Chamber and committees

You must have projected what the practical financial implications of that will be for colleges. What is the financial impact going to be?

We have talked about potential further changes. Do we have any timescale on that?

Divergence in certain areas is, perhaps, not unreasonable, given the devolved settlement and so on, but “wildly different” is a fairly extreme statement for anyone to make. Do you agree with that statement?

During its evidence taking, the committee has looked at aspects of the development of the just transition plans and at how joined-up they are. What co-ordination has there been between the Scottish Government, the UK Government and local authorities, for example? Do the plans align with those different layers of government?

You focused there on the UK Government and individual projects on which we hope the two Governments are working together. Is there an overall picture of co-operation and co-ordination with the UK Government, not forgetting local authorities?

You talked about co-ordination with the UK Government. The just transition lab states that the UK and Scottish Governments have “wildly different” approaches to net zero. How does that affect your just transition plan? Does it affect it at all? Are they actually so divergent? We know that there have been changes in UK Government policy recently that might impact on its climate change plans. To what extent are we in the know on that, and are we being updated on it?

Do you agree with the assessment that the approaches of the two Governments are “wildly different”?

I will cover access to mental health support and services. Caroline Lamb said earlier that—if I remember correctly—spending on mental health had doubled since 2021, but the Auditor General highlights in his report that many people find accessing support and services to be “slow and complicated”. What are you doing to deal with that?

Therefore, the bottom line is that we do not yet have a strategy in place to deal with the feedback on concerns about the complexities of access to services.

On another facet, in committee evidence sessions concerns have been raised about use of digital services, which Caroline mentioned. Is the Scottish Government still committed to giving people a choice in how they access services so that no one is forced to use a digital service?

In part, that arises from rural concerns. People who live in the country are away from population centres and, generally, from the sort of facilities that might be beneficial to them. They have to travel long distances for some services, so there might be pressure on them to use digital services rather than travel to the city for face-to-face services. How are you going to handle that? Digital services are not right for everybody.