Convention of the South of Scotland minutes: March 2025

Attendees and apologies

• Fiona Hyslop, Cabinet Secretary for Transport
• Lisa Arnold, Dumfries & Galloway Council
• Laura Barret, Scottish Government
• Ian Blake, Dumfries & Galloway Council
• Simon Bradbury, SWestrans
• Fiona Brown, Transport Scotland
• Brian Butler, SEStran
• John Campbell, SWestrans
• Grant Coltart, Dumfries & Galloway Council
• Beth Corcorran, Skills Development Scotland
• John Curry, Scottish Borders Council
• Claire Dickie, ScotRail
• Douglas Dickson, Dumfries & Galloway College
• Ewan Doyle, Scottish Borders Council
• David Ford, South of Scotland Enterprise
• Colin Galbraith, NatureScot
• Gordon Grant, Scottish Borders Council
• Russell Griggs, South of Scotland Enterprise
• Brian Grogans, Scottish Government
• Scott Hamilton, Scottish Borders Council
• Karen Jackson, South of Scotland Enterprise
• Euan Jardine, Scottish Borders Council
• Graeme Johnstone, Scottish Borders Council
• Jenny Linehan, Scottish Borders Council
• Gail Macgregor, Dumfries & Galloway Council
• Karen MacKinnon, Scottish Government
• Amanda McDonald, Scottish Government
• Elizabeth McKee, South of Scotland Enterprise
• Stuart McMillan, Dumfries & Galloway Council
• Sharon Morrison, West Coast Motors
• Jane Morrison-Ross, South of Scotland Enterprise
• Neil Murray, Scottish Forestry
• Frances Pacitti, Scottish Government
• Craig Peaston, Scottish Government
• Fabrice Renaud, University of Glasgow
• Dawn Roberts, Dumfries & Galloway Council
• David Robertson, Scottish Borders Council
• Greig Robson, Skills Development Scotland
• Steve Rogers, Dumfries & Galloway Council
• Ross Sharp-Dent, Scottish Borders Council
• Bettina Sizeland, Transport Scotland
• Gordon Smith, VisitScotland
• Pete Smith, Borders College
• Samantha Smith, Scottish Borders Council
• Seamus Spencer, Scottish Funding Council
• Julie White, NHS Dumfries and Galloway
• Judith Young, Scottish Government

Items and actions

Agenda

• 13.45 –13.55  Welcome and Opening remarks

• 13.55 – 14.00  STANDING ITEM: Review of previous outcomes

• 14.00 – 14.05  Formal approval of refreshed Terms of Reference

• 14.05 – 14.15  STANDING ITEM: REP Update

• 14.15 – 16.30  SUBSTANTIVE ITEM: Transport

• 16.30 - 16.40  STANDING ITEM: Forward Look

• 16.40 – 16.45  Summarise and close

 

Start of Transcript

Gail Macgregor     

All nice and silent and well behaved today. A very, very warm welcome to you all. We're delighted to have you here today, Cabinet Secretary. I appreciate DFM has submitted her apologies. Pity she can't be with us, but great to have you here chairing. South of Scotland is a place that we all recognise for the natural beauty of its landscape. The sun isn't shining today unfortunately, but below the surface what does the evidence tell us? It tells us that ours is a region of high environmental value, but currently low economic value. It's caught in a low growth trap compounded by geography, demography, constrained internal and external connectivity and a bit of a market failure.

At the same time, our region has immense potential. South of Scotland has particular strengths in food and drink production, forestry, manufacturing and tourism and cultural services. The region's size and outlook enables strong public sector partnerships and strategic links with our nearest neighbours in Scotland and in the North of England. Above all, the region's physical geography means it is particularly well placed to benefit from the national transition to a net zero economy, both in respect of renewable energy production and carbon storage and from the development of future farming and land management practices. The South of Scotland has an indispensable role in our national journey to the green economy of the future. Just as surely the future prosperity of the South of Scotland depends on unlocking that potential of that green economy and ensuring that we're able to punch above our weight in contributing to our national economy.

I very much welcome and look forward to today's discussions and I hope that you all have a constructive session. I'm aware that the Cabinet Secretary met with our community transport groups, which I think was a very helpful and useful meeting and it will bring a lot of discussion to the table today. I want it to be as interactive as possible and for you all to say your piece. Let's come away from this meeting today with some really clear actions and deliver on our transport vision, I think would probably be the most important thing that we get from today. But I will hand over to the Cabinet Secretary. Welcome all.

Fiona Hyslop

Thank you everyone. I'm Fiona Hyslop, the Cabinet Secretary for Transport. I'd also like to say hello and thank you to Councillor Macgregor for that very warm welcome and also for the hospitality that we've had today. Also thank you to the team at Dumfries and Galloway Council for helping pull the event together and to the University of Glasgow for the use of this lovely building. Those of you who know me might recall when I was Education Secretary back in 2008/09, I helped secure the presence, the continuing presence, of the University of Glasgow here at the Crichton campuses, one of the things I feel most proud of doing. It's so important to the area.

I'd also like to welcome all the attendees to this, the spring 2025 meeting of the Convention of the South of Scotland. Now as you'll be aware, the Deputy First Minister is unfortunately unable to join us today, she has to deputise for the First Minister. The First Minister is currently on a royal engagement at the requirement of the King, so you can understand that she then had to step in to be the Scottish Government Minister who signed the £70 million cross-government Argyll and Bute rural growth deal today and that's why she has had to give her apologies.

I think those of you who know and understand the importance of the Borderlands Growth Deal for yourself will understand the importance of the Scottish Government and the Deputy First Minister signing that. That's the 12th and final growth deal to be signed and I think that's important. It's great news for Scotland, but hopefully you can understand that's why she can't be here and she does pass on her apologies. She is a big enthusiast for the Convention of the South of Scotland. I spoke to her just before Cabinet last week when we understood there would be a challenge and she wanted to personally convey that to you all.

We want to see a productive discussion, we want to see outcomes. She is very action-focused, so we will try and ensure that we have a discussion that allows us to do exactly that. There are a few housekeeping details to pass on. There is no fire alarm test scheduled and if the fire alarm sounds, people should assemble in the car park by this building. Also to let you know that the convention is being livestreamed and recorded for transcription, so I think it's important to obviously press your button when you speak as well. A link to the transcript and to a subtitled video will be circulated after this meeting. We'll also be live-tweeting, well you will be, if you're concentrating or not I'm not sure, we'll see. If you're live-tweeting the hashtag is #springcoss2025.

With all of that said, I'd like to draw your attention to paper 2, that's the refreshed terms of reference for the - I'm sorry, my mistake. We now move on to the review of previous actions. Our first item on the agenda is to invite members to note the updates to the outcomes from the previous conventions in paper 1. You'll see those actions from the last convention are progressing well, with an update expected at our next meeting. Are there any comments on this and any of the actions from the last meeting? Okay, that looks as if that's in agreement. I now want to hand over to Judith Young, the Deputy Director of Business Relationships at the Scottish Government, to take us through the next session.

Judith Young

Good afternoon everybody. It's great to be back here in the South of Scotland and to have the opportunity to witness another Convention of the South of Scotland. I know having been at these sessions a couple of times now, there's always great energy in the room. It's great to see how these things progress and the change that actually occurs from convention to convention, particularly as we've now got the actions dashboard that we can use to track that and ensure that we are actually moving things forward.

Obviously just to reemphasise the points that Cabinet Secretary made at the last CoSS. DFM is very much focused on ensuring that both conventions, both this and CoHI, are action-focused and they are fora from which we see genuine improvement, real change and progress happening. Hence we've introduced the action tracker, we also have a point midway between conventions when we're reviewing actions and ensuring that they are on track. We've got a really clear process of attributing owners of actions, ensuring those are the right people and that their actions are taken forward effectively and that they result in change and substantial delivery.

What we have done, following DFM's ask at the last convention that we ensure that really strong action focus, is we've done some work to look at the terms of reference of the convention, just to ensure that those are fit for purpose. You should all have a copy of the terms of reference document in your packs. I know that myself or the Secretariat team have spoken to pretty much everybody in the room about the details of those terms of reference to ensure that we have got them right. What I would like to do today is just to take any final comments on the terms of reference from yourselves and understand if there are any further points that you would wish for us to amend.

I think the key thing that I took away from the conversations that I had is the real consensus that there is amongst participants in the convention about how valuable this is as a genuine forum for exchange of ideas. That it allows us that opportunity to work through things that can seem from a single perspective to be quite intractable, but actually when we get that power of all the organisations that can contribute in the room together then we can really make a difference. I'd like to ask if anybody's got any comments on the terms of reference and if not, if people are happy to formally approve those. Nothing? That's good, I think that probably shows that we've done our job reasonably well in terms of the preparatory work ahead of this paper, so thank you very much for that and I will hand back to the Cabinet Secretary.

Fiona Hyslop        

Thanks Judith. We now move on to the Regional Economic Partnership update. From this paper it said that the REP continues to make good progress, with a sharp focus on the key issues facing the South of Scotland, where collective action can really make a difference. At this point, I think Councillor Macgregor as the Chair of the Regional Economic Partnership, you can tell us more about the important work and how the convention's supporting it.

Gail Macgregor

Thank you again, Cabinet Secretary. Yes, it's been a really busy and productive period for the South of Scotland REP, which as the Cab Sec says, I'm chairing this year. We've shared a paper giving an update on the work of the partnership since the convention's last meeting in October. The REP's focus has been on progressing its three key priorities of housing, transport and skills, and we're certainly making good progress in all three areas. I will try to summarise but there's quite a lot of work going on, so I apologise.

Firstly, on housing, the REP's housing strategic action group has been taking forward the actions in the South of Scotland's Housing Action Plan, with an immediate focus on these key actions. A study into key worker housing demand in the region is underway and we'll report by the end of March 2025. It's expected this will help demonstrate tangible demand to the construction companies in the South of Scotland and identify possible solutions and partnerships.

A marketing and engagement campaign is being developed, aimed at the region's construction sector and this will be a general promotional campaign launching this spring. It'll cover all areas of trades, ranging from sole traders to bigger businesses in areas where assistance may be available to grow their business. This supports the region's housebuilding needs and wider construction demand. A housing prospectus is being developed to showcase the significant opportunity and strategic demand for more housing in our region.

Secondly, on transport, the REP's strategic action group on transport met regularly to agree on key issues facing transport, much of which will obviously be discussed today in this meeting.

To skills, the education and skills group met in December and discussed inward investment strategy and enquiries for the South of Scotland, including initial opportunities and challenges brought by the proposed Center Parcs in the region, or in the Borders region. Scottish Government presented a skills planning reform update and members discussed the opportunity to shape regional skills planning through a rural lens. For example, prioritising key nature-based sectors. The REP was also informed of the potential opportunities from the Borderlands Inclusive Growth Deal and the capital investment in skills infrastructure, with proposals for capital spend currently being evaluated.

Finally, in wider work, the partnership has also launched its new delivery plan from 2025 to 2027. The plan will build on the REP's first delivery plan and sets out 12 actions where the REP will focus. Alongside actions on housing, transport and skills, there'll be further focus to support for enterprise, inward investment, raising the profile of our region's cultural strategy development, creative placemaking, creative economy mapping and film and screen, natural capital innovation zone, the just transition to net zero, retrofitting homes to meet net zero, support for enterprise and communities and regional digital priorities.

A REP member recruit campaign was launched in the middle of January to replace the outgoing members representing communities, social enterprises and the private sector. A total of eight posts are to be filled from these applications, with new members being invited to the next REP meeting later in March. Today, convention is invited to welcome the progress made on the three key priorities of housing, transport and skills, as well as the wider priorities, and commit to actively supporting delivery and collaboration in this work. For example, in collaborating to implement the emerging actions from CoSS discussions on transport today. I ask if you would all agree that, thank you.

Fiona Hyslop

Thank you very much, Gail. I wonder whether we can open this up for discussion. I take it what you're looking for is the support of all the convention partners to that, especially strategic aligned, I think, which is great, with obviously the focus and the terms of reference for CoSS itself. I suppose that's the challenge, is what is the added value that the convention can help provide and what support you'd be looking for. Is that something I can ask you, or does anybody else want to pick up on that point in particular as part of a discussion on this area?

Gail Macgregor

I think the strategic vision that we've got through the REP has developed incredibly well over the past 12 to 18 months and the subgroups have been working at pace so that the housing action plan, as an example, is strategic, it's priorities that we need to deliver on in the next two years. In fact it's not two years now, it's probably about a year and a half and the clock is ticking. With all of the priorities I think what we're looking for is the support round this room to look at ways to do that, who does it, when do they do it, who pays for it and that commitment from everybody to look at these three key priority areas within our own portfolios. I'll maybe look to colleagues from South of Scotland Enterprise.

Russell Griggs

Yes, I think Gail's absolutely right, I think we did it very sequentially, so we put the REP together and then we produced a regional economic strategy. These what we call our three key challenges fall out of those as the things that were the most important, we can all do our jobs very well but if we've got nowhere to put the people then that becomes very challenging. Or if we've no way to transport them around the region, then that will be very challenging. If we've got no way to provide the type of skilled people we need from everybody - and Gail was right to use the Center Parcs example about how we do that - how do we recruit the 1,200 people that they will need? Then we've got now something like 50 active inward investment enquiries coming through, so it's about how we do that.

Housing actions around of which Gail sits has been a really good group, we've got some really positive things and we were talking about one of them over lunch, Cabinet Secretary, which is our 3D printer to build houses. I think we're looking at quite novel ways of doing that and your colleague, the Minister for Housing came down to launch the housing action plan and we had a really good day out in the Borders doing that, looking at what the opportunities are. I think we know what our challenges are, we now know what we have to do to it and we're moving along, I think, in harmony. I think that's the great thing about it, is we're all pointing in the same direction, talking on the same page.

Fiona Hyslop

I take it then with all the partners round the convention, it's almost like how you can compound what is a shared - all these shared big challenges. In and of itself if everybody does that, it raises the profile of the South of Scotland more generally and actually helps each other in terms of that area, particularly the fantastic opportunities I know from the culture and tourism offer here and right across the South of Scotland. Actually that education and skills, with people wanting to do business here, I know it's an attractive place to be.

But I think that eternal issue around we need homes for people to be in and both whether it's the private sector or the public sector, I think these are all related. So although there are three key missions, you can see how even the partners that are not as directly involved can really, really push that agenda, because it'll help each other in terms of attracting interest, attracting investment and obviously helping the outcomes. Does anybody else want to contribute to this?

Euan Jardine

Thank you, Cab Sec. For me, I just want to put on record I want to thank Professor Russell Griggs for his chairmanship a couple of years ago. I don't know if you started with Dumfries and Galloway, then Scottish Borders and I gave up the seat and I gave it to Russell because I thought he would have that great opportunity to build the South. Because I think it was getting seen as one council does it, the other one can kind of go to sleep, the other council does it, they can go to sleep. But I felt with Russell being in the position he was able to shape it. Then Gail's taken it on and did a terrific job of continuing that and helping to develop the REP.

