I disagree absolutely that the bill is toothless. From the evidence that the committee has received and that I have received through, for instance, the reference group, the bill is broadly welcomed. When people are asked specifically whether it will make a difference, the answer is almost universally that it will. I think that it will, but I am not removing the democratic authority of locally elected members who, like the Government and the Parliament, have a mandate.
We could go further in disempowering local authorities and transferring more to communities and we will see whether such amendments are proposed. However, the bill is about swinging the balance of power towards communities. It does that through participation requests, which will empower groups and communities to initiate decisions and consultations that affect them on their terms. It also does it through asset transfers and extending community ownership to urban Scotland and making it more flexible. It does it by introducing compulsion where there is no willing seller of abandoned and neglected land.
There are a range of provisions that will be empowering for local communities, especially given how we have defined communities in the bill. I take heart from the evidence that the committee has received that it will make a difference to people’s lives.
I have said to Opposition spokespeople and the groups with which I have engaged that if they want to toughen up the bill through further amendments and to do things differently, I am all ears. That is why, as the bill has gone on, we have built in a presumption in favour of transfer to the community that was not there at the start. That presumption is very important. We are not changing who gets to the make the decisions on, for example, asset transfers, but we are absolutely changing how the decisions are made and where the balance of power lies. We are strengthening the hand of communities by doing that, in terms of participation requests and new rights to initiate that dialogue.
Alex Rowley is right. If we were to design local authorities today, we would not design them to be the way that they are now—I am sorry, Mr Buchanan, but the 32 councils are a consequence of Tory gerrymandering. If we tried to reorder local authorities’ structures at this point, I would be concerned that it would consume our energy and we would end up in boundary disputes and court battles. It would be a bit of a power struggle, with people vying for senior jobs in the new organisations. Instead, we should focus on outcomes, which, in essence, is what the bill and the wider work of Government are trying to do. We have been encouraging people to work across boundaries—geographic, institutional and organisational—to focus on those outcomes, which is why we do not propose any changes to the number of local authorities or their boundaries. However, we expect new ways of working.
That takes me to Alex Rowley’s final point on accountability, on which I agree with him. Community planning partnerships and all parts of the public sector must be accountable through community planning. The committee has heard evidence on the accountability of community planning partnerships, as have I, and Audit Scotland has made statements on the issue—indeed, I met Audit Scotland recently to discuss it. Even if we establish an equal duty to contribute to CPPs, we must still do more about their accountability. There is an issue about who holds CPPs to account other than just the audit agencies. How can communities hold CPPs to account? How can they access that? If Alex Rowley wants to pursue that, I am happy to give consideration to how we can produce a stage 2 amendment to strengthen the accountability of CPPs to their communities. That is a very fair point.
However, I disagree utterly that the bill is not empowering: it is. We are not trying to empower people in a patronising way, by suggesting that they are not living their lives properly. We are removing barriers, creating consistency and giving people access to resources that are, in essence, already theirs through public ownership. That is empowering and it builds on the momentum that we have experienced this year.
If Alex Rowley wants to lodge amendments that would make the bill stronger or radical, I would happily consider them. That is the challenge that I have put to other commentators who may have views on what we should do.
Paul Wheelhouse has made it clear that, in response to the land reform review group, the Government will set out a timetable that includes a land reform bill, which will capture some elements of land reform and other areas. I do not want to impede the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Bill’s ability to get on with what we have committed to do.