Accounts Commission April 2025 meeting – transcript
April 10, 2025, 9:25AM
2h 32m 36s

0:00
Jo Armstrong 
Welcome all and thank you for forbearance with our technical challenges this morning.
The public session of today's meeting is, as always, been recorded. The recording of this meeting will be made available by, via the Accounts Commission website as soon as possible and is also available on request.
Members of the public are also welcome to observe this public session.
And hopefully we're making it easier, I’m not necessarily sure today's was that easier, but anyway, we’ll see. Those who are watching this morning, thanks for joining and taking the time to listen. Can I ask you please to keep your cameras and mics off at all times? You're here to observe, not to participate.
For Commission members and others participating in the meeting, either here or in the room, or remotely, please keep your camera on wherever possible, but keep your microphone on mute, as we're using the in room microphones to aid better quality of sound. If you wish to speak, use the raise hand function in Teams. Please do not use the chat function for discussion of meeting business.
May I ask all of who are speaking during the meeting, whether here in person or online – online – to speak clearly and loudly for the benefit of the recording and for any colleagues or observers who have reduced hearing. 
I believe there are some observers here from Highland Council, given the agenda item today, so welcome.
Takes us now to item 1. apologies for absence.
You have one?

1:30
Sarah Watters 
Yep. Jennifer Henderson, Commission member, is, sends her apologies. All other members are here in person. 

Jo Armstrong 
Thank you. Can I ask, item 2, any declarations of connections?
Helena.

Helena Gray 
Thank you, chair. Just to highlight, as recorded in my register of interests, I am a property owner in Highland Council area.

Jo Armstrong 
Thank you. Derek.

Derek Yule
Yeah, it's nearly six years since I left Highland Council, so it's probably long enough for them to have stopped blaming me for everything, and hopefully that'll enable me to participate fully in this discussion. I'm sure you'll keep me in check, chair, if I overstep the mark.

Jo Armstrong 
Andy.

Andrew Cowie
Seven years since I was responsible for community planning policing activity north of Stirling, but I think I've sold my size on that one, but I am a resident of Highland.

Jo Armstrong 
OK. Thank you. Nichola?

Nichola Brown
Just in relation to our members’ forum, later today I sit on the Strategic Leadership Group in North Lanarkshire Council.

Jo Armstrong
OK, thank you, duly noted.
OK, as is customary in our sessions, we're asked to consider what we share in public and what we take in private. Can I propose that we consider items 10 to 15 in private, for the reasons set out in the agenda – are members agreed?
Takes us to item 4, minutes and matters arising from previous meeting.

3:04
Sarah Watters
Thanks, chair. There were two actions from the last meeting. One was in relation to the diversity, equality and inclusion strategy, which was amended following the discussion and has been considered now by the Audit Scotland board. And Audit Scotland's officers will be in touch with Commission members about the finalised strategy. 
There was also an action about per capita metrics within our financial analysis reports and I know that the policy manager is liaising with performance audit colleagues on this matter.
Just in relation to item 10, Argyll and Bute Council, we're still to confirm when the visit will be to that Council, we understand they're taking the report to their full Council at the end of this month. But with the Easter break, it's been hard to arrange a meeting.
And in relation to item 12, the use of iTrent, we're still working with our HR colleagues and we'll send a reminder and a link to all Commission members in the next week or so.
Happy to take any questions or comments on actions.

4:06
Jo Armstrong
Approved.
That takes us to the key piece of today's session that's in public, which is the best value in Highland Council.
This item is a statutory report by the Controller of Audit on best value in the Highland Council. This report draws attention to the findings from the Council's 23/24 annual audit report on how effectively the Council demonstrates best value? The Commission is invited to consider and endorse the Controller’s report in this session. The Controller and the audit team are here to provide any clarifications or answers to questions that members may have on the Controller’s report and the annual audit report as it relates to best value.
We will then consider in private later today how we wish to proceed.
Helena.

4:56
Helena Gray 
Thank you and good morning everybody, and I welcome the opportunity to discuss my report on best value at the Highland Council with the Accounts Commission this morning. I’m delighted to be joined by Claire, Audit Director in Audit Scotland. And let me start by thanking the audit team for all of the work in delivering the audit.
As my report makes clear, the Highland Council has made good progress in driving forward best value, with improvement actions being well received and progressing.
A new Chief Executive was appointed to the Council in September 2023 and a senior manage… a senior management restructure in early 2024, meant a fresh look at various corporate strategies.
A new operational delivery plan was approved by the Council in May 2024, aligned to the Council's medium term financial plans. Effective delivery and monitoring of progress against these plans will be key to driving forward future improvements.
As set out by the auditors in their specific best value report on leadership, the Council effectively engaged with citizens when developing its priorities, but recognise that there is more to do in relation to community engagement.
A revised outcome improvement plan was approved in June last year and area place plans are in development.
The Council has an established performance management framework and reports regularly on performance against its strategic priorities, using 71 local performance indicators.
The Highland Council clearly faces inherent challenges of delivering services across a large rural geographic area. Workforce challenges are, of course, not unique to the Highland Council, as the Commission will be well aware, but likely exacerbated by its geography.
In considering the Council's approach to managing these challenges, the auditor found the Council has a large number of plans and supporting documents which reflect the Council's ambitions around developing a future workforce. But the plans were not fully aligned or easily held in one place.
There was no council wide workforce data being reported and the impact of the Council's workforce planning arrangements had yet to be fully assessed. Auditors made a number of recommendations for improvement in this area, which I encourage the Council to progress. 
It is worth noting that where auditors have in previous years flagged concerns regarding finance team capacity, progress has been made. A permanent CFO was appointed in September last year, and additional finance posts are expected to provide increased finance team capacity this year.
Finally, auditors have highlighted the Council has an effective approach to financial management and has a good track record of delivering savings, with 18 million savings delivered with 83% non-recurring in 23/24. The Council has, however, used reserves and financial flexibilities to close budget gaps too.
The Council's latest estimate suggests it is currently forecasting a cumulative budget gap of 13 million by 27/28.
Its 25/26 budget includes the use of reserves to support future transformation as well as further savings for future years, and this is something auditors will be considering further in future audits. 
I'll stop there, but of course Claire and I are very happy to take any questions.

8:03
Jo Armstrong 
Thanks Helena, I’m sure you’ll get some questions.
It has become standard in our procedures for discussing these reports in a structured way, to organise our lines of questioning. Today we have 6 themes – finance, workforce, transformation, leadership, performance, and community engagement.
So we’re working on that, through that process, we’ll start off with finance and if I can ask Mike to open the questioning.

Mike Neilson
Thanks very much. Thank you very much for the papers, as well. I thought the best value workforce paper was particularly useful, one of the best we've seen.
On budgetary issues. quite keen to understand what is happening in the Council, which is, had a 54 million budget gap in one year, as reported in our last documentation, and now has a cumulative gap of only 13 million in 27… by 27/28. So if you could explain what are the factors which have led to that shift, and in particular how much of that is recurring savings and what your level of confidence is that those will be delivered?
On reserves, the reserves position does look relatively comfortable compared to some other authorities, but I'd quite like to understand the range of specific reserves which are referred to, and to understand whether the, I think it's budget pressures, Crown Estate and developer contributions, whether those are in effect uncommitted reserves available to support things. 
And then on the capital side, clearly there's a significant, higher proportion of revenue is going in to support a large capital programme, an ambitious future capital programme as well.
I’d like to understand a bit more again about the, your level of confidence in relation to the assessment that's been made as to whether that, that programme is, is entirely fundable.
Enough to be getting on with.

Helena Gray 
Thank you. As always, there's quite a lot of different themes within that and we'll, we'll take them, I think, sequentially. And I'll say a couple of words and bring Claire in in a moment. 
So just in terms of the savings, and the movement in the, in the budget gap, I think as you've, as you've highlighted, previous reports have highlighted that Highlands has had a significant budget gap, which equated to 8.5% of its revenue budget in 24/25. Now, after it's set its 25/26 budget, it's looking at a cumulative budget gap that comes in more around 1.8%, I believe, against its, its revenue budget. So there's been a significant movement in that.
I think that's due to, that movement can be explained by a combination of factors and I'll bring Claire in to talk about some of them in a bit more detail. I think it's worth recognising the increase that the Council has agreed in council tax. So it's, they've agreed a 7% increase for 25/26 and while future years are of course a matter for the Council to decide on an annual basis, the medium term financial plan assumes an annual 5% core increase in council tax plus a further 2% is earmarked for the Highland Investment Plan. We can talk a bit more about that in relation to, to capital, I think as well.
The 25/26 budget also included 18.8 million of proposed savings for 26/27 and 4.1 million in 27/28, so the Council is clearly already setting out some of its proposed saving plans as part of its work on the medium-term financial strategy.
Some of these have already been agreed, so 13.5 million of those savings were agreed in the 24/25 budget for the future years, and then additional proposals of 6.1 million were included in the 25/26 budget as well.
But I'll perhaps bring Claire in to talk in a bit more detail about the savings that the Council has been making.

Claire Gardiner 
Yeah. So I suppose it's important to note that although the, there was a large budget gap in 24/25, the Council haven't had initiatives in place to bridge that funding gap.
And a lot, some of that was recurring savings. So the savings plans included the redesign of adult social care, procurement efficiencies and income increases.
The 24/25 budget savings were, totalled 31.37 million and the proposals in the budget plan plotted those savings over a three-year period. So that wasn't 31.37 just in that one year, that was over the whole three years.
And it was noted at quarter three that there was slippage against those savings targets of 7.68 million. However, what the Council has done when setting their 25/26 budget is re-based and updated those savings as part of the 24/25, that were identified as part of the 24/25 budget, to ensure that they are included in the budgets going forward and the budgets going forward continue to be realistic and achievable.

Jo Armstrong
Can I? Can I ask, just for clarification, what do you actually mean by being re-based?

Claire Gardiner
So I suppose where there has been slippage in the budgets in 24/25, that that has been considered as part of setting the 25/26 budget to make sure that any savings that weren't achieved have now been rolled forward into… 

Jo Armstrong
Adding a savings requirement?

Claire Gardiner
So it's basically reprofiling the savings over the remaining, remaining three years.
That’s all I wanted to say.

Helena Gray 
Shall we move on to, then move on to reserves because I think they all obviously hang together? 
So in terms of the reserves position, I think Exhibit 6 in the annual audit report shows the general fund balance and how that has moved over time with an increase in the general fund balance, although a greater proportion of that is committed, and again, I'll bring in Claire to talk in a bit more detail about the Council’s reserves strategy, and the different reserves that they hold and how that is, is split and as part of that, I think, Claire, if you want to say a bit more about the reserves that are held for transformation and change as well?

Claire Gardiner
Yeah. So the Council set their reserves strategy in December 2023 and that covers the general fund reserves only. The strategy notes that the Council can hold reserves for general purposes and that is the ear… non-earmarked element, and that was sitting at 48 million at the 31st of March 2024.
There is currently a projected overspend of around 4.46 million, which is less than 1% of the overall budget, but that may impact the reserves position at the end of the current financial year.
The reserves that are earmarked are split between 3 categories, so there are those which are to meet specific requirements, so that may be grants with conditions or developer contributions which are for specific purposes. There are also those which are for, held for investment, service, redesign and transformation. And there are those which are held for managing timing and cash flow to help manage the budget setting and financial planning.
So the non-earmarked reserves are to be maintained at no less than 3% of the overall budget and currently at the 48 million that is actually double that 3% level. We highlighted in our annual audit report that in times of austerity, the Council may want to think about whether holding significant reserves is appropriate and they did agree that they would look at the reserves and plan to utilise some of this balance and transfer an element to earmarked reserves.
So the medium term financial plan does take account of the Council's reserves strategy and builds upon those budget decisions. It recognises that reserves are finite and they cannot use that as a sustainable source to support balancing the budget. However they do have a strategy to use the reserves to support investment, change and transformation, and the proposed budget for 25/26, and indicative budgets for the following two years make no assumed use of the uncommitted reserves, but do use some of the earmarked reserves to support investment, and in line with the reserves strategy.

Helena Gray
Which I think then probably brings on to capital as well. 
And Mike, you were asking specifically about the significant investment that's planned and I suppose the affordability of that. And as I've already mentioned, the Council have approved a Highland Investment Plan which was approved in May 2024, and a key part of their council tax increases is an earmarked amount to support that investment plan as well. But I'll bring in Claire to talk a little bit more about their auditor’s assessment of the affordability of that capital programme.

