Chamber and committees

All that I am trying to say is that I do not think that there is an awful lot of difference between the two numbers that we are talking about. That is the only point that I am making.

My point and my answer is that the overwhelming majority of the expenditure that is envisaged in relation to the national care service in the next financial year is in relation to the improvements to social care staff pay. The other governance costs—if I can call them that—and the costs of preparations for the service are very much the minority of the expenditure. As that position develops, the financial memorandum will redevelop. You are asking me to commit to detail in advance of its being finalised within Government. I am not in a position to do that today, but I hope that what I have said about the balance of expenditure between the larger amounts on social care remuneration and smaller amounts on governance helps the committee to find comfort on the issue.

The genesis of the idea of having a tax discussion paper was as a response to a very dramatic change to the comparative landscape on taxation, as a result of the mini budget in September. When I came to the committee, I indicated that I thought that some further dialogue would be required, given the nature and significance of the divergence that had been announced. As we all know, that did not last very long, so that particular imperative moved on and the immediate urgency and necessity of that discussion was no longer apparent.

What I have charted in my response to the committee is that, in order to support the decisions that we took in our own budget in December, we undertook extensive stakeholder discussion and dialogue. I chaired a number of panel discussions with a broad range of stakeholders to hear their views, the Minister for Public Finance, Planning and Community Wealth did likewise and a variety of other discussions took place. There was extensive consultation activity, but we did not have a consultation paper or a wide open consultation of the sort with which colleagues would be familiar.

There is a space and a place for us to embark on longer-term discussion of taxation and I am open to looking at those questions in the future, but the immediate urgency was driven by the quite dramatic changes to the tax landscape, which, as we all know, did not last long.

I have to say that I am pretty sceptical about that. That issue is directly related to the fact that we have 1,700 people on delayed discharge in our hospitals. If underspend somehow emerges out of more efficiency in health and social care partnerships, I would like to see it used to ensure that people are properly supported in a care environment that is appropriate for them. Therefore, it is unlikely that that resource should be taken out of health and social care partnerships and put into some other area of council activity.

We have a collective understanding that our hospitals are operating at far too intense a level—the last time that I looked at the data, percentage hospital occupancy was in the mid-90s, when it should be at a maximum of the mid-80s, and we have 1,700 people on delayed discharge. If resources have been freed up because of efficiencies in health and social care, we should use them to expand our health and social care footprint.

I am conscious of the committee’s interest in this topic, and I have a feeling that the Government and the committee might have been talking at cross-purposes about it. I certainly do not want the committee to have the view that we are waiting for some moment of public sector reform to come along. Public sector reform is under way and on-going, and there is a number of live examples that I can cite. There is the best start bright futures programme, which is in relation to our child poverty eradication work; that involves a significant amount of public sector reform. The work on keeping the Promise is about public sector reform, because it relates to how we support our children who face the greatest of challenges. There is work under way on education reform around the Scottish Qualifications Authority and Education Scotland. There is the wider reform work that is being undertaken through the introduction of early learning and childcare, which was completed last year.

I understand that the committee feels that there is a big report waiting to be published. The way that I would characterise it is that the Government is committed to the Christie commission principles; we have been taking those forward on an on-going basis since the commission reported.

The examples that I just gave are the most recent examples of what we have undertaken. The Covid recovery strategy, which involves a significant reshaping of the public sector into person-centred public services, is another of the most recent distillations of the work that the Government is undertaking.

I appreciate the question. We are working directly with public body leaders on estate rationalisation and on having bodies working together and we frequently encourage steps towards reducing estate utilisation by co-location. We are now in a context in which the world is quite different because people are not all working in offices as they used to, so there are opportunities to reshape estate provision. Those should be taken—make no mistake—because of the necessity to make an impact by reducing overall costs.

A range of activity and dialogue is being taken forward with public body chief executives. Groups of public body leaders are working together on some of those projects and we have encouraged and motivated them to take as much significant action as they can.

It would probably be best to say that I will write to the committee with some detail on that, because I do not have a specific comprehensive cost of that to the front of my mind. I would counsel that this is not just about gas prices—the gas price is a driver of the electricity price, which is of great concern.

The reason that I had better get precise information is that there will be extensive collective public procurement of electricity and gas supplies, which might have been bought at a time when that has provided us with more or less protection. I think that I had better write to the committee about that detail.

I hope that things are settling down, although I understand that there is a UK Government reshuffle going on just now, so who knows? We might have more churn before the day is out.

As the person who negotiated the fiscal framework, I recognise its necessity; there has to be a fiscal framework. However, I also accept that it has to be practical in its operation. One of the issues that has been demonstrated to us in the past 10 months is that the fiscal framework does not work when there is an inflationary shock of the type that we are currently facing, requiring me to do some really demanding things that have not gone down well. I have had to cut employability budgets, and I am pretty clear that the Social Justice and Social Security Committee of the Parliament does not think highly of that decision. However, I had very few options in trying to balance the budget.

If we enter the discussions from the perspective of trying to ensure that the framework operates effectively and practically, that will be a helpful way to proceed.

Thank you, convener, and good morning. I thank the committee for its budget scrutiny report, to which I responded last week and which I have carefully considered. As I have highlighted to the committee, the budget has been developed amidst very challenging economic and fiscal circumstances. It focuses substantial resources to support families, businesses and public services in accordance with its three overarching strategic objectives. The committee will be aware that I am not proposing any amendments to the Budget (Scotland) (No 2) Bill today. I am happy to respond to questions from the committee on its report.