But we're in an envious position here, we have the REP, we have the Convention of the South of Scotland, we have the Borderlands Growth Deal, we have a City Deal for the Scottish Borders side as well and I think Dumfries are looking at theirs as well. But it's that opportunity you don't want to duplicate, but you still want to innovate and I think if we can work around this table and everybody coming together, because it doesn’t come together unless stakeholders come together and make it work. I don't want it to be seen as just a council thing or this is what the council's doing. We've got the SOSE there, we've got the SSDA, we've got Scottish Government can play their part in it as well.

We've got whole loads of people, if they all play their part we can make a difference and I think that's what we're starting to see, but it's continuing that energy and continuing that innovation. I think that's what we - we don't want to fall back into the traps of you're right, everybody needs to work together here and not just see the REP as its own separate thing. It's part of a bigger thing and I think everybody, every cog in the wheel is making a difference. I think it's really important it's brought up here and we talk about it here. But again I want to say thanks to Russell and Gail for their chairmanship over the past two years, they’ve really set it on a good course. Thank you.

Fiona Hyslop

Thank you, Russell and Gail, and I think that point about the synergy, that's that special bit that can make a difference and it is definitely South of Scotland on the map, the strength of the different areas, but actually it's that collective focus, isn't it? Anything else, Gail, before we want to move on? Is that okay?

Gail Macgregor

Perfect.

Fiona Hyslop

All right. Does anybody else want to come in? Sorry, I think you did catch my eye.

Jane Morrison-Ross

Thank you, just briefly, I think what's so powerful is the Regional Economic Partnership takes the foundational challenges and brings them together in a partnership to tackle what can be tackled between the partners. When we are not able to tackle things as that partnership, then CoSS gives us the opportunity to amplify and to raise those to a more strategic level and to enlist Scottish Government help and support, to help us unblock things that we're not able to do collectively. I think those are really important, as Euan said, it's the dovetailing of the two. It's the way those connect, but it's also an additional platform to gain awareness of those challenges and I think that's really crucial.

Fiona Hyslop

Thank you for that. Anybody else, finally, on the Regional Economic Partnership? We all know what we need to do together collectively with that synergy.  I think that point about energy, that's what makes a difference and it's the energy from the partners that really do that and under that guidance from yourself, Gail and also Professor Griggs.

Okay, I think we're now onto the substantive item and discussion for this session, which is on transport. Obviously it's an opportunity to demonstrate the importance again of that partnership working across the region and beyond, how we can bring together leaders and organisations in terms of what we can do and of course your unique perspectives on discussions. It was very helpful to have the session earlier on, I had a meeting on community transport and again to hear the distinctive experiences and I think using Euan's word, innovation of what's happening in different parts of the South of Scotland, has been really important. We're bringing together leaders of organisations that have already engaged in key projects.

Also to highlight we've got Claire Dickie from ScotRail who's joined us today as well, you're very welcome, Claire. We can obviously hear different perspectives as the session progresses. We want to recognise the contribution obviously that transport makes to the South of Scotland and its people and its economy and to continue that dialogue on future priorities. I would say this because I am the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, but sometimes people take transport for granted and they only want to complain when it's not there. But I think in terms of that enabler, that point about without transport so much doesn't happen and it is about trying to make sure that the agenda for transport is made more visible, understood by all partners and how we can actually solve some of the challenges together.

Today's session is going to focus on four themes and I think we are wanting to make sure we have the strategic contribution from everybody as to what are the key things that strategically can make a difference on improving this agenda. The first one's on data, the second one's on funding and alignment of the local bus network. The third one is on rail services in the region and the fourth is on the workforce. Obviously these are key issues, at both regional and national level and importance and obviously it's part of that continued improvement agenda and how we actually integrate public transport development across Scotland.

In welcoming the introduction in the paper, I want to say it states that the objective is to stimulate a positive solution - I like that word solution - orientated discussion which enables a series of actions and next steps to be agreed upon. I agree that we need to specify the actions and outcomes from this paper and I would encourage members to respond to the questions raised in the paper.

On data, I hope we can identify data-driven solutions to improve outcomes for people and businesses and we can understand the roles of our stakeholders. The added value of smart use of data cannot be underestimated and I look forward to hearing about the work on that agenda. We're then going to look at funding and alignment of the local bus network and looking to identify the approaches to improve bus and rail integration and to look at growth in the bus sector in the region. Also we'll be looking at the challenges of service frequency and coverage in Dumfries and Galloway and that's the focus of the rail segment.

On the workforce theme we'll be seeking to support recruitment and retention in the bus sector, which is an interesting one because elsewhere in the country I think they’ve managed to tackle that. There's obviously an ongoing issue here that needs a real focus to address. I also look forward to hearing from members around the table on these important areas. Now I understand John Curry from the REP strategic action group on transport is going to facilitate the discussion and they're in obviously these different areas I've just set out. If we can hand over initially to Councillor Jenny Linehan, who's the Chair of that group, to start that session off for us.

Jenny Linehan

Cabinet Secretary, members, ladies and gentlemen, as we all know, transport is a major issue for rural Scotland. In the South, we have recognised that transport is one of our grand challenges. More than a challenge, however, transport is a key to unlocking the economic potential of our region by better connecting it internally and other parts of the country. I'm pleased to delve deeper into the discussion we initiated at CoSS in October last year and to do justice to a topic of vital importance to our local communities.

As you will recall, at the time we recognised the importance of this topic for our region. Equally important, we agreed to undertake a collaborative approach across the Scottish Government, Transport Scotland and South of Scotland partners to gather data and evidence focusing on the systematic transport challenges experienced in the South of Scotland.

Cabinet Secretary, I'm delighted to say that since autumn, there has been a real step change in the way we have worked with partners. Our new terms of reference state that CoSS should be action-focused and solution-orientated. Already we have moved towards a more collaborative approach, which explores new ways of working and maximises our existing resources. The report before us embodies this new approach. It focuses on better data, better use of our existing funding to improve our local bus networks, collaboratively improving access to rail services to reduce our carbon emissions and the skilled workforce that we need to deliver all this.

Beyond the report, as part of the Borderlands Inclusive Growth Deal, we have recently unlocked the first tranche of £10 million in funding to progress the business case on the extension of the Borders Railway. Our collective efforts will be vital in supporting that case. To that end, Cabinet Secretary, I wonder if we might get a photograph with you which leverages Scottish Government support. Of course, we all know that transport is a complex issue and it can't be tackled in a few meetings. But I hope today could be a further step in an ongoing journey - forgive the pun - and without further ado, I will turn to John, who will provide us with more detail on this report and facilitate with discussions.

John Curry

Thank you, Councillor Linehan and thank you, Cabinet Secretary, for introducing the report. The introduction covers quite a lot of ground which you’ve already picked up in your introductory remarks, which I'm grateful for. What I'd like to remind the convention of is the opportunities that we're trying to address with transport and the opportunities that transport can unlock.

I've asked for colleagues within the team to help introduce each of the themes that we're going to cover off. They're going to do a five-minute or so presentation, just to set out some of the key information to then stimulate maybe a 20, 25-minute conversation around each of those themes, with contributions from each of you. As we get to the end of each of those themes, we'll summarise some actions and then move on to the next one. To start off on the first one, I'm going to call on Ewan Doyle, who's going to help and introduce the beta workstream. Ewan, I'll let you walk through that presentation.

Ewan Doyle

Thank you, John. Afternoon everyone, Cabinet Secretary. Just a quick introduction, hopefully these slides work, there we go. Just a summary of the paper in front of you. I'm the workforce mobility manager, I work for Scottish Borders Council but seconded into City Deal. The workforce mobility project is looking at transport-related barriers to employment training and education across the region. We've taken a very databased approach to that, looking at longer terms solutions rather than immediate solutions that disappear after the funding for workforce mobility ends. We believe that we've delivered several best practice use cases for data and data-driven decision-making. Although our bounds are the Edinburgh City Deal, we've been working with Dumfries and Galloway and we've been working throughout Scotland as far as Aberdeenshire, to help them develop the same principles and best practise so there's commonality across Scotland.

What we've done in the Scottish Borders and Dumfries and Galloway is shown how data could be used to effectively and efficiently make decision-making and also derive benefits for funding and resources within the local authority. The transport data that we're using is not just for transport decision-making, we're really pushing it across economic development and spatial planning and really pushing that infrastructure first principles, the same principles that are highlighted in National Transport Strategy 2, NPF4, to try and remove those barriers from transport as we develop our country and economy going forward.

Now data, we can't use data on its own, in its absence we still need local knowledge and experience. In the Scottish Borders for the bus network review we've worked in partnership with Gordon Grant and the passenger transport team, bringing that transport knowledge but also that business insight to deliver the changes we needed for our community, to deliver more effective and financially sustainable public transport services. We've taken an opportunity within the report to highlight that the workforce mobility project is actually time limited, it finishes in March 2027.

We've highlighted the risk that this insight and consistency and drive to bring data into local authorities might be at risk after that date if we don't keep something of a regional or national approach to this. Effectively, the paper's looking at partners to come together and develop a case for change in terms of continuing the work that we've done for the workforce mobility and in the South of Scotland to create some best practice. So effectively a transport intelligence hub where we use data analysis and we provide consistency of high quality data across our partners.

There are lots of benefits, a couple of them are highlighted in the presentation and the report, in terms of bringing that data together so that we can see what's happening in the data landscape, so everybody has access to the same high quality data. We remove duplication, we get efficiencies, but effectively we provide the same level of service across local authorities where there's a bit of an inconsistency and we provide the high quality effective data across everybody. Overall, we're looking to support that, the local authority transformation and database decision-making, support the effective and efficient use of funds and resources going forward. Thank you very much.

John Curry

Thank you, Ewan. Turning to the room then, interested in thoughts and views on Ewan's presentation and what's in the paper around data and how we can address those two starter questions which are on the screen. We've got two questions here. The first is, what innovative, data-driven solutions can we use to improve outcomes for people and businesses in the region, or to improve service planning and decision-making, economic inactivity, transition to net zero or land use planning? I think that should be economic activity rather than inactivity. Then the second question is, in what ways can we ensure the sustainability and continuity of data-driven projects, like the workforce mobility project and there are others across Scotland? What role should different stakeholders play in this process? Thoughts welcome from anyone. I'm looking around the room for contributions.

Russell Griggs

Sorry John, I was only going to recount a story of a gentleman in Kelso about 18 months ago, when we were talking about transport and we asked him. He said there are already solutions out there if we were clever and I said what do you mean? He said a lot of people say that I make this up, you can't get a bus from Gala to Kelso. Well you actually can but you’ve got to go through about five different stops. Wouldn’t it be great if we had on the bus stops a little device or an app where you put an app that could say I want to get from Gala to Kelso, tell me how I do it and where the stops are and when the buses will come.

I thought that was a really clever and innovative way of not having to go back and reinvent everything, it's just about tying it all together better in a way that we can look forward. That would be my only comment of listening to somebody out there who does it on a day-to-day basis, about how you can get together. Because when you just read are there any buses between Gala and Kelso it'll say no, but if you want to go and do it you can actually do it, you just have to figure out the route.

Fiona Hyslop

Can I maybe come in and just on the back of that point, is the mobility as a service. We were discussing that a bit earlier on today with community transport organisations. It's the inter-relationship of availability of information, which isn't necessarily the same as data and somebody could explain the difference to us all. But there is something about how we can actually use that, because also that experience of mobility as a service and the pilots we've had also lends us to that solution being actually there's a technology solution about routes and access and there's more out there than people realise.

It's just the interface between people and - and also then from my recollections and the ones I've heard, they're also looking at mobility as a service, how and why people use transport. To capture that data can help planning as well, so there's maybe something within that particular area with Russell's contribution and mine, because that interface of availability and using the tech solution can actually make transport that seems very difficult actually much easier than people realise.

John Curry

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. Brian.

Brian Butler

Thanks Cabinet Secretary, thanks John. I'm Brian Butler from SEStran. We have worked closely with Ewan and have benefited hugely from this work already. A couple of the real-life benefits that we can go to - get from this, for instance, are it's easy enough using passenger transport data to work out where the stage is that people have made on their journey. But I think some of the really innovative solutions that Ewan's come up with show where the genuine start and finish points of journeys are, so the real desire line.

I think in terms of making public transport more appealing and attractive to people, I think that's a big one, is just working it out actually. I think the example you’ve used often is Gala to Melrose and then Melrose to Borders General Hospital. But you can actually prove that people want to make that journey directly, which has been fantastic.

But also there are real potential applications for this data with planning colleagues, with business colleagues, in terms of again using public transport data like timetables, et cetera, showing if you said if we build a factory here and people were prepared to commute up to one hour to that factory, where could they commute from using public transport? You can very easily identify gaps, blackspots and places that just wouldn’t work if we're trying to get people out of their cars. We've already had some real benefit from.

Just a point, I know this strays into question 2, but at the RTP Chairs meeting last week, I've been asked to get Ewan along because I had mentioned and I think it's been mentioned to them before, that as a time limited funding and although we don't have many funds, we actually want to see what Ewan can do across the country. Then look to see if there's any way that we can help with this in the longer term, because it really is invaluable for us.

John Curry

Thank you, Brian.

Fiona Hyslop

Can I just ask, is anybody else doing this elsewhere in the country that you're aware of? Because that point about it's time limited, we know there's a value to it and I'd quite like to know if Dumfries and Galloway can use it, or are using it, or how does that read across. Because obviously it lends itself then to say okay, how do we then - because I know there have been different pilots for different things in different areas. How do we get feedback from RTP Chairs? I think that's maybe the point that you're making about from SEStran, as to what is - if this is something that we know is working and getting us the information we need, how do we get sustainability for it moving forward? That's probably an action for me as well I'll take.

Ewan Doyle

No, it's all really good points and good questions. I think the report has put it in this way because there's a lot of big landscape out there and we don't know what's happening across the whole of Scotland. We've touched based with Architecture and Design Scotland and Scottish Government, they're developing their 20-minute neighbourhood tool using GIS systems. So there's an opportunity, back to that collaboration and efficiency, to join up there and bring the data analysis tools we've got for transport into that and make it available to local authorities.

There's great opportunity, we're working with Midlothian's planning team, Scottish Borders' planning team, to bring this data in to inform the next local development plan, looking at sites which are proven to have accessibility and just back to that infrastructure first. There are little bits going on, it's about joining them together so that we're not duplicating the same effort to deliver the same activities, but there's definitely across the whole of Scotland, there's a desire for this input and insight.

I think that the point you made earlier, Professor Griggs and yourself, about the data side of it, it's really important with the information through apps and masts to get the data to people of the trips that are possible. But the really effective data for us is the trips that are not possible, where is that untapped demand and that's what we've been doing in the Scottish Borders and across the City Deal. It's looking at where's the untapped demand, because at the minute we've only got data for the people who currently travel on public transport. It's the data for everybody else that we need to build in.

John Curry

Yes, Councillor Jardine.

Euan Jardine

Thank you, John. Talking about the data, and we've talked about tourism previously in a forum here, is there a difference in the data you're looking at in winter, in summer months and how can we potentially look at the difference? Because the late night buses, et cetera, in the summer potentially are needed. Is that something that can dive into, or already has dived into?

