Chamber and committees

It is inevitable that there will be much greater focus on shorter-term issues in relation to service performance or configuration. That is essential, but we need to have our eyes on the long term as well as the short term and have greater focus on the national performance framework. Looking at current trends, are we satisfied that we are making enough progress in particular directions? We could do with strengthening that attention.

To take the example of child poverty, my colleague with responsibility for social justice will make statements to Parliament about progress on tackling child poverty, which is a constant and on-going priority. That is an example of a long-term focus that is the subject of updates to Parliament. My colleague who is responsible for net zero has to make climate change statements to Parliament that are about how we are progressing towards our long-term policy direction. There is always scope for more focus on those issues, and the Government would be happy to participate in that scrutiny.

That is correct, but the audience for the national performance framework is decision-making bodies. If a decision-making body such as a local authority or public body takes decisions that are contrary to the direction of travel of what is hoped for in the national performance framework, that is a problem. The key audience in my view is the organisations that will be part of delivering on that journey and that need to, as statute says, “have due regard to” what is in the national performance framework. A local authority that pays no attention to the national performance framework in its formulation of policy would be an item of concern to me.

We should always be mindful of that balance, because time-limited targets can provide greater focus and impetus for progress. We just have to be absolutely certain that we are putting them in the right areas to make the greatest possible amount of progress. We have time-limited targets on climate change and child poverty, which are fundamental issues in our society. A lot of activity will be focused on ensuring that we are in a position to achieve those measurable targets.

I am very happy for the Government to have open dialogue with Parliament and its committees—in particular, this committee—on ensuring that those processes are closely linked. Many of the internal discussions that I have had about the wellbeing bill have involved ministers and officials who are also involved in the national performance framework, so those are not compartmentalised conversations. However, I am happy to assure the committee that we will have open dialogue around those questions.

Audit Scotland’s observations are reasonable. I hope that the committee has got the sense from my observations this morning that I think that it is important that we look at the information in the round and that we do not just make glib judgments about individual components.

The Audit Scotland comments highlight the difficulty of making a direct connection between every single pound of public expenditure and every outcome that is achieved. That connection is more obvious in some areas than in others, but it can be difficult to make that link. A couple of weeks ago, the Auditor General commented on the ways in which we need to operate to ensure that we improve outcomes. He talked about approaches that are heavily based on collaboration, partnership working, disrespecting organisational boundaries and focusing more on outcomes than on inputs. Those comments help to structure the legitimate discussion on whether public expenditure is being used as effectively as it could be used to achieve the outcomes that are widely shared in our society. The national performance framework helps us in that respect.

We are in a better place, because we have a much greater focus today on the achievement of outcomes than was the case in 2007. The substantive policy development over those years has been that we have a much greater focus on the achievement of outcomes. That is a prize that is worth having, because Governments in general can be bedevilled by focusing on short-term and immediate high-profile issues at the expense of taking the necessary steps on the long-term outcome-based journeys.

That does not mean that everything is smooth and lateral—that it all takes a lovely neat course. The road is very bumpy, but focusing on the long-term policy direction and the outcomes that are to be achieved is a significant strength for Scotland today.

That will vary from area to area; in some circumstances, that will be the case. In relation to the early learning and childcare example, indicators would be in place to set a timescale for the implementation of such a policy and, as a consequence, to determine the timescale within which decisions were required and practical actions needed to be taken.

In other areas of policy—for example, eradicating child poverty—we will be aiming to achieve particular target dates and plans will be put in place to try to achieve those objectives. That will throw up challenges for the Government and public authorities, because the timescales may well be more demanding than we can achieve. However, milestones to structure the way in which decisions require to be taken will be available where they can be of assistance in achieving those outcomes.

My assessment of the situation with high-growth and innovative businesses is that it has been affected by two factors, the first of which is the historical trend of economic activity in this area being a challenge for Scotland for many years now. That said, in the aftermath of the financial crash, significant enhancements were made in the development of high-growth businesses, with the Government putting in place a range of different interventions to support that. I am thinking, in particular, of the Scottish EDGE—encouraging dynamic growth entrepreneurs—competition, which was a collaboration with the Hunter Foundation and other stakeholders; of support for the women in enterprise action group; and of the converge challenge, which encouraged the roll-out of more high-growth companies from the higher education sector. A number of different interventions have been put in place to address areas of poorer performance.

The second factor is the effect of the more general economic conditions in which we have been working as a consequence of Covid, as evidenced by the situation with economic growth. It is therefore a combination of historical and real-time issues.

The employee voice issue is slightly more difficult to nail down. All the policy interventions that we will take as a Government are designed to support the acceleration and intensification of employee contributions to the operation of organisations and businesses. I would argue that, from a business perspective, that is a very sound investment, given the added value that is attracted by capturing the input and contribution of employees in the development and running of organisations. That particular indicator will have been informed substantially by surveys of employees, and if that evidence reflects a lack of such input, the Government’s fair work agenda will have to be intensified. We will take that forward in the dialogue that we will have with a range of organisations including the business representative organisations and the Scottish Trades Union Congress, with which we collaborate closely on all aspects of the fair work agenda.

On all those different indicators, ministers and officials will be heavily engaged in assessing performance and patterns across the country. If I go back to the world of education policy that I occupied during the previous parliamentary session, at all times I was looking at differential performance around the country. For example, performance on educational attainment and the progress that I expected to see there was the subject of some frequently pretty robust discussion between me and individual local authorities.

I would not want the committee to consider that this is the only stocktake or the only discussion about performance. A lot of discussion will go on in and around the territory of the national performance framework to make sure that we are doing all that we can to intervene to improve performance.

The national performance framework is designed to be a helpful and useful guide to all public bodies and private organisations about the direction in which Government policy, supported by decisions made in Parliament, is heading, and what organisations can contribute towards the achievement of that vision. Obviously, a number of issues are properly and statutorily the responsibility of other public bodies, particularly local authorities, so local decision making is crucial. We will not get to a strong position on performance at the national level if we do not get to a strong position of local performance. There has to be an interaction and dialogue there.

There are obviously political choices to make here. There could be more directional decisions taken. Parliament has particular views about that; sometimes it is in favour, sometimes it is not. In the current environment, ministers have to operate within the statutory framework and the national performance framework, which is endorsed by our local authority partners, is designed to give a clear and coherent approach to the delivery of policy to shape the decisions that can be made at the local level and then influence the contribution that is made to achievement of the national outcomes.

I am very happy to do so.