Chamber and committees

Social security is in Ms Somerville’s portfolio, and any operational issues around claimant rates or error rates fall within that portfolio. As I said, I will ask Ms Somerville to come back with answers to those specific points.

The point is absolutely valid. If we drew a big map of the whole public sector and laid it out, it would cover the table. We would need to draw a line somewhere. You are right. There are lines between social care and health that need to be addressed. There are lines between social care, social work and child protection, which takes us into the education space. However, we are hugely cognisant of the fact that there are bits in that delivery landscape that would not necessarily sit well in the health space—everybody recognises that. I will not go into detail now, because I do not want to pre-empt where we end up on that, but your point is absolutely valid. We need to be clear about what sits where, and the engagement with partners at the moment is part of that. If you have thoughts on that, I would love it if you sent them to us.

That is a fair point, and it is important for people to focus on what is important and the value of operating at a strategic level. To use the example of Glasgow, already, the city region deal and the economic partnerships are increasingly effective at delivery, and they have some real opportunities, so it is important to understand that.

I have made my comments on the work that is happening on council tax per se, but how that money would flow through the system is a valid part of the conversation about local government structures. You might keep the same council tax, but deciding how that money is moved around the system is also important, if we are looking at what happens at the regional level and the community level and how all that fits together, so there are discussions to be had on that.

We have a high-level ambition for our country, which we will deliver on.

Again, that is an operational issue for Social Security Scotland. Ms Somerville will be across the detail of that, but it is not an issue that I am able to talk to.

There are a few points there. You made a really important point about the need to empower front-line employees across organisations. We have stressed that, and it is at the core of our engagement with the trade unions. I do not think it is controversial to say that everyone probably agrees that public services are overmanaged—if I can put it that way—because of the number of layers of management, so that is firmly in our sights as we look at best practice and at what good looks like. That, in itself, will create an environment in which employees feel empowered to come forward with good ideas, so that is an important point.

Invest to save was designed to tackle the problem of prevention and is a step in that direction. It is on a relatively small scale at £30 million, but it is really important. If I have a budget and you have a budget, and if I spend money from my budget but you get the benefit of that in three years’ time, I have zero incentive to do that. The whole point of invest to save is to provide a pot of money for different bodies and portfolios to bid into together, so that, if they take some of that money and spend it here and now, the benefit will come back in future years and they will be able to pay back what was invested. It is an investment to save, and that is an important point. It is not free money; it will come back into the system and circulate through the fund again, but it will take away some of the barriers.

We earmarked a proportion of that fund specifically for local government, and that is the bit that you are benefiting from in your really interesting work on the council for the future programme. I am keen to continue that work and scale it up over time, precisely so that we have a mechanism that allows us to invest in preventative opportunities when they arise.

That is a good point. It goes back to some of the stuff that we talked about before, about different pockets of money and different silos not being joined up effectively and, unfortunately, in many cases, being jealously guarded, which is not in anyone’s interest.

Integration is one of the core Christie principles and it is right at the forefront of our thinking. I would not want to pre-empt any of that. However, the direction of travel around more local empowerment and more integration across different bodies—of which there will be fewer if we do the public body landscape review part of this in parallel—is a really important part of this. We are also very much in the business of hearing from those who have a perspective on what good would look like in a future set-up.

It is important to understand what I have just said. The 27,000-odd number, which is for the devolved civil service, includes a lot of front-line operations. We have been very clear that front-line delivery is protected as part of that work. That includes prison officers, who are clearly front line. It includes those working directly to support the court service and other parts of the justice system that are also clearly front line.

The core Scottish Government civil service has reduced by more than 11 per cent over that period, so it is close to that 4 per cent reduction. There have been increasing reductions year on year, and we are on target to deliver another 4 per cent reduction this year.

There is an issue about the wider public bodies that are not included in the figure for the devolved civil service. I am aware that you spoke with Social Security Scotland about that earlier this morning, but we are very clear that there is a need for all public bodies to drive efficiency measures, be that through automation, shared services or removal of duplication.

Clearly, the work on restructuring will create considerable opportunities. We have already begun that work through health service restructuring, and, altogether, the programme for government identifies 24 restructuring programmes across the landscape.

We need to roll out the recruitment controls that have been effective in the core Scottish Government civil service across the wider public sector, and we are working on that now.

The policy on no compulsory redundancies is the same as it always has been: a process needs to be gone through in advance of any compulsory redundancy process, and a whole series of steps must be taken. All that needs to be exhausted before compulsory redundancies are considered. That is the right way to approach that, and that is how we have approached the issue across several public bodies.

I am talking about public bodies in the round, and it is clear that many of them—there are too many, as we all know—have delivered significant double-digit, even up to 20 per cent, reductions in their head count over the past years through a variety of mechanisms.

As I said, the policy is what it is, and it has not changed. There has always been a process to go through before we get to compulsory redundancies.

To be honest, the number that you quoted is as good a place to start as any. We would want, over time, to see that number moving in the other direction. That is a helpful indicator of the problem that we face. It will obviously take time for this to bed in, and then for it to be felt in communities, but I would hope to see that number moving over time.

Through this process, we would also like to create a sense that we are very firmly moving in that direction, and we would like people to feel enthused about, and able to become part of, those structures. To be honest, we also want communities to come forward and say, “This is what we think community empowerment should look like, and this is what our area would benefit from having the powers to do.” We are absolutely keen to have that engagement.