 Hello, and welcome to the fourth meeting in 2024 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee. The only item on our public agenda today is an evidence session with Scottish Government officials to discuss the Scottish Government's response to the committee's report on the original financial memorandum for the National Care Service Scotland bill, as well as information presented in the updated financial memorandum that was provided to the committee on 11 December last year. We are joined today by Donna Belle, director of social care and national care service development Leif Lannigan, national care service senior finance manager Richard McCallum, director of health and social care and finance digital and governance. I understand that Ms Bell is going to make a brief opening statement. I welcome you to the committee and I should also mention that Ross Greer, one of our committee members, is struggling to get here in time due to transport difficulties, but he hopes to be here before too long. I thank you for inviting us today to talk about the financial information for the NCS bill. As you say, we provided our response to the committee on 11 December and that was fairly fulsome. The national care service is a central component of our investment strategy towards sustainable public services and we remain committed to taking this programme forward. The response to the finance committee stage 1 report set out an update to the costs in the bill as introduced as an updated financial memorandum and an explanatory document of that financial memorandum and also the Scottish Government's proposed changes to the bill for stage 2 as a financial implications document following the shared accountability discussions with COSLA and the NHS. The response also included a programme business case outlining the background to the finances and the basis behind our proposed reforms. We believe that that provides a substantial and robust package to explain what would happen if the bill continued as it is or if it was amended in the way that the Scottish Government would wish. Subject to the will of the Parliament, the Scottish Government proposes to make amendments to the bill at stage 2 as we have described and that is in response to evidence taken at stage 1, the on-going feedback from stakeholders and evidence as part of the Scottish Government's code design programme. What has changed in the updated financial memorandum, which relates to the bill, is introduced. The update gives a revised costing associated with the bill as introduced, while also providing greater detail behind underlying assumptions and calculations to aid with the committee's scrutiny of the costs. In consideration of the current financial position nationally and within the Scottish Government, we have reviewed what is achievable. It is expected that the national level part of the NCS as part of the core Scottish Government will be established during 2526 and in the bill is introduced, NCS local care boards were assumed to go live in 2029. The costs outlined in the updated FM have been re-phased across a tenure period from 2223 to 2031-32 to account for this. There are some significant financial moves between this update and the original financial memorandum. What would change in the Scottish Government's proposed amendments to the bill at stage 2? The main change is primarily the delivery mechanism and accountability. The three main changes from the shared accountability discussions are that local authorities will retain responsibility for all current functions and the delivery of social work and social care services, and there will be no transfer of staff or assets on that basis. Reforming integration authorities, rather than creating new care boards, and the establishment of a national care service board, which we expect will be responsible for a range of duties, including setting national strategic direction, developing standards, guidance and operating frameworks, overseeing and seeking delivery assurance on local strategic plans, etc. The minister's powers to intervene outlined in the bill is introduced will likely become part of the role of the national board proposed. The financial implications of the proposed changes as I have said are significant. We have taken account of the very challenging fiscal environment and reassessed the original proposals with relevant stakeholders. We are proposing to take a phased approach to implementation as outlined in the 11th December correspondence to the committee, and we believe that this is the most responsible and feasible approach that we can now take in a very different economic climate. Under the shared accountability approach, the costs drop substantially, so excluding the carers break costs, the NCS-specific costs over the 10-year timeframe drop from an estimated £487 million. The range is £487 million to £1.621 million, to £238 million to £345 million, which is a saving of £249 million to £1.2676 million. If the Parliament agrees to our proposed changes at stage 2, the costs of this bill will decrease substantially. The costs of the bill are reduced by removing the need to set up care boards and to transfer staff and assets, and there will be some new costs associated with reforming integration authorities and establishing a national board, but overall costs are significantly reduced. Costs are also reduced by the new proposal because it phases reforms over a much longer timeframe than originally intended. It is important to note what has not changed as much as what has. The vision for the NCS remains unchanged, while the delivery mechanisms for the NCS might now be different. The vision is set out in the policy memorandum at the time of introduction remains the same. The Scottish Government remains committed to responding to the need for reform, with significant changes needed at local level to realise the intended quality and consistency required. By providing timely support when it is needed, we can reduce overall service costs in the long term and empower people to maintain their physical and mental health, which in turn creates a healthier