Claire Gardiner 
Yeah. So the Highland Investment Plan, which was approved, sets out that the affordability of each capital project will be assessed and linked to individual phases of the capital programme. 
They're still at the beginning of the investment plan. However, in 23/24 we highlighted that borrowing levels, while they had increased to fund the capital programme, they were within the authorised limits and operational boundaries set by the treasury management strategy and therefore meet the affordability criteria.

Jo Armstrong
Mike, follow up?

Mike Neilson
That's a lot of very helpful information. I suppose that two things out of that, one point is, [inaudible]… the amount of… the level of savings which are, as it were, not part of the budget gap, but part of the plans which have not yet been decided upon over three years. It feels as if there's, unlike a number of other councils, the, the budget gap is net of savings yet to be, yet to be nailed down.
And on capital, just to be clear, that, is it 2% each year? And that's the 2% increase in the council tax. So it's not 2% of revenue. So it's quite still quite a modest amount, to cover future borrowing.

Helena Gray 
So just on there of the savings required in the medium term financial plan, I think that's 13 million is the, is the savings that they still need to find, I think the medium term financial plan captures the savings that we've already spoken about. That's right, Claire?

Claire Gardiner
Yes. So they have a firm plan in place for the 25/26 savings and that is set out in their budget documents. But what's not set out is the 26/27 and 27/28, which is the 13 million you’re referring to.

Helena Gray 
And then in terms of the 2% on council tax, obviously, future council tax will be, is for the Council to confirm on an annual basis, but that's the appraisal… approach that they've indicated.

20:40
Jo Armstrong 
Derek, do you want to follow up?

Derek Yule
I wanted to come back, chair, on the response you just gave there, Claire, about treasury management strategy, because I was concerned about this. You know, I understand the challenges that the Council faces particularly with its school estate and roads, and it's quite legitimate the Council has an ambitious capital investment strategy.
But, in terms of treasury management, councils effectively set that themselves. So you spoke about an operational limit and your view is it’s affordable. But treasury management strategy has 3 strands. Affordability is one, but prudent and sustainability are the other two and that's a bit that concerns me. The Council seems to have set a strategy of restricting borrowing, effectively 10% of its revenue budget, which seemed to me extremely high particularly in the current context. 
We've got a report later on today's agenda which speaks about an average across Scotland of just under 6%. So it seems high, so I just wonder, I mean there's a few other questions I have in relation to the paper, but in this specific… From an auditor’s perspective, are you content that the Council's plans for capital are sustainable and prudent in that longer term context rather than just being affordable in the short term?

Claire Gardiner
Yeah, I think a lot of the long term affordability does link to the, the use of council tax and the 2% and that is baked into the plans. 
I suppose, as I noted, the affordability and prudence will be assessed at individual phases of the capital programme, so we'll have to consider that as they come through across the level. I wouldn't like to say right now at the beginning of the plan that it is because there will have to be several additional assessments as they work through the plan, which we will of course audit as part of our work.

Derek Yule
I think you’re maybe confirming that you've got concerns about sustainability in the longer term. It's just the fact the Council seems to have set up parameter at 10%, that, I understand the point about reviewing it on an ongoing basis which gives them, I suppose, the ability to pull back from that if, if they need to be, but…
Prudential code should be set on the three criteria at the outset, so I've still got a concern about it… I’ll not prolong the discussion just now, but I do still have a concern about that.

Helena Gray
I think it's fair and something that we’ll be watching, and that Claire will be keeping a close eye on as part of the audit process. It feels too early to say, I’ll say at this point.

Jo Armstrong 
Can I… Last question on this particular bit of it. The extent to which the savings in the future are predicated on the investment programme being delivered on time and on budget.
If they stop doing something, would that mean those savings are at risk?

Claire Gardiner
The current savings based on the, the status quo at the moment, so it's not predicated on the investment.

Mike Neilson 
Just checking, in terms of the reserves, the table says it goes down to 24.6 by, uncommitted reserves, by the end of [inaudible].
Then there's the overspend prediction. Does that mean that they drop below the 3% by the end of this period, for these numbers?

Claire Gardiner
No. So the overspend is currently sitting at 5 million.
They are currently I think around 25 million over the, the 3% so there would have to be a use of reserves of that nature, to, to come below…

Mike Neilson
[Inaudible].

Helena Gray 
I'm not sure, I think we might need to come back to that.

Jo Armstrong
The issue is the extent to which the budget, the overspend… that statement about…

Claire Gardiner
I will come back to that. That's, in relation to the forecast. That might be because they've used some of, transferred some of the earmarked reserve, the uncommitted reserves into earmarked during the year.
That's not what we're expecting.

25:40
Jo Armstrong
Christine.

Christine Lester 
Yeah. Thanks Helena, and thanks Claire for this report, which overall I think is fine. I'm just looking for some clarification on the area of health and social care, because Highland's the only council using the lead agency model, and as such, within this audit, there's not very much about the risks associated with the finances of that. 
And as you know, with previous ones, it's been really a focus of our attention, you know the risk to the Councils associated. 
So if you could give us a wee bit more clarification on, or assurance as to where that will lie?

Helena Gray
Yeah. So I'll bring Claire in because we're in the fortunate position that Claire is both auditor for the Council, but also for NHS Highland. But as you said, the Highland Council has a lead agency model, which means that the, the fund, the financial elements aren’t captured as, as a workstream of the Council as, as you would expect. 
But Claire, do you want to say a bit more about the health and social care aspects and the work you've done as part of the audit?

Claire Gardiner 
Yeah. So the 24/25 budget includes 193 million, which relates to health, wellbeing and social care, and it was noted in 24/25 that the majority of this relates to adult social care services, which are actually delivered by NHS Highland under the lead agency model.
So the Council basically gives money to NHS Highland to deliver those services. They have, however, still set a savings target in relation to adult social care, which was 7 million, and at the end of quarter three, 3.4 million of that is forecasted to be delivered. So this reflects what we're seeing in other IJBs where adult social care is a significant source of pressure. 
We're aware that the NHS Highland budget for adult social care is significantly overspent at this point, I think it's around 17.8 million, but there's actions in place to bring that down to approximately 5.1 million.
The Council forecasts currently assume that there will be no variance against the budget spent and we have to question how realistic that is because… But we know that they are working with NHS Highland to establish who will fund that overspend in that area.
The other area covered by the Council is child social care services and the overspend in that area is a lot smaller and it, it's approximately 2 million. 
So it has been recognised that there is a real need across Highland to reform adult social care. There's recognition that the Highland has the second lowest balance of care, which creates a risk, that people are in institutions who, they do not need to be, and therefore the actions in the budget are around transforming this service, and the Council has agreed to earmark a reserve of up to £20 million to support that transformation and to fund any transformational projects within adult social care.
So we've reported the pressures as part of our NHS Highland report because the pressure tends to sit within the adult social care services and that is an area that we'll be following up as part of our NHS Highland work in the current year. So we'll be undertaking that work in the very near future as health accounts kick off. 
We tend not to focus in the Council side because they lead its child social care services, which has a smaller overspend and that is much more manageable.

Christine Lester
Can I just follow up a wee bit?
So the annual audit report for NHS Highland will reflect any of the risk?
So we’ll know that it’s financed securely or be risk will be whose?
I just genuinely don't understand…

Claire Gardiner 
So… there is scope for some reporting to be done in the Highland Council as well. The risk is predominantly with NHS Highland as they’re the lead agency, so they are delivering adult social care but the Council does fund those services and provide funding…

Christine Lester
So they're commissioned from the from the Council?

Claire Gardiner
Yes. So there is still a risk within the Council budget if NHS Highland services overspend , the Council budget may be overspent, and there is a requirement in that, the Council budget, to make savings in that area and they have got plans in place, so it's potentially an area where we will touch on it in both the NHS Highland report in the future and Highland Council. Historically, there's not been such a big gap, but…

Helena Gray
I think Claire, what you're saying as well is that the risk that the Council carries is reported on as part of their general budget monitoring and reporting as, as they would with other service areas as well and captured as part of their general…

Christine Lester
So the, but the assurance is through the NHS audit, not through the council…

Claire Gardiner
…work through the NHS audit. 

Christine Lester
Although you mentioned the redesign of adult social care services. That's, that's the Council's responsibility?

Claire Gardiner
The redesign of adult social care would be through the joint partnership with NHS Highland and the Council feeding in, but because the, NHS Highland are the lead agency, it would be their responsibility.

Christine Lester
OK, yeah. Thanks very much. Thank you.

Jo Armstrong
Anyone else want to come forward with a quick… Derek?

Derek Yule
Yeah, if I could, could I follow up on the adult social care? Has there any assessment been undertaken of whether the lead agency model offers best value in terms of how it compares with IJBs? 
Because I think what, your answer has raised a concern in my head that there seems to be a financial pressure there, which has landed at the NHS, and I wonder about the relationship between the Council  model’s now been in place for 13 years, so…
I'm just a bit uncertain… We look at this in the context of a best value report. If we focus purely on the Council, from your answer, it suggests, that the financial challenges have been passed to the NHS, which I don't think is the reality of the situation. So I wonder if you could outline what work has been done in terms of assessing whether lead agencies delivering social care in the Highlands that, makes it better or worse than anywhere else in the country.

Helena Gray 
So I'll bring Claire in who might want to say something specifically about any thoughts the Council or work the Council might have done on that. 
I guess at a, at a high level, that, that sort of comparison that you're looking to draw between the lead agency model and the IJB model, and the impact that that has had on performance and outcomes, I suppose is slightly out of the scope, I would say, of the best value report on Highlands, but it's something I know that the Commission is interested as part of its overview reporting on IJB performance. 
But Claire, I don't know whether you want to say anything, particularly in terms of the work that the Council and the NHS Highland may have done at looking at this.

Claire Gardiner 
Yeah. So just to say as part of the recognition of that risk, in the 25/26 budget, there was an agreement to revisit the lead agency model and explore that and take a review of it so that work will be commencing. And again that's something we'll cover as, as both NHS Highland audits and the Council audits.

Derek Yule
Not convinced it's outwith the scope, and I wonder where it does get picked up then, but maybe can come back…
Could I ask another question?

Jo Armstrong
We’ve got a lot of questions and we’ve only done…

Derek Yule
One was on staffing. I mean, I was pleased to see the positive report around financial reporting and financial management. Incidentally the annual audit report didn't seem to have the material adjustments for either capital accounting or pensions that we've seen in other councils. 
On the face of it the team seem to be doing really well in terms of performance, but you have expressed concerns previously about capacity and I know there's been a constant turnover of section 95 officer. I wonder if you could just give us an update where your assessment of the finance team is?

Helena Gray
Yeah. So I'll bring Claire in to talk specifically about the changes that have happened within the finance team, but I suppose just to reiterate, as I said in my opening remarks, that the Council, this was an area that was highlighted by auditors previously as an area of concern.
A permanent CFO was appointed in September last year and then a review of the finance team structure was also undertaken and there is expected to be increased capacity early this year. But Claire, do you want to say some specifics about how the team has changed?

Claire Gardiner 
Yeah. So there was an approval to help grow the finance team last year. So the section 95 officer was permanently appointed and they are now supported by three strategic leads which align to the Council clusters set out in the new delivery plan. So they cover place, people and corporate services.
And in addition to that, they have taken on finance capacity through recruitment of more junior staff, so trainees and junior staff in line with the Council's grow your own targets. So we are satisfied that there is appropriate financial capacity.

Derek Yule
Thanks.

35:36
Jo Armstrong
OK, if we’ve dealt with finance that takes us into workforce. And Carol, if you want to lead off, thank you. 

Carol Evans
So thank you again. It's like one of the better reports we've seen definitely. I’ve got a few questions focused on the strategy on workforce. So I noticed that the specific KPIs and work plans are outstanding, so when do you think they’ll be developed and when do you think we will start to see significant progress again… against those, and is there enough urgency in that?
And then the other question I have is around hybrid working. It was due in November, which seemed quite late to have a policy coming out when there actually had been doing flexible working before COVID, and I see that's now been delayed to March. So has that now been signed off? 
And also you haven't looked at, they haven't looked at how effective that is. It does beg the question of how can you put a policy in if you don't know how effective it is working. And what do you think the impact will be of the kind of current arrangements? When will that assessment be taken? 

Helena Gray 
Thank you. Again, lots within that, but I'll start with the people strategy and KPIs and you'll have seen that this is an area that auditor recommended that the Council should ensure that they have quarterly service reporting on corporate workforce KPIs, and include the actual performance levels as well. So the Council has committed to take this action forward once they've developed the service workforce plans, which should also include KPIs, and I understand that the intention is to report on these service plans to the appropriate strategic committees by September of this year.
In terms of hybrid working. On the specifics of the delay, I'm not sure I can comment on whether it was a delay or, or not because I don't know what the original time frames were, but I think what's clear from the audit is that there was a draft in October 2023, there was still a draft a year later, hence the recommendation from auditors to, to formalise that policy.
In response to the recommendation, the Council has committed to collect the data that it needs to establish a baseline, to undertake a review of the arrangements and then formalise and agree the policy by the 31st of May. 
Claire, I'm not sure if you've got any further updates or anything else to add to that. 

