as notification to taxpayers or funding to councils to implement the changes but the powers do allow ministers to amend the proportions that determine the council tax charged on all dwellings in relation to band D charged set by councils so the key question to consider today is when assessing whether this order should be approved it's whether we want to make council tax more proportionate for requiring those and properties and bands e to h to pay relatively more thank you very much cabinet secretary now i suspect we'll have a number of questions in relation to the statute in relation to council tax substitution of proportion scotland order 2016 but i've had an indication that there might be one or two questions briefly in relation to the other orders i call Elaine Smith and then we'll take graham simpson after that thanks very much and thanks for joining us this morning cabinet secretary on the draft council tax variation for unoccupied dwellings order which you mentioned first when you opened could i just clarify then that what this does is recognise the importance of local decision making and the changes that are being made i suppose it's a fair question and that it recognises that it's giving councils the flexibility yes thanks thank you just want to clarify that okay and i think maybe i mentioned here cabinet secretary i suspect um i'm sure we'll have a lively discussion can i remind members on their hands how how many questions we asked but we also have a significant time period should members wish to use it for a debate to debate each statute instrument as well so just remind members of that also cream simpson well thanks for coming cabinet secretary and colleagues the change that you're proposing to council tax has been linked to the attainment fund now which which came first was it the idea of the attainment fund and how to fund that or was it a desire to reform council tax i think thanks convener i suppose that's more of a difficult question for me to answer and that i wasn't the cabinet secretary at the time when the statement was given around the council tax approach and then went into the preparation of manifesto which is presented to the public but the first minister outlined our response to local taxation earlier in the year so i think both are important to government reforming local taxation and of course education and targeting resources to attainment and tackling the gap that exists i'm writing saying though that money money raised from council tax and i know you'll say that councils will keep all that money but you'll reduce the grant you'll get the money back that money will be used for the attainment fund well mr i answered the last question as accurately as i possibly could and i'll do so with this question around the resource so what mr something is asking about is the how the revenue would be raised so these multipliers generate more money for local government it's in the knowledge of that that you can then make other decisions around the wise use of resources but it does remain the case that every single penny raised by council tax including the multipliers will stay with each local authority and the method of local government funding and distribution is a matter that is agreed with the local authorities i was previously on the distribution and settlement group within local government that was an interesting and challenging experience but it does remain the case that every penny raised in council tax will stay with those local authorities and any further mechanism will be through the budget and the revenue support grant as has previously been explained in the chamber upon that i'll just note that there are bits for supplementary from mr gibson and mr stewart which i want to follow upon that a bit further yes absolutely so a lot of the evidence that we've had as a committee is around the question of local accountability essentially this policy is being introduced to raise money for a national priority there's great concern around that in in local government that's reflected in the evidence that we've had how do you answer that well i think some people have you know suggested that we're clawing council tax money away from councils we're not local authorities keep every penny raised through council tax and that includes through the multipliers but what we're able to do through the revenue support grant how the government distributes the money and you know similar to the business rates scheme we adapt the the arrangements for how we allocate additional resources to local authorities and that's how we can address this issue ensuring that there's resources for education and that that's a matter of discussion with local government but council tax money stay with councils what we'll discuss in targeting the attainment fund is around revenue support question before we take in three now three bits for supplementaries on this this theme mr simpson do you want to add on to that that's okay convener because i think you're trying to dodge the issue and you know for you know exactly what i'm asking you're going to take the money back in grants to fund a national priority so that breaks that local accountability council tax bills rise to fund your priority you're entitled to have priorities whatever they are but you're funding your priority essentially from a cut in revenue grant as a result of increasing council tax mr simpson accuses me of dodging the question i would argue you're dodging the answer which is to say that local authorities will keep every penny of council tax that they raise every penny so that's extra resource to local authority arising from the change to multipliers that we are proposing but there is an already well established system of redistribution and distribution of resources which comes through local government finance orders which comes through negotiation with local authorities and how that's distributed on a needs basis that infrastructure is already very well established when within the world of local government the mr simpson knows it very well and i just say again that the the monies that are derived from any multiplier change stays within the council tax pot they have that accountability mr simpson will have the opportunity to add to his thoughts on that during the debate should he wish to take the opportunity but i think he would have a fair airing there mr gibson we plan to be much more convenient now it's just to tease us a little bit more i mean if we look at the figures from spice east renfisher will raise an extra four million pounds northeaster which i represent 1.9 million but it could be argued that in terms of meeting the attainment gap east renfisher having the highest attainment in scotland it might not need four million pounds whereas northeaster may need significantly more than 1.9 million pounds so what you're saying is that the money that's raised through council tax will stay there so east renfisher will clearly keep its four million but if northeaster council is to have more than the 1.9 million