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Perhaps I can help by telling you what the City of Edinburgh Council and Glasgow City Council have said about the matter. In its city mobility plan, the City of Edinburgh Council says that it has committed to using

“a range of demand management tools, such as timing windows and access restrictions, to manage these vehicle movements.”

It notes that

“Demand management tools are widely used across the city, for example, through the imposition of parking restrictions and the operation of bus lanes.”

The council has indicated that

“One of the tools that could be explored to support demand management is a ‘pay as you drive’ scheme”

to reduce the number of cars in the city and to generate revenue

“to improve sustainable travel modes.”

That does not mean that the council is going to do that, but it wants to have the powers to do it. It has checked the legislation and regulations that have existed since 2001.

In Glasgow City Council’s city government budget proposals for 2024 to 2027, it is noted that

“A project team will also be formed to progress business cases to utilise current and upcoming powers from the Scottish Government that have the potential to generate additional revenue for the city, including but not limited to the Transient Visitor Levy, Congestion Charging and the Workplace Parking Levy.”

Those powers already exist—the transient visitor levy already exists, for example, but the council needs to decide how to use it.

It is a situation in which local authorities—obviously, Glasgow and Edinburgh are the biggest cities in Scotland—can decide what they want to do and see whether they already have sufficient powers to do what they want to do.

Yes, and we should remember that two councils have set targets of a 30 per cent reduction rather than a 20 per cent reduction.

We have seen substantial change in some parts of the country. For example, in the city of London, there are measures in place that have been controversial, but which have been successful in reducing car use. I think that London has managed to achieve a reduction of about 19 per cent. That is the type of activity that would be required across Scotland, and, as I said, there is a difference between doing things in a city and doing things in rural areas.

I am not here to disagree with the Auditor General’s comments; I am not here to contradict what he said in any way. However, as far as his comment about moving away from delivering the target is concerned, I read that—I might have been incorrect in doing so—as being more about the policy intention as opposed to the practical data, but I might have misread the way in which the report was produced.

We believe in using experts.

Do you want to say anything on that, Alison?

I am thinking about how to explain this.

The active travel funding has changed, which is reflected in the report. More of the funding now goes to local authorities, in particular at tier 1 through the active travel infrastructure fund, which is the bedrock of the active travel delivery system. There is also tier 2 funding. In March, we published the “Active Travel Infrastructure Investment Report 2023-24” on what was produced when. Your concern about data on the active travel side in particular will be reflected in that report, so we can send it to you. It was produced subsequently to the publication of the Auditor General’s report.

With regard to the impact, it has been interesting to see what is happening with the south city way. We are already seeing data coming from the Edinburgh routes, and from other areas; we will capture more data as things progress. People have to have the confidence to use those routes more—just because we build something, that does not mean that immediately, on day 1, we will get people using it. The usage builds up over time, although it is very encouraging to see the information on the Glasgow south city way, as has been mentioned.

There has already been more data coming through since the Auditor General’s report was published. I can send the active travel report that I mentioned to the committee. We will continue to get that data, because I agree with you—it is easier for me to argue for funding if I have the evidence of the change. That is important.

We also see that in Aberdeen, which was a good example that you used with regard to the increase in patronage by bus users, although Aberdeen is obviously facing challenges in respect of differing interpretations as to the impacts. We want to show evidence that more people are more prepared to use public transport.

There is also the idea of how we measure accessibility and reliability. For the major shift that we have talked about, reliability will make a difference. Again, the changes that we are trying to make in that respect include providing more flexibility. In some areas, especially those that do not have the same frequency of bus services that the cities have, whether people are able to know when the next bus is coming will make a difference as to whether they use the service. We are making part of the bus infrastructure funding that we are providing available for that type of use, for example.

That might be a committee recommendation.

Oh, I am sorry. Did I get that wrong? I am not feeling 100 per cent today, as you might have gathered. My apologies, convener.

That is a very important matter. With regard to the Scottish Collaboration of Transport Specialists, we are working with Transport Scotland colleagues, and I will bring them in if they want to add anything. There are different products available, so we are trying to identify the best products and the planning processes to streamline the approach in order that local authorities can share that experience. There is an issue with regard to home charging and the different costs of that, and some issues are reserved. I want to reassure you that we need solutions not just for driveways but for other areas, too.

More commercial approaches have also developed. For example, in East Lothian I have seen that they have converted defunct telecoms cabinets in on-street parking areas where there are no driveways. There is quite a lot going on in that regard. The Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee regularly takes an interest in and reports on that.

We are improving public transport. That is what Edinburgh and Glasgow councils want to do, which is why they are taking iterative steps. They will do things only when they know that they have the public transport that will help to support those changes.

I think that Mr Simpson has been in Parliament long enough, as have other committee members, to know that if we do not have a target, it will be demanded that we have one. In addition, targets are useful in evidencing progress. Audit Scotland would not be able to measure how good, bad or indifferent we have been if we did not have targets.

I think that you ask a genuine question—I am not trying to diminish it. I am just saying that having something that we know that we are trying to achieve is more realistic. We can also see how it fits in with the wider climate change agenda, which is why the advice that we expect to receive in May from the UK Climate Change Committee will be helpful; it will set the context for where we are now and what we have to do.

Across a lot of policy areas, we get attacked if we have targets that we do not reach, and then we get attacked for not having targets where we have not set them because we want to take people with us on the policy. Such is life and the challenges of Government and politics, as you know.