 Good morning and welcome everyone to the 12th meeting of the local government and communities committee in 2018. Cynon mind everyone present to turn off mobile phones, and as meeting papers are provided in digital format, tablets may be used by members during the meeting. No apologies have been received. I am sure that Mr Gibson is on his way, so we hope to have a full complement of members shortly. We move to agenda item 1, which is national outcomes in 20th of March. The Scottish Government laid in Parliament a document detailing the proposed revisions to the national outcomes. The committee has been designated as the lead committee through although a number of committees have been invited to consider them and will publish their responses. The three proposed revised outcomes that we will consider in more detail are, we live in committees that are inclusive and powered, resilient and safe. We tackle poverty by sharing opportunities, wealth and power more equally ac gyda'r ziemiad yn ymweld fel cyfnodol. Rydyn nhw rym ni'n siŵn ei wneud i'r ystod o'r ffrindio cyfor ac yn ei ffrindio ar gyfer ddifprinidig yn ddau, Rodaidd, Saddemn시 Fflawn, a Carle Tanawhill, Fflawn, Fflawn, Fflawn, Fflawn, Cymrist, rym ni'n iddo i gweld bod'r ystod o'r ffrindio. Rhyon fod y ffrindio ei ffrindio i gael i amser o'r ffrindio i ffrindio. Ac rwy'n credu, ac rwy'n credu rwy'n credu rwy'n credu rydw i'n cymryd. Rwy'n credu'r rydw i ddechrau o'r llaw oedd yn ysgrifennu fframwyr ynnw, NPS, a'r cyflogaeth rwy'n cyfloghau â'r fframwyr yn ysgrifennu'r fframwyr, a'r cyfloghau am ymweld yn ysgrifennu ar maen nhw, o'i rhan o'u rhan o'r cyfloghau ymddiriaeth yn cyfrifoeddwn yn ysgrifennu. Felly, y swyddfaeth y ffordd yn perth lithium yn y cydyniad gyllidio i'r cyfrannu cyflwyngiddol ac gan gyrsedd ddweud y bach ychydigol. Gweithio y byddwn am bobl y cyfrannu cyflwyngiddol ar y cyfrannu cyllidio cyfrannu cyflwyngiddol, ac yn gyfrannu cyflwyngiddol ar ei prys ei fod. Felly, fan y porfest ar y NPR yw'r ffocws bach yn gweithiwyr o'r cyfrannu cyflwyngiddol, ac mae efallai eich cyfrannu cyflwyngiddol i'r porfest ar gwaith hyn. The purpose is a clear statement that gives prominence to economic, environmental and social progress, focusing on reducing inequalities. The Community Empowerment Scotland Act 2015 means that national performance framework is now embedded in legislation and the act requires Scottish ministers to consult on, develop and publish a set of national outcomes for Scotland and review them at least every five years. Therefore, this new parliamentary approach is most welcome and I am open to further improvements. As part of this enhanced engagement, we have consulted widely with citizens and experts and asked them what sort of Scotland do you want to live in. With children we asked what sort of Scotland children should grow up in. This engagement resulted in 11 national outcomes describing what we want to achieve and the kind of Scotland we want to see. We have also reviewed the national indicators which enable us to track progress towards the achievement of our national outcomes and ultimately the delivery of the purpose. Discussions were held by stakeholders about what they felt is important to measure and as a result we have included 79 indicators in the new framework. They include a number of new indicators covering important issues such as gender balance in organisations, child wellbeing and happiness, ability to influence local decisions and work related ill health. Wherever possible we have selected indicators that come from established data sets and that are consistent with indicators from the UN sustainable development goals. I am satisfied that we have met the requirements of the act through an extensive consultation process and indeed gone beyond our legislative requirements in developing appropriate indicators. With our delivery partners, Carnegie UK Trust and Oxfam Scotland, we held a series of engagement events involving individuals from across sections of Scottish society, experts, stakeholders and the children's parliament. That included Oxfam holding street cells and communities across Scotland. In order to ensure wide representation from expert policy makers and practitioners, 220 organisations were invited to take part in a variety of consultation activities. We also drew up on extensive contributions to the earlier fairer Scotland and healthier Scotland consultations. Together they comprise substantial public engagement involving more than 16,000 participants at public events and reaching more than 400,000 people online. There has been cross-party engagement in the development of the new NPF with a round-table group which I chair that includes representatives from each party and parliament and leaders from the public, private and third sectors and I have also had strong positive engagement from local Government. Monitoring of the national indicators and assessment of progress towards achieving the outcomes will continue to be available through our Scotland performs website. Finally, I am grateful to this committee for taking the lead in this scrutiny process. The committee will be aware that I led oversight of the NPF renewal process and individual cabinet secretaries have overseen the outcomes and indicators that relate to their portfolios. I am happy to answer any questions that members might have arising from the consultation process or other aspects of the NPF refresh. That is very helpful, cabinet secretary. I am sure some of the members in the course of the evidence session this morning will want to talk about the nature of the consultation, how meaningful that was and the length of time that was open for parliamentary scrutiny. We will come to that, but I thought that it might just be reasonable to start about how certain decisions are made. There is an existing national outcome, which is that we have strong resilience support of communities where people take responsibility for their own actions and how they affect others. We live our lives safe from scrimed disorder and danger. That becomes a new outcome, a proposed draft outcome of living communities that are inclusive and empowered, resilient and safe. All three of those statements that I read out are very good and desirable things, but how do you move from the first two statements that I read to the third statement? Can you take me through that process and what the thinking is behind that? How do we get to that stage? I will certainly ask policy officials to come in. It is important to recognise in this process that, as politicians, we started off with what kind of society that we want to live in. Therefore, we are defining our purpose. You will see some transformation of purpose, and then it works through the outcomes and the indicators. Clearly, they all relate to each other. Arriving at the outcomes and the progress of the outcomes, we have tried to ensure that there is clarity in its simple language. It reflects our vision as not just government, but as a country as well. We are respecting our values and trying to distill that into clear, purposeful and meaningful outcomes that can then be measured where that is appropriate and can then be delivered. Each individual portfolio recognises that the outcomes work right across portfolios, but each individual portfolio was led by a Cabinet Secretary in terms of making sure that they were comfortable with what our outcomes were and what could be reasonably measured. I am sure that I will get into more detail in that regard. The reason that I want to turn to the officials on this is to stress the point that, of course, this is politically led, because this is about our democracy, our Parliament and our Government shaping what we believe our mission and our outcome is. Within that, the consultation exercise that we undertook with society, with experts and stakeholders has largely been led by officials in terms of the technical issues. That was important to make sure that it had that degree of credibility and partnership working, not just with civil service but well beyond, and why we specifically commissioned the charities that have named to take forward very focused pieces of work in arriving at the individual outcomes that we have now come to. If you want further information on that particular point about those two outcomes relating to the Third Akinash roger or Carol to come in on that. Just before we get that answer, I am sensing from that detailed reply cabinet secretary that the heart of it is that