 Welcome to the Equal Opportunities Committee, the 19th meeting of 2014. Can I ask everyone to set off any electronic devices to flight mode or switch off please? I would like to start with introductions. We are supported at the table by the clerkin and research staff, official reporters and broadcasting services and around the room by the security office. Welcome to the observers in the public gallery. My name is Margaret McCulloch and I am the committee's convener. Members will now introduce themselves in turn, starting here in my right. I am the MSP for Edinburgh Central, a deputy convener of the committee. Good morning. Good morning to you from MSP Central Scotland. Good morning, Christian Aladd, MSP for North East Scotland. Good morning, John Finney, MSP Hinds Wales. I am Alex Johnston, member from North East Scotland. John Mason, MSP for Glasgow Shetleston. The first agenda item today is taking the decision in private. You are asked to agree consideration of your approach to your report and the draft budget for 2015-2016 at item 7 in private. We all agreed. Agenda item 2 is also the decision of taking business in private. You are asked to agree consideration of your approach to and inquiry into age and social isolation in private future meetings. Agenda item 3 is to hear evidence from the cabinet secretary for health and wellbeing in two affirmative instruments, namely the marriage between civil partners, procedure for change and fees, Scotland regulations 2014 draft and the marriage, same sex couples, due restriction and the recognition of judgments, Scotland regulations 2014 draft. Those instruments are laid under the affirmative procedure, which means that the Parliament must approve it before the provisions may come into force. Following this evidence taken, the committee will be invited to consider motions to approve the instruments under agenda item 4. I welcome the cabinet secretary and his accompanying officials. Can I ask you to introduce yourself and I invite the cabinet secretary to make any opening remarks? I'm Cecilia McCulloch from the Scottish Government legal directorate. I'm Simon Stockwell. I'm head of the property law team in the Scottish Government. Good morning. My name is Julia McComby, family and property law team in the Scottish Government. Those two statutory instruments relate to the introduction of same sex marriage in Scotland. The first one is on changing civil partnerships into marriages. The Marriage in Civil Partnerships Scotland Act 2014 contains two ways for persons in a civil partnership registered in Scotland to change their relationship into a marriage. Section 8 allows couples to make the change through a marriage ceremony. The alternative is an administrative route laid down by regulations made under section 10. Those are the regulations that we are discussing today, the marriage between civil partners procedure for charge and fees Scotland regulations 2014. The regulations provide that couples in a qualifying civil partnership will be able to apply to any district registrar in Scotland to make the change. Those couples are first of all couples who have registered the civil partnership in Scotland and secondly couples who have registered the civil partnership through UK consuls or UK armed forces overseas and elected Scotland is a relevant part of the United Kingdom. Couples must present together in the registration district where they want their marriage to be registered and provide an application form completed but not yet signed, the civil partnership extract, the certificate and any forms of identification requested by the district registrar. The registrar general will provide guidance to registrars on what type of identification will be acceptable. The district registrar will change the civil partnership into a marriage if satisfied with the information provided. For couples who registered the civil partnership before same-sex marriage is available in Scotland, the change into marriage through the administrative route will be free for the first year. Should the couple wish to receive a marriage certificate, there will be a £10 fee for each certificate in line with the usual charge in Scotland for such certificates. The other SSI is on the jurisdiction of the courts. The marriage same-sex couples jurisdiction in recognition of judgment Scotland regulations 2014 make provision on 1, when Scottish courts have jurisdiction in relation to proceedings for divorce, separation and nullity of marriage, 2, when Scottish courts have jurisdiction in relation to proceedings on the recognition of decrees from outwith the EU concerning such matters and 3, the Scottish courts recognising judgments from elsewhere in the EU on matters such as divorce, separation and nullity of marriage. They follow similar regulations made at the time civil partnerships were introduced. The regulations make provision similar to that contained in EU regulation 2203, commonly known as Brussels 2A. That deals with court jurisdiction and the mutual recognition of judgments in relation to matrimonial matters within most EU member states. It is generally accepted that Brussels 2A does not extend to cases involving same-sex couples, which is why we need to make these regulations. I am happy to take any questions on both of them, convener. Thank you very much, cabinet secretary. Christian, I think that you would like to start asking questions. Yes, thank you very much, convener. Just a small question, maybe a point of details, is regarding the possibility of fraud. I think that the faculty of advocates expressed some concern regarding the problem of application that can be made with any form of identification, that it may be possible that we would design what form of identification that would be required. The possibility of fraud is absolutely minimal, because couples may apply to any district registrar. However, all registration offices in Scotland have access to the details of registrations that are made in other districts. Furthermore, national records of Scotland will be producing guidance for registrars on accepted forms of identification. After discussion with registrars, we thought that it best to lay down in guidance rather than to prescribe in the regulations what forms of ID would be acceptable. We felt that being too prescriptive in this area could negatively impact on an applicant who does not have exactly the correct prescribed form of ID, but could present an equivalent document. We do not want people to be unable to make the change simply on the basis of not having exactly the right form of ID. In addition, the chance of fraud is minimised because both applicants are required to attend together to sign the application form before the district registrar when making the change from civil partnership to marriage. Finally, the regulations contain provisions creating a criminal offence for any person who falsifies or forges the application form. We have covered all the different ways in which somebody might try to defraud the system, but we think that the possibility of fraud is very, very minimal indeed. Cabinet Secretary, not specifically on that, but if you indulge me a bit please regarding an issue that I raised previously and you addressed, the issue of same-sex couples with foreign partnerships seeking to marry in Scotland. It is accepted that, to fully enact the 2014 act, further SSIs will require to come. I wonder if you are able to give an update on that particular matter, given the previous undertaking, to do everything possible to facilitate that, please? Absolutely. This is something that I would like to have been able to do quicker, but the law is very, very complicated to get right. We have issued a draft discussion document to the committee just a couple of days ago. I do not know if you will have the chance to look at it yet. Obviously, before we issue the formal documentation, we will be very interested in the committee's comments on the draft. However, as soon as we get your comments back, we intend very quickly to formally launch the consultation through that document. Clearly, we need to legislate next year in this matter. This is quite complicated mainly because of the different attitudes of other jurisdictions. The way in which some jurisdictions—I think that I am right in saying that Denmark does not regard this as a major big problem, but potentially with friends in London—think that it might be a problem in relation to the English legislation. I am going to ask Simon to give you more detail on that, but that is the problem. Therefore, we need to end up with legislation and regulations, which make sense. At the same time, it can ensure that people who have had the civil partnership overseas but come to Scotland to get married can do so, because that is obviously the objective. We have asked some of our EU colleagues what views they would have. We have also asked our colleagues in England and Wales and Northern Ireland. The Dutch have come in and said, for example, that if Scotland converted a Dutch civil partnership to a marriage, it would regard that as any of a civil partnership in Holland and recognise the marriage. The Germans in Austria said that they were not certain, but the chances are that they will continue to recognise the civil partnership as a civil union in Germany and Austria. The poll said that there is not such a thing as a civil union in Poland, so