Chamber and committees

Thank you.

I remind members that the Finance and Public Administration Committee is leading on scrutiny of the shared prosperity fund. I do not want us to step on its toes in our questioning.

Thank you, cabinet secretary. We will move to questions, and I will start by asking about the submission from the Law Society of Scotland, which refers to a Scottish Parliament information centre briefing on common frameworks that addresses the question of what new governance arrangements will be needed to make common frameworks work. The SPICe paper states:

“when more decisions are taken through intergovernmental forums ... accountability and parliamentary scrutiny can suffer.”

That increases

“the importance of ensuring that intergovernmental bodies are transparent and accountable.”

What is your view on that issue? How do we ensure that the common frameworks process is transparent and accountable to the Scottish Parliament and its committees?

Thank you. We will move on to questions from committee members.

Mark Ruskell has a brief supplementary on the world championships.

I do not see any indication from members for further questions, but I have a final question to ask the cabinet secretary. In your answer to Ms Minto, you mentioned libraries. As Ms Boyack said, we attended the cross-party group on culture and communities last night and heard from one of the cultural arm’s-length external organisations in Scotland about the support that its library staff gave to elderly people, who they knew would be in isolation, and how they were able to continue service by doing things such as moving the bookbug programme online for younger members. Can you give us a bit of information about the support that you are giving to libraries and their future in the recovery?

Under item 2, the committee?is invited to agree to?consider?reports on the UK internal market inquiry and the inquiry into the Scottish Government’s international work in private at future meetings. Do members agree to take those items in private??

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you for your time this morning.

I see an indication of a final question from Ms Boyack.

That concludes our consideration of that agenda item. I thank the cabinet secretary, Mr Wightman and Ms Sizeland for giving us their time.