Chamber and committees

I have loads more questions, convener, but I am conscious of time.

Your submission calls for the empowerment of local government in a number of places, which will be no surprise to committee members as it is a long-running scheme for COSLA. Can you distinguish between the powers that are currently exercised nationally that you think would result in better outcomes and more efficiencies if they were exercised locally versus powers that do not exist that you wish to see created for local government. In the first instance, what powers are exercised nationally that you believe would be more efficiently exercised or would achieve better outcomes if they were devolved to local government?

I have a specific question about teachers that I will ask in a moment, so, if you want to get into it, feel free.

Cleland Sneddon, you mentioned the UK Government’s levelling up fund. This committee is very much trying to re-engage with the UK Government on that—we are trying to get Michael Gove to come back to the committee to give evidence on it.

However, your joint written submission also makes the point about the value of multiyear funding, which is another area that is ultimately in the gift of the UK Government. The Scottish Government cannot give multiyear funding if it is not getting a multiyear settlement.

I am interested in knowing what direct engagement SOLACE and COSLA have had with the UK Government. Every year, when we come to the point of setting the grant for local government in Scotland, it feels very much like a two-way discussion between local government and the Scottish Government. One of your key asks, and the overall financial envelope, are ultimately in the power of the third level of Government that we are talking about here. What direct engagement do you have annually with the UK Government?

Mike Corbett’s point about not only reporting incidents but ensuring that what has motivated them has been accurately reported, particularly when it involves a protected characteristic, is really important. I am keen to hear from others on that, because I am aware that the Time for Inclusive Education campaign for LGBT inclusive education made the point that violence against queer pupils or staff was often being recorded as a generic incident of violence and that that motivating factor was not being recorded.

Personally, I am not remotely convinced that we are accurately recording violence against young women and girls in which misogyny is the motivating factor. Do the other witnesses believe that there is an issue there, too?

I also want to specifically ask Carrie Lindsay about the health and wellbeing census that she mentioned. There is really valuable data in that. I am interested to know how local authorities and schools have used that in the past to inform their policies on dealing with bullying and violence. I am also interested in how that data can be used, given the highly politicised discussion that took place about the census this year and the very variable return rate that we got. Is the census as usable now for that specific purpose as it has been in the past? I am aware that some schools got a 95 or 100 per cent response rate and that other schools and entire local authorities did not take part at all. Can we use the data this year in the way that we have in the past?

Thank you very much.

A couple of weeks ago, the committee had a round-table session with various representatives of public sector organisations. A point that came up during the discussion was that a number of bodies that were represented around the table had expressed an interest in the Scottish Government’s potential pilot of a four-day week. I say this with the significant caveat that this is by no means the universal position of trade unions that represent workers in the public sector, but a number of public sector workers in Scotland and local union representatives in various public agencies have expressed an interest in that to me, partly in recognition of the fact that they know that pay rises in line with inflation across the board in the public sector are not affordable right now. Although they are, obviously, interested in maximising the pay offer that is made to their members, they are expressing increasingly significant interest in other changes to terms and conditions that might be beneficial to workers. Do you have an update on the progress on the four-day working week pilot?

I have a factual question in the first instance, cabinet secretary, for which you might not have the answer to hand. Given that a number of public sector pay negotiations were concluded only after the Parliament passed the budget, do you know what the total public sector pay bill in Scotland now is for 2023-24?

Thank you very much. That is all from me, convener.

That would be fantastic. Just to clarify, is the intention to operate, or certainly start, the pilot at some point in the current financial year?

Grand.

Cabinet secretary, you mentioned the 500-ish initiatives and programmes that the Scottish Government has. I am interested in how we ensure policy coherence and best value for money across all of those, particularly in relation to the overarching missions around reducing poverty and net zero.

For example, there is something in the region of three quarters of a billion pounds of expenditure each year on non-domestic rates relief, or three quarters of a billion that is not taken in NDR income. Some of that clearly aligns with the Government’s overall objectives—for example, the renewable energy generation relief makes a small contribution to the net zero objective.

What instructions are being given to your Cabinet colleagues and SG directorates to ensure that they are getting the best value for money out of every initiative that they are responsible for, which, on the face of it, might not necessarily have an obvious connection with one of the overarching objectives, but which could contribute towards it?

For example, in other areas of NDR relief that are not necessarily about lifting people out of poverty, you could apply a condition that a company could get that relief only if it signed up to pay at least the real living wage. How are you ensuring policy coherence and best value for money across the board?