Chamber and committees

Thank you. That is interesting. Mairi Spowage wants to come in.

Thank you, Mairi; you raise some valid points.

Yes.

Joining us virtually are Álfrún Tryggvadóttir—I apologise if I have mispronounced her name—from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and Mairi Spowage from the Fraser of Allander Institute. I ask them to introduce themselves.

Good morning and welcome to the 19th meeting in 2022 of the COVID-19 Recovery Committee. The committee has agreed to focus its pre-budget scrutiny on how the Scottish Government plans to fund its Covid recovery strategy and the on-going costs that are associated with the pandemic, as set out in the Covid-19 strategic framework.

Today, we will focus on the strategic framework. I welcome our witnesses: Richard Robinson, who is a senior manager at Audit Scotland; Mary Morgan, who is chief executive, and Carolyn Low, who is director of finance, at NHS National Services Scotland; Dr Nick Phin, who is the organisational lead for strategic engagement and policy at Public Health Scotland; and Dr Graham Foster, who is director of public health at NHS Forth Valley and chair of the Scottish Directors of Public Health Group. Thank you for giving us your time this morning.

Each member will have approximately 15 minutes to ask questions. We should be okay for time, but if time runs on too much, I apologise in advance for having to interrupt members or witnesses in the interests of brevity. I ask the witnesses to briefly introduce themselves and their organisations.

That brings me on to my next question. The resource spending review indicated that the total pay bill will be held at 2022-23 levels, although we know that the pay levels will increase. At the moment, from the latest data that we have, the vacancy rate is 7.7 per cent for medical and dental consultants, and 8.7 per cent in nursing and midwifery. In addition, the sickness rate in the NHS overall is 5.7 per cent, when the target is 4 per cent. How feasible is it for the NHS and public health services to reduce staff?

We are slightly off topic. The Health, Social Care and Sport Committee is considering NHS reform, and we are more focused on the Covid recovery strategy.

Brian, do you want to ask another question before we move on?

Agenda item 2 is consideration of a negative instrument. Members should refer to paper 3, which sets out the background. The deadline for a motion to annul the regulations is 30 October 2022. Members will see from the paper that no motion to annul has been lodged to date. Do members have any comments on the regulations?

The committee’s next meeting will be on Thursday 15 September, when we will continue taking evidence as part of our pre-budget scrutiny.

That concludes the public part of the meeting.

Thank you. We are out of time for this part of the meeting, so I thank all the witnesses for their evidence today and for giving us their time. If witnesses would like to raise any further evidence with the committee, they can do so in writing, and the clerks will be happy to liaise with them on how to do that.