it was a shorter, more focused, easier to understand outcome. I think that that is what was wrapped up within that answer. Is that effectively what has been said? Maybe your officials might want to see more of that. Yes, but the reason I am making that point is that that applies to every single outcome and the overall purpose. If you look at the detail, overall it is important to make that point at the outset because the same could be asked of any set of indicators. I appreciate the interest in this committee particularly, but of all the outcomes, we felt it was important not just to count how many outcomes we had but that they were meaningful and easy to understand and are actually as deliverable as possible. That is why, overall, we have fewer outcomes than before but actually more indicators. That is the sense of why we have arrived at the outcomes that we have and if you want further information on that. I will ask about indicators shortly, but that would be helpful if one of your officials wanted to add to that. Actually, I do not have an awful lot to add to that. The starting point was that the feedback from consultees was that we need to make the language and the whole look of the framework simpler and that we heard from people that the words inclusive, empowered, resilient and safe are really important when it comes to thinking about communities. That is exactly what we have done in this case, trying to make the overall framework simpler and capture the spirit of the words that we heard from people. Okay. Maybe I want to look at the national indicators that are wrapped up in that draft outcome, just to remind people that we live in communities that are inclusive, empowered, resilient and safe, that particular one. There are a number of indicators that I would not read them all, but one of them is loneliness and one of them is perceptions of local crime rate. Perceptions of local crime rate, I am a bit more citing how that could be measured because I think that there is an annual crime survey and we do the contrast between people's perceptions of crime and crime levels and that stuff is there, but loneliness, where do we start on that, cabinet secretary? I would be happy to turn to Garrow or Roger on the details of how you measure it. Can I just make one point about measurements specifically, though? It is important for us to set out through the national performance framework to set out what is important to us as a society, recognising that we will not necessarily be able to measure everything. If you take that in that regard, there are specific groups where there has been targeted strategies such as isolation or loneliness among older people, for example, but some elements of that will be easier to measure than others. However, that said, it is important to state that it is not what is important to us as a society, but Roger can cover how you measure that. He is of course the chief statistician, so it will be his responsibility to report on those measurements. With loneliness and social capital and the other places to interact, there is a new set of modules around social capital that are going into our Scottish household survey and have started to be collected this year. We will not be able to report directly in June on progress, but when the 2018 Scottish household survey results come out, we will be able to do so. In fact, measuring people's experiences and their views on things, they are relatively well established approaches to measurement. For example, the indicator on the quality of public services has been in place in the Scottish household service since 1999. Essentially, we are using a lot of our household surveys to measure a number of the things that have come in. I would say that all the existing indicators that we have within the framework are quality assured and they are independently scrutinised by the UK Statistics Authority and the national statistics badge. Therefore, I will be confident that those will be particularly helpful measures. Essentially, for that particular indicator, it will be captured within the household survey. There is, of course, a consultation on going on in relation to a loneliness strategy, I think that Jude Freeman is leading on that. Will that interact with each other? Will that question change? The proposal for the loneliness and social isolation strategy includes a commitment to regularly gathering data on loneliness and social isolation. That will be the same, it will exactly match what that strategy is seeking to achieve. Can I just pick on another outcome in a related indicator? I want to make a wider point. Let's not go for the outcome where we tackle poverty by sharing opportunities, wealth and power more equally. A lot of indicators are there, so you could perhaps see quite clearly how that could be identified at a national level. However, the other one that we are interested in is that we grew up loved, saved and respected so that we can realise our full potential. One of those indicators that are easy to measure is healthy weights, but one that might be more difficult to measure would be children having positive relationships. I am usually really keen to see clear national criteria and indicators covering the whole of Scotland, and it is all reliable. I wonder if some of those might be best collected at a local level by local authorities and perhaps some of the measurement matrices that local authorities know. Maybe their area is better and they might have their own framework for collecting some really important data around that. I suppose that that is the reason for contrasting the easy hard targets, because you can collect the numbers, but when it is the softer things, sometimes the much more important things in a community, that is much harder to collect other than a survey. What role is there for COSLA in this? What role is there for local authorities? What role is there for a little bit of flexibility at a local level for how they can collect some of that data and measure it qualitatively rather than just quantitatively? I think that that is a good question and a number of strands to it. First of all, I think that I tried to indicate just a moment earlier that there are many things that are important to us as a society that might be quite difficult to measure and do not underestimate things like kindness and love and all of that. It might be hard to measure, but it has been important in that consultation and it is important that it is expressed in that fashion. I am very mindful when there was engagement with looked after children that when asked about their needs, their number one ask was love. How do you measure it? It was important. If you want to respond to people, listen to what they are saying and this NPF refresh has done that. I think that that is the first important point that expressing what is important to us as a society cannot always be measured, but we should still be able to express it. If we can measure it, try and do so. There are indicators in that regard, as you have mentioned, which then led to your question around local government. I think that it is very welcome that local governments responded very strongly to the NPF. Through their governance structures, they have had early sight of it. I think that it has been to leaders meeting, and it has certainly been to the presidential and the cross-party team who I had a meeting with. They were of the view that the partnership working here was so strong that it helped to create a new framework for further partnership working. It has a very strong response from local government. Essentially, in endorsing it in the fashion that it has, it suggests that it agrees with where we are on purpose and values and the outcomes as well, as to local variants, as was the case before on the single outcome agreements. Unless the committee says otherwise, I think that it would be very hard to disagree with the proposition that we are putting forward, but not prejudicing your view as a committee, considering the amount of cross-party work that has gone on. Local government should use this as a very good foundation, as should other parts of the public sector, of course. Of course, they may want to add to it, and of course they will attach appropriate waiting to what is more appropriate in their area. What happened in single outcome agreements in the last iteration was that local authorities could choose from a menu of indicators what was most important for their area. We all agreed on the