Official Report 223KB pdf
Agenda item 2 is on single outcome agreements. The committee will take oral evidence from members of the single outcome agreement group on their work. We have with us Ruth Parsons, director of public service reform in the Scottish Government; Colin MacLean, director of children, young people and social care in the Scottish Government; Rory Mair, chief executive of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities; and Gavin Whitefield, chief executive of North Lanarkshire Council and chair of the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers. I welcome all the witnesses and invite one of their number to make some introductory remarks before we proceed to questions.
Thank you for that introduction, convener. I will be brief. I thank the committee for inviting us here. I speak for all of us when I say that we welcome the opportunity to discuss with the committee the development of single outcome agreements.
You have spoken about timing and having a learning year. Given that the single outcome agreements were expected to be submitted by local authorities to the Scottish Government by 1 April, with the final arrangements in place by 30 June, can you explain what you mean by the development process being accelerated?
Yes. When the concordat was agreed, the intention was that the single outcome agreements would be developed during 2008-09. In fact, it was local government and SOLACE that decided to increase the pace. SOLACE came forward with an offer to agree the single outcome agreements by 1 April. Therefore, we have done that piece of work over a shorter period than was envisaged when the concordat was signed.
In evidence to us, Rory Mair said:
When we originally spoke about the matter, we were talking about perhaps piloting outcome agreements in some areas and doing them in tranches, starting in April. Then, we reflected that that would not give us the full range of outcome agreements, so SOLACE and local government leaders decided that every council would produce an outcome agreement, which would be agreed by the end of June.
I am getting a bit confused. Back in December, when John Swinney gave evidence—at the same meeting as you gave your evidence—he said:
The process moved very quickly. The concordat, which was signed on 14 November 2007, indicated that the process would take place during 2008-09. We started working on the process almost immediately, and we accelerated the delivery of the single outcome agreements. The concordat that was agreed on 14 November last year and the 32 draft single outcome agreements that were delivered by 1 April this year represent a substantial piece of work, carried out at a pace that we do not often see. Delivering that as part of the concordat has demonstrated significant commitment on the parts of local government and national Government.
I am having difficulty understanding the use of the word "accelerate" as, back in December, Rory Mair and the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth made it clear that delivery by 1 April this year was what was expected.
It is important to recognise that agreements have been made. A significant amount of work has been done on behalf of local government and national Government to develop the very best single outcome agreements that we are able to produce in the time that is available. That is clearly part of a continuing process, during which we will continue to learn together and to develop. We are absolutely committed, and we think that the quality of the draft single outcome agreements is quite high. A significant amount of hard work has gone into them. The annual reporting mechanism will cover the first year's single outcome agreements and the reports will be delivered to the public and the Government.
So authorities will be held to account for 2008-09.
It is a partnership, with an agreement. We must remember that, to deliver on outcomes, contributions are required from just about all parts of the public sector, including national Government and local government. Therefore, we must all play our part and contribute to the outcomes.
From the evidence and the description that the cabinet secretary gave us, there was an understanding that community planning partnerships and health boards would not be included until 2010-11 and that local government had a responsibility to develop outcome agreements from April, and to deliver on and be accountable for them.
I would like to make two points. First, we expect that we will be held accountable for the outcome agreements in the first year. At the end of that year, we will expect to discuss with Government whether we have delivered the things in the outcome agreements that we said we would. Secondly, on community planning partnerships, although we decided that all councils would deliver, some councils' planning is already so inextricably linked with their community planning partners that it made sense for the partners and the council to submit the single outcome agreement in the first year. About 15 or 16 of the outcome agreements cover the whole community planning partnership, and the remainder will cover the whole community planning partnership by next year. We certainly expect to be held to account for the things that we have said that we will do in the outcome agreements by the local electorate—because the agreements will be public documents—and in the discussions that we have with Government.
On doing pilots versus doing the whole thing in a rush, I honestly do not recall there being at any point a suggestion of doing pilots, other than from people who had concerns about the process. The pilots approach has been taken down south. I do not know whether you consulted other folk who have tried to develop single outcome agreements, but my understanding is that they have been piloted in England and that they have worked at a different pace there. Given the concerns that there were about the implications of ending ring fencing and about the hiatus while single outcome agreements were developed, would it not have been logical to have had pilots to ensure that people were consulted and reassured before the jump to a particular position? The cabinet secretary said from the beginning, "We're just going to do it." It would have been more reassuring if it had been done the other way round.
We in SOLACE and COSLA have been moving towards single outcome agreements for some time, in discussion with the previous Scottish Executive and, more recently, with the Scottish Government. SOLACE felt that we had an early opportunity to demonstrate local government's ability to deliver on single outcome agreements, which we were keen to see introduced as soon as possible across all 32 councils. The matter was discussed extensively in the SOLACE branch, in conjunction with COSLA, prior to the concordat and following that, and was linked to the high-level steering group.
That is exactly my understanding of what was decided. That was the direction of travel, because of the restrictions of ring fencing, and the decision was made that all local authorities would have to have a single outcome agreement. However, my question was whether it would not have been better to go at a different pace to reassure those who were anxious about the consequences of taking away ring fencing without having consulted organisations. What you just said does not sit with what was said about first wanting to do pilots and then deciding to accelerate the process. Those things do not match.
