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The next item is a round-table discussion on the Scottish Government’s proposed national outcomes, which form part of the national performance framework. I welcome to the meeting Allan Faulds, who is a senior policy officer with the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland; Dr Shoba John, who is head of Obesity Action Scotland; Carmen Martinez, who is policy and engagement lead at the Scottish Women’s Budget Group; Adam Boey, who is the business planning and performance manager at Stirling Council; and Sarah Latto, who is a senior policy officer at Volunteer Scotland.
I intend to allow up to 90 minutes for this evidence session. As with the previous panel, if witnesses want to be brought into the discussion at any point, please indicate that to the clerks and I will call you.
I move straight to questions. The first is for Dr Shoba John and it regards the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015. You said in your submission that Obesity Action Scotland is
“concerned that there is no mention of making any amendments to the Act as it reads currently. The current wording of the Act states that public authorities are required to have regard to the National Outcomes. However, we feel this is weak and needs to be strengthened to ensure the legislation is effective”.
Will you expand on that?
Thank you for inviting us. We appreciate the fact that the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 is there as an implementation tool for the framework. We have a concern about the current language in the bill, which suggests that local authorities could consider the national outcomes when making decisions. We would rather see much stronger and clearer language that suggests that they meet the national outcomes in their local interventions.
Do other witnesses have anything to say about that? Adam Boey, in your submission you say that
“A framework should have structure”
and that
“there is no framework—the circular presentation of national outcomes only suggests that all outcomes are equally important, and that some arbitrary performance measures are being associated to them.”
11:00
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you today.
What we are doing at Stirling Council is very much focused on outcomes and building the delivery mechanisms to achieve those outcomes through what is called outcomes-based accountability. That methodology, which has been around for a while in different forms, allows us to focus on delivering outcomes every day by building in a direct connection with the programmes and activity that the council officers undertake, and embedding and codifying that connectivity in the council’s strategic approach.
For example, with regard to Dr John’s observation about the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015, we have a specific outcome on communities that relates to that act. The council has 10 outcomes and priorities that it needs to achieve within a particular timeframe, one of which is about building thriving communities and embedding the 2015 act in the council’s strategic objectives.
As a structure, the NPF is fantastic. It is a national framework that provides a national approach for doing things together, but I think that it lacks a delivery mechanism. It sets out the outcomes for everyone to achieve, but it does not say how that will be done.
Let us look at the changes that have been proposed. Adam, you said in your submission that you disagree with care being added as a new outcome, because it is
“already covered in ‘Health’ where social care is specifically mentioned—the articulation of the health outcome is better, in terms of a specific impact or result we want to achieve.”
One thing that I have observed in setting strategic priorities in government is that there is a natural journey towards increasing the number of priorities: this is a case in point. In order to focus attention, it should be the other way round—we should be decreasing the number of priorities that any organisation or group has. We already have a focus on health and social care, and that is reflected in my comment in the submission.
You disagree, Sarah. You said:
“We welcome that this new outcome reflects the need to prioritise social care in Scotland”.
Absolutely. The new outcome reflects the fact that care has often been a bit of a poor relation to health. It also reflects the fact that the Scottish Government is prioritising care. I come at this from a volunteering perspective. We welcome the priority focus on care more broadly, while recognising that, from a volunteering standpoint, there is a lot more resource and support for health than there is for care.
I tend to agree with Sarah Latto. I am sorry—I should have thanked the committee for having us here. The Scottish Women’s Budget Group agrees with the new national outcome on care for precisely the same reasons. There is usually more focus on health and less on social care. The previous witnesses talked about the challenges with social care in different parts of Scotland; I think that having the new national outcome will definitely help with implementation and will lead to better outcomes for people in Scotland.
In addition, we know that care and the care economy are very important for women. More women tend to be employed in care, so the new outcome would also help to achieve greater equality between women and men in Scotland.
Good morning. We strongly support the proposed new national outcome on care, and we disagree quite strongly with the idea that care is already covered sufficiently under health because, as Carmen and Sarah have touched on, care goes far beyond just health and social care. Social care is very important, but the new outcome on care would include, for example, family care.
I made points similar to Carmen’s a couple of weeks ago to the committee. Such care is provided overwhelmingly by women, so having more recognition for care is very important—not just in the limited sense of direct provision of social care, but in the broader sense of how care impacts on all aspects of our society. As we said in our submission, we are very pleased to see an outcome on care being included in the proposals.
I want to come back to what Carmen and Allan said. I think that a lot of us are in agreement that a care outcome is a good thing to add, but is there a danger of having too many outcomes? Are we aiming at too many things? Should we drop something else?
I read the papers for today, and I saw that that was part of the conversation two weeks ago. Will having fewer outcomes help, or will they become too blurry or too top line to achieve what we want to achieve for people? I do not think that there is an issue with having 12 national outcomes. That is fewer than the number of sustainable development goals, and it will give us a pathway to work towards achieving those.
There are 17 sustainable development goals and we are looking for greater alignment with them, so I completely agree with Carmen that greater clarity with more outcomes will ensure that more issues are given the attention that they need. That relates to the fact that care was previously lumped in with health but, actually, care is much more broad than just health. It speaks to that point.
Allan Faulds, you say in your submission that you feel that inequality has not been consistently considered across the national outcomes.
Yes. It is more about threading inequality appropriately through all the outcomes. We said that we were quite pleased to see that, for example, social security will be given explicit recognition as a route out of poverty, which is obviously very important in addressing inequalities.
A point that we have often made, not just on this front but in a range of areas, is about our not necessarily properly threading human rights through everything that we do. We talk quite a big game on human rights in Scotland, but we often view them as a separate high-level thing rather than as being about the fact that people have a right to food, a right to housing and a right to health. We are not necessarily embedding a human rights-based approach throughout all the outcomes; therefore, we are not necessarily tackling inequalities as best we could.
One of the other—I have lost my train of thought. I apologise. This is my first evidence session after six days off, so my brain is not working.
Okay, thank you. Carmen Martinez, you have talked about how the national outcomes need to drive spending and/or decision making in relation to equality.
