Chamber and committees

Good morning, cabinet secretary. I will follow up on the convener’s first question, which was about the strategic framework.

Over the past few weeks, we have taken a lot of evidence about the continuing costs of Covid-19 and preparedness across the public sector for potential future variants or a rise in cases. For example, the NHS must maintain investment in vaccination, surveillance and personal protective equipment. You mentioned the figure of £485 million in the current year. I do not expect you to come up with any numbers, but projecting ahead, do you expect a similar figure or a lower one to be required in next year’s budget? What is your thinking about the level of public sector investment that will be required against the risk of a future outbreak?

A vague number.

I appreciate that you cannot put a figure on the costs, but it was interesting to hear that you understand that there will be continuing costs.

We heard evidence from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities about some of the pressures on its budget and we heard something similar from NHS representatives. Do you expect next year’s budget to include a specific line about additional resource being put into local government or NHS boards to reflect the issues that you have highlighted?

Thank you. In order to interrogate that further, I have one more question.

I have been contacted by constituents who are employed in the track and trace programme for example. That programme is coming to an end, so their contracts are up. Those people, who have been working in the public sector, will no longer be working in the public sector. Although there might be a need to re-energise that programme at some point, that will mean a loss of head count. That is understood, but when you are talking about potential head count reductions in the public sector, do you anticipate going beyond that?

Okay. Thank you.

You mentioned public sector pay. The resource spending review envisages public sector pay being held at 2022-23 levels. That is prior to the increases that have been agreed. Even at that level, the review anticipates that if overall total public sector pay remains the same, but with some increases in pay rates, that infers a reduction in head count across the public sector. If that is to happen, where will the reduction come?

Do any other witnesses want to contribute?

Good morning. I want to ask about how we can rebuild public services. I will start by directing my questions to Sarah Watters.

The Scottish Government’s Covid recovery strategy talks about

“accelerating inclusive, person-centred public services.”

I think that, post-Covid, we have an opportunity to think about whether we can redesign public services to, for example, move towards providing a lot more services online, which we have realised is a lot easier to do than it was previously.

At the same time, the resource spending review proposes substantial increases in health, social care and social security but real-terms cuts across the board in other areas of public spending. How do we square that circle? How do we move towards the more inclusive, person-centred delivery of public services at the same time as we are seeing reductions in the budget?

Does Sarah Watters want to come back in?

I am sure that other members of the panel want to come in on this issue, but I have two follow-up questions that relate to what you have just said.

You talked about the overall reduction in local government staff numbers. Do you have any sense of whether overall demand has gone up, gone down or stayed the same compared to the pre-Covid situation?

You mentioned that there was a need for other parts of the public sector to catch up in terms of reform. What parts are you talking about?

Good morning. Before I come to my main question, I want to ask Mary Morgan a follow-up question on the answer that she gave in response to the convener.

I am interested in the numbers that you quoted regarding the reduction in staff in relation to the vaccination programme and contact tracing. Should we—perish the thought—have a new wave of Covid, or a new variant of Covid, as we go into the winter, how practical and realistic would it be for you to staff up again to the numbers that we have seen previously? Do you think that that is going to be necessary? If it is, can you do that without pulling people back out of NHS front-line services, given the tightness of the labour market elsewhere?