Chamber and committees

Once you have had time to look through the draft business case, I am sure that the committee would be pleased to hear your views on how the model is working. It is obviously really important, as we heard, not just to UHI Perth but to other colleges across UHI.

I will go to Vicki Nairn or Mike Baxter—whichever of them feels that it is most appropriate to comment—to give us a bit more detail on what the new model would mean. Concern is certainly being flagged, in particular—but not only—by the Educational Institute of Scotland, that the model potentially removes scrutiny from the remit of the Auditor General and the Parliament. The EIS has said that, in its view, that would basically end public sector incorporation.

I guess that we would like to hear some assurance that that is not the intention of the proposals, and a bit more on what it is that you are trying to do and how you are trying to do it, bearing in mind the comments that Jacqui Brasted just made about how those services are funded.

Thanks very much to both of you.

We are encouraging shared services across all public services in order to better use public funds and to make sure that those funds are focused at the chalk face, to coin a pun. It is important to have clarity that accountability and transparency will continue in any new system. I encourage you to continue to have that discussion, particularly with the trade unions, which I know will be articulating that point. As politicians, we are keen to have transparency so that there remains accountability for public funds to the Parliament and the Auditor General.

Finally, I turn to Perth College—this is maybe a question for Lynn Murray. We have heard a different view of what the top slicing is for. When Graham Watson spoke to us, it sounded almost as though the top slice was a huge sum of money that was paid and just disappeared, with colleges getting nothing back for it, but we have now heard that it is used for shared services. Will the new model work better? Do you have confidence that the college’s engagement will get you to a point that works for the college as well as for UHI?

You have covered the question that I was going to ask about digital exclusion.

Paragraph 128 notes that, although the app is quite limited just now, there is potential for it to do much more. To some extent, it goes back to the point that my colleague made about A and E departments being used appropriately. One of the big things that we have in our toolkit is the pharmacy first service, which has now been adopted in the rest of the UK following the launch in Scotland many years ago. In order for that service to be really effective, pharmacists need to be able to access people’s health data. Pharmacists are itching to be able to work to their max and take the pressure off the rest of the system. Will the app allow for that to happen?

The convener mentioned that we took evidence from the previous incumbents, in particular Graham Watson, the former chair of Perth College. As part of that evidence, he talked about the risks of top slicing, and I want to talk about that area. To paraphrase him, he said that if the top slice had not been at the level that it was, Perth College would not have had a £2 million deficit and would not have been in a crisis management situation.

That is quite a stark thing to say; he is suggesting a really serious implication of UHI’s model of funding. We heard from many people who agreed that the funding model is no longer fit for purpose. The Education, Children and Young People Committee received a letter from UHI agreeing that the top-slice model was

“no longer fit for purpose”

and that it would be proposing “a full business case” for “a new operating model” to the Scottish Funding Council in December last year.

This is probably a question for Tiffany Ritchie. Have you received that model and, if so, have you managed to form a view on it?

I will wrap up, because I know that time is tight. I had a few questions about the service renewal framework and the population health framework, which the NHS is taking forward in partnership with COSLA. That is really important. Are the frameworks going in the direction that we would hope, or are further changes and improvements needed?

I will try to keep my questions as tight as I can. A huge amount of work has been done relating to digital access for a number of years. In my personal interaction with the NHS, I use a portal to ask my GP for repeat prescriptions. Along with many people who are my age or older, I go online via Scotblood, which is a web-based system, to get an appointment to donate blood. If the NHS appointment for winter vaccination is not appropriate, I can go online to fix that. However, we have still not pulled all that together in an app, as is the case elsewhere in the United Kingdom.

Page 127 of your report highlights that the MyCare.scot app was to be rolled out in December, initially in Lanarkshire, and potentially then in the rest of Scotland by April. It would be good to hear whether that is still your understanding. On page 129, you highlight a concern that there has still not been a “full business case” or a budget attached to the roll-out. Is that concerning, or do you expect us to get all that next week?

Will that cover larger cross-Government areas, such as public service reform and child poverty?

If we have continuing pressures on public finance, clearly we need to see how money is being spent. A lot of the public sector reform that we have talked about for years has also been about how we can shift to more preventative spending. I do not see how we can do that without being able to see what our money is delivering, particularly when some of that preventative spend will be long term.

I want to ask some questions about performance reporting, which you touched on earlier. Since the start of the Parliament in 1999 there has been a desire to better understand how money is performing in terms of outcomes. When I joined the Parliament in 2007, I sat on the Finance Committee, and we heard about international best practice from, I think, Virginia. The then Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth, now First Minister, John Swinney, was keen to introduce a structure or framework that would help us to better understand what our money was delivering. From that came the national performance framework.

It is a bit disappointing that one of the key messages in your report is that the Scottish Government cannot clearly demonstrate that public spending is delivering the intended outcomes. At paragraph 85, you talk about the reform strategy for the national performance framework. It would be good to understand what the challenges are with the NPF and what you hope will come out of the review and refresh of the NPF.

Minister, I go back to Sandesh Gulhane’s question about regulated professional bodies and the inclusion of the General Osteopathic Council and the General Chiropractic Council. My understanding is that neither osteopaths nor chiropractors in this country are medically trained—though they are in some other countries—and I am therefore not aware of their ability to prescribe pharmaceuticals, so their inclusion is unclear. When we asked which procedures they might be covered for, we were not given an answer.

I am really concerned that we have a potential loophole that could cause confusion. People might think that, because someone is regulated by the General Osteopathic Council or the General Chiropractic Council, they can perform the procedures that are outlined in the legislation. There is no reason for people to think that, so I ask you to consider whether those two bodies should be removed from the bill to ensure that it is as clear as possible.