Good morning, and welcome everyone to the 26th meeting of the Local Government and Communities Committee in 2017. Can I remind everyone present to turn off mobile phones and as meeting papers are provided in a digital format, tablets may be used by members during the meeting? We've got one apology today, our Deputy Minister Elaine Smith unfortunately can't be with us and she's given her apologies, so that note will move straight to agenda item 1 on city region deals. The committee will take evidence on its client into city region deals. I'm of several witnesses in front of us this morning, so can I welcome councillor Susan Aiken, chair Glasgow city region cabinet and leader of Glasgow city council and Kevin Rush, director of regional economic growth, Glasgow city region deal. Particular thank you to Kevin for taking us through some of the Glasgow city deal stuff yesterday, or a committee visit, I'm sure we'll come on to that at some point. Also welcome councillor Adam McVey, leader city of Edinburgh council and Andrew Kerr, chief executive city of Edinburgh council, Edinburgh and South East Scotland city region deal partners, councillor Graham Ross, deputy provost and leader of Inverness and Area, and John Robertson, programme manager of city region deal Highland council, councillor David Ross, co-leader Fife council, councillor Jenny Lang, co-leader Richard Sweetham, head of economic development Aberdeen city council. Thank you to everyone for coming along. It's a pretty large panel of witnesses we have today. As I've previously indicated in private, my apologies if we have to restrict speaking in terms of moving along. One person, so if there are two of you from the one city region deal, we might have one speak rather than both, or if there's a specific question about one city region, not everyone necessarily has to come in and answer that. I want to give everyone a reasonable opportunity to have their say today. We'll move straight to questions, and I might just open up with a general point, but leading to maybe a request for some specific information. Last week, this committee heard there was a contrast between, if you like, a UK Government approach to maximising economic growth from city region deals or a Scottish Government aspiration to have a balance there, including inclusive growth is the expression used. I'd be keen to know from each dealer at different stages of planning and implementation and delivery, if they could perhaps give an example of a project that has been or will be delivered that looks at inclusive growth and particularly how that will be monitored and what the benchmarks for that are. I wonder if anyone would be keen to open up on that. Thank you very much, convener. This is something that's been very much a topic of discussion at the Glasgow region cabinet recently. Glasgow was the first deal that was developed. It was developed back originally in 2014, when perhaps ideas around inclusive growth were much more in their infancy and they've developed much more and have become a much more integral part of thinking, to the Scottish Government thinking since then. We have specifically agreed at the last cabinet to seek advice and support from the Commission for Urban Economic Growth, which is chaired by Professor Anton Muscatelli, about how we can evaluate and judge the Glasgow region programme as a whole and the individual projects within it on inclusive growth criteria and to understand what kind of measures and criteria we can use to evaluate the projects as we scrutinise them as they are going forward. My colleague Kevin Rush is working very closely with Desmond Nolte from the Commission to develop those criteria just now. Particularly we want the eight council leaders, the eight politicians in the cabinet to have a very clear understanding as we go forward, scrutinising the deal, what inclusivity means both in terms of economic growth but also in terms of equalities and human rights within individual projects but also the programme as a whole. I think that a particular project, and it's the one that the Commission is focusing on to evaluate, is the Canal and North Gateway project in Glasgow, which involves a very significant amount of house building in Scythill, a whole lot of work to build a new community in Scythill. It isn't just homes. I think that one has been identified as having, perhaps certainly to begin with, the one that has the clearest route towards being an inclusive growth project and one that is focused on inclusive growth, on building long-term benefits for a community in a part of the city that has suffered economic disadvantage for a long time, making sure that the economic growth that is delivered as part of that deal is inclusive has a long-term impact for people and for that part of the city in terms of jobs, in terms of creating high-quality, decently paid jobs, in terms of ensuring the skills development so that local people are able to access those jobs, ensuring that the community that develops and is built as part of that is a community that supports reduction and inequality over the long term. It is early stages that Professor Muscatelli's commission is looking at that, but I certainly think that the Cabinet is extremely keen to follow and to learn from their conclusions on the Scythill project, but also more widely to ensure that broader criteria around inclusive growth are part and parcel of everything that we do going forward on the city-region deal. OK, thank you. The Council of the United States is softening up a committee convener, given that that is all in my constituency, but within that there is maybe an admission that the city-region has perhaps embarked on a number of projects that maybe inclusive growth was not at the forefront of the mind, so whether that would be the merchant city development with open of the four million centre at Tonte. I have been interested to know how that would fit in with inclusive growth. My hobby horse, when I used to be a regional MSP, was the cathkin relief road, but I just couldn't get my head around where the inclusive growth benefits are that way, so you don't have to comment on those individual projects, but it's somewhere within that answer. Would that have been better? For example, I know in my constituency that I will take the opportunity councillor to mention this, that there may just be some additional funding required in terms of drainage and infrastructure from the city-region deal to realised aspirations that you said so eloquently at committee, and we've heard of a retrofitting of the city-region deal, so I put that on the record, councillor Aiken, but somewhere within your answer was there admission that some of the projects that are now complete actually may not have had inclusive growth at the forefront of their minds. I think it's fair to say that in 2014 the economy was different than it is now, and perhaps the drivers and the thinking behind the city-region deal that was developed at that time. I don't think it would be fair to say—I wasn't there at the time, so I can only speculate about what the people who were involved in it then were thinking—I don't think it would be fair to say that there was no thinking about inclusivity. I think that everyone had at least—were at least partly thinking about a long-term impact on inequalities being at least one of the outcomes that we'd want from this major investment. I think it is fair to say, though, that it wasn't perhaps a front and centre in the strategic oversight and the strategic thinking about how the deal and the entire programme were put together. I think that's also partly because thinking around inclusive economic growth has moved on since then, as well. The Scottish Government's economic strategy in 2015, which had inclusive growth at its heart, obviously pulsated the Glasgow city deal. We do now have an opportunity, although we are two years away from the first gateway review on the Glasgow region deal. The Commission for Urban Economic Growth is there as a tool and a source for advice and monitoring and, indeed, direction, if need be, on ensuring that inclusive growth is absolutely part of those projects. Just to pick up on one of the ones that you mentioned, the Tontine building. I think that, if we use the Tontine and the opportunities that it provides in the right way, it absolutely can be part of inclusive growth. It is about supporting SMEs. Within that, there are opportunities for growing skills. It is mainly in the digital and tech sector. We, as a city region, have to respond through the way that we organise our curriculum and schools, for example, through the way that we ensure that young people make their educational journey, that they have the skills available to them in order to access the jobs that are being created through the start-up opportunities in the Tontine, for example. For Councillor Aiken, we are in danger. We just entered here, so we better move to other deals. I have made my plug in relation to the likes of Postal Park, Hamilton Hill, Sighthill and Rut Hill, who could really benefit from some of that city deal money for inclusive growth. I have made that plug directly to you, but Scotland is a big place. It is not just Glasgow. Let us move on. Who else would like to tell us about inclusive growth within their region deals? We are fairly early on in our stages, so we have just approved our governance structures, we are moving on to our project management arrangements and getting formal approval for both those. We probably have learned a bit from the process as this has developed as a partnership between regional local authorities and both respective Governments. There has been an understanding of the strand of work, and part of that is the representations that Edinburgh has made. I have not been a council leader for four or five months, so I cannot take all the credit, but there was a sense to deal with the growth in Edinburgh and the consequences of growth, if you like. A big part of our city deal is on skills, linking to the innovation money in the universities and the centre of excellence. The model that was created was quite specific, quite tailored in Edinburgh. It was not only about providing a mechanism for the local authority to build homes that would address some of the pressures caused by that additional growth, but also about creating a way in which there is a revenue stream from those new rented properties, which the council can then invest through our housing revenue account into new social homes. The multiplier effect has been built in such a way that the skills should link to the centres of innovation, to the new economic activity that will be generated and better link to those communities that traditionally have not been enfranchised with those economic opportunities in the region and the city. I also deal with the consequences of that growth in providing an accelerator multiplier effect, so that everyone benefits down the line. Is Edinburgh ring-fenced? The money that will flow from that growth, whether it is additional business rates or what have you, has Edinburgh ring-fenced specifically for those projects? No, so we have created a model that will be a new housing company, and the housing company will generate additional revenue that will go into our HRA. Our housing revenue account has our social homes, has rent and has its house building programme anyway. What we have managed to do through the city region deal is create a housing company with £50 million from the Scottish Government. That is going to build £1,500,000 or maybe more homes for rent, and it is the additional revenue beyond the borrowing costs that will go into the HRA account and manage to build more social homes at the source of the HRA. The multiplier and dual approach has been helpful, and it is worth noting that that was managed to be done for £15 million, rather than the city region deal providing the full capital cost of that. That is very helpful. Thank you, Councillor McVey. Councillor Ross. I should be aware that the Highland Council area is bigger than Belgium and bigger than Wales, which gives us a different sense of proportion in terms of some of the deals that we have going round. We have to try and ensure that inclusive growth covers the whole of the council area, from things from Thursow to Lochaber to Inverness. Some of the things we are involved in is the Science Skills Academy in Newton Rooms in Caithness and in Lochaber to try and improve opportunities for young people and to include them in the opportunities there. Other things like Highland Council or the Highland area has an ambition to be the best rudally-connected council area in Europe. We are trying to develop digital wi-fi and so on throughout the council area. Other things like affordable housing and innovative things like the fit houses as well. We are trying to include people in new technology to ensure that we provide services for people across the council area. Just a couple of things. I mean, I think like Adam, clearly the Edinburgh and South East Scotland city deal was built on the two pillars of one accelerating growth but also tackling inequality and poverty as well, so I think that that has been built in. I think that the two points I would make are probably a mistake to look too closely at individual city region deal projects or the city region deal in isolation from other things that are going on. In that aspect, particularly in Fife, we had the Fair of Fife commission on a long-term approach to tackling poverty and inequality and that very much fed into the process. That was 2015 and it is fed into the process and other local authorities that we have worked with have had that similar. There are a number of things. One of our focus in terms of inclusive growth is some of the areas that are lagging behind, particularly mid-fife, where we have also had, in the wake of the Tullus Russell closure, the Fife task force co-chaired at one stage with John Swinney himself. That has put things in there. There are a lot of other things going on. The final point is going back to your first question about whether there is a difference between the UK and the Scottish Government on that. The issue that has occurred to me on that is much more that the UK Government has focused on what it sees as reserved matters and has not, in my mind, grasped the idea that it is all integrated. I think that that has a wee bit overbalanced, certainly, the Edinburgh and South East