Chamber and committees

That is fine. Thank you very much.

We have mentioned the social care workforce a few times already. Willie Coffey, who is joining us remotely, has some questions on that.

Antony Clark wants to come in on that point. I invite him to give some views before Willie Coffey asks his next question.

Thanks. Antony Clark wants to come in on that point, too.

Yes, that is very useful. We have more questions about commissioning. There is a debate about whether the current commissioning model is the best one. It seems to be quite top down, and I am not sure that the voice of users is heard sufficiently loudly in it. However, that will be part of the debate that we will have in Parliament about the creation of a national care service. It will also address some of the more urgent points on which you have asked us to push.

The briefing also mentions the Social Care (Self-directed Support) (Scotland) Act 2013, which provided for self-directed support. The previous Auditor General, along with the Accounts Commission, produced a report in 2017 that concluded that the vision of self-directed support had not been fully implemented. How much further on are we? How would you describe the status of implementation of self-directed support?

I will move on in a second, but I underline the fact that it is a quadrupling, within the space of a year, of the assessment of the exposure to risk. If that was my personal financial situation, I would be alarmed at such an increase in my expected or assessed exposure to financial risk. Is the Scottish Government not alarmed by the quadrupling of that exposure?

To move things along, I invite Craig Hoy to ask some questions.

There has also been considerable public interest in another one of the Government’s financial arrangements—the one with the Gupta Family Group Alliance. The Audit Scotland report focuses on the Lochaber aluminium smelter deal. What is the Scottish Government’s total financial exposure in relation to that deal?

There are other circumstances in which a valuation might be applied prior to a change of ownership. That has happened in the past. With ScotRail, for example, where the ownership of the franchise is changing, would you expect some kind of fixed asset register to be provided on the transfer date, so that the Scottish Government, in taking on the assets, would know what Abellio was handing over to it?

Thank you. We are out of time. I thank the Auditor General for providing us with a useful insight into the report. I thank Joanne Brown, who joined us online, and Graeme Greenhill for their evidence, which has given us a lot of food for thought.

The meeting will now move into private session.

Thank you. In Parliament there is a lot of debate around inputs but there is not necessarily sufficient concentration on the outcomes, so that is very helpful.