we would not be converting any Polish civil unions because there is not such a status. The Northern Irish plainly have concerns because they are just against same-sex marriage generally, so they have concerns about the possibility of us changing Northern Irish civil partnerships to a marriage here. The expectation is that they will continue to be recognised as being in a civil partnership in Northern Ireland. Our English colleagues are, as the Cabinet Secretary said, raising a number of issues, and I am hoping to go down and see them possibly next week to discuss some of them with them, but so far the most difficult response, in fact, has come from our English opposite numbers, rather than from colleagues elsewhere in the EU. New Zealand is on that to cause a problem because New Zealand already converts overseas civil partnerships to a marriage in certain circumstances. Fundamentally, the problem is that we are dealing with so many jurisdictions who have so many different approaches that we have to be able to write legislation in Scotland that is going to be able to accommodate all of that. I do sense, Cabinet Secretary, that there is a strong political will to deliver on that. Absolutely, totally. Had we been able to do so sooner, we would have done it, because I do recognise the importance of it, but I think that hopefully everybody would agree that it is far better to take our time and get it right than to rush into it, and then we find it all sorts of complications. If we get it wrong, it is not us who are going to suffer, it is the couple who are going to suffer. I think that we have a duty to try and get it right. As a parallel, we recognise the divorce and dissolution of the civil partnerships from all of those countries with a similar process that has gone through to set up the legislation for that. How long did that take, ultimately? I know that that is possibly going back into the dim and distant past of Scottish Governments, but are you able to shed any light on that? The family law rights in 1986 has provisions on recognition of overseas divorces. I do not, to be honest, know how long it took for us to reach that decision. Sorry, I was referring to the dissolution of foreign civil partnerships. In 2004, we added to the law that contained the dissolution of foreign civil partnerships. It is similar to the exchange of foreign civil partnerships. I take it that the process was similar then in checking for consequences in other countries. How long did that take, if you are aware? I do not know the answer to that question, to be honest. When civil partnerships were set up, quite a lot of the provisions in the Civil Partnership Act reflected similar provisions in respect of marriage. It was the same type of system being established. It was a parallel system being set up in respect of civil partnerships when compared with marriage. The position generally is that we recognise overseas divorces of marriages and, similarly, we recognise overseas dissolutions of civil partnerships. The way in which the Civil Partnership Act 2004 works is generally at mirrors the way in which marriage works. It is slightly more complicated here because we have, for example, if you are in a civil partnership, say from the United States, if you change that to a marriage here, the existing civil partnership in the United States might continue. You might have a civil partnership with the United States, but people might be married in Scotland. I am referring to what happens if you dissolve a relationship that was registered abroad. In that American example, you could dissolve the civil partnership here under our current law and go back to America. You might not have a guarantee that the solution of the civil partnership would be recognised there. It seems to me that that throws up the same issues as the exchange of foreign civil partnerships here. Yes. It is easier when it is just the one type of relationship if you follow me. It is easier when it is a divorce of a marriage or a dissolution of a civil partnership. It gets more complicated if it is the divorce of a relationship that is recognised as something else in the other jurisdiction. For example, in section 104, which we have laid at Westminster, there is specific provision in that so that a Scottish same-sex marriage is recognised as a civil partnership in Northern Ireland. There is further provision to say that, if the Northern Irish courts then dissolve that deemed civil partnership in Northern Ireland as a civil partnership, that deemed dissolution of a civil partnership is recognised as ending the marriage in Scotland and in England. The difference is that the relationships might be treated differently in different jurisdictions. Can I ask about the civil partnership marriage fee, please? It says that there will be a £30 fee payable to change a civil partnership to marriage and a £10 fee for each requested marriage certificate. However, for those civil partnerships that were registered before 16 December, when the same-sex marriage was not available, there will only be a £10 charge for each extract of the marriage from the marriage register and certificate. The Scottish Government says that there are around 5,500 civil partnerships registered in Scotland and 5,000 were to change to a marriage in the first year. That would cost approximately £150,000. Can I ask what plans the Scottish Government has to reimburse the local authorities for those costs? What we are doing is in a slightly different way, convener. We have transferred resources to £100,000 because we think that that will be nearer the figure than the £150,000. We have transferred £100,000 from the Scottish Government to the national records of Scotland. Local authorities will build the national records of Scotland, and they will receive their money, paid out of the £100,000 that we have given to the national records of Scotland. Administratively, that is the easiest way to do it, so local authorities will not lose a penny. That is great. Thank you very much. Can I ask if members have any other questions to ask? On to agenda item 4. It calls for the committee to formally consider and recommend approval of motions namely S4M-11569 that the Equal Opportunities Committee recommends that the marriage between civil partners procedure for changing fees Scotland regulations 2014 draft be approved and S4-11570 that the Equal Opportunities Committee recommends that the marriage same sex couples, jurisdiction and recognition of judgment Scotland regulations 2014 draft be approved. I would like to invite the cabinet secretary to speak and move motion S4M-11569. Not a question, convener, simply a statement. Members will be aware that I was opposed to the primary legislation that makes these instruments necessary and I remain opposed in principle to what that legislation achieved. However, I am fully aware that these instruments are necessary to give effect to the will of Parliament and therefore I will not be opposing them. Thank you very much. Anybody else get any questions? Any comments? Are we all agreed? The question is sorry that motion S4M-11569 in the name of Alex Neil be approved. Are we all agreed? I would now like to invite the cabinet secretary to speak and move motion S4M-11570. The question is that motion S4M-11569 in the name of Alex Neil be approved. Are we all agreed? S4M-11570 in the name of Alex Neil be approved. That concludes consideration of these affirmative instruments and we will report the outcome of our consideration to the Parliament. I would like to thank the cabinet secretary and others for their participation. I will now suspend the meeting until 10 o'clock. Our next item of business today is consideration of a negative instrument, namely the Marriage and Civil Partnerships Scotland Act 2014, commencement number 3, saving transitional provision and revocation, order 2014, SSI 2014 stroke 287. The instrument brings into force the remaining provision of the 2014 act with the exceptions of provisions relating to religious and belief bodies, satisfying qualifying requirements set out in regulations and provisions, which increase certain notice periods from 14 to 28 days. This order makes transitional and savings provisions and evokes some regulations that no longer have effect. The Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee determined that it did not need to draw the instrument to the tension of the Parliament. The committee will now consider any issues that it wishes to raise in reporting to the Parliament on the instrument. Members should note that no motions to now have been received in relation to the instrument. Do any members have any comments or questions to ask? As the committee agreed that it does not wish to make any recommendations in relation to the instrument, I will suspend the meeting to allow the next set of cabinet secretaries to take their seats. Good morning. Agenda item 6 is an evidence session to support our scrutiny of the Scottish Government's draft budget for 2015-16. I would like to welcome John Swinney, Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth, and Shona Robinson, Cabinet Secretary for Commonwealth Games, Sports, Equalities and Pensioners' Rights and their accompanying officials. Can I start by asking you and the officials to introduce yourselves and invite the cabinet secretaries to make any opening remarks? Good morning, John