���˿���

You will appreciate that the causes are multifaceted, so the response will have to be multifaceted. It is important to remember that there are some great examples of town centres thriving in Scotland, but each town centre is unique and each has a different set of assets on which to build. Ultimately, however, the dynamic of our town centres is a reflection of the underlying economy—not just the total value of the economy, but how it operates.

In his evidence to the committee, Professor Sparks made the point that—it went something along these lines—actions during the past 50 years have cumulatively done harm to our town centres, and it will take time to undo that. We can discuss specific interventions, and I have covered many of them in previous answers when talking about CPO reform, CSOs, PDR, masterplan consent areas, changes to national planning policy and so on. However, the key is our underlying economic model, and that is why community wealth building is so vital. We need to move away from an extractive model to a model that involves more wealth being retained in communities, more democratic ownership of businesses and more pluralistic models, so that the owners of businesses are rooted within their communities. In other words, we need an economic manifestation of a place-based approach.

As far as support for local authorities is concerned, I mentioned the increase in planning fees, which, in some local authorities, is feeding through to an increase in the number of people who are working in planning departments. That will help to address that issue. I have also mentioned the work that is being done on recruitment and retention.

We are doing work in that area, but, ultimately, how local authorities choose to resource their various departments is, quite properly, a matter for the democratically elected members of local authorities to decide on.

David Cowan might want to add to what I have said.

I recognise that point, but it is important to be clear that NPF4 is not a capital spend option.

In the delivery plan, there is a range of capital spend programmes. Infrastructure investment and the strategy on housing to 2040 contain aspects of that. When we publish the delivery plan alongside the final NPF4 for Parliament to consider, a lot of that will be brought together. However, ultimately, we appreciate that development is not just about public sector investment; the private sector has an enormous role to play in that. The delivery plan will be published alongside the final NPF4, and that will demonstrate the co-ordinated approach that the committee is asking for.

First, we need to recognise the reforms that are already under way. We had the Barclay review, which reported a few years back, although some of its final recommendations will not come into effect until next year. We recently had the report from the Fraser of Allander Institute on the small business bonus scheme. One of the issues that it identified concerned data. We are in the process of establishing a short-life working group to look at those recommendations, and we are taking further action on, for example, the devolution of empty property relief, as I mentioned earlier.

As for the call for full-scale reform, I note that, beyond Barclay, the United Kingdom Government recently had a review of non-domestic rates in England. Ultimately, it landed on, in effect, what we have already introduced—for example, moving from five-year to three-year valuation cycles. Indeed, England still has a two-year tone date, whereas we have moved to a one-year tone date to ensure that, at revaluation, prevailing market conditions are reflected as much as possible.

In the context of the revaluation in 2023, and given the experience of the past few years, I understand the importance of stability for the sector. We should remember that issues relating to non-domestic rates have a huge impact across a wide range of sectors. Our immediate priority will be completion of the implementation of the Barclay reforms, and the short-life working group will consider the Fraser of Allander Institute’s report. Any considerations beyond those that take place specifically at budget time would have to be taken in line with our tax framework, which we published in December last year. As well as the Adam Smith principles, it includes a principle on engagement. Any NDR changes that might take place would therefore have to be preceded by considerable engagement with all sectors and businesses that would be impacted by them. Of course, although that is an important issue for our town and city centres, it goes far beyond that.

You will appreciate that the planning system must operate in a way that is consistent with legislation. What we have set out in NPF4 will be subject to our reflections following the parliamentary scrutiny process and public consultation, and we will bring that back to the Parliament in due course.

On planning policy, we have set out quite clear direction not just in specific policies on town centres, but in policies on urban edges and retail. Within the 35 policies in the policy handbook, there are clear policies on promotion of town centres and on seeking to limit out-of-town developments. Ultimately, decisions have to be made by planning authorities, and those decisions have to be consistent with their local development plans, unless material considerations suggest otherwise. The specific issue of limiting out-of-town developments and promoting town centres first is explicit within the draft national planning framework 4.

I am conscious of how deep a subject that is. If you are content, I will be happy to come back in writing to provide some examples and to elaborate on some of the points that we have made.

I will come to that. Opportunities for progression and there being an effective worker voice are key aspects of fair work. Employers should understand workers’ concerns, which can be about skills. I will come to actions on skills in a moment. There should also be an opportunity for progression within the workplace. The fair work agreement will be an early priority for the industry leadership group. I have recently had very constructive engagement with Tracy Gilbert of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers.

My second point, which responds more specifically to the matter that you raised, is that we have made a commitment to an e-skills audit and action plan. We will progress that through the industry leadership group, by engagement with Skills Development Scotland, the Scottish Funding Council and other partners.

