���˿���

You raise some important points, which came out clearly in the evidence that the committee heard previously. I welcome the work that the committee did, which is, I hope, reflected in the feedback that the process this year has been more straightforward and more streamlined than it was previously. Getting that feedback helped us to make those changes to the application process for the islands programme.

The work that the islands team has been doing with the Scottish Futures Trust has been helpful in trying to minimise the burden of the islands programme as much as possible. Over the past few years, we have made refinements to the application process for the programme. In and of itself, that has helped, because everybody is becoming more familiar with the process of applying to it. I would like to think that that, in a sense, eases the pressure on local authorities. The SFT also provides guidance, help and support through the process, which local authorities have broadly welcomed, too.

The cluttered funding landscape is a difficult issue to resolve because I do not hold all the levers in my portfolio for the other funds that impact islands. We have talked about the remote, rural and islands housing action plan as well as other schemes that are funded through other portfolios. I reflect back on the response that I gave to Alasdair Allan about the work that the islands team and the SFT are doing together to minimise the clutter as much as possible. That has involved working with other policy teams across the Scottish Government to ensure that there are no conflicting deadlines, because we recognise the pressures that local authorities are under when it comes to applying to the funds and we want to ease that burden as much as it is within our power to do and make the process as easy as we can.

Is there anything that you want to add, Erica?

Absolutely. Childcare is a big issue even in terms of the wider challenges of child poverty and fuel poverty on our islands, where people are disproportionately affected because the cost of living is so much higher. We have funded a specific childcare pilot with the Mull and Iona Community Trust to see how we can address those problems and develop solutions that work for our island areas. We will be keen to take any learning from that.

Yes, I am happy to do that. We were happy to receive that feedback, and the one point that I will make in response is that members of the investment panel had experience of living and working on islands, so it was not necessarily as straightforward as saying that only one member was based on an island. However, we listened to that feedback from the committee and, as a result, we appointed five new members to the investment panel, who are largely islands based. The challenge in that was trying to find members who would not have a conflict of interest in relation to the projects.

Two members of the investment panel are from the young islanders network, which is very important, and the chair of the panel just so happens to be sitting to my left, so I am sure that she can give more detail about it.

You raise a vitally important point about housing. Wherever I go, and whoever I speak to, that is one of the top issues that gets raised. We must undoubtedly ensure that we are providing affordable housing to enable people to live in communities, which will enable us to tackle the issues that you have raised.

Earlier this year, £25 million-worth of funding was announced to try to address the issue of accommodation for key workers. That funding is mostly focused on looking at how we can bring vacant or derelict properties back into use. It is up to local authorities to determine how many key workers live in their areas. Initiatives such as that one can go some way towards addressing those problems.

I return to the pilot that we are undertaking on Mull and Iona. It is important that we look at that work to see what lessons we can take from it and apply elsewhere.

I absolutely take your point: we need the basic infrastructure to be able to tackle some of those challenges.

I will reflect back on the response that I provided earlier about the information that has been set out so far in the resource spending review and the capital spending review. They set out broad funding envelopes, but those are not budgets in and of themselves. Because we are at the start of the budget process, I am not in a position to say right now what the budget will be for the forthcoming financial year. Those are the broad funding envelopes that have been set out, but they are not the actual budget at the moment. That could change, so I cannot give any assurance in relation to that at the moment.

I would also be happy to send on the consultation information for the different events, if the committee would find that helpful.

As we have discussed, when we get only an annual allocation of budget, it is difficult to plan for multiyear funding. The measure that the Welsh have introduced makes sense. I will not pre-empt what will be published in the agriculture bill, but I will of course keep the committee informed of that.

The term “ring fenced” means that the money must be spent on those specific areas—that is, agriculture, agricultural support and marine funding. I do not know whether Craig Stewart has any specific points to make in that respect.

As for what will happen with funding, we have to continually monitor our budget throughout the year. Obviously, I cannot tell you at the moment what will come along—after all, we are just at the start of this year’s budget process—but there is no getting around the fact that we are in very challenging financial circumstances. There are difficult situations that we will have to look at in my portfolio—and, indeed, in other portfolios across Government, because we have to present a balanced budget—and I cannot say definitively that we will not be making any savings from or adjustments to ring-fenced funding here.

However, I come back to my earlier point that anything that might be offered from ring-fenced funding has to be returned to the portfolio in future years. Indeed, the £33 million that we have already discussed will be the subject of discussion with finance on when it will be returned to the portfolio.

I do not know whether Craig Stewart or George Burgess wants to come in.

The whole of the Scottish Government has to present a balanced budget. I reiterate what I have said previously about the decisions that we have to take in this portfolio, and in others across Government: we have to ensure that we have a balanced budget at the end of the day. That is incumbent on all of us and we all share that challenge. We had the emergency budget review last year because we had to take emergency measures to ensure that we were helping people and using resources as best as we could, especially as the cost crisis was affecting people in our communities.

Well, it does. In particular, the £33 million must be returned to the portfolio so the ring fencing does mean something.