Claire Gardiner 
I don’t have any further updates at this stage.

Carol Evans
Yeah, it's just, it looked like, and I don't know if I read it wrong, but it was November and then in the report it said 31st of March, so now it's May so it just seems to keep rolling out.

Helena Gray
I think auditors have highlighted and I think we'd recommend the importance of, of agreeing and, and collecting that data and then approving, approving the strategy, as well. 
I think, you know, the, what's clear from the thematic as well is that the Council has consulted with staff on its hybrid working guidance and its draft flax… flexible working policy. It has undertaken some work to look at the benefits of hybrid working. I think they've estimated some posts, a number of posts that are saved as a result of hybrid working, but I think we'd agree that agreeing and formalising that policy feels like something that the Council should, should be able to do very soon. 

Carol Evans
Thank you.

Ruth MacLeod
Thanks. And just following up on that a little bit, I was wondering if you could give us a sense of what feedback you've got from the Council around their failure to kind of centrally collate some of the key workforce data, and why they weren't reporting on that, particularly around use of agency staff, service agencies, [inaudible]. 
And also I thought it was quite surprising that they weren't collecting data on the number of staff that they had on hybrid working contracts and flexible working contracts. Especially because the flexible working has been in place for several years, so again it seems strange not to be collecting that data to help inform the kind of hybrid working policy that they're trying to develop.
So it would be good to kind of understand why that's not been happening.
Is it also connected to kind of the fact that the people strategy seemed to be sitting as a bit of an outlier in relation to other Council strategies?

Helena Gray 
Yeah. So again, bring Claire in. But I think obviously the publication of Council-wide workforce data was an area that auditors have highlighted and recommended that that needs to be taken forward. Particularly that casual and temporary staff should be monitored and reported on, on a regular basis as well. 
Excuse me. I think it's important to, to flag that the Council does monitor spend on agency staff, but doesn't record the numbers of agency staff, so the spend has fallen over the last four years. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the highest rates of spend are in areas of health and social care , in terms of agency staff. But that spend, the Council has committed to continue to monitor and report on the cost of agentry… agency staff through its financial system and provide regular reports to the relevant committee. But I think as you've highlighted that wider collection of data, council-wide, on the workforce is something that, that auditors have highlighted. 
I'm not sure I know why it's not been done to date. I don't know, Claire, whether you've got any insights to, to offer on that?

Claire Gardiner 
I don't know whether I can offer any insights on the why, but we, when we were discussing that with the Council, they did make sure that they explained that they do have the information, but it's sitting in pockets of per-service line. There's just no overall collation of it. So the data is there. It's just not being collated.
The deadline for that action was the 31st of March. So we will be following that up as part of this year's audit and finding out what the Council has done to address that. So I would hope that the action has already been done and we will find that as part of our audit work this year.

Helena Gray
And I think Ruth, as you’d highlighted, another area that auditors have highlighted is the, is the range of, of plans and initiatives and that, and the importance of bringing them together. I think auditors highlighted that the people strategy was linked to a previous workforce planning strategy and that that also needed to be updated to reflect the new council structure and wider strategic plans. That was taken to the committee in December, as was indicated in the report.

Jo Armstrong 
Any other questions under workforce? Anything anyone wants to pick up – Andy.

Andrew Cowie  
Thank you, chair. Thank you for the reports. They make good reading, easy to understand, I think, the…
And I suppose it's credit where credit's due, because I think back to the 2020 best value report, there was a large number of recommendations there for the Council to address, and it seems to be, if I’m reading it right, that there's been a lot of progress around those recommendations, despite all the challenges the Council's facing.
If I can try and pick up a positive point from, from the workforce bit, paragraph 34 of the Controller’s report, which talks about a staff engagement survey which got a return rate of 47%. Now, my understanding is getting 25% is the holy grail. So I'm just interested if you've got any knowledge on why was it so, why was it so high in 2022? 
And has it fed through to a, you know, ‘you said we did’ process in that so that others can perhaps learn from such a fantastic return rate. Was there a financial incentive, or how did they get 47%?

Helena Gray 
Again, I'll bring Claire in to see if she knows the answer to that specific. But like you, you know, a response rate of 47% is, compares very favourably with some of the other response rates that we've, we've considered. 
In terms of that ‘you said we did’ element, I know that after the survey, executive chief officers held survey sessions to cascade the survey results and develop actions on the back of them. In December 2023, the Council considered a staff survey action plan which identified three priority areas, including engagement, senior leadership visibility and managing change, which is obviously also relevant to some of our discussions already today. 
What I'm not clear about though is whether there are intended, there's an intention to run the survey again to consider whether that, whether those actions have had the desired impact. 
But Claire, I don't know if you have any more detail on the response rates and what may have been behind that. 

Claire Gardiner 
Unfortunately, I do not know how they managed to get to 47% response rate.
We, we didn't do any additional work on how they managed to do that. We just celebrated the fact that it was a very good response rate.

Jo Armstrong
Thank you. Any other questions Andy?

Andrew Cowie
No, thank you.

Jo Armstrong
Mike.

Mike Neilson 
Thanks very much. Really, largely in relatigital but, but in terms of innovation…
I mean, on digital, they were, recognise there’s quite a way to go. They've got an implementation plan through until 2027. It wasn't clear to me whether they would plan to have it impntedjust plan to have the plan.
The, perhaps the bigger question is how far are they engaging across other local authorities with similar situations, some of whom appear to be in quite a lot stronger position, for example the use of drones.
So is this an area where they could, they are or could do more around learning from others?

Helena Gray 
Yeah, I'll bring Claire in in case she's got any insights on what they're, what they may or may not have been doing in terms of reaching out to others. But I think just in relation to digital, obviously this is an area where auditors made a number of recommendations, both in relation to the digital champions network and skills and capacity, the quantification of the impact of digital savings oworkforce, and also being clear on the specific measures of success, and desired outcomes from the digital and ICT strategy. So I think a number of areas that auditors have Highland… highlighted for, for further action. But Claire, anything in terms of learning from others?

Claire Gardiner 
No, we didn't cover that as part of our audit work. So I'm not sure on what the Council have done to engage with local authorities to learn from others. But we can follow that up.

47:17
Jo Armstrong 
That's workforce planning. Turn to, leads neatly into transformation. [Inaudible] transformation. Derek. 

Derek Yule
Thanks chair. I think there's probably elements of this sort of covered under the finances, but I think transformation has been spoken about a lot today, so it'd be interesting to hear a few examples of what the Council is doing. 
The feeling I have is they have substantial reserves set aside to support transformation. It’d be interesting to understand the scale – how many, how many projects? And I guess from our perspective, linking to their medium term financial strategy, I get the feeling that the delivery of a balanced budget is dependent on the delivery of transformation. 
So what's the sense at the moment? How can the Council, or what sort of assurances can we get that the Council can deliver on the transformation pro… programme? And a specific one, maybe, around capacity – I think you made reference in the report to management structural changes and I think that's been a, an ever-present even beyond the period covered by your report. 
So in terms of experience, knowledge, capacity of management, linking into delivery of what seems to be a significant transformation programme, where are they and what confidence can we have that the Council can deliver on that?

Helena Gray 
Yeah. So there's a couple of elements I'll probably pull out. And I think as always, it's probably not a very straightforward answer as well.
I think in terms of the overall approach, and obviously we'll be looking at transformation in more detail as part of the upcoming audit work on the next best value thematic, so we'll be looking at all of these areas in more detail. But in terms of their overall approach, I think what's clear is that the Council has embedded transformation into its delivery plan, it’s got measures of success, key risks, milestones, owners of risks, and strategic links.
I think as the annual also… annual audit report also highlights, transformation plans have been updated to reflect the new operational delivery plan, the medium-term financial plan and the Highlands Investment Plan. And there have been reserves earmarked to support transformation and service redesign. 
So I think we've talked in, at previous Commission meetings around the importance of transformation I suppose being embedded and not sitting alongside the work of the Council, and I think what we can see here is that that's something that's being taken forward.
I think also the work that the Council has done to deliver recurring savings also demonstrates a focus on, on that transformation agenda and Claire's already spoken about the redesign of adult social care. So that focus on redesign I think is a, is a key part of, a key part of that.
You mentioned management capacity and experience, I suppose, and capability. So as we've already talked about, there’s been a, quite a significant amount of change, and a management structure approved in March 2024 which aimed to streamline some of the operations. I think inevitably that does bring about a bit of change and uncertainty. But I think now, it feels like a more settled position, so I think the emphasis now is obviously on that, on delivery of the of the plans.
Finally, we’ve touched a little bit on digital already, and I think as I’ve highlighted, auditors have made a number of recommendations around digital in particular as part of the workforce work. So I think all of these are interlinked. You know that, the work around digital champions, digital skills and capacity and capability I think is obviously also interlinked.
So, not a straightforward answer. Obviously, there's more work that we'll be doing to look at this over the, over the next few months, but I think there are some important signs, I suppose, in the way in which they've approached transformation there. 
Claire, I don't know if there's anything in terms of the specifics that you want to pull out?

Claire Gardiner
I suppose just when linking it to the savings plan, it's just worth highlighting that there's four streams that the council are currently looking at. And that's changes to the operating model, asset review, efficiencies and services, and income generation, and that is where they're focusing, that links to some of their bigger transformational plans.

Derek Yule
Thanks.

Jo Armstrong
Malcolm.

Malcolm Bell
Yeah, just staying on this, topic – thanks, chair.
I was, I suppose I a little surprised to see that they'd brought IT services back in house. I just wondered what outcomes they were trying to achieve in making that decision and have they achieved them or are they in the process of achieving them?
I’d be interested in your thoughts on that.

Helena Gray
Shall I turn to you on that? I think it, the decision might be a bit before our time, but Claire?

Claire Gardiner 
Yeah. So the decision was part of a strategic decision in July 2020, so a while ago. It was known as Project Dochas – I hope I’m pronouncing that correctly. And the aims of the project were to reduce costs, the, increase flexibility to deal with change, and to have less dependency on external contractors. This was monitored through the Council throughout 2021, but as that was before our appointment, I wasn’t privy to that.
As we, Helena’s highlighted, we have made several recommendations to digital, so that implies that there is still some work to be done in that area.

Malcolm Bell
Thanks chair.

Jo Armstrong
Given the speed of change in IT and the capacity within the Council to have the skill set necessary, I think that's an area where we certainly want to be investigating further. Thank you.
OK, I think that takes us to leadership, unless there are any other questions on transformation?
So we’ll go for leadership. Malcolm.

53:49
Malcolm Bell 
Yeah, thanks again, chair. 
I noticed in the report there's a, there’s a lot of good initiatives highlighted regarding leadership development for officers and leaders.
I just wondered what their approach was to leadership development for members, and what they’ve got in place to develop the political leadership of the council.

Helena Gray
Thank you. So the leadership thematic audit highlights that members were issued a survey in 2022 to seek, to get their views on member induction and training, and this was then used to help inform a member induction programme.
The thematic also highlights work led by CIPFA and supported by lead officers to ensure members of the Audit and Scrutiny Committee had the training necessary to fulfil those roles.
I don't know, Claire, whether you've got any more detail on the, on the specifics beyond those elements of how the Council takes forward training for members? 

Claire Gardiner
No, I don't have anything more specific on what training has been delivered, but I do know there is programmes in place.

Malcolm Bell
I mean, I think my, I mean induction training is one thing. I think it's, you know, ongoing development for politicians throughout the term, and I just wasn't able in the report to pick out what they’re doing there.
What they’re doing for officers is very good, I mean… thanks.

Helena Gray
I'm not sure that we, that was covered in, in detail by the auditors. So I wouldn’t want to comment either way. It might be that it's there, but we've just not actually…

Malcolm Bell
Sure. Thank you.

Jo Armstrong 
Any other questions on leadership?
Derek, Christine?

Derek Yule 
I wonder if I could just touch on the officer member relationship, I know it’s covered in the report, but it’d be interesting to sort of hear your view. I mean, I know I asked in the previous around transformation about the degree of turnover at officer level, but it's obviously it's a large council, quite a mixture of political and non-political groups within it. 
Could you say just a bit about how the relationship seems to be working in, in practice, both at a council-wide level, but also maybe at local level because they do have a number of area committees as is referenced in the report.