it raises to meet to close that attainment gap is the funding mechanism going to be redistribution formulae going to be altered to ensure that in effect in reality on the ground east renfisher council will get less than the four million pounds through its council tax increase because it won't need it to meet the attainment challenge whereas northeaster for example or Glasgow or other deprived areas will get significantly more so local government redistribution does look at the needs based system all the distribution factors all the indicators are played into that system and what the government proposed was a focus around attainment and looking at very specific way of addressing need so yes is the answer to the question it will be based on need now that's still subject to discussion with local authorities and others but that would be done through the revenue support grant through the grant settlement and through the distribution machinery but it is needs based to answer the question thank you very much thank you convener can i just declare an interest as a serving member of person canos council thank you cabinet secretary you have given us an indication off to where we stand and many representatives from local authorities across scotland are unhappy about the idea that mr simpson has mentioned this morning about national priorities being used if i can take my own council for example the bands that are being suggested person can lost would probably have to raise about 22 million pound from these increases we would expect if we are looking at the redistribution which might be what the government is considering maybe six or seven million pounds being kept within council if you're specifically looking at possibly the the free school meal usage as an indicator and i'm not sure if that is being used as an indicator or not there's a lot of speculation about what might happen and what could happen depending on where we are here but what is apparent is that the residents of these locations will assume that the money being raised from their taxes may well be going to support schools within their area and to an extent that is taking place but in an area like mine and person can rose it may well not be the case that the majority of the money is being used and some people may see that as a plundering of the tax revenue that's being raised i feel as if we may repeat some of the same issues i can only say again that that wouldn't be the case because local authorities will keep every penny of council tax raised in the area but government is entitled and parliament is entitled to look at the the multipliers and the council tax proposition that's why we are debating it today to then go to parliament and government and local government engages around distribution and their revenue support grant and the overall budget settlement and indeed on the indicators that inform that settlement and that's the existing infrastructure and it's through that kind of approach that we would embark on this issue but i say again every local authority will keep every penny raised as a consequence of these changes and the government through the funds that we've deployed through the settlement that we deliver to local government can then discuss and debate how those targeted resources that we are providing will be delivered to each local authority and we'll try and do it of course in partnership with local authorities and in terms of the methodology around need it is correct to say it was around three school meals but we're engaging with the education sector and we'll engage with local government to say you know do they have any other suggestions around another way to do it but that's our proposition in which we'll approach the issue okay thank you final thank you final supplementary on this and then we'll move on to another theme Elaine Smith thanks convener cabinet secretary in the evidence that we've received over the past few weeks i don't actually recall that we've received anyone saying don't do this but what we have received is evidence around calling it a political fudge or saying that it's less regressive slightly more progressive a wee bit fairer tweaking at the edges these have been the kind of comments and evidence so i suppose given what you said in response to that question my question would be is it you know the local authorities will raise the extra funding in these bandings you're telling us they will keep that extra funding which they will but given what then happens thereafter is it a kind of reverse ring fencing and we've had some evidence that suggests that that is what witnesses would think it is so you know you then actually because you're reducing or intending to reduce funding then it's similar to ring fencing but in a kind of reversed way it's not extra money to provide a government priority it's it's less money because they're getting extra money through the way they're raising local taxation cabinet secretary i think that's a helpful question but i would say that the by changing the multipliers it generates over a hundred million pounds through council tax local authorities keep that but government is entitled to readjust our revenue support grant to deliver targeted additionality and it's that kind of additionality that a number of political parties called for in terms of support for education and specifically around attainment so local authorities keep the resource and government is entitled to look at the revenue support grant and all the factors within that which we we discuss with local government hopefully we'll reach a deal with local government on that and a partnership approach but it is for government to propose our finance order our mechanism in parliament to judge whether it supports that or not but the multiplier does generate more money for public services we heard a lot in our evidence sessions of people calling for a revaluation of properties can you just expand a bit on the reasons why the government is choosing to not undertake that and maybe speak to some of the practical implications of a revaluation and the the costs involved so practically a revaluation it would take time it would be costly it would put extra uncertainty into the system i think it could result in a shock to many households that they were unprepared for in terms of of what a revaluation could achieve and i think the commission also fairly looked at this and it would also have a rebalancing issue in terms of geography as well and tax take so i think there's a number of factors that play in terms of a full scale revaluation the reason we're embarking on these proposals and can i say this is not the end of the story in terms of local taxation or council tax for that matter i had said in the chamber that i want further discussions around what we could do next but this is certainly i think very worthwhile in terms of the steps that we are taking that we're proposing a balanced approach one that is more progressive, fairer, it can be delivered at lower administrative cost and it can