I recollect that there was discussion of how we could best address the matter following the signing of the concordat. It was recognised that we should work towards the very challenging timescale of having all 32 councils submit their agreements by 1 April, to ensure consistency and back up the commitment that had been given. That has been delivered.
So the process has not been accelerated.
Patricia Ferguson has a particular interest in community planning processes.
I do. Given that community planning partnerships are not involved in drawing up single outcome agreements, what mechanism exists for them to be involved in the process? How should they be involved in the future?
As Rory Mair said, community planning partnerships have been involved in around 15 or 16 of the single outcome agreements. All community planning partnerships expect to be fully involved in drawing up the single outcome agreements by April 2009.
What do you mean by the word "involved"?
Gavin Whitefield can probably give an example of how things work in practice.
To date, the community planning partnerships that have submitted proposals already have in place an outcome-focused community plan that has been developed in consultation with partnerships and communities. However, a number of community planning partnerships are at a different stage in the process. The partnership boards at the local level will be the key mechanism to ensure that all partners are involved.
How is it intended that local community planning partnerships will be involved in the process? Should they wait to hear what a single outcome agreement is and then focus their work on it or will they have some initial input to the agreement?
All community planning partnerships will be fully involved in the process. That involvement is essential because of the joint accountability at the local level—not only councillors, but the national health service, enterprise bodies, the police, the fire and rescue services and other parts of community planning partnerships will be accountable. It is well recognised that community planning partnerships must be fully involved in the process. That involvement is crucial to success.
Several different approaches have been taken. Some councils have drawn up a draft document and shared it with partners, which have been consulted on its contents. Formally, such a document remains a council document. In other cases, documents have been formally agreed by the partnership and individual partners. The health board, police authority and so on will have considered it and agreed to it, and the draft that we have received will have been signed off by all of them, not only by the council.
I am really interested in local community planning partnerships, not central planning boards.
I am talking about local partnerships.
Given that, locally and centrally, community planning partnerships are intended to make decisions that are based on priorities that local communities have said should be priorities, how do the conversations that they are involved in and the decisions that they make feed into the overall process of reaching outcome agreements?
The individual partnerships that I have been working with have gone through a process of consulting communities and their partners and of agreeing local priorities and the document that contains their outcomes and indicators, which they have all signed up to. Individual organisations then work to contribute to the process. We are talking about a collective agreement that they are committed to rather than their simply accepting something that the council has identified.
So you expect that community planning partnerships at whatever level will be involved in discussions before April.
They will all need to be involved before April next year if they want to be fully part of the process. However, some of them have already been involved in discussions this year.
Ruth Parsons mentioned that the approach is all about partnership. I suspect that we will want to examine what sanctions might be available to the Government, but what sanctions do local authorities think they have if central Government does not make the appropriate contributions—I put it no more directly than that—to the work that they are trying to do?
Given that it is a partnership and that it is reasonably new, we have set up a regular meeting between Scottish local government leaders and cabinet secretaries. If the 32 councils believed that there was a problem with the commitment to the community planning process, we would raise it at that meeting and ask our partners to try to unblock it. So far, we have not had such a discussion.
I was not talking specifically about community planning; I was talking more generally about outcome agreements and how local authorities can influence the inputs—to use one of the jargon words that are used frequently in the debate—to those agreements. If the priorities are set by the Government but local authorities and their partners are expected to deliver on them, what mechanism is there for local government to say to the Government, "Hold on a second, we cannot do that because you are not playing your part"?
As part of the process that we are going through, individual councils or partnerships are making specific requests of the Scottish Government. They are asking it to do particular things as part of the agreements, so the agreements are two way: the councils commit to do certain things and so do we as the Government. If that fails, we need to discuss how we make it work.
Does Jim Tolson want to ask a follow-up question on that? If not, Bob Doris wants to get in first.
Let him in first.
I thank the witnesses for coming along this morning and giving us the opportunity to ask them a few questions. I am interested in how we will assess or scrutinise how local authorities deliver on single outcome agreements. I refer to the national outcomes, the indicators and national commitments. What role do the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the Scottish Government have in that scrutiny process?
It is important to restate the fact that the outcomes in the national performance framework are shared outcomes towards which all Scotland's public services are contributing. That means that, probably for the first time, there is alignment across all the public services and it is recognised that all parts of the public services must contribute to the outcomes.
I am glad that you said that it was about shared outcomes. I notice that your written submission to the committee says:
In developing the single outcome agreements, all local authorities have been asked to consider their contribution to all 15 of the national outcomes. Those outcomes will be taken into consideration, so how the local priorities and outcomes contribute to the 15 national outcomes lies at the heart of the single outcome agreement process.
There are two elements in the concordat document: the commitment to outcome agreements; and more specific commitments, such as increases in respite care. We have said that as most of the latter are input based, we should report on them separately and specifically. For example, if we have said that there will be 10,000 extra weeks of respite care, local government will report through COSLA to the Government that we have delivered 10,000 weeks of respite care. Councils may refer to those commitments in the single outcome agreements, but they are so specific that we felt that we needed a specific reporting mechanism for them.
The primary focus is on the alignment between national and local outcomes, as Ruth Parsons suggested. There are 15 national outcomes and 45 indicators, and we must consider what is most relevant at local level. Councils will consider the indicators that support their local outcomes. That work will be part of the annual performance report that councils will produce—which ties into ideas on accountability. Community planning partnerships will also produce such reports if there is a CPP single outcome agreement. Those reports will say whether specific targets have not been met and will explain what action is being taken to remedy that.
