Chamber and committees

You mentioned IT. In paragraph 62, you refer back to last time that there was

“significant IT modernisation and business change”,

when the cost was £178 million. In fact, it says that that programme

“did not deliver all the aims and benefits originally envisaged”.

Where are we with IT?

Thanks very much. I will leave it at that, convener.

Are discretionary housing payments helping with any of this?

Unless anyone else wants to come in, that is all.

My apologies—I did not make the visit to Dundee. I was very keen to come, but, unfortunately, something happened that stopped me.

On the question of your operational expenditure, I think that you have been within budget for the past few years, which is commendable. Can you tell us where you are in the current year, 2023-24, and how you see the budget for operating costs in 2024-25?

Okay. To follow up, do you have a target for what percentage of the benefits you pay out should be used in your costs? I looked at the DWP website, and I think that around 3 or 4 per cent of its benefits are operational costs. Is that also your target?

Do you have a benchmark?

I want to start with a follow-up to Mr MacRae’s comment that the budget for house building has been reduced. The Government’s answer seems to be that a lot of that was financial transactions money, not the main capital budget, and that money has been reduced even more severely. How do you respond to that?

I realise that we are short of time and this is quite a big subject. I will aim my question at Mr McBride to start with. He mentioned household breakdown as one of the reasons for the pressure on the housing system. Are we doing enough to prevent homelessness from happening in the first place—for example, by trying to help households to not break down?

All that I want is a figure, so that, when you come back next year, I can ask, “Have you matched the 5.2 per cent?”