Swinney, Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth. Shona Robinson, Cabinet Secretary for Commonwealth Games, Sports, Equalities and Pensioners' Rights. Yvonne Strachan, head of equality, human rights and third sector of the Scottish Government. Alison Taylor, head of integration of health and social care in the Scottish Government. Can I just check that cabinet secretaries do not have any opening remarks that they would like to make? We can make some brief opening remarks, convener, if that would help, or we are very happy to go into questions if the committee would prefer that. If you would like to make opening remarks, that would be fine. Thank you, convener. It is a welcome opportunity for us to discuss the draft budget with the committee. I think that it is also welcome that the Cabinet Secretary for Commonwealth Games, Equalities, Pensioners, Rights and Sport is with me today, given that we changed our approach to the handling of the equality issues and the equality assessment over the budget process to be a process over which both of us preside as part of the scrutiny of the wider issues of Government. The draft budget is set as members will be aware against a contrasting time of economic performance in Scotland. We are, without a doubt, moving from recession into recovery, and one of the challenges of that period is to ensure that, as new economic opportunities emerge, we are able to support individuals in sharing in that opportunity. The challenges inherent in the budget focus very much on addressing some of the issues of economic recovery, but also on tackling the consequences of welfare reform. The Government has set out a range of different measures to ensure that those points are adequately and fully taken into account. The Government also learns strong lessons from the referendum process, which demonstrated the level of public engagement that there is in the political process. Therefore, the steps that we have taken through the establishment of the equality statement and the wider dialogue that we have with stakeholders on issues in connection with the formation of the budget are ever more significant, given the fact that we have a very active political debate and climate at the present moment. One of the very different features of the budget this year is the ability to set tax rates. As the Government has considered the issues in connection with the setting of land and buildings transaction tax and the Scottish landfill tax, we have taken into account a number of principles of taxation that have been designed to address issues that we consider appropriately and adequately address the equality questions. Finally, before my colleague Shona Robison makes some remarks, I want to place on record my grateful thanks to the equality budget advisory group, who continue to advise the Government on those questions. They have undertaken their role this year without the assistance and contribution of Professor Ilsa Mackay, who sadly died this year. Professor Mackay had made a very significant contribution to the formulation of our approach to equality's budget issues. I am grateful to the members of eBag for continuing that input in the course of the budget process. As John Swinney has said, the work of the equality budget advisory group has been very helpful. Indeed, we are giving particular emphasis in our spending decisions to those measures that will drive growth and will help families and households. I know that the committee has a particular focus on age in its scrutiny this year. You will see that there is a range of spending priorities that will benefit younger and older people. One of the key focuses for older people is, of course, the £173.5 million that we are investing on the integration of health and social care, which aims to improve the delivery of services to, and most importantly, the outcomes for older people in our country. Finally, we have been able to maintain our funding support for the third sector and for equality activities. Without a doubt, the work of the third sector is crucial to supporting older people in particular in providing services in the health and care sector. Our equality budget enables us to support activities such as the age Scotland helpline, which is very well utilised. The engagement of older people in debate and dialogue about public policy and issues of concern to them. I have been very pleased to have had the responsibility for equality and to have seen the strong commitments and new processes of making equality a key part of the budget process. I am very happy to take any questions. I will ask the first question. It is to do with the reduction in Skills Development Scotland's budget, coming from a training background and having worked with Skills Development Scotland. I am quite familiar with the course and the delivery of training. You are reducing the budget by 1.8 per cent, which is equivalent to £4 million. There is a 1.5 reduction, which is £15.8 million to the budget for education and lifelong learning in meeting the national outcomes. What impact would that have on Skills Development Scotland? The numbers that I have in front of me, convener, are that, on Skills Development Scotland, the budget line was £184 million in 2014-15, and it is going to £183.5 million in 2015-16, which is a reduction of 0.3 per cent. Given the challenges that we face in relation to the wider budget issues, convener, and the fact that we are facing a real-terms reduction in our budget this year, what I have tried to do is maintain a range of interventions that support the journey of people into employment. Skills Development Scotland is just one aspect of this. We also have £12.7 million for youth employment Scotland in the budget, which goes with a variety of other measures. Community Jobs Scotland, for example, is another area in which we have sustained the funding between 2014-15 and 2015-16. We face a strategic budget challenge, but what we are trying to do is to protect the resources that are available to support people to make that journey back into employment, because we believe that that journey into employment is the best route for all individuals. The combination of the different measures that we take—I should also make the point, convener, that, in those sums that I have talked about already, we have the additional investment to support the implementation of the Syrian Woods report on developing Scotland's young workforce. I think that when you look at it in the round of Skills Development Scotland and developing young people's workforce and the youth employment Scotland budget, there is a strong level of support that is available. In the college sector, into the bargain, the budget is going from £522 million to £526 million in 2015-16. I think that those are areas that are well supported by public expenditure. I think that my concern is that, after hearing evidence from young people and various organisations, it is really important that there is the financial support there to make sure that those young people transition from school into employment or training if they are not ready to go straight into employment in college. I am concerned that you have said that by 2020 we will have 30,000 modern apprentices. I am concerned, after hearing from training providers, that the funding is staying the same on some cases that it has been reduced to deliver the same qualifications. That is going to make it all the more difficult for the harder-to-reach young people to get jobs as well through the modern apprenticeship programme. I agree wholeheartedly with your remarks about the importance of supporting young people through that journey. I think that for every young person that we are unable to properly support or engage with—and, of course, as we all know, school does not suit every young person, so, therefore, there will be other interventions that are made available that are designed to be appropriate to the needs of young people. For every young person that we are unable to support properly, my view is that the longer-term costs of that failure to support on the public costs will be even greater, because I think that without wishing to be depressing about it, I think that we can probably imagine that there will be poorer outcomes further down the track and, therefore, greater demands on public services and public expenditure. Getting that support correct for young people is very important. I think that the various measures that we have in place are designed to do exactly that. Of course, there will be young people who will face some other challenges that will be supported by other areas of public expenditure, whether it is around the assistance that we might put in place to support more vulnerable young people through the expansion of the Getting It Right for Every Child programme and the opportunities for all initiatives that relate to older young people. The second point is on modern apprenticeships, where clearly we will go on a pattern of expansion of modern apprenticeship capability to reach the 30,000 target by 2020. That will have to be done incrementally over the course of the next spending review and the next parliamentary term. I think that what we have demonstrated is that, over the course of the last few years, we have managed to sustain very significant expansion in modern apprenticeships going from about 15,000 to 25,000 over the lifetime of this