Helena Gray
Yeah, I'll bring in Claire because I think it's more valuable to have Claire's observations of what she's actually observed. As you say, we've covered it in a, in a bit of detail in the report, but Claire do you want to share some of your observations. 

Claire Gardiner 
Yeah. I'm not sure I'll be able to cover the area committees because that's one area that we haven't attended, but in general our experience with officers is that they work well with members, that there's a lot of respect from members to officers and that they, it's clear they have built a relationship of trust. However we do witness a good degree of challenge at the committees and it's clear from our interaction with members that they understand the key challenges facing the Council and will challenge and support officers.
We have highlighted as part of our planning for this year that the strategic committees of the Council have been long established and they don't necessarily tie directly to the revised Council structure and around the three service clusters that have been put in with the new management structure, and that's something we'll be considering and discussing with officers as part of our work this year, whether there will be any changes to the governance arrangements. 
But in general we are positive about the relationships between members and officers.

Derek Yule
Thanks. 

Jo Armstrong
Christine.

Christine Lester
Just a brief follow up. I think Andrew and I were, we went up to Highland just before COVID, after the 2020 report, and one of the things we discussed at the time was the, the change in the senior leadership team. I mean, there’d been changes in chief execs and you've also told us about the new structure for the finance team, which is all very good to hear.
Has it settled down now? Is there a period of some sort of stability ahead or is this just the way it is within local government generally or is it Highland in particular?

Claire Gardiner
I don't think I would want to speculate.

Christine Lester
Yeah, because somebody will resign tomorrow!

Claire Gardiner
Yeah, so…

Helena Gray
Change is the constant.
But I don’t know if we know of anything?

Christine Lester
It’s not leading… you have no concern?

Claire Gardiner
No. I think they have worked hard to get a new senior leadership in place and the basis that they're working on is that that is the leadership going forward. But of course you can't predict anyone leaving.

Christine Lester
No, thank you.

Jo Armstrong
Thank you. 
Oh, Nichola? 

Nichola Brown
Sorry Jo.

Jo Armstrong
No, no. 

Nichola Brown
If I could maybe ask something else which could have been framed as workforce but actually I think it's a leadership issue. 
Just going back to the staff survey and, you know, we've recognised the excellent response rate. But I guess in the workforce innovation best value thematic report, I've picked up that whilst that, the results of that highlighted a number of areas of good practice in and real strengths in terms of commitment to working for Highland Council and so forth, there were also some quite challenging results that are contained in the report around areas for improvement.
So things like 10% of, of respondents agreeing that they can take action to challenge the way things are done, 17% of respondents agreeing that senior leaders will act on the results of this survey, which suggests that there is some work to do in terms of employee confidence in the, in the leadership. 
So I just wondered whether, I think I heard earlier you saying that there isn't necessarily a plan to repeat that survey, but just maybe be good to know if there is any additional insights in terms of how some of the challenges that came out of the survey results might be being addressed now.

Helena Gray 
Yeah. I'm not sure I have much to add to my earlier answer, I suppose, in terms of, following the survey, there was sessions to cascade the results and develop actions on the back of them. And I know that the Council developed a staff survey action plan which focused in on three areas – engagement, senior leadership visibility and managing change, as well.
In terms of follow up, again, I'm not sure I know either way, so I can't really comment as to whether there is a plan or not to, to follow up on the, on the staff survey. I mean I, it's always a balance, isn't it, with those things? You don't want to follow up too quickly because you can get survey fatigue. But equally, I think having invested the time in that survey and taking time to implement actions, I think that there comes a point at which it's helpful to check in and see whether those actions have had the desired effect. And, as I say, I don't know either way as to whether that's something, but I'd certainly be encouraging it.

Nichola Brown
OK. Thank you.

1:01:36
Jo Armstrong 
Thanks, Nichola.
That takes us to performance then, and you can open up, Mike.

Mike Neilson
Thanks very much. 
I was struggling somewhat to get a handle on actual performance on the basis of this report, partly because such a large proportion of the indicators they have are not benchmarking, are not from the Local Government Benchmarking Framework, but, but also because, as it were, the numbers of, in the boxes that don't tell you everything.
So, and alongside that, from other information we've seen, by comparison, it looks as if Highland’s comparative performance has actually deteriorated over the sort of medium term.
So what, what, what can you say about, about Highland’s performance and how its, the trend in performance relative to other local authorities, in comparison?

Helena Gray 
Yeah, so I suppose just to pull a few things from the Local Government Benchmarking Framework, then, in terms of that comparative performance. 
So, the Council's performance has perf… improved over time on just over 54% of the LGBF indicators from the base year.
But comparative performance has declined over time, when you compare the quartiles. So 50% of the LGBF indicators were in the top 2 quartiles in their respective base years in the most recent year. I'm well aware that there is new data coming out, so this is as of last month.
The, the respective, the, it was 43% of LGBF indicators were in the top 2 quartiles. So previously 50%, so now 43%, so that's a comparative decline over time.
Obviously, though, we know that for the sector overall, that year on year, the pace of improvement is slowing and that's a sector, and there's a sector-wide increase in the number of performance indicators which are now showing a decline. So it's a sector-wide challenge which the LGBF annual reports have highlighted. 
In terms of family group performance, which Mike I know you're particularly interested in, in family group 1, the Highland Council had the largest number of indicators that declined, and was the only member with over 50% declining. In family group two, it was the second in terms of declining indicators, with 50% of indicators declining, just below another Council that had 51% indicators declining. So I think for both family groups, it had more indicators declining when compared with the family group average, and below average number of indicators improving. 
So I think in terms of that comparative performance, it’s, it has obviously been declining compared to others.

Jo Armstrong 
Carol?

Mike Neilson 
I'll just say, I'm tempted to ask whether on the, on the indicators that they are actually tracking, whether their performance on that has been better, but I suspect that's not something that could be answered.

Helena Gray 
I think it's, I think… So obviously the Council has its corporate performance report and it uses a number of different indicators within that, some of which are LGBF indicators and some of which are their own indicators.
And I think, we've obviously just, they'll also be getting more LGBF data shortly. But I think that kind of analysis, I think, feels really important. At this point, I'm not sure the extent to which we've looked at that as part of that audit work. 
Claire, I don’t know if you want to say any more?

Claire Gardiner
No, no, there's nothing additional to say as part of what's coming from our audit work.

Jo Armstrong
Carol.

Carol Evans
Mine’s, kind of, sort of similar to Mike’s view and your answer might be the same, but…
There's LBF indicators that are delayed, and my concern is that they’ve reported on the better ones. How confident are you on the delayed ones that they'll be amber and green, or are they likely to be more red? Which again, skews the picture because, taking it in isolation their actual performance looks pretty good, when you don't do the comparison. 
So it's just make, it's just really to get a sense of have they cho… have they cherry picked, the good ones and allowed the less good ones to be delayed or is it more a function of just the reporting structures that they're delayed?

Helena Gray 
I'm not sure I'd want to offer a view on whether, on how they've chosen what indicators, because I think as you know, that's for, you know, for the Council to decide which indicators best match their priorities.
In terms of what, the future direction of those indicators and how they will compare, I wouldn’t want to offer a view I think at, at this point.

Jo Armstrong
Maybe I could follow up just slightly. Are they actively using KPIs to measure performance?

Claire Gardiner 
Yes. Yeah, they do actively use KPIs to measure performance and they are reported to members on a regular basis. So we're satisfied that there is an appropriate performance management system and framework in place and it's just, the questions relate to how, how they are using them and how they're picking those indicators, which I don't think we could offer a view.

Helena Gray
But I think obviously will be something that we’ll be paying… through the new SPI Direction that comes into effect, it’s something that we’ll certainly be paying close attention to.

Jo Armstrong
Angela, then Christine.

Angela Leitch 
Could I just follow on your question, Jo, and ask, in relation to the performance monitoring, then, how does that link in with the strategic priorities the Council has set, and then the budget setting process?

Claire Gardiner 
So, this year they released the delivery plan. It was in May 2024, so we actually haven't reviewed how the new performance management and monitoring relates to that yet, but that is something we'll be covering as part of our 24/25 work.
In the past, they were linked to the previous delivery plan and we were satisfied that there was a link there, but obviously that has changed this year with the new delivery plan coming in, so that's something that is still to be reviewed, whether they have updated the monitoring KPIs to align to the new, the new plan.

Angela Leitch 
And the budget and then, then forward to address on the shortcomings?

Claire Gardiner
Yes.

Jo Armstrong
Christine.

Christine Lester 
Just a quick follow up. I should maybe know this, but do they publish their performance? Yeah. Yeah, that's.

Claire Gardiner
Yes.

Christine Lester 
That’s fine.

Helena Gray 
We're satisfied that they're meeting their requirements of the previous SPI Direction.

1:09:06
Jo Armstrong
Takes us to community engagement. Andrew.

Andrew Burns 
Thanks, Jo, and thanks Helena and Claire for the report. I certainly echo some of the earlier opening comments of Andy and Christine. I think the three of us were here back in 2020 when the last best value report for Highland came before the Commission, and this is a much, much more positive report and it's really reassuring to see that almost all of the recommendations from 2020 have been followed up on or, or put aside for good reasons. So I very much welcome the overall sort of positive tone of today's report. 
But I just focused a little bit on community engagement. There's a couple of ongoing development sort of activities that I'd just welcome any further confirmation of how they're going and it's around two specific areas. It's the review of area committees which I think is referenced in your covering report, Helena, I think around paragraphs 17 to 22, and also the development of. 
I don't know if you’ve got any sort of further information on how those have come on since the report was written because there’s clearly significant developments ongoing in both areas. So the area committees and participatory budgeting.

Helena Gray 
Yeah, I'm not sure I have too much more to add, I'm afraid, but the review of area committees is complete and that resulted in two areas merging. Overall, the intention is the, to agree place plans for each committee area which will set out shared priorities for each community, and then will assist in targeting the specific strands of funding.
As I highlighted in my report, in terms of the Council's approach to participatory budgeting, that continues to, to evolve, I think, and I'm not sure I've got anything further to add at this point.

Andrew Burns 
That's fine, that’s helpful. Thanks.
Thank you.

Jo Armstrong
Nichola?

Nichola Brown
Thank you. Yeah, I was, I was struck by the, the sentence which I've been searching for and unable to find, but Helena, you'll know exactly where it is, about the Council aspiring now to, to be much more of a listening Council. 
And just really in terms of, how they plan to action that? It's a great ambition. And also where the accountability for that sits within the organisation. I’m kind of guessing based on our discussion that it may well be with the head of people , but any information on that would be great. Thank you.

Helena Gray
Thank you. I'm trying to find the reference, I think it's in the leadership thematic, which I think highlights that the executive leadership team have recognised the challenge of community engagement and, and that this is an area of, could be an area of improvement. 
I think there are, I suppose a couple of things that I'd highlight in relation to that aspiration to be a listening Council. So there's a programme of work called My Council, which is aimed at improving customer contact and engagements, that includes short surveys with different groups to better understand their needs. And those are presented to a redesign board, which Claire might be able to say a little bit more about. 
I think there are a number of other areas within that, that we highlight in the report in terms of those aspirations as well. I’d point to the Citizens Panel, which is a panel of over 2000 members to whom consultations and surveys are issued. The report also talks about community asset transfers, and since the legislation came into force, the Council has transferred 31 assets and approved over 50 requests. And then finally I’d point to the work that's, that was undertaken on budget engagement as well, when in November 23 and February 24, the Council undertook a widespread engagement exercise to inform its budget for the next three years and received over 3500 separate responses. 
So I think there are a couple of sort of areas I suppose that, that I'd point to in terms of that community engagement. But obviously the recognition within the leadership thematic as well, that that’s an area that the Council wanted to focus on. Claire, I don't know if you've got anything further to add?

Claire Gardiner 
Really the only other thing is just to say that we are content that My Council updates are going to the redesign board.

1:13:42
Jo Armstrong 
We've covered our main topics that we set out to do. Before I close off, are there, anybody got other questions they feel they would like to pick up?
Angela.

Angela Leitch 
Just one follow up. Thank you, chair.
On the participatory budgeting, I noted that there were streams of income that were going to the local communities area committees.
Given the, you know, the restrictions, given the pressures on finance, I just wondered what measurement or assessment of impact was being undertaken on that spend?

Helena Gray 
I don't know if we know the specifics of that, Claire? I'm afraid not, but I think, as we've discussed before, I think participatory budgeting is one thing, but I think as well it's that wider engagement piece over the overall budget as well that feels important too. And I think I’ll reference again the engagement exercise but on the specifics of impact of the participatory budgeting, I'm not sure that's something that we've focused on.

