Chamber and committees

I thank the witnesses for joining us today. I will start with a couple of questions about the “Best Start, Bright Futures” programme, which aims to move up to 10,000 parents into sustained employment and increase the wages of up to 3,000 parents who are already in employment. How much of that could be achieved through the employability programmes that are currently being delivered? Can you highlight to the committee anything specific that needs to change in that area? I am happy to bring in David Stewart and Philip Whyte first, before bringing in the witnesses who are joining us online.

Thank you for that. Perhaps you could write to the committee with some more detail about those challenges so that we can capture that information. That would be helpful.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us here and online today.

I am going to try to merge my three questions, which relate to core structures and delivery models.

To what extent can course timetabling and structures be made more flexible in order to accommodate a more diverse range of students? I know that the majority of students in SWAP are parents, so, as we have heard, flexibility around childcare is important. The 2022 national strategy for economic transformation highlighted the need for flexible provision. What are your views on that? Do you have any examples of where there have been changes?

As I mentioned SWAP, I will ask Kenny Anderson to respond first.

That is very helpful. Thanks, Marion.

When I visited Fedcap, I was really impressed to see some of the work coaching that you are doing in Livingston. One of the conversations that we had was about sustaining people once they are in work rather than just matching them with a job and thinking, “Job done.” Do you want to add anything about other policy areas that can help to achieve that, especially given the number of people who get into employment but then find that the job fails and they are back to square 1. Has there been any learning on that?

Thank you. Something else that the committee has heard relates to the different issues for people in urban and rural Scotland, especially around travel. That is also an issue for island communities. West Lothian is part of my region and is not necessarily that rural. However, Jackie Galbraith, as you have already raised the point that transport is a major barrier, do you want to add to that thought?

That is helpful.

Keith Robson, I know that the majority of Open University courses can be provided online. Does that also provide flexibility? Is the change in learning that happened during the pandemic the way of the future?

Would you say that those areas in which councils have been able to make cuts have been the low-hanging fruit? We have just completed some work on the national planning framework 4, and a big part of that was about the fact that planning departments are not functioning properly and do not have the workforce in place. That might be changing now but, for a decade, people have been lost to a very important part of our local government planning system. Has that been an area that councils have been forced to target because key statutory services need to be funded instead?

That is fine.

On the flipside of that, if we look at what the report says about adult social care being in crisis, we see that spend by councils on adult social care has risen, in real terms, by 25 per cent since 2012. Given some of the reforms that we have seen, such as the integration of health and social care, and the record amounts of money that are going into the sector, why is performance going in the wrong direction? As every member of this committee knows, I always raise the Edinburgh situation, but 25 per cent of all delayed discharge happens here in the capital. Something is clearly not working, beyond workforce issues. Do you have more detail on why a 25 per cent increase in spending is not delivering better outcomes?

You do not go into this in the report, but would it be helpful to have a specific ring-fenced preventative budget? I do not see many current opportunities for spend to go directly to preventative projects, because we are managing crisis, whether in social services, homelessness services or mental health services. What would you recommend doing to achieve that shift towards prevention? If the resource is not there, the projects do not happen.

Thank you. It is an area where a lot more discussion will happen across parties.