Has the board regained the confidence of its stakeholders as a result of the good work that has been done?

Madainn mhath, a h-uile duine—good morning, everyone.

First, I want to say well done to the board. I remember our predecessor committee’s session with Bòrd na Gàidhlig; it was a difficult session for those who were board members at that time. It is important to recognise the progress that has been made, as has been reflected in the Auditor General’s report, so I say well done to the cathraiche, or chair, and to the ceannard, or chief executive.

I have a couple of questions on the theme of openness and transparency. Auditor General, you will recall that, only a couple of years ago, those basic principles were not being met at all. We are still wondering why the sponsor division did not pick up on those issues. Nevertheless, can you say whether the sponsor division has played an active role in addressing those issues and has made a contribution to achieving the progress that we have seen?

It is positive to hear that. My questions are about how we engage with the wider Gaelic community, which is a key part of making progress. I think that everybody recognises that, and it sounds as though there has been great progress.

With regard to the recent continuous improvement plan, was there direct reach-out to Gaelic stakeholders and the Gaelic community, or did the board go through the process on its own to deliver the plan? It is important that the board reaches out to, engages with and works alongside the wider community, and gets its agreement to the plan. Was there evidence that such engagement took place?

It is good to hear that.

Turning to leadership and governance, the report is positive about the improvements that have been made in the stability of NHS Highland’s leadership. That is welcome, as are the comments about succession planning. I think that the report said that the first round of that was due to be completed by December. Has that work been done, or is it still in progress?

Thank you so much for that, Stephen. I think that the convener might wish to continue to develop the questions in that area, so I hand back to him.

I have a couple of short questions for Stephen Boyle about leadership and governance, but I want to go back to what Joanne Brown said about the Near Me digital platform. I think that she said that the number of digital consultations through Near Me had gone up from about 88 a week to about 1,000 a week. That is a fantastic transformation, which has been brought about by Covid.

Do you have a sense that that will remain in place if and when we get through the Covid emergency? Will that digital mechanism or model be retained? It seems to be a good one, and one that has been particularly successful for NHS Highland.

That is a good answer and the usual wise words from the Auditor General. I say a big well done to the board.

Thank you for your fair response to the overall figures in the settlement, which are in black and white and have been independently produced by SPICe. I appreciate your response.

On ring fencing and so on, Johanna Baxter said that 80 per cent of North Ayrshire Council’s budget is controlled by the Scottish Government, but our papers say that the Scottish Government has said that 92 per cent of funding to local government is controlled by local councils. There is a huge difference there, and the truth probably lies in between.

There are shared priorities all over the place, as you said yourself. Is it not a little unfair of some representatives to say that it is all Scottish Government diktat, when—at the end of the day—it is mostly about shared priorities?

It is worth making the point, so that we can have that discussion. By any stretch of the imagination, if some authorities are getting a bigger settlement than authorities such as East Ayrshire, Inverclyde, Dundee and Glasgow, where poverty and inequality are probably much higher than in those other authorities, that surely has to call into question whether the modelling is weighted correctly or appropriately for the circumstances.

I will leave that question for a future discussion and will move on to my second question, which is also for Kate Forbes. In the previous evidence session, the representative of Unison said that the budget does nothing to tackle inequalities in Scotland. Can you give a direct response to that and outline for the committee how the budget tackles poverty and inequality?

Good morning to both cabinet secretaries. The COSLA spokesperson who we heard from earlier was gracious enough to acknowledge that the overall settlement is £12.5 billion, which is a real-terms increase of £600 million and the equivalent of a 5 per cent increase. There has been a lot of debate on that during this session.

My first question is for Kate Forbes and is on the methodology. That was discussed earlier, so I hope that she does not mind. My good friend and colleague Miles Briggs said that Edinburgh is hard done by through the settlement, but Edinburgh is getting more of a percentage uplift than, for example, East Ayrshire, Inverclyde, Glasgow and Dundee. Is population one of the factors in the methodology, so that if an authority loses substantial numbers of its population, its overall allocation diminishes? Do you recognise that such local authorities still have to deliver by and large the same level of service to a diminishing level of population, and it is very difficult for them to do that? Will you consider that issue in any further review of the model for awarding cash to local government?