be delivered quickly as early as april at next year whilst generating resources for public service so i think that we've presented a balanced package to be able to to take this forward but revaluation would be a shock for many it would have an administrative cost it would take time to implement and i don't think it'd be particularly welcome indeed the commission reported that it would also be be very challenging so we're taking a very balanced approach giving certainty to income to to local authorities and to tax payers as well as i say a vast majority as a risk as a consequence of these regulations will not pay more and of course there's the the issue around the further flexibility for local authorities to be able to raise council tax at their discretion we've proposed a cap of three percent however i think it's a balanced package and set out in a very reasonable way thank you we've just come back in on on the the matter of the cap at three percent can you speak to why it's it's three percent and what government will do to ensure that that cap's enforced well i suppose the the capping issues is partly a political judgment around what would be acceptable to the public what would be in line with inflation it's hard to judge inflation along with all the economic turbulence and uncertainty but that was i suppose a judgment on what's reasonable for local authorities what's reasonable to tax payers having had in the past quite substantial increases in council tax that certainly wasn't welcomed by the by the local populist and there has been a period of a freeze but i think it's acknowledged that that freeze can't continue into the next term we put a proposition as a as a party as a government to the people and that was endorsed by the people giving us a mandate from the election on our taxation proposals and specifically on council tax three percent cap felt reasonable how we approach the matter with local government is to have a partnership approach and hopefully we can find agreement around that in the way that there has been in the past and i want to have those discussions in a constructive spirit but there are existing legislative provisions for government to be able to to cap council tax through existing legislation around council tax levels but i want to embark on it in the partnership approach with local authorities and i think you'd have to use your own judgment as well if you thought you know do you think that local authorities would would put it up beyond three percent so i start off with the partnership approach but there is legislative provision to cap the council tax if that was required and on that i would have to return to parliament on an authority by authority basis so to use and of course i would i would approach parliament if that was required thank you that's all for now yeah a brief follow-up question on the revaluation point now this was debated recently in in the parliament as well and i made the point at the time that if some members were suggesting that and we'll hear more about this later if we'd a fully progressive system as the commission was suggesting that that should perhaps be implemented but we should also implement revaluation and have the three percent council tax increase as well and i was looking at some of the numbers around that so a band e property under the scottish government proposals will see their council tax up 207 pounds under the commission proposals by 436 pounds when you get to a band h tax would go up 516 pounds a year but under the commission proposals 3688 pounds per year and that's before you look at a potential three percent increase on top of that if we were then to go to revaluation then cabinet secretary i do believe we have to do revaluation at some point i made that clear in the chamber if we do go towards revaluation do you think we're going to take the council tax base with us on the basis that someone in a lower tax band property that's already seeing their council tax increase by 400 500 pounds a year plus potentially three percent and then moved into a higher tax band property do you think we'd get buy in from the council tax base the families that we all represent across scotland convener i think i had covered off some of the administrative points the the shock to the system points i think you've certainly expressed more of that that if there would be that degree of turbulence i think there would be an issue about compliance and certainty of payment as well it'd be so much change at one point and the difficulties that come along with that would give us i think all great concern because it would be very substantial increases far more than we are proposing a lot of turbulence a lot of uncertainty a lot of change at a lot of administrative cost as well so for all those reasons that's why we're not convinced by revaluation okay kevison do you want to supplementary it's on a three percent figure which seems to me arbitrary i mean the UK government is set a long-term inflation target at two percent so i'm not really sure why three percent's been picked but it goes back to the issue of local democracy i mean this is the whole issue that's been raised with us with our witnesses surely it should really be up to local government to decide what their increase if any should be because it's about electing people who will take these local decisions and lastly on this issue three percent across the board is not progressive because it affects everyone equally if it or whatever the amount below three percent is and a lot of people have not their income isn't increasing by three percent a year so that will surely hit people perhaps in the lower bands and if it's going to be a three percent every year increase which if you're setting a cap is more likely to be than if you just leave it up to local government to decide surely then that's going to be increasingly burdensome in the in the years ahead and then unpick some of the good work done by the council tax freeze well all i can say is the s n p stood on a manifesto commitment and that was endorsed by the people to follow this approach and i think people didn't appreciate in the past significant increases in council tax and i think that's why there was a view that the council tax freeze was appropriate fully compensated by the Scottish government but of course it's right that it's time to to to look at empowering local authorities and they can make the decisions about how much council tax they charge but the reason we propose the three percent cap is because we feel that that's a reasonable cap a reasonable limit and i do think it is a parliament is entitled and government is entitled to to set a cap if we have achieved a mandate from the people which we believe that we have we weren't the only party at the scottish parliament elections that proposed such a cap so i do believe there's this consensus around this particular issue in a reasonableness approach around ensuring that there's not particularly high council tax rise you know it wasn't so long ago that