Scotland regional deal, a wee bit in terms of where that focus is, because that has been focused on mainly the UK Government funding on the university sector, which is predominantly in Edinburgh. It is not necessarily a bad thing, but I think that it has overbalanced that a little bit. It is worth saying, councillor Ross, that that difference between the Scottish and the UK Governments was not the view of this committee. It is the view that we hear from witnesses quite strongly last week, but that is very helpful. Councillor Llyon, do you want to— Thank you. As far as our deal goes, we have obviously built our deal from our regional economic strategy, but within the regional economic strategy, inclusive growth is very much at the centre of that. We feel that the projects that have come forward as part of our city deal do have those inbuilt in them as well. We are a wee bit ahead of some of the cities that are sitting round the table, particularly our oil and gas technology centre. On the face of it, when you look at it, it is obviously about us, the diversification of our economy and building on the expertise that we have built up over the years in oil and gas. It is also about the education impacts as well. We are seeing that very much coming through in the projects about how they can relate not just with our colleges and universities but also with our schools in the city to give that impetus and input going forward. The harbour expansion is another one where they are benefiting from the infrastructure onshore as part of the deal, but very much part of the contracts that are coming forward is that community benefit and making sure that jobs are going to local supply companies and things like that. Within that, we can see the projects, although they are around the diversification of our economy, having an impact on the inclusive growth throughout the city and the region. The other aspects—I think that I would agree with Councillor Ross about the definition between devolved matters with UK Government and Scottish Government—we saw that with ours as well and the things that we put forward initially perhaps not getting the funding. However, we do have some projects or money put on the table around our transport aspirations and connectivity going forward. That is obviously about us trying to open up the region for commercialisation but also for housing as well and the infrastructure that is connected with that. I would say that we do see that inclusive growth, but we need to monitor it. That will be the important thing going forward to see the benefits that are coming out of the projects. I suppose that that is the importance of having a framework of how that is analysed and looked at going as we move forward. It is important that both Governments collectively come together to see if we can get a framework that goes across the whole of Scotland so that we can be analysing the deals and making sure that the outcomes that we are trying to achieve are there. I expect that you are moving as nicely on to the next question in relation to monitoring, but just before we do a move on, can I just check something?  I am disappointed to hear irrespective of where the fault lies that there would be attention between what is reserved and what is devolved. Those are local economic strategies and you mentioned somewhere down the line that there were some suggestions that Aberdeen deal put forward that were not accepted because of issues between reserved and devolved. I caught that somewhere in your answer. Could you maybe give an example of that? I think that we obviously had a range of projects that we were looking at. It is not because obviously I mentioned there both about the transport aspects and the digital connectivity, both of which have come forward with funding, probably not as much as we would have liked at the time, but it will enable us, hopefully, to bring those projects when we get to the next round of deals. Our deal was based really about the innovation side. When we see those projects coming forward, particularly the oil and gas technology centre, the biotherapeutic innovation hub and the food and agricultural innovation hubs, the funding has come forward for those. That is probably because our regional economic strategy was at the heart of the deal that we were putting forward. We would hope that both Governments will, as they have put money on the table around the transport appraisals that we will do, that both Governments will come back when we are looking at projects going forward. We will ask both Governments whether they have said no to any projects coming from any region deals, which is for clarity. Did either Government say no to one of your specific projects? We had almost £2 billion of projects on the table, and we have funding for £250 million as a result of that. I would say that there were a number of projects where both Governments were looking for further analysis of those further evidence that those projects should be taken forward. That is obviously what we need to try and do now. What I would say is that what we have seen and you mentioned there about it being up to local authorities, they know their priorities best in bringing those projects forward. I would agree with you. I think that the difficulty that we have seen particularly around some of our transport projects is that other aspects of national level are kicking in there. Transport Scotland, for instance, has asked us to delay bringing those projects forward for a year because it wants to see the effects of the western peripheral route. It is important that we take into account the impact of the western peripheral route, but we need to carry out that appraisal work as we move forward so that we are ready and in a position to bring those forward once we can see the impact of that. Another aspect was the digital connectivity, where, again, we had very set ideas on where we want to make that investment. The Scottish Government is quite rightly rolling out a programme throughout Scotland that is 100 programme, and it asked if we would look at that. That has delayed us four to six months because of that. In actual fact, we have determined that that is not the best way forward for us to put the resource, and we are pursuing the initial areas in which we want to do that. I think that the law will always be competing aspects, but it is important that we are making sure that we are putting forward localised opinions on that, because, as you mentioned, I think that we know our cities and our regions the best. I accept that question. That was a pitch for blockages and delays to be mitigated rather than saying, no, you couldn't do a project. Can I just check? No need to answer if the answer is no, we haven't been told we couldn't do a project. Has any other region been told no, you can't do a project? Yes, Mr Robertson. There is a process, and I think that it is common for all the city region deals, which is that you will look at your local priorities and put forward a range of projects, and that will exceed the necessary amount of money. I should check on that, Mr Robertson, because there are lots of funds that are like that, but local authorities are usually asked to write those projects in order of priority. If every fund is always over-prescribed, that is not the same as saying, no to a project. That was my angle, which is that there is a long list that gets cut down. I thought that was the question that you were asking. Right, but it would be great. No one is indicating that no has been an answer. I just wanted to check that that was the case. We will move on and come back to some of those issues unless I am just checking. Council McVeigh? We did have a transport project that we were working as an organisation, and we had other regional partners who understood the value of it that was not progressed, and that was tram. It was not progressed by other Governments, but it looked like there was a time when the UK Government might have found itself in a different place in terms of its funding appraisal of that, but that was very clearly ruled out. That is a matter of regret, because it was a high-capacity public transport solution that could have unlocked additional economic generation within the region in line with the aspirations of the wider city deal. That is certainly one that was off the table and is not permitted by either partner to be part of the project mix. It is helpful that we can pursue that further in later evidence sessions. That is the kind of thing that I was looking for. Graham Simpson?  Council Reichen, I am going to quote some things that you said in October. You said that the city deal is very 20th century. There are lots of stone, steel and concrete. There needs to be a focus on what jobs will be created and how these jobs will be accessible. We need to have the courage to say no to some of these projects. We need to think what happens after we build the infrastructure. If we cannot see what we have to have the courage to say that the project does not go any further, if we are not satisfied, we need to make changes. I find myself in the unusual position of completely agreeing with an SNP politician. I could not agree more with you. Given that you have said that there needs to be change in some of the projects in the Glasgow city deal, have any of the councils in the city deal said that they want to remove some of those projects? Not remove projects in the moment, but certainly a term that I have used is re-engineer. Look at the projects and look at the detail in them and the elements that are making up the project. Just as I said before, assess that in the context of inclusive economic growth, in the context of the long-term economic benefits, and in the context of the potential for leveraging in private sector investment, which is a deliverable of the Glasgow city region deal. We are expected to bring in an additional £3.3 billion in private sector investment over 20-year period of the deal, but in actual fact we have an agreement that we would like to do it much more quickly than that. In all of those criteria, there is a re-evaluation across the programme and all the local authorities are saying, okay, how are we doing on this at this stage, how are we doing on these things, where is the potential for these longer-term aspirations and ambitions. I obviously cannot speak for the other local authorities, but I can tell you certainly in Glasgow, the team in Glasgow is absolutely looking at not just the projects within city region deal, but wider. I would go back. I think that Councillor Ross said that none of these sit in isolation. All the other projects that the council is pursuing or has aspirations to pursue and looking at how those all fit together and trying to look at them as a whole rather than an individual, okay, we are going to build this over here, we are going to build that over there, how are those things all linking up, how are they contributing to aspirations and ambitions around skills development and skills growth, growth of key sectors, employment sectors and skills sectors, innovation. We have, for example, in Glasgow, the two innovation quarters that Strath Clide and Glasgow University are developing, which are not directly part of city deal but have very clear links into a lot of the work that is going on in city deal. I think that a lot of the work that we are doing is about trying to identify all those connections and make sure that we are exploiting those that we are maximising the benefits that we can get from all those connections. I would expect that there will be some areas where we perhaps focus funding and focus investment on a particular area. If we look at something in a project and say that this appears to us to have real potential around skills and jobs and future jobs, particularly for parts of the city and communities in the city, who have not had access to that in the past, that is where we focus our efforts, focus investment. That is the process that is taking place just now. Obviously, we have to be very careful. It is written into the governance structure that allows the cabinet to ultimately make a decision and say that, if a business case comes to cabinet and they are not satisfied, then it is incumbent on us to say that it does not progress if we do not see either value for money or longer-term benefits. We are not at that stage in any of those projects, and I would emphasise that. Something that I have said in the past is that a shorthand way is just because it so happens that, within the programme, a number of bridges have been identified as being built. The question is, where does that bridge go to? It goes to Govan, but what is going to happen in Govan as a result of that bridge? That is the process that is going on just now. It is going on in quite a lot of depth. With the recognition that there is a window of time that we really want to get this work done so that we are not delaying projects moving forward. After you made those comments, Alff Young wrote in the times that there has been an early emphasis on infrastructure. The instinct was to unwrap projects that had lingered too long and realised in council intras. That is indeed the fact, particularly in South Lanarkshire, the convener mentioned the Cathgen relief road. I was at the opening of that in February. The then deputy leader of South Lanarkshire Council, Jackie Burns, said that it would improve infrastructure to employment areas across Rutherglen and Camberslang. I can tell you when I walked the route with Councillor Burns that there were no employment areas on that route or nearby. I cannot see the benefit of that road, £21 million. It shaves five minutes off a journey. I think that is the point that convener was trying to make. A number of road projects in South Lanarkshire put forward through the city deal. Stewartfield Way, Green Hills Road in East Kilbride, neither of which have been presented with any kind of business case, no traffic assessment produced for either. It is still in the city deal. The question is, and there are projects in North Lanarkshire as well, road projects.  