I am more interested in the commitments than in the indicators and outcomes. The national commitment on class sizes is one of the most significant commitments in the concordat, so would it not be reasonable for a local authority at least to mention class sizes when drawing up its single outcome agreement?
As Rory Mair has said, discussions continue between COSLA and the Scottish Government on the separate mechanism that has been put in place to monitor the overall concordat. Some councils will have referred to some of the manifesto commitments, as Ruth Parsons said. I have not seen all 32 single outcome agreements. There will be variations, but the primary focus of the single outcome agreements is the link to the 15 national outcomes.
I have not looked at the 32 draft documents either.
The concordat package has a number of facets. It has been decided that the single outcome agreement will focus on the 15 national outcomes. If a local authority wants to refer to a commitment, it can do so, but that is not an integral part of the process. As Rory Mair said, a separate process exists for monitoring and reporting on the progress on the commitments, as agreed in the concordat.
A more general issue arises: a single outcome agreement does not attempt to capture everything that the council and its partners are doing; it attempts to capture the particular contributions to local priorities, linked to the national outcomes.
As I said, I do not know what other local authorities are doing, but the two that I have read about offer a direct contrast. Obviously, I am interested in my own local authority.
Single outcome agreements are council documents that are considered and agreed through council committee systems prior to their submission to the Scottish Government for discussion.
I mention that process because it was used by Perth and Kinross Council, East Dunbartonshire Council, Aberdeenshire Council and a whole series of councils. I merely point out to the committee that in Glasgow, opposition councillors were allowed to see the final single outcome agreement only two and a half days before the executive signed it off. That position was unique. I hope that Glasgow City Council will not let down other local authorities. Do you consider what happened there to be good practice?
It is not for me to comment on individual councils' decision-making processes. Councils have decision-making processes that they consider, agree, operate under and use to consider single outcome agreements and other key strategic issues. The same processes are subject to scrutiny through the audit of best value and community planning, for example. I recollect no negative comments on those processes in Glasgow's audit report. If I remember correctly, the report welcomed a move to modernise further the committee system. That was some time ago.
Can all 32 local authorities' outcomes and indicators in single outcome agreements be aggregated to provide the national picture? If so, will that be done?
For each of the 45 national indicators, an agreed process is in place to collect information to provide the national picture. That information may come from local authorities, health boards, the police or others. Entirely separately, councils or partnerships choose which indicators they want to use. If those indicators happen to be common throughout the country, we can add up the numbers but, in general, they are different.
In the guidance that we provided when we developed the outcome agreements, we suggested that 45 or so indicators might be used locally. However, because we want councils to be accountable—the committee has pressed us on that—we said that if councils did not have the data sets for those indicators but had local indicators that could demonstrate progress against the outcomes, they could use the local indicators that they had information to support. That means that, in the concordat's first year, we probably have more diversity of indicators than we hope to have in the future. In the coming year, one job that must be done is that of examining all the indicators and deciding whether we can standardise them and reduce their number so that, as well as having the evidence base to show progress, we can add up what the 32 councils are delivering, which will provide a clearer picture of what is available nationally.
That will be the next stage. The situation is complicated at present. We have 32 councils. If we add to them the health boards and others who deliver, I start to lose the plot on how—as Mr Doris said—we can realistically measure achievement of the national outcomes and indicators and monitor progress locally.
We agree that the process will be complex. As Gavin Whitefield said, we previously had 50 reports on 20 per cent of our expenditure and very little on the remaining 80 per cent. Having for the first time outcome measures for 100 per cent of local government expenditure and—we hope—for 100 per cent of public sector expenditure is complex. We cannot make that uncomplex.
But the historic concordat does not require that standardisation. Will there be another negotiation with local authorities to get them to buy in to a clearer set of principles and clearer communication of the outcomes, and to allow those to be monitored effectively?
The concordat does not say that there will be standardisation of indicators. It says that local government will work with national Government to demonstrate progress on the national indicators. I and COSLA's leaders and chief executives believe that we have to help the process of being able to state a national picture by coming up with a number of indicators that is not only big enough so that we have some diversity throughout Scotland, but small enough so that we can see a national picture emerge from the work.
So, if local government decides to remain silent on 10 or 20 of the issues, that is okay.
The guidance sets out clearly that local government and community planning partnerships, where appropriate, are required to set out their local outcomes and how they align with national outcomes. Every one of the 15 national outcomes requires to be considered. The extent to which each national outcome is covered in the single outcome agreement will reflect the relative priority of that outcome at the local level. That is clearly recognised in the guidance and it has been taken forward in the single outcome agreements that have been submitted to date.
I will illustrate that by discussing two indicators on which we have national information but do not yet have local information. Indicator 9 is:
We are going into a lot of depth because we need to consider the targets carefully and ensure that things are measured properly. As Colin MacLean said, some of the national indicators include increases in various targets, some include decreases, and some have a specified figure as a target that should be reached. I am interested in Ruth Parsons's comment that there are equal partnerships between the Government and the single outcome agreement group and local authorities. The Government has given out 60 different targets, but I do not know what it is doing to be an equal partner and play a part in reaching the targets in many cases. Because the field is so wide and complicated, that will be difficult.
