Meeting of the Parliament 27 May 2014
It gives me great pleasure to open the debate on behalf of the Local Government and Regeneration Committee. The debate follows our year-long inquiry into best practice and limitations in the delivery of regeneration in Scotland. It was a detailed and thorough inquiry that resulted in a unanimous cross-party report that sets out 55 specific recommendations and numerous conclusions.
Our inquiry had a focus on regeneration involving the community and looked closely at the progress that has been made since the publication in 2011 of the Government’s regeneration strategy. To set the scene, I quote from the foreword to the report.
“For most of the last 60 to 70 years, the concept of regeneration was often identified in most people’s minds as relating to just the physical development, or redevelopment, of the communities in which they lived. That development could be as small as the development of a local play area for children in a given community, to as large as the construction of whole new towns in the post-war development years in the 50s and 60s. Today public policy on regeneration is interlinked with issues such as economic development, health inequalities, social integration and educational development as much as it is with the construction of new houses, schools and roads.
We see regeneration as a vision delivered through a focus of effort and strategic approach across all public policy areas. First and foremost regeneration is about reducing poverty, decline and inequality of opportunity in areas of disadvantage. It is about improving outcomes for communities. This theme runs throughout our report.”
I thank those who supported us, including the clerks and the Scottish Parliament information centre. I especially thank our adviser, Professor Ian Wall of Heriot-Watt University, who performed a sterling job not least in chivvying up responses from across the country. We received many responses and spoke to a large number of people from across Scotland, and I thank them all. We are extremely grateful for the people’s input.
The report provides some historical basis. It may be the first report of a parliamentary committee that has referred to the work of the Romans; quoted David Lloyd George, who promised
“a country fit for heroes”
to grow up in; covered the Wall Street crash; mentioned Sir Winston Churchill; and addressed the demolition of slum tenements in Glasgow.
It discusses the various 20th century initiatives of the post-war years, including the Glasgow eastern area renewal project, urban development corporations, new towns, enterprise zones, the new life for urban Scotland project, social inclusion partnerships and the enterprise agencies. Those initiatives culminated in the work of community planning partnerships across Scotland, which are currently the main focus of regeneration activity.
All the well-intentioned schemes and initiatives told the people and communities what to do, but fundamentally regeneration is about reducing poverty, inequality and long-term decline and we made it clear that the old top-down model requires to change. We visited local communities across Scotland and saw and heard about the difference that involving people can make. We made a number of recommendations about how the community can and should be supported and empowered. I am certain that every member of the Parliament wants sustainable long-term achievements, and we could not have made it clearer in our report that that is best achieved by working with the community.
There is a strong linkage with what we expect to be included in the community empowerment (Scotland) bill, when it is introduced shortly. That bill can be a catalyst for a change in attitudes and for a move away from the view that local people are merely consumers of services to one that sees them as active partners in design and delivery. It can also serve as a way of helping local authorities to change their view of themselves from being mere service providers to being bodies that are, principally, service enablers. The bill will be vital in many ways and, as a Parliament, we must ensure that we get its provisions right so that it meets aspirations.
Our report was written to examine the Government’s strategy and to add value to it. However, we see regeneration not as a strategy per se but as a vision to be delivered through focused effort and a strategic approach across all areas of public policy. Our report included a range of suggestions that we considered should be progressed, highlighted actions that could be taken and sought comments and responses on a range of ideas that emerged from our work.
The successful delivery of the strategy is dependent on implementation of the Christie commission principles and effective public sector reform at all levels. It requires better partnership and joined-up working but, fundamentally, it must take place alongside greater community participation in service design and delivery. As a committee, we understood that the strategy sets a vision, but we saw precious little evidence of the vision being embedded at a national or—more worryingly—a local level. In particular, we were not convinced that strategic co-ordination to embed the vision across Government policy and guidance has been established. Perhaps the minister will give us some reassurances on that aspect.
Of even greater concern is the absence of a general oversight and co-ordinating function for regeneration efforts across Scotland. Nobody appears to be responsible for ensuring that best practice is shared or impacts measured across the country. We suggested that the national community planning group should provide a leadership role in relation to CPPs. Although the Government accepted in its response that such a need existed, it suggested that our views were misplaced. I will be extremely interested to hear the minister’s view on who is to provide leadership in this area, how impacts are to be measured and what role single outcome agreements may have to play in that regard.