Ewan Doyle

Yes, good question, Councillor. Yes, we've been looking at the seasonal trends and data, so we've got a lot of mobile phone data. I know that ScotRail and Network Rail use the same, so you can look at the seasonal changes. We've been engaging with a lot of businesses around the whole of Scotland to get data on workforce travel habits as well, so to understand those kinds of flows. Those workforce flows have obviously changed quite a bit through COVID in terms of the infrequency of people travelling. So it's really important to understand those nuances to the transport network. Looking at communities, some communities are looking for more town services and the late night and weekends, which is always weaker. Providing Gordon and his team that data so that you can make those decisions to invest and rather than basing it on a feel or some anecdotal evidence, there's some real business case change there.

John Curry

Yes, Simon.

Fiona Hyslop

David.

David Robertson

I would just say, Cabinet Secretary, that the work that Ewan and his team have been doing there in terms of the City Deal really does provide a fantastic data analytical tool to redesign public services, to make them as efficient and effective as they can be for local people. To ensure that accessibility is really a cornerstone of everything that we do around the deliverability of transport or siting new facilitates for accessible healthcare or whatever. Maybe one of the actions that we could consider from today's meeting is that principle about really grounding data analytics and the pathfinder information that the workforce mobility project has uncovered in terms of our future decision-making. Thanks.

John Curry

Simon, go on.

Simon Bradbury

Thank you, John. I just wanted to come back directly on your query, Cabinet Secretary, with regard to whether or not Dumfries and Galloway can do the same. I just wanted to confirm that indeed we've had a series of conversations with Ewan and his team to understand ways in which we can also use this data and use this insight to drive improvements. In particular in terms of our bus network in future, but also understanding other opportunities that there might be across the region and through the Council in terms of just really making sure that we're making data-driven decisions.

I think the point that we really find in terms of the opportunity of this in the longer term is in terms of obviously ensuring that we're capturing all the strategic opportunities that exist in terms of connections across the region. But also in particular in terms of ensuring that we're not actually providing services which aren’t necessary, or whether we're overproviding in terms of specific areas. Because it segues into the next discussion item to some extent, but clearly with limited funds and finite resources available to us, we just need to ensure that we're providing the necessary services in particular areas and not providing services that simply aren’t required.

John Curry

Yes, Frances.

Frances Pacitti

Thanks very much and forgive me if I betray my ignorance of the topic here. I think there can be no question of the power of data in informing public sector investment decisions, particularly in relation to infrastructure. But it does strike me that this is an incredibly rich data source that could have commercial value too and would inform decisions for retailers, housebuilders, tourism operators. There have been a number of references to finite funding to support the work and I wondered if there has been any exploration of commercial models just to sustain that regionally or more broadly.

John Curry

Ewan, I'll let you come back and respond to that one.

Ewan Doyle

Thank you, yes, another really good observation. The data, to look at the long-term sustainability of this, we're looking at those commercial opportunities. We've been working with University of Edinburgh and VisitScotland, looking at an event travel tool that we can use for the Edinburgh Fringe effectively, but also then look at the travel company opportunities from that as well. We're also doing work with Edinburgh Airport in terms of their future planning and workforce planning, to prove the value of the analysis and the tools that we have as well. There's definitely an element there that we've put in the report that's an opportunity to help forward finance.

John Curry

Thank you, Ewan. Gordon, you want to come in on that?

Gordon Grant

Thanks John. Yes, it's just on the commercial opportunity side as well from the local bus operator's perspective. We've been able to take some of the routes that we've got operating in the Borders, as Ewan was saying, some of the duplication has been taken away which now means that these routes are commercially viable for the operator to take on. As a council, we've been supporting them for years and years and they’ve been supported bus services.

Whereas now we're able to have the conversation with the operator, we can demonstrate the demand is there. We've taken the duplication away on certain corridors and where there is funding that can be released from that service, we can start looking at areas where there are no services and start putting services back in. I think some of the things that we've been doing in the Borders is we've actually put three or four services back in, in the last 18 months to two years.

John Curry

Thanks Gordon. I'll turn to you in a second, Fiona, but I'm conscious some of the opportunities we talk about in the paper are about education and health and wellbeing and also tourisms. They’ve been mentioned a couple of times in conversation, so if there are any contributions from those colleagues then very welcome. But Fiona, you want to come back in, or do you want to come in first?

Fiona Brown

Yes, thanks John. Just to say, Fiona Brown from Transport Scotland, Bettina and I joined Scottish Borders Council, we had a presentation from Ewan on this and have been impressed by the work to date and the potential that these tools have in contributing to the Scottish Government objectives, as you outlined, Ewan. We've made the offer and stand ready to assist with any data that we hold, or working with our partners and the expertise we have in terms of transport data analysis to support with this. We very much see the benefits of this tool being at that local and regional decision-making, but yes, as I say, stand ready to assist with anything on the data side.

Then in terms of the longer term sustainability, we talked there about the benefits, but I know you're out there making those conversations. Really we know you would need to make the case for investment or the commercial case for this and again, Transport Scotland stand ready to contribute in the best way we can with advice on how to make that case in the transport context.

John Curry

Thank you, Fiona. I'm just looking around, any other comments or observations from anyone?

Fiona Hyslop

I think we should capture that action from David Robertson, because that was an instruction, I think, more than anything else. I think it is a point that it kind of is obvious in terms of the sense of this, but unless we adopt it as an action to help determine the decision-making in a whole variety of different areas, land use for new developments and existing, perhaps it's nice to have but by the way the funding runs out, et cetera, will not embed it. The way to embed and try to have that continuing, that's what we need to look at, is how do we continue this work, is actually to demonstrate it by use.

The demonstrate it by use is the action I think, the advice from David, if we can capture that, because it can make such a difference. That smart use of the data will allow us to do exactly what has been said there, is the traditional bus routes all over the country have been set in stone for a time that's gone by. We need to then use the data to shift that and actually start to make sure you can make smart financial decisions and put on the routes that people need.

That's when you're looking at particularly healthcare, not just access to but workforce, et cetera, changing needs and I think there's something about capturing that tourism side. It's actually the changing needs of tourism that the data will help us - and the changing needs of transport that the data will help us have confidence in making those decisions. I think that's the bit that we probably have to capture, if we can.

Bettina Sizeland

Thank you, Bettina Sizeland, Director of Bus, Accessibility and Active Travel in Transport Scotland. I was very struck what you said, Ewan, about this tool and the fact that this is about the untapped demand. One of the pieces of work that we're looking at in Transport Scotland is the digital data services and how it feeds into Traveline.

That, Professor Griggs, is very much talking to the bit that you were talking about earlier, which is that it will improve journey planning. I just think there's something really quite powerful about looking at the journey planning and what is available across the transport modes alongside the untapped planning, the untapped demand and what we could design as a result of that.

John Curry

Thanks Bettina. Yes, Julie.

Julie White

Hi, good afternoon everyone. I'm Julie White, I'm the Chief Exec of NHS Dumfries and Galloway. Nice to meet you all this afternoon. I'm really interested in the tool really from that service planning perspective. As colleagues will all be aware, as part of wider public service reform there's a huge amount of change going on in terms of the future shape of health services. I think this tool could potentially offer some real opportunities really for us around that redesign of health services, particularly in remote and rural areas.

A huge challenge for us as we look to redesign our models based on the fact that we've got workforce challenges in rural areas, we've got infrastructure challenges, is looking at those sustainable models. A key challenge we often hear from our local communities is around that accessibility of future models. I think, firstly, in terms of those local areas, certainly within Dumfries and Galloway, looking at how we, as we start to build our models of healthcare for the future, how we utilise the data that we might have available to us, to ensure that they are accessible for members of our community.

But also as we look to wider public sector reform in the NHS, there could be the need for both patients from Dumfries and Galloway and from Scottish Borders to travel further afield for some of the services that they will required. Transport becomes an ever increasing challenge or an issue for us to resolve as a partner from the NHS. I'm really keen to think about how we can use the data that we have within the health service around the use of health services, along with the data around the use of transport to bring them together, to really look then at what those sustainable models look like moving forward. Thanks.

John Curry

Thank you. Ewan.

Ewan Doyle

Yes, thanks Julie. It's a really good point and obviously NHS generates a huge amount of travel behaviour. Gordon and I worked with NHS Borders on a similar case looking - we mapped out the demand from the workforce and using the data analysis that's in the paper and then Gordon's insight as well, able to design a network that meets the shift patterns of Borders General Hospital and other facilities in the Scottish Borders.

It'll help that transition, that behavioural change for staff, take that burden of that transport coming into the key locations. It also dovetails with SEStran, what they're doing in terms of access to healthcare for patients as well. Again it's another example, there are multiple strands out there and it's just about bringing it all together, but happy to discuss offline.

John Curry

Thank you. Greig.

Greig Robson

More of a question possibly for Ewan. Do you get all the data you think might be useful? I'm just conscious there's a bunch of organisations around the table with probably really rich data that we don't always understand the power of. Have you got everything that you might want?

Ewan Doyle

The biggest challenge is getting the data, because one of the strands of this work is getting a consistent approach to data standards, how we collect data, how we store data, but also in terms of the way we interpret personal data and non-personal data as well. We're looking at a South of Scotland approach to create mechanisms and partnerships to not only collect data regionally, but actually to be able to share it regionally. That is a big hurdle at the moment.

John Curry

Gordon, you want to come back in?

Gordon Grant

Just on that point around the data, the other part that we've not got, that we struggle with, is that we can build a picture on the supported bus network because we've got the data for that. It's the commercial element and obviously from a partnership perspective with the bus operators, if we're trying to make decisions on the bus network it would be good to see it holistically, but the challenge is sometimes we can't see the commercial element yet.

Fiona Hyslop

I could probably help with that, in fact Bettina sitting beside you would be even better. The regulations on open access for data, in terms of looking at being able to access data and have that shared, that's what we need to do. My understanding is the regulation on the access is coming forward.

Bettina Sizeland

I think there are two components to that. I think, first of all, we've got the Transport Act powers in place now and I often see opportunity for local authorities to either run their own bus services, develop formal partnerships or develop franchising. Within that there are options for looking at commercial information in more detail. Alongside that we're also looking to develop the legislation for bus open data and that's where you'll see the commercial information.

John Curry

Thank you Bettina, thank you Cabinet Secretary. Are there any other comments from anyone else? Gordon, you want to come in?

Gordon Smith

Gordon Smith from VisitScotland. Our latest visitor survey gave us data around 69 per cent of our visitors are still using a car on their trip, which is obviously part of our real economy in the South of Scotland. But I think there is a piece of work that can be done using that data and our data to combine the work around working with tourism businesses to encourage that patronage of the bus network and other public transport opportunities. It's something that we'd be keen to support along with partners.

John Curry

Thank you, Gordon. Anyone else? Okay, well we'll just summarise the actions from this session. Cabinet Secretary, are you comfortable doing that?

Fiona Hyslop

Yes… Okay, sorry. I've got two but there'll be others maybe encapsulate what we need. One is to capture the point made by David Robertson from Borders Council about - David, that point about the data-driven analytics to form part of our forward planning in terms of land use, in terms of healthcare. We can hear about making those decisions and embedding that and ensuring that this is not just a one day wonder or a few years' wonder; it's something that's built in as we carry on.

The second one then is committing ourselves to the ongoing data work to share best practices across Scotland, where else they are. Also as part of that ongoing data work, to identify from partners around here, education. It would be interesting to know from the college and also what data they have and also in terms of the university and that access to data to have that common standard so that we can then embed it as a regular tool.

Also that's important to identify and in doing so, can we agree there's an underpinning thing, unrealised journeys or whatever we want to call them. Journeys that haven't taken place that could take place. Understand that we're not just wanting to identify what currently happens, because I suspect a lot of that is constrained, it's what could happen and that's the potential. I've put them into two actions, but I don't know if there are any others that I've missed from that discussion.

John Curry

Thank you very much, Cabinet Secretary. If folks don't mind, we're going to move on to the next agenda item, which Simon Bradbury, sitting beside me, is going to introduce. Simon, I'll pass over to you.

Simon Bradbury

Thank you John, thank you Cabinet Secretary, good afternoon all. I'm Simon Bradbury, I'm the Lead Officer for SWestrans, the South West Scotland Regional Transport Partnership and also strategic transport adviser to Dumfries and Galloway Council. I'll keep this relatively brief because I'm keen that we have plenty of time for discussion. I'll start by stating the obvious, which is bus services are vital. They're vital for connecting rural communities in the South of Scotland and they provide a real essential lifeline to communities across the region.

Over four million bus journeys annually across the region, although that number may be more because of the fact that we have insufficient data and access in terms of those commercial journeys, as we were just discussing. However, the bus network in the South of Scotland is fragile. There are a number of challenges that face us as providers of that network and those challenges are increasing. Increasing pressure on local authority budgets clearly, but also in terms of those challenges that are faced by the commercial bus operators, which are in turn passed along to us.

The absence of drivers in the region, the absence of operators and the consequence of that being insufficient competition to try and drive up efficiency and standards in the industry. But also unique challenges that are faced in a rural environment, the fact that there are a dispersed population and the consequence of that is there are relatively few trips carried out over a large geographical area.

Unfortunately we certainly find ourselves in a circle of decline and those images that you see on the bottom right there are taken from the National Transport Strategy. They talk about that potential for decline in the case of those images in terms of congestion being the sources of that, which isn't quite such the case in a rural environment. But nonetheless, the reduction in patronage leading to increasing costs, increasing fares and a further reduction of patronage leading us to a negative spiral is unfortunately where we find ourselves.

Both Scottish Borders Council and Dumfries and Galloway Council have carried out bus network reviews and so we know that there is opportunity clearly through an improved frequency, in particular in the evening. But also, and linking back to Ewan's explanation in terms of ways in which we can provide connectivity and linkages better, we know that if we could better link the bus network to hospitals, employment hubs and transport interchanges better then alongside the opportunity for more integrated ticketing between bus and also in particular with bus and rail, there could be real opportunities. We know that a circle of growth could very well exist to provide that alternative to the private car and ensure there's a boost for rural communities.

The National Transport Strategy 2 is very clear in terms of the potential benefits of bus investment. In particular in terms of tackling climate change, but also cutting across all four of the priorities within NTS2. We know that through working together, through real collaboration between ourselves, local authorities, bus operators and government, there is an opportunity that exists in terms of understanding what a better integrated, more attractive and connected bus network could look like. I think that's a real action-driven opportunity that exists to us in terms of understanding what that would look like.

Indeed what it would take for us to deliver that, both in terms of legislative changes that may be required, but also in particular in terms of understanding the existing funding models. This is not a request for more funding necessarily, but an understanding of the existing funding and the way in which it's allocated. Particularly through the Network Support Grant but also through concessionary fare reimbursement and an understanding of how we can use that funding better to target patronage increase, income and benefits to the region. Then once we start to reverse that circle of decline in a more positive way, to then understand what opportunities exist through doing much more in the space of promotion and marketing of the bus network, to try and sell it as a proposition and a real and attractive proposition as an alternative to the private car.