a local authority was toying with an 18 per cent council tax rise and i don't think that that would be particularly welcomed by that local authority so i think that the government's taken a balanced approach to this issue protecting household incomes leveraging in further resources for public services whilst at the same time making the necessary steps to make the council tax more progressive a brief supplementary for mr simpson i want to move on to mr whiteman who know what's to explore our other team so it's about revaluation i think your phrase was if you did it it would it would be a shock to the system which i think means unpopular there'll be winners and losers we took evidence to suggest that 60 percent of households are in the wrong band at the moment so if you were to revalue you know let's say half half of those would win and half of those would lose i just wonder what how long do you want to leave it because we've got values at 25 years out of date now do you want to go another 25 years well it's not our proposition to have a revaluation on this term of office we didn't propose it in march statement we didn't propose it in the manifesto what we have outlined as the package of measures that we've proposed that was endorsed by the people and i'm interested if the Conservatives now believe that the support or evaluation i'm not sure if that's now the position of the Conservatives but it's not the position of the government we'll leave that sit you've got the opportunity within the debate if you want to explore any of that further elene smith or you want to go in and then we'll move on to Andy Wightman thanks convener it's just to the cabinet secretary has made comments several times about the mandate because of the snp manifesto so cabinet secretary you say you have a mandate and presumably that's why you didn't consult on fully on these changes and actually i think if you had a lot of the evidence that we received would have been explored in the consultation but i'm just wondering if you really do feel that that is the correct approach given that you're not a majority government you are a minority government so would it not have been better actually just to consult i think what we've listened to and reflected upon as the commission's work and other stakeholders but then formed a view yes as a party and as a government on what we want to propose and we believe that the package that we're offering around particularly the multipliers because that's what we're debating and that's what we're voting on today of course is the right thing to do to generate more income to make council tax fairer through the multiplier effect and there will be further work on this with local government around of course it's implementation but we have to know the question is is the will of Parliament to let this progress to allow the multiplier to change along the lines that we're suggesting and suppose that's what will be tested today okay thank you can i move to Andy Wighton thank you thank you cabinet secretary for coming along today i have a constituent whose flat in Edinburgh is in band e but which is now worth quite a bit less 20 000 pounds in fact less than nearby flats that run band b what should i say to him when you tell parliament and this committee that your proposals are more progressive more proportionate and fairer well well i think that they are i think that the proposals we're putting forward are fair that a majority of households won't pay any more as a consequence of the multiplier change and we're trying to protect households from a a high council tax increase which is why we're proposing 3 cap and we're also generating more resources for for public services and i think it's a fair and a balanced approach not delivering the kind of shock to the system that a full-scale revaluation would or or astronomically high council tax increases would for people after you tell them that do what a follow-up question mr white man microphone on i'll tell them that and see what he takes of it in the 92 local government finance act it was anticipated that there will be revaluations it was one of the reasons why at the moment when someone makes alteration to the property which has the effect of decreasing or increasing their council tax ban those changes are not implemented until the property is sold um those provisions were put in place at the time because it was anticipated there would be revaluations you say that a revaluation there would be a shock can i suggest to you that ignores the fact that there are deferral schemes that have been introduced in northern ireland that wales had a transition that even under the 92 act you have powers to introduce a revaluation on a timetable of your choosing um and to ask you when if not in this parliament do you anticipate a revaluation taking place um or do you anticipate the centenary of 91 values still being used in 75 years time i suspect cabinet secretary you may not be the cabinet secretary in 75 years time that said what are the major term plans of the Scottish government well i say again and i don't know if mr samson was saying i might be in 75 years time but i suspect not um i think i've made clear that we didn't put forward revaluation in the manifest or the march statement so it's not a proposition we're putting forward for this term of office having said that for all the reasons i've given having said that and i say again i don't think that the decision today or further decisions around local taxation should end here i think we should continue to discuss what further improvements we'd want to make and i make that offer again because i think there you know there are issues we can look at further i think there are further amendments that we can make and we should continue to explore that i described it as a journey in the chamber and i meant it but these are the proposals that we laid out during the course of the election that we're now asking parliament to support it so we'll embark on these and return to other issues if members want us to do that to explore it more fully and you know that that's in the spirit of consensus and a constructive approach recognising that of course there are issues within all of this that are worthy of further exploration but it doesn't lead me to the conclusion that wholesale revaluation is wise or necessary at this time. I welcome your indication that there should be further discussions. You talk a lot about your manifesto and you're implementing your manifesto in the chamber on 22 September 2016. You say that I categorically assure every local authority area that every penny that's raised in council tax will stay in that local authority area. How we propose to allocate revenues towards education is as was proposed in our manifesto which is through the revenue support grant. Can you point me to the bit of the manifesto that said you would distribute or allocate those revenues through the revenue support grant? What we're complying with is the desire to raise the extra funding, how we