Yes. The fact that we need better alignment between policy objectives and budgets is a recurring point that the Scottish Women’s Budget Group makes. When budgets become a constraint, we need better analysis to see how resources can be spent in the best way or how we can avoid increasing inequalities.
We tend to agree with Allan Faulds. Engender’s submission said that it would have liked decreasing inequalities to be part of the national performance framework’s purpose. I want to take the opportunity to say that we agree with that, as well.
Adam Boey, although people might not necessarily agree with Stirling Council with regard to care, you seem to be on the same page with regard to inequality. You have said there is not enough in the NPF on inequality.
I would echo that. Health inequalities are very much part of what we are trying to understand in Stirling and across the local government landscape.
On care, in the Clackmannanshire and Stirling health and social care partnership, we are focusing on early intervention and prevention, which absolutely includes carers as part of that landscape. I acknowledge that, in this country, caring and unpaid carers are an underrecognised support mechanism for Government.
There seems to be a bit of divergence in the evidence that has been presented to us on the removal of economic growth and productivity from the core purpose of the NPF. I would like to start by hearing some reflections on that, and will perhaps then come back in with other questions on it, if that is okay.
I understand that the word “innovative”, specifically, has been removed.
We are one of the organisations that have said that they are happy with the new purpose, which does not mention the economy. That is the case for three reasons. First, economic growth sometimes does not translate to income distribution, which can have an impact on inequalities, or it does not help to reduce poverty.
Secondly, a focus on economic growth does not take into consideration impacts on the environment such as pollution and so on, which can impact on the wellbeing of citizens.
Thirdly, unpaid work, which is usually carried out by women, is not taken into consideration in any accounting mechanisms.
We think that removing reference to “economic growth” from the purpose and focusing on the wellbeing of citizens could also support the economy, but where we place the importance is not on the economy but on the citizens.
I very much agree with Carmen. We are in favour of the new purpose, as well. Volunteer Scotland is a member of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance Scotland, and we strongly believe that wellbeing should be the totem pole around which we hang all policy.
We suggested that a useful amendment that could be made to the purpose would be for it to have a focus on collective responsibility. That relates to the point about the purpose of the national performance framework. We think that it would be useful for the purpose to recognise that this is about everyone having a collective shared vision for the future of Scotland.
We support the change in focus, as well. Again, that touches on a point that we made in our pre-budget scrutiny evidence the other week about a move away from having a narrow focus on the economy and economic growth. It often feels as though economic growth is being advocated for its own sake rather than for a purpose.
We might come on to this issue a bit later, but there seems to be an interesting mismatch. The other week, we complained about the fact that the focus on wellbeing appears to have got a bit lost with the change in First Minister. There has been a move away from having a cabinet secretary whose portfolio included the wellbeing economy to a more traditional view of the economy. However, in this case, we are praising the Scottish Government for having a focus on the wellbeing economy. That emphasises the fact that there is a disconnect. Why is the Government moving away from a wellbeing economy in one area, having previously moved further in that direction, while moving further towards a wellbeing economy in a different area?
If we are serious about taking an approach that is focused on more traditional economic growth, surely we should do that in every area, which would include the purpose of the national performance framework. Alternatively, if we are serious about having a wellbeing economy, we should do that in every area—in other words, not just in the framing of the NPF, but in the Scottish Government’s framing of its and the First Minister’s priorities. There almost seems to be a disconnect, whereby different parts of Government are going in different directions, which is slightly confusing.
Why would any Government want economic growth for its own sake? Is the purpose of economic growth not to generate wealth to invest and spend on services?
That is what people would generally present economic growth as being for. That would be people’s perception, but on the ground it does not necessarily feel as though that is the impact of economic growth. Often, that growth is distributed very unevenly. Over the past 15 years—for my entire adult life—we have not had much in the way of economic growth that has been felt by ordinary people on the ground, yet in our society, in Scotland, the wider UK and the wider world, the wealthiest have gotten even wealthier over that time. The reason why we are resistant to talking about economic growth in and of itself is that it often feels as though that growth is concentrated among those who already have the most, rather than those who have the least.
Growth and distribution are not necessarily the same thing.
Allan Faulds has touched on a point that I want to explore, which is the divergence in the Government’s position. We are told that economic growth is one of the Government’s and the First Minister’s key priorities, yet, at the same time, reference to economic growth has been removed from the document that we have in front of us.
I wonder whether that relates to some of the other issues that have been raised in evidence. The ALLIANCE’s submission says that there is an implementation gap between the policy objectives and reality. When the Government is pulling in one direction and the rhetoric is going in another, that makes me wonder what the purpose is. What Adam Boey described was a form of organisational discipline for the bureaucracy, so that it can drive towards a purpose, but if there is a mismatch between those two forms of language, is that not a core problem? Should there not be coherence across those areas?
Before I bring in Allan Faulds, I will let in Shoba John, who has been waiting for a while now.
11:15
I would look at that question from the point of view of the proposed wellbeing economy and fair work outcome. Wellbeing is mentioned several times in the framework, but it is not backed by the indicators. I also point out that the Scottish Government has developed the wellbeing economy monitor, which has very good measures for, among other things, preventable deaths, poverty and inequality. That needs to be incorporated into the national performance framework.
We also have a particular concern about the framing of the proposed wellbeing economy and fair work outcome. With the addition of industry and businesses to that, I should say that we feel that several businesses and the business interest itself could be contributing to ill health, which works against the principle of the wellbeing of the community and the country as a whole.
To go back to some of Michael Marra’s points, that brings us back to what witnesses were saying on this topic a couple of weeks ago when they highlighted the fact that the programme for government 2024-25 did not include any reference to the national performance framework. There is absolutely no mention of the framework or the national outcomes in it. Obviously, we have had a change of First Minister and there have been changes in Government; I think that the previous First Minister had three missions, and now there are four priorities.
