Chamber and committees

If you had additional resources in Fife, would you allocate them to increasing the amount of money for preventative spend on, say, poverty? You mentioned your 70:30 split in funding, but if you had a significant increase in the resources available for that, would you continue with that proportion of spend or would you say, “Well, we’ve got this additional money—let’s try to make a real difference in prevention”? How would that work?

We will continue evidence taking for our national performance framework inquiry with a round-table discussion. I welcome to the meeting Amy Woodhouse, head of policy, projects and participation at Children in Scotland; Keith Robson, senior public affairs manager at the Open University in Scotland; Jamie Livingstone, head of Oxfam Scotland; Vicki Bibby, director of strategic planning and performance at Public Health Scotland; Neil Ferguson, head of corporate functions at Revenue Scotland; Elle Adams, programme manager at Scotland CAN B; and Paul Bradley, policy and public affairs manager at the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations.

I thank you for your detailed written submissions. We have around 90 minutes for this session, which is intended to generate a discussion rather than be a straightforward question-and-answer session. If you want to make any points in the discussion, let Joanne McNaughton, our clerk, know and I will take you in.

This is not going to be Buggins’s turn—I am not going to take you in sequence. People will just put their hands up when they want to come in, and it may be that we bounce back and forward, and the same people may get in more than others. I do not intend to do a lot of talking, which colleagues on the committee will be pleased to hear. I have specific questions about each of your seven submissions that I will ask if I need to, but if we get a free-flowing discussion and we touch on the areas that we want to cover, that will not be necessary. I do not want to be in a situation where I am just going through the questions that you have already answered in your submissions, so if I ask questions, it will be to expand on some of the comments that you have already made.

Without further ado, Vicki Bibby already knows that I am going to go to her first, because forewarned is forearmed. In the written submission from Public Health Scotland, Vicki has said:

“In summary, we believe the national performance framework is fundamentally important as a statement of the shared national priorities and a clear expression of what wellbeing means for the people of Scotland today.”

That concludes questions from committee members, but I still have a couple of questions that touch on areas that we have not covered yet.

The first is for Mirren Kelly. The submission from COSLA talks about the impact of the national outcomes on the economy as one example of collaborative working. It says that

“the Business Gateway National Unit in COSLA ... works extensively and in collaboration with the Scottish Government, the three enterprise agencies, Skills Development Scotland, Visit Scotland and Creative Scotland as well as all 32 Councils.”

It goes on to talk about community planning partnerships and other structures, such as integration joint boards. One area that is not covered, but I am sure that it is also in your mind, is city and regional deals.

Do you feel that delivery of the national outcomes would benefit from a decluttering of the public sector landscape?

You have talked about sharing internally, but what about either learning from or sharing with other local authorities?

I would be delighted if you did. You have mentioned the no wrong door initiative a couple of times. I am quite intrigued by that. Resources are tight and are likely to be tight for the foreseeable future, and I hope that, if best practice can be shared, resources will be spent at a more optimum level than perhaps happens at the moment across Scotland.

I will finish where I started, with a point for Mirren Kelly, which is also on the question about sharing examples of good practice. Again, I was somewhat disappointed in COSLA’s response to that question. Your response said:

“This has involved working collaboratively with a range of organisations, where workstreams with a range of stakeholders have been set up to progress each of the agreed outcomes.”

There was a sentence before that, and a long sentence after it, but not really any specific examples of best practice, as I would consider it, where improvements have been made. If we are going to deliver on the outcomes, it is important, as I have already pointed out, that we share that information. Do you have any specific direct examples that you can share?

Yes—or services delivered by the NHS, for example; I would imagine that there would be issues there.

Are there any further points that our witnesses want to make before we end the session?

Well, we are pursuing this inquiry to ensure that it does not wither on the vine, and there will be the statutory review next year.

I think the point that Jamie Livingstone made about the round-table session is extremely significant. In fact, that was the bit that I highlighted to ask you about when we came to that subject. I was pleased that you brought that into the discussion—it is certainly something that we will put to Scottish ministers.

I was actually going to bring you in on that subject. I am going to let John Mason in, and then we will come back to you to talk about finance. It is a thread that runs right through the submissions, and you have made several specific comments relating to it, so we will come back to you after a question from John Mason.

I do not necessarily disagree with what you have said, because local authorities are encouraged to do short-term, medium-term and long-term planning. However, the Government is not going to make an overall commitment in terms of that. Organisations must plan for those different scenarios and we, as a committee, want to ensure that there is as much funding that they can rely on—as much sustainable funding—as possible. We will certainly be pressing the Government on that.

Vicki Bibby has been very patient.