propose to spend resources on education through the attainment fund, by raising council tax, which does stay with the local authorities. It allows us to have a mechanism within the revenue support grant. The Scottish Parliament manifesto that we produced from the SNP didn't actually cover every element of local government distribution. You wouldn't expect it to because some of that is down to the dialogue with local government. That's how we fund local authorities largely through the revenue support grant or through those finance orders that also come to Parliament around local government finance. I have been clear that we want to deliver the attainment fund, the increase thereof. We want to see through the multiplier changes. I'm proposing as finance secretary that we can do that as part of the revenue support grant because there's existing infrastructure and how you determine need and how you distribute resources. You mentioned that the statutory instrument is not the end point in the process. You've said it again today, as you said in the debate the other week, that it's a journey in relation to that. Before we move on to the next question, can I just check that as that journey continues forward, what does the role of this committee in working collegially with the Scottish Government to tease out some of the options, including potential suggestions that, if we can get unanimity within the committee, that might be able to be explored further by the Scottish Government? Clearly, I want to deliver the Government's manifesto, but we also want to ensure that we can continue to be progressive and reasonable in our approach in light of circumstances. I think that the committee can continue to have discussions, and I'm certainly happy to be engaged in that. Equally, political parties will express to me what their budget asks are, what their view on budget proposals may be and what they think the future of taxation should look like. I've said that I'm open-minded on that, and I know that the First Minister, in answer to First Minister's questions, said that she's happy to engage on tax matters as well. That commitment to engage is certainly there to listen to views and to take that forward, although, of course, what any Government would want to do is deliver a manifesto. I understand that, cabinet secretary. I supplement you from Elaine Smith. Thank you, convener. Cabinet secretary, you know that it's on revaluation again, but some council taxpayers weren't even born on the dates that their properties are assessed from. I think that that point has to be made. In evidence, we did get a lot of concern about that. One of the professors who gave us evidence said that it undermines the credibility of the system, where perhaps 57 per cent of properties are in the wrong band. I accept what you've just said about that it wasn't in your manifesto to re-value, but back to the point that I made earlier, and maybe building on what the conveners just said, given that it is a minority Government, would you at least be open-minded to testing the will of Parliament on whether or not there should be a revaluation? I'm expressing the Government's view that we don't see a revaluation as wise or necessary. I think that it would be costly. I think that it would be disruptive. I think that there would be issues around compliance also. A lot of the issues that we've discussed this morning, and that's not a proposition we support. I mean, largely, the collection rates are high for council tax. We want to build in more progressivity into that to make progress, of course, separately to this discussion in the other committee. There's work around the council tax reduction scheme as well. It feels like the right balanced approach and revaluation would bring in so much administrative turmoil and cost and uncertainty and compliance. It would be a concern for the Government and indeed, potentially for local authorities as well, if there was an effect and an impact on their collection rates. Mr Stewart is taking in for another question that he's indicated that we would like to ask before the start of the evidence session. Is it a supplement specifically on revaluation, Mr Simpson? No. I can take in Mr Stewart first in that case then. Thank you, convener. Many people said, Cabinet Secretary, that the council tax freeze was unsustainable through the length of time that it took. It may not be a surprise to everyone that we're going to have this change, but in managing that change, how are we planning to ensure that the public awareness campaign is progressive and that people get the opportunity to see and hear before the bill lands on the door mat? I think it's important that we do have an idea or a flavour of what isn't planned in the run-up to the decisions that are going to be taking place and how people can still engage in that process because, as I say, for some it will not be a surprise, but for some it may be a shock. I think that that's a very fair question from Mr Stewart about the communication of what's decided and Parliament, through its committee, will determine what's decided and then, of course, that will go to Parliament. Then there is that communication exercise, which is very important so that we absolutely raise awareness of that. I suppose that, principally, the bill that people look at will be the bill. That will be the piece of correspondence that they look at when their council tax notice comes through the door. There is a job of work around communicating what's happening around the multiplier so that everyone understands that, how it affects individuals. Of course, crucially, again, not for this committee necessarily, but also the council tax reduction scheme so that people get the relief that they're entitled to as well in communicating and raising awareness for that. Then what local authorities choose to do around any council tax increase as well, so all of that must be communicated and communicated direct to householders. Of course, this is a tax that touches every household in whatever way, so it's really important in the way that we share that information as quickly as possible. However, like with the IT companies, the providers, the world of local government and then householders, clarity will be given hopefully from today as to what is likely to happen in a week in embarking on that campaign. I supplement on this specific point, Mr Gibson. Notifications to everyone to let them know that their council tax is going to be increasing bans E to H. For the 74 per cent of people whose council tax banning is not going to increase, you're going to be giving them a letter to let them know that the Scottish Government is not going to be increasing their council tax. I'm sure that the government will be as positive as possible about our approach, but we'll do this, of course, in dialogue with local government and, ideally, it would be good to have a joint piece of communication between Scottish Government and COSLA, of course, on how we share that information to local