outcomes and the purpose, but they could determine what was more important to them. In community plan partnerships, they could then bow on or enhance data or particular purpose around exercise. They are perfectly at liberty to do all of that again. Your point is an important one around there may be more local intelligence or knowledge than we necessarily have at the national picture. Again, all the community plan partnerships of which local authorities are key partners can absolutely do that in the fashion that you have described, recognising that in some areas they might want to go further or have more data. The other point about how we report this is an improvement in monitoring and reporting on our website, because the best way now to report this—of course, we can produce paper reports—will continue to do that through the score card committees through the budget process. However, online is really powerful because you can get the most up-to-date dashboard of performance on that and the relationship between the indicators. The reason why I identify that is that we are going to try to make it as local as we can as well and make it clearer around equality groups. It shows not just the overall progress that we are making on those outcomes, but how it affects particular groups and where we can and how it affects particular areas, which will help to drive that discussion around how local authorities and other key local partners can respond to this national framework. Will there be a set reporting framework for local authorities or will there be specific single outcome agreements by which local authorities play their part in achieving those outcomes? Essentially, what was called the single outcome agreements before becomes the local improvement plans going forward. That is the language that is used in the act, but essentially there is that reporting that was undertaken with single outcome agreements and the local community plan partnership outcomes in indicators and monitoring. So, yes, that continues, albeit by a different name. Local improvement plans are they signed off by yourself and the leader of each local authority? Is it that local authorities decide themselves or is that a co-produced document? I think, convener, you need to be careful with the language here, recognising the full extent of all stakeholders involved in community plan partnerships. Local authorities may well be the lead in some CPPs. All are absolutely fundamental stakeholders. Other CPPs might be led by someone who is maybe not a local authority figure, but your point is right that it is a partnership approach between all community plan partners and all agencies that should be involved and Governments signing that off in partnership, and that continues. That is helpful. I take on board the point that you are making about community planning partnerships, and it is not just local authorities within communities. That is helpful. Monica Lennon Oh, thank you, convener. If we can just stick with local government then, so some positive information from the cabinet secretary. We did get a number of responses during recess, so people had a week to give views and we did get some, so we're grateful for them. Some of the views from councils are quite mixed. I just wondered, cabinet secretary, what is your response to some of the concerns that have been raised by local government partners? You've probably seen more of the evidence that's been submitted to the committee than I have, so I'm not sure what criticism there's been, but I can happily engage. In terms of the leadership of COSLA, which is the presidential team and all the political parties represented COSLA, I've engaged very positively with me, and endorsements are strong words, but they felt that this was such a positive piece of work, and ultimately conclusion at that point, that they felt that that was a very sound basis for further partnership working. Of course, they stressed the point, as I made earlier, about attaching appropriate weight to local circumstances. Flexibility locally where that's important, but the leadership was certainly signed up to this. As I understand it, it's gone to the leaders meeting and Monica Lennon, having come from local government, as I have done, that the leaders meeting is the 32 council leaders. If they have an objection, they'll say so, but the engagement that I've had with local government collectively has been positive, partly because I've engaged with them from the start, and they're also represented on the round table. I'm happy to take any specific concern that may have been raised, but that's been my interaction with local government. I find that quite reassuring. For example, Falkirk Council and the councils who did respond, they're all of different political make-ups, but Falkirk were a little bit gloomy in terms of evaluation and actual ability to evidence outcomes. They said that more thought needs to be given to the interdependencies between the outcomes. Is that something that you recognise from those conversations? Absolutely. That's a fair point, and that's why I've tried to express that. I've got a lead role for this within government, which will ultimately be what the First Minister has, but Cabinet has collective responsibility. Cabinet secretaries have led in their individual portfolios, but we've had to recognise it right across Cabinet. There's the interrelationship and interdependencies, as Monica Lennon has described it, of all the outcomes, of all the indicators to the purpose. That's why even producing a monitoring report, some of the indicators relate to different outcomes. Trying to structure that in paper form was difficult, and that's why I say even how you describe that is better done online. How you then work together, and that's the key point, isn't it? How the whole public services, and the important point about our purposes, wider than just public services, how all of society works together to help achieve that, of course requires a range of actions, but having such a clear plan and clear outcomes allows that collaborative working, where at least we're all working towards the same purpose and goals. In terms of the difficulty in measuring and evaluating certain aspects, I go back to what I said earlier. We know that some of it's difficult to measure, but just because it's difficult to measure doesn't mean that we don't want to achieve it. Okay, no, that's helpful. The point that you made, especially in response to the convener about other partners beyond just local government, I noted that Audit Scotland had some concerns that perhaps not all public bodies are embedding these national outcomes when they are reporting. For example, Scottish Enterprise in their latest annual report, there doesn't appear to be any explicit reference to the national performance framework. Is that something that you're mindful of? Do public bodies have to do better to make sure that they are embedding the NPF into all of their work? I think that there's a point in that, that every part of the public sector, especially those responsible to ministers, of course, are charged with their mission, their objectives. It depends on the nature of the public sector, a public service organisation, but I think that what we should do, I think that taking that point on board, what we will do when we have the agreement and we publish the outcomes and it has cabinet sign-off, as we launch it, I think is important that we stress the importance of it to all parts of the public sector and, in fact, beyond the public, private, third sector. So emphasise the point that there should be a clear linkage between the mission and objectives of all parts of public service to that. Because we're refreshing it, renewing it, aligning it with a range of Government strategies, there is a wonderful opportunity to show the importance of it and express that. I'll do that by a high profile event launching this, as well as writing to all chief executives to express its importance. Now, if we then have to look further at how we're evaluating and monitoring the performance of public agencies to ensure that it's being embedded in, then I'll certainly give that further thought. I have been satisfied up until this point, including up to this point, that we have actually got the buy-in of the public sector. However, we have an opportunity to help to reset that and make sure that it is embedded in a way that, pre-Community Empowerment legislation 2015, the act wasn't embedded in