John Curry

Thanks Simon. There are five starter questions in this theme. Probably the first three are the ones that have the most mileage in discussion. How can we optimise the use of public sector funding to enhance bus service coverage and frequency in Scotland, particularly rural areas? What innovative approaches can we adopt to improve integration of bus and rail services at key interchanges? That includes things like integrated ticketing systems to enhance the passenger experience.

Also in what ways can we support sustainability and growth of services in the South of Scotland, considering the challenges of the low demand, revenue fragility and the role of different stakeholders in the process? The subsequent questions are around potential projects for bus infrastructure funding and also how can we use or how can we target the powers in the Transport (Scotland) Act. I think, as I said, probably the first three questions I want us to focus on, but welcome comments from anyone on any of them, so looking for contributions. Euan, go on.

Euan Jardine

Thanks John, I'll kick off. There's one thing that's not mentioned in here, it's the weather, the Scottish weather is not the best, I can assure you. Where I live in Galashiels, I have to walk 800 metres if I want to get to the bus stop. You stand there, the bus shelter's not exactly weatherproof. It's a cold, wet day, what am I going to do? I'll just jump in the car instead. That's me and I think everybody else says exactly the same, they have to walk to them. This is no slight on Dumfries, but we were driving through here today and some of the bus shelters there weren’t very palatable or homely looking either.

I think there's a design aspect about are the shelters you want people to stand in nice? Are they still these metal things? I'm talking about innovation here and that's a potential, can they be upgraded slightly? But knowing that you're standing there in the cold and wet and is a bus going to come? That's another thing, will the bus arrive? There have been problems where the buses don't arrive, but the railway, people will go and stand at the railway no problem and wait on a train, but they won't wait on a bus. I just don't know what's the difference between a bus and a train, why people's mindsets are that way. That's maybe the one thing we maybe need to crack. Thank you.

John Curry

Thank you, Councillor Jardine. Yes, investment in infrastructure to improve the customer experience. Cabinet Secretary, you have a comment?

Fiona Hyslop

I just thought I'll just try to address that then. If we look at those questions, that first question in particular, there's almost £0.5 billion invested in bus services. If you combine the fact that you’ve got, I think, one in three people using a concessionary card, but the legislation that surrounds the concessionary card is very, very tight, restrictive and it's a benefit to the individual, but that then prevents us from then using that along with the Network Support Grant in a strategic way.

That is something we're wrestling with because obviously we want to protect and support and promote the concessionary scheme, because it's very, very popular for everybody in different areas. There are challenges with it, we know for some minority of young people, but the vast majority is opening up opportunities. Actually there is something, what could be done in that space and that's something that we're trying to wrestle with, but it's primary legislation. But is there something we can use with that? The good news is we've now got the Bus Infrastructure Fund back, or a new version of it.

Clearly in some city areas they’ll want to use that for a particular priority, bus lanes, for example, but we're specifically wanting to make sure for more rural areas infrastructure can mean the difference as whether you're going to wait in a more comfortable bus stop. We'll find out where yours is, Councillor Jardine, and see if we can get yours. That's open for application. Then the other point about trying to provide flexibilities using the active travel funding, it's now called active and sustainable travel, because that integration between active travel funding and bus funding and councils and RTPs using it sensibly, allows you to probably make more out of your funding.

But also there's a point about that 800 metres challenge is also from our health colleagues' point of view the one thing is if people want to be more active, getting a bus does make you walk a bit more, or walking to the rail. There's something around turning that from a negative, in the rain, but into a positive. I think that's a challenge round the funding to say to you that it doesn't mean that - we need to be smart about how we use a substantial amount of public funding. The Network Support Grant again is more developed post-COVID as a subsidy because buses were - and patronage isn't back really where it needs to be. Therefore, rather than us say having a business support mechanism, is there something that can be used in a more intelligent way to actually then shift things.

Going back to that point about a lot of the old bus routes were there for old industry, old locations, whereas it's now changed. That point about going to Gala, I used to live in Gala for a while, going to Gala to the Borders Health, because I remember that hospital wasn’t there when the bus services were probably designed the way they were. That's the bit that needs a bit of a change. But we are going to have to think quite boldly if we want to use public money in a more effective way, but hopefully with the active and sustainable funding that's going to RTPs and councils by and large in terms of the new way of distribution and also that Bus Infrastructure Fund being more flexible for rural areas, might then say well how do we use this in a smart way? Maybe that gives you context.

John Curry

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary, that's really helpful. Jane, you wanted to come in.

Jane Morrison-Ross

I think two brief points, (1) the bus shelter one. We have a company in the South called ReBlade that takes wind turbines and repurposes them into things like shelters and bus shelters. There might be a neat solution there that would be a benefit for the circular economy as well, while avoiding the Isle of Lewis style durable bus shelters that some of us might be familiar with. I think actually when I read the starter questions here, number 1, it felt as though we'd answered that in the previous section, because I think the answer again is data, or rather access to data. Then the capability and capacity to make the data into intelligence, because what we didn’t say explicitly in the last section was there is a huge amount of data out there, but we don't always collectively have the capacity to make that data into actual usable intelligence that gives us the answers that we need.

I think that's a really key part of that. We're always going to have additional challenges in rural areas, whether it's the South of Scotland or the Highlands and Islands. Some of the bus services we have are great if you can get into one of the villages or towns to take the bus, but there's a significant number of people that live one, two, five, 10, 20 miles outside of those conurbations and that brings additional challenges as well. But I think again, as we said in the last section, data and access to that commercial data and access to the data that we don't currently have that we can all collectively look at, process it in a way that gives us some of those answers.

John Curry

Thank you, Jane. Gordon.

Gordon Grant

Thanks John. Just to come in on a couple of points, particularly the one in relation to the infrastructure side and the bus stop and the 800-metre walk. I think one of the challenges that we've got at the moment, because the cost of transport has gone up so much, that we're having to try and squeeze as much out as we possibly can, so a bus route will try and cover as many areas as possible. Sometimes it's only the key stops in certain areas because we can't put it at absolutely every bus stop, which is unfortunate. But it almost feels like for me that to get to this almost gold, silver standard network, I don't think we're that far away.

I think in terms of funding, it almost feels like we should be using the data to build the business case to see what that looks like, so if we've got all this data that we put together, if it's tourism data, if it's local bus service data, if it's NHS data for sharing of vehicles, because as a council, a local authority, we've got 25 vehicles that we could use with partners, all that kind of stuff. But certainly if we could build the business case and say right, at the moment we spend £1.3 million in the Borders, to get a gold standard network it would be £3 million and almost come in with that business case and saying that's what we'd deliver, evening frequencies, improved frequencies along corridors. Then we can start focusing on the infrastructure to start getting people to use it as well.

Just on that, the other part, on the connections, we've been fortunate that we've been able to trial DRT in the Borders to connect people up that have not got connections into the fixed route bus network and it's been working quite well. One of the things that we've been able to do as a result of the DRT that we operated in Berwickshire was analyse the data, look at it and be able to put services in where we've not had them previously so that people have got bus services now to connect into some of the main towns in Berwickshire. Just a couple of points there.

John Curry

Thank you, Gordon. Is there anything on antiquated ticketing that folks want to talk about and experiences, both in Dumfries and Galloway and maybe the Borders, around how that translates at the moment with the lack of integrated ticketing? Gordon, maybe I'll just let you come in on that experience, I think it’ll be the X95s.

Gordon Grant

Yes, at the moment we've got a bus route that operates from - and it's one of these ones that tries to do everything unfortunately, but it goes from Gala into St Boswells, past Council HQ and it connects with two services for onward travel into Edinburgh. But it's a council-supported service and there's quite a bit of funding goes into it. But one of the things that we would potentially like to pilot is connecting that bus service with a train and having integrated ticketing so that the journey time was sped up. At the moment, the bus can take 50 minutes to get to the city limits and then another 55 minutes to get the eight miles into Edinburgh city centre.

If we can turn that bus round quicker we can increase the frequency of the service in the rural area, but there's also that journey time that you're reducing an hour and 50 minutes to two hour journey time, potentially to an hour and five, an hour and 10 minutes. So it starts becoming an opportunity when you look at it and say actually the journey time's pretty decent, that's something that I would consider giving up the car for. It's getting that integrated ticketing between the bus operators and ScotRail to be able to make that an opportunity. I think obviously there'll be challenges with ticketing and reimbursement of revenue, but we think even if it was something that we could pilot at peak times, it would be something that might encourage commuters to use public transport over taking the car into the city.

John Curry

Thanks Gordon. Claire, did you want to come in on that point?

Claire Dickie

Yes, thanks. Claire Dickie from ScotRail. Bus links and bus tickets, integrated bus and rail tickets is something we've got across the country and absolutely happy to have a conversation with you about it. One of the things that we are working on just now, and this is some of the work that we're doing as part of the National Smart Ticketing Advisory Board, looking at trying to get the actual ticketing much more effective as well. Not just the links themselves, to say yes, that's a bus journey and a rail journey and you can buy that in one ticket, but also looking to digitise that, to have something on a barcode.

I know that sounds like it should be dead easy to do, but it's not. There has been over the years people - rail have developed their barcodes, different bus companies have done their barcodes, tram, et cetera, but there's a lot of focus and energy and work going on to make sure that we all try and get to that one point which makes it not - easier as well to get the journey times better, it's a better customer experience, but it's much easier to actually buy the ticket as well. Both happy to have a conversation with you about how we hook up in terms of getting the bus link up and running, but also for the future we are looking to make it really easy for people to access integrated transport.

John Curry

Thank you, Claire, I've got a queue now but Cabinet Secretary, I'll let you come in first.

Fiona Hyslop

Yes, that's a partnership, so hopefully that can work. Just to maybe advise colleagues, we've got the National Smart Ticketing Advisory Board that's just been referred to and the issues about technological standard that's required. Making sure we've got an agreement on that will help us go forward in terms of actual delivery.

Some of my colleagues in parliament always talk about a ticket, but it's actually mobile, it's what can we do digital, people expect to do it that way, so that's progress. Also in terms of the next phase of secondary legislation that we're expecting in 2025/26 will be the next program of secondary ticketing legislation. That will support the work of the board but also local authorities where there is demand. Obviously here that looks like Borders demand, obviously we need to make sure that Dumfries and Galloway understand what that might mean for you. Again I think that's a good action, is let's make sure that in terms of when we're looking at the smart ticketing, there is a big focus on, as you might gather with SPT in Glasgow, et cetera, but if we're going to do this nationally we need to make sure there are good examples. Hopefully that's helpful and also as an action for going forward.

John Curry

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. Graeme.

Graeme Johnstone

Thanks John. Just to follow up on that, we have had some initial discussions with Transport Scotland, someone in Transport Scotland and we've had some initial discussions with someone in ScotRail as well regarding this ticketing, integrating ticketing. It would be useful, Claire, if we could have maybe a chat after this. We are going to draw public transport colleagues into these discussions. Where we could get some help is just to make sure we're speaking to the right people from the right organisations, that would be helpful, but it all contributes to a good conversation around that sort of integrating ticketing scheme.

John Curry

One of the right people is probably Bettina, I think you had a comment you wanted to pick up on.

Bettina Sizeland

That's okay, I was just going to mention One-Ticket as well and some of the products that are already out there and to see what more we can do to promote that.

John Curry

Thanks Bettina. Councillor Hamilton.

Scott Hamilton

Thank you, John, I think that's a really positive discussion so far. I think it gives us a lot of opportunity, looking at what we can do in the South of Scotland. But I think that also probably leads you onto that active travel piece that you mentioned, Cabinet Secretary. It's not just about the bus, it's not just about the train; it's about cycling and walking as well, so it's bringing those elements together, which I think is fantastic.

I suppose my question is relating to question 3 that we've been asked. It is looking back obviously at the anniversary this weekend of the COVID pandemic, that's five years on, probably our bus services and public transport was one of the largest sectors affected during that time. We were all affected, but that really did take a hammering and it never really got to a point of full recovery. Patronage was down, not just across trains but actually on buses as well. Then to compound that, what you had was a driver crisis, you had insurance issues and you had increase in fuel costs, so as a sector it's been really, really badly hurt.

As a collective here today it's thinking about those challenges and looking at our commercial providers. Because in the South of Scotland we're uniquely positioned that we've some small providers which actually do an incredibly great job across the South of Scotland, small bus companies which are local, want to work with communities, really want to deliver what we've all been talking about here, which is smaller solutions to bigger problems, because in actual fact that's how we do business in the South of Scotland. As a collective here, how can we support that sector? Is it sharing costs, is it looking at training for drivers, ensuring that they’ve got a pipeline of supply? Have those questions been asked and what is the industry's viewpoint on it?

John Curry

Thank you, Councillor Hamilton. Any comments on that one? Okay, I will let you come in anyway, Councillor Macgregor, but we'll hold that question.

Gail Macgregor

Thank you. I think most of the points have been covered that I was going to raise, but we have examples already of integrated ticketing on rail. TransPennine and ScotRail operate a service from Lockerbie which you have to change at Carstairs, but there's no problem with that. So it's possible and we can do that. I think a concern for me is cost, because we know it's three times more expensive than to just jump in your car, so that's a disincentive. But also practicalities around integrated ticketing, so if you get a bus from one provider from Lockerbie to Dumfries and buy a return and you have to get another provider's bus back, you have to pay for another ticket and that's a huge disincentive. You're up to £15 for a journey at that point for what is only a 12-mile trip.

I think we need to get the integrated ticketing on buses as a priority and rail would be great, but the buses, the local network, we've got how many providers in Dumfries and Galloway? I'm looking to John. A lot and they don't all operate on a consistent route. The other issue, which the Cabinet Secretary raised, was when the bus routes were created. Looking at that integration of getting people to work at Gretna Gateway or whatever, what time do the shops open there? Because at the moment, the bus arrives half an hour after the shops open. There are simple things that we could be looking at.

John Curry

Which comes back to data, doesn't it and intelligence and using that in a way - yes, okay. Any other contributions from anyone? Brian.

Brian Butler

Thanks John. SEStran has been working on a regional bus strategy and as part of that, one of the issues we're actually looking at is exactly the issue about the handover from one bus company to another, at the outskirts of Edinburgh, for instance. As part of that, we're looking at now an addendum to the bus strategy which is going to look at what we're calling mobility hubs, but it's an opportunity for those handovers but also between different forms of transport, so car parking, electric vehicle charging, active travel. But that would also address the pleasant environment like bus shelters or whatever, we try and make sure that it was attractive to people. I think there are various different ways of looking at this.

A couple of things though that will be necessary, I think, for some of the things that we're looking at doing will probably be done under a bus service improvement plan, so we're really - I know we've said the guidance will be delivered this year, but it would be really good to get a date of when the guidance is. Because we've got a consultant and the same as SPT, to be honest, we're working with consultants who are going to be producing reports at the current order without knowing what the guidance is going to say, which means there could be a degree of hopefully educated guesswork there.