Angela Leitch 
Thank you.

Jo Armstrong
Well if there are no more questions, we will decide in private how we take this forward and thank you for your work today.
Thank you.
And given we started late and we have visitors coming in, I think we take the 5 minutes coffee break now and then shuffle the agenda slightly, so items 6 and 7 will be after we hear from LGBF colleagues.
So 5 minutes from now, back at 11:55.

1:15:26
Jo Armstrong
Welcome Kenneth, welcome Emily. Apologies for our slight delay, but I’m going to hand over to Sarah.

Sarah Watters 
Yeah thanks, chair. So thank you so much both for coming along to talk to the Commission about the LGBF report. I was reflecting back in 2009, I worked within the business improvement unit at Scottish Borders Council with Kenneth, and I had the unenviable task of going around all the service areas, collecting the SPI, or the Statutory Performance Indicator information, drawing it out of departments. I wasn't universally welcomed when I went into these areas! And I think, you know, departments across councils struggled with that information because actually what they didn't see was the value of it coming back to them. And I think that's a huge change. And I think, Emily, we met around about that time when you were promoting the work on behalf of Improvement Service on a benchmarking framework. And again, I'm probably to reflect, it wasn't universally welcomed at that time. But I think 10 years later, it's absolutely fantastic to have a, a data set that, that now, and the LGBF has become terminology that's used widely in councils by elected members, officers, and indeed with some of our civil servant colleagues as well.
And I think this year, great to see that the overview is highlighting things like sector-led improvement and the, and the links to self-assessment. And you'll also see from the short covering report that we did today that the Commission is now going to produce an output based on the LGBF, and also focusing in on culture and leisure, which I know is an area of, subject of discussion at the LGBF board yesterday.
So I think, I suppose the, the overview report does make for interesting, but if not a bit concerning reading. There are areas I think that the chair certainly in the opening remarks, chairs in the opening remarks have said, you know, whilst there's huge efforts across local government, there are areas where there is concern.
And I think that one of the, the areas that supports the work of the Commission is actually calling for clear communication, councils to communicate with their communities about the changes that are ahead, given the situation in relation in relation to financial sustainability, and the need for transformation.
So yeah, I think there's some great, great indicators in the, in the report around things like, as I say, self-assessment and sector-led improvement and really happy that you can both come and present us today. So thank you.

Jo Armstrong
Thank you.
So over to you.

1:18:01
Kenneth Lawrie
OK. Thank you very much. Thank you for the invitation. Thank you for the opportunity and it's good to be here. 
So we're going to kind of split this into two parts. So I'll talk a bit about the, the background, the development, where we go next in terms of LGBF. And then Emily will come in and talk a bit, in a bit more detail about the key messages from the recently published report, and obviously we’re happy to take any questions and have a discussion about all of that. 
So…

Jo Armstrong
Thank you. 

Emily Lynch
Can I just check, have the slides been shared?

Sarah Watters
No, we haven’t seen the slides yet, so if somebody could share them?

Emily Lynch
Thank you very much. 

Sarah Watters
And full screen, thank you. That’s great. 

Kenneth Lawrie
That's great. Thanks ever so much. In fact, if we could just flip on to the next slide that'll be, that'd be really helpful.
So some of this is, is known to you in terms of the, the background. So this is about a local government-led approach to develop better measurement, comparable data as a catalyst for improving services and targeting resources to areas of greatest impact. And the point about enhancing public accountability I think is a really, a really critical aspect.
And I think all of this is particularly important in the context of declining public expenditure, a time of increasing service demands, pressures, quite rightly, for Councils to continue to drive productivity and efficiency gains, to transform delivery, whilst maintaining or improving service levels, service quality and public confidence. And that's a difficult balance to strike. And I guess that what the report in front of you today demonstrates is where, and I’m not sure it's the first time we've said this to you, but we're kind of at a bit of a tipping point here because of these various pressures and the impact that they have.
And again, what, as we've always said, you know, the framework provides what we call high level can openers, designed to focus questions on, you know, why are there variations in cost and performance occurring between ostensibly similar councils?
It doesn't provide answers. It certainly doesn't provide easy or simple answers. But these are found when councils drill down into their own data, begin to question it, understand their own level of performance, and look at the opportunities to share practice and learning with others.
And the data is presented in the round to encourage that kind of more nuanced narrative in relation to progress and the complex relationships between cost and performance and satisfaction. So we're trying to avoid some of these, you know, simplistic league tables or conclusions in relationships, in, in, in relation to the relationships between spend and performance. 
And in fact, the analysis of the variation reveals no systematic relationship between what Councils spend and the level of performance that is achieved. Instead, this variation is complex and requires local knowledge and intelligence and investigation to understand the key drivers. And some of these key drivers are what we might call the uncontrollable factors. So that's geography and scale and demography and deprivation. And some of them are very much the controllable factors. You know, the local strategic priorities, service design, organisational structure, policies, issues around workforce, technology, and partnerships.
So the framework is just, it's one tool in a Council's local intelligence toolbox, adding value particularly through the comparative elements it provides, and it should be used alongside other appropriate local data to provide balanced public performance reporting against the Council’s strategic priorities and outcomes. And I suppose my reflection would be that we're still on a journey in that regard, and it's something that you see as a Commission in terms of the various reports that you've been bringing forward in relation to Councils. 
So information within the LGBF needs to be interpreted against the strategic priorities which these individual Councils have. And each Council has, you know, a structure and service arrangements that it believes are appropriate and cost effective to support its community. And therefore each Council is likely to place, to have different priorities and different emphasis in terms of using the framework, and I do think that the latest SPI Direction is really supportive of that variation and that requirement for flexibility.
It's up to councils then to, to use that to demonstrate, and the way that that enables them to use LGBF and other performance information to, to drive, you know, ambitious transformation and, and performance.
So, where are we now? I'll be kept pretty brief on this. But one of the things that ties into your opening comments, Sarah, around about ownership, the thing that I've really noticed in my time on the board is the change in, in ownership, both the ownership that Councils have, but also the ownership of the kind of professional bodies that are represented on the board, and rather than being, perhaps slightly unfair, kind of reluctant participants who are being pulled along, they're actually very much trying to drive the programme and drive the, the development of their parts of the framework, so that feels really, really positive.
So, we're certainly being, you know, and councils have been more flexible, more strategic, more diagnostic, more dynamic in their use of the data. And we see that maturing of the approach where Councils select from the suite of indicators to reflect their own priorities. And I think that's why it's critical we retain, you know, breadth in, in coverage to reflect local variation, but also where we're, we're striking that balance between continuity and time series, that ability to reflect over time, and the changes we need to make to the programme to ensure it's relevant and up to date.
So, as I say, I think that these matters have progressed well. We have a richer understanding of complexity behind local variation. We have the established framework of family groups, which I think is, is useful in terms of that, that further exploration. I think we've got more credibility and, and relevance and reliability in the approach and, and that then in itself leads to improved public transparency via local and national reporting. I think that's a really important aspect of it. 
So if we move on again to the next slide, please.
Just really reflecting perhaps on the, the period when I've chaired the framework board. What's changed? Well, we have a much more focused annual report. I mean, many of you remember that kind of massive, you know, 300 page document we used to hit you with annually!
The peer collaborative improvement approach has, has started and I think that's a really important and valuable piece of work. Alongside this we've seen the publication of the Scottish Local Government Assurance and Improvement Framework, so that considers the current architecture and accountability in relation to improvement including self-assessment and sector-led improvement and audit and scrutiny and inspection and reporting, and how that, that can be further developed and improved.
We've launched the LGBF dashboard, the monthly data releases. I think we've strengthened the suite of measures, there’s more to be done in that regard. We have learning events in partnership with professional associations. Bespoke support for councils to adopt good practice principles. Elected member briefings and learning sessions, and I do think the familiarity that elected members have with the framework is actually really important in terms of the scrutiny function and driving improvement. 
And, and kind of finally and critically in relation to this slide, the work on the local government data platform, an ambitious transformation programme to deliver improvements in the way local government manages and uses data, with the LGBF as a kind of primary vehicle within that. So phase one of that work is complete. So that was the discovery phase to better understand the complexity in the current reporting landscape, to improve governance and identify opportunities for streamlining reporting requirements and processes. And Phase 2 is now underway, which is about building a technical prototype of the data platform and agree new governance mechanisms for data reporting. And given the extraordinary volume, range, complexity of the data reporting landscape, this feels like fundamentally important work in creating something which is more accessible, more understandable and ultimately more useful for all of us.
And then to think briefly, again, moving on to the next slide, about the next phases of our work, we really want to build on that focus we have on sector-wide performance improvement and the peer collaborative review piece. Tying that in with the broader local government transformation programme and the Crerar work stream. We're interested in further improving the timeliness of data, because the annual report still feels like quite a historic document, and our view is that the substantive improvements that we desire in this area will really be delivered when we have the local government data platform in place and we can transform the way the data flows through the, the system and I hope delivers significant improvements in the timeliness of data.
We need to take a proportionate focused approach to the development of the suite of indicators. We were talking about that at yesterday’s Local Government Benchmarking Framework Board. This ties back into this point I was making about ownership because, actually, what we found is that there's a lot of enthusiasm for people to actually just to check in and review and improve the indicators in their area of business – adult social care, workforce, housing and homelessness, economic development, culture and leisure, additional support for learning. So that's work that’s just, just starting, and as I say, there needs to be that balance between continuity, the longer term trends, and the development and improvement and relevance of the data.
As I said, I think we're building momentum in the use of LGBF. We want to continue that in terms of peer learning and bespoke support. The Improvement Service research team is going to undertake some analysis and research to support us on the next stage of the, the journey in relation to that.
And also I think there's that issue about leading improvements in the wider data reporting and scrutiny landscape, and that's where the data platform work is absolutely essential. 
And just in terms, in brief in terms of the wider context. And I'm thinking in part about the Verity House Agreement here. There is an opportunity here and it is important that whatever emerges in terms of the Verity House accountability and assurance arrangements that it isn't just an additional layer of scrutiny and a new monitoring framework when there's such a burden for reporting and scrutiny already. And that we really need to be progressing that work in parallel with, you know, a clear commitment to streamlining and rationalising the reporting landscape, reducing the burden of scrutiny in line with Crerar. And that has to be aligned with the model of self-improving Councils. And we think the LGBF is an important element of that.
And both the Scottish Local Government Assurance and Improvement Framework and the data platform are really important contributors to that new landscape and I hope that takes us somewhere we've got much more joined up and forward-looking approach to, to all of that in the future.
Anyway, that's enough from me. Emily's going to talk a bit about the key messages in this new report so I’ll hand over to Emily. 

