Chamber and committees

Can you clarify whether there have been any conversations between you, John Swinney and civil servants who look after budgets on whether that is up for discussion as a major piece of money that can be deployed elsewhere?

That is helpful. You have made it clear that there has not been much discussion about the issue—certainly not with you and the cabinet secretary. I find that slightly strange, I have to say. The national care service was a flagship policy that the Scottish Government wanted to put in process, and it has fallen foul of at least four committees in the Parliament, which have very serious concerns; I think that another three committees are looking at it just now. There is clearly some concern about not just the general direction of the policy, but how it would be financed. Our job in this committee is to scrutinise the financial aspect.

We were told that a second, much more detailed—and, one would hope, more accurate—financial memorandum would be coming down the line fairly shortly. That was before the delay, and we are now left in a bit of an open space with regard to exactly what is happening. It would be helpful if we could get some clarity on all that.

Correct.

The reason that I am asking is that the matter is crucial in terms of freeing up money that was going to be available for a project that has been delayed. The committee would strongly welcome clarity on exactly how much money has been already spent. I think that I am correct in saying that the implication was that some of it—whether it was up to £50 million or not—had already been spent. The committee would like to know how much of that money has been spent, what remains and whether that will have considerable implications for budgets that need to be planned ahead—in fact, as you have indicated, you are already planning ahead.

Can you provide the committee with clarity on that? We are very anxious that we get that clarity, because it is clear that there is money available.

I think that the convener made an extremely important point; namely, if there is X billion pounds to be spent on health, it is very important that we, and the public, know how much of that is spent directly in the health budget and how much of it will be spent on health in local government—or wherever it might be spent.

To pick up on a point that the minister made, it is the “why” that is important. If we really want to get clarity about what we are trying to do and measure the effectiveness of the spend, it is important that we understand who has spent the money and why they have been tasked with spending it. That is the clarity that we are looking for within budgets. I know that they are incredibly technical and complex, but it is about getting extra understanding.

It is to the benefit of everybody—including the Scottish Government—to know where money is being spent, by whom and why some of it goes to one channel and some goes to another. That is critical, and the convener was right to ask questions about it.

I have a few questions about the delay in the Parliament’s consideration of the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill, the stage 1 process on which we have been told in a letter will be extended up to 30 June.

When we received the initial financial memorandum on the bill, its projection was that the five-year spend on the service would be a minimum of £1.3 billion, and £95 million was set aside for the forthcoming financial year. However, in an answer to a question from my colleague Daniel Johnson, John Swinney seemed to imply that the figure of £95 million was not accurate and that the figure was likely to be nearer—I am quoting—“£50 million to £60 million”. Has any of that money been spent? If so, what has it been spent on?

Mr Swinney, I go back to the national strategy for economic transformation and specifically to the response to paragraphs 79 and 80. In your response, you said that three things are critical: entrepreneurship, productive regional economies and the necessary skills for building capacity. On that final point, there is an issue around ensuring that some of the people who have come out of the labour force are encouraged to go back in. A huge amount of economic analysis has been done down south and in Scotland about just how difficult that process is, partly because of long Covid but also because of changing circumstances, such as people not going back to the office, which you referred to. What are the best policies to implement to encourage more people to do that—people who have the huge range of skills that we desperately need in the economy to improve productivity and so on? I know that it is a difficult area, but what do you think we should be doing?

It is perhaps more a question of timing.

I saw an interesting article about the possibility of allowing the over-55s some tax relief. They might be more encouraged to stay in the workplace if they had some tax relief on the extra savings that they would make during that period of working when they were older. Might such financial incentives help?

That is an interesting answer. Is an aspect of this about helping employers to understand that they have a big role to play in making their workplaces more attractive from both a working practices angle and a financial angle?

A huge number of entrepreneurs are in the private sector, where the Government has to be careful about intervening too much. What can the Scottish Government do to encourage employers to think carefully about how attractive their workplace is, when the alternative is people staying at home? Is that a big part of the issue? That has been suggested in some of the evidence that we have taken.