Seòmar agus comataidhean

That comes back to my first point, which was about how the Government and local authorities set their priorities when all the competing things such as regulators’ demands come in.

I will ask you one more question before I move on to the other witnesses. When Murdo Fraser asked about the increase in demand for services, you said that the increase is across all sectors. Why is that increase happening? Is it because people’s life patterns are changing? What is driving the increase in demand for your services?

I welcome the witnesses to the meeting.

I have come into politics very late, and I find some of the budget talks and discussions quite confusing. If I was running my own business, I would consider my priorities and say, “Right, we need to spend some money there, because that is where we have a problem right now.” Politically, I can see why that is incredibly difficult for the Government, because everybody is saying, “That’s my priority now.” I struggle to get my head around it.

I assume that all the strategies that Alex Rowley talked about are produced because we need transparency, and the Government needs to be seen to be telling people how things will work. However, given what is, in effect, a £1.7 billion cut to the Scottish budget, how can we look to the future and try to make things much better, which will take massive investment, but continue to spend the amount of money that we need to spend on all the things that are priorities now? How do we square that?

That leads me on to my next question. During Covid, there was great collaboration and breaking down of red tape, bureaucracy and everything else. Things got done, which was great—brilliant. From local authorities’ point of view, is that approach continuing? Does the third sector believe that it is continuing in the way that local authorities think that it is?

You are saying that we need to find out what we need to do before we can budget for that.

I will stop you there, as that brings me back to something that Richard Robinson talked about earlier. The point about Barnett consequentials interests me. If Scotland has a specific healthcare issue, whatever it is—for instance, it could be a virus that is present in Scotland but not in the rest of the UK—how does the Scottish Government fund the response?

Mary, do you want to add anything?

So it would be from Scottish resource.

Okay—that answers that question. That led on well—you guys are good.

I have a couple of other wee bits and pieces to raise—please bear with me. Alex Rowley asked a question about the budget for getting people into the service. Is it a financial factor that is causing the problem? Is it to do with having enough people in place or is the issue that people are not available to do the job, that they do not want to do it or that they have moved away from it? There has been a huge churn in people’s lives. People have decided that they do not want a life working in hospitality any more, for example. Is the same thing happening in the NHS? Is one of the resourcing problems that you have to do with staff, rather than it being a financial problem?

That question is for both of you—please crack on.

Okay.