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I was actually going to bring you in on that subject. I am going to let John Mason in, and then we will come back to you to talk about finance. It is a thread that runs right through the submissions, and you have made several specific comments relating to it, so we will come back to you after a question from John Mason.

I do not necessarily disagree with what you have said, because local authorities are encouraged to do short-term, medium-term and long-term planning. However, the Government is not going to make an overall commitment in terms of that. Organisations must plan for those different scenarios and we, as a committee, want to ensure that there is as much funding that they can rely on—as much sustainable funding—as possible. We will certainly be pressing the Government on that.

Vicki Bibby has been very patient.

Yes. The phrase “our people” does not need to be there; it should just be “people” or “everyone”.

We have about 16 or 17 minutes left, and the last topic that I want to touch on is collaborative working. After that wee topic, I want to give all our guests an opportunity to make one last comment on any aspect that we may or may not have touched on that they feel is critically important for the committee to pick up on.

Neil, how does the NPF underpin collaborative working?

Come at it from a different angle if you wish.

You make a fundamental point. If Public Health Scotland can save money through an initiative for another area of the Scottish Government’s work, should some of that resource go back to Public Health Scotland, for example?

When I used to work in pharma, we had a staff suggestion scheme on how to improve the company, its business, its profitability and so on. Nobody put in any suggestions, but the suggestion was then made—by yours truly, I have to say—that if the company gave a little reward to people who made a suggestion—of, for example, 10 per cent of the money that was saved by the company as a result—it might get more suggestions. The company was inundated with suggestions. A lot of people in the company felt, “It’s making multimillion-pound profits and I’m not getting anything out of it.” As soon as there was an opportunity for people to get a reward, they put in suggestions. Some of those suggestions saved the company huge amounts of money, and the staff benefited accordingly.

Even in the public sector, that can work. The public service ethos is that if you deliver something, you should want to do it for the sake of doing it, apart from anything else, but, at the same time, if, for example, Public Health Scotland was able to save £1 million in another department, why should half of that money not return to Public Health Scotland to contribute towards other initiatives?

Quite right.

I have just one more question for Mirren Kelly before I open it up to colleagues. On economic development, you say in your submission:

“Local Government, despite recognition as a key partner in the delivery of the National Strategy for Economic Transformation ... and being a sphere of government, has had little engagement in the development of NSET.”

Can you tell me why that would be?

I think that funding is going to come up a lot in our next evidence-taking session. It has certainly been mentioned by everyone who has made a submission.

Tim Kendrick, you are obviously very proud of Fife’s local outcomes improvement plan. Indeed, you highlight in your submission Fife’s specific focus on three priorities—

“tackling poverty and preventing crisis; addressing the climate emergency; and leading economic recovery”—

all of which look sensible.

However, with regard to how you would innovate as a council, you refer to

“A tendency for national policy and inspection arrangements to focus on certain, more easily measurable outcomes”,

highlighting SQA attainment as an example and saying that such a tendency

“distracts attention away from the importance of wider wellbeing for improving outcomes for the most disadvantaged and vulnerable children.”

Can you expand a wee bit more on your thinking in that area?