I am north and south Lanarkshire, the lead authorities for those. I should emphasise that I was not there at the time when those projects were chosen. My colleague Mr Rushlow is in the project office for the city region deal. He might be able to shed some light on those specific projects. What I would finish by saying at this point, before I hand over to Kevin, is that my concern at this point, having inherited the deal three years into its progress, is that as we move towards the first gateway review for the Glasgow deal in two years' time, we are taking every opportunity available to ensure that, if the inclusive growth aspect has not been engineered in the past and has not been thought about, we do it now before we progress much further. That is very much my focus as the chair of the cabinet now. Mr Rushlow, it is worth noting that Graham Simpson mentioned the Catholic and Relief Road. Ten years before it was constructed, a business plan showed that it would cost £7 million, and ten years later it would cost £1920 or whatever million pounds. Value for money and effective delivery is very important. How are those things monitored within the city region deal? There is an extensive value for money process that we go through for all projects, and I cannot have not been involved at that time. I cannot answer the difference over those two periods. Each of the projects that made up the Glasgow city region deal was not to be viewed in isolation. I understand the point that you are making about the Catholic and Relief Road, but the projects, although they would generate GVA growth in terms of access to jobs, sometimes they had to be seen as part of the wider programme to realise that the full benefits. There are ones that may be seen in isolation that do not look as if they are going to generate substantial growth, but when allocated next to the other 19 projects, as a programme when the modelling was done, they did generate some of that growth. Each of the projects that were selected for the Glasgow deal—we went down initially from 80, as you say, down to 40 and then to 20—was put through a pretty rigorous process to ensure that value for money, to ensure that it was going to be a return on investment in terms of economic delivery. Some of that economic growth will not be realised until all of the projects are completed. That is another issue to note. We cannot view them in isolation. The other point about some of them was that, in relation to the earlier discussion about inclusive growth, I do not think that it was called that back when the city deal was developed, but improving access to jobs in the bottom 25 per cent was a key criteria for how projects were selected. If two projects were broadly similar in terms of their economic impact, if they increased access to jobs from the bottom 25 per cent, then that meant that they were more prioritised. I understand the point that you are making when you look at one project in isolation, but it is part of an overall programme that they were modelled to deliver that economic growth. Mr Simpson, you have a follow-up question. After that, we will move—again, we are not—this is not the Glasgow committee. I am conscious of that. We will return to Glasgow, but we will not ask what other region deals we will do a brief follow-up to that. I can make it general and anyone can jump in. The basic point that I am making is that communities have not been involved. There has been no actual case made to communities of how they will benefit from these particular projects. I think that that goes for all the city deals that you need to involve people and not just tell people what you are doing. They need to be involved from the start. What plans have you got to do that? That is very helpful. It is a good opportunity to put on the record Mr Simpson that it was actually Monday when we were in Paisley as part of the Glasgow airport plans. We heard that, although there had been significant consultation with groups on occasions, it was after decisions were made, not before decisions were made. That is a really good point. Mr Rush, do you want to add additional comments before we take in other witnesses? I think that there is an issue there that you mentioned, convener, and the feedback that had come from community consultation. I think that, as Councillor Aitken says, we are now looking at how we can augment and improve the projects in the Glasgow context. I think that we would give a very firm commitment that we would fill consultation with communities before any changes are made. I am just very briefly on that, convener, if it is okay. It has been after the projects were decided on, but I would say that consultation is almost too small. The genuine engagement with communities in the canal and site hill area, for example, in Glasgow and also on the Suckeyhall Garnet Hill project in Glasgow has been very, very good, I think, of a very high quality, and it is worth looking at and using as models for going forward. If we could go back to 2014, it might be done differently, but the projects at the time absolutely, it is fair to say that there was not public engagement around the choice of the projects, but in terms of the detail of the delivery of projects and the impact that they will have on local people, certainly the ones that are most advanced in that respect in Glasgow as a city, I would say that the levels of public engagement have been of a very high quality. Other examples of consultation, before I bring Jenny Gareth in shortly, because I know she wants to explore this further. Any other examples of consultation ahead of decisions has been taken, or what is the level of community engagement that we have seen across the various region deals? Again, I think that it is this issue of looking in isolation at a city region deal. I think that our deal proposals have been built up on the back of a whole range of things, local economic strategies and such like, and those are the things that, as a council, we have taken from discussions with communities and consultation on the five plan and our economic strategy and put some of those in that meet the criteria. I think that we can overeg the point about consultation with communities. The scale of those deals makes it very difficult to involve individual communities at that level, however that does not mean that they have not been and that there has not been on-going discussion on some things about that. I think that Jenny Gareth would be quite keen to come in at this point, but I will talk to everyone else in to discuss what level of consultation they have had. Jenny Gareth. Thank you, convener, and good morning to the panel. Adam McVey in the Edinburgh submission you say, the confidentiality surrounding the negotiation process has meant that local politicians and the communities that they represent will have little understanding of the deal until the heads of terms are agreed. I am not necessarily sure that I am there yet as a local politician and the heads in terms were agreed for Edinburgh on 20 July, but with regard to that specific point that Graeme Simpson made in terms of transparency and public engagement priorities, you also say on page 17 in your response that, for the Edinburgh city region deal, there have been several awareness raising events, including a launch in August 2015 at which over 300 people attended. Have you any idea who was there? I think that Andrew Gubrally answered the specifics, because it was third sector, I think that local community groups were there, a lot of businesses. Even from that, there have been a lot of events that have happened post, a lot of conglomerates of businesses and things like that, looking to see how they can not only influence the city deal, going back to that element of consultation, but how they can best respond to it to maximise it. Andrew Gubrally might be able to give more specifics. At the actual launch itself, there was that mixture that I am just described, so we tried to get represented from the community, but also from the business community and also key organisations that were there since then and before the heads of terms. We have done a number of both communication to and discussion with the various community groups right through Edinburgh before we got into the negotiation on the heads of terms at all. I appreciate that. Were any of those groups from Fife specifically? I can't remember the specifics. I believe that that was right across the region. I think that it would be helpful if one of you could say what level of consultation there was outside the city of Edinburgh, which I think is the underlying point. My recollection of that event was that there were invites to a range of groups from across the whole region. I believe that our chambers of commerce and the small business federation in Fife representatives are there. I think that a number of third sector organisations, the CVS, are there. I am concerned that communities in Fife were not consulted. David Ross alluded to certain different organisations being involved, but communities themselves, how did they feed into the deal and how were those priorities identified for the Edinburgh deal, because it does not feel that the community's priorities and my constituencies have been listened to. I would like to hear a wee bit more on how you had some sort of consultation with them and identified the priorities for the deal. It goes back to what I was saying. Rather than specific consultation on the deal, there has been a whole range of consultation on the Fife plan, our economic strategy and such like. That, as you know, is going down now to a very local level. There is a lot of discussion with local groups around the Fife task force groups and Tullus Russell, particularly the employees and other community groups there. There is the instance of the charrette that has just been carried out in Macedonia that you will be aware of, which again we would hope would play in. One of the key issues that is brought up time and time again in Glenrothes, for instance, is the ageing infrastructure, the sites and premises that need renewal. That is an absolute key part of our submission and one that we have funding for in that city deal. We are hoping that there is a Macedonia in Fife. There is, there is. He is not making it up.  I want another region deal to come in and comment on consultation. I have got a specific point with regard to the Fife deals, if you want to bring other people in. We will come back and maybe look at that later. Council lying in terms of the consultation process, what has the engagement been like? I think that you know obviously share other opinion around the table. The way the deals are structured, the actual consultation prior to the signing of the heads of terms is very difficult, because you know there is that level of confidentiality. I would agree with Councillor Ross that ours, because it is based on our regional economic strategy, we obviously had consultation with various groups around that. Our regional economic strategy is feeding into the local outcome improvement plans that we have drawn up and the level of consultation that we have had there. Moving forward, I think that we obviously, once we have the projects, it is important that we get that community involvement at that point. I mentioned a couple of the projects that we had initially. The harbour development is a prime example of that and the impact that that is having on one of our most deprived communities within Aberdeen. It is important that we make sure that the local people there have an input into that project. They have the opportunity to see what employment opportunities may be there, but also to look at how that will impact on their communities. We have set up groups within that where there is direct liaison between themselves and the harbour board. Obviously, there are officials around that. The communication strategy, I suppose, is about—we obviously have two councils and we have the private sector as part of our governance structure. Our committees are obviously public. The papers are there for people to see, but we also have a joint communication protocol, where we try to go out as a unit into business communities or the wider sectors when we are holding public meetings and things about the deal. We have everybody at that, having an opportunity to give that information out and to take in information from those that are present. Is that an on-going process? Would you write to the chairs of all the community councils or residents associations or chamber of commerce or whatever and say, every two or three months, have a meeting just to update what is the on-going strategy for updating? I have to. That is one of the things that we heard in Paisley, where we thought initially there had been good engagement and it was reasonable, but they wanted to make sure that that was prolonged, on-going and meaningful rather than a series of one-off events. I would agree with you, particularly because most of the projects that we are talking about here around the table are long-term. We want to make sure that people are being kept up-to-date. We have a newsletter that goes out and, as I mentioned, there are a few different groups. We have community council forums in the city of Aberdeenshire and we are trying to get that information out. I suppose that it is easier for us in the city than it is for our partners in Aberdeenshire where they have a much wider spread within the communities. It is also important that local councillors are well aware of the implications of the deal so that they can be spreading that when they are out into their communities. We all have a role to play in that, but the fact that we have a joint communications protocol helps us to do that and make sure that the information is disseminated across the region as a whole. I do not know if you want to say a little bit about communication strategies and engagements. In terms of communication strategy and engagement, John will be able to give us much more details than that respect, but certainly in some of the Egypt projects that have been going on, there has been a variety of communications going on with the chambers of commerce, community council forums, local councillors, local economic development plans. Plus, each agency has its own strategy that we have to try to work to dovetail with the information there, so I do not know if you want to add to that, John. In terms of the background, I think that there was deal making within the city region deals, which is sometimes we have to be free and things are quick, but I think that the point about ongoing engagement and communication is the key thing. If we had asked about some of the projects that we did not get through the long list, we would not be talking to those people. It