1:31:42
Emily Lynch
Thank you. So the local government benchmarking report is an opportunity for the board to try and distil those key messages from that wealth of data that exists within the Local Government Benchmarking Framework into: what are the key challenges facing local government? Where are the improvements being delivered? What are some of the risks that are facing local government? As Kenneth said, we used to deliver a report that was hundreds and hundreds of pages. I think there’s been a significant improvement there to try and distil that into, these are the key messages.
I think what you'll see in this year's report is certainly evidence of achievements that have been delivered across local government and also where and how the funding pressures, workforce pressures and demand pressures are, are really starting to disrupt the performance improvements that have been gained over recent years. And I think as, as people might consider, it does lead to some quite grim reading, I think, when you read across the report in terms of the combined impact of all of these challenges and the fear that these challenges are actually growing in scale.
So there just talk about some of the key messages under those headings. 
So in terms of the funding pressures, the report details the extent of the underfunding experienced by local government across the last decade. It shows that in the last year itself, year on its own, there's been a 2% reduction in funding for local government in real terms. But I think, interestingly, what it also shows is that across the 10-year period, while the Scottish Government budget has grown by 45%, and within that the health budget has grown by 20%, what we've seen in parallel is a 1% reduction in the local government budget. So that really, I think, is a perfect illustration of some of the funding pressures. 
The growing demand, and I think this is accelerating, the key drivers for this are around about demographic pressures that I know we're all aware of, and for example, the 20% growth in the over-75 population in the, the last 10-year period.
The cost of living crisis, also the, what we're seeing is an increase in demand for Council services, particularly amongst those who are most vulnerable in society and the cost of living crisis is definitely exacerbating this.
We're also seeing increased demand from new policy requirements on councils and also in some key and specific areas. So we've picked out one in relation to additional support for learning, and I know that you've just published your own report on this. And so you look now, 43% of all pupils in mainstream secondary education have identified additional, additional support needs. So that has obviously implications for the services and the demands on Council services, both within education, but also if we think about then the transition to adult services so the, the demand pressures are really significant here. 
In workforce, we continue to report on the multifaceted workforce challenges, whether it's around about the ageing workforce, skills gaps that we're seeing across a number of different sectors, recruitment and retention challenges, and we also report in, in this year's publication that the sickness absence figures for local government staff are at the highest level, we've seen a sharp increase over previous years and they’re now significantly higher than they have been at any time across the past 10 years.
So all of these factors combined are obviously having a significant impact on the resilience and capacity of local government to deliver the services that the local communities need. 
Think we've highlighted in the report that health and social care, if you like, is an area where we can see a perfect storm of these pressures coming together in terms of the funding pressures, the demand, the growth in demand and the workforce crisis, you know, I think it's been termed in relation to health and social care. And this is an area where, although we are seeing local government expenditure increase in this particular area, it's simply just not increasing at a rate that allows it to keep pace with the growing demand and the growing costs. And our analysis shows that in this year alone, or in the most recent year that we reported, there was a £4 billion shortfall in terms of the, the expenditure that would have been needed to keep pace with the change in the, the demographic profile. 
So given that shortfall, even though it's an area that has been, you know, relatively protected, it clearly is raising questions around about local government's ability to invest in those vital preventative and early intervention services. So when we talk about that whole system approach to public health, then there's real questions and real challenges there.
In terms of the, what the data says about local government financial sustainability and spending decisions, I think what's clear is that you can see a system under pressure and our the data and the Local Government Benchmarking Framework really provides evidence for this.
We can see that although the reserves remain high, those reserves that are uncommitted are at their lowest levels than, that we've seen. We also can see that the, in terms of budget performance, the actual outturn is at its highest level and we've seen again over the reporting period, and in parallel we're also seeing the percentage of local government expenditure being used to service debt increasing for the first time in a number of years. So again you can see some real pressures in terms of financial sustainability there, and that's then feeding into some of the difficult decisions that are having to be made around about spending priorities.
So what we can see is that even in the most recent year where local government has managed to grow the expenditure by 2%, again, given in mind that the funding position, growing expenditure by 2%, it, once we take into account and model what would have been needed to keep track with the demand pressures, there's a £6.5 billion shortfall just in the most recent year, in terms of what the level of spend would have been needed in order to respond to the demand pressures. 
And so within that envelope, if you like, what you're then seeing is a continued attempt to try and protect core areas such as education, social care and services for care-experienced children, but probably not at a rate or a level that allows us to keep up with demand, and then disproportionate reductions across other areas. So I think we've seen things like a 26% reduction across culture and leisure. And as Sarah was saying, I know that's going to be an area that you're going to be looking at. 30% reduction in trading standards and environmental health, 40% reduction in street cleaning and a 23% reduction in the back office, if you like, and corporate support services – we can see there's been a real drive to reduce the budgets in these areas.
So in terms of what we're then seeing in local government performance, I guess once you consider those combined pressures and the impact of those combined pressures it’s perhaps not surprising that we are seeing a slowdown in performance improvement. So while the long term trend is still positive, so across the 10- or 13-year period, we're still seeing an improvement, so since the baseline, we're still seeing 68% of all the performance metrics actually have improved across that long term, what we're clearly seeing in more recent years is evidence of that performance improvement slowdown. And in the most recent two years, what we're seeing is more indicators are declining, in fact, than are improving, and that's in contrast to what we've seen in previous years. So you would certainly see evidence that the combined pressures of demand, of budget, of workforce are having an impact.
What I would like to just say about that performance is although that slowdown is true for all Councils, so we've not found evidence of any councils that are managing to escape that pressure, there is significant variability in the, the severity of the slowdown, but also and importantly in the focus of where that slowdown can be seen. So in some areas it may be more apparent in areas of social care or culture and leisure, in other areas it might be seen in other areas, corporate areas or environmental services, for example, and that will just reflect some of those local systems and priorities that Kenneth was talking about. But it's certainly, the fact that the slowdown is true for all Councils does offer a real warning for us all around about the future resilience of these essential local services.
There are, of course, areas where we are seeing the long-term improving trend being maintained. So we've highlighted those areas in the report, they include for example, attainment and destinations for children and a narrowing of the attainment gap in some of those key areas. So there are some positive areas within this story also. 
And I would just want to reiterate the points that Kenneth made earlier about the complexity between looking for that relationship between spend and performance. So there is no clear relationship that in those particular areas where we've seen a reduction in spend, there is an equivalent reduction in performance. 
Similarly, we're not seeing in areas where with protected spend that the performance hasn't been impacted, and the reason for that really is that the relationship is very complex. 
Number one, there are a number of different factors that will affect Council performance. Kenneth listed many of those, and certainly what we are yet to fully understand is what the combined impact is of the demand pressures, the workforce pressures in addition to those spend pressures. So I think that combined picture is really important. And then the local variability, as Kenneth said, in terms of the different decisions, the different contexts that local areas are facing will be really important. So it really is, that framework provides that can opener to ask the questions and to dig into the data at a local level, rather than allowing us to make those relationships clear in the data.
And then the final thing, just to say in the report, is that we've highlighted that as an attempt to try and mitigate some of those challenges that the data is, is pointing to, there's a real significant investment by local government in their approaches to sector-led improvement and some of the examples we've highlighted in the report include the Scottish Local Government Assurance and Improvement Framework, which I think is helpful in setting out a to-be vision, this is where local government wants to get to in, in terms of the sector-led maturity journey. Also the peer collaborative improvement that we've talked a bit about and the local government transformation programme. So I think there's a real investment, a real commitment from local government to drive forward that sector-led improvement agenda. 
So those are the key points that we thought would be helpful to highlight from the data and happy to take any questions on that.
I think that might be the last slide.

1:44:00
Jo Armstrong 
Thank you. And as I said last year, I'm a real fan of this type of data and we obviously need to be making more use of it. And I've certainly challenged Alison and the team to start making more use of it because I think along with the SPI work and understanding the pressures, we've got to be showing, using your data to explain, to reflect back.
And maybe I’ll start opening up before I open up to others. And I'll start with the kind of can opener concept. The fact you've got no systematic connection between spend and outcomes, how are you using this can opener to start to say, well, the money that's coming through is going to get less, the demand is going to rise, not exponentially, but significantly… 
Step back, what fundamentally do we need to do? And that's the area of transformation which, I think, the extent to which you can stand, you're jumping in to make a more structural and faster change to transformation rather than, we just have to wait our turn because it's, that's just what the data is telling us. It will slowly turn, albeit additional money doesn't necessarily improve outcomes. What? How is this can opener working to help work out how fast and where this transformation has to happen?

Kenneth Lawrie 
I suppose one could look at that question from two perspectives. You could look at it from the sector perspective and you can look at it from an individual council perspective, I think they're both, they're both really important.
So from the sector perspective, there is the local government transformation programme which Solace are supporting that covers issues around, you know, procurement and digital and various other areas.
And also the, you know, the work around Crerar and trying to lighten the board… the bound… the burden of scrutiny. You know, some analysis of statutory and non-statutory services and what that means in terms of the future of provision. I suppose my reflection is that change at a 32-council level is never going to be really fast, and I think within that broader framework is an absolute obligation for individual councils to be thinking about what that, what that means for us and where, what do, what do we do. 
Now recently of course, as part of the Scottish budget, there was a, announced a spend-to-save fund, some of which is, or invest-to-save fund, some which is going to local government and I think for a number of us it's been about how can we actually use that to really drive some of the changes that are, I think inevitably required. 
Because… It takes us into areas around public service reform as well, inevitably, but even for, for councils, the, for example the shared services piece, the things that are being done 32 times in Scotland, which could be done once. And as I say, anything that involves 32 councils I think is a big ask.
But the things that could be done better regionally, the things which can be… this ties in very closely to the point about, you know, community and that understanding in community about the pressures and the challenges that produces… things that actually, where Councils need to kind of let go a bit, and enable community provision.
And of course, a number of these things, just thinking in terms of shared services, there's a kind of a long and relatively inglorious history about that. And there's a question, I think, in all our minds about, you know, the extent to which the platform has to be burning before we really get into that space, and it is politically difficult.

Jo Armstrong
I can see where platforms, is well halfway down, now!

Kenneth Lawrie
Well, I mean that would be my view entirely.
And it's the thing about being, certainly from an officer, chief executive, perspective, being bold and imaginative and challenging in that space. But also then the challenge of bringing political leadership with you on that, that journey, because we're, we’re not going to have a situation where how it feels for elected members is going to, is going to remain unchanged if we're going to make radical changes in the way that we deliver services, either through a shared services approach or through other partnerships with the third sector or other partners.

Jo Armstrong 
Open up to other questions. Mike, then Malcolm.

1:48:40
Mike Neilson 
Thanks very much for the, both the document. And I’m horrified to hear it’s shorter than it used to be – I didn't read the earlier ones.
There's so much stuff in there. I'm interested in couple of things. One, one is the usage of the local government indicators as opposed to local indicators by individual authorities and how far you see more use could be made of the benchmarking framework indicators. And my… I want to understand the difference in priorities, relative in, in different areas which generally speaking, you could measure it in the same way would be my starting point.
Second is, in terms of the bigger picture of trying to reduce the burden on local government for data. How are you finding it with the range of regulators and others who demand data? How far are they, are their demands, is it possible to meet their demands through the local government stuff?
And a third very quick question, which is the 6.5 billion number jumps out, are you able to share with us how you got to that number? Because I think that'll be quite interesting.

Emily Lynch 
Shall I start on these? Thank you for those queries. 
So in terms of the usage of the LGBF, the good practice and the ideal model, if you like, is that local authorities will make use of these measures alongside their local intelligence. So they wouldn't use the whole suite, but they would select from this suite alongside their local data. But what this data brings with it is the comparative element. So what this allows you to do is to see how you're comparing to similar types of Councils of Scotland, whereas what their local data will allow them to, it might be more contemporary, for example their local data might be up to date for the most recent months and it will be more granular in terms of probably understanding system processes and things like that. So what we see in terms of good practice is Council bringing together a subset, a selection of LGBF indicators alongside their own local intelligence, and using this to track and report on their strategic priorities, their service plans, for example, and marrying the two together. So that's what we hope to see and that's what we support councils to implement. And I would certainly say there's some variability in terms of the maturity of councils in that approach, but that's definitely the direction of travel.
I'll, I’ll just go through them and then maybe if you want to come back on any if that's OK. In terms of the burden of data, one of the key developments that we're trying to do here is, and we've made some significant process… progress, is to develop a new potential governance mechanism for reporting requests. At the moment, there is, there's, basically it’s a bit like the wild west, any reporting body can introduce new demands on local government without having to go through any particular process.
So part of the local government data platform work, and it has an oversight group, which is co-chaired with Solace and local government but it has Scottish Government on there and Public Health Scotland also, and the work that we're doing is to develop this governance arrangement and this consensus and agreement around about what the process should be, both to introduce new returns, but also to cease existing returns or to start to reduce the existing returns. And we're bringing an example and learning from down south around about this because the UK Government have worked with the LGA to introduce an LGA single list, single data list, which has actually delivered some significant reductions in the data reporting. And so we've kind of modelled a lot of the developments that we're trying to implement across that to show that it can work, it can, you know, deliver it. So we have our own single list now, that will go live shortly, and with the new governance arrangement, we are hopeful that we will start to see the, the reduction in the reporting landscape that we want to see.

Jo Armstrong
Got a follow up question?

Mike Neilson 
It's just the single data list and the benchmarking framework indicators. How do they relate?

Emily Lynch
So the single data list and the equivalent we have is a list of all of the data that Councils are required to report to external bodies. They currently report data to about 30 different requiring bodies, and the LGBF is a data set within that, but actually the LGBF largely already uses existing data, so we've counted about 180 data returns that Councils are required to return. And the LGBF, if you like, siphons off some data across a whole raft of those returns to try and make better use and derive richer insight from that data. But what we're trying to do is to, I guess, deliver more sys…, more transformative change across the reporting landscape to reduce these, this 170 returns down to something that's far more manageable and far more usable. At the moment a lot of the data that's returned just isn’t being used.
And I can share with you the metadata that we use for the modelling. I can send you that afterwards if that would be helpful.

Jo Armstrong
Malcolm.

1:54:31
Malcolm Bell
Yeah. Thanks, chair. Thanks for, for the report.
When you were here last year, I was looking back at some notes, one of the things you said you felt was holding back transformation was ring-fencing in some areas.
I just wondered what your current assessment of that would be this year, you know, has that changed or moving in the right direction? And then a bit, completely separate second question, again, Kenneth you mentioned just now political leadership and one of your bullet points dealt with sessions for members. So just wondering, and it is important the members buy into this and use this, just wondered what kind of feedback you were receiving from them.
And who was attending, was it, was it political leaders in the main, or was it a cross section, you know, across the board?