householders. Sorry, convener, but I'm sure that political parties will express their own views in approaching council tax bills and indeed the forthcoming local government elections. I suspect the world cabinet secretary. I think that that was a really useful supplementary from Mr Gibson. My take on last week's evidence session was that, whilst everyone wishes the council tax to increase, maybe different mechanisms to make it increase, no-one wants to either take the credit or blame, depending on how it wishes to be expressed, and that's the mood music that I got from last week's evidence session. So there may be local authorities that don't particularly wish the Scottish Government was doing it this way. There's some support in some areas, not in other areas. Irrespective of that, can you give a commitment that the Scottish Government and COSLA where possible, irrespective of policy differences, will try to speak with one voice in a coordinated fashion in terms of promoting this tax change to all of our communities? Of course, convener. It's really important that whatever the political differences on local taxation, but there is clarity and good sound information to householders so they know what they're paying and why they're paying it. So I think that's a very reasonable plea and I believe that COSLA would engage in that constructively, as would the Scottish Government. And neutral information, so 32 local authorities, all with their own distribution networks as local authorities at council tax payers expense, for example, neutral information would be helpful in relation to explaining the factual position rather than opinions perhaps. I think that's right when it comes down to, and I'm sure we're all familiar with our own council tax bills, it's a pretty dry and straightforward piece of communication. Sometimes there's accompanying information from different local authorities, but I think that's right. I think that's why it's really important that we try and get a joint communication coming from COSLA and Scottish Government just to set out the facts, set out the changes, and then tax payers will understand what they're being asked to pay in good order, in good time, with that level of clarity. Thanks, cabinet secretary. I think that we're moving towards the end of our question and answering question, but Mr Simpson's indicated he wants to ask another question. Good day, Mr Simpson. Yeah, it's really just for the sake of clarity. We've got figures from SPICE about the additional income that will be raised in individual councils. So, for example, City of Edinburgh, £15.6 million, East Renfrewshire £4 million, and a whole variety. Once you've dealt with grants, and can you say if any individual council would lose more in grants than they'd gain in council tax? Well, the final figures and distribution hasn't been determined, so I can honestly explain that at the moment and give those figures as yet. So it's possible they're good? Well, what I'm saying is what I've said throughout that local authorities keep every penny in council tax, how you then distribute through the attainment fund, is yet to be determined. Okay, can I ask one more? Yes, I'm just conscious of time, but yes, you can ask. Okay, if you were able to identify £100 million from somewhere else, would you be proposing these council tax changes? I think that, I think that that's pure speculation, but everyone has said that the council tax freeze is seen, there's a consensus, is seen to be unsustainable. A lot of householders maybe want to continue arguably, I've described it as popular, but I think it's necessary to reform the council tax in the way that we are, absolutely. I also believe that it's important to invest in education, and I do believe that it's important to invest in attainment in the way that a number of political parties have also described, so I actually think that both are necessary. Okay, and we'll move on from there. I'm conscious that it's understandable that something has got such a significant amount of political attention that we've moved towards policy and opinion, and that's the reason why there's some brass tax to the statute and perhaps we haven't explored it just to give you the opportunity to put some of that on the record before we move to a formal debate, and I know that Elaine Smith wants to raise one of those points. Thanks very much, convener. I actually want to raise two of them, but I'll do it together. I presume that we would expect a higher number of applicants for the council tax reduction scheme, so would there be any attempt to target those people to provide them with adequate information? Could that be included in any national publicity campaign? Secondly, could we have some opinion from you about or even some facts about the water and storage charges and how that will fit in? Okay, that's very helpful, Elaine Smith. Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. Yeah, two key points there. First, on information, yes, we can embark on a campaign, but sometimes with generic campaigns they feel quite meaningless to people, but a bill and invoice feels quite meaningful, so I think that that's a great opportunity that I'd want to ensure that we build in enough information about the relief schemes and potential eligibility of that, so we get proper uptake. There's about half a million recipients of the current council tax reduction scheme. We would expect that, yes, to change so absolutely a clear focus on information, eligibility and a general campaign, but very specifically on that communication to every household. That would also be good for current uptake on reductions as well, so I think that that's an excellent point. On water charges, I appreciate the opportunity to provide clarity on that as well. As I understand it, this is a matter between Erusanna Cunningham and myself in terms of appropriate Cabinet Secretary's responsibility, but the water charges essentially have already been laid out and we're not proposing to change that this year. We're not proposing to mirror the changes because there's administrative issues there, but essentially it's already laid out in terms of the current charging regime and order, so I don't propose to change the water bills following on automatically from this. Cabinet Secretary, I thank you for giving evidence to the committee and that ends agenda item 3. I now move to agenda item 4, which is still on the same theme of subordinate legislation. For this item, the committee will formally consider motion S5M-1522 calling for the committee to recommend approval of the draft council tax substitution of proportion Scotland order 2016. The council committee will also consider amendment to that motion S5M-1522.1. Only the cabinet secretary and members may speak in that debate. At this point, I invite the cabinet secretary to speak to and move motion S5M-1522. Formally move, convener. I now move to invite Andy Wightman to speak to and move amendment S5M-1522.1. I have tabled this amendment to seek to express the committee's