At issue is not just the loss of the national performance framework from the programme for government. The NPF is also usually included in the budget, with the suggestion that it is supposed to be an overall guiding framework. However, if it is not being followed by every part of Government, starting from the First Minister in setting the programme for government, is it meaningfully informing the decisions that the Government is taking?
I go back to Shoba John’s very early point. If the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 is saying, “You should think about the national performance framework” instead of “You should be designing services or working on the basis that following the national performance framework is a duty”, it feels quite weak. I think that that was one of the points that we made in relation to the implementation gap—and not just on this front; indeed, I think that the committee has probably heard that term so many times now that it is sick of it. Many very good policies in Scotland are not necessarily given the teeth or the resourcing to bed in and make change on the ground, and we often find ourselves asking, “This is a really great policy, but where is it in the Government’s day-to-day actions?”
That is coming through quite a lot in the submissions. I call John Mason.
My question is exactly on that point. We have been talking about the national performance framework for a long time, but it frustrates me that many of us do not stand up and mention it in the chamber very much.
I suppose that these questions are specifically for Allan Faulds. Do you have any suggestions to offer? First of all, does the framework matter? If it lies underneath everything, do we need to talk about it? Secondly, if we do need to talk about it, how can we raise its profile more?
There is definitely a case to argue that the Government, if this is its framework, should at every opportunity—and at least in its formal strategy documents—be saying clearly, “We have this framework. This is how this strategy, this programme for government and this budget aligns with it.” As I have said, the budget usually does so. That does not necessarily then lead to the First Minister having to stand up in the chamber and saying what the Government is doing under this or that heading and outcome. I do not think that it need happen at that level, but we would want clear demonstration that the Government is using the framework. As you have said, the framework could be underlying everything, but if the Government is not saying so, it might not be. How do we know that it is being applied if the Government is not saying explicitly in the programme for government how the programme will meet the national outcomes?
As a supplementary to that, are you—is anyone else—aware of the situation in other countries? There seems to be the suggestion that the issue is talked about more in Wales or elsewhere. Why is that the case?
That is not something that I can personally speak to at this point.
I call Adam Boey, to be followed by Sarah Latto.
My job at Stirling Council is to ensure that it adopts the right performance management arrangements, both to meet its legislative responsibility and for its organisational operations, and I have done that by, in some ways, creating a layered approach. The first layer is the strategic layer. We have, as I have mentioned, 10 council priorities, and we have built that as the first layer that everyone sees and reports to with regard to performance. The second layer is operational, and the third is the LGBF.
With such an approach, we tie in the different layers for everyone in the organisation and help them to understand the resolution, which I think is really important. That not only creates structure, as I have talked about before, but it enforces the need for us as officers, councillors and members, and, indeed, for the public to continue that conversation about what we are delivering regularly in all three layers.
I see that you have suggested in your consultation response that there should be
“Hierarchical ownership and accountability for each national outcome”
and
“A single theory of change delivery model for each national outcome”.
Can you talk about that a wee bit before I let in Sarah Latto?
As I have mentioned, we have 10 priorities, which are outcomes-based, and that is how all our performance reporting to committees and our members is structured. First, we report on progress towards delivery of the 10 priorities, and then, as I have said, the other layers come into effect. Such an approach forces everyone to ask how delivery is going, and the issue is always on the agenda.
As for accountability, each of the 10 priorities is owned by a senior responsible officer, who has to speak to members and the public about the delivery of their priority. That accountability is really important. Underneath that, each of the priority owners has a delivery team, which includes me and other service-level experts, and those teams advise on how to deliver and manage performance. In other words, it is not just about looking backwards to report on performance but about managing performance going forward.
That is a key principle that I am trying to share with all my colleagues. Performance reporting is about looking back, while performance management is about looking forward. We are trying to manage performance, to look at the results that we are getting and to make decisions based on them—turning the curve, if you like.
That brings us back to the core purpose of the national performance framework being, as we have suggested, collective responsibility. What we mean by that is that we need to recognise the importance of not only accountability but scrutiny. There is a role for Government in that, but equally there is a role for elected representatives in referring back to the national performance framework and the national outcomes on a fairly regular basis in order to hold the Government to account.
We, too, were frustrated that the programme for government made no reference to the national outcomes. Volunteer Scotland is the national centre for volunteering and the lead implementation partner for the volunteering action plan. The action plan led on from the volunteering for all outcomes framework, which was developed in 2019 and mapped to the national outcomes. The action plan basically drives all of our work as a publicly funded body, and we are now in the process of developing the monitoring and evaluation framework for that, which again refers back to the outcomes that were developed in 2019 and mapped to the national outcomes. That, for us, is an example of how the national outcomes should work. Even though we made that connection back in 2019, it is still leading and informing our implementation of the volunteering action plan.
I suppose that the same goes for procurement, too. When organisations such as ours are procured to deliver or support public services, the national outcomes should be their primary concern—that is, all such public activities should tie into the national outcomes. That should be their purpose, and it brings me back again to our point about collective responsibility.
We have been quite involved in the Social Justice and Social Security Committee’s on-going inquiry into third sector funding. Obviously, there is a lot of frustration about that issue, but one thing that has come out really loud and clear and frequently throughout the inquiry is that the third sector does not shy away from accountability. The third sector is probably one of the most scrutinised parts of public service delivery that you will find in Scotland, but it is receiving less and less resource. Therefore, we think that the national outcomes provide a really useful framework not only for accountability but for scrutiny.
We see the national performance framework as being very useful for holding the scope to help local authorities in their decision making. That is particularly the case for planning departments. Say that they are looking at development proposals for new junk food outlets, Right now, local authorities have levers on factors such as contribution to noise levels or to litter. However, authorities need strong levers, such as being able to consider obesity levels in the local area, the density of food and drink outlets in the area—the clustering of them—or the proximity of the proposed outlets to places where children and young people gather. The scope for some of those local levers to be included in the national outcomes, particularly the communities national outcome, is currently not reflected, and we would strongly call for their inclusion. Therefore, we see the framework as holding the scope to enable local authorities, through local levers, to implement the plans in a way that contributes towards wellbeing.
