Scotsman head of business Joshua King, talks to Dale about a new round table series on the Scottish economy. #Economy #LocalCouncil #Scotland
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00:00Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Video Bulletin for this Tuesday.
00:05My name's Dale Miller. I'm Deputy Editor of the Scotsman.
00:08I'm joined by our Head of Business, Joshua King.
00:12Hello, Josh.
00:14Good morning.
00:15We are here to talk about the front page of the Scotsman firstly.
00:19And we led on ministers being urged to end a threat of a nationwide school strike.
00:24We know that John Swinney's constituency has been specifically targeted.
00:29School strikes ever since COVID seem to have become an annual thing.
00:34There's obviously increasing pressure on pay and public sector's pay deals.
00:40There's been a lot of focus on over the past 12 to 18 months.
00:44Again, pressure coming in here.
00:46And a lovely picture on the front of the Scotsman from Raising Day as well,
00:53the annual event up at St Andrews.
00:56Josh, I've got you on, however, to talk about business and specifically money.
01:03Now, we're doing the first in a series of articles this week linked to a roundtable
01:09that the Scotsman hosted.
01:11There was really some key figures from across various areas of the industry,
01:16including the Edinburgh City Council Chief Executive that was on.
01:20Can you just talk us through what the roundtable was about
01:24and the first part in the series,
01:26which is basically about the fact that none of us have any money at the moment?
01:30That's right, yes.
01:31So the event was the Scotsman Leaders Forum,
01:34and it was hosted at the Balmoral by us Scotsmen,
01:37and it was sponsored by Turner & Townsend,
01:39who are a global consulting firm.
01:41And it was leaders from Scotland from public and private sectors
01:45about the challenges that are facing the public sector in terms of financing
01:51and also in terms of kind of the infrastructure projects
01:54and the services that people need.
01:56So the first in the series, which will run throughout this week,
01:59was about money and the fact that nobody has any governments, councils,
02:03organizations.
02:05There's not a huge amount of capital around at the moment.
02:08So it was really interesting to be in the room with people you mentioned.
02:11Paul Lawrence, he's the Chief Executive of Edinburgh Council.
02:15Susan Miller from Glasgow Council was also there, as well as Sebastian Burnside.
02:19He's the Chief Economist from NatWest.
02:22A big group of people, there's about 12 of us,
02:24looking at those challenges.
02:26It was really interesting to hear how keen the leaders are
02:31to increase the amount of money they have to deliver services
02:35but the challenges they have.
02:37They're looking a lot to the budget.
02:38Obviously, next week, Rachel Reeves is delivering the UK budget
02:41and hoping that there might be something for councils in there.
02:45But I think the message was that they're realistic
02:47that they can't rely on government grants and handouts
02:51and they need to find a way to work with the private sector.
02:54As an example, talk through the St. James Quarter,
02:57which was a billion-pound investment in the east of Edinburgh City Centre.
03:03It was a challenging development across a number of years,
03:06but if you've been in, it's absolutely flourishing
03:09in terms of the businesses that are there and the interest it's attracting.
03:12That was a public-private sector joint offering.
03:18So a lot to listen to from the leaders there.
03:21There's a lot more coming this week,
03:23so tomorrow we're going to be looking at the housing crisis
03:26that a lot of councils are facing and the fact that that's having
03:29a knock-on effect on business and creativity,
03:32on education and on health.
03:34So that's to come tomorrow.
03:36Josh, I'm interested.
03:38I know, I think it was Catherine Hay, our rural affairs correspondent,
03:42wrote about the merging of some services the other day
03:46on the Western Isles and how they're looking at that,
03:49the council there, as a way to actually save costs.
03:53Were there things that came up on the roundtable
03:56about progressive ideas too?
03:59Because we're basically looking at all councils needing
04:02to cut back costs heading into next year,
04:06and what we don't want is widespread cutbacks in actual services.
04:10No, absolutely not.