Kenneth Lawrie 
I'll perhaps pick up on the first of these then Emily might come in on the second. 
So in terms of ring fencing, well… Well, of course we need to remember we're talking about the report that was for the year 23/24, so one could argue there's been some shift since then in terms of some additional monies allocated to local government, which wasn't ring fenced. And the fact that the, in the most recent period, Councils were able to raise council tax. I'm entirely unconvinced that we've, had a significant change point in that regard.
And the most significant example, of course, remains around about teacher numbers, where, and if I might just use a, you know, an example, well… Certainly, as a Council, in Falkirk over the next five years our spend on teachers will be more than 5 million greater than we feel it needs to be in order to continue our really strong progress in education. We're a top quartile authority on education, we're ambitious, we're progressive, we're doing great stuff in digital education.
So I think there's a, there’s a real issue there, and for me it goes back to this point about, you know, let's be really open about the scale of the challenge that we face here in terms of the public finances and what that means for future provision of public services. And you know for all that, that a government or political party has things that they're committed to, and they want to do, it… That's an example of something that feels that we haven't actually got to a stage of maturity whereby we're just actually, some things we might like to do are no longer doable. 
So I have a strong personal view about that which is, is well known to, to many people, so I'm not convinced we've broken through on, on, on ring fencing. I suppose the acid test of that is what happens in terms of a budget and in terms of council tax flexibility in the budget that comes immediately before the Scottish parliamentary elections, that will be a, that'll be the acid test and I know what I think will happen, but we'll, we'll see. 
And just in terms of the, well in terms, in terms of the elected members thing, I think that can be quite hard work locally, to take members on that journey of really understanding the value and the importance of the framework. So I think that many officers are trying really hard to do that, but often it tends to be a focus on very particular areas where members are perhaps dissatisfied with performance rather than that more kind of strategic overview of where we're, where we're going in relation to performance and how that then ties into our financial position, our transformation programme, these various other elements. But Emily might have some insights on a kind of broader perspective.

Emily Lynch 
Yeah, I mean, one of the things I would say is the briefing that we've just published recently, we really hope will be helpful in relation to that, it sets out, here's some of the questions that elected members could be asking with themselves, each other, and the officers as well. So to try and provide that sphere and that structure and that guidance for them. So we hope that that will be helpful.
We deliver events both for, my area for example, so they are inviting people from all sides of the administration to be there, but also we've done cross-section events where you've got elected members from a number of different councils coming together. So we do, the Vice President from COSLA sits on the LGBF board and really helps us to think more about how we reach our elected members, both in terms of that breadth of reach but also in terms of getting those key messages across and we're starting already to think about the new intake in the future and how we look at their induction and how we look at the engagement with them. So I agree it's a really important area for us.

Malcolm Bell 
Helpful, thanks.

Jo Armstrong 
OK, Andrew.

1:59:47
Andrew Burns 
Thanks, Jo, and thanks very much, Emily and Kenneth for the report. I find it really, really valuable, I think I say this every year, to see this on an annual basis and I absolutely recognise the point that it's mercilessly… mercifully sort of concise now compared to what it was four or five years ago. 
But maybe just building on Malcolm's point, I know you mentioned in response to him, Kenneth, you know what's going to happen next year and I wanted just to sort of reflect on that a little bit. I don’t know if you, if either of you want to comment on it. I know what's going to happen next year as well in the local, er, Scottish Parliamentary elections and the local council elections in the year after.
The Scottish Government are going to say – this is politics aside, and party aside – they’re going to say real terms expenditure has increased. That's true. And local government is going to say that demand pressures have outstripped that, and that's also true. And you, you referenced those specific points, Emily, by, I think it's in the public, on page 9 for the report, there's been a 2% increase this year, but there's been a £6.5 billion increase in demand pressures.
The two aren’t mutually exclusive, they're both factually correct, but what's really, really, sort of eye popping is that table you've got or list that you've got at the bottom of page 9, and I guess I would just really encourage absolute focus on driving those messages home in the next couple of years because it's a relative period, tariffs aside, of political quietness just now in local government in Scottish terms. But that's not going to happen when you publish this next February/March or the February/March after, in 2027, when we've got two electoral events coming up. 
When you look at the paragraph above that, that list at the bottom of page 9, you know, a 29% increase in social care expenditure, it's extraordinary! But a 39%, you referenced it, reduction in street cleansing, equally extraordinary.
I'm not sure, just thinking about what Malcolm asked, that those are messages are really getting through as well as they could do. That, that's nobody's fault, it's as much the Commission's fault as anybody else's, but I'm just, I guess I'm making a plea for really just trying to push those absolute facts as hard as possible because we're going to get a polarised political bun fight over the next 24 months, it’s just absolutely unavoidable, it's guaranteed. All we can do as Commission, LGBF, Solace, others, is make sure that we're, and Improvement Service, pushing these key facts as clearly as possible.
So more power to your elbow, because those are really stark figures and they're not mutually exclusive, but the whole, that whole section is under financial sustainability, it's not sustainable, that just cannot continue into the medium to longer-term future without something breaking.
It's more a comment than a question, I guess!

Kenneth Lawrie
Yeah, I think that, we're probably quite close to something breaking, I think unfortunately some individual Councils are probably in really exceptionally challenging positions, vis-a-vis their annual revenue budget, capital position is also very difficult. And whilst, you know, a number of us have benefited, for example, from the change in accounting treatment for PPP schools, et cetera, you know, reserves are low in, in quite a number of Councils. 
I mean, I think, two things really. So we were talking about this a bit yesterday at the Local Government Benchmarking Framework Board, and about the kind of the role of COSLA in terms of making more of this report and we've always had a degree of hesitation about that because it's, you know, it's a year old, and yet the evidence and the cumulative evidence over a number of reports is, is really important. And so there's, there was a bit of a discussion about, you know, so COSLA have obviously got an important lobbying role for local government, you see that in the run-up to the budget each year. And I think the utilisation, greater utilisation of some of this information is really, is really important, though there's, there’s also that question about the accessibility of it and there is a lot of information and, you know, pulling out the kind of key critical issues is not a straightforward thing, particularly when we reflect on, you know, we don't want to get into a position where we're kind of league tabling things because it loses all the kind of subtlety and value of the framework, but I do think there’s an important role there for COSLA.
There's also the interesting context of the Verity House Agreement, and we'll see what happens with that, but presumably if that remains, is on track, then that's going to mean that there's going to have to be some pretty honest conversations about the reality of the position and how that's reflected in the joint work between Scottish government and local government. And I suppose the other thing is I think the Accounts Commission's got a really important role here because in the run-up to the budget, when you know, COSLA and SG are kind of disagreeing about what it is, and that's where that independent authoritative voice I think is really important.

Andrew Burns
Thanks. 

2:04:57
Derek Yule
Thanks. I think my points have probably largely been covered because I think I'm… I was really taken by what Emily said about the complexity of the relationships between expenditure and performance. I suppose my question really was around how we educate politicians, I think of any political party, at a national level, because I think too often I see responses to anything, about any comment, about saying, we'll put X million pounds into this service. That seems to be this, the stock answer to anything. And I think somehow we have to get away for it. And I think the example you quoted Kenneth's a very powerful one about teacher numbers because I think that's a prime example where we should be measuring outcomes rather than inputs.
And I think, how we take that debate, and I think you're absolutely right, there is a role for the Commission as part of that sort of non-political objective view and that, so that's probably developed, not really into a question now, but an observation, that I think there is something that we need to look at in terms of how we, how we can use the data to emphasise that message.

Emily Lynch 
It does make me reflect that one of the illustrations we used to use in the work that we did with elected members was around about education, where we mapped all the data we had around about whether it was senior phase, whether it was about the Curriculum for Excellence, whether it was about the expenditure, whether it was about satisfaction with school. And we mapped that all together to show the fact that there was no relationship. So those councils that spent more weren't the same councils that had high… high levels in outcome.
but also, there wasn't a relationship between satisfaction and outcomes either, you know, so some of these things that were really instinctive, actually the data didn't, didn’t hold true. So we use that as a really good illustration to show some of the complexity.
But it's a difficult message sometimes to get across.

Jo Armstrong
Andy.

2:06:58
Andrew Cowie 
Thank you. Just picking up the theme of the role of the Accounts Commission. I’m well aware just how much work’s involved in this LGBF, it doesn’t happen by magic does it? You know, and a raft of people working for that, which boggles my mind, which is fairly easy.
But two points, I suppose, I would make. One is the journey between the LGBF and the Accounts Commission, and the second one would be about the citizen’s perspective of how the Commission uses your data.
So, first of all, that journey. I've had the benefit now of six inputs over the years and it's actually moved on a big, big way because of the collaboration between us, I would, I'd argue. Because, initially six years ago, LGBF wasn't necessarily accepted by all local authorities as valid. We introduced that into the SPI, which we do every two years, deliberately and explicitly to say we expect you to use the LGBF, and we've tightened that up in the last one.
Even checking through Aqua here, the audit quality part of Audit Scotland, we find that two or three, I think it's three annual audit reports from different local authorities didn’t even mention SPI and therefore LGBF.
Sought, feet were held close to the fire, and now all 31 annual audits do report on that. So I think there's been a progress that's demonstrated the benefit of SPI and the fact that we keep talking to each other around that journey.
What I think is the current challenge is that citizen’s perspective for us, because that's who we are ultimately trying to get interested around this. Just kind of anchoring it around that. How can you have 70 or 80 pages of KPIs? How can they all be key? They can’t possibly be, so you know, it's actually there's 70 pages of performance indicators, of which a number will be key, would be my argument. 
And then there's a perverse incentive there, because I remember from policing, which is my background, 2013, the perverse incentive of having police cars sitting outside new council estates because they could charge people because they hadn't changed their driving licence details, that counted the same as locking somebody up for murder, in their detection. How perverse and against what we're trying to achieve is that? 
So it's, it’s actually more about, well, OK, so how can the Accounts Commission really underline the importance of the work that you're doing? And I think the challenge for me, it was replicated this morning, and I've made this comment a few times. A comment that 40% of the KPIs are in the top 2 quartiles or I've moved from 1 quartile to another is valid, statistically, but it's not very meaningful. How do we actually dig into that? You know, because we're getting, you know, trend information there, we're getting comparisons, yeah, yeah, absolutely. But I think pulling out things like 39%, it's gone down in this bit, and we need to link that, I would suggest, to what are the local authorities choosing as their local priorities, not just the national ones. So they've said to their citizens, this is our priority, in 2025, we should be a bit more explicit about, well, did you actually achieve that, in our audits. But we don't do that at the moment, it's about movements within quartiles. Now I'm not clever enough to understand all that, I get a general either warm or cold feeling, but I think we need probably as a Commission to be a bit more explicit around that. That's a long, long winded kind of… where I think we're at, and thoughts. So I’d be interested to get your own perspective.

Kenneth Lawrie
Yeah, well, I suppose starting with the journey, I think that's been a really a really positive one, certainly from my perspective. And you're right that, you know, we were at a stage where, you know, the Local Government Benchmarking Framework was not universally supported amongst councils, so the kind of adoption of it within the SPI was I think incredibly important. I think I used the word perhaps in the presentation, the ownership, the high degree of ownership, the kind of enthusiasm and the energy round it, which, and that to my mind, has changed quite fundamentally over the last five years. And I do think the fact that, not just that it's tied into the, the SPI, but people can see the logic of why that would be the case. And I think that's been, that's been really important.
Citizen’s perspective? I mean that's a difficult one, isn't it?
You know, some indicators more important than others? Well, I’ve no doubt that’s, that's the case. You know, the one at the moment, the ones about, around about financial sustainability, are, you know, really fundamental, but whether one could have a kind of quick look over the financial sustainability indicators or relative positions of different councils and really, on the back of that, understand which councils were closest to the cliff edge, and which were still in a relatively comfortable position, I'm not sure about, about that. So I think that's really, that's really difficult.
And you know all of us are trying to do more and better in terms of engaging our communities. So if we go out in consultation saying, actually we think we're going to close this school or we're going to, we're not going to have this transport provision for getting to school or we're going to change waste and recycling facilities and, you know, we get reaction. We get interest, we get engagement. 
So, turning again, thinking of my own council, when we did a broader budget engagement last year, some online interaction, you know, quite helpful views that people would rather have increased Council tax rather than reduction of services. Not sure that's necessarily what they thought retrospectively but… Actually when we went out to meet the public – myself, other – you know, we got a handful of people who wanted to meet to talk to us about the kind of the broader issues, the bigger, the bigger themes, the scale of the challenge and how we were dealing with it. So I think, I think that, that, I think that's really difficult. It's really difficult for us, and I think it's pretty difficult for you as well, so we need to keep working at it. I don't, I don't think I've got a good answer to that. It's another journey, but we're on a relatively early stage in that one.