As you know, the Scottish Government launched Scotland performs with those targets and will publicly report on progress towards them when the information is available. That information will be updated in future. The Government is setting out what it intends to achieve and how progress will be measured, and that will be publicly reported.
I appreciate your answer. You are right that all the local authorities and public bodies are trying to play their role—I am sure that the Government is, too.
As we have already said, the monitoring and reporting of the achievement of the commitments will be done separately. We are focusing on the delivery of single outcome agreements that contribute to the national outcomes. That is our focus in the development of the single outcome agreements.
Will you comment on the role that the committee could have in monitoring the progress, both local and national, of the new arrangements for single outcome agreements? Would you be willing to take into account any committee views or reports in your assessment of the progress of the new system?
The cabinet secretary would probably want to write to you about the role of the committee. As I said, this is a learning and developing experience, and I am sure that we would welcome comments from the committee on the process that is being developed.
Specifically, would it help if the committee examined the progress of individual local authorities? Would that information be useful?
There are mechanisms in place, including the annual report and public performance reporting, supported by the work of Audit Scotland and the best-value regime, to examine that progress. However, I am sure that, if you wanted to ask a particular local authority about its single outcome agreement, it would be happy to discuss that with you.
At the moment, we are concentrating on achieving a set of single outcome agreements that can be seen to work and which meet both the needs of our relationship with Government and our need to report to our electorate. We would welcome anything that the committee can do to make that work easier. Of course we in local government will take into account the committee's comments on the development of single outcome agreements.
Is it part of your remit to explain to the public how the new system of funding local government works, or how the new concordat works? There is some unwitting—and some quite wilful—political confusion about how the new system works, how the removal of ring fencing works and where the responsibility lies for various funding decisions. A public debate is going on at the local level around the country about who bears the responsibility for various decisions. Is it part of your remit to have an electorate or public that better understands how things now work?
Very much so, because we need to explain the current system, why we have moved from the previous system to this one and why some things that might have looked like accountability might not have represented accountability quite as exactly as was suggested. We also have to explain why the new system of single outcome agreements enhances accountability, although it might be portrayed as not giving enough accountability.
We have talked a lot about governance issues, accountability and the process, but the overall objective of the process is about supporting councils and community planning partnerships in their drive to improve service outcomes. That is the ultimate goal, and the single outcome agreement process is a means to an end. It is about streamlining existing systems and improving accountability, with the ultimate goal of improving service outcomes.
As well as explaining that new focus, a number of councils are looking at how they can generate what they would describe as a plain English version of the outcome agreement that they could use locally to make sure that electors know what the local government is committed to delivering.
The politicians require some help as well.
I will take that back and ask the cabinet secretary to respond.
Those were his words, and I have not received a letter. It would be useful to find out what the processes are and how we can play a part in monitoring them.
All single outcome agreements are to be agreed by the end of this month. Are there any bottlenecks or issues that must be resolved to ensure that that deadline is met, or is everything on track and going along steadily?
We have 32 draft single outcome agreements and we are working towards 30 June, by when we fully expect all 32 agreements to be delivered.
We did not leave things to chance. We have regular monthly meetings of all 32 chief executives and all 32 council leaders, and the last meeting gave us no reason to believe that we would not be heading for 32 single outcome agreements being signed off by the appropriate date. We have another meeting next week in Aberdeen, at which we will get a final update, but from the information that we have we do not expect there to be any problems with the delivery of all 32 agreements.
Ruth Parsons said earlier that everyone "is now aligned" and looking for "harmonisation". That is very Zen. We talked about data from health boards, local authorities and so on. How robust are the data and how comparable are they? Do any significant gaps need to be filled so that outcome agreements can be properly scrutinised?
As has been said, by 2009 community planning partnerships will all be fully involved in agreeing each single outcome agreement, which will represent the strategic priorities for the community. The existing performance management frameworks underpin that process. Robust performance management systems are an integral part of the process and were mentioned in the concordat. They are in place across all public services and will provide, for the purposes of scrutiny, detailed information on how councils and other public bodies conduct their activity. The role of Audit Scotland and the high-level steering group is to continue to support the further improvement and development of performance management systems and, as we discussed, to ensure that there is better public reporting of the available information.
The answer to Kenneth Gibson's question is that there are gaps. In the past the system was, to a great extent, based on measuring inputs. Now that we have moved to outcomes, it is difficult to create historical data sets that show where we were and how we have moved on, given that we did not previously have all the outcome data. For some of the indicators, this is the first year that we are collecting outcome data, so what do we compare those data to? Some gaps exist in our data collection and we will have to refocus our data collection resources away from input-based stuff and on to outcome stuff. We will have to plug those gaps over the coming year.
In the time available to us, we have made every endeavour to use the best available information to make the outcome agreements as robust as possible. As Rory Mair said, given the time available, and given that councils are starting from different positions—in respect of the information that had already been collected and the links to a number of the national indicators that are applicable at the local level—we recognise that further work must be done to refine and constantly update the single outcome agreement process. It is important to ensure that there is continuity so that we can measure progress over time and so that we do not massively change the data sets from one year to the next. Such continuity would provide us with meaningful information. I think that the information that we now have is as robust as possible, but we recognise that it must be refined as we move forward.
I am impressed by the language of the specific outcome agreement process: setting SMART targets; refining; streamlining; and making things manageable and meaningful. I hope that, ultimately, the process will be meaningful, particularly for the public.
