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We will certainly consider it. I will not give a promise today, because we need to discuss that with drafters and get technical guidance on whether doing so is a possibility, but we will certainly consider it and get back to you about whether it is possible.

We are in exceptionally difficult fiscal times at the moment. I do not think that there has ever been a more challenging time to be in government in terms of finding the money to deliver the commitments that we have made, but I am operating on a proceed-until-apprehended basis. Nobody has told me that we are not doing that, so, as far as I am concerned, we are definitely doing it.

Absolutely. We will certainly reflect more on how we can highlight that to folk. You are absolutely right that there is a lot of detail out there.

That points to the fact that, as I keep saying, one size does not fit all. One general thing that we are trying to do with the bill is to make the approach more person centred—or person led, to correct my language as per the social covenant group guidance. We want it to be flexible and we want it to work for the people who need the support, so we will need to work really hard on the ground to ensure that there is a person-led approach to carer support.

I have been asked before about a definition of “sufficient breaks”. We could toil and come to an agreement on the definition of that, but the more important thing is whether the person who is accessing the support feels that they have had sufficient breaks.

As in all things, we need to build something that is flexible, person centred and person led, and which delivers the difference that we are hoping to see. That will be tough. At the moment, as you say, we have a variety of options across the country, some of which are easier to access than others and some of which are more enticing than others. However, we are already working pretty hard right across the board to improve that situation.

I do not know whether either of my officials wants to say anything.

One thing that we are doing is putting a lot of extra money into social care. We have made a commitment during this session of Parliament to increase the amount that we spend on social care by a quarter, which would mean £840 million going into social care. We are already at £800 million, so we are ahead of the trajectory on that and are vastly increasing the amount of money that we put into social care.

If I am correct about what you are asking, it is about whether we should pursue structural change at a time when the system is under so much pressure. Derek Feeley was clear that, if we just keep doing the same thing again and again, we will just keep getting the same outcomes, and we are clear that the system is not working as we want it to for the people who are accessing care at the moment. We need a transformational whole-system change to be delivered to meet the aspirations of the nation.

Again, I challenge that narrative. We are not centralising social care across Scotland. I was very clear about that when I went to Shetland. We were really impressed by the level of integration that is being achieved there and the work that is going on between the NHS and the local authority to ensure that a cohesive package of social care is available. I joked with them, saying, “Maybe what we’ll do is pick up the Shetland way and roll that out across Scotland; rather than us coming and imposing the Edinburgh way on Shetland, we’ll take the Shetland way and roll it out all over Scotland.”

However, even in the room at that time, we recognised that, while there are things that Shetland is doing excellently, there are things that it needs national support with. That is where we want to make the difference.

An example is information sharing. A little bit of primary legislation is required to make that easier. When we engage with people with lived experience, we hear that they are tired of telling their stories again and again to everyone whom they meet in the system. The ability to share information safely and appropriately within the system needs to be unlocked centrally, by central Government. We can do that, and it will enable better local delivery.

There are things that we can do to help. Another thing that we talked about was the challenge of recruiting professional social workers in Shetland. There are definitely things that we can do nationally to support that and make it easier to recruit and train by taking away some of the barriers to entry to training that exist in places such as Shetland.

I am keen to hear what the challenges are in every local area and to see what we can do nationally to unlock them. I am not interested in micromanaging from Edinburgh the entirety of social care all over the country. I have said that time and again.

I live in the rural west Highlands. Social care in Ullapool, where I live, looks very different from social care in Inverness, but both are within NHS Highland. Even within local authorities, if they are to be responsive to the needs of their communities, their geographies and the situations that they face in terms of labour shortages, they will have to be flexible in how they deliver. We are keen to create a system that supports that and empowers people while maintaining national standards. There should be a clear expectation that, wherever people are in the country, they know the standards and the quality of services that they can expect to access, even though services might look a little different, depending on where they are accessed.

Sectoral bargaining is probably the toughest area to deliver and a lot of work is going on in that regard. Usually, it is fairly straightforward once you define the sector, but even defining the sector has proved to be difficult in this sphere. It is very complex, and the way in which care operates in Scotland is pretty complex.

Generally, in sectoral bargaining, there is discussion between a group of employees and an employer or two. Clearly, there are multiple employers in social care. Government also has an interest, because we provide a lot of the money to pay for commissioned places and to increase wages. As a result, more people are around the table than there would normally be in a straightforward case of sectoral bargaining.

We are getting into the detail of it now, though. On the recommendation of some of the trade unions that we work with, we have approached a couple of academics and involved them to help us to unlock the discussions and make progress. I am reasonably confident that we will make progress on sectoral bargaining, which will be crucial to the delivery of fair work in the future.

One of the challenges that the Scottish Government has is that we do not have control over employment law. We would like to see many changes in the employment of social care staff in the sector, but we do not have the power to intervene directly. Ethical commissioning gives us some power to ensure that, where we use public money, staff are treated well. That is an important part of what we hope to achieve with the national care service.

When I think about the change that we are trying to make, the two groups of people whom I have in mind, day in and day out, are the people who access care—from whom I hear every day about just how difficult that can be—and the people who work in social care. I am pretty confident that ethical commissioning gives us a tool with which to improve their pay and conditions, to hear their voice and to build fair work principles into the procurement process.

Donna Bell, do you want to say a little bit more about that?

A lot of work is being done. Obviously, the delivery of £12 an hour is key, and I think that it will help, but it is not everything. As well as improving pay, work is going on across the board to improve conditions, focusing initially on maternity leave and sick pay—that is one of the fair work strands. Work is also going on with the Scottish Social Services Council and NHS Education for Scotland to provide educational opportunities to support the social care workforce so that, when people come into it, they feel well supported, know what they need to do, and have clear pathways to improve and to further careers, should they wish to study and move on.

As I say, a great deal of work is going on across the board, and not all of it requires primary legislation to happen—we can deliver some of it without primary legislation. A transformative change is required if we are to achieve one of the things that I hope we will achieve, which is an increase in the status of social care. I would love it if, in Scotland, we were talking about social care not just as something that helps the NHS when it is in trouble or harms the NHS when it is not functioning right, but as something that is valued in its own right and for its inherent ability to change people’s lives.

Social care totally transforms the lives of people who can access it, and it transforms their families’ lives. Day in and day out, I meet carers who are stretched to the limit trying to cope with the situations that they are in. An effective social care system takes the burden off families and it contributes to communities and to the economy. We talk a lot about the cost of social care, but we do not talk quite so much about its value. I am determined to move the conversation on to the value. On a very regular basis, I meet people who are struggling to work because of their caring responsibilities. If we get social care working right, it will have an impact on the economy. If we can articulate that better, we will stop thinking quite so much about the cost and start recognising the value, which is what we do with the NHS.

It is going on things such as increased wages. We have drastically increased the amount of money that people who are working in social care get paid. In the past couple of years, they have had a 14 per cent wage rise. That is one clear improvement that will be felt by everyone who is working in social care. People who work in social care in Scotland are now paid more than their counterparts all over the United Kingdom.

There is more to be done, but that sets us on a clear path, and I expect to do more of that.