I am alive to the fact that retail is changing. The reality of the workforce is that the jobs that might appear in 10 years might become obsolete in 30 years. People will need to develop continually during their working lives. It is no longer the case for most professions that you can walk into a yard as a 16-year-old apprentice and do the same job until you are 65. That applies to retail too, which is why the skills audit and the action plan are key commitments in the strategy that the ILG will take forward.

Absolutely. Transport has a huge role to play. We all recognise that, which is why there is significant investment over the course of the parliamentary session, particularly in areas such as active travel, to make town centres and city centres more accessible. We are also investing in our bus service infrastructure.

I am happy to take that point away and reflect on it. It might be necessary for us to have details of specific examples in order to understand your point.

Is David Cowan able to add to that?

That is a really important question that goes to the heart of regeneration. If I have understood you correctly, your point is that regeneration is a process and not an event. It is not about rolling into town, opening up a new facility and that being the end of it; it is about what comes after that.

I will give one example from my Renfrewshire South constituency. I was there in a ministerial capacity to officially open a new community centre—Mossedge village centre. Everyone on the committee will be familiar with the history of Linwood, what happened 40 years ago when the car plant shut and the severe impact that it had. Indeed, the name has become synonymous with de-industrialisation in the west of Scotland, and the area still faces significant challenges.

However, in 2009, a group of local residents—all women—got together round the kitchen table and asked, “How do we respond to this?” They were incredibly frustrated with the state of their town centre in Linwood, and they wanted to do something about it. That is interesting, given that a lot of people in 2009 would have been thinking about how to respond to the economic catastrophe of the financial crash. We saw some responses to that, but those women sat round the kitchen table and said, “Right—we need to do something for our community.” As a result, Linwood has gone from having various unflattering descriptors applied to the state of the town centre to having a redesigned town centre with active participation and engagement from the local community and a new bespoke community centre and cafe.

The community centre received support from the Scottish Government totalling £1.4 million, but I think—David Cowan will correct me if I am wrong—that the total investment was about £2.4 million, with money leveraged in from outwith the Scottish Government. We were able to provide support, but, through various funding streams from outwith the public sector, the people involved were able to leverage in additional resource, and they now have a thriving community cafe. They will require continued support, but they also have a clear vision for becoming sustainable.

In remarks that she made at the official launch of the centre on Friday morning, the manager, Kirsty Flannigan, who has been at the heart of that activity for the past 13 years, said something that I was really struck and encouraged by. As someone whose title includes the phrase “community wealth”, I am conscious of the varying degrees of knowledge and awareness of community wealth building, but, at that event, she said that, in order to be sustainable, they would have to look at the Linwood economy—or, as she put it, the Linwood pound. With the cafe, for example, they have employability schemes in partnership with the local college, they are employing local people, and they are partnering with St Mirren Football Club. They have also said that they will procure locally—using the local butcher and baker, for example—which means that any money that is spent at the cafe will go back into other Linwood businesses.

In relation to the land and property pillar of community wealth building, the community now owns that asset through a community development trust, having gone through the asset transfer process and been helped by regeneration capital grant funding. Under the workforce pillar, local people are being employed, and the wage that those people get gives them disposable income to spend in the local community. Under the spending pillar, in procuring the products that they will be selling in their cafe, they will be looking at other small businesses in the area. It is an example of community wealth building in action. Of course, no one called it community wealth building or used that label, but, all the same, it has evolved organically out of the community empowerment process.

That is just one example of a regeneration intervention that is moving towards self-sustainability—and not just for itself. It is also turning the dial and promoting a cultural shift to a system of economic pre-distribution rather than redistribution, given that wealth is being retained in the local community. The area might well be classed as lower income or disadvantaged, and it has had to face the long-lasting challenges of de-industrialisation for four decades, but things are happening there now and they are being done by the community.

There are, I know, countless other examples. When Phil Prentice was in front of the committee, he talked in some detail about my home town, Barrhead. It has demonstrated what can happen when significant public sector investment is used to establish council offices and a health centre and to refurbish a sports centre to provide a community hub. That draws people into a town centre, and that passing trade supports the local economic ecosystem.

Such investments can be catalysts for further change. Opening a public sector building will bring in people to spend locally, but if you support a local group in taking over an asset, the key thing is that, in the early years, they get the resource support—which we provide—that will get them to a self-sustaining position. When they reach that point, that sort of intervention is no longer required. Ultimately, that intervention has not only built an asset but changed the culture and attitudes and built the human capacity and capital required to take forward not just that particular project but others.

People might consider that area to be more challenging or more deprived than others, so what has happened is an exemplar of what regeneration can achieve—by that, I mean regeneration not as an event but as a process that is fundamentally changing the local economy.