is more important that we understand how to shape the projects that are going forward. Similarly to the Aberdeen City region deal, we have a communication protocol, and one of the key things that relates to the other point is that if we want to see the benefits of the projects combined, the synergies between the projects, we need to speak to people about inclusive growth. Inclusive growth was not necessarily a major part of our deal, either, going back to the earlier conversation. It is a maturing process, so we have to build that in and look at that. We have to look at equality, and we have to look at the economic development. Having the conversations with the right groups and right down to the community level within it has to be an on-going process. We will move on now, Alexander Stewart. We have touched on the importance of governance. It has already been mentioned in some of the responses, but I would like to try to expand that a little bit more and talk about the strengths and weaknesses of the whole governance process. We have talked about the engagement of communities and the business community and how that progresses. There are opportunities for bureaucracy and the avoidance of that and the whole accountability assessment and how that is managed going forward. I think that that is a very important role that we need to think about. Can I ask whether you can expand on what you think are the weaknesses and the strengths of the governance of the process? This is not a keen panel desperate to come in and answer these questions, I have to say. Over governance, I expect you to be on the ball with us, quite frankly. Mr Robertson, you have caught my eye. The early stage is described as a process without a process, so some of this is that we are developing it as we go along. When we put the deals in and looked at the way you put a business case and how the business case would be judged, that is something that we are working in partnership with the Scottish and UK Governments as opposed to having a set of key criteria with all the detail behind it and what we need to meet. There is the five case business case model in terms of the governance, does it pass master in terms of a business case and there is an expectation that we will have government arrangements which we write into the city region deal. I think that we are in a fairly good place. We have the scrutiny panel from the Scottish and UK Government. We have our own Government arrangements and we report to committee, but it has been a process of development. It is not something that said, he is the book at the beginning and this is the governance process that we expect you to follow. Did you see within that answer what the governance arrangements are? What are the governance arrangements? Top down, I guess, of the UK and the Government of Scotland, there is a thing called the Scottish city deal delivery group. Right. So, would that not be there monitoring of you? I am asking what your monitoring is I was going to move down to that. Within that, we are one unitary authority in our city region deal, so we do not have to have a cross council board. The planning development committee has an oversight of the city region deal. That takes reports from the programme board and the programme board looks at all the projects within the city region deal, including the partners. Some of our projects are run by UHI, by HI, and we all report to the same programme board looking at progress against timescales, progress against cost profiles and reporting against our risk and issues and the ability to escalate them. Each of those projects has its own project board that meets to look at the issues and escalate up as necessary. Does that information find its rent as a public domain? Yes, it is public domain. That is helpful. Yes, thank you, convener. Just to add, in terms of the strength of the governance around the Aberdeen city region deal, the joint committee was developed as the deal was being negotiated, and I think that has been helpful, because post-implementation, we have had the joint committee in year two now, sitting below that is a programme board, which involves national agencies and local partners in the private sector. However, the other strength from the governance perspective has been the decision making, has been quick, and the pace of the projects has benefited from the private sector input, and it works well in terms of governing the implementation of the Aberdeen city region deal. I was getting information from the clerking team, and I believe that Audit Scotland is doing a piece of work at the moment in relation to governance of city region deals, which was lurking in the back of my head somewhere, but I think that for anyone watching this process, that is a good thing to put in the public record just now. Governance procedures and other city region deals. Kevin Rush. Yes, I think that from a Glasgow perspective we are satisfied. I think that there is very robust governance measures in place. We have a structure led by the cabinet, which is the eight leaders, a chief executives group that sits underneath that meets on a four-weekly basis, a lead officers group that sits under that and a series of support groups. We ask all of the projects to submit four-weekly status reports against spend, delivery and to highlight any issues. We are hated by the member authorities for that, because that is an incredibly onerous piece of work, but it is required to do so. Obviously, that is reported into cabinet, which is publicly available information. We ask them to do that not just for the infrastructure projects but also for the labour market ones and innovation ones, which gives us an overall, through the programme status report, an overall picture of where we are at any stage. That might be a little bit unfair on Glasgow city region, because you are the most far advanced, but you are given a fairly clear scrutiny process and monitoring process there. Are you able to give an example of where things were not going as planned, but that process identified the issues and rectified it? I apologise, because I have seen Nick Young from Scotland office in the audience. The working matters programme is a good example of that. It is not one of the infrastructure projects, it is a labour market programme. We are working with some of those furthest from the labour market. It is a £9 million programme for people on ESA. What we have identified throughout it has been a real issue in terms of getting referrals through, not just from DWP but also from the member authorities. That process of reporting into Cabinet was reported as read. We were able to highlight at a very early stage the issues with the programme where Cabinet took a decision to write to the minister to try and put in place an action plan to rectify some of that. That is a live example of how that reporting mechanism has enabled us to change how a programme is delivered. As a result of that, what we have managed to do is to negotiate with the Government of extension to the programme, which might hopefully enable us to reach more people. In terms of the infrastructure projects, we have not had as many issues just yet, just with the nature of where we are in the programme. I would anticipate that, as we develop that, something that we might see come through more often. I am losing track of what region deals have told me about their work. I am told, Mr Stewart, about the monitoring processes at Council McVey. We are very erlon. I am hoping that our governance arrangements will be formally agreed in the next 10 days or so. We have a monthly leaders meeting of all the local authorities to oversee everything, and then the CEOs of chief executives of the councils meet once every fortnight to go through and monitor progress. We were in the process of setting up our project management office, which is outlined timelines, so they can be held accountable for those timelines and processes. However, in every city deal that is different, the nature of our city deals is that a lot of the projects have an obvious lead, and those individual projects fit within those natural governance frameworks anyway. The work that we are doing in West Edinburgh, for example, the obvious lead is Edinburgh as an authority, and those projects fit within our natural governance anyway. There are structures and layers, and we have made sure that all our projects fit within the UK Government's screenbook assessment. We have made sure that all the layers of projects are in our deal, and then there are essentially different layers of accountability in scrutiny that have been put on that. Any additional comments before I bring Mr Stewart back in? Thank you. You have identified that each deal is different and that they have different complexities. However, those are long-term deals that we are looking at. When you then come on to the governance scrutiny and the value for money and the appraisals of making sure that that is processing through, can I ask how you have identified that and what processes that you have put in place to ensure that you have that value for money and that you have that opportunity to examine and appraise the risks that are being identified going forward because of the long-term nature of the projects? The process that Kevin Stewart described is entirely about that on-going scrutiny and monitoring value as we go forward. The Cabinet, the leaders, is the focus and the reports that we get, which are detailed reports on each project and on the programme as a whole. We are able to very clearly identify and it is flagged up for us if there are issues and the working matters project that Kevin Stewart described is one where the Cabinet has been vocal in saying to the programme management office that we want action in this. We have serious concerns about it and that is entirely what the governance is about, value for money, long-term benefits. Perhaps one thing that was lacking in the Glasgow governance was a strong input from the private sector and we have been addressing that. The Glasgow region economic leadership board has a lot of very similar titles in organisations in Glasgow, which is chaired by Lord Hockey. That had been established but had not really taken shape in its relationship with the Cabinet. That is something that we have now addressed. Lord Hockey attended the last Cabinet meeting and we are going to set up from the back of that a clear, on-going relationship whereby that element of the city region deal, that key deliverable, which is levering in that private sector investment, will have an external oversight from the Cabinet on progress in that matter. We are also continuing to strengthen the links with the Commission for Urban Economic Growth, which is there to oversee and monitor our progress on inclusive growth. In other city region deals, I want to comment on that. Thank you, Councillor Graham Ross. Business cases within the Highlands have to state how the projects will be managed and the benefits and impact that they will deliver from the outset before they can actually progress. The programme manager regularly monitors that and moves things on. That is a process that we have within Highlands to ensure that it is managed and developed. Councillor Lang, thank you. Yes. Obviously, we are in a similar position to not quite as far in advance as Glasgow, but we have obviously had our committee up and running for some time, as Mr Sweetnam said, because it was running in tandem with us signing up to the deal. The business cases coming forward are obviously very important in the monitoring of that, but we are looking at setting up a dashboard that will highlight the outcomes that we are trying to achieve so that they can be measured against it. However, as I mentioned earlier, it is about making sure that you have a common framework in place, which both the local authorities and the deed 1 in our case and both Governments can actually see what the progress has been made. That will then allow you, if there are difficulties that perhaps Glasgow has experienced in some projects, that you can take early intervention action in order to make sure that, going forward, you are delivering on the outcomes that you are trying to achieve. Following on from that, do each project or each deal have a risk register? If they do have a risk register, is that publicly available? That is publicly available, although I think that it is publicly available in the papers, the cabinet papers and minutes are publicly available, so it would be as part of that, rather than the stand alone. As it happens, because Kevin is relatively new in leading the programme management office and I am relatively new in chairing the cabinet, we have been having conversations recently about accessibility of information, how the website is structured, all that kind of thing, so I think that that is a live issue about making sure that people know how to access that information. However, it is publicly available, the question at the moment is how accessible it is and we want to make it as accessible as possible. It is accessibility and it may be restricted in some of the... Are you identifying that that is the case? It is not restricted, but I suspect that you would have to have a wee hunt at the moment for it, so we want to get to a position where that is not the case, where it would be very easy to find. We think that that is probably fairly easily done, just through our restructuring of the City of Eugen deal website. Okay, so Councillor Lang, does the Aberdeen deal have a risk register and is that available? Yeah, we do have a risk register, you'll be pleased to hear. The programme board goes through that risk register at meetings, they would escalate up any issues to the committee that was identified. I think that it is available publicly because through the programme management office and the details that we have, we'll just check to make sure that's accessible for people, but yes, we have got an eye on that. Okay, what about the other City of Eugen deals? Councillor McVeigh? Yes, we're a professional student. We'll be learning from Glasgow's example of how to make those minutes as available as possible when we get to that stage. Our papers haven't been publicly circulated papers as of yet, but when we get to a point where the project management office has articulated what success feature the project looks like and we can get to a point of populating a risk register at that