I guess the second question, as there's been a few references to the Bus Infrastructure Fund, the thing that we're finding very difficult is there are one-to-one conversations going on with partners around the country, but there's no data yet or no details yet about what the criteria are or what will be prioritised. People have just been encouraged to get their bids in if they're already there. Also the actual size and scale of the Bus Infrastructure Fund, I think the educated guess just now is it's between £10 million and £20 million, but nobody really knows, which obviously is a lot less than the Bus Partnership Fund. I guess there are a few bus-related issues that we really need to get a better handle on in order to make sure that these strategies are delivered effectively.

John Curry

Cabinet Secretary, you want to come in on that one?

Fiona Hyslop

A few things, we just got our budget passed last week. We didn’t get support from some parties, we got support from others, we've got - so part of that is getting the budget through. I can reassure you that it's a substantial amount in terms of that fund. I'm trying to maximise what we can put into that Bus Infrastructure Fund, but it's near the top end of what you're talking rather than the bottom. We're also looking at community bus funding as well, as well as allowing the flexibility with the active and sustainable travel, to have smart delivery for both active travel and bus activity around at the same point.

I think your point about travel hubs, I think I'll call them travel hubs because it captures the active travel as well as elsewhere, I think is particularly important. Those of us that remember the old Galashiels bus station are very welcome of what's happened to replace it, but that will be important for that integrated ticketing aspect. That's a point, the challenge, I think you're seeing for Dumfries and Galloway, it's between bus companies. There's also how do we - and this is where the challenge with the bus service improvement and the guidance - Bettina is nodding. We know that that's an imperative, to get that out. But we need to do this in a way that if we're still working with private operators, that we don't completely scare them off. Therefore, there's got to be a bit of careful - that's different for SEStran but that's not for other areas, particularly in the south-west, for example. I think that's where it'll be horses for courses, I want it to be adaptive.

John Curry

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. Just looking around the room to see if there are any other - Bettina, you want to come in.

Bettina Sizeland

I just wanted to come back on a couple of points. One of the points was a point that Councillor Macgregor made around bus operators working together and having an integrated offer. There are some examples that work very well around the country of voluntary arrangements, but I think the questions for South of Scotland and for council are is that sufficient, or do you want more of a commercial arrangement, or do you want stronger governance? There are skills requirements dependent on which way you go down, which route you go down. The other point then is the guidance and I can confirm that we are working on the BSIP and the franchising guidance at the moment, as the Cabinet Secretary said.

John Curry

Thanks Bettina, that's helpful. David.

David Robertson

Thanks John. I just wonder, coming back to the first question there about optimising the use of - it says public sector funding but I wonder about funding. Whenever we go out and speak to rural communities about their priorities, the big priority that they bring up is rural transport and connectivity and bus connectivity, reliable network. We have the opportunity, I think, in the South with the huge growth in green energy, wind farms, transmission lines, infrastructure, battery storage and all this stuff, to be looking at community benefit. That community benefit is flowing at the moment to rural communities across the South.

It does strike me that as the convention and with the help of SOSE, there's an opportunity for us to look with communities at possibly redesigning the way that we use community benefit for the advantage of promoting rural communities through the money that flows from green energy. I just wanted to make that point here and I think that's something that we should think about, because at the moment there's a lot of money flowing to individual communities that may not know what to do with that money. If transport's their priority, then perhaps we should be saying let's apply that differently in partnership. Thanks.

John Curry

Thanks David. Russell, do you want to come in on that point?

Russell Griggs

Yes, I would just say to David you're absolutely right and we should be getting our communities to look more strategically at what they're doing. In fact we've got a discussion with one tomorrow about how they look after the Tweed paths once 2027 has gone past. I think it is a good thing and one of the things we have to do - and if you haven't seen it, Cabinet Secretary, by 2050 we have £70 million a year going into South of Scotland communities from community benefit, so we're talking about a big chunk of cash here. It is really we have to start working with the communities now to get them to think outside of the commemorative gardens.

I'm not being nasty or anything, it's just set outside the commemorative gardens and they have whole communities about how they use those large funds. Not just for their own communities, but for groups of communities around their area to do that. The discussions have started, as David knows, but getting communities to come together is - not a challenge, it's just we have to give them the right outcomes to come. I think we will get there but David's point's a really good one, there's lot of opportunity now to use money generated from net zero to do some of this stuff as well.

John Curry

Thanks Russell. Any other comments then? No, I can't see anyone. Ready to sum up the actions here on this one?

Fiona Hyslop

Here's one we've prepared earlier to see if we can't capture it all. The first one is about the development of the business case for expanded bus network provision. It could be across the region, or it might be different for Dumfries and Galloway and Borders because of your priorities. The important thing there is linking in to using data and using the data in a growth aspect for bus, as opposed to this spiral of decline. It's actually attacking a growth agenda with a business case using data for an expanded bus network provision.

The second one, work with Transport Scotland on funding opportunities and potential innovative use of existing funding, public funding, in a different way and finding that for funding that expanded network.

Thirdly, local authorities to stand ready to seek funding for bus infrastructure. The fund, as I said, we're just maximising it and we'll make sure that you're clear as to when you can apply for it the next financial year. We're still in this financial year, but obviously people want to move quickly. That'll be through the Bus Infrastructure Fund and Transport Scotland will confirm the funding criteria for that as soon as possible.

Fourthly, promotion of existing ticketing products such as One-Ticket. ScotRail is going to work with their local authorities on the joined up services integrated ticketing, particularly with Borders, but obviously link in with D&G about what's possible, but obviously different train operators there. Also integrated ticketing between bus providers, if we can work out and ask our National Smart Ticketing Advisory Board how that might best be effected.

Then finally, use of other funds as well. Use of - again we need to work out who takes the lead in this. How to mobilise community funds from net zero activity to redesign bus services. What does that look like, what is the offer? I would have thought maybe some capital for some small buses or other transport means, so it's visible and tangible. Because I think part of the sell here is how do you make it real for people? I think improving bus stops could be a really good practical - because people see them, it can be done swiftly and quickly.

I also put a challenge there, it's not just use of community funds from net zero; it's use of section 75s for transport. I was quite shocked when I came in as Transport Minister how little use of section 75s for transport. Everyone wants them for schools, everyone wants them for hospitals, then after the event when everything's built they say where's my bus, or where's my rail station? That's my addition, I've added that one in. If it's not - that's the challenge. Does that give you enough actions to be getting on with?

John Curry

Yes, there's enough actions there to be going on with. The section 75s is one we're well versed in, so yes, good point. Thank you Cabinet Secretary, for summing those up, that's really helpful. Okay, we're going to move on then to the next agenda item, which Graeme Johnstone's going to pick up on, which is about rail services both in Scottish Borders and in Dumfries and Galloway, so Graeme.

Graeme Johnstone

Afternoon Cabinet Secretary, everyone. I'm Graeme Johnstone, I'm from Scottish Borders Council and I'd like to give you a brief update in terms of the rail theme. Don't worry, I've not got too many slides, just one or two. There's a lot of history associated with railways in the South of Scotland, as you will be well aware, lots of old networks, lots of new schemes, lots of ambitious projects and lots of stories.

Just as an aside, my father-in-law used to work on the railway and he was one of the people who was introduced to the Queen when they opened the Borders Railway in 2015. He had lots of stories because he'd worked in lots of stations in the South of Scotland. Lots of stories of stoking coal fires in waiting rooms and not being able to get home and bunking down in station buildings, et cetera. But my favourite story was when he misplaced an elephant in Jedburgh. I'm not going to go into the details of that story just now but…

John Curry

You're going to go into the details.

Graeme Johnstone

Rest assured, it was a favourite of mine. So lots of stories and spoiler alert, they did actually find the elephant eventually. Some of the key points that we'd like to highlight here are that in the South of Scotland we believe rail proposals are much more than just a transport project. If they're built in the right place, they have the stations positioned correctly and a good service provision, they can help deliver economic growth, reduce social isolation and they can help to regenerate communities, especially in our rural areas. Also be the catalyst for change whilst helping to meet a range of government targets.

The slide here on the left shows the new rail infrastructure at Reston on the east coast. Then there's a map of Eyemouth on the right there just showing some opportunities there as well. Reston station, positioned on the East Coast Main Line and close to Eyemouth. The station was opened in 2022 and cost over £20 million to develop, with the majority of the funding coming from Scottish Government.

There is substantial land identified in the local urban plan for mixed use and housing around the station and it is a five-minute journey roughly down the A1 to Eyemouth, where there are significant opportunities for offshore wind and renewables which align to a new harbour master plan which is nearly there and supported by UK Government levelling up funding. There are considerable opportunities for this part of the Borders. However, at the present time the station does not have a local ScotRail service and long distance carriers call at the station on an irregular basis, which means that we are not really seeing the benefits of the investment at this present time.

These pictures show Stranraer station and a potential station opportunity at Eastriggs, not too far from here. I know that colleagues in Dumfries and Galloway are also looking at a number of issues in relation to potential new rail stations and reopening old lines, which they believe have the potential to rejuvenate and embellish local communities. We also understand that there are ongoing discussions around connectivity and service provision at a number of these sites.

I'm a big fan of developing the bus network and it was interesting just to hear the previous discussion. Also giving people in rural areas a choice in terms of making journeys and helping to reduce car usage. However, buses tends to be a little bit transient in nature and routes can change relatively quickly. Whereas train lines are that fixed line or that permanent way that can deliver change and allow that connectivity either by bus and also by active travel to be developed and enhanced.

Finally, you won't be surprised to hear me mention the Borders rail extension to Hawick and Carlisle. We are grateful to the UK and Scottish Government for the confirmation of the £10 million worth of Borderlands Inclusive Growth Deal funding for the business case and feasibility work for the next phase of the project. We're very close to announcing the appointment of a senior project manager to lead those works, so that should be made in the not too distant future. We're also in discussion with partners to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the first phase of the Borders Railway, which was officially opened by the Queen in September 2015. This route, we feel, has been very, very successful.

On the right-hand side there is a station at Stow, just north of Galashiels and I know, Cabinet Secretary, you were there very recently. This just shows the type of development that can happen with the rejuvenation of rail links and what this means to community. I'm sure you agree that was a great success, a nice building, great space and a fantastic opportunity for that area. That's me, John.

John Curry

Thank you very much, Graeme. No one's going to let you off the hook on the elephant story, we'll come back to it. Okay, any comments or suggestions or thoughts on the three questions we've got here? What actions can we undertake to explore increase in the frequency and reliability of train services at new and existing stations like Reston? Just for comparison purposes, the Tweedbank station has about 32 services a day, whereas Reston has eight, just for a sense of scale and proportion there.

How can we ensure that rail and bus services are integrated to meet the needs of local communities and support economic growth? We've kind of touched on that briefly in the last conversation. Also what collaborative approaches can be adopted to address challenges of low rail service frequency and coverage in Dumfries and Galloway? How can we ensure these efforts align with broader regional and national transport strategies? Thoughts, observations, contributions from anyone welcome on this theme. Councillor Jardine.

Euan Jardine

I'll kick it off again, John. Living in Galashiels, the difference the train and the rail's made to there, I can't describe the difference, it's phenomenal. You talk about the old bus station shelter which was horrendous, now we've got the new interchange there and it's hard to believe it's actually going to be the 10-year anniversary this year, because it feels like it's always been there, you forget. But then we saw the picture of Stow and I think fantastic work's going on up at Stow. Then Tweedbank as well has now expanded, new businesses have opened up there, even more development going and fantastic news on finally that funding being released.

I want to thank the Cabinet Secretary for all the works that's been done at the Scottish Government and the UK Government for enabling that and making it happen, because the potential is large. It's not just the potential for tourism and I think that's something that is very much untapped, because some people don't even know it exists, the railway. I think how do we encourage VisitScotland to start pushing - I know there's one gentleman down there from VisitScotland - to start pushing people onto that railway to see the South of Scotland once they get to the Borders, but they can also go the other way to Dumfries and Galloway, to Lockerbie, et cetera. That's something that I think we really need to push the emphasis on.

But getting businesses here and knowing people that they can have a great life in the South, but they can still have the benefits of being of the city. We're only, in Galashiels, 50 minutes away from Edinburgh. I like to joke that we're a suburb of Edinburgh, or Edinburgh's a suburb of the Borders, whatever way you want to take it. But in London, if you were to go where the Tube is, 50 minutes is nothing, so why is 50 minutes a long journey in Scotland? We need to change the mindset there. If we want to invest, get people to boost and build homes in the Borders and the South of Scotland, you have to change that mindset. We're rural but we're not in the middle of nowhere. A railway shows that and it gives us that connection.

I think the real pushes on there, I think VisitScotland need to do some work on this. I think as councils we need to continue upselling this region and Councillor Hamilton's going to throw something at me when I say this, however, I always talk about the Scottish Borders not punching above its weight or the South of Scotland not punching above its weight. We are a heavyweight region when it comes to so many things and I think we need to continue to sell that. We are a UCI city region when it comes to cycling, again that's a great thing, get the train, come and cycle, do so many things. We've got the Tweed Valley which is absolutely fantastic, we've got also open roads there, we've got the gravel trails in Dumfries and Galloway.

There's so much to offer in terms of sporting infrastructure, cultural infrastructure, history. There are more big castles and houses than anywhere else in Scotland, I think in the UK. But are we selling that point for visitors to come? They come, they go central, they go up north, so how do we get them down here? I think it's collective work driven by everyone around this table, but the railway has been a gamechanger and I really am hopeful that will continue to Hawick and then to Carlisle, because the change it'll make for them, like it has for Galashiels, is going to be enormous. Continue the support from the Government on that and everyone around this table. Thank you.

John Curry

Thank you, Councillor Jardine. Russell, we'll let you come in and then Councillor Gail Macgregor after that.

Russell Griggs

Before I get to my comments - and I know Euan well enough to say this - I've always thought the greatest thing we could do for the South of Scotland is have a facsimile of Euan on the M6 talking about the South of Scotland and getting everybody to turn right and left as they come off. Because he is incredibly passionate about it and that's what we need and more people telling the story like Euan does. Anyway, that's not what I was going to say.

They opened a station in Sanquhar again in 1994 and one of the greatest things it's done is encourage more of our young people to go to university and to colleges, et cetera. Also to look at Glasgow and the central belt as places to go and work and still live locally. I think that's a thing that we forget. It's not just about bringing people through, it's about utilising what is there. The Cabinet Secretary and I were in Stow last week and what I think the great thing about Stow was - and well done, ScotRail - was that the community on that station there, that's part of there.

One of the things that ScotRail is actively looking at is looking at its real estate across Scotland to see what else can be done. The Sanquhar station is now a holiday home for somebody, but I do think stations add a lot more than people understand. It really has helped a lot of people who would never have come and stayed in Sanquhar to come, because they can now access education, employment, et cetera, which they wouldn’t have been able to do before and that community would have suffered from it going forward.

John Curry

Thanks Russell. Councillor Macgregor.

Gail Macgregor

I'll be succinct. I think I totally agree with the pair of you. I don't think we can underestimate the power of rail and certainly in the east of the region here we have much better economic activity. House prices are higher, if you're lucky to be able to get one. I'm currently looking for a house in the east of the region, it's really challenging. Whereas in the west the economic opportunities are not as good and there are more houses for sale and they're not of the same value.

