Chamber and committees

I feel somewhat frustrated, because there is so much else that we could ask questions about, from the rural and islands productivity lag to research and development and the core growth sectors. However, I will finish by asking a couple of quick questions.

First, people at school often assume that, whether they get an apprenticeship or go to university or whatever, they will get a job working for someone. I do not know that enough is being done to try to teach what we might call entrepreneurial skills. It is accepted across the Parliament that Scotland has a low rate of new business start-ups relative to the rest of the UK and beyond. What is Skills Development Scotland doing to address that? At what level should it be addressed? Should it be addressed in schools, for example?

I will ask my second question now as well. It is about people with disabilities, which we have not touched on. I remember that, when I was a councillor way back in the 1990s, there was a policy that, if possible, 3 per cent of all employees should be people with disabilities. Interestingly enough, the public sector lagged behind the private sector in that regard. There have been a number of initiatives over the years to try to increase the number of people with disabilities in the workforce, in order to improve productivity and those people’s quality of life.

My questions are on those two issues: entrepreneurial skills and people with disabilities.

That is interesting.

A number of people said that one of the difficulties with the national performance framework for the wider population—most of whom, I believe, will probably not even have heard of it—is its remarkably dull name. The title “national performance framework” brings to mind the national planning framework, which has the same acronym—NPF. People have suggested calling it the national wellbeing framework, although “ambitions for Scotland” sounds like a better title to me.

If the framework is going to be reviewed, could the title be reviewed? Could it be something that people feel has a bit more vitality? Somebody said last week the one way to ensure that a document is not read is to put the words “framework” and “performance” in the title. That was not a flippant comment; it was a serious comment about trying to ensure that we get buy-in from more people. I ask the Deputy First Minister to take that issue away and consider it as we review the framework. The Parliament is much more enthusiastic about, and has much more knowledge of, wellbeing—as do the public—than the two-dimensional gross domestic product measure that we used to use in the past. The framework talks about that.

I have one final question to cover a couple of issues that some of our witnesses really struggled with, about how we use the national performance framework—or whatever they call it in future—to declutter the public sector landscape and to share best practice. There is a plethora of documents and it seems that whenever the Government wants to do something new, it brings out an additional document rather than replacing existing documents and strategies.

I asked one of our witnesses directly about best practice and how they share it and they talked about sharing it internally. What I was clearly asking about was how they share best practice with other organisations. For example, if a local authority has an excellent way of working and is delivering on poverty outcomes, how can that be shared with other local authorities? One would assume that would happen through COSLA, but it does not seem to be working in the way that it should.

How we can use the NPF to underpin those aims of decluttering and sharing best practice?

Andrea, do you have anything to add to that?

Thank you. The session has overrun, and I realise that members have itchy feet and have other things to do. For example, John Mason, Michelle Thomson and I have another meeting that started a minute ago. We will therefore conclude the meeting and consider our work programme next week, if members agree to do so.

I thank Andrea Glass and Chris Brodie for the comprehensive evidence that they have given. There are still a few issues that we might want to touch on, so we will probably be in touch with them on those.

Obviously, COSLA is not happy about ring fencing. However, the Scottish Government would argue that if it gave, say, £10 million to local authorities to employ more teachers, local authorities, if they had the flexibility, might spend that money on something else and then ministers would be attacked in the Scottish Parliament for not putting enough teachers in place. Ministers think, “We provided the money for teachers; councils didn’t spend it on them; and we’re the ones getting the kicking, even though we provided the money.” How do you square that circle?

When the national performance framework was set up, John Swinney, who was the finance secretary at the time, had an overview of it. Of course, he is now the Deputy First Minister, and he still has an overview of it.

It was going to be Paul Bradley actually.

I am going to bring Amy Woodhouse in, but leadership was something that I was going to come to you next on, because you said in your submission:

“There needs to be a consistent commitment to and leadership of the NPF throughout the Scottish Government and other public bodies that delivers policy coherence across strategies, plans, frameworks, and activities.”

Have you identified a significant gap in that regard?

I agree with that. If I have to do a piece of work and I have been given a deadline of Friday, I will do it on Thursday. If the deadline is the following Monday, I will do it on Sunday. If there is no deadline, there is always something else to fill my time. I do think that that is an issue. With the best will in the world, we always have other priorities, some of which are time driven.

I said that I would go back to Amy Woodhouse. In your submission, you say:

“We believe there is scope for funding to be more closely aligned to the national outcomes, and we would welcome the opportunity for discussion about how this could be taken forward appropriately.”

How can it be taken forward? You talk about that in your submission, but, rather than read it out, I will let you cover that ground.