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I cannot give the retention numbers off the top of my head, but we will furnish the committee with that information.

I have spoken to a lot of social workers. Last week, I spoke to criminal justice social workers, and I have spoken to social workers in children and families services and adult services over the past few weeks and months. It would be fair to say that there is a lot of pressure on them, as there is on everyone else, and things have been very difficult for them at points, particularly during the lockdown periods, because of the way that they work. However, folks have behaved admirably, and they have done amazing things over the piece.

In conversations with social workers, one of the key messages from them is that front-line staff should be more empowered. We must do that. Social workers sometimes feel that they are the poor relation of other professions, and we have to change that. Part of the conversation in the consultation is about whether we should move to a social work agency, which was Derek Feeley’s suggestion. There is that issue to consider, and we will look at the analysis on that issue.

One big bugbear of social workers is that they feel bound by the eligibility criteria, which are often set locally. As I said, we must work with COSLA in the short term to eradicate some of that, because we are not doing good by the professionals and front-line staff, or by the individuals and families whom they serve.

There is much that we need to do there. I touched on that earlier with regard to our ambition and vision for this parliamentary term to put mental health link workers into GP surgeries. I know—as others around the table will know—that, where that has happened already in pilot schemes, it has made a huge difference in relation to linkages. There is absolutely no doubt about that. That will make a big difference as we move forward, and we will talk more about that in the very near future.

Sure. Each local authority has done things slightly differently. There will be a lot of learning from that, because we will be able to see where performance is better, and to export and share best practice.

We have also provided local authorities with moneys for prevention work with young people. I have been keeping a close eye on that. Some local authorities have moved quickly to support services and to establish new services where they are required, while others are lagging behind; I am afraid to say that a few local authorities have not done very much at all. We are keeping a close eye on that, because I want to ensure that investment reaches the community groups that were—and still are—at the front line during lockdown. They have done great work in preventing young folk from entering acute services.

We need to look at a number of things. I have already mentioned that we will be doubling the budget over the course of this parliamentary session, and we have to ensure that every penny is well spent. At the moment, we have pilots going on in Ayrshire and Highland to support folks with experience of suicide. I think that the findings from those pilots will be very important and that they might well lead to a national roll-out.

I am also really keen to explore how much more we can do in communities. I have already mentioned the St Mirren event, but I have recently come into contact with a lot of small groups that are doing sterling work. The question is how we can build on that work.

Yesterday morning, I met the family of Chris Mitchell, who are trustees of the Chris Mitchell Foundation. Chris was a footballer whose professional career ended because of injury and who then carried out suicide. Some of the work that the foundation has been doing with football clubs could be expanded. Indeed, the Scottish Professional Football League has been carrying out other work that we should be building on. The fact is that we need to reach certain areas of the population that our normal health messaging sometimes does not get to, and we have to continue to adapt and think outside the box with regard to what is required in order to get this right.

There is work to do, but we should also recognise the immense partnership involving the Government, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the national suicide prevention leadership group.

One of the reasons for establishing the communities mental health fund, which we announced the other week, is to ensure that those kinds of groups can access funding. There is plenty of detail on the fund, and there will be more such detail that we will share with the committee. To be honest, I want those grass-roots groups to apply for that funding. That is why it is there.

That is absolutely vital. Let me give you examples of some of the cross-cutting work that we have done in the past couple of weeks. The committee will be well aware that, the other week, I held a joint debate with Angela Constance, the Minister for Drugs Policy, to look at how drugs policy and mental wellbeing work together. In the past couple of weeks, I met the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Veterans on a number of issues but, at our most recent meeting, we looked primarily at what we need to do to improve mental health and mental wellbeing services for veterans in our community. Again, in the past few weeks, I met Jamie Hepburn in his further education role to see what more we need to do to support university and college students.