One area that I think is important, which Carmen Martinez highlighted, is how outcomes should drive spending and decision making. Will you expand on that a wee bit? I will then see what others have to say on that.
As Allan Faulds mentioned, we should hear more about the national outcomes when people are debating policy. Budgets underpin some of those policies and are key for their implementation as well. Having the national outcomes underpinned by strong indicators that also make reference to budgets would be important to measure the progress towards achieving the outcomes. Budgets are part of the policy-making process in order to deliver services and to ensure that policies are implemented. Budgets are a key part of that.
We need to get better not at making the case for but at reflecting the relationship between those policy objectives and how the budgets are backing up those policy objectives.
Allan Faulds, how do you think that the NPF should drive spending decisions?
We hope that there is more of a human rights thread throughout the outcomes—and there is a fair bit of that with the proposed inclusion of outcomes on health, education, housing, and equality and human rights.
Similar to points that we at the ALLIANCE often make about human rights budgeting and the importance of ensuring that those considerations are central to budgetary decisions, I suppose that the national outcomes could be one way of embedding a more human rights approach in our budget setting. That would involve ensuring that, when decisions are being taken, including in-year spending decisions, those should be justified on the basis of the national outcomes. Therefore, if Government takes a decision to increase spending in a certain area and to cut spending in another, that should be in line with the national outcome on X, Y or Z. You should be able to use the outcomes as guidelines for your reasons for spending. If Government finds itself making a spending decision but it cannot find a national outcome that the spend relates to, there is then a question of whether it should be taking a decision that does not relate to one of the core outcomes that it has committed to.
I will follow on from that. In your consultation response, Allan Faulds, you talk about how delivery against the NPF
“is reliant on the government dedicating sufficient resources to doing so.”
Are you arguing that there would have to be more resources in order to do that, or do you think that the present resources, given that we are quite constrained, could be better used to fit in with the national performance framework?
It is a mix of both. I do not want to go back over ground on the pre-budget scrutiny from the other week, but we think that there are opportunities to improve and increase the revenues that are available, particularly for local government. My favourite line is that I was only a year old—I am 34 now—when they brought in the council tax valuations, and we are still using them. A significant reform to local government financing could free up and increase the amount of resource that local government has, and make that resource more sustainable and predictable over the longer term. Therefore, that could improve the delivery of services. Although that would, I hope, result in increased revenues in the short term, that stability over the longer term would probably improve planning. I am not saying that there would need to be an increase in the level of taxation every year.
11:30On the back of some points that Lewis Ryder-Jones from Oxfam Scotland made previously, there are probably still things that we could do regarding how our income tax system is structured—perhaps with less tinkering compared with what the UK does. Do we take a more comprehensive review of how to build a distinctly Scottish system that is not constrained by just adding 1 or 2 per cent to the Scottish level? There is a mix.
If we are honest, there are lots of areas—particularly social care—that we think need much more resource, and we recognise that things are constrained. However, if the Government has committed to providing services on a human rights basis, it is also committed to identifying the resource to do so. Saying that we do not have enough is not good enough, and the question then becomes how to identify that additional resource. It is incumbent on the Government to say that, even if it does not have enough money, it has a duty to find that revenue.
I absolutely agree with what Allan Faulds has said. It is really important that spending should be aligned with the national performance framework. Otherwise, what is the point? To build on that, it is also about scrutiny when spending has taken place. What has been the return on investment? That is incredibly important.
I go back to the Social Justice and Social Security Committee’s inquiry into third sector funding. One thing that has been raised is that there appears to be a bit of a disconnect in spending decisions, particularly in the third sector, and in the impact that third sector bodies are making. For us, it is a matter of recognising that there is a feedback loop when spending decisions are made and services are procured. It is then a matter of thinking about the impact of that spending and, where there has been a really positive impact—which we can see with a lot of third sector organisations—it is about how we ensure that the service has increased funding or has been rolled out. We learn from that as the service is rolled out in different places.
However, the reality is that many organisations in the third sector have experienced a 20 to 30 per cent real-time decrease in funding over the past 10 years, despite the fact that the third sector has been lauded, particularly during the pandemic, for having had a considerable social impact and having contributed to a lot of the national outcomes.
For us, it is about spend and follow-up. Has there been a return on investment? If there has not been a return on investment, what is the follow-through?
The proposed national outcome on care is a concrete example of how we could see the national outcomes supporting or driving spending. We would hope that that national outcome will drive spending and that there will be less news in March or April when local authorities are passing their budgets and we suddenly start seeing headlines about the number of cuts affecting social care services across local authorities. That would be a mechanism for scrutinising whether budgets are working towards supporting the national outcomes and, concretely, the one on care.
One thing that occurs to me about spending is that we probably do not know how much it costs to achieve outcomes. We have tried to address that in local government, and I go back to the methodology that is used in Stirling, which is outcomes-based accountability.
Outcomes-based accountability allows us to draw upon a couple of tools. One is the development of a theory-of-change model or logic model. A logic model is a conceptual understanding about what actions we need to take to achieve outcomes. In Stirling, we have used that to structure our delivery mechanism so that we understand specifically what actions contribute towards the achievement of our outcomes. The second maturation of that process is to account for and cost all those activities, so that we know how much those outcomes cost the council to deliver.
I am thinking about the framework as a decision-making tool. Is it not the case that, in the absence of economic growth, there will be fewer resources as demand grows? If we do not grow the amount of finance that is available to the public sector through economic growth, we will have less available because of climate change, technological change, demographic change and increasing pressure on our public services. Does the framework therefore not become a tool to prioritise cuts? Rather than saying what works, it becomes a question of what does not work. Is it an effective tool to determine what does not work?
We have been discussing spending, and we propose looking at where the money comes from. The commercial drivers of health risks—tobacco, alcohol and unhealthy food, for instance—hold within themselves the potential for a health supplement that generates revenue to not only address the prevention of non-communicable diseases but supply healthy food and other care services, particularly in deprived communities. There is a solution within the problem. With Scotland’s devolved powers, we are able to have a health supplement. I wanted to respond by talking about the other side of spending, and about where the resources could come from. We have available potential that is within our means.
