Seòmar agus comataidhean

:Some decisions taken by central Government obviously have an impact on local government through the wage bill. The Scottish Government has set a 9 per cent pay policy, which appears to have almost all been spent now, in the first couple of years of the policy. What is COSLA therefore expecting in relation to wage growth within the local government sector, next year and in future years?

:If there is no further money coming forward and the unions do not agree to a real-terms cut in wages, what is the net result for other services?

:Okay—

:Contained in the spending review for the next three years is a significant shift in the focus of health expenditure away from hospitals and towards community-based healthcare. The overall budget rises by 2.4 per cent in real terms, whereas the increase for national and territorial health boards is 0.4 per cent. That means that other areas such as community-based healthcare and primary care see much more significant increases of roughly 12 per cent. The Institute for Fiscal Studies says that, for health boards to be able to continue to deliver, they will have to make 3 per cent annualised efficiency savings. The IFS describes that as potentially “heroic” when compared with the recent capacity to deliver efficiency savings.

Some health boards—for example, NHS Dumfries and Galloway—are at stage 3 of the support and intervention framework as a result of their financial pressures. If health boards do not deliver those 3 per cent efficiency savings, what will be the risk to the sustainability of Scotland’s hospitals and those health boards? Would the Scottish Government have to step in? Would that move resource away from primary care, community care or elsewhere? Is there a risk that some of our health boards could, in effect, go to the wall between now and the end of the decade?

When we have put the concerns of COSLA and other organisations to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government in relation to the spending review, we have got the impression that the spending review gives a somehow notional figure, and that we should not set much store by it. What confidence does that give you with a three-year budget cycle? If the minister responsible for it is effectively saying, “Don’t worry about these figures; something more will turn up,” does that give you any concerns as to how local authorities will plan for the medium to long term?

:How easy would it be to pivot away from the commitments on community-based healthcare and primary care in order to move that resource back? The Government would potentially have to examine portfolios such as local government and justice if it found that there was inflexibility between those two areas of healthcare in Scotland.

I will follow up on the point about data and outcomes. Often, the way in which the Scottish Government puts it to the committee in relation to, for example, the Scottish child payment, is to ask, “Who could argue with seeking to eradicate child poverty?”. Huge amounts of money are being spent on concessionary travel, for example, but, as you have rightly identified, that does not mean that somebody in Dumfriesshire has any greater access to a bus, despite the fact they would have the freedom to travel without paying if they had a bus service. What needs to be done to pivot away from chasing the headlines with national developments and towards pointing out to the public and the Parliament that there is always an opportunity cost—often, a significant one—in pursuing free bus travel but disinvesting in rural bus services. Another example would be extolling the virtues of the Scottish child payment without pointing out that that £500 million could be spent on reducing child poverty in other ways, such as through employment or better housing for families. What needs to be done to re-engineer that conversation, not only internally but externally, with the public?

Recently, it was put to the committee that not everything can be a priority. The Government makes great virtue of the fact that it is prioritising eradicating and reducing child poverty at the same time that it is potentially making real-terms cuts to councils. Is the Government being honest enough with the country and saying that, if it has a major policy priority, it has to deprioritise something else when it has a fixed budget?

I want to get a view from around the table, and particularly from Dr Elliott. We get the impression that, sometimes, civil servants hide behind ministers and ministers hide behind civil servants. Let us bear in mind that there are accountable officers in the civil service and that the permanent secretary is the principal accountable officer. I served on the Public Audit Committee, and when civil servants came before us, there was sometimes exasperation that a number of civil servants seem to move around between interim posts, particularly in sponsored agencies and departments such as Transport Scotland. When we dug into problems around, let us say, ferry procurement, there had been quite clear failures by civil servants. Ministers—let us not let them off the hook—often take the flak for that and, on occasion, try to blame civil servants, when it might have been a political decision that has gone wrong.

Civil servants are accountable to Parliament through the principal accountable officer model. To what extent do we need to raise awareness of civil servants’ accountability to Parliament? Do we need to look at the model again, so that, ultimately, ministers are responsible for what is done in their name in the civil service?

On that point about local authorities, you have presented it both here and in the chamber as if local authorities are buying into the Government’s line that this is a reasonable deal for them. However, Western Isles Council has announced today a council tax increase of, I think, 9.5 per cent. We are seeing councils come in towards the upper end of what I think people’s expectations are for council tax. If it was a reasonable settlement, they would not be forced to go down that road, would they?