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As I said in my earlier remarks, we have endeavoured very much to protect investment in front-line services as much as possible. That includes our focus on parental employability support, which is a funded priority. I totally appreciate that members will have views on what budgets might be increased, and I am happy to work with Scottish Labour—as are colleagues across the Cabinet, I am sure—should members wish to come forward with costed proposals for how employability budget lines could be changed. As always, where there is a request to increase employability and other budget lines, we would need to discuss what changes could be made in other budgets that would allow such an increase. I am happy to work with Mr O’Kane if he feels that something should be done in that regard, and I am sure that my colleague Neil Gray would be happy to do so, too.

Because of the lack of time that we have to go into that, I am happy to furnish the committee with the forecast for the Scottish Government budget for capital and tell it why we continue to have to make difficult decisions. If Mr Balfour would like to see that forecast increased, he will have to suggest where the money will come from.

A number of the funding streams are being provided on a multiyear basis. For the sake of time, I am happy to provide the committee with some examples of how multiyear funding has been introduced. There is not a blanket approach, but there has been movement on it.

I suggest that one of the main ways to give the Scottish Government certainty over its budget and thereby allow further work to be done on multiyear funding is for the Scottish Government to receive multiyear funding packages, so that it has better knowledge of the funding that it will have. A great deal of work and implementation has been done, and I can provide the committee with some examples of where multiyear funding has been introduced in the past few years for different third sector streams, if that would assist the committee. It is work in progress.

They may not know that a safeguarding concern has been raised and delivered to the local authority or the Office of the Public Guardian. As Camilo Arredondo pointed out, it will be up to those organisations to deal with that as they usually would. Again, that is specifically about allowing a member of the agency’s staff to ensure that any concerns that they have are dealt with in an appropriate process within the agency. There is the legal ability for a concern to be handed over to the relevant authority, which can then use its own powers and usual manner of investigation to look into it. It would be for those authorities to determine what to do with that information and how to deal with the individual concerned.

In a case where the agency believes that that is the only way that it can be done, yes. For example, the agency may fear that it would make the harm worse and allow a perpetrator of abuse to have more power and control, or more avenues for abuse, if the information is handled in another way. There is a sensitivity around dealing with the information and obtaining consent while also being very careful about how that is done. If it is not done sensitively, that could make an exceptionally difficult situation a lot worse.

Indeed—they would be the same types of processes. There will be an attempt to achieve consent, but if, for the reasons that we have gone into already, such consent is not appropriate or cannot be given, what we are talking about can still be done.

I have very little to add, convener. To respond to Roz McCall’s point, I note that the set of regulations is an attempt to ensure that the individual remains at the heart of everything that we do. The existence of a threat of harm to an individual is the reason why we would take the approach, which we recognise is a very serious step, of using the regulations. I hope that I can reassure Roz McCall that the intent is to ensure that we protect some of the most vulnerable people in our society, some of whom, simply because of their circumstances, may not be able to give their explicit consent. The reason why we are seeking to make the regulations is very much based on the need to protect those individuals.

I will bring in one of my officials on that.

One of the reasons for having the regulations is to make sure that we are not working under the interim measures that I spoke about and that we are transparent about what is in place. There are data protection and privacy notice statements on the gov.scot website and they make it clear that we will share information. The website also includes mention of safeguarding, which clearly states that information will be shared in very specific circumstances when there are safeguarding concerns.

As all committee members will be aware, the sharing of information is an exceptionally sensitive matter, and a great deal of care must be taken to ensure that it is done lawfully. That is why those statements are made as people go through application processes. When it is not possible to ask a client for their consent for their information to be shared, the regulations still allow for that to happen. That is important because, as was mentioned in the discussion with Mr Doris, there may be coercion or other reasons why a client cannot give their consent at that time. We are still obliged to ensure that we share the information with all the care and sensitivity that the committee would expect the agency to show at that point.

Consent is not required where a person lacks capacity to act. An example that might be helpful is referrals to the Office of the Public Guardian where people are covered by the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000. As I mentioned, they cannot give consent.

I have probably touched on the other areas in previous answers. As I said, the regulations provide exemptions to allow for the sharing of information specifically where it is felt that there is “reasonable cause” to suspect that the individual is at risk of harm. That is the important aspect that we always come back to in this respect. I hope that that provides another example of how such a matter would be dealt with.