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Part of the question that we have asked about the children’s commissioner has been about the fact that, although it has existed for 21 years, in my view, there is little evidence of its having advanced outcomes for children. Child poverty is getting worse, educational attainment is getting worse and there is a national mental health crisis. We are no further forward in realising the rights that we might say that children are entitled to, despite the public money that has been spent on the commissioner and what has been a growing commission. I have no problem with the people who have been the commissioner or the people who work there. My issue is the principled issue of where we spend the money.

The Scottish Fiscal Commission has said that the projected deficit for this financial year is £1 billion, rising to £1.9 billion in 2027-28. There is a significant mismatch between the Government’s plan, as set out, and the budget that is available to deliver it. The plan can be delivered only through very significant cuts. Are you concerned about value for money from having to deal with significant in-year variance in that way?

Have you had these conversations with the new First Minister? Have you told him that there will have to be significant spending reductions? Is that what the Parliament should expect to hear from him when he gives his update on his programmes?

You have set out the external factors, and the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill has been mentioned. The bill’s original financial memorandum that was presented to the committee projected the cost as being between £644 million and £1.2 billion over five years. Thank goodness that the committee, before I was a member, knocked it back, because we subsequently received information that showed that, had the committee allowed things to go forward as they stood, the cost would actually have been between £1.8 billion and £3.9 billion over 10 years. We are talking about cost control and scrutiny. That does not sound as though there is reasonable scrutiny of the policies that the Government is producing, with it being given the advice that it requires.

Okay.

Thanks for the evidence for far. This slightly more principle-level discussion in respect of how the institutions perform and interact is very useful for giving context to much of the detail that we have had from previous witnesses.

I will start on the fine difference between advocacy and scrutiny. I was also interested in the idea of an integrity branch. Lynda Towers, it feels to me that there is an issue around scrutiny and what I have been proposing to call the taxonomy of commissioners. One branch of that is those who watch the watchers, which includes the Ethical Standards Commissioner and the Scottish Information Commissioner—that is, those functions that scrutinise Government and performance under the law. Another branch, in which the Scottish Biometrics Commissioner sits, covers areas of technical detail that parliamentarians do not have knowledge of and that we would not expect them to have in order to perform certain roles that might be for a short time only. The third branch is more around the rights-based advocacy space, which many of the new proposals for commissioners sit within. How does that advocacy role fit within your integrity branch idea?

Much of the evidence that we have had has been about the question of priorities. The argument is that we should have an older persons commissioner because older people do not have a voice and perhaps do not get a fair cut of the pie. A similar argument is made in relation to why we should have a neurodiversity commissioner. Those are political questions, which are really about prioritisation.

On a more principled level, are we witnessing the reality of a rights-based discourse coming up against fiscal and political reality? How can we combine the two? We tell people that they have rights and that we will put in place a certain infrastructure to help them to realise those rights, but there is no money to pay for that. Is that not part of the core question here as well?

It almost sounded from your earlier answer as though the 0.4 per cent variance in the consolidated accounts was achieved through good forecasting. In fact, it was achieved through massive in-year budget cuts, was it not?

I have two more very short questions. The first is quite specific. If I ask a question at First Minister’s question time and the First Minister commits to doing something, do civil servants act to try to make that happen?

I will use two specific examples. First, two years ago, I raised with Nicola Sturgeon the case of a young man in secure accommodation in Dundee. He has now been in that completely inappropriate setting for a further two years, with delayed discharge. Absolutely nothing has happened. The First Minister has not contacted the family or, as far as I can tell, the health board. What happens when such commitments are made in the Parliament?

The second example, which is more recent, relates to fatal accident inquiries into the deaths of Scots abroad. Humza Yousaf, the then First Minister, committed to looking at the issue. I have written to him but had no response. I have written to the justice secretary but had no response. Is it your civil servants’ jobs to make sure that I get responses to such queries on behalf of my constituents? Why is that not happening?

My point does not apply only to 2022-23. We are talking about long-term plans. In essence, we are talking about landing a jumbo jet on a stamp, but the jumbo jet was headed for Cape Town and had to land in Paris.