Government. That is, of course, crucially dependent on the participation of employers, because employers are key to the modern apprenticeship programme in Scotland. I am optimistic as we move into stronger periods of employment growth in Scotland that employers will be able to partner with us in that journey. The final observation to convener is about cost of programmes and value. I have to say to the committee that one of the constant themes that I have been pressing public services on and public authorities throughout my term in office has been to maximise value for the public person. Sometimes that involves some pretty challenging conversations and challenging relationships about how we get value for money out of some of these contractual arrangements. I am satisfied that those discussions, although they might not suit everybody, are justified in ensuring that we get value for money and that we can ensure that the resources that we have available to us are able to have as wide an impact as they possibly can do. I think that Siobhan wants to come in on that and then I will get another question. Simply on the modern apprenticeship programme, cabinet secretary, this is something that I have asked in a number of budget sessions now, so I do not wish to disappoint you and ask again. Obviously, we have seen with the modern apprenticeship scheme that the increasing numbers, but we have also seen a pattern of females not getting through to the higher levels of the scheme and we also have 0.5 per cent of disabled people in the scheme. We also do not have information on some protected characteristics at present. In previous sessions, you have said that you are working towards getting more information. We understand that there are problems with getting that information at the minute, but Skills Development Scotland is working towards a new programme of trying to get that information to us and recruiting from certain sectors. I am just wondering what progress has been made and what allocation of the budget has gone into this, given that we are seeing, although we dispute the figures, a reduction in the funding to Skills Development Scotland? On the question of sourcing data, I am very happy to ensure that the Government acts as far as we possibly can to address the aspirations of the committee for more detailed statistics on the area of activity. It might be one of the things that the committee might wish to consider is to make a very specific proposition about what information would be helpful to collect and to gather so that the Government can respond to that very specifically on the points that the committee would be most interested in, because, as I think I have perhaps rehearsed in my answer in previous years to Siobhan McMahon, there is no shortage of statistics collected in the Government. Believe me, whether they are all useful and current for our needs at the present time is a completely different question. If the committee wished to set out a framework of statistical information that it would consider to be helpful, I would be very happy to look at that and to establish what was required. On the question of funding, I really do not see that as being a particular problem in the collection of statistical data on a cohort of the size of the modern apprenticeship group. Given the fact that we already are collecting statistics on that cohort already, it does not strike me as being something that would be of particularly significant cost. However, if the committee wished to be specific to the Government, we would certainly happily consider those proposals. Last year, when you were here giving evidence, we were talking about the problems with the third sector and other organisations that deliver the training programmes. They were saying that there were issues with only having yearly contracts. I asked you about that and you said that you would look at that and bring it back to the committee. Can you tell me any further forward in considering a three-year contract or longer for those organisations? We have made quite a bit of progress in that question, as members will recall. The Conservative Party brought forward a debate on the question of three-year funding for third sector organisations that took place in Parliament some time ago. As a consequence of that, I agreed in the debate that we would lead a process of discussion with the third sector and with local government. As between the Scottish Government and local government, we represented such a comprehensive part of the contracting approach to those areas in Scotland. We have had a number of discussions with local government and the third sector has been actively involved in all those processes to move towards a situation in which we have a greater presumption in favour of longer-term funding. That can only be deployed, as you will appreciate, convener, on a case-by-case basis, but it is our objective to try to move more and more of our contracting basis to that longer-term period. It also involves us with that crucial challenge that I responded to a moment ago to you, convener, that we have to maintain strong scrutiny of value questions over the length of those contracts. Those considerations have now been actively taken forward in the contracting structures that we take forward as a Government. Third sector and opportunities for all are two areas that are very important, in particular for young people with additional support needs. Can we be sure that adequate funding by looking at the budget or is that something where the great majority of the spending is going to come through the local government settlement? In both the areas of the third sector and the opportunities for all programme, there will be elements that come out of some of the programmes that the Government presides and some will come out of the wider local government settlement. For the Government's part, we have maintained our funding to the third sector. It has been part of the long-term commitment that the Cabinet has wanted to make to ensure that the third sector organisations are properly and fully supported in recognising the strategic role that we expect in what we require the third sector to perform in the delivery of public services in articulating on behalf of groups with particular needs and requirements, but in finding new ways of working to improve outcomes for citizens within Scotland. Our support has been strong. Obviously, the local government has to make its own decisions, and I have worked to ensure that local government gives adequate and due priority to the needs of the third sector. I sympathise with committees such as the Equal Opportunities Committee, because the format of the budget document does not lend itself to addressing directly the question that Mr Biagi raises. We have set out information in a whole variety of different ways to be consistent with our agreements with the finance committee, but perhaps a configuration of the budget in a different fashion would make it slightly more obvious to committees such as the Equal Opportunities Committee. Other committees make the same point to me as I discuss budget issues with them, but what helps us in this process is the alignment of our policy frameworks, which are designed to—we are both—the Scottish Government and local government agree on some strategic priorities. We work to the same national outcomes, we work to the same indicative targets of performance, and that is designed to give a cohesion and a focus to the way in which we take the decisions that we take on spending decisions in order that they can most effectively reflect the needs and aspirations of people at local level. Finally, the cost of delivering support throughout the third sector or opportunities for all for young people with additional support needs is greater than the average for a young person. Can we be sure that that is coming through, that priority is being afforded and that the results are there for young people with additional support needs based on the budget? I would certainly believe that to be the case. I acknowledge the fundamental point that Mr Biagi makes, which is that there will be a higher cost to support young people with additional support needs. That has to be reflected and is reflected in local authority decisions. Clearly, for young people with additional support needs, local authorities will be putting in place support packages, which will be significantly greater cost than would be the case for young people without additional support needs. The same maxim applies in relation to opportunities for all and also in relation to support, which is delivered through budget to the Covid sector and to the bargain. I will keep on my question on that subject, because we heard a lot from the evidence that we took that not only about young people with additional support needs but about the transition period, a lot of the third sector providers in rural and island areas will have extra cost. Of course, do you have a factor in your draft budget for the extra cost for local providers in rural and island areas? Some of those judgments will be reflected in the decisions that are made by Skills Development Scotland, for example, in the delivery of contractual arrangements in remote areas. In the local authority settlement, there is specific provision made to take due account of rurality and remoteness, and in the case of the islands of