Chamber and committees

At the moment, the terminology that is used is about reducing poverty. The aim is that every agency and actor in Scotland sees that as one of their priorities and understands that the way in which they do their work must deliver a reduction in poverty. That is where I think the national performance framework works quite effectively.

I do not want to keep using examples from these wonderful islands of Shetland, but you have a situation here where major energy giants could be seen to be operating quite effectively if your sole purpose is the transition to net zero and the climate or economic prosperity. However, it is also the case that upwards of 30 per cent of people are in fuel poverty here. The framework is a means by which a local authority or national Government can hold major companies to account and say, “In Scotland, we have an ambition of reducing poverty—that is one of our key outcomes—so how you do your work matters just as much as the work you’re doing in terms of climate and prosperity.” There are big opportunities to do that. I was struck by the fact that a community wind farm has done more on reinvesting and reducing poverty in these islands than some of the major corporations have done.

That is perhaps a visible example of how the framework has to be a genuinely national piece of work, and not just a way in which Governments are held to account.

I agree with you on that. You are right that we have a visible leadership approach and that we need to have a visible leadership role when it comes to ensuring that the national performance framework is adopted across Scotland.

I go back to my example of the big energy company. If we are holding that company to account and it turns round to us and says, “Well, how are you doing it?”, we need to be able to point pretty quickly to the ways in which we are doing it. You are right on that front, and that requires an explicit element of rhetoric and visibility in certain documents.

I think that there is a big challenge. I note that Carnegie UK, in evidence to the committee, said:

“aligning budgets with national outcomes is not straightforward, and lots of countries ... are wrestling with it.”—[Official Report, Finance and Public Administration Committee, 17 September 2024; c 41.]

I think that Scotland, too, is wrestling with how we explicitly link what we choose to do—in a very political environment—with a document such as the national performance framework. Nobody disagrees with the outcomes that are outlined in the framework, and we are all trying to do the work that shifts the dial on those outcomes.

I am delighted to be with you on quite a stormy day in Shetland—here is hoping that I get home at some point this week. It is very good of you to allow me to join in this flexible way; it is a bit of déjà vu to Covid.

As the committee will know, the national performance framework was introduced in 2007. Since then, it has evolved into a wellbeing framework with shared national outcomes for all of Scotland. The best way to sum up the national outcomes is to say that they paint a picture of the kind of Scotland that we hopefully all aspire to be.

I know that some of the stakeholder views that were submitted to the inquiry suggest that we can improve and lead with a stronger, more impactful framework. I am quite encouraged by that kind of feedback, because it demonstrates the NPF’s value as a means for all of Scotland’s actors and agencies to debate and to challenge the collective progress that we are making as a nation. We all have a role in helping to deliver the national outcomes, because the NPF is not just owned by Government but belongs to the whole of Scotland.

Our review, which I know that you will scrutinise today, has proposed changes, which include the introduction of new outcomes on care, climate change and housing. It was good to see the SPICe analysis of the inquiry’s call for views, which said that

“the responses ... reflect strong support for the proposed outcomes of the NPF, with ... recommendations to enhance their effectiveness and inclusivity.”

Overall, the review is proposing an increase in the number of national outcomes from 11 to 13. I appreciate that the inquiry has heard that fewer outcomes, such as in the Welsh Government’s approach, would lead to greater impact, alignment and so on, and it would be good to perhaps discuss that over the course of this morning.

We have also proposed that the purpose of the NPF is updated to:

“To improve the wellbeing of people living in Scotland now and in the future”.

That represents a mainstreamed purpose. The SPICe analysis was, again, encouraging, as it said that that change “had garnered significant support”. I can assure the committee that the wellbeing economy—which is part of the wording of the current purpose—is a priority for the Government and will continue to be guided by the national outcomes in that area.

We have confirmed that we will consult and collaborate with stakeholders and partners on our plans for improved implementation and guidance to ensure that the NPF is consistently and effectively applied right across Scotland. That was recommended by your committee in 2022, and I note that evidence to the inquiry further supports that recommendation. We will include a refreshed set of national indicators, which will be launched alongside the new national outcomes in 2025.

The national outcomes “seek to promote equality.” The evidence that was gathered throughout the Government’s review was used to better understand the interests of equality groups, and those interests have been reflected in the proposals. It is important that the inquiry examines that area.

I consider the NPF to be a really important part of how we do government: it helps us work together as a nation and achieve our national outcomes to improve the quality of life for the people of Scotland. It is used in the Government, but in my role as a Deputy First Minister, I will look to ensure that that is being done well, so that we can demonstrate the leadership, stewardship and facilitation role that is expected of us in the Government.

I know that you have heard disappointment regarding the implicit rather than explicit inclusion of the national outcomes in the recently published programme for government. I can assure you that the First Minister’s four priorities are very closely aligned with, and guided by, the national outcomes. I challenge anyone to see a way in which the four priorities are not backed up by the national outcomes. I agree that we need to have a visible leadership role in ensuring that the NPF is adopted across Scotland.

As the committee might know, we will not be introducing a wellbeing and sustainable development bill at this time. We have committed to work across the chamber with Sarah Boyack as her proposed member’s bill develops; I am due to meet her on 9 October so that we can discuss how we work together.

Progress towards the national outcomes is, of course, a proxy for progress towards the United Nations sustainable development goals, because of the close alignment between them. The NPF and the SDGs capture the ambition of creating a better world and recognise up front the challenges that are involved in doing that. They set the deadline for a specific set of local and global improvements for 2030, and I want us to tell a good story about Scotland’s contribution and experience when we reach that milestone.

Thank you, convener, and thanks to the committee and all the stakeholders who have submitted their views to our statutory review and your committee’s inquiry. I am very happy to answer your questions.

