Chamber and committees

Yes. The phrase “our people” does not need to be there; it should just be “people” or “everyone”.

We have about 16 or 17 minutes left, and the last topic that I want to touch on is collaborative working. After that wee topic, I want to give all our guests an opportunity to make one last comment on any aspect that we may or may not have touched on that they feel is critically important for the committee to pick up on.

Neil, how does the NPF underpin collaborative working?

Come at it from a different angle if you wish.

You make a fundamental point. If Public Health Scotland can save money through an initiative for another area of the Scottish Government’s work, should some of that resource go back to Public Health Scotland, for example?

When I used to work in pharma, we had a staff suggestion scheme on how to improve the company, its business, its profitability and so on. Nobody put in any suggestions, but the suggestion was then made—by yours truly, I have to say—that if the company gave a little reward to people who made a suggestion—of, for example, 10 per cent of the money that was saved by the company as a result—it might get more suggestions. The company was inundated with suggestions. A lot of people in the company felt, “It’s making multimillion-pound profits and I’m not getting anything out of it.” As soon as there was an opportunity for people to get a reward, they put in suggestions. Some of those suggestions saved the company huge amounts of money, and the staff benefited accordingly.

Even in the public sector, that can work. The public service ethos is that if you deliver something, you should want to do it for the sake of doing it, apart from anything else, but, at the same time, if, for example, Public Health Scotland was able to save £1 million in another department, why should half of that money not return to Public Health Scotland to contribute towards other initiatives?

Actually, my next question is on funding, and I will quote from Mirren Kelly’s submission rather than your own, Tim, on that particular issue, although you have obviously commented on the matter.

Mirren, you have said:

“councils are constrained by overall levels of funding”—

which I think we are all well aware of—and go on to say that this

“piecemeal approach to funding does not truly support an outcomes-based approach.”

How can the Scottish Government implement its manifesto commitments in areas covered by local government and, at the same time, take a more constructive approach?

Tim, at the Dundee session that we held two weeks ago—I am sure that Michelle Thomson and Liz Smith also picked up on this—some people said that, whenever there is an issue, another organisation, reporting facility or whatever is created. Given your experience in Fife, do you feel that there should be a decluttering? I am not suggesting that you should go into specifics unless you wish to, but, in general, do we have to look again at the structure in Scotland? I do not think that the public knows—indeed, probably only a few elected representatives know—exactly where everything fits. It is so incredibly complicated.

We might want to look at that further in the months and years ahead, given our public administration remit.

I have a question on best practice. Tim, your submission is excellent, but I thought that your response to the final question that you were asked to answer was fairly terse. The final question was:

“Please share any examples of good practice, areas for improvement or practices that have not worked so well.”

Your response said:

“Examples of good practice and challenges during the Covid 19 pandemic are detailed in the Fife Partnership Annual Report 2020-2021. A copy of this report can be provided on request.”

That was not really what we were looking for.

The committee has talked about there being a lot of examples of good work that is going on in Scotland, but there does not seem to be much enthusiasm for sharing it. This was an opportunity to share an example or two, which you did not take up.

I think that funding is going to come up a lot in our next evidence-taking session. It has certainly been mentioned by everyone who has made a submission.

Tim Kendrick, you are obviously very proud of Fife’s local outcomes improvement plan. Indeed, you highlight in your submission Fife’s specific focus on three priorities—

“tackling poverty and preventing crisis; addressing the climate emergency; and leading economic recovery”—

all of which look sensible.

However, with regard to how you would innovate as a council, you refer to

“A tendency for national policy and inspection arrangements to focus on certain, more easily measurable outcomes”,

highlighting SQA attainment as an example and saying that such a tendency

“distracts attention away from the importance of wider wellbeing for improving outcomes for the most disadvantaged and vulnerable children.”

Can you expand a wee bit more on your thinking in that area?

Thank you very much. I now open the session up to colleagues.

Yes. I think that, because the acronym is NPF, some people confuse it with the national planning framework. If it was called the national ambitions for Scotland or something, ordinary people who are not particularly involved in what we are deliberating would understand that it was something positive and what the Government was aiming for. It is a very dry and completely uninspiring title.

Anyway, talking of uninspiring, we have Douglas Lumsden followed by Michelle Thomson. [Laughter.]