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With the exception of a very small dedicated bill management team, the majority of officials working on the national care service are involved in teams that combine policy development, co-design and implementation across a range of areas. Those activities will inform the development of the bill and the more detailed development of the national care service, which will be set out in secondary legislation, guidance and practice. They will also inform many areas that feed into improvements of the current service.

You have heard me say many times that we do not need to wait for the bill or primary legislation but that we can make improvements in the area now, and we seek the areas that we can improve without legislation on a regular basis. Officials continue to review priorities at all times in line with the current fiscal position in order to focus on improving services for people who access social care support. I am more than happy to furnish you with as much detail as we possibly can. I want you to be able to scrutinise the bill. We are not trying to hide anything from you, and we are keen to use your scrutiny to improve what we do.

We are always looking for opportunities to improve the system, and I point to the increase of the minimum wage to £12 per hour, which did not require us to wait for legislation. The decision was made by the Scottish Government to deliver that from the next financial year, and I am so delighted that we are able to deliver that without the need to wait for primary legislation. There will be other areas that we can improve on, and some will require primary legislation, but we are always looking for opportunities to improve.

This week—tomorrow, perhaps—we will get a review of scrutiny and inspection. We will consider that publication keenly to see what we can do and how we can take its recommendations on board. The regime of scrutiny and inspection is a tool that we can use to improve quality and consistency. If we think about the outcomes from the bill that we are aiming for, we can see that the review will be a crucial piece of work. I cannot pre-empt the report, which I think will be published tomorrow, but I imagine that not every recommendation will require primary legislation to effect change. We will look for changes that can occur without the legislation, because we are keen to set ourselves on a trajectory of improvement of delivery from day 1—from now.

That might be an easier way of doing it, but we can deliver both. We can have co-design at the heart of our development of legislation and ensure that this committee and others are comfortable with the financial scrutiny.

Co-design is a core part of the national care service. I do not expect it to finish by Christmas; indeed, I expect it to continue throughout the bill’s development and to be a fundamental part of the national care service in future.

Donna Bell can give you a little bit more information.

What I have been trying to describe is a dynamic process in which we take on board the co-design and then come back to the committee with more information. The business case is iterative, so we will have lots of opportunities for you to scrutinise and examine what is going on. The use of co-design in developing the legislation is fundamental to the type of change that we are delivering. As I say very regularly to people, if we have lived experience at the heart of our policy and legislation, we are much more likely to get them right. The challenge, though, always lies in implementation, so we also have a built-in mechanism for holding our feet to the fire in that respect to ensure that we not only deliver our ambitious policy and legislation but implement them appropriately on the ground.

What I am trying to say is that co-design is a core part of the national care service. I would expect that, once we have delivered it, it will continue to evolve, much like the NHS has. It will not be fixed in stone, just as the NHS was not fixed in stone when it was introduced in 1948. Having co-design at the heart of the development and at the heart of the service itself means that the voice of lived experience will continue to be involved in its evolution, even after we deliver the legislation. However, I agree that the approach makes it more difficult for you to scrutinise costs.

We are working closely together on defining the needs of the country and what we can deliver. I will be candid and say that the cabinet secretary has not set a ceiling. We are looking to deliver a social care system that meets the needs of the population.

Absolutely. I am confident that we can improve the local scrutiny of spend. At the moment, there are times when it is hard to follow the money, and that is sometimes the explanation for challenging situations on the ground. If we empower our local structures and provide them with adequate data and the ability to scrutinise where money is going in the system, we will have a system that operates much more efficiently and that delivers much more effectively for people.

I will give one simple example. Over 10 years ago, the Christie commission told us to spend money early instead of pulling people out of the water and we want to spend money preventatively. If an elderly person is admitted to hospital and gets a care package, that care package will, on exit from hospital, cost twice as much as it would have cost had we managed to catch them before they went in. There will be efficiencies if we do this well. I need to provide you with that assurance.

Yes.

I will be working very closely with the Deputy First Minister to design a social care service that works for the people of Scotland and, as with every area of spend, she will be ensuring that we have sufficient funding to put behind it. However, that is definitely outside my remit.