The only way is ethics. I call Daniel Johnson.

Thank you. That is helpful.

You will have read the Official Report of the meeting that we had three weeks ago at which we took evidence from three academics who expressed some frustration about areas where progress was not being made. One of those areas was preventative spend. The Scottish Government’s response to the report of the Christie commission says:

“we will reform our public services through: a decisive shift towards prevention; greater integration at a local level driven by better partnership; workforce development; and a sharper, more transparent focus on performance.”

However, those academics were of the view that that really has not happened. There are strong reasons for that. It is difficult, particularly in financially challenging circumstances, to encourage organisations to disinvest in one area in order to invest in another, but the academics were of the view that there does not even seem to be a definition of what prevention means in the Scottish public sector.

How can we take that crucial area forward and deliver the culture change that, 10 years ago, when you led on this issue, we all agreed was very important in changing attitudes and ensuring that prevention delivers for the people of Scotland?

On you go.

That would only lead to more questions.

I have one final question. In Scotland, we have 128 non-departmental public bodies and 32 local authorities, and we have health boards, health and social care partnerships, community planning partnerships, and city and regional deals. When it comes to public understanding, probably south of 1 per cent of the population understand how those things work together. You talked about optimum service delivery in one of your responses to Daniel Johnson. I realise that there are vested interests and that things are difficult to move, structurally, but is there a case for decluttering the landscape?

I appreciate that. I was a councillor at that time, when one local authority, Strathclyde, became 12 local authorities, which meant that we had 12 new social work directors, 12 deputy social work directors and so on, and lots of structures had to be put in place.

It is an area that we must keep under review, because there can be a disconnect between the people of Scotland and all the different structures if those structures become impossible to understand. It can be hazy even for elected representatives if there are too many overlapping structures.

I thank the Deputy First Minister and his officials for their evidence. The next item on our agenda, which will be discussed in private, is consideration of our work programme. I would also like to update members on some areas of interest and importance.

Community involvement is important. I was at a public meeting a week past Saturday in Lochranza; its population is 120 and 75 people were at the meeting. I open up questions to colleagues.

I do not doubt for one minute that there have been remarkable successes, which you have detailed, but what about areas in which cultural change does not seem to be happening to the same extent? How uniform is the cultural change?

I will give one example. A decade or more ago, there was concern about the high proportion of national health service spend that was going on older people who were being treated in hospital but who did not need to be there. We are talking about around £1.5 billion at that time. Obviously, we have had a pandemic and things have changed, but where are we in trying to change the cultural approach in areas such as the NHS? You may recall that there was resistance from health boards in that area. They said that, unless they got more money, they could not change the way in which they did things with the resources that they had. I am aware that you allocated £500 million over three years specifically to preventative spend at the time. How can we ensure that some of the remarkably successful examples that you have given can permeate the entire public sector in Scotland?

I have one last question before I open up the session to colleagues around the table. Three weeks ago, our witnesses said that there is an opportunity in the wake of Covid-19 to empower and better resource communities. What does empowering communities mean to the Scottish Government? Does it mean empowering, within communities, small groups of those who tend to be active in community councils and elsewhere? How do we involve people more widely? Participatory budgeting has been a step forward, but what does community empowerment mean to the Scottish ministers?

To be fair, I point out that I anticipated that that would be the answer. However, would it not be easier if that information was included in those lines in the reports? Another sentence to explain that would be helpful. That is why I asked the question.

I was going to ask you something else, but I cannot read my own writing, although I wrote it down only two minutes ago. I apologise—it might come to mind in the next minute or so. Oh! I see what it is, now.

I want to ask about the spring revisions. Many of the changes arise from changes in portfolios following the First Minister’s realignment of Cabinet and ministerial portfolios. Do you anticipate significantly fewer changes in the spring and subsequent revisions because of that, and that the next time we have a revision, there will be only relatively minor changes, as the pandemic eases?

Thank you. Professor Mitchell, you talked about how difficult it is to change and to move people away from existing budgets. Obviously, it is easier to have preventative spend assisting change when budgets are growing rather than under stress and strain. What can be done even in such adverse circumstances?

There is clearly an issue whereby one can cynically say, “We will bring in these wonderful new changes, but we will have to take all the flak from those with vested interests now, and someone else will see the benefits in 10, 15 or 20 years.” That can be a selfish approach, because politics is often about the here and now. How would you address that issue in practical, pragmatic terms?