legislation, it was the Government's mission but it wasn't embedded in legislation. Now that it has that statutory footing, I think that it gives us an even stronger basis on which to charge our public sector agencies with that duty. Now, again, that's encouraging. Clearly, there's an opportunity here, but in terms of leadership teams across the public sector, nothing here should be coming at a surprise, so it should be already embarrassed. I feel slightly uneasy that it's going to take this kind of high-level event for people to maybe get that message, but I don't know if your official wanted to come in. I believe that it is embedded, but there's a wonderful opportunity because of the renewal, the refresh and the extent of buy-in that I believe that there is to take that moment to make sure that we're all aligned to it, especially because there's a shift positively in purpose, being more inclusive in our purpose, focusing well-being in our purpose as well. I am satisfied that there has been buy-in, but I just sense a great opportunity for us to do even better in that regard. To reassure committee, we're really aware of the challenge here of getting this embedded in the way that everybody does their business in Scotland. I think that we have got a real opportunity. We've already trailed it through the Scottish Leaders Forum, which is the forum where the senior leaders across the public sector get together. We've already talked with them about it, and we'll continue to keep it a live issue in that forum. As well as the senior leadership that the cabinet secretary is referencing here, we have a communications plan that will involve us throughout the coming year making sure that we are present and engaging with all sorts of different forums that take place throughout the year to keep this very high on different organisations' agendas, and to talk to them about what it means for them because it's going to mean different things for different parts of the system. People often want to engage with us on how they can operationalise those outcomes in their own settings. It's both about raising awareness and about that sort of engagement, and we have a plan to do that over the coming year. I'm sure that our colleagues on the Audit Committee will explore further the information that Audit Scotland has put forward, because they have expressed concern that the outcomes do not measure the contribution of policies and issues in delivering those outcomes. Audit Committee will pick that up, but I thank the cabinet secretary for his comments so far. I wanted to pick up on a couple of submissions that came in during recess, child poverty action group, for example. They have said to us that tackling poverty is not an outcome. That is a process to achieve the goal of eradicating poverty for good. They have said in their submission to the committee that the outcomes should be changed to we end poverty by sharing opportunities, wealth and power more equally. Is that a fair comment from CPAC, cabinet secretary? I am not disputing their comment or their view, but on that national outcome we tackle poverty by sharing opportunities, wealth and power more equally. That is the words we have arrived at in terms of that particular outcome. In relation to that, we can use all forms of different words to ultimately mean the same thing, but words are important. They are very important in this, and I have tried to get as much consensus as possible. I would say back to the committee. It is very hard to micromanage elements of this, considering the consultation that has gone through, the round table cabinet process, but if there is a strong view, the parliamentary process is such that a committee can take a view. I understand that this committee will lead the debate in the chamber. The Government will consider this parliamentary process and finally publish our final position. I do not see a strong case to change the wording that I have, but your question is am I open minded to it? Yes, but I am open minded to considering a change of wording if there is a good case so to do, but I am satisfied with what we have at the moment. The other thing is, as I said earlier, that each cabinet secretary as appropriate, for example, the community secretary would have had a lead role in the outcome and the indicators in her brief, so I will obviously have to engage if there are suggestions to the wording that we have. I would want a strong case to why we should change the wording when, arguably, what you have said and what I have said arrives at the same outcome. We are trying to tackle poverty, but I get the point around process and outcome. I appreciate cabinet secretary. You maybe have not seen all the responses that have been sent to us, but a couple of stakeholders have highlighted instances where the means appear to be confused with the end, so the Carnegie Trust UK points out that the single purpose includes both the end and the means. If you look at CPAC, SCVO, Carnegie Trust, there is a pattern there. I do not know if they have highlighted that in the earlier sessions, but it is worth looking at. Let us not underestimate the consensus and breadth of support for the purpose, for the outcomes, for the indicators, for the engagement that we have gone through. I think that there is far more around the inclusive and wellbeing and sustainability agenda because government policies that have been moved on society and our understanding of what people aspire the country to be has been moved on because of the nature of engagement. Although we have tried to make it feel as outcomes-focused as possible and trying to find the outcomes, there will sometimes be a bit of process creeps in. It is the nature of the base when we are using words in a narrative, but I do not think that there is any suggestion that is not seen as a priority tackling poverty because of the way that we have described it. I have one final question on one of the indicators that will go. That is access to suitable housing. Obviously, the committee has had a big interest in housing. The indicator was a percentage of homeless households that are entitled to settled accommodation. That will be replaced with satisfaction with housing, percentage of people satisfied with their home. I see from the explanation notes that, because of the new indicators, it is felt that the previous indicators are no longer relevant, but they both have a major in different things. I will dig into that a little bit. Access is suitable housing that covers a lot of ground in terms of people's physical needs and the size of their family and so on. Being in a place that is safe, why would that indicator be dropped to Cabinet Secretary? Can I ask Rodger to come in with a specifics? Before he does that, convener, for me, in a number of those areas, again, we have tried to make it about outcomes and what can be measured in everything that I have pointed out earlier. There will be some elements of measurements, and this is a good example to make. There will be some measurement that we are not measuring for the purpose of the national performance framework, because it might not be as appropriate, but it will still be measured and reported, and it will still be part of other accountability exercises. However, for an outcomes-based mission, some are more appropriate to have in here than others. There are other examples of that as well around what you measure, for example in the health service. There are some things that we are measuring that are about system performance rather than outcomes, so it will still be measured and reported, and the Government will still be accountable for it through the health boards. All of that still continues, but some measurements were not appropriate in an outcomes-based exercise focusing on. Essentially, our people are getting healthier, and we are tackling the inequalities and all of that. I just make that point generally about that there are many things that we continue to measure. It is just not appropriate to have them in here, as to the specific example around housing. We did quite wide consultation with people about the indicators that we would bring into the framework. In fact, we did have millions of ideas. We had hundreds of ideas, and I had to have a way of narrowing that down and focusing that down. The principles that I used for doing that enable us to measure progress against each outcome, so that they can describe, importantly, progress not just for Scotland but for different equality groups