Chamber and committees

Does anyone else want to touch on that?

Since the budget was announced, I have had a number of emails from community groups in the third sector that are concerned about the situation. In previous meetings and inquiries, we have heard about, for example, their amazing response in providing support during the pandemic. Where does the third sector sit in your planning so that those partnerships can be protected as far as possible? Councils inevitably start by protecting their organisation and taking in-house the funding that is handed down to such organisations.

Thank you. Donna, do you want to comment?

Good morning, and thank you for joining us. I want to play devil’s advocate with regard to why we have not seen more progress. In a scenario where central Government, be it the UK Government or the Scottish Government, has concerns about the performance of a local service in a local authority area, what should a system to address that look like in order to ensure that we do not see large disparities between outcomes in different parts of the country? We often hear the situation being referred to as being a postcode lottery. What should such a system look like and how can it be taken forward? Maybe you could answer first, Jim.

Do you want to add anything, Jonathan?

Jonathan, do you want to add anything before I hand back to the convener?

That is an interesting point.

The Verity house agreement includes a commitment to jointly agree a monitoring and accountability framework. We already have the national performance framework, which is meant to be doing that in practice. Do the witnesses have a view on how that should work, or will the new framework just be another measurement that will, as you said, provide data that will not necessarily be of much use or prescribe what it is being used for?

Donna, given that you have already done this in Wigan, what examples should we take on board?

Do you have anything to add, Jim?

Good morning, and thanks for joining us. In some of the meetings that we have had with affected residents and experts, they have been critical of the limited progress that we have made in Scotland to date. What learning is taking place to try to align the bill with the schemes that have been progressed in England and Wales, given that many of the companies operate across the UK?

Good morning, and thanks for joining us. Last week, the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman discussed with us the demographics of people who escalate complaints to that office. Have you carried out any work yourself on those who complain, and why?