Chamber and committees

Ms Rowand, when you talked about the opportunity cost of developing a new social care system, you said that we had to bear in mind not just the cost of introducing a new system but the fact that resources might have to be taken away from elsewhere. Can you expand on that? Are you saying that any new system will create an additional administrative burden or do you foresee some of the social care services that are provided on the ground being changed or removed?

Thank you very much.

Indeed, and thank you very much for those helpful answers.

Ms Kelly, given what has been said, am I right in thinking that COSLA’s position is that some of the change to a national care service could be extremely difficult as far as the current services are concerned?

Mr Sim, I hope that you will not mind if I continue with questions on exactly that theme.

In your submission, you were very clear that one of the issues that worry you is that things such as research, innovation and artificial intelligence are now classified on the capital side of spend, rather than the resource side, and that the national performance framework concentrates on the latter.

I think that all of us in Parliament would argue that research and development is one of the great strengths of Scotland’s university sector. Earlier, you mentioned that Scotland is able to attract absolutely the finest people. What would you like to see being done in recognition of that? It is obviously one of the sustaining factors of the sector.

We have heard not in the committee but in Parliament about the concern in local authorities—not just Fife—with regard to the huge potential cost of changing to a national care service. If such a move were to deliver far better results, a case could obviously be made for it, but what we have heard in Parliament is that that might be difficult, particularly given the difficult financial circumstances. As finance director for a council, do you feel that there is sufficient evidence on the provision of social care to prove that this new national service might be better in the long run?

Will you confirm, then, that in the current financial circumstances, it is your preference, as the body that oversees local government, for finance to go straight on to the front line just now rather than for any major reorganisation as that would give you better options?

On the outcome agreements that are established between individual universities and the Scottish Funding Council, is what you enunciated exactly the main concern of individual universities as they approach their discussions with the SFC about determining outcomes? Do they all share the view that that is where potential problems could hit hardest?

Finally, when it comes to being at the cutting edge of innovation and research, where Scottish universities have punched well above their weight for a very long time, is there evidence that Scottish universities are finding that more difficult? In other words, is there evidence that the knowledge exchange that you spoke about and international co-operation, which has been absolutely crucial to many universities in Scotland, particularly in the past two decades, are being undermined due to the funding situation?

That is very helpful, secretary of state. It is absolutely crucial that the data that is used in making these decisions is agreed on, because, as I have said, and as has come up in our budget report, if it is different, that makes policy making all the more troublesome.

This question is much more technical—I apologise for that—but it is important. You set out in your letter the methodology that has been used to measure the areas that you believe are most in need. That methodology is also on the UK Government website and is largely based on the indices that the Office for National Statistics produced.

When the Scottish Government makes an assessment of the areas that it thinks are most in need, it uses the formal Scottish Fiscal Commission budget analysis and estimates, with some based on ONS input and others not. I want to check that the UK Government’s assessment of the areas that are most in need—that is, the methodology that you use—does not use data that is different from the data that is used when it comes to the Scottish economy. If there was different data, there could be different interpretations.

A conclusion from our budget report was that the Scottish economy sometimes suffers from the Scottish Fiscal Commission and the Office for Budget Responsibility having different timescales. Are you confident that the methodology that is being used to decide which areas are most in need uses a formula agreed by both Governments?