and for area-based inequalities. They are consistent with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and where there is new data that is required that is feasible and affordable. With this one in particular, the fifth and final criteria that I had is that the data on which this needs to be based needs to be technically a good indicator. If the number goes up, that means an improvement or a worsening. If the number goes down, that means the opposite. With this particular measure around housing, this was already at 96 per cent, a 96 per cent of people said that they were getting access to suitable housing options. That does not give much of a, there is not really much scope for that to move around. That has not been moving around all that much, whereas the measure on satisfaction with housing should give a much better indication of people's similar kind of concept but is a much stronger indicator that will tell us whether things are improving or worsening. I need to be quite clear that it is relatively ruthless with the number of indicators that we have. Most other countries, when they have a similar framework to this, have less than 50 indicators. I was speaking to people earlier on this week from New Zealand and England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and each of which has got under 50. That is because if you get too many, it becomes difficult to really see what is going on here. I think that there are 79s on the upper bounds of that, but I was conscious. I did not want to have indicators on similar things within this framework that what we needed to have is pick the strongest indicator for a particular concept and go with that. That is supplementary, because I understand the need to manage the number of indicators. The Syrnians, in their submission, have noted that 11 outcomes are less age and family specific and are much more universally applicable. I think that their concern is that there will be less emphasis on the experience of the most vulnerable groups. Is that something that was a risk factor in all of this? I think that the way that we did this was exactly to mitigate that risk. At the moment, when we report publicly on progress, we are reporting on progress for Scotland overall, and what we are going to be doing moving forward is reporting on not only Scotland's progress overall but progress for each of the equality groups within Scotland, progress on area-based inequalities in the index of multiple deprivation. There are potentially a few indicators of where we might be reporting on progress at local levels when there are about the distribution of things across Scotland. We will be able to see progress in a much broader context that should absolutely mitigate against their concerns. I have reassurance around that point as well, because it is a very substantial point. The whole mission here is about a whole population approach. Against most of these outcomes, tackling inequalities is in every single one of them. That is why, in how we can disaggregate the data, hopefully we will be able to drill into that and say, how are we achieving on gender inequality in that age equality? My point is that it is a whole population. In the past, sometimes we have had maybe an outcome that this is what we are doing for older people in that category and this is what we are doing on gender. What this is saying is that equality is embedded right through it, and where we can, we will measure it on those basis right across the outcomes, rather than trying to separate it out. It has made that very important point, but that is how we achieve equality by not separating out and having specific targets for specific groups and saying, no, no, we aspire to the equality right across the range of outcomes, with the exception of to draw attention to children only because the range of interventions are such that that is why it requires a separate element for growing up. For every other part of society, it is clear that it is a whole population approach. Can I go back to your earlier point? I want to be helpful around this. It relates to my point around if there are things that we are measuring right now just because it is at such a high satisfaction level, I am sure that committee would want to be reassured if it went the other way. You would want to know about it. If there are individual indicators that you want us to look at to be reassured, okay, where is that reported elsewhere? There are many things that will no longer measure as part of the national performance framework, but we are still measuring and reported elsewhere. We can pick up those individual points to give you reassurance that, for the purpose of this, this is what we are doing. However, if you want reassurance on any further indicator, maybe even those that we are proposing no longer to continue with, although there is a comprehensive report on why that is the case that has been submitted in terms of consultation, then I am happy to look at that to say, okay, it is maybe not appropriate for the NPF, but it is Parliament content that we are still reporting on things that are important to Parliament. Again, I am very open to that. Thank you, that is very helpful. Really interesting line of question. Just before we move on, the satisfaction with housing indicator, I thought, was particularly interesting. I think that my deputy convener is really spot on in how to analyse some of this, but when I was reading satisfaction with housing and suitable housing, my constituents would say to me, I might be suitable for the house because I need three bedrooms, but I am second floor in a tournament flat, but I am not satisfactorily housed because I want a back and front door from the way I need to play about it. Actually, I think that I am interested to know how you will define to be satisfactorily housed because I have got a lot of constituents who are suitably housed in terms of housing legislation, but they are certainly not satisfactorily housed. I would actually hope that, ironically, that 96 per cent rating falls because it will capture some of that very, very reasonable housing aspiration, which should just be a reality for more people. I have been interested to know your comments on that and how that would link to other indicators such as children's material deprivation, because there is a link there if you do not have a garden or a green space for your kid to play in, or on another draft outcome, access to green and blue space, for example. What do you mean by satisfaction with housing and an opportunity to see how you might tie some of those indicators together to get a much more nuanced, individualised view of what it actually means to the families that we all represent? Again, I will ask Roger to talk about the specifics of that indicator. Your point about a range of indicators is informative, because the same person may say that they are satisfied with housing, but there might be other indicators that suggest that there is work to be done as a society, and there are other elements to their overall environment that has to be improved. That is not seen as the catch-all of satisfaction in every aspect of someone's life. Roger can speak to the detail of the indicator, but the important point here is that the indicators that we have been discussing this morning are absolutely interdependent and relate to each other. One thing that we must also be fair about is that we must analyse data as well, but it has to be credible data, and that is why extra effort has been given by officials to ensure that the data is credible. There are some administrations in some parts of the world that do not like the views of experts and do not listen to the evidence that is put before them, but we have tried to have an evidence-based approach on that. Believe it or not, just because of time constraints, other members do want to end in myself and the deputy convener to have taken quite a lot of that airtime. Could you drop us a note after the meeting with some more information in relation to that, and that will allow others to get in with their lines of questioning? I just thought that it was important to follow up the deputy convener's point to bring to life what the indicator actually would mean in reality, so that would be helpful. Cabinet Secretary, I want to take you back to your opening statement. You spoke about children and incorporating their views into the process and asking them what kind of Scotland they wanted to grow up in. Obviously, 2018 