I will push back slightly on how the question was framed. It seemed to start with the member saying that we do not have economic growth. Perhaps this relates to some of the earlier discussion that we had about a shift in focus towards a wellbeing economy rather than simple economic growth. I do not think that anyone is suggesting that we should not have economic growth—the ALLIANCE certainly is not suggesting that. I do not want to be a bore by quoting the wellbeing economy and fair work outcome, but it says:
“We have a competitive entrepreneurial economy that is fair, green and growing, with thriving businesses and industry, and fair work for everyone.”
That encompasses the balance that we would like to have. We should have economic growth—which is important—and part of that growth means having a green economy and fair work.
We very much are not saying that there should be no economic growth and that we should then use the framework to prioritise cuts. Although I spoke earlier about whether the framework could be used to justify not spending on a particular area if it was not within the outcomes, I would be concerned if the Scottish Government were to end up using the framework as almost a defence for cuts. I find it hard to see how it could do so in a meaningful and rights-based way. There are outcomes on education and health and care, and there is no hierarchy—no one thing is above another—so I do not know how the framework could be used to guide cuts, because we would say, “Well, no, we need to provide both those things.”
To come back to my answer to John Mason’s question, if we are trying to achieve those things and do not currently have enough resource, we need to consider what we do to get the resource. That could be through reforms to revenue, but it could also be in how we approach fair economic growth.
My point—which Allan Faulds has kind of stolen—is that it is about sustainable economic growth and ensuring that when there is economic growth it generates public money that can be spent on public services. That is most important.
In the programme for government, the First Minister called these “unprecedented times”. At the moment, there is considerable inflation and a considerable squeeze on the public purse, but rather than suggest that the national performance framework be used to inform what is cut, it would be incredibly useful if it were about prioritisation. It is most important to ensure that we prioritise services that are ultimately working towards national outcomes.
I have said this before but, in relation to third sector finances, there is very good and strong evidence that the third sector consistently supports the delivery of public services and that there is a strong return on investment, yet we are not necessarily seeing the same investment in the third sector from the public sector. How that decision has been made is a bit baffling for some in the third sector. It makes us ask ourselves why we are working so hard to deliver such great outcomes when we are not getting the investment. We keep doing it because we are supporting people who need those services most.
Surely, if we prioritise based on the national outcomes, that suggests that funding in other areas will be reduced. Is that analysis correct when it comes to having a fixed or fairly limited budget?
That is the reality. Decisions have to be made, and we have heard multiple ministers talk about having to make difficult decisions. However, it is about prioritising the things that will have the largest impact.
My question is on that point. Does the national performance framework help us in that regard? Allan Faulds has just said that it does not help us to prioritise cuts, because there is no hierarchy in it. Is the same not true of spending? It does not really help us to prioritise spending, because there is no hierarchy.
I have mentioned dualling the A9 and building houses. If you are choosing between the two, the national performance framework does not help us, because both can fit somewhere in the national performance framework, can they not?
The flaw with the national performance framework is that there is no implementation plan. We have quite high-level national outcomes, which are useful in providing a steer, but the fact that we do not have an implementation plan that is tied to the national outcomes makes prioritisation very difficult.
That goes back to the fact that we have a programme for government that is not explicitly aligned to the national outcomes, which makes it quite difficult to see the connection between decisions that the Government has made for the current year and the national outcomes as they stand.
I agree with Sarah Latto: an implementation plan is key. There is no use in having performance information if you cannot or do not act on it. As I said, performance reporting looks backwards. We need to embrace performance management, which looks forwards. We need to use the data and make new decisions that are based on that data and on what we are seeing.
I go back to the purpose of the framework, which is to achieve wellbeing for people in Scotland now and in the future. If we think about that in terms of budget constraints, cuts and all those things, that is not very exciting, because the framework should push us to achieve more. We could think about what the risks are for wellbeing. The national outcomes are not prioritised, but if we do not achieve improved wellbeing or we go backwards, what is the cost of that to our economy? If people get sicker, how will that impact on levels of unpaid care? If people are unable to participate in the workforce due to a lack of social infrastructure, how will that impact on the labour market, for example, and on the economy?
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has been doing quite a lot of work on gender equality and closing gender gaps to help to close fiscal gaps. Canada, for example, has improved accessibility and affordability of childcare to bring more women into the labour market, which supports growth. We should look at that, but it is up to us how we do that and the perspective that we take. However, not increasing wellbeing could have costs, adding to budget pressures.
I emphasise that the ALLIANCE does not have a position on dualling the A9, but that has been given as an example, so I will use it as a thought experiment. Dualling the A9 and housing could both be said to fit the national outcomes and the national performance framework, but could the framework be used to prioritise between the two policies?
If you are talking about a significant road dualling project, you might query whether that is in line with a green and growing economy and with the national outcome on the environment, including protecting the environment. You might also question whether it is in line with the international outcome, which recognises that we are connected globally—anything that we do in this country that might have a climate impact has an international impact.
I have noted three national outcomes that are relevant. I reiterate that this is a thought experiment; I am not taking a position here. You might say that, if you are prioritising spending, A9 dualling does not necessarily meet those outcomes. However, if you are talking about housing—people living in safe quality housing and having connected communities—you could argue that housing matches more of the national outcomes and does not have any negatives, if that makes sense.
11:45In that case, you could probably say that, with regard to capital spending, if the choice on the table was between a road-building project or a housing project—I am not saying that that is the choice on the table—you would do the housing project, because it would be more in line with the national outcomes.
As I said, that is a thought experiment. That is my reading of the outcomes and I am not taking a position. I just spoke about that because it was the example that was given.
Your neutrality is noted, Allan.
I want to move on to the United Nations sustainable development goals. In its review document, the Scottish Government reports that it heard from stakeholders that alignment with those UN goals could be improved. Carmen, in your submission, you say that
“in some respects, the proposed National Outcomes are less ambitious than the UN SDGs. For example, SDG1 seeks to achieve ‘no poverty’ by 2030, as opposed to ‘reduce poverty’ (National Outcome).”
