Chamber and committees

I am happy to move on to my next point, unless David Robertson or Malcolm Burr wants to come in.

David, do you have anything to add?

Another concern, which you raise, is about confidence in where that money will be invested. The Highland region is obviously a huge region that has one area where a large part of the population is focused, Inverness, and lots of peripheral communities. A large amount of the tax is likely to be raised in some of those peripheral communities and, from speaking to people in that region, I know that they do not have confidence that that money will go back into those areas or even into the tourism infrastructure. The concern is that the money will just go into local authority revenue. How can those concerns be addressed?

Malcolm Burr will not get off, because my next question is for him. It is quite brief. You talked about the budget being sustained by vacancies. Much of my casework is about people in my region, the Highlands and Islands, not being able to access the full care provision that they have been allocated.

I do not know whether you are able to evaluate the situation—not so much the vacancies for which the council can slow down recruitment or keep open, but things such as care costs that have a direct impact. Can you estimate how much worse the situation would be, or what your budget constraints would be, if you were delivering the services that you should be delivering?

Would you say that the service that you are able to deliver at the moment will be sustainable over the next five, 10 or 15 years?

I go back to Heather Williams’s point about silos. In an area such as the Highlands and Islands, if people find it hard to keep their homes warm—indeed, we have some of the highest levels of fuel poverty anywhere in the country—they are, unfortunately, more likely to need NHS services. However, those services are under huge pressure.

You talked about silos, Heather. Even in the health service, primary and secondary care are not really integrating, and as a result, more pressure is being put on, for example, the Scottish Ambulance Service, which is not directly under the control of NHS bosses.

We have talked very generally about public service reform across the country, but is such reform almost more important in rural and island settings than in other areas, simply because fewer choices and alternatives are available?

That is the point. You have all made a very good case for why you believe that the NPF is important. What evidence is there that the Scottish Government feels the same way?

Thank you. Sorry, convener, I was just enjoying your questioning too much.

I suppose that my point is similar to the point that Liz Smith has already made. Over the next few years, we will see a tightening of budgets, perhaps a lack of sustainability in the public sector and some tough decisions made. Given the concerns over what has been delivered or which outcomes have been followed so far, the Government now has much harder decisions to make. What confidence do you have that it will be easier and more likely for it to follow the desired outcomes here? Will it just be a box-ticking exercise?

Do you have anything to add, Lukas?

I am not sensing a huge amount of confidence that the Scottish Government is committed to the NPF in delivering on the outcomes. Obviously, it is updating the framework, but I wonder whether there is much point in updating something that it is not going to follow anyway, on principle. With that, I will hand back to the convener.