Chamber and committees

The boundary that is proposed is quite a wiggly line and includes bits of East Ayrshire and South Ayrshire. There are real concerns. Folks have asked whether they can directly engage face to face and have said that it cannot just be a desk exercise. NatureScot has committed to being on the ground to engage. Can you provide an assurance that the engagement process for local people will happen on the ground?

The RSE made 16 recommendations. Riparian planting was part of that, and it looked at other issues, such as planting on peatland or deep peat being exempted.

The report, which I have in front of me, talks about landowners getting public money, but the Scottish Government owns more than 1 million hectares of land, the National Trust owns land and RSPB Scotland owns land. It is not just about private landowners getting forestry grants.

I was also looking at a response from Daniel Ridley-Ellis, who is the head of the centre for wood science and technology at Edinburgh Napier University. He brought out some points from the report. I note that you say that there are parts of the report that are positive, that you agree with and that we can take on board, but there are other parts about relying on products that come from other countries—for instance, we import 80 per cent of our timber. I am interested in that aspect of the report. We need to do what we can to be less reliant on timber coming from elsewhere. If we improved planting and supported more forestation and woodland creation, would we be less reliant on timber from other countries?

So, that will mean continuing to work with Food Standards Scotland and the Animal and Plant Health Agency on animal welfare concerns. However, we are constrained, because visa applications are controlled by Westminster. Is this a case for our making another plea for greater control and choice over visas and immigration in Scotland?

Good morning. I know that forestry is a big industry for Scotland—I think that it is worth £1.1 billion to Scotland’s economy and supports 34,000 jobs, and it is really important in the South Scotland region. I have a question about the Royal Society of Edinburgh’s report on forestry, which was published in February, but first I would be interested in hearing an update on forthcoming workstreams and challenges for forestry and woodland creation.

I reiterate that the Galloway national park proposal has caused controversy locally, with my office receiving more than 200 representations of people’s views. It is important that communities, small and large, are consulted so that their voices are heard and that any decision that is taken works in the best interests of Galloway’s diverse communities.

Will the cabinet secretary provide further assurance that NatureScot will come to all communities in the region and speak to everyone who would like to be heard?

I will have other questions for Professor Donaldson later, but just now I am thinking about one of the papers that I have read. It is about how programme budgeting and marginal analysis can be used to look at how we do national performance framework interventions and achieve goals with the marginal resources that we have available when everybody wants a piece of the pie. We always talk about prevention, and Paul Johnston writes a blog about how much money is spent on it. The Institute for Public Policy Research suggests that £2.3 billion of Scottish health boards’ budgets is directed at responding to the impacts of poverty. We also talk about mental health, obesity, chronic disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and all those things—everything overlaps and it is difficult and complex.

My question is for both Professor Donaldson and Emma Congreve. How do we use programme budgeting and marginal analysis to achieve more transparency in addressing our national performance framework?

We have seen health and social care integration, but integration joint boards might need a bit more autonomy to choose how to further enhance integration in order to support people. Should we strengthen IJBs’ financial decision-making powers to ensure more effective integration?

I read in one of our papers that, in some health boards and health and social care partnerships, geriatricians look after older people, but, in other areas, primary care teams and multidisciplinary teams do that. That affects how we tackle the issue of delayed discharge and free up hospital beds. Do you have an opinion on whether some areas are doing better than others and on how we should learn from places that seem to better manage the issue of delayed discharge, for instance?

Good morning. I am interested in how we apply budgets to the national performance framework. I asked the previous panel about how we manage the cross-portfolio aspects of the NPF, such as housing, wellbeing, the economy and care, which we have talked about previously. Those aspects are all intertwined, but how do we make sure that we assign the correct budget to them, whether we are talking about single-year or multiyear—which Carol Calder spoke about—funding? What is the best way to fund the various items in the national performance framework in order to achieve the outcomes that we need to achieve?

We also need to think about the fiscal constraints that we face and the impact of austerity, which we have spoken about. We cannot separate the fact that, here in Scotland, we do not have full fiscal levers, which affects our ability to deal with aspects of drug law in order to tackle alcohol and drug harm. Given that we do not have the ability to take ownership of everything, what do you suggest we do with regard to applying budgets to each of the various items under the national performance framework?

Do they need to know what it means?