Chamber and committees

I realise that this will sound as though I am repeating the question. Police Scotland did not provide that revision to you directly. The first time that you saw it written down as a new set of figures was when we published the evidence that was provided to us.

You mentioned that split between the public and private sectors. I am interested in what you said about the fact that the report makes presumptions to mirror the OBR’s presumptions about all the necessary funds coming entirely from public spending. I would be keen to press you a bit on the logic behind that, particularly with regard to land use, land-use change and forestry—Lulu CF, to use your pronunciation of the acronym.

The Scottish Government has already started some quite significant pilot work in private financing around nature. There is a significant political debate to be had around that—I believe that the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee is having that upstairs right now—but I am interested in why your report makes the assumption, particularly in relation to land use and so on, that the work will be entirely publicly funded, given that a £2 billion pilot using private financing has already taken place, which shows that what is already happening in that regard is not small fry.

Thanks. For my final question—I recognise that I am to some extent repeating myself—I am interested in the conversations that you have with the UK CCC. Last week’s report was incredibly valuable, and I agree with it as a reflection of the past 25 years and of a complete failure to meet the demands that the science has set out, but it left me with a lot of frustration.

We need to triple the amount that we spend on peatland restoration. You know that there is not £40 million of capital money just rattling around, so that will need to come from somewhere. For decarbonising buildings, it is not tens of millions but tens of billions of pounds that we are talking about. Is it not entirely unrealistic to expect the Scottish Government—keeping within the envelope that is available to it under the current confines of the fiscal framework—to deliver, in particular, the capital investment that is required to meet the demands of our climate legislation and the UK Government’s climate commitments?

That goes back to the point that Professor Roy was making about the choices facing Government. We cannot not build new hospitals. The cost of decarbonising hospitals is massive, but the challenge is how to balance the long-term unavoidable necessity of tackling that while keeping everybody alive in the interim by meeting all the other needs of society.

I am interested in what I think is a bit of a contrast between your report and the CCC report last week. I think that you have the balance better and I acknowledge what you said about having worked with the CCC.

Although I agree with the broad criticism in the CCC’s report that we are off track, I note that it was quite critical of the Scottish Government for highlighting the impact of United Kingdom Government policy making—particularly financial policy making—on Scotland’s ability to meet its own targets. However, as you have outlined this morning and in your report, we require a disproportionate amount of spend, but the fiscal framework does not take that into account and the devolution of the relevant powers is not uniform. The CCC made some pretty sweeping comments about the fact that transport, land use and decarbonising buildings are devolved.

This might be just a reframing of some of the convener’s initial questions but is it fair for me to conclude that, as matters stand, it is effectively impossible for Scotland to meet its climate targets and, therefore, for the UK to meet its targets, given how critical Scotland’s targets are to them, without a significant devolution of financial powers to the Scottish Government, an adjustment to the fiscal framework and more direct funding from the UK Government? Is it the case that something that is entirely within the gift of the UK Government needs to change? It is one thing to say that Governments need to co-operate, but we are not talking about two equal partners that have an equal amount to contribute. Are you saying that something needs to change at UK level, whether it is devolution of powers, increased block grant or whatever?

That would be useful and it would probably be worth while for the committee to engage directly with ministers on the handbook. My understanding is that the handbook is not specific enough in these circumstances and there is a clear need for revision.

I sympathise with you in that, ultimately, you are significantly dependent on the information that is provided by Police Scotland. It is unavoidable, because it is not like there are third-party sources for the kind of information that you need. Am I correct in my understanding of what you said, which is that the first time that you were aware of Police Scotland’s changed position was when the evidence that was submitted to us was published, because Police Scotland did not proactively contact you? When Police Scotland received our call for evidence, I presume that staff realised that what they were going to submit was significantly different from what they originally provided to you. Did they proactively contact you to let you know, or did you find out when our evidence was published?

Convener, I think that we need to take that up with Police Scotland, because I cannot understand why it would not provide that information. There are issues here with the Government process, but I am a bit disturbed that the police would know that they were making a significant revision yet not provide that information to the Government.

I said that it is unrealistic to expect that before the end of this parliamentary session, given the wider legislative timetable. However, there is a challenge here in that the specific legislative problem that we have identified could be improved through the code of practice but the fundamental issues could not be addressed by the code of practice, because the code of practice cannot be used to rewrite the law.

The last comment segues very neatly into the theme that I want to ask about.

Cabinet secretary, you will have seen that, in previous evidence sessions, there has been a lot of focus on co-ordinated support plans. Colleagues will go into that issue in more detail but, as part of our examination of it, there has been a lot of discussion about the range of plans available to young people, with child’s plans, individual learning plans, individualised education plans and bespoke plans in local authorities, schools et cetera.

Can you say a bit more about the Scottish Government’s position on taking a more consistent and holistic approach to the issue? Specifically, is it GIRFEC compliant for a child to be in the sort of position that they are essentially in at the moment, where, to get a co-ordinated support plan, other plans have to be in place? It means that, by default, a child in the position of getting a co-ordinated support plan already has multiple plans, which, to me, is not GIRFEC compliant. After all, GIRFEC is about each young person having one coherent plan, whereas, in practice, kids with the most complex needs must have multiple plans to access or unlock the support that they require.

If you could write to us on the GIRFEC point, that would be useful.

On CSPs, the cabinet secretary has been a member of the committee and knows that we have taken evidence on the issue and gone round the houses over and over again on the challenges that it presents. Last week, though, we heard quite a significant bit of evidence from ADES and COSLA representatives on the criteria for a CSP. For them, the major barrier is the requirement for a young person to need at least 12 months of intense support from multiple services in multiple agencies, or however the provision is worded, and they are finding that young people who—everybody agreed—needed a CSP were unable to get one because that specific box could not be ticked. Is the Scottish Government open to revising the criteria for the CSPs and, indeed, that part of the 2004 act?