Chamber and committees

Take for example a scenario in which a number of people somewhere in the Highlands are not getting the care that they should get. That would be an issue. What practical role could the national board play in that? If there was an identified funding issue, would the board have any scope to allocate more funding? It would not hold reserves itself, would it?

However, that intervention would not be fiscal. It would involve advisory and other forms of support. It would not be a financial intervention or a legal intervention to say that the council had to deliver something specific. I doubt that any council intentionally delivers a poor standard of service; it does it because of the challenges that it faces. I am struggling to understand how the new system would help with such cases.

I appreciate that carer breaks are a large part of the costs. However, as colleagues highlighted, there have been lots of changes to the original plans. If you take out carer breaks, which could be delivered in other ways, are we now left with a costly rebranding of what we had previously but with a few additional tweaks? Is the bill still a substantial change to the care landscape?

Lastly, who will head up the national board?

Thank you.

I suppose that, with that and any other example, that has to be balanced with not eroding the original objectives and targets of the funding.

Good morning, secretary of state. I just wanted to ask a number of questions, particularly about the kinds of projects that are under way. As of 31 March last year, of the 404 projects funded under rounds 1 and 2, 10 had not started; 333 were under way; five had been completed; and 51 were expected to be completed by the end of March this year. How do you measure the progress of such schemes and how that progress compares with previous EU schemes? Obviously, it will be a reflection of the processes that are involved in applications et cetera as well as on-going monitoring.

And that would be part of a kind of appraisal process that you would be looking at.

I am conscious of the time, so I will move on.

I think that John Mason raised the issue of the flexibility of the processes. I am interested in the flexibility of the cash, and my point probably refers more to the city region deals. For example—I know that you are aware of the subject of the Corran Narrows ferry crossing—the UK Government recently announced that around £20 million of the funding that was part of the Inverness and Highlands city region deal could be used for infrastructure for that crossing, which is vitally important. That was welcomed by Highland Council, but many in the local community were more interested in a replacement ferry. There had already been flexibility in the use of the cash from the UK Government. How much additional flexibility is there in those sorts of schemes? I appreciate that that is a question of working with partners.

That is very welcome, and I am sure that that will be well received in the islands. Thank you, secretary of state.