point, then at that point the papers will be public. Can I just say that once you get that lesson from Glasgow on how to do that, could all of you tell every other department of your councils how to make your websites more accessible because that would be really helpful? Are there other region deals risk registers that we're not taking yet? Mr Robin? We have a risk register. It is part of the reporting, but it's not necessarily that accessible. Can I just check, Graham, where you want to follow up briefly on that? Really, just on the website, convener. I was having a look at the Glasgow one before this meeting. The information is scant, frankly. There's very little there. You do have to go hunting. If you want to find the minutes reports of meetings, you have to go on to individual council websites. You actually have to know what you're looking for. It takes ages. The whole thing should be refreshed. It should be more transparent. That actually goes for all the deals. You need to publish everything in one central place. I think that we can multiply that by 32 for every local authority in the country, to be fair. Given that our line of questioning has been about open transparency and accessibility, city region deals were a pretty good place to start getting that spot on. That's very helpful. I don't think that there's a question. I think that there's a comment rather than a question. Andy Wightman. Thank you very much, convener. I just want to explore a little bit about additionality. What would have happened if we didn't have city region deals? The national audit office in England did an analysis of the first wave city deals, and one of the things that they noted was difficulties in assessing what would have happened without the deals in place. Clearly, some of the projects that you're talking about may not have happened or may not have happened now, so there's a funding issue, obviously. But Adam McVeigh, you were saying that papers haven't been circulated yet. We've had witnesses here talking about a lack of transparency. Clearly, the projects that are going through city region deals are going through a process that is less transparent than conventional economic development has been done by councils over the years. I wonder about that question of additionality. Can we genuinely say that those are projects that would never have happened anyway, even if it may have been at a slightly longer timescale? In a Glasgow context, you touched on that funding was a major additional aspect for us, so I think that that did generate additionality for us. What we had to ask ourselves when we put the programme of projects together was, will those projects deliver additional economic growth over just what we were modelled to achieve anyway? That was a fundamental part that we had to ask ourselves in identifying what those projects were. There is additionality that comes from funding, but we need to, as part of our deal, anticipate that there will be additional £2.2 billion pounds of GVA from improved productivity from the Glasgow city deal project. In all honesty, without that injection of £1 billion of funding, we would not have been able to deliver that programme of activity. The additionality, yes, comes from the funding, but I think that the additional productivity improvements that will come from it would be genuine economic additionality as well. Councillor Acons, do you want to add to that? Yes, I just add perhaps a specific example of the kind of thing that Kevin is talking about occurred to me as he was talking. In Glasgow, one of the investments that we are going to be able to make as a result of that is in the key walls along the Clyde, which are mixed ownership, but the council itself owns quite a lot of them.  For a long time, that has been a barrier to development and a barrier to using land along the Clyde, whether for housing or anything else. Now, it has been an aspiration of the council to fix those key walls. The injection of this investment allows us to do that, but it is not just a case of, oh, we are just doing something that we would have done anyway. It genuinely will trigger opportunities for economic growth, for development, for investment in housing that we would not have been able to do without that key piece of infrastructure being addressed. It was a need and has been a long-standing need in terms of Glasgow's public realm. At the same time, there is definitely additionality in there that is going to be triggered as a result of this particular investment. Mr Robertson and Jude indicated that they wanted to come in. No, I cannot. No, you are okay. I told that they were going to give you a chance to gather your thoughts. I was not trying to coer you to come in. Richard, you are speaking then. Thank you. On the additionality question, before the event and as the programme was being developed, we did ex-anti-modelling in terms of GVA impacts as well. That showed an uplift of annually of some £260 million gross value added. The two points that make around additionality in relation to city region deals would be timing additionality. Things are happening sooner than they otherwise might. Also, the scale and pace of it is happening sooner than otherwise might have been the case without the city region deal. I think that that is accurate. It is about accelerating what potential there is in the economy. Our number is, I think, 4.3 billion in potential additional economic output. There are projects that could not have went ahead without that intervention. Our concert hall, which got £25 million formally through the city deal, could have languished as a project for decades and decades or just remained a project in paper in perpetuity without that kind of intervention. The skills money that we have, £25 million over five years, is something that is quite hard to pull in and quite hard to foster that kind of collaboration between partners unless you have something like a city deal that is able to pull it together. Things like the borrowing permission to build the houses that I was talking about earlier, but a quarter of a billion pounds worth of borrowing permission to give us that scope to develop that model, was directly as a result of the city deal. It was not necessarily to say that it could not have been taken forward in another way, in another decision, but it was hooked on to a city deal and gave us that opportunity to grab and pull things together. Last, I suppose, because I wouldn't want this point to be missed, the city deal is one thing that happens and then there's a number of things that happen after it. Even looking at the concert hall example, as a direct result of partners Edinburgh and the Scottish Government and the festivals in the city coming together through the city deal process, despite the fact that the UK Government wouldn't put any money to support our festivals through the city deal, there was an announcement just over a week after the formal announcement of the city deal, which articulated £15 million worth of support for our festivals to take that development of an intrinsically central part of Edinburgh's economy forward and protect it and expand it. The concept of the accelerator not only that the city deal can generate, but the other things that the city deal will pull in as a result of just happening should not be underestimated. John Robertson will take you now, if you want to. I would build on that. The additionality comes from joining up the projects and seeing what else you can do with it, and projects that are not in the city region deal. That takes work, so you have to identify those things. The prosaic one is that we have a road project. That road project opens up development land and affordable housing. If we link that to the skills and employability work, we start being able to join up those synergies with the projects. That is where the additionality can come from, but it does not just happen. You can have 11 projects that will run and they will be governed properly. You need to do that work outside when you add that additionality ourselves and with partners. Andy Wightman, do you want to follow up on that? That is helpful. Obviously, we are at a very early stage in all of this, and some of the answers to those questions may not be readily apparent just now. I want to move on to the question of monitoring and evaluation and how that is handled.  City region deals have funding from the Scottish Government and the UK Government, both of which are executive branches of Government to which Parliament holds them to account. However, they have a monitoring and evaluation role as well. How is the monitoring and evaluation of the whole programme going to work to make sure that not only is public money being well spent but that there is sufficient scrutiny by taxpayers on that? I mean your local residents who hold you to account in the normal course of events through local government but may feel inhibited in doing that, or there may be conflicts because some of the money that you are spending is not money to which they can hold you to account because it is coming from the executive branch of government. Settling on his desk, we have answered that particular question. I think that with any level of spend within our local community, regardless of who has done the expenditure, local councillors are often seen as being right at the heartbeat of what happens there. We have to have a level of scrutiny and information available to be able to justify those decisions as well. Many of the projects here have been developed over a period—we have in the city region deal—have been developed over a period of time. I think that there has been a great deal of scrutiny. I think that we are very keen to support some of them. I imagine that if we will keep young people within local communities involved as well. It is very much at the heart of what you do as a councillor, any way, in terms of being accountable and open. Any other thoughts in relation to that morning, Rod? I put on the public record earlier that I want to do a piece of work on this, Kevin Rusch. Specifically from a Glasgow point of view, we have a first gateway review in 2019, as Councillor Ait can mention earlier on. That is where we need to demonstrate to both Governments that, one, we know what we are doing, two, we are investing in the things that we said that we would and in the way that we would. Thirdly, we need to demonstrate some economic impact, but I think that everyone accepts and I notice that this was mentioned last week, it will be too early in 2019. The guidance that we have had from the Governments is that we are a lot more interested in what process we have gone through and are we investing at the level that we said we would, so are the monitoring spend on that. We are part of the first cohort that has been evaluated at gateway review 1, so that is 11 city deals in the UK. Local evaluation framework will be brought through to Cabinet in February, which will demonstrate exactly what we are going to be measured against. That will be publicly available in terms of what has been measured. The people who have been taken on to do the gateway review 1 will then make recommendations to ministers based on is Glasgow fit for purpose? Is it doing what it said that it would? Again, that will be developed in a kind of open and transparent way. The bigger issue—not the bigger issue, an equally big issue—but gateway review 2, for us, which is what releases the next transfer funding. I think that there would certainly have been expectation from both Governments at that stage that they would start to see the economic impact of this flow through. My experience is that my local residents do not have any problem with holding local councillors to account on a number of levels. I suppose that what we talked about earlier is whether the public feel engaged with the process of city deals. I suppose that the onus is then on us as local politicians to make sure that we get that information down to the level of residents so that they can see the correlation. Because of the financial challenges that we have in local government, I do not think that there is anybody around the table that would not want to make sure that the money that is coming through city deals for projects is being spent in the best way and is returning the best impact for our communities. It is about the scrutiny and governance that we have within the committees and at lower levels that that is feeding through and we are keeping track of that. It is also about the other reviews that are carried out by Scottish Enterprise, the Skills Development Scotland review that is happening to make sure that the projects that are being brought through as part of the city deals are actually delivering on the outcomes that we are trying to achieve in Scotland as a whole. It is that partnership and collaboration that I think that we will see that through and hopefully make sure that our residents are satisfied with how we are moving those things forward. That is some useful comment. I want to move on to a couple of questions that are focused on the Edinburgh one but have general applicability. In the English city deals, the UK Government said that there is some money and that if you agree to spend this through city deal, you can get some improved government, metropolitan mayors etc. In Scotland, there has been no trade-off like that, as I understand it, although in the Edinburgh case I know that Edinburgh was interested in having the powers to levy a tourist levy. I am just wondering how those discussions went and whether that was just ruled out as just not part of what city region deals are for, putting aside the merits of the argument. The second question is that we heard Evans last week. I know that other members want to come back in with specific questions on the deals that relate to their areas and I am one of those MSPs. I know that there is a general question about deals to be done and what the nature of city region deals looks like, but specific to the Edinburgh Council and McVay trade-off deals discussions? In terms of the specifics around revenue raisers, Edinburgh has for a number of years been looking for a vehicle, whether it is a city region deal or anything else, to take forward a transit and visitor levy. Andrew may be better to answer, as I am only five months old as a council leader, and Andrew was in the room for those discussions to answer the direct point. As part of