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I have a couple of questions about the calculations on social security spend in figure 5.3, which is on page 81 of your report. I would appreciate a little bit more information.

Part of the theory of the Scottish child payment is that, if we give families more income, we create the stability for them to find themselves in a better financial situation in which they do not require the payment. The calculations that you have in the figure show a dip over the next couple of years but that then slowing down over the last couple of years in the cycle. Will you explain a little bit about that tailing off in the decrease?

Yes.

Is the west, then, going to become that drag? Are we going to see the gap between earnings in the east and west continue to grow? Concerns have been expressed about that—I have certainly heard them locally—off the back of the announcement of free ports being established in the north and the east of the country, but not in the west. I must stress that I am not in favour of free ports, but we are already seeing a fall not just in the population but in average income growth on the west coast compared with the rest of the country.

As I was bringing up the issue of free ports, another question occurred to me. Have you made any projections on the basis of their expected economic impact? I realise that we are still very early in the process.

Thanks very much. That is all from me, convener.

It has been mentioned already that NHS Ayrshire and Arran has been running at a deficit since 2017, but quite a lot of progress was made in closing that deficit between 2017 and the start of the pandemic, when everything went out the window somewhat. How did you manage that year-on-year reduction in the deficit over that three-year period before the pandemic financial years?

Thanks very much.

On a different note—and moving away from that particular table—I heard at the start of the session Francis Breedon make a comment about the north-east no longer being as much of a drag on the Scotland-wide income growth figures over the next couple of years. When the committee took evidence—late last year, I think—on regional differences in income growth, we found that the really stark difference was between the east and the west of the country. That was reflected in the population figures, too, with all local authorities on the east coast projected to grow and Argyll and Bute and Inverclyde having the most significant decrease. How much of that regional data are you able to draw on for the purposes of this projection?

My final question is on the availability of data. I realise that this might be straying somewhat outside your remit, but I would be interested to hear your thoughts on this matter.

Obviously, you have access to significant amounts of public data that are not in the public domain, but when you look at some of the independent tax proposals that have been put together—for example, the paper commissioned by the Scottish Trades Union Congress—you see a significant difference between the additional revenue that the STUC says will come from some of its proposals versus what is in the ready reckoners. Do you think that there is enough information in the public domain to aid a healthy public debate on the issue? After all, it creates a bit of tension if the STUC says that putting 2p on the top rate will raise an additional £200 million and the ready reckoners say that that will be essentially net neutral.

No—my questions are not about IT. I have two questions, and I hope that folk will be interested in answering them.

My first question is about strategic planning. Are your organisations still using the spending plans that were set out in the resource spending review at this time last year for your planning over the next couple of years or, given the substantive changes that happened between the RSR and setting the budget for the current financial year, are you working on other assumptions rather than those that were contained in the RSR?

My second question relates to Douglas Lumsden’s point about head count but comes at it from a different perspective. Are any of you exploring different ways of working, such as by having a reduced working week? I am thinking of the proposed four-day working week. By no means all unions have said so, but some have indicated that they understand that, in the current financial context, it will be incredibly hard for pay offers to keep up with inflation, but that they would be interested in other potential benefits for staff work-life balance, such as by having a four-day working week.