awareness of the wider concerns around the Scottish Government's proposed reforms to the council tax. Those concerns are not at issue in the terms of the statutory instrument itself, but they have come through in evidence before this committee, and no doubt we will make reference to them in our forthcoming report on the legislation. The cabinet secretary's motion takes the form of a recommendation to Parliament that the draft council tax substitution of proportion Scotland order 2016 be approved. Parliament will, in due course, make its own mind up on that question, but the committee has heard evidence that the context within which the order is being debated is problematic, most particularly the extent to which the Scottish Government's proposals on council tax reform do not address the wide range of issues that are raised by the commission on local tax reform in its final report. The evidence that we have heard is quite clear and given the breadth and extent of the evidence and the authority of the witnesses who have given that evidence deserves, in my view, to be noted in the motion. The amendment does no more than note some key concerns expressed to the committee in oral and written evidence. It does not seek to take a view on the validity of those concerns or, indeed, whether, as members of this committee, we agree or disagree with those concerns. It merely notes them and it recognises a fact of the first recommendation of the commission on local tax reform. I commend it to members and move the amendment in my name. Thank you very much, Mr Wightman. I now move to the open debate. I mean members' hands how long they wish this debate to last for, but can I ask if any members' wishes to make a comment during this section of the debate? Elaine Smith. Thanks very much, convener. I am pleased that the convener chose this amendment to be debated today, as put forward by Andy Wightman, because I really do think that it is fair to note the concerns that we have received in evidence over the last few sessions. I think that I said earlier in question and I am just going to say again that much of the evidence that we received did recognise that the order is, and depending on your language, either slightly more progressive, slightly less regressive, a wee bit fairer. For me, the fact that the order does allow a fairer approach at local level to the council tax has got to be a good thing. There are, of course, concerns around whether the Government then uses this sort of reverse fencing approach to decide how some of that money is used in a way. On the other hand, personally, for me, it is difficult to argue against a Government policy that wants to provide funding for attainment and for education. I think that that is a good thing. However, how we arrive at that has been the subject of some debate over the past few weeks. Personally, having looked at the evidence and considered it all, I am certainly very happy that I did sign the amendment. I think that, for the committee—what Parliament does is up to Parliament—reflecting the evidence, I would make a plea that other members would support it as amended, because I think that that reflects what we have seen. It simply notes the evidence that does not take a position on it. Frankly, I do not think that the amendment adds anything that will not be in our committee report anyway. I would draw the attention of paragraph 7, where it says that the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee determined that it did not need to draw the attention of the Parliament to instrument on any grounds within its remit. We are really talking about two things. One is the evidence that we have taken and the other is the instrument itself. As far as the instrument itself is concerned, it is implementing a manifesto commitment and it is more progressive. There are issues that we have discussed in the debate this morning and in other meetings regarding the mechanism. I believe that those issues—revaluation and so on—will all be covered in our report, so I do not think that there is any necessity to support the amendment. I would go along with that. I think that the main issue that we are here to decide is the cabinet secretary's proposals. I do not really see that there is much point to this amendment, because that is the key question that we are here to decide. I will not be supporting the amendment on that basis. Does any other member wish to add anything before we move to Ruth Davidson? I would echo Kenneth Gibson's thoughts there. I am also a little bit concerned that we have not had a chance as a committee to reflect on the cabinet secretary's evidence, so it would feel not quite right to do this before that. I think that noting the concerns that have been expressed is valid, but they should be noted in the committee's report, so I will not be supporting the amendment. I am like-minded with many who have spoken already from the committee. I understand the reason for the amendment, but I do not believe that it brings any more value to the process that we have. We are here today to primarily look at the proposals by the cabinet secretary, and for that reason I would not support the amendment either. I would like to take a brief contribution before I move to summing up from both the mover of the amendment and the cabinet secretary. Does any other member wish to add anything before? On either? On either. On the main question, I am essentially against what is being proposed because it breaks democratic accountability with councils. I cannot get past that, and a speaker has always been a councillor. I am a councillor. It is a fundamental change in my view to the way local government is funded and local services are being funded, and so for that reason alone I will not be supporting the cabinet secretary's motion. Okay, thank you. I might now just make a few remarks, and then we will move to closing statements. I will be supporting the statute instrument before us today. I cannot recommend to Parliament raising an additional £100 million to tackle the lack of educational attainment from some of our most vulnerable children in some of our most deprived communities. Essentially, for me, that is precisely what we are voting on here today, and I cannot find any compelling argument not to vote for that today. I would now like to turn my attention to the amendment, although I will not be supporting the amendment. I actually think that Mr Wightman has done a service to Parliament because quite often instruments go through unnoticed, and the procedures of committees go through unnoticed also. I think that Mr Gibson rightly pointed out that there is a reporting mechanism that this committee will have, which will actually flesh out a number of the concerns that are noted within the amendment. I suppose that anyone watching here today will be very aware of that process now, that the committee will be reporting on that matter. We will draw to Parliament's attention anything that we think is appropriate, but we will have done that after