Seòmar agus comataidhean

Thank you.

On reading your submission, I wondered about the scale of the change required. In the course of the committee’s inquiry, we have discussed the shift to preventative spend and the demographic challenges. Is the range of the programme that you are undertaking commensurate with the scale of the challenges that you, as a leader in your field, are seeing in demographics, technology and new forms of healthcare? Is the change that you have represented in your submission up to that task?

I want to broaden that question out beyond the digital infrastructure to the delivery of health services across the whole board area, including where services are situated, and the way in which you are looking at the future of your geography and your people. Do you have a change programme that addresses that broader set of issues?

That is useful. With the medium-term financial strategy, the Government is seeking to establish an external tax stakeholder group. What is the job of that body? What does it have to do?

What would headroom that allowed you to invest in that shift look like? Would it eliminate the deficit, reduce it or give you a surplus? Have you had any guidance in that regard?

You have talked a little about IT programmes, and I notice that in your submission you say that the work that you have been doing

“starts us on the journey of delivering”

the Scottish Government’s

“2015 Cloud First Strategy.”

Is that correct? Are you saying that, although the strategy that you are working to was published in 2015, you are only starting to deliver it now?

You will be under the same pressures.

That is really useful.

David Page, you mentioned a blue-light review. I have seen reports in the press in recent days on the reaction of the Metropolitan Police to the rising tide of mental health problems. I go back to my point about external factors and adjusting public services. The Met’s response has been to say that it is no longer going to attend mental health crises. Do you think that we might see a similar response in Scotland?

Based on the submissions and what has been said today, I am interested to hear what drives reform. We have heard about Brexit and there has been an awful lot of talk about budgets. The Scottish Government has to meet the budget gap and push reform using that budget. Are there other things that we want to achieve through that? Are we adapting to demographics, climate and technology, or only to the negative reactive drivers? Are we being strategic?

I am hearing what is pretty welcome consensus among all of you—it was also in the submissions that we received—about a need for urgency. You have all described similar drivers for why that should happen. So far, I am hearing a pretty comprehensive rejection of the previous Deputy First Minister’s approach of saying, “We can just let folk get on with this.” There is recognition that there needs to be some kind of intent. I ask all of you why that is not happening and has not happened.