Chamber and committees

Another optimistic person! How about you, Euan?

From your knowledge of the councils—

Is it possible to extrapolate a certain reduction in poverty from the spending of a certain amount of money? It does not seem to me that that correlation exists.

You did not actually answer the question. A year ago, the review highlighted the issues of staff churn, inexperience in sponsorship work and the fact that many posts were vacant. I asked you what the position is now with regard to that specific situation. It was described in the review as a significant challenge to capability. Has that challenge gone away?

However, if I tried to quantify the number of posts vacant, the number of staff who were inexperienced in sponsorship and the percentage volume of churn, where would we be today compared to a year ago?

Good morning, Auditor General. I will be looking at spending, but I have a couple of points to make before that.

Obviously, it is really important to know that the correct resources are being directed towards reducing—and, we hope, eventually eliminating—child poverty. However, as my colleague Willie Coffey said, there is no knowledge, really, about what the impact of UK Government decisions has been. I do not know how we can get hold of that information or how we ensure that the Scottish Government is working in tandem, so to speak, with the UK Government’s initiatives—they are very varied.

The Auditor General has made it very clear that the paper is a briefing and that some of the sources that were used are different from what his normal investigation and audit work would pick up. To what extent does that impact on the quality of the data that you received? Can we rely on that data?

Who should drive that co-ordination?

It is helpful. Paragraphs 59 to 62 of the briefing paper outline that it is not always clear how the £3.3 billion was spent on tackling child poverty between 2018-19 and 2021-22. The briefing recommends that

“The Scottish Government should consider how to develop its understanding of the reach of universal spending and the extent to which low-income households are benefiting.”

To what extent is it a cause for concern that £3.3 billion has been spent on tackling child poverty, yet it is not entirely clear how that spending has impacted on child poverty outcomes? The Scottish Government has mentioned that it has mitigated a possible increase in child poverty, but we would like to see the trajectory on child poverty go the other way.

It will be interesting to see how that develops.

Paragraph 63 says:

“There is no readily available evidence on how much councils spend on tackling child poverty. It is difficult to fully identify this as it involves a range of actions across different policy areas.”

What needs to be done to ensure that that evidence can be provided to support the impact of council spending on tackling child poverty? Again, councils are key deliverers in this respect. We do not know how much money they spend in this area but, clearly, it is a lot of money. How do we ensure that the money is being well spent and is going to the correct area? I think that that question might be best directed to Andrew Burns.

If I, simplistically, compared today with a year ago, where would I see improvements?