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I will let you choose.

That was great. Thanks.

Given the whole range of priorities, frameworks, performance metrics and all those things for IJBs, with limited resource, how can we support IJBs in collecting the good and useful data that can drive some of those outcomes? IJBs have so many performance and measurement frameworks that they legally have to report on, while, as a whole system, we are trying to drive better data, but there are only so many people to do all that work.

With the previous panel, we heard about local improvement support team—LIST—analysts in IJBs. Do your IJBs have those posts? What value do they add to the IJBs? What other measures could be put in place to support IJBs with data gathering, given the range of performance management frameworks to which the IJBs have to contribute? How do we get the shift to recording the right things for integration across the piece?

Given what Pat Togher said about different IJBs having different things in place, how do we ensure that we do not overcomplicate the picture for the IJBs that may or may not have some of those things delegated to them?

Good morning. I feel that we have talked about data for years—what we should be collecting, what we are not collecting and what we could be collecting. Is it the case that, sometimes, we need to talk about collecting different data, rather than simply more, and joining it up to ensure that it covers priorities across health and social care as a whole, to deliver outcomes for people as a whole? How do we get there from where we are now? What do we need to encourage IJBs and others to do to ensure that we can get to that reality, where data can be used in a rounded way?

I see Michael Kellet nodding, so I will pick on him first.

Good morning. According to the stakeholders whom the Accounts Commission spoke to, current data does not provide good evidence across the whole system or show how one part impacts another, and data does not help to inform improvements for better outcomes. There is too much focus on data that is used by individual bodies for their governance and operational purposes rather than on collective and joint priorities, and there is no whole-system approach to performance management and reporting. Given the variability in the capacity of IJBs, what can be developed to guide data collection and reporting to enable more accurate comparisons and benchmarking and to move towards a whole-system approach to performance management and reporting?

I absolutely agree.

You mention the different layers of delivery. Policy can be quite inspirational and forward looking, but by the time you get through all the layers, a change in interpretation can suddenly take things away from what the initial policy set out to do. That is probably what we are hearing from people in relation to some of that local variation. How do we pull that back into alignment? How do we make sure that the initial ethos of that self-directed support being the primary delivery model for social care—it is still not well understood that it is the primary delivery model—aligns neatly all the way down the structure, rather than what we are seeing at the moment with that interpretation knocking it out of line in different places?

Self-directed support has, understandably, been implemented alongside other pressing issues. Some believe that that has affected its prioritisation. How can we better manage and align the implementation of SDS with other legislative and policy demands to ensure that it receives the necessary focus and resources?

Yes—that variation is regularly brought to the attention of MSPs.

Did most of your study’s recommendations concern implementation? Were there conclusions around the need for the 2013 act to be amended? What are the top findings from your study that the committee should look at in order to bring about improvements?