Chamber and committees

I was going to flag that. I recall having this conversation last year, and the increase in what was classed as income of £1.7 million in effect became a deficit to you, and that money had to be recouped through the SCF. My concern is that next year’s costs simply replicate this year’s costs. However, you have not received your statement yet. What happens if that says that that has reduced in value by £2 million? Suddenly, your £15.8 million ask will become £17.8 million. There is a huge unknown with that. I appreciate that it is out of your control, but that was a huge part of why we had to give you so much extra money last year.

Thank you.

Most of the ground has been covered by those with far more in-depth knowledge of the subject than I have, but one thing that has struck me throughout this evidence-taking session—and indeed in other similar sessions, particularly on NHS boards—is that these are not new issues. These matters that have been raised by Audit Scotland with previous iterations of this committee as well as with this committee and, no doubt, will be raised with future public audit committees.

However, we are not talking about financial auditing here—people are involved. Indeed, the convener opened the session by pointing out that people are suffering, and sometimes self-harming, as a result of inaction. At what point, Auditor General, does what I can only assume is your frustration at the lack of progress turn into something more statutory? After all, we cannot keep producing section 22 reports year after year after year that say the same thing and still see no adequate progress by, or accountability from, these public bodies. What more can we as a Parliament or as a committee do? Indeed, what more can you, with your statutory abilities, do?

I thank our witnesses for their responses to our questions thus far.

I will try to pick up some of the areas that we have covered, to give our witnesses the opportunity to make sure that they leave this public session having said everything that they think they need to.

I will reflect on the example of housing that was given by Mr Anderson as chair of the Oversight Board. He raised a practical example of how the Promise is essentially not being kept. Although I think that it is useful to talk about the specifics of that issue, I simply ask the Government, based on that example, what the point is of having that new model of oversight in the Oversight Board. It is clearly a new way of doing things: it is attached to the Promise but independent enough to critique progress—or otherwise. However, what is the point in having an oversight group if the Government does not react or respond to the warnings that it is given? We heard a classic example of two years of dither and delay in responding to a very specific problem, when instead a huge difference could have been made for a cohort of young people.

You say that progress has been made. Since the Promise was first made, a third of councils in Scotland have declared a housing emergency. Our briefings from COSLA and Shelter Scotland state that nearly 17,000 children are homeless in Scotland and more than 10,000 are in temporary accommodation. Does that sound like we are keeping the Promise for those 17,000 children? It does not sound like it to me.

I appreciate that time is ticking on, so I will try to make my last two questions brief. Workforce is an important issue that is covered in the report. Exhibit 8 provides us with a nice visual way of understanding the scale of the problem that we have at the moment. To pick a few examples, 13 per cent of social workers who were asked were very likely to leave their jobs in the next 12 months—I presume that that is a fairly high figure—half of foster carers have considered resigning, half experience burnout and poor wellbeing and some 40 per cent of children and young people social care staff do not feel safe at work. Those startling statistics paint a worrying picture of the workforce required to deliver the Promise, do they not?

My final question is simply this. We are now five years on from the Promise being made. There is clearly an ambition and a lot of good will in the room among stakeholders to meet the Promise, but in your professional judgment are we on track to do so by 2030? I am happy to go along the panel to hear answers.

When will the rest of it be administered?

Where did the figure of £0.5 billion get plucked from? Who said, “That is how much we need to deliver the Promise”? It sounds like an arbitrary number. Having read the Audit Scotland report, it also sounds to me as if the Government has no idea whether that money is being effective in delivering what it has to deliver. It is virtually impossible to follow the money, so before you spend another £250 million, how confident can you be that the money will be well spent?

Good morning. I want to get some clarity on the letter from your organisation that we were given sight of. Before I do so, I should caveat this by saying that there is nothing wrong with disagreeing with an Auditor General report. If Audit Scotland has said something, and you disagree with it, that is fine, but be honest about that. Unfortunately, in the opening statements, we heard phrases such as “we welcome the report and the recommendations” and “we accept the report and the recommendations”, but that is not what it says on this bit of paper.

Rather than taking a view on it, we are trying to get to the bottom of whether The Promise Scotland does or does not accept the report. You cannot come to committee and say, “We do accept it”, but then, on paper, say that you do not. The letter has your organisation’s letterhead on it and, on the back, it says “Chair—The Promise Scotland”, so we have to take at face value that this is the view of The Promise Scotland, and not simply that of an individual within the organisation. Which is it?