Andrew Cowie 
As a chief exec, then, if you read a report from the Accounts Commission about your life work and your team's work, that picked out, not just KPIs from LGBF, but said Falkirk Council have identified these local priorities, and this is how they’ve got on with that in the audit report. How would that make you feel?

Kenneth Lawrie 
Well, I'm, I'd, I'd be fine with, with that. I mean, we do like others have a mixture of LGBF and local indicators. I think in our most recent best value review, which was in front of you not that long ago, that that was, was recognised. I think, I think it's, I think it's valid, I think it's appropriate, and I think that, you know, for all we talk about reducing the burden of scrutiny, inspection and audit, good scrutiny, inspection and audit remains incredibly valuable for all of us in terms of driving the change and the improvement that we need to see in our organisations.

2:15:04
Angela Leitch
Yep, thank you, chair. I’m mindful of time. I've got 3 areas that I wanted to pick up.
One was, it does, I mean you mentioned it was grim, Emily and it is grim when you read it. But I did wonder, given the totality of it, you know, we got ageing population, demands going up, deprivation is, you know, more endemic in certain areas, and then there's the, the finance that goes to local government.
It, it's always been evident, it's increasingly evident, that public service reform is absolutely critical because Councils are not going to do this on their own. There was a recent summit, but I think that, you know, I think we've all been a bit frustrated at the pace of that. And I’m wondering about your observations on that and maybe what more the Commission can do to support some of that that change going forward.
The other bit of it is community engagement. It's two ways, isn't it? You go out and you try your best to engage with people and inform them as to, the changes are. But it strikes me when you look at the street cleaning, for example, the reduction of 40%, street cleaning is necessary because of a lot of behavioural issues, so there has to be, you know, a contract with the people if I can use that term that was used, how do we collectively – COSLA ,Solace and others – actually make it really understood that these are things that are going to have to change. They’ll be not, there won't be enough money to continue to do services the way that we did, but their behavioural change that we would expect to happen in our, in our communities to support the work of, of councils and elected members.
And my third point is that we've got local government elections coming up, in 2027. There's a bit earlier in the other report on the agenda about some of the criticism that's levelled at elected members, how do we – these are really important roles – how do we again collectively demonstrate that there is a huge complexity in the work that they do and really tough decisions that have to be made, so that engagement is really, really important. 
So it's again, it's maybe a whole stream of observations, but there's, there’s maybe something that we need to reflect on as well.

Kenneth Lawrie 
OK. Thank you.
So, public service reform. It does feel slow.
I think from a local government view it still feels the approach relatively un-joined up at Scottish Government level. You know, there's, there’s kind of work streams, but actually it's about, it's about the partnership, it's about the coming together of different services and reimagining how we provide them in that broader context, which will really make a difference. 
I, and I think that, you know, COSLA and others have made that argument, but I still don't think we're there yet. I think actually there's a risk that proximity of elections makes it less rather than more likely, and even, and again the example in, in my mind is the publication of the Withers report round about skills, and I think there's a really interesting piece of work round about breaking barriers down between schools and colleges and employment. And really there's a huge opportunity to do some really interesting and exciting stuff in that space, but it feels that we're being, we're not really able to do that work because of some of the restrictions we spoke about earlier in terms of teacher numbers, for example, and partly just because getting into that more radical reform space is perhaps a difficult thing to do in the run-up to elections, that applies both locally and, and nationally.
I do think that from the point of view of individual local authorities, we cannot, and it would be inexcusable for us to throw our hands in the air and say we can’t, we can't do things because the national position isn't sufficiently favourable in relation to that. I think we, we need to be on the front foot, we need to be imaginative, we need to be working with partners, we need to be exploring what some of these opportunities are, and quite a number of Councils are now doing that. I think that there's a, there's a really important onus on us to, you know, to make the news a bit and, and try and make things happen, regardless of the restrictions that are placed upon us.
The community engagement and kind of behavioural change piece. And the thing about street cleansing and other related services is really interesting, because, actually in terms of the work that we do locally, I think it's the same in other areas, that's something people feel really strongly about, and it's about their sense of place and the local environment, the conditions in which they live and which they bring up their families. So it's actually, and it's a number of Councils, and Glasgow notably is one of them, who are actually, I think, beginning to say, well, actually this is an area we need to put more, more resource into. 
But I do think that that thing about the behavioural aspect is really interesting. You might remember, Angela, the, I think it was Wigan that had a kind of contract with their, their citizens about, you know, we're going to do this in the context of a really difficult financial situation. But if we're going to do that, it's going to work, then you need to do, to do this. And I heard about that and spoke a bit with others about that, including the then chief exec at Wigan, when it was kind of new and fresh and exciting. And I have to say I don't know where it is now, I don't know what's happened in relation to that.
I think it's quite difficult, and again, only talking about my own experience, a public meeting at Grangemouth recently, a couple of hundred people there, and people really concerned about these, these aspects, but I think a very strong sense it’s, you know, that's the ‘Council's’ job. So I think there's, we've got a long way to go on that, but I suppose what's happening in terms of funding and service provision going forward, we’re going to, we need to get into that space. But it's, it'd be interesting to revisit where Wigan got to on, on that, because that, that kind of criticality in the funding position was more acute in England earlier than it, it has been for, for us. So I don't, I don't know if that, it's not really an answer to your, your question but these were my thoughts.
And my brief note on your third question is indecipherable!

Angela Leitch 
I didn’t need an answer to it anyway but it was about elected members and the role that they play and the importance of that in the forthcoming elections.

Kenneth Lawrie 
Yeah, I mean, I think there's a really important thing around about collaborative leadership within councils. I think a lot of, elected members see that that is necessary, you know, in a situation where we have, you know, minority administrations up and down the country and without just, you know, discouraging that kind of, you know, political debate, which is such an important part of what happens in the, in the, in the Council chamber, I think that particularly, you know, some members have been really exposed by recent decisions, for example, on council tax or on savings decisions. There’s a huge amount of criticism, but I think Councils are beginning to come together, both in terms of the kind of work that has been encouraged by COSLA and others on the back of, you know, Jo Cox's murder and terrible incidents like, like that, but also just realising that in terms of a, a narrative that a council has in terms of the kind of journey it’s going on, the kind of decisions it needs to make, both in terms of council tax and service provision, actually there needs to be something more joined up across political parties in relation to that and I'm, I'm encouraged to see that but again, I think it's a relatively early stage.

Emily Lynch
Can I, can I just add as well around about the fact that it needs to be more than just local government in relation to public service reform?
The Community Planning Improvement Board is led by local government, but it's an opportunity really to bring together all of the public sector partners to look at what the challenges are and how to work collaboratively to drive solutions. So you might be interested in some of the work that they're doing around about what the current barriers are across the system around about funding flexibility, around about sustainable funding for the third sector, around about data sharing, around about some of these challenges and how we work together to drive the change that we all need to see to move towards that Christie vision in terms of prevention. 
So, again, I don't know how sighted you are on the work of the Community Planning Improvement Board, but we can certainly share that with you if that would be of interest.

2:25:03
Jo Armstrong
I'm conscious we could talk a lot because there's a lot in the data and it's good that iterations are kind of getting more focused with and we definitely will be writing a report this year that’ll be slightly more slanted and focused on specific data sets.
Not going down the league tables, but we will certainly be more taking up Andy's point about, you can't have that number of KPIs, you’ve got performance indicators, which are the key ones that we think are the relevant ones from the point of view of either engaging with communities and/or engaging with, the political decisions that need to be, need to be made.
I continue to want to think we'll continue to have a good, a good working relationship and, and that the work that we do is of support to what you're trying to achieve. So again, if there's anything you think we can, in our work, help with what you're seeing as impediments to making the changes, just, just let us know.
I'm conscious that the Verity House Agreement accountability and assurance focus will be using this and we will be opining whether it works or not, and in a way of getting the local… Scottish Government off your back to some extent. So again let's think through how and when that might, that might work.
The structural change that has to take place is huge, and it has to happen sooner rather than later because the budgets are not going to fundamentally change, sadly. But demand is, as we can see, heading in the, in the direction that's difficult to see quite how that's fed with the current monies. 
So we're here to support you, but we're also conscious that the data you've given us has given us a good opportunity to say things. So we've got the report coming out this year on the general datasets and also on culture and leisure. So hopefully it shows that we think it's important that that gives you credibility elsewhere and then also helps you, the conversations about where does change have to happen.
Thank you very much. I'm conscious that we've got a couple of the more items in the public session, if you would like to stay, please feel free, because we’ll have a sandwich after.
We'll move on to the next two items, or roll back to the last two items we stalled on, if that's OK and we’ll have a chance to catch up.

Emily Lynch
Thank you.

Kenneth Lawrie
Thank you very much.

2:27:17
Jo Armstrong
So I think we're winding back to item 6, is that right, which is local government policy update. And can I work on the assumption people have read it and it's really questions for Joe, once Joe’s made it up to the table.
Apologies.
Again another good read, and a paper telling us all that's going on and a chance for us to understand in detail the issues that are really relevant to each of us individually rather than collectively. Is there any specific questions, Derek, you?

Derek Yule
Just a quick one. I was quite, quite taken by, what’s as always a very thorough report, and all-encompassing. There was just a comment, the COSLA resources person, Katie Hagmann, commented on the sort of public perception of best value audit which maybe links into the discussion that we've just had. And I just wonder, is there any opportunity to take a discussion or whether that's just a, an isolated view or whether it's a more widespread view, whether there's something we can, we can do to address that?

Jo Armstrong
I heard that, I read/heard that, too, Derek, and it’s one of… are our reports accessible by all? Definitely a question worthy of asking, and think about, about that. Should we have Council have… let's think about how we engage with COSLA, because I think we certainly don't want somebody to say our reports are not helpful without actually thinking through how, how we might adapt them. Yeah, thank you.
Carol.

Carol Evans 
Yeah, mine was just I, my understanding was that the prevention of redundancies in Scottish Government was due to cease at the end of March 25. I was just wondering if you had an update on whether there was, if that actually happened, as in, people can now, in public sector, make redundancies on whether they’ve not made a… they’ve not said anything about that, because certainly where I thought it was.

Joe Chapman
I'm not aware of any changes in government policy regarding…

Carol Evans
The policy was that it would cease, March 25, I thought?

Alison Cumming
I don't think there was a policy that it would cease, so much as it was… it’s slightly the, that it was guaranteed through pay deals till the end of March 2025. So I imagine it'll be on the table as part of various pay negotiations from 25/26 onwards. But I know, I think Jo's previously referred to comments the Minister made at the public service reform summit, but we haven't had any further confirmation as to the status of the…

Jo Armstrong
Yes, that comment was, assuming all other item… all other options had been addressed fully, that's not saying that redundancies are not on the table – double negatives. 
Thank you. Any other questions for Joe.
Thank you, Joe.
Thanks Joe.

Joe Chapman
Thanks very much.

2:30:20
Jo Armstrong
Apologies for running through, but again it’s food for thought and anybody subsequently can come back to you.
Then that leads us to Chair’s update report, and I just wanted to highlight maybe two or three things.
Constructive conversation with Fife Council following their BV report. Interesting comments about the chance to comment and that's something I think we'll be bringing back to the Commission in terms of our engagement strategy.
Council tax blog went out last week. I think, I think it's probably hit the mark to some extent because it’s, certainly… was pleased that we're putting something out as a, as at least an indicator that we are, we are interested in watching what happens with that money, though I'm quite taken by the comment that we’ve just heard that there's no correlation between increasing funding and improved outcomes, so the extent to which the justification for it really fits the kind of the, the reality is definitely worthy of watching.
And then as, to mark my first anniversary, we've got an insight meet… session on the 1st of May which everybody can watch and it will be choreographed by Sarah, Helena, as a way of people within, within Audit Scotland and Commission ask me how did I find it and how is it going, so I'm looking forward to getting some sort of interesting feedback. And then the various publications that look at local government have also asked if they could give me, interview me, so that gives them an understanding of where they’re at, and I think the important thing for me is that, what we're doing relative to what might be happening down south, it’s a good opportunity to show we've actually got a strong and robust, we've got a stronger process up here that we will continue, are continuing with. 
Other than that, I didn't really want to bring up anything particularly. Any questions anybody might have on Chair’s update?
OK. So on that basis that then takes us to, stop for a bite of lunch and coming back.