is a year of young people, so I am interested to hear how that engagement was carried out. I do not know whether you can speak to that in a bit more detail. I note that 102 children were spoken to by the children's Parliament. Can you perhaps tell us a wee bit more about that process? Yes, I can do some of that. Further to that, hopefully the committee has the consultation reports that Oxfam and Carnegie Trust undertook for us specifically. People can be approached randomly. Of course, in all consultations people can be self-selecting as well, but that is why we went out to particular groups to be able to hear the views of those young people. The Children's Parliament was one place to do that. What has been slightly different about this level engagement is that public organisations are sometimes accused of generating consultation fatigue by constantly going out to consult on an idea or a proposition or a policy or whatever it happens to be. What we tried to do here, as well as the bespoke consultation exercise that engaged in young people, was to learn from all the other consultations—quite comprehensive consultations that the Government had undertaken, principally around a healthier Scotland and a fairer Scotland. Young people would have been part of that, but we specifically approached young people through the commissions that we gave to the charities involved to be able to listen to young people so that it could help shape the mission as well, so that we are fully informed as to what young people actually want in designing the mission of Government, public services and wider than that. Roger, can you say a bit more? If you require further detail, if it is not within the consultation reports that we have given you, we can supplement that if required. The Children's Parliament ran a series of events with children aged 7 to 12. That was really to help to understand what was going to be important to them both in their lives at the moment and in the future within the country. That was just one element that fed into that wider conversation, but it was particularly important, clearly, for not just the outcome on children but the broader set of outcomes that we had. Like the cabinet secretary said, there is quite a detailed report from the Children's Parliament that we published as part of the documentation side. That is a pretty good place to go, because there is a lot of detail in there. On that wider stakeholder engagement, one of the issues that we are currently facing as a committee with regard to the planning bill is that perhaps communities that do not have well-established community councils are disadvantaged because they do not have community capacity to engage in the process. How did you reach out to not the usual suspects, as it were? I note that 161 out of the 220 organisations that you asked to engage in the process did so. Was it the usual suspects that you were engaging with? How did you tackle that kind of challenge in terms of, particularly, I am thinking about poorer communities? The overarching aspiration that you spoke about at the start was reducing inequalities. How do you get the voices of those communities that are disadvantaged involved in that process? First of all, you have to go to areas of multiple deprivation. You do not just wait in a hall for someone to approach you and hope that they fully represent the full nature of society. You have to go to people individually. That has also included looked after children. Cabinet has been requested to be and has actively been involved in listening to people in coming to these propositions. Just recently, the First Minister had a young people's cabinet where, in a full session of cabinet, young people of mixed ages, mixed backgrounds, if I can say, then represent what is important to them. Of course, I was listening, doing my finance secretary job, but also thinking about what does that mean for the national performance framework, as every other cabinet secretary would be. That was children's parliament, youth parliament and some of the young people's attendants had care experience. That shows that we did not just wait for people to approach us with what was important to them. We went out specifically to ensure that more vulnerable groups and sections of society were listened to and heard as well as a random approach of public engagement about who we approached. However, there was a specific request to go to areas of multiple deprivation and that was done. Carol, can you add anything? I was just going to say that that was part of the commission. It was to make sure that people were engaged from a range of different backgrounds and communities. Just to add also to what the cabinet secretary said, the fairer Scotland and healthier Scotland conversations also had that at their heart. The fairer Scotland work engaged with thousands of people from different backgrounds and in different parts of the country. It is extremely challenging to do that comprehensively, but my view is that the process has had a very wide reach and reached a good mix of people. It is not only the formal consultation bit that has informed what is here, it is everybody's day-to-day interactions and awareness of what people are saying. From my point of view, it has been a good, wide-ranging process. I want to ask a couple of lines of questions, one on the purpose and one on the sustainable development goals. In the new purpose, you talk about a successful country with opportunities for all of Scotland's flourish through increased wellbeing and sustainable and inclusive economic growth. As you would be well aware, sustainable and inclusive economic growth is a contested term. I am just wondering, because in the proposed outcome on the economy, you talk about a globally competitive, entrepreneurial, inclusive and sustainable economy. I suggest that it might be better just to have a sustainable economy in the purpose rather than what is quite a mechanistic and contested metric, in fact, about growth. I understand the point that Mr Wightman is saying. I am content with the purpose because I believe that it shows the continuity of the Government's purpose. I also understand some of the environmental views around why it includes growth, but I have to say that the Government's view of growth is absolutely conditioned by our views around inclusive growth, sustainable growth, and it is taken into account those environmental concerns in that purpose. Of course, when it comes to sustainability, it runs right through the outcomes and the indicators of adopting the UN's sustainable development goals. It is absolutely embedded in that. I think that we are the first Government that is embedded in that fashion. In fact, I am content that our purpose is refreshed, renewed, revitalised and improved, not just because I have done it, but because, convener, we have listened to people to try to make sure that the purpose captures what we want to achieve. I think that those improvements make sure that there is that appropriate weight. The term growth is not exclusive. It is conditioned by those clear commitments around sustainability, and it is inclusive growth that we are trying to achieve. That should not be a surprise to anyone, because that has been the Government's mission for some time. I suppose that inclusivity has been better defined and better understood over recent years. For all those reasons, I understand the sensitivity, but hopefully I am able to express how, in continuing with the growth element, we are not undermining the environment because we are very clear that it is about sustainable economic growth. My question really is that if you are wedded to sustainable and inclusive economic growth, I do not want to have an argument about the term, it would be better as an outcome. I think that the outcome is clear. We have obviously tried— The outcome is a sustainable economy. That is a much more general term. My point is that that is arguably more appropriate as an overarching purpose, and if you want to persist with economic growth, that should be one of the outcomes that helps to deliver the purpose. I actually think that there is a popular view around our purpose, around economic growth. If we were to manage that, as I say, in the terms of sustainability, inclusive and adding wellbeing, I think that strengthens the purpose. You could argue, change one or the other or both, but we are content, as a Government, that that expresses our purpose in a meaningful way. The outcome is