You also reiterate concerns about
“the lack of focus on Gender Equality”
in the national outcomes.
We mentioned that there are differences in the national outcomes, some of which might be due to the specific context in Scotland. For example, there is a national outcome on housing, which might be due to different council areas declaring a housing emergency. However, we noted that there is what seems to be a lack of ambition, as demonstrated by the difference between the UN sustainable development goal to achieve no poverty and the Scottish national outcome, which is to reduce poverty. In this case, semantics are important.
Another issue is that the sustainable development goals include a goal to reduce inequalities—to go back to Allan Fauld’s point—a goal related to gender equality and a goal related to peace, justice and strong institutions, but those three sustainable development goals have been amalgamated in the national outcome on equality and human rights. That is why we say that the national outcomes are less ambitious than the sustainable development goals. Alongside other women’s organisations in Scotland, we would have liked to see a dedicated outcome on gender equality, which would potentially increase policy coherence across Scottish Government strategies.
Also, when we talk about eradicating child poverty and about the care economy, we are, in essence, talking about women. More than 80 per cent of care industry jobs are held by women. It is usually women who work part time after having children and fill in all those gaps. We want to make the point that that has an impact on financial equality for women. Angela O’Hagan also made a point about the lack of focus on gender equality. She said that we can see further
“evaporation of gender in the framing of equalities”,
so having something specific about gender would have been welcome.
I am happy for people to come in on any issue with regard to the UN sustainable development goals, but we have kicked off with the lack of ambition and the focus on gender inequality.
I also want to come in on the point about the goal to achieve no poverty. In our response, we noted the exact same issue of the difference in ambition of the sustainable development goals and the national outcomes, with the SDG being to have “no poverty”. I go back to some of the points that we discussed earlier about the slight misalignment between different things across the Government.
One of the First Minister’s four priorities is to eradicate child poverty, which is a much more ambitious statement than an aim to simply reduce child poverty. Everyone in this room, regardless of party or organisation, would want to get down to no poverty. However, another point that we made in our response is that there might be recognition of the Government being realistic in its ambitions. One thing that we have been thinking about more recently is that we often talk about the powers of this Parliament and the Government as being almost unlimited, which is obviously not quite the case—
Not quite.
I do not want to open that can of worms, but it is a simple fact that devolution is, by its nature, limited. People will have different views on whether the limitations are good or bad. However, those powers are limited, and we risk undermining trust in the Parliament, the Government and devolution itself if we say that this Parliament can eradicate poverty—that it can get poverty down to zero. It cannot, because many of the levers to achieve that, in particular around social security—we made this point explicitly in our response—are held at UK Government level. It is about the two Governments working together to achieve those things. By definition, the Scottish Government’s national performance framework cannot bind the UK Government.
Yes, we would like to see more ambition, but perhaps we sometimes need less ambition and more recognition of the genuine limitations of devolution, rather than overpromising and then perpetuating the implementation gap that we have highlighted at various points.
No one has suggested that they want to come in. Sarah, I volunteer you at this point, because you talked about how
“Volunteering is also recognised by the UN as a key driver in global delivery of the Sustainable Development Goals.”
Absolutely. The UN recognises the important role that volunteers play in the delivery of services, and that is reflected in the fact that we think that there should be a specific stand-alone indicator that looks at volunteer participation, in particular given the challenges that we have seen around volunteer participation in the past four or five years.
With regard to the relationship between two of the sustainable development goals, I agree with Carmen Martinez and Allan Faulds that there could be more ambition. Equally, it is important to recognise that we are talking about Scotland’s national outcomes and performance framework, and it is important that it reflects specific issues in Scotland. Social care has been identified as a particular challenge in Scotland and the UK more widely. In my previous role, I worked for Shelter Scotland, so I am also acutely aware of the challenges around housing. Speaking not necessarily from a Volunteer Scotland perspective but personally, I recognise the importance of housing being in the framework.
It is important to concentrate on the outcomes and whether they align with the sustainable development goals. However, it is more important to consider the indicators that sit below that. I am quite disappointed that, for a start, in the consultation, there were no specific questions about indicators. Volunteer Scotland took the opportunity, in our response, to talk specifically about indicators, recognising that there is no commitment to consult more widely again around specific indicators. That could be a real barrier and a challenge, and it could potentially exclude a lot of organisations and important stakeholders and prevent them from suggesting what would be a good measure of the national performance framework.
I come to Adam Boey. Sarah Latto touched on consultation. You were not very enamoured with the consultation, were you?
Yes—the conversation about indicators is interesting, because most people have a view about what should be measured. I come from a science background, so I suppose that what should be measured depends on what you are doing. That is an interesting side question.
On consultation, if the framework is going to be a collective thing, we need to involve the whole country in different ways that meet everyone’s needs. That should be not simply through a survey, for example, but through a lot of face-to-face engagement and community involvement, and a lot of engagement with different sectors. It is important to get everyone involved, and I do not see that there has been investment in that area.
I will bring in Shoba John.
We wanted to home in on the sustainable development goals in particular. We find that there is, overall, alignment between the national outcomes and the SDGs, but one area in which we could do better in the national outcomes pertains to SDG 17, which is popularly referred to as the partnership goal. It requires Governments to also address conflicts of interest.
From the discussions that we have had here about economic growth versus wellbeing, we can see that tensions arise when we try to implement the national outcomes. That is accentuated at the local level in particular, when local authorities have to take decisions and there are multiple stakeholders with diverse viewpoints and interests. National outcomes need to reflect that in recognising the conflicts of interest that may arise in the implementation, and by providing guidance and tools for local authorities to address that in their decision making.
There is a tension between the powers, the capabilities and the long-term stretch targets on eradicating poverty. We have universal agreement about that goal, but I worry that some of the statements undermine the credibility of institutions and lose the public’s trust.
