Chamber and committees

In that case, the calculation is almost entirely a reflection of the in-year savings from this year. There is a marginal additional amount.

Can you clarify where those demand-led changes came from? I recognise that you said that the Deputy First Minister published the related budget lines in November. I cannot remember the detail of everything from that point onwards, so could you give us a bit more detail on how much of that came from demand on student support programmes versus tuition fee payments?

That is okay, convener. I will come back in with a supplementary question.

Did you mean the theme of school meals debt?

I apologise to Pam for jumping in.

Cabinet secretary, can you clarify what you were saying? Are you saying that local authorities that have already wiped out their school meals debt will not be able to access the new fund that has been announced, and that that fund is purely for the authorities that have not yet taken that action? Is that correct?

Excellent. Thank you.

I want to press you on that a wee bit. I agree that the uprating of social security payments in line with inflation will be widely welcomed, particularly by people who are in receipt of them and who really need them. However, uprating in line with inflation will not lift anybody out of poverty; it will just prevent people from falling further into it. That is not a bad thing in and of itself, but I am trying to understand whether the £1 billion of additional spending, which I welcome, will take us any further forward. Will we reduce poverty and inequality as a result of it, or is the £1 billion simply what we need to spend to mitigate the decisions of the UK Government and the context of the cost of living crisis?

Deputy First Minister, after my questions, I will have to pop next door for about five minutes to substitute in the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, before coming back here. I apologise if I finish my questions and then get up and leave.

Michelle Thomson asked about public sector reform and the disposal of public sector assets. In mentioning shared services between different public bodies, you have touched on some of the discussion in last week’s debate on the estate. How much co-ordination is there when it comes to reducing the size of the public sector estate? I am thinking in particular of Glasgow city centre. I realise that most of the Scottish Government’s office space in Glasgow is rented rather than owned, but there is a lot of owned property in the public sector there.

The city council has an objective to increase the city centre population significantly, and the city centre does not particularly need more office space. Is there active, on-going discussion with the city council on that? If we are disposing of what is currently office space, what potential is there to have it converted into housing to meet the city council’s objectives? I am not asking about that specifically, but that is an example of co-ordination across the public sector. Sharing services is one thing, but when we are considering reducing the size of the public sector estate, is there on-going co-ordination at that level or is a siloed approach being taken such that the Government simply needs to get property out of its portfolio and, if anybody is willing to buy it, that is great—they can have it?

Looking at the spending side, I believe that there is total cross-party agreement that, wherever possible, we should focus on outcome-based budgeting rather than on inputs, but that is pretty hard. Ultimately, your primary obligation is to produce a balanced budget and then to try to do outcome-based budgeting within the confines of that.

Taking that as the approach, I note that £1 billion more is going into the social security budget, which is a really significant increase in cash terms and as a percentage of the overall budget. What will be the outcomes of that in meeting our statutory commitments around child poverty reduction, for example? Will that £1 billion of additional spending prevent poverty and inequality from getting worse in the light of the cost of living crisis? Will it take us further forward towards meeting the objectives that are in statute, such as the child poverty target, and those that fall under the Government’s broader missions, particularly concerning equality?

That is useful. Thank you.