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Mr Balfour asked who is responsible. Ultimately, it is me—of course it is me. I need to make sure that that information is available and is disseminated properly, and I need to do that in partnership with others.

Mr Balfour mentioned health boards and alcohol and drug partnerships. When it comes to, for example, the expectations around the delivery of the MAT standards, we need to ensure that the information is consistent, that the services are co-ordinated and that colleagues across the health service—Mr Balfour’s question pertained to this—are aware of them. Ultimately, that falls to me.

We are constantly driving to ensure that improvements are made. I hope that panel members, service users and medical professionals will recognise that improvements have been made, but there is more to do. The figures from last year demonstrate that. Too many people are still dying. The rapid action drug alerts and response statistics from the past quarter indicate a slightly more positive picture, but we cannot be complacent. I am certainly not, and if Christina McKelvie were here, she would say the same thing. We need to drive harder to ensure that there is consistency across the country and across all services.

I again thank Ms Haughey for raising this issue and the panel for giving their experience of the situation. It concerns me, too. The information is there, and we have been very clear with health boards and with alcohol and drug partnerships about the implementation of the MAT standards.

Alongside the consideration that Ms Haughey has offered on the role that Gregor Smith, the CMO, could play, I should say that I regularly engage with the British Medical Association’s general practice committee and the Royal College of General Practitioners. The issue is perhaps something that I could raise in my next discussions with them, to ensure that there is awareness among GPs and that they are accessing the information that is available. That would help to provide the consistency that we were discussing right at the start of this session in our responses to Mr Balfour’s questions, ensuring greater consistency in the application of the MAT standards and access to other services that are available.

I look forward to being able to contribute to that debate, convener.

We absolutely recognise that, particularly for community and voluntary organisations, funding certainty is critical for planning and for recruitment to the programmes that are delivered. Colleagues from the community and voluntary sectors have contributed today. We all support organisations in our constituencies and we want to provide as certain a funding landscape as possible and to support them in their funding applications. We absolutely recognise that providing that element of certainty for as long as possible helps them, sometimes, more than the quantum that they get, because the certainty allows them to plan and to shape their services in a way that year-to-year funding just does not. The fairer funding route has been developed to provide greater levels of certainty and multiyear funding.

As colleagues will be aware, we have an ambition to go further than that. We hope that the funding that we receive—and the certainty around that funding through, for example, the UK Government’s spending review in the spring—will allow us to have greater certainty in our medium-term financial planning in order to provide that level of budgetary certainty. Others across the Cabinet recognise the importance of doing that, not least for recruitment but also in relation to providing the space for those organisations to focus on delivering and building a service and delivering transformational change, rather than having to go through the cycle of funding applications every year—which, as we all recognise, is time consuming and requires a huge resource commitment. We are looking at what more we can do on that.

I will bring in Laura Zeballos or Maggie Page to provide more detail on that. We are looking, for example, at seeking to make sure that there is confirmation of the ability to share data across services, whether it be drug and alcohol services or, in this case, someone’s experience of their pathway through health and social care. The National Care Service (Scotland) Bill seeks to put in place a more robust process to ensure that proper data sharing is in place, because we recognise that there is a challenge with different services sharing data, even within the health service and between the health service and social care.

Laura or Maggie might wish to elaborate on our plans.

We have been asked to do so, and we are part of that discussion. Laura Zeballos will be able to respond on that.

I have seen some of the evidence from the likes of the BMA and some palliative care professionals in relation to that point. I understand the perspectives that have been put across. It will be for the committee to report on and for the Parliament to consider. Thereafter, the Government will take a firmer position on those topics.

I know that the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee, which is the regulatory committee, has considered that point. I cannot comment on it beyond what I have set out in the Government’s memorandum. I hope that Ms Mochan will understand.

I thank Mr Sweeney for his question and understand his reasons behind it. We have set out our position on legislative competence in our memorandum. I recognise that Mr McArthur has sought to propose options. Should the bill pass stage 1, we would look at what options might work. At this stage, there is nothing further for me to add.

I will try to be as helpful as possible.