The starting point is the new relationship—the concordat. It sets out clearly the Scottish Government's wish to concentrate on the major strategic issues at the national level and leave councils the maximum discretion and flexibility to operate at the local level. Councillors are operating within that framework to best align available resources to address local priorities. One purpose of the single outcome agreement is to demonstrate how it aligns with the national outcomes. We see the whole exercise operating within a new environment in which there is much greater flexibility and scope to align local resources to address local priorities.
Councils are looking at two different issues: the local priorities, which will vary across the country; and what kind of document will be most helpful to them. Councils were keen that the design of the document should not be completely detached from the design of the documents that they use in their other planning processes. Some documents are therefore quite long, with lots of detail, because that made sense to those councils, whereas others are shorter in length, for the same reason.
I understand that the City of Edinburgh Council's draft single outcome agreement runs to 62 closely typed pages. Clearly, as we heard earlier, if we want the public to be able to understand what is going on, some thought will have to be put into that.
Good morning. Mr Gibson's reference to the closely-typed pages of City of Edinburgh Council's document is appropriate, given that I will pick up the points that Mr Doris raised on national commitments, outcomes, indicators and targets, and their relationship to local outcomes, indicators and targets. Clearly, the historic concordat has to be mentioned in that connection.
If you had the historic concordat in front of you, you would find that the full statement is that we will move
Good.
As we have said, in terms of the single outcome agreement process, we are focusing on the contributions towards the national outcomes. The commitments that are set out in the concordat—the wording of which has just been put before the committee—will be delivered through a separate monitoring and reporting process that COSLA will undertake and report to us, as per the understanding in the concordat.
Yes, but how can 32 councils fulfil a national commitment that they have made unless they focus their own local outcomes on achieving the national result? The City of Edinburgh Council has a local outcome that is focused on an average class size policy, not a maximum class size policy, which is already out of alignment with the national commitment before we have even started.
On class sizes, the concordat specifically recognises that circumstances will vary across councils, that councils will take different approaches to class size reduction and that the pace of reduction may be different in different councils.
Yes. It is a pity that one of the people who made the commitment did not recognise that when they made it, but we will move on.
We are in danger of confusing two separate things.
I do not think so.
I think we are, and I will explain why—I may be wrong. The concordat has two sets of things in it. One is a set of specific negotiated agreements between the Government and local government on things that were in the Government's manifesto, none of which is specifically mentioned in the outcome agreements. For instance, freezing council tax is not in the single outcome agreements, nor is a commitment from the Government about joint policy development. The response to the Crerar report, which is part of the historic concordat, is also not in the outcome agreements. It is simply not fair to say that everything that is in the concordat should be in the outcome agreements. In the outcome agreements, we did not sign up to class sizes of anything, because that is not an outcome; we signed up to the outcome:
I agree entirely, but I am saying that the actions that the councils are taking are out of alignment with the national commitment. Mr Doris just pointed out that Glasgow City Council's agreement does not have anything about it.
We do not have page 27 of the Edinburgh agreement in front of us. It may—I am sure that it does—refer to the indicator that Mr McLetchie has outlined, but I would be surprised if it relates back to an outcome that is aligned with the manifesto commitment to reduce class sizes. It is more than likely aligned with one that is linked to improving educational attainment or the—
Oh yes, it is linked back to the motherhood-and-apple-pie objectives statement.
Sorry, can I finish my response? It will be linked back to a specific local outcome that the City of Edinburgh Council has developed, not to the commitment, which, as Rory Mair has already outlined, is subject to a separate monitoring system and to discussions between cabinet secretaries and COSLA that are not necessarily included in each of the single outcome agreements.
Many people will find it bizarre that there can be a series of local outcomes and local outcome agreements and plans that are not aligned with commitments that have been given by the Government and local councils. People seem to be going off in completely the wrong direction. If things are meant to be aligned—to use Mr Gibson's Zen word—they should be. Things should not go off in parallel directions, and one set of indicators and outcomes should not be at variance with a national commitment that you have made. That does not make sense.
I refer back to my opening statement. We are talking about a significant culture change. We are moving all of Scotland's public services away from a performance management regime that was based on inputs and outputs at best. Public service organisations are now considering how to contribute towards achieving real outcomes that will make a difference to people in Scotland. That is a massive culture change, and it is clear that we will have to carry out transitional work in certain areas to develop that change.
I highly recommend to you the City of Edinburgh Council's single outcome agreement. What it says about commitments on both sides is illuminating. It states:
The City of Edinburgh Council's approach will have been consistent with that of other councils. It has already been mentioned that, within agreements, there is a section for offers against each national outcome, which councils can bring to the table to deliver on their local outcomes in support of the national outcomes. There are also asks, which relate to issues that the Scottish Government in particular can consider and which would support councils in delivering on their local outcomes.
The City of Edinburgh Council says:
I cannot absolutely confirm that, as I do not have the document in front of me. However, from what you have said, I presume that that is the context within which that statement was made.
I quoted from a section headed "Scottish Government required action/commitment to support delivery of a local outcome". I presume that that is an ask in the template.
I can confirm that.
Mr Mair, does COSLA think that the Government must introduce legislation to restrict class sizes to 18?
There have been many discussions about what local government will need to meet our concordat commitment—I acknowledge that that is not quite the wording that you used—but so far there has been no consensus in COSLA that we need legislation. As of now, there is no consensus that a lack of legislation might make it difficult for us to reach class sizes of any number. We have not had that general debate in COSLA.
