Seòmar agus comataidhean

You said that there are a lot of different loans. Does the Government hypothecate them against particular budget streams, with the money being taken from there, or is the money just taken from a big pot?

Thank you, convener.

First, I will have a wee look at financial pressures. Over the past few years, I have thought that financial pressures have been increasing year by year. I was interested in your comment that the funding challenge for 2023-24 was lower than that in 2022-23. Why was that?

Quite obviously, as has been touched on already, the financial pressures, including pay deals and inflationary pressures that are just as harsh on our budget, have been met through one-off reductions. How feasible is it for the Government to make the structural changes that are needed? Doing that usually requires capital in order to enable a long-term step change in the way in which the budget is put together and administered.

It seems to me that, if I look not just at the Government’s consolidated accounts but across the public sector at all the organisations that I have come into contact with, including local government, they all seem to be using one-off fixes to get them through each year. It seems to be endemic, wherever there is public funding, that people are trying to save money, but the bulk of that is not being done on a recurring basis. If that continues unchanged, what will happen?

Lastly, I have a couple of quick questions. The increased borrowing and the interest payments and so on that go with it must be hitting the Government’s headroom for things such as pay deals.

I was wondering whether there is a correlation as, if I recall correctly, financial transactions were used extensively by the Scottish National Investment Bank. With their withdrawal, the capital to top up SNIB’s funding pot will have to come from somewhere else.

Okay.

There seem to be a lot of strategies. What progress has been made in delivering the ambitions of the joint national strategy since the initial connecting Scotland programme was delivered? In particular, what is the role of the digital citizen unit in delivery of the new connecting Scotland programme, the digital inclusion alliance and the collaborative work between Government and other sectors?

You touched on the interesting point that digital services can be complicated. I am thinking about the number of apps that I have on my phone because everybody insists that you download an app before you can do anything. It is a major task in the beginning just to find the app that you need so that you can get into whatever system you are trying to access, so I can understand why a lot of people choose not to participate.

So you have all the statistics.