Chamber and committees

It has been mentioned already that NHS Ayrshire and Arran has been running at a deficit since 2017, but quite a lot of progress was made in closing that deficit between 2017 and the start of the pandemic, when everything went out the window somewhat. How did you manage that year-on-year reduction in the deficit over that three-year period before the pandemic financial years?

Thanks very much.

On a different note—and moving away from that particular table—I heard at the start of the session Francis Breedon make a comment about the north-east no longer being as much of a drag on the Scotland-wide income growth figures over the next couple of years. When the committee took evidence—late last year, I think—on regional differences in income growth, we found that the really stark difference was between the east and the west of the country. That was reflected in the population figures, too, with all local authorities on the east coast projected to grow and Argyll and Bute and Inverclyde having the most significant decrease. How much of that regional data are you able to draw on for the purposes of this projection?

My final question is on the availability of data. I realise that this might be straying somewhat outside your remit, but I would be interested to hear your thoughts on this matter.

Obviously, you have access to significant amounts of public data that are not in the public domain, but when you look at some of the independent tax proposals that have been put together—for example, the paper commissioned by the Scottish Trades Union Congress—you see a significant difference between the additional revenue that the STUC says will come from some of its proposals versus what is in the ready reckoners. Do you think that there is enough information in the public domain to aid a healthy public debate on the issue? After all, it creates a bit of tension if the STUC says that putting 2p on the top rate will raise an additional £200 million and the ready reckoners say that that will be essentially net neutral.

No—my questions are not about IT. I have two questions, and I hope that folk will be interested in answering them.

My first question is about strategic planning. Are your organisations still using the spending plans that were set out in the resource spending review at this time last year for your planning over the next couple of years or, given the substantive changes that happened between the RSR and setting the budget for the current financial year, are you working on other assumptions rather than those that were contained in the RSR?

My second question relates to Douglas Lumsden’s point about head count but comes at it from a different perspective. Are any of you exploring different ways of working, such as by having a reduced working week? I am thinking of the proposed four-day working week. By no means all unions have said so, but some have indicated that they understand that, in the current financial context, it will be incredibly hard for pay offers to keep up with inflation, but that they would be interested in other potential benefits for staff work-life balance, such as by having a four-day working week.

Thanks very much. I am conscious of time, convener.

It does, yes. Thanks. I will ask the other witnesses what is essentially the same question. Has the Scottish Government overcommitted relative to the financial resources that will realistically be available for the next couple of years?

You are absolutely right. There is a limit to how much we can realistically raise from income tax. We are not there yet, but we are pretty close: there is not much more that can be raised from that tax. Last December, the STUC published a separate tax paper that included income tax proposals and proposals for new local taxes and reforms of non-domestic rates. Reform Scotland’s paper for this meeting is more sceptical about whether the problem can be solved simply by raising more revenue. I am interested to hear your thoughts on the STUC’s proposal, which is essentially that we do not need to cut services and that we have revenue-raising options that we have not yet explored.

John Connolly should feel free to comment on anything that I have asked about. I am conscious of time, but I am interested to hear your thoughts on the balance between quality, consultation and co-design in a reform process, and on how swiftly we will be able to deliver reform. We are often simultaneously met with complaints that there has not been enough consultation and co-design and complaints that the speed of reform in Scotland is glacial. In fact, the word “glacial” is used in the Reform Scotland paper. There is clearly tension between those two things. Good-quality consultation and co-design, particularly in relation to the sustainability of our public finances, takes longer. However, we do not have as long as we might want. How might we balance those competing demands?

The Reform Scotland submission is quite interesting. It brings up a lot of points that this committee and others will be familiar with, particularly about the NHS and the need to move away from treating illness towards the prevention of illness. Particularly given the financial powers that are available to the Scottish Government and the limitations on its borrowing powers, if we were to allocate new resources for prevention, they would need to come from somewhere else. At the moment, there is no additional money, and we cannot take out a loan to do that. Does Reform Scotland have areas that it proposes cutting from? Not to put you on the spot, but everybody comes to Parliament saying that we need to spend more money on X, including prevention, which makes complete sense. It is much harder to get folk to propose where the money will come from.