Scotland, to take into account the particular additional costs that are incurred in delivering services to our island communities, which is reflected in the element of the local government settlement that is influenced by the special islands supplement. There is a wider reassurance that we have a commitment across the board to ensure that the Government's purpose is to ensure that there are opportunities for all of Scotland to flourish. I stress all of Scotland to flourish through increasing sustainable economic growth. What that means is that whether one lives in central Edinburgh or in the western isles, each individual is entitled to be able to have access to opportunities. Therefore, the funding support and the way in which we deliver services is designed to address that particular requirement. The theme that came back was particularly the cost of transport. Is there anything that is a draft budget that is targeted particularly the cost of transport in rural areas? Those factors will be reflected in the judgments that are made about the cost of delivery of services in particular localities. It would be incumbent on the contracting organisations to take that point into account. Another question is about the get-it-right for every child policy. Because we have structured the draft budget as a transition period for young people, especially young people with additional support needs, is there a possibility that the Government will think of extending that policy to older young people to take it post as school to make sure that we have that transition period? The opportunities for all commitment extends to 16 to 19. I am now doubting myself about that. We have a commitment to make sure that every young person is given a proper assured guarantee of support to assist them to make their journey into the labour market. Some of that will be done through the school and college environment, some will be done through other programmes that the Government deploys. That is an indication of the type of practical support that we can make available to young people in that context. Is there some evidence that we have found that a lot of the young people, especially the one with additional support needs, found it very difficult to have the cliff when the gayfec stops and there is no more support afterwards? If there were a possibility, if the Scottish Government could see how we could extend it and maybe fund it a period, a bigger period, after school, would we help? That is a very fair point. In circumstances where I had not quite focused on the point about young people with additional support needs, there is likely to be an on-going requirement for principal local authorities to put in place support mechanisms for young people as they become older, which will be tailored to their requirements. The obligation in the Government's care approach, the obligations that are taken forward in relation to the pursuit of better outcomes for all citizens, will place an obligation on public authorities to make sure that the individual needs of people are properly and fully reflected in the choices that we make over spending decisions. I note that £16.6 million additional has been allocated to training, youth and women's employment. Is it possible to give us some detail on how that will be allocated or how it will be broken down? The main areas where that is happening will be across the uplift that has been put in place to the work to implement Syrian Woods recommendations on developing Scotland's young workforce. In the budget in 2014-15, we allocated £12 million, and we have now increased that by 38 per cent to £16.6 million. That will be focused on expanding the apprenticeship programme, on encouraging more vocational learning opportunities for young people while in school. The establishment in this relates in a sense to some of the points that Mr Alard was raising with me. The establishment of better integration between schools and colleges in preparing young people for work. That is one area where there is an expansion. The other area is in relation to the expansion of youth employment Scotland, which will be a mechanism designed to ensure that we meet the needs of young people in accessing the labour market and that we leverage in other private public and European funding to support that process into the bargain. Those will be the areas where there is the most significant difference in the work that is taking forward. Just briefly, was there any impact assessment on how that money might help those people with disabilities and additional support needs to access the workplace? As part of the equalities assessment, we are testing portfolios in the budget propositions that they bring forward that they support the process of improving outcomes for all individuals. For young people with disabilities, that will have been one of the factors that will have been considered as part of the process. Again, I come back to the obligations that we have to improve outcomes for individuals that are reflected in the budget choices that we make. Those are issues that are essentially tested in the equalities budget statement and the budget process that the cabinet secretary and I preside over to ensure that the wider expectations that individuals could have of the effect of the Government's programme are actually fulfilled by the spending choices that we make. Of that money, £12.7 million appears to be allocated to a new budget line of youth employment. Is that the same as the budget that you were describing for youth employment Scotland? Is there any other information that you can give as to the breakdown of how that £12.7 million will be spent? The themes that it will cover will be to support the principle of early intervention to support young people in securing worthwhile employment permits. In a sense, my point in response to convener a moment ago that, for every moment, a young person is not being supported and encouraged and nurtured to enter the labour market or to be involved in a good destination through education, we are in danger of walking into having a worse outcome and a further demand on public services. Youth employment Scotland is designed to try to ensure that that journey is made as smooth and as possible and as well supported as possible to ensure that the needs of individuals are met as a consequence. The early intervention point is designed to make a judgment as to whether or not, for some young people, staying around in school can actually be a negative outcome for them. Making that judgment as early as possible that a different approach or a different setting might benefit that young person is a crucial judgment that will ultimately, in the long term, deliver better outcomes for those individuals and better outcomes for society. Is there any extent to which the method of getting the means to the people who need it is something that will have to be developed over time or is there a plan in place to achieve that in day one? We have a lot of very good channels of work that are taking forward that are very effective. Increasingly, our public service reform agenda is concentrating on a person-centred approach so that we tailor the way in which public services are delivered to meet the needs of an individual as opposed to having a happy coincidence if public services happen to support an individual very directly. We are trying to meet the needs of individuals increasingly. The sums of money that we have talked about this morning are designed to support individuals in that journey. Just yesterday morning, I had a conversation with the chair of Skills Development Scotland, John McClelland, about the extent to which individual person-centred packages are being put together that are better meeting the needs of those individuals. As a consequence, we are having lower drop-out rates, we are having more sustained participation and we are getting better outcomes. Before I move on, I might like to ask the other cabinet secretary if he has any comments that he would like to make or has everything been covered. I think that Mr Sonny has dealt with it very comprehensively. There are other budgets that will impact some of the areas that have been touched on in terms of, if you take the broadest definition of children with additional needs or vulnerable children, I was thinking specifically about the children services fund of over £3 million, which is going to support the network of workers for children and young people affected by domestic abuse. That will not sit within the budgets that Mr Sonny was talking about, but, nevertheless, in terms of a vulnerable group of children and young people, that support is very important. That is lovely. I will move on now to John Mason. I would like to direct that to Sean Robinson. John Swinney has already referred in his answer to Christian Allard about transition and the whole thing about moving from. I have seen one of two constituents who are up to 16 or even 18 at their school, and they get quite a lot of support. There seems to be quite a drop-off, and this transition does not always seem to work. From your angle, is it working on the whole this move from pre-16 through to post-16? It depends on which group of young people you are talking about. If you look for example of young people who are using health services and care services—young people with a disability—there are challenges when they move out