Chamber and committees

Has that group met three times since the general election?

Thank you—that was a very useful update.

Cabinet secretary, when the tax strategy is published on 4 December, do you intend to present to Parliament what is working well with regard to how the current tax structures relate to the objectives that you have set and what is not working well?

The tax strategy is crucial for all sorts of economic reasons and, perhaps, for social reasons. Therefore, it will make it easier for scrutiny of the budget and beyond if we can see in the tax strategy the Government’s interpretation of the current evidence on the tax structures that are working well in delivering better economic outcomes and where there are problems, some of which have been evidenced by different businesses. That is what we are looking for.

Given that local government is technically responsible for the delivery of a lot of the national performance framework outcomes, to what extent is it easy for the Scottish Government to measure which local authorities are doing really well in their own delivery and performance?

No, we do not want to go down the dictatorship route.

You said earlier that one of the big asks from local authorities and stakeholders was for people to think outwith silos and to be able to read across outcomes, which would be very helpful. Are there examples of local authorities that think outside the box in order to deliver better outcomes under the national performance framework? If there are such local authorities, is the Scottish Government trying to encourage their work by saying, “You’ve done very well on this because you’ve managed to put things together”?

Earlier, Lucy O’Carroll confirmed that the tax strategy will be published along with the budget on 4 December. How many times has the tax strategy group met since the general election?

My final question is about expanding the tax base, which the convener referred to earlier. What are the priorities of the Scottish Government’s current policies on expanding the tax base?

But the tax strategy will set out how we widen the tax base.

That is helpful.

My final question is for Kate Forbes. Earlier, we discussed how, perhaps in the past two or three years, some people—although not everybody—have felt that there has not been as much emphasis on the national performance framework as there had been previously and that, therefore, it has been difficult to meet the framework’s demands. Is one possible reason for that difficulty the fact that the framework is, in theory, very ambitious in trying to do some very difficult things, including combining very different objectives and considering the opportunity costs that are involved in all that? Mr Mason mentioned that the Scottish Government has added a few extra dimensions to the framework. Has that made things more difficult?