That concern has come through. My officials might want to come in on the background. I am conscious that much of the consultation work happened before I was in office, so I am perhaps not as close to the conversations that happened during that period. If my officials would like to come in on the mainstreaming aspect, I ask them to do so.

A number of stakeholders recommended that equalities and human rights be more explicitly integrated in national accounts, with a particular focus on intersectionality and gender mainstreaming. We have therefore focused far more explicitly on gender. For example, we have done that in the new care outcome, because we know that more women are involved in the business of delivering care. We have accepted the recommendation of the national advisory council on women and girls that we carry out a thematic gender review of the national performance framework. The themes that came through are reflected in the proposed revisions to the outcomes. There has been a lot of work to ensure that there is a more gendered approach to the national performance framework.

I wonder whether my officials want to answer the specific point about mainstreaming. There will always be a tension on explicit outcomes versus mainstreaming. Keith McDonald might want to come back in.

I think that it was a really good piece of work. It was very conscious of the trade-offs that would have to be made in terms of the long-term finances, and I stood up and defended it in evidence to multiple committees.

That is a very interesting observation. You are right to say that there is a distinction between them. We are, as it were, trying to support the delivery of the sustainable development goals, but this is a Government document—in other words, an organising document. It is trying to embed the northern star of the UN sustainable development goals in our own work and in the work that we want other agencies and actors in Scotland to do.

However, I also think that the tension that you have talked about is what makes reporting so challenging. The ultimate reporting with regard to reducing poverty, for example, is that you have reduced poverty, and the ultimate aim of the environment or climate change objectives is that you meet the climate change goals. The key is how you measure that over time to know that you are on the right track. We have the reporting on the child poverty statistics, for example. They are not national performance framework statistics; they are Government statistics, but you can use them to say whether the national performance framework is achieving its aims.

That is why it is perhaps more messy than the committee would like. It would be much easier to just measure inputs and outputs quite tightly within the remit of the national performance framework, but I think that it goes much broader than that.

That is an excellent question, and officials might want to come in on the role of local authorities in setting these things.

It is hard—arguably, too hard. Again, the committee will have ideas on this. Although a lot of data is collated on a local basis—we know where there are higher levels of poverty, for example—that does not mean that the effectiveness of local bodies in tackling the issue is being monitored. We know where the starting point might be too high, but often, there is a lot of focus on what national Government is doing to tackle these things, while the role of local authorities is forgotten.

By its very nature, your question echoes Michael Marra’s question, in that we must not confuse political manifestos with the national performance framework. Every local authority around the country is made up of different political colours with different views on how to achieve a particular aim. Therefore, local authority administrations that are more aligned with your party might have very strong views on how to achieve economic prosperity, and that would be an indirect route to reducing poverty. On the other hand, others will be more explicit about aims and ambitions that are directly linked to the child poverty ambition. In a dictatorship, you might be able to just say, “Here’s the national performance framework. This is how we are going to do things around the country.” That is not our style, and, indeed, I do not think any of us wants to get to that point.

I do not necessarily share the premise, but I am conscious that stakeholders have expressed their views on that. When I was finance secretary a couple of years ago, I was responsible for the national performance framework, and the link in that world between inputs and outcomes was really visible then. In a sense, the budget is the area where it is easiest to build on the national performance framework. With my current brief—the economy brief—it is a little bit trickier to directly mirror that but, with the budget, it is easier, just in terms of the mechanics. The budget is an inherently mechanical thing and in that world it is much easier to link the budget directly to the national performance framework. For example, I found it a lot easier to come to committee and to directly map inputs to outcomes, and say that we chose to spend the money on an area directly for whatever reason.

A huge amount of work was done on embedding the national performance framework in budgets. To go back to what I said to Michael Marra, politics by its nature has to respond to emerging challenges, and the past few years have been absolutely turbulent, with the emergencies that have arisen around Covid and the cost of living. Governments have a duty to respond to those challenges. In a stable environment, you have the luxury of being able to directly link the national performance framework to the inputs.

For example, it looks as if poverty is about to increase, because inflation is increasing and the amount of money that people have available is eroded. In that world, you have a very different set of choices to make from those that you have in a world where everything remains equal. I think that we would all like things to remain stable and to be able to track inputs and outcomes simply and straightforwardly, but that is not the world that we live in. Who knows? Maybe the next few years will be a period of stability, prosperity and happiness for all in which these things are easier to track.

Let me answer that in two parts: first, on the way in which the NPF underpins Government activity, and secondly, on the point about the consultation.

I get very nervous when we fixate on the visibility of something to the detriment of understanding how embedded it is in changing things. You are right that, when the NPF was first launched, there would have been much excitement, as there is with anything new. There is a great danger and tendency among politicians to look for the next new thing, whereas, actually, if you work hard at delivering what you have already said that you will deliver, you are more likely to deliver change. Therefore, I would be very reluctant to take on board any criticism stating that we need to do more new things rather than committing to deliver what we started in 2007, which was, in essence, aligned with the sustainable development goals. We should be pushed harder on how much progress we have made against the commitments that were made in 2007 rather than, in 2024, trying to come up with new shiny things that might distract from the original delivery.

This work started back in 2022, when the first initial review started. Since May, the First Minister has been very explicit that he seeks to eliminate child poverty in Scotland. We are seeking to be as ambitious as possible when it comes to our poverty work.

The committee’s point of feedback about verbalising—with regard to “eliminate” versus “reduce”—might be quite useful. The First Minister has been very clear about our ambitions to—I think that he uses this term—eradicate child poverty. In any case, that is something that I am open to reconsidering.