Chamber and committees

I understand why, given Edinburgh’s position. The question of the value that the regional boards now provide is something that I am keen for the committee to explore through this process.

There is a huge amount to pick up on in there. I think that you are right to highlight pay harmonisation as one of the key successes on workforce relations in the past decade. However, from my perspective, having spent most of the past six years in continuous discussion with unions and employers, the interpersonal relationships around national collective bargaining have not got better over that time. We have been in a constant cycle of negotiations breaking down and escalating to industrial action, with compromises being made as a result, followed shortly afterwards by a fresh dispute on essentially the same issue.

There is clearly a need for a reset of those relationships. Without pre-empting the lessons learned exercise, what is the best way to go about such a reset at this point? As you mention, the relationships at the local level were varied but, broadly speaking, relatively positive. How do we reset things at the national level, where the relationships have clearly broken down?

I have a couple of questions that are probably best directed first to Audrey Cumberford. I am afraid that they are a bit negative.

Acknowledging that regionalisation has had its benefits, would you characterise the fact that, in the past eight years, we have had seven years of industrial action as a failure of regionalisation? Is there a relationship between those two?

Do you believe that, if we had not gone through regionalisation, we would have been in a pretty similar situation with regard to industrial relations across the sector? I know that regionalisation and the introduction of national collective bargaining are not the same thing, but they are roughly concurrent processes that happened in the same period of reform.

It was a very specific figure to ask for, so there are no worries if you do not have it immediately to hand. If you could follow up in writing on that—

It was about your ability to conduct further research in this area. Do you need to go through the DWP or do you already have access to all the information that you need?

A moment ago, you acknowledged in response to John Mason that it is not essential for every member of the public to have a comprehensive understanding of what the NPF is, but it is important that those who are involved in relevant organisations, such as public bodies, understand what we are headed towards.

I am trying to understand the difference between those who are responsible for on-the-ground delivery and those who are responsible for strategic planning. How important is it for a heart surgeon to understand NPF outcomes versus the senior management team of a hospital or health board? How important is it for a classroom teacher to know what NPF outcomes they are working towards versus the senior management team of a school or a council education department? At what level do you expect people to recognise tangible and specific NPF outcomes and their relationship to those outcomes?

I come back to the Sheffield Hallam University study around hidden unemployment—I think that is how they phrased it—that the convener mentioned, and specifically the million people who are on incapacity benefits. I preface this by saying that the report’s authors made it very clear that there is no suggestion that large numbers of people are on incapacity benefits who should not be. It is not about fraud; people who are on incapacity benefits have legitimate incapacities and that is why they are on them.

The basic thrust of the report is that a large number of people are on incapacity benefits because they do not feel that they are able to get employment, or they are searching for employment, but while they are doing so, those benefits are the most appropriate social security for them. The subset in Scotland is about 100,000 people. Do you have any data on how many of those people in Scotland would like to be in employment?

Thanks very much. As a follow-up question, in terms of availability of that data, I acknowledge that you just said that this is not one of SDS’s primary or core responsibilities, but if you were to conduct further research into that group of around 100,000 people, would sufficient data be available to you? Do you have the data that you would need to contact those people directly, or would you have to go through the UK Department of Work and Pensions for it?

My final question is the perennial one that is asked every time the Government tries to get broad public engagement. How, through the review exercise that is about to take place, are you going to engage with those people—that overwhelming majority of the general public who have no idea what the NPF is and who do not necessarily have an immediate and obvious relationship with the delivery of NPF outcomes—who are otherwise disengaged from the process and who do not work at the relevant level in a public agency or third sector organisation?