the deal, we decided that transit and visitor levy and those types of things were not going to be part of the city region deal. That does not rule it out entirely, of course, and there are still on-going discussions between, and not just Edinburgh, several cities about whether a transit and visitor levy is similar. Some revenues and powers are given as part. What I would say if I go back to the additionality point is that city deals generated the discussion, and our ability to talk round those quite knotty issues and difficult issues has been enhanced both with government and local government and governments and local government about those things. The city deals in Scotland have been significantly different. Some of you will know that I was also part of the English setup just prior to coming to Edinburgh, and they were on the back of taking over powers, particularly things like the health service and the English setup, where Scotland has been about mainly economic growth and driving economic growth right across all the city deals, whether that has been from Glasgow right through to the more recent ones. That has been the difference. What I think has happened is that, of course, not everything could be done in a city deal, but it has generated the discussion to enable us to have an on-going discussion with both Governments on those issues. My apologies, I think that I might move on from that, because we need to allow on-going discussions on other themes within city deals, but it is an opportunity to place on record a view that we heard in Paisley the other day that it is an appropriate time to do it, because there is a line of questioning around additionality. The discussion that we had on Monday in the Glasgow city region deal was about the displacement effect, particularly around the advanced manufacturing base around Glasgow airport, and making sure that businesses that were attracted to that area would not just have set up somewhere else anyway. We had that discussion, but it is an opportunity to put on record a gentleman Stuart Wild that we spoke to, who runs Renfrew Victoria Youth Football Club, who is at the community panel. I was talking to who showed me a map of that area, and there is a deprived community that sits right on the outskirts of that particular advanced manufacturing area, and there is some derelict and vacant land around that site. Their question was whether, if we are doing a co-ordinated regeneration of that part of Glasgow city region, where does his community and his club sit in there? Under the guise of opportunity in relation to displacement and additionality, I just put that on the record. I do not need you to give me an answer to that just now, but I think that it is important that when we speak to members of the community at events like that, they actually see their comments reflected in these evidence sessions, so I took the opportunity to do that. We have on now Kenneth Gibson MSP. Thank you very much, convener. Good morning, everyone. I would like to congratulate you on your submissions, which are all very interesting, although I note that Glasgow city council states that Glasgow city council is already the powerhouse of the Scottish economy, and Edinburgh city council says that the capital city region already drives the Scotland's economy, so no unanimity there, no doubt. Councillor Lange will think that it is Aberdeen, but I want to touch on our visit on Monday as well, because it was a real issue that grabbed my attention. It was about the proposed £144.3 million light rail link, and I am not arguing for or against that. That is not what I am going to ask about, but what concerned me is that they were talking about delivery of that project in 2025, and I said why is it eight years away if it is more or less broadly being agreed. They said, oh well, it will take 18 months to build it, but approvals are going to take four years. Now, I think that Councillor David Ross is smiling there. Clearly, if these projects are going forward at a time of economic challenge, they are trying to deliver additional prosperity to Scotland, surely there must be a way in which these approvals can be expedited in order that we can actually deliver on the ground much quicker. I am just wondering if members of the panel can talk about how we can improve that process and if there are any other bottlenecks that we should be able to overcome to deliver those deals on the ground much more expeditiously. That is a really helpful question. It is only fair that we start with Glasgow City region deal, given that that was cited. Who likes to come on that? I will kick off on that, but I think that Kevin will have something to say on that as well. One of the things that the deals allow us to do is to align national organisations, whether they are national agencies or other mechanisms that we require for delivery and get us working together on those things. I think that there is a possibility that assumptions that are made early about how long those things might take. If we use the opportunity that the creation of regional structures and regional partnerships, which I think is in itself one of the additionalities of the city deals, has facilitated the creation of regional working, we use that opportunity to work in a regional way with national agencies, national delivery bodies and align, we may be able to expedite some of those things. Maybe just one example is my colleague Councillor Tony Buchanan, who is the leader of East Renfrewshire Council, who leads on behalf of the Glasgow City region a team working with the utilities companies. Utilities are absolutely crucial when it comes to particularly urban infrastructure and public realm. It is certainly something that we are encountering in Glasgow. They have come to an agreement about working together, the utilities companies and the Glasgow City region, to help to expedite issues when they arise within build projects and infrastructure to try to make sure that they are not barriers and that they do not stand in the way for a long period of time. It does not mean that things are going to be just dealt with immediately, but it means that, on a whole number of projects within the overall programme, building those working relationships and coming to agreements on shared priorities means that we will be able to shave time off some of the initially assumed timescales as we go along. I do not know whether you want to add to that, Kevin. Sorry, can I just add in? I can say in a quote that there is a window of time for delivery of projects if we are going to be moving them forward. What we were told at the meeting was that the bottlenecks were Transport Scotland Network Rail and Scottish Ministers on that specific project. Now it does not seem to me beyond—although it is not necessarily within the regional local authorities themselves. It is these external bodies and how it lays with them. I find it bizarre that the approvals would take four years just to get three groups effectively round the table along with the local authorities themselves. If there is a role that our committee can play in helping to co-ordinate some of those agencies along with Glasgow City Region to make that more efficient and more productive, I think that we would be keen to do that. So Mr Rusch might be able to outline a bit more. I think that just in relation to the airport access project, I think for clarity. I do not think that the suggestion was that the Scottish Ministers were the bottleneck. I think that there was a suggestion from Renfrewshire's lead authority that there was a ministerial working group, which was chaired by the transport minister, which I think brings together the various partners to try and work through these solutions. I think that Councillor Aitken's point about the infrastructure group is a good one. I think that that is where increasingly we will be able to ask each and the initial summit that we had in September had chief exec level from all the utilities companies. They have now appointed senior officers who will work at a City Region level to try and co-ordinate investment and do exactly what has been suggested there. I think that just for clarity, I think that it would need to be clear that to do the Renfrewshire work, we are not suggesting ministers with a bottleneck. Actually, there was a mechanism there for them to try and work through the agencies. In actual fact, I would say that ministers have been facilitating, Scottish ministers have been facilitating partnership working on that particular project anyway, through that national working group. That is not what I was told at the airport. I do not think that we should—sorry, Mr Gibson—just a second, because we all had recollections of what we had during that meeting. I think that what would be helpful would be if either Councillor Aitken or Mr Rush would write to the committee, explain what the challenges are in getting a delivery date ahead of 2025 and how that committee can support addressing some of those challenges to speed up that process. If it is capacity within Transport Scotland requiring additional resources, let's see if we can focus the minds of all the partners to make that happen, because that was my reflection of the discussions that we had. I wonder if Mr Rush or Councillor Aitken could maybe be helpful to do that. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I know we are interested in hearing about the bottlenecks from across— Yeah. Well, generally, apart from taking the project away and looking at the bottlenecks— That's what I was hoping we would get to, yeah. So, Councillor David Rush. I mean, you're talking about a rail link. I mean, that rings a bell, and Jenny Gilruth will be well aware of that about the leaving rail link, which, again, I think in her experience, has been bottlenecked since the first stag, Scottish Transport advice guidance in 2008. Another one that was produced and has got mired down in the processes of Transport Scotland and having to check things and goodness knows what, and then missing dates and a complete lack of clarity about who is responsible for what in that whole setup. That's one of the projects that we initially put in through the city region deal. During the discussions with, I believe, officer and civil servant level, it was becoming clear that the full project wouldn't go in, but certainly the first stage of that was put in and it was turned down. Now, I think there are kind of the general issues about Transport Scotland and the way we do that, and I know the pipeline approach is supposedly dealing with some of those, but I think one of the concerns and the link to city regions is that what we can't have is that things go through the processes and the governance of a city region and then they have to go back into a whole new set of things, and that's going to delay things entirely. If the national agencies, particularly where they have a role, can play a part round the table in getting this sorted out within the city region frameworks, I think that that would streamline things considerably in the future. Councillor Ross, that's helpful. It's worth pointing out. My memory of the discussions that we had on Monday, Network Rail was also one of the key players in relation to this, and that's worth putting on the table as they're rather than singling out one specific partner. Councillor Lange, in a moment I'll take you in, but it's only fair because I know that Jenny goes into this specifically in a questioning of some of the stuff that Councillor Ross mentioned to take this question just now. We'll come back to the rest of these answers in a moment. David Ross, I do want to go back and explore a little bit more about the Levenmouth rail link. It won't surprise you. You will remember on the 14th of August last year—sorry, earlier this year—that I wrote to myself. I also wrote to David Mundell, and I also wrote to Keith Brown, the Cabinet Secretary for the Economy, and I received responses from the Scottish Government and the UK Government. I haven't yet received a response from Fife Council, which is disappointing. I highlighted specifically the Levenmouth rail link as a missed opportunity for my constituency, but for Fife specifically. We have heard a lot of evidence today about feeding the cities and driving that investment in growth, but it doesn't really feel to me that this is a city region deal. It feels to me that it is a city deal. The region, as it were, of Fife has been adversely affected to some extent because there are not specific projects identified that I can point to in my area, for example, that have benefited from it. The Edinburgh region deal itself was welcomed by Fife Council on 20 July, but, on 26 July, you said, I am disappointed by the level of funding that is directly focused on Fife. I wonder what changed in that period. Somewhere within that, if you address blockages within the system, is the whole thing for the worst. That would be helpful. Nothing changed within that period. I think that the two things are not necessarily contradictory. I am absolutely committed and believe that the city deal framework and the approach that we have is absolutely right and will be a great benefit to Fife as to the rest of the region. What I was disappointed about was the way that we came to that final decision. We got a 24-hour notice of what was going in and what wasn't going in. There were a whole range of things that we thought would get funding or more funding that didn't. At the end of the day, I think that there are significant things in there, and I think that you will see things in your constituency, particularly the sites, the premises and the office new build that we have, which is a particular issue in England Rothes for renewal of those sites. I just note that you wrote to me. I think that I have tried to phone your office on a number of occasions. I think that I spoke to you at the gingerbread event as well about getting together. You have now put that on the record. You yourself and Ms Gilruth will be interested in that exchange. What the committee is interested in is that you had mentioned a blockage in relation to the specific project that Jenny Gilruth had mentioned. I hope that this is helpful, Ms Gilruth, but is there an interaction between those blockages and whether that featured in the final deal or not? The substantive question that Mr Gibson was asking was about blockages in the process. I suppose that it is about