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I have a final question for the panel, about something that we have not yet picked up on.

The national performance framework is high level. In general, its 81 indicators are statistical measures that indicate broad trends. What is the best way of using the NPF to inform the scrutiny of this year’s budgetary decisions? As well as those that will be taken in the Parliament are those that will be taken by local authorities and their partners for local outcome improvement plans and community planning partnerships. How do we make sure that the NPF directs and informs those budgetary decisions at a much better level than is currently happening?

That is a fantastic short answer. Sara Cowan, do you have anything to add?

Welcome back.

I welcome our second panel: Ed Pybus, policy and parliamentary officer, Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland; Morag Treanor, deputy chair, Poverty and Inequality Commission; and Paul Bradley, policy and public affairs manager, Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations. Thank you for coming along, and it was great to see that you were in the room during the first session, to hear the evidence.

Our first theme is about the impact of the cost of living on individuals and organisations. To start us off, I turn to my colleague Emma Roddick.

Several of the committee members come from the voluntary sector and understand the challenges, so it is good to hear that situation highlighted.

That was a helpful example to give us. I will hand over to Emma Roddick for her question, and then Paul McLennan will finish off with a very short question.

The committee continually hears about the mainstreaming of equalities and the use and application of data once decisions are made. As everybody knows, I will talk about the need for gendered and disaggregated data, and about how that can be applied in an intersectional way, until the cows come home.

We will move on to questions about council tax. Paul McLennan will ask the first question on that theme.

That echoes what we have heard in previous evidence sessions in our inquiry into low income and debt. We know that pre-existing issues will be exacerbated and that new people will be finding themselves in those situations.

Before I hand over, we heard from colleagues in the first session about the fact that Scotland has a fixed budget when trying to reprioritise spending. There is a recognition in the submissions from the SCVO and the Poverty and Inequality Commission that there needs to be more funding from the United Kingdom Government. Do we need to see the cost of living crisis in the same light as the pandemic and have a response along those lines?

My colleague Paul McLennan is probably quickly rewriting some of his questions or figuring out how he can truncate his questions when we get to that topic.

The committee is highly aware of that. We recently launched our next inquiry, which will look into meeting child poverty targets via employability. I go quickly to Morag Treanor.

I would like to pick up on that point. There is really good practice in my daughter’s school. The school did that for the children—no identification was asked for. That was a response to the fact that there was a low uptake. We know that that can happen; the question is how we get that practice rolled out.