Chamber and committees

Thank you. That is helpful.

You will have read the Official Report of the meeting that we had three weeks ago at which we took evidence from three academics who expressed some frustration about areas where progress was not being made. One of those areas was preventative spend. The Scottish Government’s response to the report of the Christie commission says:

“we will reform our public services through: a decisive shift towards prevention; greater integration at a local level driven by better partnership; workforce development; and a sharper, more transparent focus on performance.”

However, those academics were of the view that that really has not happened. There are strong reasons for that. It is difficult, particularly in financially challenging circumstances, to encourage organisations to disinvest in one area in order to invest in another, but the academics were of the view that there does not even seem to be a definition of what prevention means in the Scottish public sector.

How can we take that crucial area forward and deliver the culture change that, 10 years ago, when you led on this issue, we all agreed was very important in changing attitudes and ensuring that prevention delivers for the people of Scotland?

On you go.

That would only lead to more questions.

I have one final question. In Scotland, we have 128 non-departmental public bodies and 32 local authorities, and we have health boards, health and social care partnerships, community planning partnerships, and city and regional deals. When it comes to public understanding, probably south of 1 per cent of the population understand how those things work together. You talked about optimum service delivery in one of your responses to Daniel Johnson. I realise that there are vested interests and that things are difficult to move, structurally, but is there a case for decluttering the landscape?

I appreciate that. I was a councillor at that time, when one local authority, Strathclyde, became 12 local authorities, which meant that we had 12 new social work directors, 12 deputy social work directors and so on, and lots of structures had to be put in place.

It is an area that we must keep under review, because there can be a disconnect between the people of Scotland and all the different structures if those structures become impossible to understand. It can be hazy even for elected representatives if there are too many overlapping structures.

I thank the Deputy First Minister and his officials for their evidence. The next item on our agenda, which will be discussed in private, is consideration of our work programme. I would also like to update members on some areas of interest and importance.

Community involvement is important. I was at a public meeting a week past Saturday in Lochranza; its population is 120 and 75 people were at the meeting. I open up questions to colleagues.

I think that participatory budgeting has been a really big success, for example.

Unless our witnesses have any further points that they wish to add on any area that they feel that we have not covered effectively, we will end on that positive note. Thank you for your evidence, which has been fascinating. I also thank members for their questions.

Without further ado, I close the meeting.

I find that, on something negative, there is often a large turnout at meetings but, for day-to-day things, a very small number of people in a community will be involved, and it is arguable whether they are representative. Do they produce things such as newsletters and updates to let people know what they are doing? How effective are they? The variance across Scotland is monumental. Some people will be first class and some less so. If we are serious about community empowerment, how do we deliver that and who do we deliver it to?

Professor Mitchell or Stephen Boyle might like to comment on that. You do not have to, but you can if you wish. Are you going to take the fifth amendment on this one, Jim?

Thank you very much. I should also say that Ross Greer is unable to attend the meeting in person this morning, due to a Covid outbreak in his family, but I am pleased to say that he is joining us remotely.

Under item 3 we will take evidence from Stephen Boyle, Auditor General for Scotland, Professor James Mitchell, University of Edinburgh, and Professor Graeme Roy, University of Glasgow. I welcome our witnesses to the meeting.

Members have received a paper from the clerks setting out background information, along with written briefings from two of our witnesses, Professor Roy and Stephen Boyle. Before I open up to questions from the committee, I invite each witness to make a short opening statement. I would like Professor Mitchell to go first, because he has not provided a written statement. [Laughter.] That, by the way, was not in the script.