succinct in what we are trying to achieve, and it is succinct as an outcome as well. We have a globally competitive entrepreneurial, inclusive and sustainable economy. That is the outcome, our purpose as a Government, encapsulating it all to focus on creating a more successful country with opportunities for all to flourish through increased wellbeing and sustainable and inclusive economic growth. I think that they are in harmony. I know that there are some environmental perspectives that would like to remove the word growth. I think that it is a consensual view to say that that is included, but we want it to be focused on wellbeing, equality and sustainability as we achieve that growth. The Government's view on that has not shifted since we came into office, but I think that our purpose is now proposed to be better defined and refined. The outcome itself is slightly more succinct and shorter, but that is the nature of all the outcomes to be a bit more succinct and shorter because the purpose is trying to encapsulate it all. Moving on to sustainable development goals, this is agreed by the UN and all members of the UN. I think that they have signed up to it, the UK signed up to it, the Scottish Government signed up to them and they have incorporated them into the national performance framework in a crude way. They have taken the 17 goals and identified which outcomes they fit into. I wonder whether the sustainable development goals are 17 of them. There are 169 targets and there are 232 indicators. Those indicators are really quite specific. If we take goal 5 on achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls, we have things such as the proportion of seats held by women in national parliaments and local governments, the proportion of total agricultural population with ownership or secure rights over agricultural land by sex. 232 very specific indicators are part of the UN sustainable development goals. I wonder why none of the targets or indicators have been built into the national performance framework. If they have, they have. I will let Roger cover that as the chief statistician, but actually they have. I said before that we cannot have 232 indicators for Scotland. That is not manageable in terms of giving you a picture of what is going on here. What we have done, as I said before, in the indicator review and consultation, is to the point where we have got this proposal of 79 indicators. One of the criteria was alignment with the UN sustainable development goals. What we have done is looked at the ideas that came forward and where there is an opportunity to align with the list that you are looking at. For example, we had the proposal of what proportion of renewable electricity is and what is renewable electricity as a proportion of all electricity generated or all electricity used. The UN goal was looking at that as a proportion of all energy used. What we have done has changed and aligned exactly with the UN goal. That is one example of a number. Given that the indicators—you say that 232 is too many—you publish hundreds of thousands of statistics. I can understand the argument that you want to try to focus on 50, 60—you have 79 here—in a national performance framework to measure how society is progressing. Given that we have very detailed indicators that are agreed and adopted, will the Scottish Government be reporting on all of them, whether in the national performance framework or outside it? I have heard language to the effect that the sustainable development goals have been incorporated into the national performance framework. It is not strictly true if all the indicators are not being measured. To be absolutely clear, the sustainable development goals have been incorporated and embedded into the national performance framework. That is just a matter of fact. The vision and goals are driving the kind of society that we want to deliver. I believe that that is part of it. The separate question is about all the indicators that Scotland has when it comes to an equivalent performance framework for the outcomes that we have. We are at the upper end of a very comparable nation of the number of indicators that we are using to judge progress and success towards our outcomes and our purpose. That is for the focus of the national performance framework. I would argue that we have taken on board the goals, because the First Minister has publicly signed up to them. Clearly, we are supportive of them. As to the measurement, this is not the place to measure every UN sustainable goal indicator, but we have signed up to the goals within the NPF. There is a fair question about how you are able to measure all of that in relation to the UN sustainable goals. However, that is not in itself just the measurement of the delivery of the UN sustainable development goals. It is the delivery of the Government's purpose in our national performance framework. I get as a subtle point in what we are measuring, but here we are measuring the national performance framework in which we have certainly encompassed the UN sustainable development goals. However, what we measure here is for the purpose of this. That the sustainable development goals are incorporated in the national planning framework. They are there. There are 17 of them. The goals do not sit in isolation. They have targets and indicators associated with them. That is in order for the UN to be able to monitor the extent to which the goals are being realised. My question is on the 169 targets and 232 indicators that are intrinsic to the agreement. Where will they be reported on? How will we measure the extent to which Scotland is meeting the sustainable development goals? We are already measuring quite a number of those things, but they are just not necessarily appropriate, as the cabinet secretary said, for the national performance framework itself. For example, on crime, there are a number of crime types that indicate that the UN sustainable development goals, whereas we have an overall measure of crime victimisation. However, we are still measuring and reporting on those things in the wide range of statistics that we produce across Scotland. Within the next two or three years, will we see a publication listing the 169 targets and 232 indicators and the measurements of the Scottish Government? Before you answer that, cabinet secretary, one other bid for the questionality is understood, which we will take in a second. When you answer that, if there is any additional information that you have to give, could you write to the committee in relation to that? We are going to shortly close this evidence session. I think that there has been quite a good exchange in relation to the national performance framework and the UN sustainable development goals. If you could answer that question, cabinet secretary, we will move on after that. I think that I would answer it in the way that I did earlier. I very much appreciate Andy Wightman agreeing that the UN sustainable development goals are absolutely part of the NPF. There is then a valid question about where in the one place to be comprehensively report all of their indicators for that purpose. That relates to my earlier comment about what the committee might be interested in. Monica Lennon has given an example around a housing indicator. I do not know if there are any others. They clearly are here in relation to one place, a go-to place in relation to UN sustainable development goals. If the committee wants to take that view, I will then respond. What I am describing today is what we are proposing to measure for the purpose of the national performance framework and if I require to give further thought to where other things are reported and measured, then I am more than happy to do that and I am particularly happy to do that in relation to the UN sustainable development goals. However, the important point here is that the committee is agreeing that the goals themselves are embedded in the NPF and we are trying to work towards them. The purpose, as you have indicated, is to have a refresh and to try to extend and expand the whole process. I think that that has been achieved in what the consultation you have taken forward. Some may say that 79 might not be too many, but time will tell us how that progresses. What is important is the whole idea of communication and the communication plan that you have touched on about how we can make sure that that then does become the reality. There needs to be the cross-sector and cross-cutting