of the support that they may have attended either mainstream school or a special school, and they then move into adult services. A lot of work has been done around that, but it is still challenging. It can be particularly scary for parents when they feel that there is a danger of them losing the support package that they have had, which is a very clear routine for the day. They are moving into an assessment for adult services, so a lot of work has been carried out on transition there. Have we got it perfectly right? It is probably still some work to be done in making sure that every local authority and every health board works very closely together in making that happen. A lot of the focus around integration has been particularly on older adults. Without a doubt, I think that there are opportunities there to get it right for younger adults who are moving into that system and by making sure that there is far better communication and earlier communication around not just the budgets but around the support mechanism, even the people who may change in terms of supporting that family. The budget is an important element of that. John Swin has already made the point that, in one sense, we look at the budget and we do not see third sector or a particular area because it is not done that way. Do we have to accept that we cannot really influence that? We are giving money to the local authorities, they look after the schools and the social work, then we give money to the health board and they look after other things. I know that there is meant to be more joint working going on, but is it just too far away from us for us to really have a big influence on that? Maybe more work could be done. We could certainly look at this about how we pull some of that out, perhaps use case studies as a bit more of an example to focus on best practice and which budgets are supporting that young person moving in a transition from one service to another. As John Swin said earlier, I can understand that it does not make the life of this committee easy to be able to see that and to see all the different budgets that impact on that person's life. There may be some work that we could do to make that more transparent, but it is quite challenging because, as you have identified yourself, that support sits within various budgets. Some are local authorities, some are health boards, some are budgets that we hold directly, and it is how all of that sits around that individual person. Maybe a case study model might be a good way of doing that. John Swin has said that there is a much greater degree of alignment of public expenditure to support the priorities and objectives of government. I will not say that it is perfect for a moment, but it will never be perfect. It is a great deal more aligned than it has ever been in the past. What has enabled us to do that has been our strategic agreement with local government to work on shared priorities. As a consequence of that, the ability of ministers to direct, for example, the health service, the ministers to direct public bodies and the agreement of local government to work on broadly a shared agenda of what we are trying to achieve collectively with the public expenditure at our disposal. A lot of that is assessed and considered within the national performance framework, but we now have a much more integrated policy framework, which enables us to essentially be working in broadly the same direction. I would be confident that if you had, for example, the leaders of local authorities here, they would be explaining very similar policy priorities that they were working to as would be taken forward by Scottish ministers. I would also add that the new integration authorities will be gathering a lot of data which should be able to identify more clearly where the spend is and how, in more detail, how that resource is being spent across those two large spending organisations, which might help to answer some of the detail at a more local level. Will you, as a Government, assess how well those partnerships are working? From a non-budget point of view, it has been raised a few times that data sharing is not very good, except that that is not particularly a budget issue, but schools are reluctant to either pass on to colleges or to the third sector particular data. Just my general feeling both on this committee and on the finance committee is that it is a little patchy around the country. Highland tends to be given as the good example of the health service and the local worker working together. I think that there are other good examples. We have had other people from other councils at both committees where my gut feeling is that it is not moving forward as fast as it might be. The integration authorities have to move forward because the legislation is in place of being given two possible models to follow. It is fair to say that the pace has been quicker in some areas than in others, but they are now all getting there. They have all chosen the model that they are going to follow. Without a doubt, that is going to force a lot of change and the bringing together of the budgets are going to focus minds. They are working very hard on the strategic plans. We will absolutely have oversight of that and a great deal of discussion from officials. Alison Taylor is very close to this, so she might want to add a little in addition to what I have said. Without a doubt, this is a big opportunity, but we need to make sure that it delivers some of the change that we all know needs to happen. Getting this right at a local level is a huge opportunity for service users to rely on both services. I will add that I completely recognise the concerns about availability and the sharing of data. If data is not joined up and shared effectively, it undermines the capacity of the whole system to plan, particularly for people who have multiple conditions, which is the real focus of integration, which is why so many people who are involved are older people. We have a lot of work under way nationally to support local linking of data, as Ms Robison has described. From the annual performance reports that the new partnerships will produce, we will begin to get a much richer seam of evidence about what is happening and for whose benefit. Moving on to the subject of older people in health and wellbeing, Siobhan Myrlaid, to start the questions. The first question is about the change fund. We heard in evidence that the funding or the resourcing has now ceased in the continuation of developed initiatives, as it is now assumed to be included within the baseline funding allocated to partnership boards. It was just a question on why there has been a reduction in the change fund resources and what has been done to sustain the improvements and outcomes in the absence of that? The new integrated care fund is really building upon the change fund that preceded it, and that is going to be £173.5 million for 15-16. The important thing to say about that is that the integrated partnerships will have a scope to look at joint budgets of £7.6 billion, so the use of the £173.5 million is to continue some of the groundbreaking work of redesigning services to showcase what can work, and then, with the expectation that that will be a good model for practice for all of those integrated authorities. That budget is a catalyst for change, but the big resource sits within health and social care, which is why it is being brought together. That £7.6 billion is the resource that the integrated partnerships need to focus on, but using the £173.5 million to test some of the changes that need to unlock some of the resources that are tied up in doing things that we know are not the most effective. How do we keep people at home for longer? How do we shift that resource that £173.5 million will build on how to do that? The change fund has been very useful before that, but we should keep our eye on the £7.6 billion, because if we can unlock that resource, that is where the real change will happen and the way people receive services at a local level. I appreciate that answer. I appreciate it in your opening statement that you said to the integration funders about improving services and outcomes for older people. However, in evidence, we heard that the culture is still—as much as Government policy has been to try and shape the reshaping care initiative and getting people to stay at home longer, as you said, the spending that has been put there is, as one witness said, 1 per cent goes into that, and the rest is in acute services still. I am just wondering what, specifically in the integration fund now, will change that because our witnesses—I asked them, I said, we would all like more money, it is not simply about money—can they shift this balance with the resources that they have been given? The answer was no. The whole reason that the legislation has been put in place, bringing those two big spending organisations together, is to do just that. While I go back to my days as a home care organiser in the early 1990s, we were talking about this agenda then, which is why we have reached the point of putting in place legislation to require both those organisations, not just to come together, but to essentially pool their budgets. The missing bit was the pooling of budgets, because at the end of the day, whether it is human nature or system nature, when there were two separate budgets with two