04:12One of the big challenges that the councils have
04:14is that they have statutory obligations to deliver some of their services
04:17but not others.
04:19So, for instance, economic growth is not a statutory requirement for them,
04:22whereas delivering on things like housing and homelessness
04:25are obviously priorities for them.
04:27What it means, though, is that in terms of delivering economic growth,
04:30which helps benefit the area and can help bring in cash
04:33into council coffers, it's restricted for them.
04:36So they were looking at what they can do to generate more money
04:40from the private sector and businesses in their areas
04:42and that they can use to invest into services.
04:45Housing is a really big one, and that's what we'll be looking at tomorrow.
04:48And there was universal agreement around the table
04:53that if we cannot solve the housing crisis we have,
04:56there's simply not enough homes for people in several councils,
04:59and they're officially in crisis,
05:01then it's really difficult to do anything else.
05:04So we were talking about teachers, for instance.
05:07Education services are really under pressure,
05:09attracting teachers, classroom and class sizes,
05:12all huge challenges, which parents out there will know about.
05:16One of the big problems was that young teachers were struggling,
05:19new teachers were struggling to actually move close to their schools
05:22because there isn't enough housing supply,
05:24and that's affecting all the way down the chain,
05:26people wanting to even join the education sector.
05:29So delivering houses was the service that people believed,
05:34once they did that, it would unlock being able to deliver
05:36a lot of these other services.
05:39That's interesting, Josh, because we had the head of crisis
05:42here in Scotland, I think a couple of weeks ago,
05:44wrote for us about, you know, really the devastating impact
05:48of the lack of housing and how it's increasing homelessness.
05:52But as you point out, really the lack of housing stock
05:55is having issues all across the chain of people
05:59in professional jobs as well that may want to, you know,
06:02either move to Scotland or set up in a different area
06:05and they're having trouble finding somewhere to live.
06:09Absolutely.
06:11Right off the top of the meeting, the council leaders agreed
06:14that inequality, poverty, homelessness were among
06:18their number one priorities of things that they have to solve
06:21and challenges they face every single day.
06:24But that those things don't exist in isolation
06:27and that solutions to those require solutions
06:30to other problems as well.
06:32If we take Edinburgh as an example, one of the big problems
06:34that Edinburgh has kind of demographically,
06:36housing in Edinburgh is incredibly expensive
06:39and the housing market is very affected by the fact
06:42that there's a huge amount of student population.
06:44Now, there are regulatory reasons why it's easier
06:46to build student housing at the moment than it is
06:48to build social housing or domestic properties.
06:52What it means is a lot of people who work in Edinburgh
06:54live in the Lothians.
06:56I, for instance, live in East Lothian, but East Lothian,
06:58Mid Lothian, West Lothian, even across in Fife.
07:01That has a knock-on effect to the council because many people
07:04who access the services in Edinburgh don't live in Edinburgh
07:08and that means that they pay their council tax elsewhere,
07:11they potentially spend their money elsewhere.
07:13And all of that kind of comes back to housing
07:15and the fact that housing in Edinburgh has skyrocketed
07:18in its cost and at the moment the council
07:21and the private sector are struggling to deliver more houses.
07:25Josh, it's interesting.
07:26I'm out in Fife, much as you are, you know, on the borders of Edinburgh
07:31and the housing that's been built here in a short space of time
07:36in and around Dalgety Bay where I live and into Dunfermline
07:39has created existing pressures as well on school catchments
07:42and other basic resources as well.
07:46You can read that piece from Josh from the roundtable,
07:51the first in the series at Scotsman.com.
07:53You can find all the latest on business in the business tab
07:57and in the navigation bar.
07:59There'll be a series of articles to run throughout the week
08:02from that roundtable, so it's one to look out for.
08:04And also please go and pick up a copy of the Scotsman tomorrow
08:09where you'll have all business coverage,
08:12including each part of the series throughout the week.
08:15Josh, thanks to you and thanks to all our readers
08:18and viewers for joining us.
08:20Thanks, Tim.