Mental wellbeing is a cross-cutting issue. The First Minister has made it clear to all her ministers that we should all work together to break down silos so that we are doing our level best for people. Although I have overall responsibility for mental wellbeing, every minister in the Government recognises that they have a role in ensuring that we do our level best for folk as we move out of the pandemic period.

Waiting lists are a worry, and we are taking action on that. In my opening remarks, I mentioned the important investment that we are making in child and adolescent mental health services. We can already see the difference that the investment is making in certain parts of the country as new folk are being recruited into post. On Thursday last week, I visited the youth unit in Dundee and I heard from staff about the difference that the investment will make.

On some of the pressures on the folk who work in and with the youth unit, I should say that, at one point during the pandemic, the unit—which covers the north of Scotland—was 19 staff down because of Covid and the pressures around it. Those folks have worked immensely hard during the course of the pandemic and have behaved admirably. They were extremely enthusiastic not only about the current investment in CAMHS, but about our ambition to move towards more preventative measures, including school counsellors and putting mental health link workers into general practices, and about the investments that we are making in communities.

I understand why the focus is on acute services, waiting lists and waiting times, but the best thing that we can do as we move forward is to prevent folk from having to enter acute services by putting in place the right preventative solutions for folks. I am determined to do that.

I will come to the issue of inequalities in delivery in a moment, but as I have said previously and will continue to say, the main driver of health inequalities in the population, including mental health inequalities, is poverty. We all have to recognise that. Some of the difficulties that people currently face have been exacerbated by some of the decisions that have been taken in recent times, including the cut in universal credit, which has had a major impact on individuals and families across Scotland. I will not go on too much about that, because—I will be honest with you—I could go into a rant that would last all morning.

Let us look at the difference in delivery. I spoke earlier about the standards that we have put in place for CAMHS. I expect those high-quality standards in delivering for people to be met across the country; that is one of the things that we need to do. Ms Webber is right. There is a stark difference in service delivery between Grampian and Lothian. We must transform services and do our level best to follow the example of the north-east.

The CAMHS standards are already making a big difference to thought processes, but we need to go further. That is why officials and stakeholders are working up new standards for psychological therapies. We will do something similar in other business areas so that everyone—those who deliver those services and those who receive them—will know what is to be expected.

I cannot emphasise enough that, where services work well—even if they do not work perfectly—the voices of lived experience are at the heart of shaping those services. That is where we need to get to. We should listen much more to service users to find out what works for them and what does not. Although the service in Grampian is not perfect and folk have gripes about things that did not work well for them, folk mostly have a good feeling about that service and feel that they are listened to.

I might be accused of parochiality for bigging up Grampian. Grampian has not done so well with perinatal and infant mental health. I think that a key reason for that is that the voices of lived experience have not been at the heart of those services. The committee will find out more about that during its inquiry. Other areas, such as Lothian, do well on that, whereas Grampian and the north do not do so well.

I think that I have answered that in what I have said about standards. We have set standards for CAMHS, we will set standards for psychological therapies and then we will move on. That will give folk a framework and a foundation with regard to what is expected of them in service delivery for people in their areas. It will also give service users and patients knowledge of what they can expect.

With regard to what we have done, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. We know that staff are accessing the mental health and wellbeing hub and the services around it. As the committee knows, we have invested more money in that, but it would be fair to say—this goes back to your earlier point about stigma—that some staff feel stigmatised in using those services. We have to get folk over that hump.

In talking to folk in health and social care, I have always said that we must continue to signpost those services; indeed, at times, we must cajole folk to use them. Once they use them, those services can make a real difference. In some cases—although, obviously, not in every case—that can happen in a fairly short time. The other week, I talked to somebody who had used the services, and they felt that, even in the initial calls, the burden had been lifted, to use their words.

Folk are under a lot of pressure, and I want those services to be used. It is absolutely vital that all of us—whether in the Parliament or out there on the front line in health and social care in the NHS, in health and social care partnerships or in third sector organisations—highlight that those services exist and that folk should access them if that is needed.

All of that shows that we still have a lot of work to do in destigmatising.