prioritisation. In the evidence that we heard last week, Chris Day from Transform Scotland said that one would have thought that, as a partner in the deal, Fife Council would be hammering on the door in relation to the leaving-mouth rail link. My question really is, where are you hammering on the door? How is it prioritised? What is identified as the number one priority for Fife, for example? I would say that we have been hammering and hollering and goodness knows what to get on the table with yourself. As you know, there is complete cross-party and cross-community support for that leaving-mouth rail link in the local area. I think that we have been doing our best. That was one of the things. My understanding, and I am obviously not involved in the detail prioritisation, was that the clear understanding that we got from Government officials was that that would not meet the kind of specific criteria that they were looking for in that deal. We did insist that, at least funding for the first stage and the feasibility work went in there. On the wider issue, the issue and the disappointment around that was the fact that we clearly got money and allocation in the innovation bit for the sites, premises and office renewals, but we did not get any money around transport that we had looked for. We did not get as much interest and I apologise, Councillor Ross, but you can, yes, if it is brief. The conclusion of that, and I think that it has got a more general thing, was that it brought into question whether, at the civil service level, particularly in the Scottish Government, but down in Westminster as well, we actually get the connectedness of all those things. You know that you get one part funded, but not others, and they are actually very integrated and connected. Right, just a little bit of housekeeping here, Jenny. Of course, there are strong constituencies that are interested in them. In a moment, I am going to bring it back in for a very brief question, but, Councillor Ross, I am just checking, because right at the start of this evidence session, I asked a very specific question about whether Scottish or UK Governments had said no to specific projects and you never mentioned that particular project, so a bit of clarity would be helpful. Was that a straight no? No, I think again that it is part of what you hear. No, I apologise the answer here. Sorry, Councillor Ross, if you could listen to the question that has been asked. The question that has been asked is that you were making a suggestion there that you were not allowed to proceed with that project, and earlier on in the evidence session, I gave the opportunity for all city region deals to tell me of specific projects that were simply not allowed to progress with. The councillor McVie has now given two examples of those projects that Edinburgh could not proceed with. I am just asking you, is that a specific project yes or no? A straightforward question. It is in the same vein that, through the prioritisation process— Right, we are not getting an answer to the councillor McVie. Sorry, Councillor Ross, we will just move on. Jenny, go with very briefly. Okay, very briefly then. In the context of Fife, Fife specifically sits in between geographically at the Edinburgh city region deal and also the Dundee one. For some reason, the decision was made to split Fife, so northeast Fife, the electoral constituency, is being put in with Dundee and the rest of Fife is being lumped in with Edinburgh. I do not know why. I believe that it is to the detriment of my constituency, which has got the highest levels of unemployment in Fife and also the highest levels of child poverty. When we talk about inclusive growth, it is pretty difficult for me, again, as I have previously said, to identify where that growth is going to come from if you do not have those transport links. Last week, we had Professor Duncan MacLennan in from Glasgow University and he said, We have to be careful about how city regions are grounded. If there are exceptional areas that lie between two regions, we cannot just draw a line. David Ross, I do not know if you can answer this question, but do you know why Fife was cut in two, as it were, in terms of the city region deals? I do not believe that it is that simple that there is simply a line. There are particular projects and things that fit more closely with the South East Scotland Edinburgh deal, others that fit more closely with the Tay cities. On top of that, and I think that the point is well made, the work that we have been doing around the closure of Longannet with Clackmannanshire and Falkirk indicates that there is a need for something in that area that is not focused on city. I do not think that it is a firm line. One instance of that is that, through the Dundee and Perth and Ross Angus partners, we are working on something that was not in the first iteration of their city deal, but in terms of the roll-out of the broadband, we are working with them to look at how we can improve that and put a bid in for the whole of Fife as part of that with those parts. Councillor Ross, that is helpful. My apologies for cutting you off there. My apologies to the rest of the witnesses and to other MSPs as well. I am loath to deny an individual MSP a strong constituent's interest. I think that that is a valid thing to push that forward. That is why we have committees of this Parliament, but we did drift off the underlying question that Mr Gibson raised, which was about blockages in the system where deliveries could be pushed forward. And Councillor Llang was going to respond to some of that. My apologies, Councillor Llang. Thank you. I mentioned in my opening remarks some of our transport projects that we wanted to take forward. We have been asked to delay the strategic transport appraisals that we intend to carry out. I think that it is very important—I think that Ms Gilruth mentioned there—about prioritisation and how you reach those decisions. I think that those assessments are key to that, because many of the projects that we had were things that perhaps have been sitting around for some time. We need to make sure that they still remain priorities and in which order they come. The importance, I suppose, around the strategic assessments is that we need to make sure that we are getting them into the national transport review that is carried out by Transport Scotland so that we can hopefully bid for that funding going forward. That was the point that I wanted to make. The other aspect, I suppose, is that we had an ask within our city deal, which was around the cutting of the timing between Aberdeen and the central belt by 20 to 25 minutes. It does not sit within our deal, but we had a package from Scottish Government that came forward separately, which we have under a memorandum of understanding, which is 200 million towards that. From our point of view, we are keen to make sure that that is pushed on. We have heard that package of money being announced a few times over the years. We obviously want to make sure that we are working with Scottish Government to ensure that money is invested, but it is also important to us as to where those improvements are made so that we reap the biggest benefit for the northeast in that respect. I suppose that it is trying to open that dialogue with Scottish Government and Transport Scotland around what their plans are for that. We obviously want to make sure that we are working together in order to achieve that going forward. That is helpful. I am sure that you are aware that transport coming from the Highlands and within the Highlands is really very important for us. Within the city region deal, a third of the project monies is towards transport projects and the infrastructure in that respect. Some of the problems that we are experiencing is that we would like firmer dates and delivery dates so that we can progress stuff as soon as possible, because that has an impact on other projects coming forward. It is with Transport Scotland and it just needs a bit more impetus, but that would be a nice way of putting it. That is really helpful. Before Mr Gibson wants to come back in to follow up on some additional comments before Mr Gibson comes back in. In Glasgow, we have seen a switch from growth per se to inclusive growth. In your submission, you are looking to bring in £3.3 billion of private sector investment over the 20s. I am just wondering how the private sector has responded to that and what the impact has been. I think that it is very warmly. One of the good things about inclusive growth is that it challenges to think about how you grow your economy in a slightly different way. It is not one or the other. There is the growth element to it. Within the Glasgow city region context, certainly the discussions that we have already had with the private sector through the chambers of commerce, et cetera, and the Federation of Small Businesses and others welcome the focus on inclusive growth. I think that they are quite keen to ensure that we still generate the additional GVA that we will, but that additional economic growth is shared across the entire city region. I think that I mentioned on Monday when we met that Glasgow's economic growth over the last five, six years has been pretty substantial. In 2014, we had 7 per cent GVA growth as fast as growing in the UK, but that was not necessarily shared with everyone. I think that the private sector is keen because the economy in an inclusive way means that people are still using goods and services, if they want money to spend in local economies. Certainly, the discussions that we have already had with the private sector, they are fully supportive of this approach. I just want to see if other local authorities are of the same view in going forward with the inclusive growth. What kind of discussions have you had with the private sector and how it will impact, if at all, in terms of projects delivery going forward? In terms of the civil zest, they are keen to discuss about particularly skills and employability and what they can do in terms of both community benefit, but we also have a school shortage, so if we can get to those people who are furthest away from employment, it is to everybody's benefit, including that civil and construction, but also in the highlands and tourist industry has a dearth of skilled work. If we can get to those people who are furthest away from employment, if they can support that as part of the city region deal initiatives, they are all in favour of it. Any other comments in relation to wedding inclusive growth? Just to add, in Aberdeen city region deal, we too are engaging with the private sector. Council are letting touch on community benefit clauses, but where those projects can look at targeted recruitment and training, then it is part of our deal agreement that we will try and put that into our procurement of the projects and working with the private sector. Also, to reiterate, the aspiration, particularly around some of the key industries for Aberdeen city region and Scotland and the UK, is embedding the aspiration in our schools, particularly around the innovation piece. Any additional comments on that? I was just going to ask another point. I am the only MSP in this committee who does not have a constituency that is part of a city regional deal, certainly not as yet. I also get this second highest unemployment in Scotland. I was wondering what the displacement effects you perceive in terms of city region deals are in terms of resources and skilled people from areas that are not included in deals. Although Glasgow might be accelerating its growth, do you feel that that is on top of any growth that Scotland would be experiencing anyway, or is it simply not just displacing it from within the city, but from areas outside the city that do not actually have a deal status and, therefore, the benefits that occur? I think that the nature of Edinburgh's city deal, the lion's share of it, was on innovation and technology. That is not something that will be cannibalising the research funding or anything else. Further universities will be genuinely creating an internationally renowned sector of excellence. Our private sector, just to kind of tie that in with the previous question, is responding to that because they know and they are already anticipating what the impacts will be. They know that they are going to need additional start-up business space, for example, out of that investment in technology and innovation within the universities, because they know that there will be people developing ideas through that process, and they come out and want to take that on a much bigger scale. I would anticipate not only that being a huge benefit to Edinburgh, but that not every start-up will be able to afford or want to be centred around or near the university campus, even though that is where their technology might have originated. The fringe benefits accelerator again of that will push out, instead of being a cannibalisation of investment. I think that there will be a positive ripple effect and people will see Fife in West Lothian and further afield as the natural place that they can go and start their businesses, their factories, their centres of creativity, their centres of technology. Start-up companies do not have a huge amount of money to pay the prices that often Edinburgh charges for its office space. That is a prime example of where the arrows will go in the other way and the ripple effects will be positive, not a hoovering up of investment within city deal areas. I apologise for the answer to that question, but I am keen to move on. We have about 10 minutes left. I just want to check on outcomes a little bit more. I will give this reference to Glasgow, but I will open it out to all witnesses. Glasgow, the hope, has 29,000 permanent jobs through and towards the end of the process. I think that it is about 11,000 in the construction phase. I cannot quite remember that total. I think that you mentioned that the hope was that a lot of this activity would benefit those in the bottom 25 per cent. That is income deciles, the SIMD year, but the bottom 25 per cent of struggling in our communities, if you like. Is that a direct target for those 29,000 jobs? As we go through that process, first of all, I would ask, is there a benchmark? In year 5, would we expect to identify 2,000 jobs? In year 10, what are the benchmarks in reaching those 29,000 jobs or the 11,000 in the construction