Kids in Scotland are a year behind those in the rest of the UK in mathematics education. Would closing that gap not be a better goal? Would it not be more practical to say that we, as a set of institutions and a group of people, should do that? Would that not help us to achieve the other ends on eradicating poverty? Would it not be more intelligible to the public for us to be clearer about something that is doable and clearly within the Parliament’s responsibilities? Education has been fully devolved for the past 25 years, so there is no good reason why kids in Scotland should be a year behind those in the rest of the UK in maths education, is there?
That is an interesting point. Adam Boey talked about theories of change. There are very high-level outcomes, and there is no organisation in the third sector that is not familiar with outcomes-based reporting and delivery. However, from the perspective of a theory of change, there tends to be short-term, medium-term and long-term outcomes. The national outcomes are clearly long-term outcomes, but what you have suggested would be particularly useful as a medium-term or short-term outcome.
I hope so.
That takes us back to the point about the implementation plan. An implementation plan with clearer, more bite-sized milestones to work towards would make the national outcomes more tangible and much easier for organisations such as Volunteer Scotland and individuals such as me, as a policy officer, to interact with. I agree that high-level outcomes can feel distant and difficult to achieve. You find meaning only once you start breaking them down into more tangible ones.
To be fair, the proposed new education and learning outcome is a bit woolly. It says:
“We are well educated, have access to high quality learning throughout our lives?and are able to contribute to society”.
That is a bit difficult to measure.
The phrase “a bit difficult to measure” is useful, because we do not yet have the indicators that will be used to measure the outcomes. Obviously, we have the indicators for the current set of goals.
Sarah Latto said that Michael Marra’s suggestion is a good example of a specific short-term goal that we should achieve. We should have already achieved it because, obviously, it is not great to be in the position that he outlined. However, the national outcomes are a longer-term framework for aspirations as a society. As a society, our aspirations on education should be broader than just closing that gap, which would be an important specific target to meet in the short term while trying to achieve overarching goals.
There is no doubt that we need aspiration. That brings people along with us, but we need to be realistic. We have been talking about the different layers down from the national outcomes. There needs to be something in between that fills the gap and allows all stakeholders to do the stuff that will allow us to achieve our aspirations, have quick wins and show progress. That is important. That is the pragmatism and the reality of the doing.
Allan Faulds, human rights are important to the ALLIANCE. Will you expand on your view on the proposed new national outcome for equality and human rights?
We are very pleased to see that focus on equality and human rights and the recognition that those two things go hand in hand. One of the points that we have made—I kind of made it a moment ago—is that what we can say on the proposed functioning of that outcome is a little bit stunted by the fact that we do not yet know what the indicators will be.
We have been a bit dubious about the indicators under the human rights outcome in the current framework. They are more focused on civil and political rights, not on people’s social, economic and cultural rights. There is a bit of a mismatch. There is nothing about, for example, discrimination. One indicator could be whether people experience discrimination in their lives, because that is important to equality.
In the next stage, when the Government considers what indicators to use, we want to see a bit more teeth to what those indicators measure so that we can get a sense of what we mean by human rights. That should run throughout the entire framework.
12:00Adam Boey made a point earlier about how it is often difficult to identify how much spend you might need for something. If a national outcome on care was added, one of the indicators could be to identify unmet need. We know that there is a huge amount of unmet need in relation to social care, and we know that the provision of good-quality social care helps people to realise their human rights, such as their equal participation in society and, particularly for disabled people, their right to independent living. If there was an indicator that allowed us to identify unmet need, that would provide more data for us to understand the resources that we needed and where we needed to put them to deliver the national outcome on care, which would then deliver on people’s human rights.
There are opportunities, but, as I said, because we do not yet have the indicators for the outcomes, we are a bit limited in what we can say about how good or bad the human rights indicators will be.
Sarah Latto, you were nodding away there.
The point about indicators is really important. Under the communities outcome, there is a composite indicator for social capital, which has several different measures, including volunteer participation. However, it is quite opaque; it is not particularly clear. Basically, four different measures are put into a calculator somewhere and it spits out a quite meaningless number, which makes it difficult to fully understand the challenge that we face in community wellbeing.
We also see another challenge. Under the communities outcome, we see the number of community asset transfers as an outcome of good community wellbeing, but when we speak with volunteers on the ground, we find that a lot of them are feeling a huge amount of strain. The increased pressure that is being placed on volunteers is one of the reasons why volunteer participation is in decline, and the Government is reliant, for quite a number of its priorities, on the efforts of volunteers on the ground as well as community empowerment, local democracy and that type of thing.
The point that I am making is that indicators are important in providing a holistic picture and, without volunteer participation being a separate indicator, we are not getting the full picture. The number of community asset transfers looks great, because it has increased, but if there is not a similar increase in the number of volunteers, there is a tension that will snap at some point.
That goes back to the point that I made earlier about the lack of transparency around the development of the indicators. The Scottish Government’s chief statistician, I think, will pull together the indicators, so it strikes me that the Government is not only marking its own homework but setting the questions. It is creating indicators that match up with its priorities and, although I am not suggesting that this is the case, there is the potential for it to choose indicators that match up with things that are progressing well. It is important to have oversight of the indicators, given how important they are.
Incidentally, being here is like being at an auction—if you twitch, you will get called to speak.
In your submission, you made the quite stark point that, in the years since the pandemic, the number of young people who volunteer has fallen from 52 per cent to 37 per cent, which is quite a significant reduction. How would an indicator help to increase the number of people who volunteer?
We are talking about the purpose of the national performance framework. If it is acting as it should and is informing the setting of policy and budgets, it could acknowledge that there is an issue with volunteering and identify a need for additional resources to support that, which are not being provided at the moment. The fact that youth participation is declining even more starkly than adult participation is a real concern, especially considering that young people are the volunteers of the future—they are the ones who will support our service delivery in the future.
Recently, one of our priorities has been to try to get volunteering better recognised in education and skills reform, particularly through making sure that the benefits of volunteering and the importance of participating in it are built into the curriculum. If the volunteering rate is identified as an indicator—we have suggested in our submission that there should be an indicator under the education and skills outcome, too—that will help to identify where, if performance is declining, there is a need for additional resources to support it and to try to reverse the trend.