separate responsibilities, there was always going to be barriers to real change. The legislation bringing those bodies together, bringing those budgets together, is the difference, in my view, that will make the difference, importantly, for service users. The unlocking of that £7.6 billion, is that going to happen overnight and a sweeping change overnight? No, but the gradual change and shift of that resource, I believe, has a very strong chance of now happening because of that accountability for that joint budget. The catalyst for change will certainly be pushing from the centre and making sure the momentum is there locally. There is a lot of good work going on in many areas of the country that recognises that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for substantial change. All areas will make those changes fair to say that some are getting on and doing it quicker than others, but they will all do it. This is an absolutely fundamental question that has been raised, and it is at the heart of the Government's agenda and what needs to be addressed. There are three other areas that I would add to what the cabinet secretary has said. First is to give one example, a practical example. I recently visited the integrated services in Highland, and I spoke to members of staff who previously were health board staff and previously were local authority staff, and they are now working together. They have one employer in an integrated service, and what struck me about that discussion was that those individuals, because they had been liberated from the organisational culture of their two organisations and were now focused on the people they were serving, as opposed to the organisations that they had to act on behalf of, were able to operate in a much more cohesive fashion than they have ever been able to manage to work in the past. The second thing is about the third sector. Crucial to this journey of shifting the balance from the dependence on acute care, for example, to supporting people more effectively in their homes is the performance and contribution of the third sector and the ability to be big players in that journey. That is a major theme of what the Government is trying to advance. Finally, as a consequence of the budget decisions that we have made on the health budget, the health secretary has been able to allocate more resources to primary care, which he announced last week to the tune of £40 million. What that will help to do is to give some important additional resource to strengthening primary care to try to assist more of that shift of resources to take place. What I would accept wholeheartedly is the fact that—I have heard the health secretary make this point in the chamber on numerous occasions—it costs £4,000 a week to support and care for an individual in an acute hospital. It costs £400 a week if they are in their own home. It does not take an awful lot to work out what is the preferable—from the perspective of the France secretary—the more preferable approach to taking. The more we can drive that shift, but what I would accept is that this is a process that has to be relentlessly driven by Government in association with our local authority partners. That is exactly what ministers are focused on doing. I welcome both the cabinet secretary's answers and I do support what you are trying to do. I am just wondering then, given that the cabinet secretary for equalities said that this will not happen overnight, and I fully appreciate that it will not happen overnight, will the funding streams continue? They are obviously not identified at the present moment, so will there be more funding streams coming down the line? You anticipate and understand that we are talking about one budget at the minute, but I am not suggesting a figure or anything else at the minute, but I anticipate that. We only have financial information up to the financial year 2015-16. We have not been provided with any longer-term information. I can say that this is an absolutely strategic priority of the Scottish Government. This is the route to enabling us to create sustainable health and social care services, and it has to work. It has to be supported with sufficient political and organisational leadership, but also with resources to make sure that it can happen. During 2015-16, we will get a far sharper focus on what is working. It is then about driving what works to make sure that that is what happens to deliver that change, and that will inevitably influence any future spending decisions. Will you evaluate the process, given that it should achieve the nine national outcomes for the health and social care partnership? Absolutely. There will be a sharp, sharp focus on delivery and making sure that we are evaluating and making sure that, at a local level, the aspirations that John Swinney was talking about in terms of making sure that this delivery is not just in terms of the budget delivering, but we know that it works better for people, particularly older people. An acute hospital bed is the last place for someone who does not need to be there. Obviously, if they need to be there, they need to be there, but for too many older people, they do not. We know that it is not good for them, so, from a budget sheet and a care perspective, we have and will make this work. Thank you. John Mason, do you have any questions that I would like to ask? Follow-on from where we have been, because Siobhan Lans moved into the area, although it is specifically the change funds and the integration funds, the whole point about keeping people at home and how that moves resources. That was the area that I was going to come in on here as well. Clearly, there is the change fund and the integration fund, and that money is to change things over. Mr Swinney, you have made the point that it is so much more expensive to have somebody in hospital than somebody at home. Is there anything in the budget that is moving that along that process, or are we just giving the money to the NHS and the local authorities, and it is up to them to pull it and start moving the resources within that, or can we do anything from the top-down level? Well, the £173.5 million for next year is the budget that is to help oil the wheels of change, if you like. We expect change to happen, and we expect them to look at that £7.6 billion and shifting that resource, but the £173.5 million is to help bits of the system change. So, sorry, that is an extra bit, isn't it, on top of what the underlying bit is. So, at the end of a year, you would expect the underlying bit to have changed? Well, we expect the strategic plans to lay out how that is going to happen. Now, that is not all going to shift in the space of one financial year, but what we would expect to see is evidence of change, and they will set out in their strategic plans how they are going to do it, by what stage they would expect to do what, and we will be putting a lot of attention on the robustness of those plans and making sure that they are workable, that they cut the mustard quite frankly, and that we begin to see over a period of time that the shift in the balance of care that we absolutely need to see happen. So, those plans will be subjected to a great deal of scrutiny, not just by the Government, but locally as well. Okay, thank you very much. Moving on now to John Finnie. Thank you, convener. Some of the points that I was going to cover have been picked up, if I can maybe go back to the sum of £43 million that was issued the announcement recently of the additional monies. Is that part of the £173 million? The £40 million is part of the £173.5 million. I have noted the cabinet secretary, Mr Swinney, correctly said that it was for strengthening primary care. Is it targeted both geographically and to deprived areas? When the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport, Alex Neil, announced it from recollection, Alison can fill in some of the detail here, it was focused particularly on tackling inequality, so to strengthen those primary care services in both urban areas of deprivation but also rural areas where rurality was a significant factor. Alison, do you want to fill in? Just to add, there are discussions on going about exactly how to fulfil that aim, how to spend what parts of the money and what way, which involve the professional organisations as well as officials and of course ministers in due course, but that is absolutely correct, its emphasis is on equalities and as they manifest themselves differently in rural and urban areas. I was very pleased to see the announcement, particularly the reference to rural, and I have been seeking to try to establish when decisions will be made. Indeed, I recently asked the chair of NHS Highland, when are we likely to know when that money is going to be where and when? Those discussions are on going at the moment, and I am sure that we will make sure that as those discussions progress, that information is shared with local members, but we want to test the proposals to make sure that they absolutely deliver the shifting balance of care so that they are strengthening primary care to be able to make that happen, and that they deliver on some of the key issues that have been raised around whether it is the demands on primary care services within deprived communities or whether it is some of the rurality issues, but we will make sure that we can share that information