portfolios that you have touched on, but it is about engaging with the communities. I would like to have a little bit more expand on what you are planning to try and do to make that communication plan work and how you are going to manage, as has already been identified, with some communities that are difficult to reach and some sectors within those communities that are difficult to reach. It is a fair question, convener. As I have expressed earlier, there will be a communications plan, a high-profile event that will be a communication to the organisations that are part of the Government public sector and the third sector of the local government, so all partners will receive that. I am quite reassured that the degree of cross-party buy-in is well. Business organisations are represented as much as charities, environmental human rights representatives on the round table. I am hoping that that degree of buy-in and collaborative working will cascade out positively what we can ultimately sign up to following the parliamentary scrutiny. The degree of communication between a high-profile event that is envisaged, cascading the purpose, outcomes and reasons and trying to make it real. What, practically, should people be doing to deliver that? It is really important, as well, and that will run right through the Government's mission going forward. When we come to things such as formulating the budget and examining performance, we need to align people to monitoring that evaluation and that mission. The wonderful opportunity that we have, if we can actually agree on this, and I sense a lot of agreement, it goes beyond just the party of government and beyond just the Government, which makes it about our society. This is the first time that we have tried to define our mission and our purpose beyond just what the Government wants to achieve and our purpose as a society, which takes us into our values. Frankly, if I can get around table to get agreement between people like Murdo Fraser and Patrick Harvey, I suggest that I am not doing too bad in that regard. It has been quite an engaging process, and when we reach agreement, hopefully we can have that momentum in projecting the outcomes and the mission. A couple more point-up questions, cabinet secretary. If you want to write to us in relation to things that you can as well, this is not just the Scottish Government's responsibility making these outcomes and indicators a reality. It is across the entire public sector, so it is a bit more information, rather than you set the outcomes and you set the indicators and you release the public sector to get on in partnership to delivering these, and in five years' time we will see how we have all done what. On-going monitoring, will there be every year, every two years, to see how things are going and to correct things if they are necessarily not going the way that you would like them to go? Some information on that would be quite helpful. In principle, they will continue to be the monitoring through the Scotland performs website that will always be updated and improved. It runs through to the local improvement plan. It is a very important point that you made earlier about how that affects local areas. It will also continue to look at the equalities issue, so it is a whole population approach about how we are looking at individual parts of society. In terms of monitoring and evaluation, in addition to Scotland performs, the Scotland performs report card is also given to parliamentary committees as part of the budget process as well, so that will continue. I am sure that audit agencies will continue to hold us to account. You are right, it is not about publishing a document and then leaving it for five years. It will remain under review. Our legislative requirement will be to refresh at every five years the purpose and the outcomes, but I can assure committee that it will also have a mid-term refresh or look again at the indicators to make sure that they are working in the fashion that we would expect. If you require any more than that, convener, I am happy to supply it to committee. That is helpful, and this committee and others may want to have a role in relation to just doing a little bit of scrutiny around that when we get to that point. Finally, I suppose that there has been one of those things where all the committees kind of knew that this was coming down the line from the community empowerment act and that this would happen, and then it suddenly happens. It feels a bit of a rush process, not from the point of view of government, but from the point of view of parliamentary scrutiny perhaps. It feels a little bit of a rush process, but that is set out in the legislative requirements and those have been met by government. Do you think on reflection that there may be the opportunity to have a little bit more time in the future for a bit more time for parliamentary scrutiny and our direct engagement as committees with stakeholders? Our deputy convener mentioned some of the responses that we got from stakeholders. There clearly is a lot of interest out there, and we have had a little bit more time, because we have tapped into a lot more of that. I am just wondering that the act is what it is, and we are meeting those obligations under the community empowerment act. On reflection, do you think that the next time we do this, there may be a little bit more time for parliamentary scrutiny? I think that in fairness, convener, by law I was only required to renew, refresh, give you the outcomes, and that was it, and the consultation report. I gave you the consultation report, much of the findings, you have had a call for evidence, and I gave you the indicators as well. So I think that I have gone beyond the legislative requirement, and that was a good and that was the right thing to do, because actually if I did not give you the indicators you would just have asked how you are going to measure your outcomes, so of course. So to your question, do you think that there is room for legislative improvement? I am open to that. If it is about further collaboration, engagement and scrutiny, I think that the national performance framework could well be enhanced by that, but being fair to government, as you have been, we did consult early, comprehensively, we have used a wide, on-going Government consultations to help inform this, the Health Fair Scotland consultation, the Fairer Scotland consultation, so that we are not constantly going back to people, but learning from what they have told us once as to what matters to them, and the stakeholder group has been cross-party, cross-sector, very involved, they had early sight of the direction of travel, the plan, the strategy, the engagement process, it has been comprehensive and so it should be. To boil it down to your question of the 40 days parliamentary scrutiny, if Parliament thinks that it needs more time for that bit of the process, I am open to that, but that does not in any way diminish the very extensive consultation that we have had. I think that that adds to it, and that is why I said at the outset that I welcome this parliamentary point of engagement. Those 40 days, of course, I mean, Rodgers told me that it is not actually 40 days, it is more than that. It is 55, but that is because I have a statistician to my right who has gone through the actual number of days. I am open to that community, or any other suggestion that committee—now your clerks are disagreeing to your left, but I am open to further improvements to the parliamentary bit of process, but in fairness to Government, I have gone beyond what was defined in law, and then the parliamentary bit of process is how Parliament wanted to conduct the exercise, and again I commend this committee for taking the interest that it has. It will be an ongoing interest Cabinet Secretary, and thank you for putting on record what the legislative requirements were and what the Scottish Government has done. I will not get denied into debate about Easter recesses and weekends and back holidays and all those kind of things. That is one for another day in another place, I think, but this committee has got an ongoing interest and we look forward to engaging further with the Scottish Government in relation to this. Our report on this matter and, of course, the forthcoming parliamentary debate. Thank you to yourself and your team for coming along today. We now move to agenda item 2, which is also a national outcome but is in private session. Thank you.