phase? What percentage of those jobs would you expect to go to those out with the labour market currently? What percentage of those jobs would you maybe expect to go for those who were on lower-skilled jobs and trained up to take opportunities that are available to make sure that those in that bottom 25 per cent benefit? How will those outcomes be measured going forward? That is one of the things that we are working with the commission for urban economic growth to develop those criteria and a diagnostic approach so that we can judge the outcomes of the city deal on precisely that basis. Through the work that the team is doing, we have a strong understanding of the issues in the Glasgow city region and, particularly, the city of Glasgow in that we are aware that it is a long-standing issue that the numbers of people who are distant from the workforce, for whatever reason often it is to do with long-term conditions, disabilities or lack of skills and qualifications and inability to access work, that that has to be a key focus. If we advance in the city region deal and that we are not addressing that, we are not seeing a difference in that, then that would be a problem. Kevin already mentioned the levels of economic growth that Glasgow experienced in 2014, for example, that were very high and performed very well in comparison to other UK cities. However, the impact on those statistics was not seen. That did not move. We still had the same percentage of unskilled and unqualified people in the city who were distant from the workforce, so it is absolutely understood that that has to be an impact that we see. It has to be one of the main outcomes over the longer term. What we are trying to do now and actively working on is developing an understanding of how we monitor what kind of targets we should be looking for, what kind of targets we should be setting ourselves, how we link—again, the deal does not stand on its own—how we link the work that we are doing through the deal with, for example, the work that the academic sector in the city is doing, the university's innovation sector, the additional work that we are doing in Glasgow to remodel economic leadership in the city, which will have a particular focus on skills and employability and key sectors, and what we are doing within our schools, as well as what we are doing in terms of education and bringing all of that together, and all of that work together, and understanding how that all interacts with each other to particularly focus on that bottom 25 per cent and lift it up in terms of accessibility and the ability to access and the capacity to access the jobs that will be created as a result of city deals. 29,000 new permanent jobs anticipated. If 25 per cent of those were to go to those in the bottom 25 per cent, that would be 7,500 jobs. There is a starter target for those new jobs that are created, but as yet, the city region is still working out what those targets should be, so do you think that 7,500 is the starting point in relation to those new jobs that are created, and when should we expect to see those targets emerge from the Glasgow city region deal? I think that it has to be looked at more widely than simply a particular number of jobs, because it is about a particular type of jobs as well. We want people who have not been able to do so up until now to have the ability to access high-quality, secure, well-paid employment, as well. It is not just any job, it is the quality and sustainability of the employment, so those are wider measures. That is what we need to understand. It is how we evaluate that as we go forward. I think that it is fairly easy to set a target and say that X number of jobs are this percentage, but the issue that contributes to that 25 per cent group are complex, so we need to have more complex responses and more complex ways of measuring it and evaluating it as well. I fully appreciate the complexities around all that, but at some point this Parliament will wish to monitor the successful outcomes of each of those city region deals and I would take it as a given that the 29,000 jobs that will be created will be good quality, sustainable and high quality jobs. I fully appreciate that some people will take those job opportunities by upskilling themselves and may already have been in employment. I understand that as well, but at some point a successor committee is going to have to ask the question, tell me how many jobs have been created, how many of those jobs have went to the bottom 25 per cent, what is the strategy for achieving that, what is the timescale, and that is all still work in practice. I will ask others for the job creation outcomes that they are seeking to achieve and monitor. When do you think that we can anticipate Glasgow city region fleshing some of that stuff out? We are doing it now, we are working, that is the work that we are engaged in right now and that is the inclusive growth, it is fleshing out that inclusive growth aspect, working directly with, and we had Professor McLean here last week, he is on that commission, that work is happening just now. Mr Gibson had mentioned earlier that I talked about a window, that is the window that I am talking about, that window to have that understanding of where we are going and have that criteria and that evaluation. 29,000 jobs, that is the target within that as many as possible in terms of, we want to make sure that as many people as possible have the capacity within the city to access and the city region to access those jobs. I suppose ultimately the outcome that we want to see is an ever-shrinking of the percentile of the potential workforce in Glasgow, which has no skills or qualifications and which is furthest from the workforce, so a shrinking of the gap between people and jobs. It is also worth putting on the record that when the committee was in Paisley on Monday, we met an excellent community organisation from Yoker, who had a skills remit in working with local people across the north-west of Glasgow, who were furthest from the labour market across the young people. One of the things that they were seeking from Glasgow City Council on this occasion was the appointment of a support worker or a coordinator to grasp the opportunities created by the city region deal, and they made that point very specifically with me, within my group. As I said earlier on, there is no point in the committee engaging with community groups in relation to inquiries if we do not put on the record some of the information that we received. I am sure that Mr Russell will be aware of that particular organisation, maybe that is something that the city region could look at. Everyone else, this will be your final opportunity to put some comments on the record. I very much appreciate any information that you could give in relation to employability targets, high-quality jobs, those furthest away from the labour market and the kind of targets and outcomes that you are hoping to see, but wrapped up in that, any other additional comments that you wish to make, that would be your opportunity to do that. Maybe we will start with Councillor McVey. Our jobs figure in a macro level was 21,000, but we need to do more work at this stage to work out the private sector elements of that and the structure of exactly how they are going to arrive in the region. The one thing that I would say that I think that it is important to say is—and it follows on from Councillor Davies Ross's comments about having 24 hours' notice in terms of projects for our city deal, both Governments by the nature of it. We would love it if it was an open process where we would put a business case and everything could be considered on its own merits and therefore we could end up with a city deal of any number at any given time. In reality, it does not happen like that. Both Governments have an idea at the start of the process of how much they are able and willing to put into the process. It would have been really helpful to have had that information and that analysis as early as possible, rather than what was in our case in Edinburgh, the UK Government scrambling around trying to find money to match what the Scottish Government was willing to put in. That was an unhelpful tail end of the process, and unfortunately it was the process that I had to deal with and my predecessor did with everything else, but it was unhelpful. I think that it did not give us the opportunity to really look in terms of the overall envelope and apply the level of scrutiny and detail that we would want to the overall package of projects that we would have wanted to take forward. Going forward, for future deals, whether it is city deal 2 for anyone around the table or new city deals for anyone else or new region deals for anyone else, I think that getting both Governments if they are going to work together to clarify exactly what their overall investment envelope is, as early as possible in the process, would be a huge benefit. Really helpful, and you took your opportunity for additional comments, and those are points very well made. Can I just check those 21,000 jobs? Will a breakdown emerge on how many of those will be targeted at those in most income deprived areas? Yes, we will have a breakdown when we do the full analysis of the impacts of all the projects. We will break that down. Okay, thank you. I do not know if Councillor Graham Ross or John Robertson wants to... I mean, we have targets for school jobs, we have targets for people for this way of employment, we do not have those into relationships. One of the things that Councillor Lowell said a couple of times, and we would really welcome, is a standardised view, or at least standards, within an economic dashboard, which would help our thinking around that. So we are working with Glasgow Unies, Strathclyde Union as well around that, but having a common view of that would help us, and I guess it would help the monitoring of our progress as well. Okay, Councillor Graham Ross, any final comments before we close the evidence session? We are very keen that the city region deals works very well. Transport and infrastructure within the Highlands is something that we have... Trying to keep people within the Highlands is very important to us, so this has given us a great opportunity to bring forward projects that may well never have been happened at all, or would take another long time. While there are issues with it and some of the progress might not be quite as quick as we would like, it has certainly been a significant benefit. I was keen to hear positive final comments. Thank you, Graham Ross. In terms of the specific investment in sites, premises, offices and whatever, we are estimating about 3,500 gross jobs, and when you figure in displacement, probably 2,275 around that specific part of it. In terms of the involvement and getting people into the labour market, I think that that skills investment plan that we have pulled together, which has really lent the foundation of the work that is done through the city region, dealing with Skills Development Scotland, is the basis for developing how that part of those pathways will work. Just very briefly, in some of the comments that Adam has made, I think that, quite apart from the projects, the work in relationships between the councils and the other agencies is a real benefit and added value, and I think that it will see us well into the future. We have 3,300 net new jobs as our estimate. I think that we have to bear in mind that the plans are long-term and the projects evolve. It is keeping a check on whether those are accurate figures or not and just not assuming that that is what we will get and then working off of those. It is obviously quite clear from the comments that I made earlier that for us in the north-east and our city region deal is that we have that embedded along with our regional economic strategy in the other aspects that we are in our day-to-day business in the council, particularly on local outcome improvement plans. If we do that, we will see the flow through making sure that the jobs that we are creating are impacting on some of our most deprived areas, as well as bringing the economic prosperity that we are all looking for. I would agree with Councillor McVeigh's comments around that it would be helpful, because we want to pursue a city region deal too. I have been quite public about that. I think that some of the things within our deal 1 will allow us to do that and bring the projects forward. However, it is important that both Governments give an indication of what is available on the table so that we as local authorities can make sure that we are prioritising the plans that we bring forward and that we make sure that we maximise the benefits for our region from the money that is available. Richard Sweet, do you have anything that you want to add to that? No, thank you. I did say that that was going to be final comments. Andy Wightman, I may just have to leave the question that you now have highing, but I would like to give you the opportunity to at least ask it in public session and perhaps we could get out of it and answer it, but we will have to be brief and afraid. Okay, very briefly. Building on what Jenny Gilruth and Kenneth Gibson were saying, in the sense of what does the region get out of this, because we had evidence last week from Professor MacLennan and another witness, Scotland is a country of towns. For the Edinburgh south-east, what is there for Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy, for the Inverness one, what is there for Sky, Fort William and there is certainly a danger that we overheat existing city economies to the detriment of the regional economy. I put that on the record. We are at a very early stage in all this and some of the reflections that you have made have touched on that point, and I think that we will return to it in the future. Thanks, convener. Okay, thanks. It is also a different question for the one that I thought you were going to ask at the other end, but there we are. That is committees for you. Can I thank everyone present? That is just over two hours that we have had here. We really appreciate you taking the time. Like we say following up on writing, if there is anything at all that you wish to convey to us, please do so in writing. Let us keep that dialogue going and thank you all for your attendance here today. We now move into private sessions and move on to agenda item 2. Thank you.