I presume that that debate will be held quickly. Given that it takes a year or so to pass a bill in the Parliament and that the Government will announce its legislative programme in September, I presume that, if legislation is required and if any progress is to be made towards achieving the commitment in the short term of three years that remains to the present regime, a decision will have to be made quickly. There would be no chance of passing the legislation otherwise. Is that correct?
Neither Gavin Whitefield nor I have seen the outcome agreement in question, so I cannot comment on whether legislation is required or accept that it is.
You just said that you were discussing it in COSLA.
No, I said that we have discussed a range of important issues. All of the asks—to use Gavin Whitefield's nomenclature—in the outcome agreements will be examined, and we will address as priorities the asks that are common across local authorities and those that we feel we need to address to allow all local authorities to meet the agreements. We will then go straight back to our partners in the Government with a list of requests. That work is starting to happen. As soon as the outcome agreements are signed off, we will have a clear understanding of all the asks. We will then be able to see which are common across all 32 outcome agreements and which should be our priorities.
If the City of Edinburgh Council is correct and legislation is required, do you agree with my analysis that we had better get on with it, given the time that it takes to enact legislation? This session has less than three years left.
On a number of issues, such as class sizes, councils are identifying that there may be barriers to delivering their local outcomes and commitments. As Rory Mair said, we need to discuss with them whether there are barriers and, if so, work out how to overcome them. If legislation is one solution, it will need to be taken through the parliamentary processes. However, as Rory Mair said, we do not have a view on that. The issue has not yet been considered and resolved.
But if the view is that legislation is necessary, we might not pass any law for another couple of years, given the timescales. At that point, this session of Parliament will be virtually over.
I can give you another example. We identified the need for legislation to achieve the commitment on school meals, and the concordat explicitly details that the Government will deliver that. The current process will flush out whether the Government needs to take particular action on anything else. If so, the Government will need to take that action as part of the discussion with local government.
I have one final question about the data on the commitment to a maximum class size. Are data available on the total number of primary 1 to 3 classes in Scotland and the total number that have a class roll of 18 or fewer at the audit date or the start of the coming school year?
A school census will be carried out in the first week of September. I do not know exactly what information will be collected this year, but historically we have been able to collect such information.
Given the importance of the national commitment and the desire to report on it separately, is it fair to assume that, shortly after the census is conducted in September, we will be advised how many primary 1 to 3 classes there are and how many meet the target?
We know from previous discussions in Parliament that there are lots of interpretations of what a class is. We need to be sure that the definitions are absolutely clear and understood by everybody involved in the process.
It would be fair to use Audit Scotland's definition.
Information collected in September will inform that discussion.
I can understand the reluctance to discuss individual outcome agreements, but are there on-going discussions with the councils in Glasgow and Edinburgh about class sizes? Are the outcome agreement documents in final or draft form? Between now and the end of the month, will discussions take place to change the minds of the councils in Glasgow or Edinburgh?
The single outcome agreement discussions that are on-going with the local authorities in Glasgow and Edinburgh relate to their contributions to the 15 national outcomes. That is the focus of the discussions between the directors who are part of that process and the authorities. I cannot say whether other discussions are going on.
Can we be absolutely clear? You say that the single outcome agreements do not cover everything and that the commitments on class sizes are separate. That means that it is legitimate for Glasgow City Council to negotiate with the Government on the consequences of meeting the Government's desire to have classes of 18. The class size commitments are not predicated on anything in the single outcome agreements and do not affect them; they are separate. The council's argument might relate to resources or best value, and the Government's concern would be the importance of achieving the reduction. Am I right to say that that is separate from the single outcome agreements?
The class size commitments are separate from the single outcome agreements, but the concordat is a package. It represents an agreement between the Scottish Government and local government to deliver on all parts of the concordat, including the commitments and single outcome agreements.
I thought that I was clarifying things, but I am not—class sizes are an example of that.
Every public organisation has a duty to work within the equalities legislation. That applies as much to local government as it does to us.
Have you given any guidance on that?
The guidance on single outcome agreements included the expectation that equalities—as well as best value and all the statutory responsibilities—would be part of their development.
Have you explained to or discussed with local authorities the importance of equality impact assessments?
The matter is for local government. Local authorities have a statutory responsibility to consider equality impact assessments. Our information is that they are doing that as part of the process.
I understand from the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth that he would be willing to sign off single outcome agreements with no evidence—written or otherwise—that equality impact assessments had been undertaken.
The cabinet secretary's answer recognised that the process is developing. That in no way detracts from public bodies' statutory responsibility to undertake equality impact assessments. Perhaps Gavin Whitefield can describe how that is proceeding in his local authority.
If local authorities have a statutory responsibility, is not the guidance or the Government obliged to make it clear that they are expected to do such assessments?
We referred in the guidance to the statutory responsibilities.
So it is reasonable to expect the Government not to sign off single outcome agreements unless it has evidence that equality impact assessments have been done.
We expect equality impact assessments to be done.
You are responsible for signing off single outcome agreements, so you will not sign them off if equality impact assessments have not been done.
As we have said, that is part of a developing process. We have no concern that the commitment to undertake the statutory duty will not be met.