That connectivity on the M74 corridor, north and south, plus Lockerbie rail station and Carlisle a stone's throw away, creates huge economic opportunities for the east of the region which the west do miss out on to an extent. I think that east-west offering is hugely important, absolutely, and how we can press to get greater investment, whether it be opening up Eastriggs or reopening the Stranraer or Dumfries line or whatever. That is something that will help and we were talking earlier on about the A75, that connectivity to Northern Ireland and the wider UK and Europe is as important through rail as it is through road.

John Curry

Thank you, Councillor Macgregor. Gordon, do you want to come in from VisitScotland's perspective?

Gordon Smith

Thanks very much. Yes, back to our visitor survey around those 69 per cent of all visitors using their car on a trip to Scotland, however, there is a significant proportion who are using public transport and that rises when we talk about our international visitors. So there is definitely an opportunity collectively as partners to look at that. Collaborative marketing is one way that we at VisitScotland can work alongside South of Scotland Destination Alliance and partners ScotRail as well. VisitScotland works closely with ScotRail at a national level on partnership marketing that is mainly focused on our domestic market, but I understand this year we're going to also look at some work in the French market for the first time and we can use the wonderful opportunity of the South of Scotland messaging in that content for 2025.

John Curry

Thanks Gordon, that's really interesting, thanks. Councillor Linehan, you want to come in?

Jenny Linehan

Thank you. I was looking at the first question, seeing what actions could we undertake to explore an increase in the frequency and reliability of train services and I said well just make it successful, which is what we're trying to do. It's easier said than done. Then I thought well, looking at the train station at Tweedbank at the weekend, it was packed, completely packed. I think we just need more rugby matches and then we will have more use of the railway.

Anyway, joking aside, before the Tweedbank railway came into place, I was a lawyer at that point and it was incredible because 10 years before it actually started being laid, the impact, the economic impact was already being felt in the courts in Edinburgh. What we need to do is with our feasibility study is actually get it out there and encourage people, encourage the economic growth that will come from it and from that will come investment, which then gives us our bus wheel which puts all the positive things in. It will give us more frequency, more reliability and we'll have a positive wheel through. Thank you.

John Curry

Thanks very much. Gordon, you want to come in?

Gordon Grant

Thanks John. I think just in relation to question 2, I think it's quite a simple one, it's the connectivity and making sure that the buses are timetabled to connect with the trains. Because I think one of the biggest issues at the moment is the train arrives, or the train is coming onto the platform as the bus is pulling away. There are so many challenges associated with connecting the bus network, because if we change the bus times then it affects a connection over in West Linton. Sometimes it's difficult to react to the changes, but if we can get it right and we can get the connections between bus and train right, then I think we'll both recognise the growth that comes from that.

John Curry

Thanks Gordon. Just thinking about questions 1 and 3, which are about service frequency and coverage, is there anything that colleagues in Transport Scotland or ScotRail would like to pick up on that point? Cabinet Secretary, do you want to come in on that point?

Fiona Hyslop

Yes, can I pick up on a number of things? I think the particular issue - and I share the frustrations about Reston, it is on the East Coast Main Line, it is very busy, it is cross-border trains. It is UK Government has just agreed a new timetable that will cause difficulties and I can confirm that I have spoken both to the Rail Minister, Lord Hendy, who promised to keep a close eye on this. I spoke to the Secretary of State for Transport just last week and made sure that was also identified, that we can't have decisions made in London. Which is all for good reason, to try and shorten the journey, that means intermediary stops particularly in Scotland cause problems.

I am on this. There have been good discussions, particularly obviously as East Linton and Dunbar are affected. There are, as we speak, discussions taking place with the transport operators to see what can be done. People want more ScotRail but the difficulty then is (1) the capacity, the funding for that, but also how busy - and Claire, maybe you want to reflect on that specifically. Don't worry, I have been on the case and will continue to do so.

I think your point about development, nobody needs to tell me about the development of rail and what it can do for communities. I lived in Galashiels before the train stations. I was one of the ministers, I was one of the MSPs who voted for the Borders rail at the time. I also remember Stow wasn’t meant to be a stop or a station, so anybody who used to be on the rickety buses in January going over Middleton Muir and then would go on the rail, you see the difference in terms of what it means and the connectivity and the time difference it makes and the economic development absolutely there.

It's a long time ago, I was reflecting that when I was in Galashiels I did - this is a point about how good, Euan - I don't think I can beat Euan, but I did, when I was a student in Galashiels, produce a report for my postgraduate diploma, the marketing of the Scottish Borders, so I started young. In terms of Dumfries and Galloway, I was the Minister for Tourism and Events that got the UCI to come to Scotland. It was a difficult challenge because it was a big expense and the promotion when I was Tourism Minister, the family destination of the South of Scotland, I think is really strong.

I remember having the conversation, saying at least Highlands and Islands sell themselves, you’ve got to make sure - is this being recorded? Can we edit that bit out? But there is something, actually you need to be strategic about where you market. It always struck me - and maybe this will come back to haunt me, but if we've got this promotion, we've got investments with the Borderlands Growth Deal and the 7stanes, I was active in supporting a lot of the cycle tracks across the South of Scotland. Ideally you'd want a cycle train coming up from England, people are coming up on cycle holidays with a cycle train. That's my big ticket if you want to say what does this look like with success, that would be it.

However - and this is where the however comes in - going back to our previous discussion on bus, 75 per cent of public journeys are made by bus, but the vast majority of investment goes into rail and also ferries, but £4.2 billion over the next five years, control period 7, is just the Scottish Government's payment to Network Rail. We don't control Network Rail but we can set our expectations of what we receive. If you look at the cost of railways compared to investment in bus - and we know that 75 per cent of journeys currently, never mind the unmet need met by bus, can you see the challenges we've got in public investment?

Which comes back to that point about the business case, both lastly for the bus networks we talked about, but also the funding under the growth deal in terms of the business case on rail, it's really important. I know how important - and that mobiliser of activity, even in advance, because the Borders rail when it was built was the longest rail section that had been built for 100 years in the UK. It then was followed by the Bathgate-Airdrie line, which goes through my constituency, a former mining area and you can see the economic activity around that as well. I'm not denying it doesn't work, but I'm just saying to make a business case and then to maybe throw at you in terms of issues around stops and stations.

Stow wasn’t going to be originally, then it was put in, there were other places that didn’t have stations on other lines. For example, I know in my own constituency Armadale and Blackridge were in question for our one. Then you had the case in Dumfries and Galloway where people wanted more stops and stations, and there's a difference between a stop and a station. The point about community assets and that's an issue probably more Network Rail and looking at Scottish Rail Holdings working together, that's our holding body for ScotRail and Network Rail, how smart are we when we're talking about how we use the land that's round potential areas smartly?

That's an economic development one which I think, Russell, I know you're interested in. That's a conversation for Professor Iain Docherty, the new Chair of Scottish Rail Holdings, so a good conversation with him is in sight. But if it's a case of we're trying to get people to use rail more often, is it stations that make a difference? Everyone says we want all of it and we want all of it now, but you might not be able to have all of it now. On the journey to get to my cycle train, what would be the intermediate - and this is when we use the bad travel analogies, intermediary stops on the way. What's reasonable to help get us where we need to be?

There's a bit of provocation there, that it's not as easy as just saying it'll be wonderful and what it can do for us, because I absolutely get that. I think South of Scotland has got so much already happening, but also so much in terms of that unrealised potential, that actually how do you unlock that? Transport, I think, is absolutely key to it. I think rail is, but I think we need to be realistic and I think we need to be time sensitive and thinking about actually what do we want. We maybe want our bus shelters first, but we may then get to further down the line where we get to the results and it takes time.

I know how long it took to get the Borders rail, I know how long it took to get the link between Bathgate and Airdrie and it covers my own constituency. But you’ve got to start somewhere, so that final agreement that we got with the £5 million from the UK Government matching the Scottish Government in terms of that, looking at the business case and development is really important. But we've got to think about why we're doing it and what order are we doing things and how do we get it in terms of that integration, those travel hubs may really make the difference. I suspect it's thinking smartly around that and who does that and who leads that. I think there's a real role for the convention, working with all the partners here to do that. I don't know how Fiona's going to get that into an action, but I'm sure she'll do it very well.

John Curry

She's writing furiously, so we'll just watch and see what comes out. Thank you, Cabinet Secretary, there's quite a lot of detail there which has been useful insight and it's great to get the reassurance around the work you're doing with UK Government around the East Coast Main Line and the challenges there, that's really helpful. Councillor Campbell.

John Campbell

Thanks very much. Councillor John Campbell, I'm the Chair of SWestrans. We've been talking about reopening three stations in Dumfries and Galloway since I've been on the board, since 2017. But it's actually gone further back than that to before I was even elected that we've been trying to get these stations open. I just feel that we didn’t make the business case through the STAG appraisals the last time and Cabinet Secretary did meet with me and a previous lead officer up in parliament when you were Transport Minister at the time. We tried to argue our case then.

But I think we need to put a little bit more emphasis on the net zero, for example, the reduction of car use, reopening some of these stations would probably increase that dramatically. Also the social impact as well rather than try to do a business case, because I don't think we could do that again through a STAG appraisal, but it's just it appears to me that more weight should be put on those two aspects as opposed to a business case. Thanks.

John Curry

Thanks Councillor Campbell. Any other comments or contributions from anyone? Just looking round. No, okay, so summarise the actions from that.

Fiona Hyslop

Part of it's maximising the benefits of the existing rail infrastructure. Part of it is ensuring people know what's there is there as well, which I think is that wider promotion that we're talking about. The integration with bus in terms of making sure its reach is expanded.

Secondly, continue to make representations to the UK Government regarding maintaining the existing service provision. Well it's not maintain the existing service provision really as maximising the commute times in particular, which I think is the issue, which I am doing but will continue to do. Challenge to the region on the transport priorities. I think we know the things that will make a difference.

We've got the extension of the Borders rail network, we've got the stations issues, we've got the bus aspects. We know they have to be integrated, so as part of that, what does that look like when you’ve got different councils and two different RTPs. Is this something where you can share your interest, you can maybe share your timing, which I think could be an interesting point in terms of if you're all looking for a similar pot of money, if you're all going and trying to do something at the same time, or do we do it in different ways. I think there's something around challenging you on that in particular.

I suppose it is that point about I think there's something in here very much about that marketing of the South of Scotland which is challenged back to our colleagues from VisitScotland to add weight to that in the digital age and the USP of what the South of Scotland is. If you want to be somewhere which is - sorry, this is not the actions I'm talking about I'm afraid, but if you want to be a green destination, then your public transport offer becomes a critical part of that. I think there's something around that, (1) maximising the benefits of existing rail infrastructure. Councillor Jardine's right, in any other part of the UK that's a commute to work journey.

You want reliability, which nobody's mentioned, thank you very much, but I think for ScotRail colleagues there is an improvement on the diesel and then if we get to the next procurement, that'll provide more certainty. Secondly, that looking at UK Government relations in particular, both for the service delivery but also I think on the issue around the business case and continuing to make sure they understand the strategic importance of that. Then thirdly, it's the bit about being realistic about what do we need to do, where and when.

Bus looks quicker - bus is always quicker than rail by and large. Sorry, in terms of decision-making and I suppose in terms of - I'm glad you - I'm just looking at whether they're - but in terms of what can be nimble in terms of response, building a new rail track takes time. There are some things that can be done sooner rather than later. Going back to that point about how do we make sure that people see things happening and using the community funds from net zero to buy some buses and improve some bus shelters with a view that this is going to be part of an integrated bus service is actually a very practical, visible thing that will help promote that. If somebody can get some actions out of that, that would be helpful.

John Curry

I think that's helpful. The alignment of priorities and the steps of action that we need to take across the South seems to be the big nugget there for us to work through. Okay, thank you very much, Cabinet Secretary. That takes us to the final theme of today which is about workforce, which links to skills and housing as well, which are obviously the other two grand challenges the Regional Economic Partnership are focused on. To introduce this one, Russell, you're going to lead this one off.

Russell Griggs

Yes, I am, thank you. I guess the easy bit at the start of this is the simple solution to this, is we all go to driverless trains and buses, which is what is happening elsewhere in the world. But I doubt it will ever come here and I think the cows and sheep and tractors of the South of Scotland might be something that makes it even further away. But I guess what I want to do is pause on the bit in the middle about there are people, if you want to get dozer drivers, digger drivers, bus drivers, HGV drivers, it's difficult, especially in young people. The slide you've got out there, without I think looking and saying this is all to do with better pay and conditions and it's to do with making it… is maybe too simplistic. I need to tell you a little story about this.

About four years ago, a young person became a motor mechanic in a garage near me and they were going great guns, they were going through it, they were a great motor mechanic. Then all of a sudden they weren’t there, so I asked the chap who ran the garage where have they gone? They said they've gone to be a bus driver and they had. Roll forward about 18 months and I go back into the garage and they're back there again doing the motor mechanics. I said why did you come back? They said because he had gone there, their boss told me, for more money. He said it was lonely, it was terribly lonely, you get some abuse, it's not easy to have a social life.

That then jumped me to a conversation that an associate had about two to three years ago with Currie European, who are the biggest transport company, who will tell you they get lots of young people who sign on as apprentices and leave in the first six months. When you ask them why, they say it's an awful lot of my life, we're on our own, we don't get to meet any pals. Which then jumped me to a wonderful report that Dumfries and Galloway have done called 10,000 Voices, which is all about the voices of young people between the ages of 16 and 25. If you ask young people between the ages of 16 and 25, especially after COVID, what's the thing that concerns them most, it's their mental health.

I think there is a real issue as we look to this, not just about better pay and conditions, but making the job more attractive and recognising that the things that young people look for after COVID are maybe slightly different to the things that young people looked for before COVID. I know we've got lots of initiatives out there doing all of this, but we have to recognise that we're trying to bring people here to do this for the long term, because most of our lorry drivers are now, what, 55 is I think the average age, the same with our bus drivers. Therefore if we're going to bring young people through we need to look at the things that they are most important about, which is about mixing with other people, about having a balanced life.

I went back and spoke to this person and they said the reason I loved working here was chaos, but they were offering more money and I've come back because I love the chaos. It's about that being involved in an atmosphere which is different. I think that's even more important in rural areas than it is in urban areas, where the bus drivers actually meet more often than they do in rural areas. I think while this things were important then, I think we need to be really sure that what is encouraging people to come into the sector is the right thing.

Secondly, in terms of public sector support, we do have a lot of public sector support going into this area, an awful lot. We've got national drivers, we've got subgroups, we've got people looking at how we make licences much more efficient, et cetera. But I do think in the end it comes back to the things that we always talk about at these meetings, which is people and why people don't do things. I keep coming back to read 10,000 Voices. Do, if you ever want to talk about how young people look at life now, it's a wonderful piece of work that just shows if you looked at it pre-COVID it was very, very different to is post-COVID.

I think as we all look forward now to see how we start to look at how we bring people forward into this area, I'll go back to my little humorous bit at the beginning maybe about self-driving buses. That will come one day and we all have to look at the technology, but I do think we have to make the sector more attractive. It isn't just about pay and conditions; it is about how I enjoy my job. My sample of one, which is not a very good statistic for a sample, especially not to a professor, it's more to do with what the job offers them rather than the money. I will now, John, pass back to you.