having had a chance to reflect on the entire sum of evidence that we have received over a number of weeks, which indeed includes the cabinet secretary's responses to us here today. For that reason, I cannot bring myself to support the amendment as before, but I think that it is reasonable to say to anyone watching, as well as to my fellow members, as we seek to draft a hopefully report by consensus that we will draw to the attention of Parliament anything that we think is appropriate. By not supporting the amendment, what I am seeking to do is have a much more fleshed out and considered report to Parliament, but I completely understand what Mr Wightman is trying to achieve here today. Can I just check that there are no other contributions from members at this stage? In that case, can I invite closing comments from Andy Wightman? I have heard what members have said. On the substantive motion, I will not be standing in the way of the statutory instrument passing into law. I am however concerned that the full powers of the local government finance act 1992, the full ministerial powers that are available under that act are not being used, particularly to bring the tax base up to date. I find it unacceptable that, in April next year, people will be paying the wrong amount of tax, particularly the kind of person that I related to earlier, my constituent. Nevertheless, I continue to commend my amendment to the committee. Cabinet secretary, to sum up and to respond to the debate, if you so wish. The convener, I suppose that it can be said in summing up whilst you are ahead. I appreciate the support of members within committee in speaking in favour of the statutory instrument. That is fundamentally what we are debating, whether we are choosing to change the multipliers or not to generate more money for public service. I think that it is the right thing to do, it is a balanced approach. It is one that protects household incomes, but is more progressive, is fairer, is part of the journey that I described in the chamber. I do want to engage further with political parties on matters of taxation, and there will be plenty other places, I am sure, to discuss local government distribution, the budget and other matters as well. This amendment, the motion in terms of what has been described, and I want to reassure Mr Simpson that supporting the statutory instrument today does not necessarily support any consequential budget discussions. This is about the multipliers, that is what the statutory instrument is fundamentally about. I know that even the Conservatives had a proposition for raising the bands and the multipliers for the upper bands, so I am not sure whether it is an issue of principle on the multipliers. Fundamentally, I think that that is the right approach, and I would appreciate the support of the committee. I too have heard the concerns and the evidence that has been expressed, and of course we will all reflect on that. Thank you very much cabinet secretary. That concludes the formal debate at this part of our consideration, and we will therefore move on to the matter of voting. The first question is that motion S5M-1552.1, the amendment in the name of Andy Wightman, which seeks to amend motion S5M-1522 in the name of the cabinet secretary for finance and constitution, be approved. Are we all agreed? If you are agreed, could you raise your hands please? Who is agreed? Okay, that is two members. Those who are not agreed, that is five members. So we only have seven members, so there can't be any abstentions at this stage, so that is two for the amendment, five against the amendment, no abstentions, as a result of the amendment is not agreed to. Okay, so we now move to the second question, is that motion S5M-1522, which has not been amended in the name of the cabinet secretary for finance and constitution, be approved. Are we all agreed? Okay, we are not all agreed. Can I ask those who are agreed to passing motion S5M-1552 unamended to raise their hands please? Okay, one, two, three, four. Those who oppose the motion please raise your hands, two. Are there any abstentions? We can record one abstention. Just for clarity I'll just read that out again, so that's four in favour of the motion, two against and one abstention. As a result the motion is agreed to. Well that concludes consideration of this particular affirmative instrument and the committee will consider its report on this SSI as we've previously discussed at the next meeting on the 26th of October. We now move to agenda item five, which is also subordinate legislation. For this item the committee will formally consider motion S5M-1594 calling for the committee to recommend approval of the draft council tax variation for unoccupied dwelling Scotland amendment regulation 2016. Only the minister and committee members may speak during this debate and can I ask the cabinet secretary to speak to and move motion S5M-1594. Okay, thank you. Would any member like to contribute to a debate in relation to this particular motion? Okay, no one's indicating that they wish to speak. Can I now invite the cabinet secretary to sum up? It says here to respond to the debate, I suspect that you will not be doing the latter, but you have the opportunity to sum up. I think I welcome the consensus and it appears to be agreement on this particular issue and I'll say no more. Okay, I'm delighted to hear that cabinet secretary. So the question is that motion S5M-1594 on the name of the cabinet secretary for finance and the constitution be approved. Are we all agreed? Yes. Agreed. Okay. That concludes consideration of this affirmative instrument and the committee will consider its report on this SSI at its meeting also on the 26th of October. So at this stage can I thank the cabinet secretary and his officials for attending? Thank you to all of you. I think we'll just move on to agenda item six, which is, we would like to hear still subordinate legislation committee members and the committee will consider the following negative instrument, the acquisition of a land rate of interest after entry Scotland amendment regulations 2016, SSI 2016 forward slash 258. This instrument is laid under the negative procedure, which means that its provisions will come into force unless the Parliament votes on a motion to annul the instrument. Members will note that there was a breach of the minimum 28-day rule between the date of laying the regulations at the date when the provisions come into force, but the Delegated Powers Committee considered that breach was acceptable in the circumstances and I note once more that no motion to annul has been laid. Can I invite comments from members in relation to this particular instrument? Okay. There have been no comments in relation to this particular instrument. Can I invite the committee to agree that it does not wish to make any recommendations in relation to this instrument? Are we agreed? Okay. Thank you. Well agenda item six, now we conducted, the committee now moves into private session. Thank you.