with you as those decisions are taken forward. Thank you. Are you able to see if that is a one-offer? Will that be a recurring payment, or is it just... Well, the £173.5 million of which the 40th part is allocated for 1516. I think that, as we touched on earlier on, as we see what works over the 1516, that will influence any further budgetary decisions that we would make around driving forward some of those changes, but we need to monitor very closely what works, and we will do that over 1516. Thank you. There are some lovely phrases in all those papers on primary medical services quality and outcomes framework being one of them. Will that increase in scientists from general practitioners to involve the third sector? The quaff is a very interesting process, which essentially is a discussion and agreement with primary care around what they will focus on and what they will be paid for in terms of the quaff. That has changed over years to reflect some of the joint priorities, and Alison can probably give you a bit more of the detail around that, but it is a very significant lever, because if we get an agreement around a particular objective being part of the quaff, you are more guaranteed for that to be delivered, because it is linked very clearly to payment for that service. Absolutely. One aspect of the general medical services contract that we have adjusted recently is that we have included provision to enable every practice to have a link with the integrated partnerships. That is a very first step. It does not guarantee that AGP is directly involved in any given discussion, but it does create a liaison, which is very important. In terms of building in the third sector, we have within the integrated arrangements requirements for partnerships to establish localities, which are smaller areas in the local authority area. Our emphasis for localities is that GPs and other local professionals must have a leading role in helping to develop what services are appropriate to the population. There is also a guaranteed role for third sector representatives in that arrangement. There is also a guaranteed role for third sector representatives and, indeed, for primary care around strategic planning tables, if you like. We have knitted it in at various points of the system to try to get this collective effort behind shifting the balance. Part of the ground that Mr Finnie is considering is also some of the points that John Mason was raising. It gets to the heart of some of the dilemmas that the Government has to address about how we control and distribute public funds. On the one hand, we get pressed to direct the money to this particular cause, requirement and service in this specification, in this locality. On the other hand, we get encouraged to let local solutions flourish for local needs. It is different than it is in Dundee or whatever it happens to be. Essentially, that sums up the dilemmas that we are faced with and we are pressed on. The way that the Government has tried to go through that has been to essentially create the integrated and aligned framework for policymaking that we have between the areas that we directly control so that health ministers today can direct health boards to do certain things. I have no ability to direct their local authority to do anything. They are democratic elected organisations, they are free to do that. What we have tried to create is an integrated policy framework that everyone submits to and that will leave sufficient room for local discretion to enable the design of a system in Cailloflacash to be appropriate for Cailloflacash and the design of a system for central Dundee to be appropriate for central Dundee. What we are trying to do is to create alignment between public bodies and focusing on the needs of individuals in these localities. Can I pick up on something that you said earlier, cabinet secretary, about the special island supplement? The issue of whether agencies delivering work on behalf of the Government follow a similar approach. We heard last week about training provision and the fact that, if it is X for fulfilling a task, regardless of whether it is the centre of a city in the central belt or the island of Isla, it will not tally up and reduce its incentives for engagement. I have to check on particular contractual arrangements as to whether there is any specific cash factors that are taken into account in those respects. I will check that and write to the committee on that point. It is possibly the wrong word—forgive me if it is—incentives on trying to shift a huge culture and the cultural change. For argument's sake, my understanding is that the nearer you are to a hospital, the more likely you are to be admitted. Northwest Sutherland, many, many miles and hours from a hospital, has the smallest percentage of people who are admitted to hospital, but it also has the largest challenges. Whether that is collecting refus bins or delivering care to older people, are you content that that can be accurately reflected, given what you have said about the relationship that you have with local authorities? Particularly when, when we are talking about integration of health and care, if you like, one cabinet secretary can direct, and another cabinet secretary can't directly intervene if you follow what I'm going by. I think that I should correct what I'm talking about. I would certainly put some more detail on what I said. The idea that the cabinet secretary said to the health committee was to say, you know, Mrs McGuffin in her debut should be in Rainbow Hospital. I think that that would even be a stretch for the health secretary to imagine, but who knows? I don't see that to be full. I think that there's a very serious point in the issue that Mr Finlay raises, because one of the challenges that we are wrestling with in relation to delayed discharge, for example, is that if I take the area that I represent, there are step-down facilities in a number of different towns in the rural areas that I represent. People who are on a care journey perhaps say a little bit more support, but they don't need to be in Naingmors hospital, can come to the Blue Geirw community hospital, get excellent support, it's near to home, it's easier for everybody, and the rehabilitation is much greater. In some other major urban communities, we perhaps don't have those step-down facilities. It's a product of the historical development of healthcare services. We have to make sure that we have appropriate support arrangements in place in all different localities. The example that is cited about North West Sullin is that there will be different ways of supporting individuals. The way in which health services are delivered will be structured in a fashion that will be an absolutely last resort if somebody has to go to Rheagmore hospital, because it's a long, long way away with a lot of inconvenience to the individual and families. I sometimes wonder whether everybody—well, I know it's not that I wonder—the statistics speak for themselves. Not everybody that's in Naingmors hospital on Dundee needs to be in Naingmors hospital on Dundee. The more they're in there and don't need to be there, I come back to my £4,000 a week comparison with my £400 a week comparison. That is—somebody is in a £4,000 a week bed and they really should be in a £400 a week care arrangement in their own home. The reason that we have brought in legislation is to make sure that it happens, because we have been encouraging local authority to work together on joint plans for quite some time. It's fair to say in some areas they have. Highland is a good example of that, but the legislation probably speaks for itself the fact that we've brought it in, requires now that joint budget, that joint accountability. I don't think we can underestimate the change that that will bring, because I think it will usher in cultural change. It will require a far sharper focus to shifting that balance, because it's now in everybody's budgetary interests to do so. There's a bit of carrot and there's a bit of stick. The £173.5 million is helping to oil the wheels of change there to help with some of the practical shifting and service redesign and bridging some of those changes. Without a doubt, I think that we have the best opportunity with that sharper focus and joint accountability that we've ever had to see change happen. If you've got one very quick question, I can have a very quick answer if you don't mind. Yes, indeed. I've made it to Mr Swinney. Mr Swinney, last year we asked about tracking third sector payments, third sector funding. Tracking direct payments made to third sector organisations, and there was a plan to publish that. Is that progressing at all? I don't think that I've got anything to add to what I said to the convener earlier on about—I think that it was the convener about the—no, it's Mr Johnson—sorry, my apologies—to Mr Johnson about the way in which we're working with local government to ensure that there's a more cohesive approach to third sector payments. However, if there's specific information that the committee would like, I'd be very happy to respond to that. I also thank the cabinet secretary for coming along and for your participation. That concludes the public part of today's meeting. Our next meeting will take place on Thursday 4 December, and I will now suspend the meeting for the committee to move into a private session.