Given how time is moving on, the housing indicator will be the last one that I touch on. I also want everyone to have an opportunity to say something to round things off.
The proposed new housing indicator says:
“We live in safe, high-quality and affordable homes that meet our needs.”
In the previous evidence session, we heard about very high-quality but not particularly affordable housing that one local authority is providing. Allan Faulds, with the resources available, how can we maximise that indicator?
I will be 100 per cent honest with you—I do not have a strong awareness of housing policy.
I am thinking specifically about the vulnerable groups that the ALLIANCE considers and deals with.
It would be useful for consideration to be given to the kind of housing that we are building. It is not just about affordability; for example, we often talk about housing adaptations. When we build housing, we need to think about the longer term and ensure that it can adapt to people’s changing needs. As people go through life, they might well experience changes—they might become disabled, having not been disabled previously, or their condition might progress—and they should not have to go through a costly and potentially often distressing process of finding new housing or being turfed out. As such, building good-quality housing that is easy to adapt is quite important.
It is also a case of building that sort of thing from the get-go, because a lot of money is needed for retrofitting. Obviously, retrofitting is very important, because we have a lot of good-quality housing stock that needs to be improved, but if we are still providing new builds that are not designed to be accessible in the longer term, we are probably setting ourselves up for bother further down the line. One area of importance for us as far as housing is concerned is to ensure that we measure these things and are clear that we need to build housing that is accessible or can be adapted.
I lodged an amendment to the Planning (Scotland) Bill on adaptability that was accepted not by the committee in question, I have to say, but by the Government later on at stage 3. What progress has been made in making housing more adaptable than it might have been prior to that legislation?
We are definitely seeing some degree of progress in the kinds of builds, but, as I have said, housing is not my area of strength or focus at the ALLIANCE, so I cannot give you any examples at the moment, I am afraid.
That is fine.
Carmen Martinez, I saw you making notes. Were you wanting to come in?
I was just making notes for my own research.
That is okay.
I think that we have covered this subject quite comprehensively, but there are always areas that we could have focused on more. I will therefore give each of our guests an opportunity to make some final comments about the national performance framework and where we go from here.
The last person that I will ask to speak will be Shoba John, as she spoke first, so she will have the final word. Which of our remaining four guests wants to go first?
One point that has perhaps not been touched on today but which I think is incredibly important is the potential for the national outcomes and the national performance framework to make decision making more approachable and transparent for decision makers. That has been a considerable challenge. I am the policy officer for Volunteer Scotland, and volunteering touches on many policy areas, but it can be particularly challenging to identify who in the Government is the best person to speak to about it.
There is a wider point about Government transparency, but there is potential with the national outcomes and the national performance framework to recognise certain key themes. If there was a lead contact or lead team for each of the outcome areas that could help organisations such as Volunteer Scotland and other stakeholders to participate in policy and decision making, that would be a positive step.
I echo that. For it to be a true framework, it needs to fill the gaps and be implemented comprehensively, and there needs to be an understanding of how policy and budget setting are part of that process to achieve what we all collectively want to achieve.
Moreover, the framework needs to connect with other existing processes. For example, the local government benchmarking framework has been mentioned, but there is no mention of or connection to that existing framework, and there are bound to be other such frameworks—not just Government ones but ones in certain sectors. The national performance framework needs to map and connect all those elements. It is a very powerful tool.
I emphasise that we think that the national performance framework has quite a lot of strengths. If it is used properly, it can do things really well, and we think that some of the changes that have been suggested, particularly on the proposed national outcome on care, are very good and, if applied properly, will lead to significant improvements.
The ALLIANCE often calls for a human rights approach to budgeting. The framework could, if applied well, help us to reach that standard and allow us to take a human rights budgeting approach. After all, so much of this relates to people’s basic human rights, so we would really welcome that approach being embedded. However, it needs to have teeth, it needs to be well embedded and it needs to be consistently applied across the Government. Indeed, we have had a bit of discussion today about the fact that it is not necessarily consistently applied across the Government.
A couple of weeks ago, some witnesses talked about the proposed wellbeing and sustainable development bill. That has not been included in the programme for government, and perhaps an opportunity has been missed to embed the national outcomes in the framework for how the country works. We could have taken the opportunity provided by that bill to amend other legislation and ensure that various bodies had a duty to comply with the national performance framework and not simply give it due regard. As I have said, that was perhaps a slightly missed opportunity that we will not get again in this parliamentary session.
I agree with that, and I agree with Sarah Latto, too, about the use of the national outcomes to increase transparency and accountability. It is very important that there is no silo thinking when it comes to implementation and that the national outcomes help policy makers to speak to one another and make policy more coherent.
Finally, as part of the success of all this will be for all of us to be able to measure progress, we need to look at what exactly the indicators are measuring. Therefore, I would very much welcome the opportunity to feed back on the indicators.
Last but not least, I will bring in Shoba John.
I want to begin with an issue that we have not touched on, which is the need to link the national performance framework with existing sectoral frameworks. There is, for instance, the population health framework, which is the omnibus, big-ticket item under development, and that framework will need to be linked with the national performance framework to ensure that its implementation contributes to national performance and wellbeing. I also reinforce what I said about including strong local levers that empower local authorities to make decisions that promote wellbeing and productivity.
Finally, I have what is more of a comment on the process, and it comes back to the issue that Sarah Latto and Allan Faulds highlighted about indicators not being available. There has been an indication that the indicators will be developed once the national outcomes are adopted, but we have no sense of the timelines. As a result, even with the issues that we deal with, we do not know whether, for instance, there will be an indicator on childhood obesity, despite the Scottish Government’s commitment to halving it. Our feedback on the process relates more to the timelines and to whether there will be a consultation on the indicators once they are available.
Those are my top thoughts.
I thank all our guests for their contributions. We will conclude our national outcomes scrutiny with evidence from the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Gaelic next week.
Meeting closed at 12:13.Previous
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2025-26