A more general point is that the task of checking that a local authority had adhered to every statutory obligation would be enormous. We would never be able to sign off agreements if we went through such a process for every obligation on local government. The general guidance makes it clear that it is up to local authorities to ensure that they meet their legal obligations.
The Government has its own statutory responsibilities. Would a problem exist if the Government signed off a document without checking or obtaining assurance—perhaps by having an indicator such as a tick box—that an equality impact assessment had been done? Are you saying that the responsibility is only local government's and is not yours?
We need to recognise that, by and large, the local outcomes, targets and indicators derive from existing corporate and community plans, which councils and community planning partnerships develop. They are very much aware of the equality impact issues and of the need to comply with all legislative and regulatory requirements. Those plans are consistent with those requirements, so the flow-through from those documents to single outcome agreements should provide assurance that equality issues have been dealt with appropriately.
But presumably the whole point of the equality duties was to move from the presumption that that was the case. Most local authorities have a record of commitment to equalities, so the question is the issue of certainty during this period of change, and it is reasonable to expect that there should be certainty. I will give you an example on class sizes. An equality impact assessment on the impact of reducing class sizes in primary 1 to primary 3 could show that the consequence in a particular local authority was that money would have to be diverted from communities in poor areas to better-off communities because class sizes there were generally larger because the schools were popular. Further, if there was diversion of moneys to reduce class sizes during the transition period from primary 7 to secondary 1, when young boys in particular are vulnerable and drop out altogether in deprived communities, an equality impact assessment might show that, in relation to equalities responsibilities, it would be inappropriate to direct funds to reducing classes to 18 for primary 1 to 3. That is why the equality impact assessment is important.
We have already indicated that the class size reduction policy is not included in the single outcome agreements; it is included in the concordat, within which there is a separate monitoring and reporting system. Where councils have referred to a reduction in class sizes, they will have done so either as part of the offer-and-ask process in the single outcome agreements, which is part of the continuing debate about this important issue, or where they have set an indicator. I assume that that would be linked back to a wider outcome, not a specific outcome on reducing class sizes. Again, it is important to acknowledge that class size reduction is a concordat commitment, which is the subject of separate monitoring and evaluation, and, indeed, separate discussion.
But is the separate commitment itself subject to an equality impact assessment?
Policy is subject to equality impact assessment, so all the different policies in the Scottish Government are subject to such assessment, as are those in local government. We would be happy to provide further details about that in writing.
So I presume that an equality impact assessment has been done at Scottish Government level. However, the experience at local level might be different, and there might be consequences from that.
The focus of this committee hearing is actually on the single outcome agreement process. If you would like us to provide written answers—
I simply asked whether you have asked for legal advice on whether legislation is required.
I am conscious that the Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture Committee is taking evidence this week and next on class size issues, and it is a more appropriate place for these questions to be asked, because they are not specifically to do with single outcome agreements.
With respect, I am just interested to know whether you took legal advice on whether legislation is required.
I do not know, but if you would like us to provide written evidence on that, we will do so.
So you are not in a position to say yes or no here.
Correct, I am not in a position to do that.
Fine. We will await further information.
The issue is consequences. For example, the Scottish Government has expressed a commitment on the homelessness target, as has COSLA, and we took evidence on that last week. If an individual local authority considers the issue and decides not to put it in the single outcome agreement, but it has been assessed by the housing regulator as having poor-quality homelessness services, what powers will be available to address that situation? You will know, of course, that the Minister for Communities and Sport has said that there are circumstances in which ring fencing could be reapplied. Is that an option? Is it one that COSLA acknowledges?
We are having discussions just now with councils and CPPs around what is in the draft agreements. If something that we expect to find in an agreement is missing, we will have a conversation with the council. It might be missing for a variety of reasons: for example, the council is already doing it, but it is not explicitly in the agreement, or it is covered in a different way in the agreement and can be brought out more explicitly.
Some local authorities have already indicated that there are concerns about whether the homelessness target, for example, is reachable. Ultimately, if a council feels that there is insufficient resource to do something, and it does not put it in the agreement, the concordat system—or the single outcome agreement system—cannot make it go in. Is that right?
It is a basis for discussion. The council says, "This is a priority for us. We want to achieve certain outcomes, but there are barriers. We need to discuss with Government and other public agencies what we can do collectively to overcome those barriers so we can achieve that outcome." It gives us a basis for the kind of conversation that we have not had before.
I have two very short questions. Without going into details on class size commitments—because, as you have said, that is more for the Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture Committee, or perhaps for the full chamber—can you reconfirm that the commitment to cut class sizes is a joint commitment between local authorities and the Scottish Government?
The class size commitment is set out in the concordat and is a jointly agreed package on behalf of the Scottish Government and local government.
Johann Lamont raised issues about equality impact assessments and deprived areas. I am tempted to raise with you the 26 primary schools in the most deprived areas in Glasgow on which we could take action now to reduce class sizes to 18, but I will not do that now; I will leave it for the full chamber discussion later this week.
We are pleased about that, Bob.
I have a couple of questions on my favourite subject of commitments and outcomes. Page 7 of the historic concordat says:
Yes.
The 62 pages of the City of Edinburgh Council single outcome agreement repay careful study, which I strongly recommend. It says:
The difficulty with this discussion is that we have not signed up in the concordat to reducing class sizes to 18 in primary 1, 2 and 3 now. We said that we will move as quickly as possible towards that commitment. Some councils have the resources to make progress now, and some do not. I see no dichotomy. That last sentence is there because we have said in the document that we can only make the progress that we can within the sums of money that are available to us.
