Chamber and committees

In my region, PACE Theatre Company has served children and young people for more than 30 years and has given children and young people opportunities to benefit educationally, socially and culturally from a variety of performing arts experiences. Its alumni include Richard Madden, Paolo Nutini and one Paul O’Kane. It is embarking on an ambitious project in Paisley town centre to turn a derelict site into Scotland’s first children’s theatre. It has received funding from Renfrewshire Council through the town centre regeneration fund, but it has a way to go. Will the minister commit to supporting that important project, and will he agree to visit the project with me and to meet PACE Theatre Company to see how the Government might support it?

To ask the Scottish Government how it is supporting children and young people’s theatre. (S6O-01744)

I am keen to start with the sustainability of management of finances within NHS boards. Audit Scotland previously highlighted a lack of stable senior leadership, with high turnover and short-term tenure. When we went through this session last year, we discussed some similar issues. Therefore, it would be good to know what progress the cabinet secretary feels has been made on financial stewardship within boards and whether he feels that more has to be done to tackle those issues.

Given the acute situation that we find ourselves in and the announcements that the cabinet secretary will make later this afternoon, that detailed piece of analysis on the benefit of increasing pay should stand alone and be done by the Government. I am sure that the cabinet secretary intends to make an announcement containing further detail about the beds that he will purchase in care homes. That will require a staffing element, and we know about the staffing challenges. It is not just that, because, obviously, there are care at home staffing issues, and I agree with him about terms and conditions. My sense from his previous answers is that we are being told that, four years down the line, the national care service will deliver all of this and we can move the dial. Does he not accept that we need to do more now and look at the issues right now, instead of wishing them away to the national care service?

I will ask about something else that Audit Scotland has consistently raised, which is the impact that multiyear budgeting would have and the adverse impact that a lack of multiyear budgeting has on longer-term financial planning, ensuring that innovation can be planned for and other things that we are keen to see. What is your view on how multiyear budgets might assist in achieving financial stability, and what do you perceive as being the barriers to offering those multiyear settlements?

Good morning, cabinet secretary, and happy new year. I will pick up on the point about NHS 24 recruitment. I appreciate that further detail will be provided this afternoon, I imagine, in the cabinet secretary’s statement, but he will recall that, last year, he and I had an exchange about contact tracing staff and the potential for them to be redeployed to NHS 24 to bolster capacity. At the time, the cabinet secretary gave an undertaking to try to do as much of that as possible. I do not know whether he can say now how many of those staff were transferred or whether he can write to me with further detail on the transfer.

Convener, would you like me to move on to the national care service?

Following on from that point, the cabinet secretary has outlined his 48p and lower pay rise this year for care staff. In the evidence that we have heard in this committee around the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill, there has been a lot of criticism about the process and about this being focused on structural change. He has already referenced the financial memorandum and the commentary of the Finance and Public Administration Committee. Does he not acknowledge that this is the opportunity to pause on the bill, to take account of all of that criticism and to look at how we deal with the immediate pressures in this financial year, and then to make a plan going forward that brings all of the partners who have significant criticisms around the table?

In that vein of being constructive and helpful, I do not think that what I have said is a surprise to the cabinet secretary, given that, in our robust discussions in the chamber and elsewhere, I have called for a pause for some time. If he is willing to have that consideration, that is welcome, and I hope that he will respond to COSLA, trade unions, front-line staff and others who are calling for that dialogue prior to the legislation going through its stages.

Is the cabinet secretary confident that, when we come back round this table to discuss these issues six months to a year down the line, significant progress will have been made, particularly in those three boards? Does he expect them to have returned to a position of having those usual financial controls?