John Curry

Thank you very much, Russell. Again you see the questions on the screen, starter questions. What specific measures can we take to support commercial operators maintain bus service levels and continuity? What further support can the public sector provide to operators to support commercial bus operators or bus services? What specific actions can we take to make the bus industry more attractive to potential recruits and to passengers? What lessons can we learn from other industries and sectors?

Russell touched on it as well, but the thing around antisocial behaviour is a real challenge in bus services at the moment, so any thoughts on what we can do collectively in that area would also be welcome. Thoughts, comments, observations from anyone? Gordon, you want to come in? I was trying to read your body language there.

Gordon Grant

I suppose talking of experience, I started off as a bus driver about 20 years ago and then I worked my way up to be an ops manager, then I obviously got my job in the council where I am now. One of the things that I found difficult coming from an engineering background was the shifts. When you start in the bus industry you go for pretty steady shifts, either a day shift, a back shift, a night shift, whatever it is you do. It's something where you work in a day shift one day and it's 12 hours long, we're split in the middle.

A back shift, working long shifts at weekends, tend to have longer shifts on a Sunday. You end up going into a job where you spend less time with your family. I think the industry at the moment, the shortage of drivers is making it more and more difficult to retain drivers because there are more spare lines, so you’ve got drivers coming in and they're just getting effectively tired. They're working long shifts and not getting the opportunity to get on a rota and get stability. That's one of the challenges at the moment, how do you overcome that?

The answer is get more drivers, but you can't get the drivers because of the situation the industry's in at the moment. I think the other thing as well is that what we're trying to do locally, I suppose one issue is showing it as a career, a career pathway. I think you come in and you see it as being a driver and I think Ewan's highlighted this in one of the other studies that he's done, but showing it as a career progression. You can start as a bus driver or you can start as an apprentice mechanic, but work your way up into a role within the business.

Looking at integrating with other services, I think one of the challenges that you’ve got, or one of the things that we're trying to do at the moment is it's not just about bus driving. We've got routes that we've taken on locally, but we're trying to bring it in so that you're not just driving a bus. You might be driving a bus one day, doing social work, taking a client to somewhere else so you're getting a bit of a variety of work as well, rather than just being purely a bus driver. That's some of the things that through experience I think might change it, but it is a difficult position at the moment because of I think the shifts. I think some of the issues with antisocial behaviour and that, that are being worked on, are making it a challenging environment to work in.

Jenny Linehan

I was just going to say when we look at what lessons we can learn from other industries and sectors, I know the British Army does this really well, in that it offers you a driving licence. I think local authorities need to try and get these things, say we will help you with your driving licence, you are tied into driving for us for, I don't know, whatever contractual thing seems deemed appropriate. But that would certainly be one helpful way of trying to encourage young people who perhaps maybe don't know where they want to go. Or they think getting their driving licence is going to be too expensive, so it's one way forward.

John Curry

Thanks Councillor Linehan. A few hands here, we'll maybe go to Simon first and work our way down the line.

Simon Bradbury

Thank you, John. I suppose the first point I would make on this one is it is sort of stating the obvious to some extent, which is that this particularly seems like an area where we should collaborate more within the industry. We hear this a lot from community transport colleagues and partners who feel themselves very acutely the absence of drivers. But also obviously within the council itself, within operators and indeed with other partners across the region, including NHS colleagues and others. I think that's my first point, the fact that we should try and tackle this particular challenge collectively and try and overcome it.

Secondly, we've been doing some work in this area just recently in terms of kind of challenging our assumptions, challenging the way in which we've tended to recruit bus drivers historically, which has been to try and recruit bus drivers, which there's not very many bus drivers around. So we really need to start from first principles and actually sell the proposition. We're trying to identify any funding sources there might be in terms of - including through the local employability pathways, to try and understand how we can source funding to train up drivers, to skill them.

As opposed to just trying to find existing bus drivers who are sitting around, looking for work, which is obviously challenging. But also looking at opportunities to transfer or transition existing drivers, whether they be fully trained HGV drivers, for example, understanding how we can support or provide training for them to transition within the driving industry itself.

John Curry

Thanks, Simon. Ewan, I think you were next. Helix, are we going to talk about that?

Ewan Doyle

A little bit like the bus driver. We did a recruitment campaign last year with the bus industry, so we gave the bus industry a forerun to create a website and a number of resources. Firstly, to promote bus driving as a career, as a stepping stone onto something a bit further if you want to go that way. Also to promote the bus sector, because there's a lot of historic maybe misapprehensions about what the bus sector is and actually show it as a very diverse opportunity for growth. Not only in terms of bus drivers and mechanics, but marketing, management, net zero, they're huge. But my point is we did that once to market and promote it around the city region. It needs to be regularly done, we need to keep informing the new workforce coming through that these opportunities are there.

John Curry

Thanks, Ewan. Greig, did I see your hand next?

Greig Robson

Yes, I think Russell's absolutely right in terms of sector attractiveness and our experience of this at SDS. We work with a number of sectors that have faced this problem particularly acutely, as the labour market tightened after COVID. The solutions, in my experience, come from industry, but I think you sometimes need public sector support to tell our industry to hold the mirror up to themselves in terms of what they do in those jobs. I think that's something we can do in that process.

I think one of the questions is about previous experience. I was at a Scottish Engineering event on Friday and I was struck by I think engineering over 10 or 20 years has changed somewhat. But the industry actually felt they hadn’t done it as much as they wanted to. But I think engineering is a decent example of collaboration, widespread collaboration through the industry to challenge outdated perceptions about that industry. I think in our experience it needs to be that long-term collaboration between industry and the public sector to actually change some of these perceptions and practices on the ground.

John Curry

Thanks Greig. Pete.

Pete Smith

Thanks John and Cabinet Secretary. Pete Smith, Principal of Borders College. It actually flows on quite wonderfully from what Greig just said, I think. I'm not going to answer any of the questions up there because I think there are far more learned colleagues around the table that can talk to the development and delivery of our robust transport infrastructure. I wanted to make just a wee couple of points though. One is to remind the convention how closely linked our three grand challenges are.

That without a robust transport infrastructure we can't develop and deliver the skills for the workforce we need for the South of Scotland. Without the housing, we can't keep them here either. The main point though is really that it's trying to work out how we can work together along the lines that Greig's talking about. We work very closely with schools and with industry sectors to ensure that young people are making choices in the careers that they want to undertake. The point was made by Gordon that it should be seen as a career rather than just as a job driving a bus.

Now we don't train bus drivers and we don't train train drivers, very good, but what we do do is train so many of the industries that support the transport sector, from engineers, construction workers, customer services operatives, et cetera. I think working together as an industry sector with the educators who are going to deliver on the skills and with the schools sector as well, I think we can make a much more attractive proposition to people who are making their choices in life.

Really what I'm saying is the door is open to anybody who wants to come and speak to Borders College and I'm sure Dumfries and Galloway College as well, to see how we can build that offer to people in the Borders. Because I think if we can get that right, we will retain younger people in the Borders that have returned to us from different sectors into the transport industry to become more economically active and therefore, we get that kind of virtuous circle that we're talking about in the presentation today. Thank you.

John Curry

Thanks Pete. Bettina, do you want to come in?

Bettina Sizeland

Yes, thank you John. We set up a bus taskforce to support COVID recovery and one of the areas we looked at was the acute driver shortage at the time. The activity that we looked at, what we found worked was - I think a number of people have mentioned it around the room, were pay and conditions, not surprisingly, flexibility, so people did want different shift patterns post-COVID. We saw that quite quickly, once the operators started opening up flexibility, then it really started to diversify the workforce. Other areas that we looked at were training, increasing the availability of training, again that seemed to work quite well.

Then the final one was the marketing as a career path and not just, as you say, starting off as a driver and staying as a driver, but where you can go from there. Other things we looked at, because we continue to keep it under discussion with the operators, are housing, the shortage of housing and the availability of housing and how that then impacts driver shortage in rural areas. Some of the solutions we found there were one or two of the commercial operators provide accommodation during the week or at weekends so that drivers have somewhere to stay. Or the councils were looking at how they can designate drivers so they get access to housing.

John Curry

Thanks Bettina. Just on the flexibility, shift flexibility, are there user cases of things that we could delve into a wee bit deeper to see how that works in practice and for a rural area particularly? Russell.

Russell Griggs

Yes, I was just going to respond. I agree to a degree with Gordon and Bettina, it's interesting what you say. I think the challenge, as Greig says, is that we need to hold that mirror up to the companies and show them what is out there. While they talk a good talk in this area, I'm not sure they do a lot about it. I don't think they - they’ll listen and say yes, of course we'll change the shift patterns, they don't.

I think Gordon's exactly right, they try to be socially responsible, if that's the right word, but in the end they want to make a profit. We've all seen how much they lean into us when we want to reduce subsidies on buses, how challenging they could be. I understand what you're saying and I'm sure the Government does do a lot of work, but I think if we held a mirror up to the transport operators in Scotland, especially bus companies, we might see a bit of a different picture.

John Curry

Thanks Russell. Cabinet Secretary.

Fiona Hyslop

Just a number of reflections. It may or may not be helpful just as a small aside. When I visited the National Park at Loch Lomond, they run buses in the summer seasonally to encourage people to leave their car and see the area by bus. But what they’ve also done is combine that with helping to get young people particularly to the bed and breakfast hotels, because in order for the workforce that's needed for the tourism sector - and also they're positioning it as seasonal bus work so that people might not want to work the long hours 12 months a year, but might be prepared to do it for a short term. I thought that was quite a creative solution that may or may not be applicable to any parts you’ve got here.

I do think there's an issue about the conditions and I do think there's an issue about the image of the sector. I do think there's an issue around antisocial behaviour, in transport generally. I'm working very hard with ScotRail on the rail side, but it's about acceptability of behaviour. I think Russell's right to think about how people behave. I think driver behaviour has changed. I think there's a lot of things, that people have maybe become more insular and that exhibits in different ways. I do think there's an issue around that and there's the antisocial behaviour report that the Minister for Community Safety has just produced. How do we help support that particular group of young people who didn’t get the boundaries that they might have needed at the time of the pandemic.

That's a deeper issue, but I think if we're thinking about our society generally, what needs to be done then. There is an issue, we're working with the Confederation of Passenger Transport on antisocial behaviour issues. We are looking about how legally we could withdraw the bus pass on a temporary basis for anybody of any age who misuses it, but it would need change to primary legislation. But there are also other things that can be done in the meantime, conditions of carriage, et cetera. There's something around how we help support the workforce, but also make sure that if we're trying to grow the sector we want passengers to feel comfortable and safe and we need to face up to that.

In terms of the promotion, I think there's an issue around - maybe Councillor Macgregor, you might want to reflect on the number of small companies you’ve got, who are obviously then competing. Probably a more challenging basis who will maybe have more difficulty in retention. I think there's something around that, how do we work with the sector itself.

But I was also very struck by a meeting I had earlier with the community transport people and organisations and being told about there was a group of children who missed out a whole week of schooling because the driver for the school bus couldn’t arrive. If the parents couldn’t get the kids to school, they couldn’t get to school. Now that's serious, so it's something around we know and we recognise - and again it's the status of transport, is that when we talked about key workers during the pandemic period, transport workers are absolutely key. So there's something about the importance and the value and the status that we as a society give to our transport workers.

In terms of some of the things that we may - I like that idea of the variety of work aspect, because if you can drive, you can do more than one thing. What can be done to help that? I do think - and I'm really struck and it might be just the demographics that you have and the workforce challenges you have generally, but I think one of the actions we should have is the bus taskforce work, we should share that more widely. In the rest of the country it looks as if it's stabilised, but if it's not with you then why is that? What needs to be done?

I know in my own area of West Lothian, the council and the college got together to do a big concerted training exercise. I think that reflects there's a bit of if this is such a need, what can be done collectively, working with those that can do the training. Because obviously I'm not saying that if you're not already geared up, the colleges are geared up or not, but they facilitated that training to help make that happen. So there's something in that.

But there is also something about selling the sector. Now if people think that bus particularly, if this is what we're really focusing on, bus is in decline in the South of Scotland, why would you want to have a job or career in it? If we're promoting bus as look what we're doing, we're going to be mobilising resources from community funds, we're going to take a strategic approach, we're going to have integrated ticketing, we're going to have that integration, then you're actually selling it as a growth sector. Maybe there's something about mindset, about selling it as a growth sector.

I think there's lots in this, it's not one solution. I do think looking at age profile and shifts, there might be something around people who maybe have taken early retirement that might like a job over the summer period, we'd want to retain but not do it on a permanent basis. Going back to your data, you're not necessarily going to use the - you might have a winter and a summer timetable depending on the demands, et cetera.

There's something around all the partners thinking actually a bit more creatively on how we might do things. Everybody can do something on this. I suspect there are lots of drivers required by the NHS somehow, how does that combine and what does that look like? Health and care partnership, what does that look like? There is that kind of thing about is there something within that that allows a bit of maybe cross-collaboration, if that's what CoSS is meant to do. That's another wide ranging, but I thought I'd give you a bit of perspective of that.

John Curry

Thank you very much, Cabinet Secretary. Some useful points there, but it comes back to the aligning of priorities, actions and steps we take and data being the driver of the decisions we make, isn't it? It kind of circles back to the first discussion. Councillor Jardine, you want to come in?

Euan Jardine

Yes, it's just on the role of a bus driver. You were all talking about the behavioural aspects there. We need to look at a train driver, all a train driver does - not all it does, but they drive the train. They drive the train but there are inspectors who take the ticket, deal with the passengers, deal with the behaviour. But the bus driver has to do all of that while going through busy traffic, collecting issues that come on, they’ve been on a long day shift as well. What can we do around that, especially if there are certain problem routes that people say this is a route at this time that's difficult? Can we put inspectors on, or is there a way to ease the role of the bus driver?

John Curry

I suspect technology has a role to play in that space as well. Gordon, I see you want to come in.

Gordon Grant

I think the challenge, I suppose, putting inspectors and that on, it's just additional resources that the bus operators - it's cost and that's something that's a difficulty at the moment, is there's not a huge amount of money to be able to cover that. To be fair, we've not got a massive problem in terms of antisocial behaviour. We've got one or two isolated incidents that take place, but I know when you start to get - if we've got routes that go into the city late on a Friday night, Saturday night, it starts to become problematic. I don't know what the solution is but as you say, as a train operator you're not really meeting the public, but as a bus operator you're the person that's sometimes dealing with that on your own when it does kick off.

John Curry

Thanks Gordon. I'll let Claire come in and then Russell wants to come back.

Claire Dickie

I recognise all the points you’ve all made about the role of the train driver and I'm sure some of you are aware how much they're paid in terms of the terms and conditions. Antisocial behaviour is a systemic societal thing and it affects rail too. We've looked and we've had some great success with our travel safe team. We've got a dedicated team who work on the data. We collect the data, we understand where the hotspots are and the team go out and they engage with - and a lot of the time it is young folk. They engage with them and we've had some really, really cracking success stories out of it.

