Chamber and committees

There has been reallocation of funding because of pay rises, as we know.

We will move on to public service reform, because we are more or less halfway through our time and that is an important issue to address.

Michael Kellet, you talk about prevention a lot in your submission. Between 2011 and 2016, the Finance and Constitution Committee discussed that in great depth following the Christie commission report, which we still refer back to. In the first three years of that parliamentary session, the finance secretary provided £500 million for prevention, and a number of initiatives such as family nurse partnerships were very successful in the NHS. The difficulty—if John Mason was here, he would certainly talk about this—was that organisations persistently said, “We are keen on prevention if you give us extra money,” but they would not disinvest in projects that were not providing value for money in order to invest in prevention. How do we address that issue at a time of great financial challenge?

Hold on a second. Are you arguing that the NHS budget should be divided into those three areas, or are you arguing that it should be divided into those three areas with additional money for prevention? That is not really what we are saying. If we are spending on prevention, we have to look at disinvestment.

I will give an example. In a previous parliamentary session, we took evidence from Birmingham City Council, which had done a lot of work on prevention. It said that it was very difficult because it had to speak to social workers who had done a job for 35 years that had been, frankly, completely useless. Those were its words, not mine—I do not know what was done in that social work department. The council said that it had to get those people to do things in a completely different way, with a different mindset, because the amount of money that that non-service was costing was immense.

I am not saying that any area of the NHS is equivalent to that, but the Scottish Government has, in effect, a fixed budget, and we are not in the days when a cabinet secretary could stand up and say, “By the way, I’m going to allocate £500 million for preventative spend over the next three years, although it didnae work last time because folk just wouldnae disinvest.” Are you saying that preventative spending should come from the money that is allocated to the NHS, with a section hived off?

Indeed.

I have three people who want to come in. I will go to Heather Williams first, to be followed by David Melhuish.

However, investing in retrofitting houses is, really, capital, which in effect the UK Government dictates. With a limited amount of capital, which might or might not increase after the budget, should the Scottish Government invest more in retrofitting houses to reduce heating costs, for example—which might have an on-going health prevention benefit—or more in more affordable houses? I know what Euan’s answer would be, but I am just asking you, Lewis.

When I was a councillor, I remember that my local repair team was aghast when I said that I wanted the windows in 1,500 houses to be—I do not know what the word is, but you rethingummy them—

Heather Williams, on participation, productivity, Scotland’s economic growth and growing tax, you say in your submission:

“There is an urgent need to invest in disabled people’s employment and to address the systemic barriers that prevent disabled people from accessing employment.”

You have already touched on that. Can you expand a bit more on it?

I am not getting any volunteers, although a guy called Euan has just caught my eye.

How much additional money would you raise? That is the issue.

Sorry, I just saw you nodding and I was not sure whether you wanted to come in.

Max, in your written submission, you mention a number of areas where things can be improved. You talk about convening power—I am a big fan of that—framing power, leadership, hard powers, introducing innovation funds, reconfiguring current reporting, Scottish Government procurement and pursuing a performance budgeting approach. We have the written submission, but can you say a wee bit more about that, just for the Official Report?

Lukas, Max has mentioned the C word—“commissioner”. You probably know that we have undertaken an extensive review on that issue and produced a 34-page report, which was published only yesterday, suggesting a moratorium on commissioners. Why is a future generations commissioner particularly important? Why does the work of a suggested commissioner have to be done via a commissioner?

I see that you want to comment, Sarah, but I was just about to bring you in anyway, because you have said in your submission that

“existing duties are too weak to establish the National Outcomes as key drivers of decision making”.