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That is useful. Government policy includes a presumption against establishing new public bodies, but is it your view that the national care service would be an exception? Has the minister agreed that it would be a further exception to that rule?

For clarity, because we talked about the different names for the same thing—IJB, integration authority—you are suggesting that the new integration authority will replace what is there. You are suggesting not that it will be an additional body but that it will be a replacement.

The new financial memorandum—given the likely amendments at stage 2—gives us a figure of £631 million to £916 million.

That was going to be one of my questions. Would you say that my figures are correct because the original memorandum covered five years?

Your last point, about how the dynamics of the money work, is perhaps key. Those dynamics do not work at the moment because the partnerships are funded jointly by the NHS and local authorities. They put money into the pot and then pull it back out again, and there is no real strategic intent as to what they are doing. The six voting members are split 50:50, so that is where it lands. Are you proposing to change that, or are you in a process of longer-term negotiation about what that might look like?

Okay, but you do not think that the fundamental power dynamic will change. The two organisations—the NHS and local authorities—will continue to put money into the pot to fund the social care outcome.

What is the total?

I find that broader illustration useful. I am trying to explore the interaction between how money is spent and raised at local and national levels and the point at which there is an instruction on that, rather than saying that that is the only function.

Perhaps you could explain to me a bit about co-design, which you mentioned. I find it a little difficult to believe that a group of care users—people who rely on care services and the great work that our carers do through local authorities and others—came together in a room and said, “What we need in order to make our lives better is a fairly cosmetic tweak to the IJB and a board that might advise ministers as to when they might want to use the powers that they already have.” Was that the tone of the conversation? Those people have the lived experience that you have mentioned. Surely they were saying, “I need more frequent care visits, and I need somebody who will be able to stay longer.” I recognise that you are setting out the framework, but drawing the line between the money that we are spending and those outcomes seems to me to be pretty tenuous at best.

In England, an invitation to make applications was published on 2 October 2022, which included guidance for the expression of interest, and those investment zones were announced in the budget on 15 March 2023. In Scotland, there was no bidding or invitation process at all. Neil Gray answered a written question from me in July last year, saying that

“The invitation to host an Investment Zone was not subject to a bidding or application process”.—[Written Answers, 20 July 2023; S6W-19604.]

Again, why the divergence?

You stress the issue of transparency, but I am disappointed that you think it is acceptable for the process not to be published ahead of time. Let me draw you into the speculation around this in a lot of the coverage at the time. The investment zones were allocated in Glasgow, where the SNP is defending seats in the general election, and in Aberdeenshire, where the Conservatives are defending seats in the general election. Do you understand that, in the absence of published criteria and a process ahead of time, you open up both parties—the Conservatives and the SNP—to accusations of the kind that I am making?