Is there any prospect whatsoever of all class sizes in primary 1, 2 and 3 in Scotland being reduced to a maximum of 18 by April 2011?
I do not know the answer to that.
So, you are saying that there is the prospect that that could be achieved.
I am saying that I do not know the answer to your question. We have asked all councils to tell us what progress they believe they can make. We will monitor that for the first time when we get information in the new school year. I cannot predict the answer to your question at the moment. You are asking me to guess and I do not think that I should guess.
The City of Edinburgh Council has refined the whole thing to refer only to positive action schools, primary 1, and averages, rather than maxima. Even though the council has refined the scope of the single outcome agreement—it has limited its horizon, so that the aspiration is well short of the terms of the national commitment—it still says that it needs £16 million for buildings and £7.45 million for additional teachers and that it cannot be assumed that it can achieve even that limited aspiration within the existing budget settlement. That suggests to me that there is hardly any chance of the policy being achieved in Edinburgh by April 2011.
That is your interpretation.
It is a reasonable interpretation, is it not?
I am not double-guessing it. We said in the concordat that local government will be expected to show year-on-year progress towards delivery of the class size reduction policy. We will deliver on that. There will be more class sizes of 18 in primary 1, 2 and 3 next year than there were this year. That is what we said we would deliver and that is what we will deliver.
Right, so snail-like progress will fulfil the obligation. Is that your assumption? As far as you are concerned, as long as you make any minuscule degree of progress, even at a snail-like rate, you are meeting your commitment. Is that correct?
We will make progress as quickly as possible.
Any degree of progress will fulfil the obligation.
We will have to discuss with the Government whether progress is being made as quickly as possible. We will have to test what is reasonable.
"As quickly as possible" could mean "very slowly".
Given what councils have said in some of the draft single outcome agreements that have been posted—they have yet to be finalised—we can expect different councils to take a different approach and to proceed at a different pace. Different councils have different challenges, depending on their size and so on. We know that the present financial allocations to councils are determined by grant-aided expenditure and are driven by population trends. There has been a shift to outcomes. What do we need to do to change the mechanism of allocation to local authorities, so that we get to an outcomes-based situation?
We recognise that there has been a significant shift. The Government is committed to reviewing the distribution methodology. We are in discussions with COSLA and local government about the remit for that review.
What support is there among council leaders for changing the current distribution mechanism?
The die is cast in respect of the three-year financial settlement figures that were announced last December. That is the envelope within which councils and community planning partnerships will develop single outcome agreements. The challenge and opportunity that we have is to demonstrate how we can maximise the outcomes using that resource. The single outcome agreement gives us the opportunity to demonstrate the progress that will be made over the three years. There will be on-going discussion between COSLA and the Scottish Government about distribution and the level of resources in the lead-up to the next spending review. Councils are clear about the level of resources that we have. Within that framework, we are developing the single outcome agreements and we are using the resources to best address local priorities and align them with the national outcomes.
We all understand that the die has been cast in respect of the three-year settlement. However, we also heard you say that the work on the single outcome agreements was a work in progress and that there was a radical culture change. Are you going to wait until the end of the three-year process before you make a start?
We do not think that we should wait until the end of the three-year process to make a start. We are saying that we need the three years, in respect of which the die has been cast, to work out the exact implications of the outcome-based approach and what we will take into the next spending review. We have started discussions about how we set a remit for that, what issues we need to examine and how things will work.
Will that not be forced upon us when all 32 outcome agreements come out, if there are any similarities with the Edinburgh situation? The various financial challenges that the councils will face in meeting any of the ambitions and commitments will be flagged up on 30 June. Will it not be obvious by 30 June if any areas have specific problems and will be unable to make significant or real progress towards achieving the outcomes under the current financial constraints?
There are two work streams, one of which is the on-going refinement of and improvements to the single outcome agreements over the three-year period; the second is about the review of resources distribution that will be available for local government beyond that three-year period. Any cost pressures that are flagged up through the debate around single outcome agreements will inform the dialogue that will take place between COSLA and the Scottish Government.
Is the current mechanism fit for purpose, given the move to single outcome agreements?
We think that it will change.
Is it fit for purpose?
The three-year settlement was agreed before we even started on the outcome agreement process. That is the money we have got, and we are concentrating on the £11.3 billion that local government is spending and how it is being spent in accordance with the outcomes to which we have signed up.
We have issues—Inverclyde is a pet issue of mine. The population is in decline, and as a result the area has a disproportionate number of elderly people. We believe that we do not get our fair share to enable us to meet their needs, whereas other local authorities that do not spend as much on care for the elderly get more money to meet their needs in proportion to the overall population. That is happening every day, and we have been aware of it for a very long time.
I understand that a lot of the work that went into considering distribution issues over a prolonged period of time was analysis of the best distribution model. However, when that flowed through to councils, the impact of that analysis was felt at the margins. That makes us ask whether all the work that went into that analysis was justified by the outcome. We are aware of that factor in the existing system. However, we are where we are with the resources that we have, and we will operate within that framework to best deliver on local priorities and align them with the national outcomes through the single outcome agreements.
Thank you very much for your time. The session has been useful and we look forward to speaking to you again.
Meeting continued in private until 11:54.