I think one of my favourite ones was down in Helensburgh and we'd had some real problems for a period of time. The team had been down engaging with the young people, so much so that when it got to Halloween they all dressed up as the travel safe team, these youngsters. But it just showed the rapport they'd managed to build and we've got a good track record of picking off the problem areas. I know it's additional resource, but it doesn't have to be a permanent resource. I think just showing that you're targeting specific problems and hotspots at certain times of the day, the year, certain days of the week, I think can have some really big success.

John Curry

Thanks Claire. Russell.

Russell Griggs

It's just to remind everybody and I'm old enough to remember, that a long time ago the economic development community in Scotland used to pay for people to get a driving licence. Rather than, if you remember, you got a grant for getting a computer, if you came in as a startup business and you were going to do something, you got a grant to pay for your driving test. It's quite interesting, if you do that then and you then have to get into all funny issues around ticketing, especially when you're doing bus drivers and doing it with dozers, but that has gone out of the system now.

Maybe it's one of these things that we should have a think about. Councils did it as much as economic development agencies. It was one of the things, rather than get, as you do now, if you set up your business they’ll give you £1,000 to buy a PC, in terms gone by they paid for you to get your driving test. Maybe it's something we should think about.

John Curry

Thanks Russell. Councillor Macgregor.

Gail Macgregor

It's just on that point and the same applies in the agricultural sector and telehandler drivers, this is not a unique situation. But the offering is not as good as it used to be either. The Barony college, as an example was able to do some certifications that they no longer do because of budget cuts. I think it's actually becoming more difficult for people to train in some of these sectors locally. I think that's maybe something we need to look at as well. But certainly if you can get a computer, why can't you get an HGV licence? Because it is a huge expense and it will deter people.

John Curry

Thanks very much. Fiona.

Fiona Brown

It was mentioned in the paper, but I just wanted to do a little plug for the draft Just Transition Plan for transport, which has a section in there about the workforce needed for that just transition to net zero. It's out for consultation just now, so it would be great to have a regional response or responses from the different partners around the table to that. Thanks John.

John Curry

Thanks Fiona, that's an easy action to pick up. Okay, any other comments on workforce? Greig, do you want to come back?

Greig Robson

It was just to go back to that thought about business support for the bus companies particularly. It feels like we should maybe try something with one of these companies. What springs to mind from my own organisation is the skills for growth service from our employer services team, that can be rolled out in a company. It's trying to support them to look at their future skills needs, but as part of that it can look at the culture within the organisation, it can look at their policies in terms of employee wellbeing, it can look at their approach to recruitment.

I think if we could find a willing company - and that's my couple of caveats to this offer, is it only works if the company is up for it, because holding a mirror up to their culture can be quite challenging. So if we can find that willing company, I think that could be worth a try. My second caveat is we probably will need the help of partners around the table to identify that company and engage them. Whether this is a kind of partnership offer with SOSE business support or anybody else around the table, but I think that could be a tangible pilot activity, I suppose.

John Curry

That's a good offer, thanks Greig. I'm looking at colleagues within SBC's transport team and also D&G's transport team, I'm sure you can start to shape something, identify a potential target for that. Thank you for that. Okay, any other comments then? No, okay, that brings us to the end of this one, so summarise the actions, thanks.

Fiona Hyslop

Just in plugging the just transition for you all to put your comments in. I was at Borders College and it was fantastic to see the work there of training young people in how they can deal with both traditional engines, but also the work that's required for EVs, laptop repair or whatever. That's what it looked like, but it was really impressive. Particularly in an area where cars will continue to be of need and use, actually having that development. That was supported by Scottish Government as well in terms of investment, but actually in terms of jobs and what's going to be needed, we're going to need people who'll be able to repair our EVs when they all break down. But they won't do because they're supposed to be so reliable, but there you go. I think that's a good promotion.

In terms of action then, there's something about working with the sector itself, showing a mirror up to it in a nice and supportive way, along with our colleagues, Skills Development Scotland. Thinking about how we could potentially work with that certification, whether it's with using hosts like the council and the college, but there's something definitely in that and that skills for growth. It strikes me that five years ago or whenever it was the convention was first established, the idea that you'd be having - spending a significant amount of time on workforce, particularly bus workforce, as part of your strategic development would not have been there, it just wouldn’t have been on the radar.

But you know that with your choice of strategic missions, actually if you sort this you enable so much else as well. I think it shows you that actually the agenda setting that you’ve put forward is fixing something when bear in mind I was told today there are 50 place plans, I think, has Dumfries and Galloway got a place and transport is on every single one as a top three. I'm assuming it's similar with Borders. This is what your public wants, it's what your area absolutely needs, so I think it's absolutely right that we have that focus on it.

We've got the first item then, that action is working with the sector itself, engagement with operators, demonstrating what good looks like in terms of pay, conditions, flexible working environment, career path, incentives to join the sector. I think there's something about skills for growth, what from a business point of view in a growth sector we're wanting, what does that look like. I think that's something about what does a work/life balance look like in the modern day to promote that as a career and work with the sector on that.

That then feeds into what is a second exercise, is that regular marketing exercise, promoting careers and courses. Often it will be one-off, that's what happened in my area and they did get a take-up. I do think there's a premium on young people, so it might not always be young people, it might be people who just want to do something different.

I think there's something around that action as well. Then we've got the pitch on the response to the draft Just Transition Plan for transport that's there. We're going to share the bus taskforce's working, because that would have helped in terms of helping post that area. I think there's something about a mindset of skills for growth that we see transport as a growth sector within the South of Scotland, so therefore it's worth having and applying for a career in it and how does it then connect everything else as well. Have I missed something, or is that reasonably okay? Thank you very much.

John Curry

Thank you Cabinet Secretary, that's brought us to the end of the four theme discussions. Thank you all for your contributions, it's been useful and dynamic conversations, thank you very much. Thanks Cabinet Secretary, Fiona, for topping and tailing with the actions at the end. You’ve done quite a lot of heavy lifting there so thank you and I'll pass back over to you.

Fiona Hyslop

Thank you very much. I feel very guilty, this is where I feel guilty, I'm chairing this as well as leading on transport, so please bear with me. I hope that's been okay for you. The next item we go to is the forward look and I think the last few conventions have discussed the grand challenges as identified by the Regional Economic Partnership, housing, skills and transport. I hope with my last comments it showed actually you're showing how choosing those and really pushing those can make a real difference.

We're going to have an update on the skills work at the autumn convention. But I think there's an opportunity for members' thoughts about how to approach the agendas for the future convention. Also there's a question here which is quite provocative, I think, in terms of the steering brief about should we continue with the grand challenges or should we focus in on more specific nuanced issues.

I think that is a bit of a provocation because actually the whole point of being focused is that actually you get into the detail of what you need to do to make a difference. Interested in your thoughts on that and Judith, you're going to chair the session, the discussion and take us to where we need to get to for the autumn convention.

Judith Young

Thanks very much, Cabinet Secretary. I think just to open it up really for suggestions from the floor, this is very much your convention. The purpose of the convention, the role of government here is to bring together that convening power and actually facilitate that. But it's very much for the convention members to set the agendas.

As Cabinet Secretary has said, we have had a focus over the last three conventions on those grand challenges. We've looked to the REP to set the direction for CoSS. Is that something we wish to continue? Are we going to cycle back round to those grand challenges again? We've already identified that skills needs to come back and if we look at the actions tracker that we had from the last convention, a couple of actions on there around skills that we will look at again in some depth in the next convention. But is there another, more substantial item that we wish to discuss? It's really just to open it up to the floor to see who would like to kick off with suggestions. I can see some discussion over there too.

Gail Macgregor

Yes, we have our three overarching areas that are really challenging for us, but one thing that I'm very concerned about is that we agreed our housing action plan and it was two years, 10 priorities. We're nearly a year into that and I think we need to have a slightly deeper dive into that housing. We've had councils declare housing emergencies since then, Scottish Government have as well. Sometimes it still doesn't feel much of an emergency to me.

I think having a bit of a deeper dive into that housing action plan, how we're delivering rural housing and the challenges and looking to see what needs unlocking, what government can help us with - because that's the purpose of this forum as well, is that we have government at the table, particularly in relation to funding or policy. Russell and I deal with a lot of regulatory stuff which can bog it down, so I think we probably need to have a fairly serious conversation around delivery of rural housing, because there's no question that that is one of the biggest issues that we're tackling.

Russell Griggs

It would be and given what we do at CoSS has always come from the Regional Economic Partnership - and we've got a Regional Economic Partnership meeting 25 March, so it might be worth us doing it. I think the point you make, Cabinet Secretary, is a really good one. Subjects can get very esoteric, with not a lot of substance to them. Maybe what we need to do - and I'll probably get hit by the lady sitting behind me - is perhaps, Gail, we should discuss it, Ewan, maybe at our first meeting next year, to look at what is the thing. Because you're right, we're doing very well on the housing action plan, we need to come back and do that.

Judith, without wishing to not get to an answer, I think one of the successes of CoSS has been it's come on the back of the Regional Economic Partnership and the Regional Economic Strategy, then what we've got to do, so maybe we need to go away and have a think about it. As I say, I'm sure we haven't not thought about it, which is kind of what we've done, but I think I'd like to go through this discussion with the REP, Ewan, since you're chairing it, would you be okay with that? Okay.

Judith Young

I think from a CoSS secretariat point of view, certainly we're very much driven by yourselves, so we're open to that and we may need to think about the sequencing of meetings versus REP meetings. It's obviously quite difficult to always get those things to be perfectly lined up. But we do obviously have the capacity to have a slightly more extended meeting as well. This has been one of the shorter conventions that we've had, but if we're going to cover skills and potentially housing, then we can certainly look at how we mix those two things together.

Russell Griggs

Can I just add, Cabinet Secretary, it would be really good if you and Kate, once you’ve had a wee think about this, are there things that you would like to discuss at these meetings as well? Sorry, Euan.

Euan Jardine

Thanks, I was just looking back at my diary and I'm sure CoSS lasted longer than an afternoon and I was right, it was a whole day. I think that's important about it, so I think housing is a key area and I do think we need to talk about that, because it does feel like two years ago since we last talked about housing and we've had our plans. So I think we push that, but if it's extended there is opportunity to squeeze in other things we can discuss at the REP. But I think housing should be the key for the next one.

Russell Griggs

It should be and I'll come back to the point I think you guys should think about, of the specific things that you want to discuss out of what you’ve seen in the past that we're doing. We're in an area that lives on land, you're going to have so many bits of land legislation coming through the parliament in the next 18 months, two years. But at some point we should be talking about that as well.

Judith Young

That's certainly something we can take away and we can cast round our colleagues internally as well, to see if there are things that they could actually use this forum to facilitate. Very happy to take that away and to listen to the suggestions of the REP. Obviously we've got the senior officers group which is really the kind of driving force of the convention. I'm not quite sure at the moment when the next senior officers group is, I don't think that's been set, but we'll make sure that that's after the next REP meeting. We will also do a bit of a process internally of casting back and seeing if any colleagues have anything that they would like to use the convention to achieve. Is there anything else that anybody wanted to throw into the mix, or have we got enough there?

Fiona Hyslop

Okay, so that's a view then that it probably sounds like a moment in time to just reflect where you are and how do you get the most out having everyone round this table. It needs to be strategic, bear in mind if you think about that discussion we've just had on transport workforce, it got quite in the weeds, but there also then was that second point about actually what are the key enablers and workforce is one of the key ones on that. But to be careful that where we go is always strategic and therefore, there's a bit about forward planning by government, what are the things on the horizon that are coming through.

I referenced issues round even land ownership by transport companies, Scottish Rail Holdings, where are they, what does that mean? I think probably on housing is your choice. There is an issue about where and when, it comes back to that Reston question, what unlocks the housebuilding there, et cetera, so there's a bit of an unlocking aspect. But I will take - I have an opportunity tomorrow morning to speak to Kate Forbes briefly around Cabinet, so I'll make sure that she gets a quick readout from me, but also that challenge about what are the key things from government that we can reflect back on.

I think in terms of I recall I did - I was talking, I think, to Russell, I did attend a virtual SOCE convention right at the beginning, it must have been in 2019, it must have been 2020, I suspect and it was virtual. It was 2020, that was my last convention, so it's lovely to be back after five years. But it had by necessity to be virtual, but it was spread over different sections, so it did allow you to get into different sections. I think the other thing that strikes me is you’ve got such experience in this room that you probably all know and see each other quite frequently, but some of you might not do that as much as others.

Having that opportunity between times, having a coffee break or start late morning, have a session and then have lunch to allow that work that actually can happen through networking, is probably as invaluable for the convention. That's obviously what we all missed in the times of virtual meetings all the time and the creativity of picking things up from conversations is something that we need to rediscover, I think, in terms of how we work and operate and that's what is the premium of physically bringing all of you together. I think that's one of them that we shouldn’t lose, so that might be something that could be recommended. Is that okay from the agenda point of view? Is that all right?

Okay, so the development of the agenda, the REP will meet first, followed by the senior officers group and then you'll find a way forward. I'll also make sure that Kate Forbes understands, DFM knows that that's what you're looking at. In terms of my reflections, I will just say I think physically bringing everyone together is hugely important, so do have a chance to follow up ScotRail and Borders buses, the Borders Council. That's a really interesting conversation to fly on the wall, but I'm sure it will be done in a good and constructive way.

But that's where partnerships can work, it's the strategic thinking of you all together, so the thought that goes into the paper and a big thank you for producing the papers, all those that were involved. Even though I work with transport obviously on a daily basis, getting that insight to what's happening particularly on data and the work that's happened there, it also reflects that I think there's a lot of things happening nationally with Transport Scotland and our lines of communication, our RTPs are going to be increasingly important.

The challenge I've got actually as Transport Secretary is the relationship between councils and RTPs and the different powers and the different positions that different RTPs have. Therefore, the upweighting of some councils compared to others in terms of what they do.

I think the final reflection is how special the South of Scotland is. There's something around that confidence about the growth agenda of what's possible here. I definitely think the future is and can be the South of Scotland. You’ve got assets that nobody else has and if you actually - as I said, we're going to bottle Euan or we're going to put him on the border to help sell as people come across the border. But there's so much in that and I think there's something when you’ve got that national perspective, if other parts of the country just had that, there's a real resilience and can-do about the South of Scotland, because you can't and haven't been able to rely on other people. You get on and do things and you're solution-focused.

I think that partnership, you have got that capacity, I think, particularly that synergy between the both areas, the Dumfries and Galloway area and the Borders Council area and the benefit honestly, I can see the benefit of the South of Scotland Enterprise. I knew what it was like before, then seeing that addition as well, you’ve got other partners here from education and skills development. Use that talent and use the time you’ve got together and I just thank you very much for your forbearance for me trying to chair and contribute at the same time.

Judith Young

Can I just come in with… just to say that in the spirit of everybody being brought together, we are being asked if people could just remain seated so that we could get a photo of everybody attending the convention. If we could just do that before everybody gathers their things, that would be really helpful.

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