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Have you decided on the inclusion of children’s services?

Do you have any indication of the costs that are associated with that? That is thousands of staff, isn’t it?

That will be stage 1. Will the cost impacts be included in the financial memorandum?

It feels to me as though there are an awful lot of moving parts. There have been questions from colleagues about our still being in the depths of co-design and our not having taken a decision on the inclusion of critical areas such as children’s services, around which there are huge financial issues. Taking into account recess, we are looking, by my reckoning, at having to receive that memorandum roughly on 11 December, which is just weeks away. Do we have a draft of the financial memorandum?

I assume that in the business case and the policy evaluation we would see that great social benefit, the preventative money and where we would save money. I am in full agreement, minister, with regard to those huge, varied benefits, but the reality is that we have to be able to pay for them.

I think so, because we all know the huge costs of the failure to eliminate delayed discharge.

In your letter to us, you committed to completing stage 1 by 31 January 2024. The convener has it on the record that the financial memorandum should be provided four weeks prior to that date. Working back, we are looking at your having to provide the financial memorandum—by my reckoning—by around 11 December. Do you have a date in your diaries for when you will send the financial memorandum to the committee?

No. Sorry.

Alastair, you know that I am a big supporter of the universities in Dundee, and we have had conversations regularly, but you will also be aware that we have industrial action this week at various institutions across the country. Unite and the University and College Union are out, looking for pay that is commensurate with something approaching the cost of living, frankly. How can we make sure that our universities are delivering the pay deals that we require, given that we are sitting here talking about budgets?

There definitely is not. In our previous evidence session, Professor David Heald talked about people negotiating their net pay position. In essence, he was agreeing with you that, internationally, people will look at that. Whether there is less pay because of tax or a lower basic wage is probably immaterial to somebody making that move internationally. Does that not result in the national health service having to pay substantially more to make up for the cuts and it becoming a vicious cycle where, on your logic, the public sector has to pay into the system rather than gain from it?