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Do we have updated costs on the national care service, or will those come through in the legislation?

The resource spending review made much mention of public sector reform. When will we start to see a flavour of what that will mean for Scotland?

Thank you.

Stephen Boyle, you said in your submission:

“structural reform in the public sector can take time to achieve and generate short-term costs.”

The Government is looking at the public sector pay bill, with a desire to keep it at a constant level. Do you see any urgency on the part of the Scottish Government to bring forward proposals? The longer the Government leaves it, the more cuts it will have to make, I imagine. Have there been discussions with the Government about when proposals will come forward?

Are you saying that, even just to meet the pay settlement that was agreed this year, savings have to be made elsewhere?

That is because it was not fully funded by the Scottish Government, I guess.

As does the impact of change on services and people.

When I was a councillor, I went along to the COSLA leaders’ meetings. When the tourist tax was discussed, it was always spoken about as something that would be optional for each local authority. Additionality was another key issue. Have we now moved to a place where councils are looking at things such as the tourist tax and the parking tax not as additional sources of income, but to plug the gaps that they have?

Are COSLA members looking at the tourist tax as a way to increase spend on tourism or marketing, for example, or are they now looking at it to plug the gaps that they have?

I will move on, because I know that we are short of time. The COSLA submission talks about the gap in funding that there will be in the next five years and about it being equivalent to having 20,000 fewer local government jobs. Do you think that that is the reality that we will face in five years’ time? Will there be 20,000 fewer local government jobs?