overall economy. Over the 10-year period, total costs under revised proposals will now amount to between £631 million and £916 million. That is a variance of around 45 per cent, and that compares with the estimated costs over the equivalent 10-year period of between £80 and £292 million, which is a variance of around 150 per cent. There has been a huge improvement in terms of the variance and how the costs have been assessed. As you have said in your opening statement, that means that revised proposals represent substantial lower overall costs estimated between £249 million and £1,276 million. If the committee had accepted the previous financial memorandum, the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament, over 10 years, seemed to me to be between £249 million and £1,276 million, which was often made of all the issues of transfer of staff etc, which is now not going to be included in the bill. The central issue that we are dealing with is that, given the changes that have been made, the dramatic changes to costings and reassessment by the Scottish Government over the past year or so, how can we have faith in the figures that are being presented over a 10-year period? We have been able to really pin down the costs and reduce the range, as you have described. We are now in a much more certain position about the way forward. Certainly, the range of variables that the previous approach presented were much more significant and, frankly, much more variable. We have worked hard with colleagues to present what we believe is a much more certain approach. Although there is still a range, you would expect us to build in a range of costs because of, obviously, future potential uncertainty. We are confident that we have the best possible estimates here in the financial memorandum and in the shared accountability paper for you to scrutinise. Thank you for that. If one looks at the financial memorandum in every area of cost, I note that, from financial year 2023-24 to current year up to 2031-32, which is an eight-year period, it looks to me like in every one of those categories, there is a 41.5 per cent estimated increase in costs. How that appears to be assessed is assuming a 2 per cent inflation rate plus 3 per cent increase in real terms. We are talking about a 25 per cent increase in real terms. Given the fact that the Scottish budget is not growing in real terms at 3 per cent a year and is unlikely to, it seems to me, how can you be confident that those figures are sustainable and deliverable? We have used the standard inflators. I know that we have had conversations before about CPI and GDP. We have used standard approaches to increasing costs. We know that those are also changeable. The GDP information is significantly lower than CPI. It is important that we have noted the possibilities of future increased costs and ensured that we have taken the worst-case scenario to build in the most pessimistic approach. While we can do that, we do not have full certainty there. Richard Ewing might want to come in here on the future budget position, but certainly the budget choices of the future are made on an annual basis. We would expect that choices will be made at the time when we are to invest. That is right. It will be subject to the annual budget process and we will go through that. Obviously, we understand what is in the financial memorandum that is set out and that will be factored into the budget process. The other point that I would make is that, while there are constraints on the overall Scottish Government budget, there has been that increase in health and social care investment that has run ahead of the overall uplift or growth that we have seen in the Scottish Government budget more widely. Even if we take social care pay, which is the real living wage moving from £10.90 to £12 an hour in 24-25, that alone is obviously greater than the uplift that we have seen in other parts of the budget. It is reflecting that trying to take that prudent approach that the CPI gives as we build this in and as we plan to move forward. I just want to know how it will be sustainable, given the current projections by the Scottish Fiscal Commission. You talk about CPI, and we have discussed types of inflation in this committee. Whether we like it or not, I am not one who does really like it. I think that using the GDP deflator is unrealistic when we think of salary increases, for example over the last year or whatever, or the expense on cattle. The reality is that that is what the Scottish Government has used, the Treasury GDP deflator across its current budget. It just seems a wee bit out of kilter to use and measure the other areas of the Scottish Government that it seems to use. Why was it decided that, whereas we are not using it elsewhere in the Scottish budget, why is the CPI being used? The issue that you talk about in terms of salaries and so on is understandable, but that is the case with other areas of the Scottish budget. We still have to use the GDP deflator. That was when we were looking through, fighting on some of the costs, we would compare the GDP deflator against CPI. I had a couple of discussions with some of our analytical colleagues, and because the GDP deflator does not include the import costs and the issue of imported gas, it just looked artificially low because of what we are trying to establish here. Sorry, is that artificially low, but is that artificially low across the entire Scottish budget? I was going to say, but for the cost in perspective when we are looking to try to be as prudent as possible and not undersell what the potential cost could be, it was just felt that that was potentially a more prudent estimate to not understate the cost. Now, we could have referred to the GDP deflator, but in that situation, because of the significant impact that not fighting on import costs of natural gas has on it, it just felt too low. Because of what we are trying to do and set out a realistic cost base, we figured that it was better to edge being potentially slightly higher than potentially slightly under. We ran through it with some of the analytical colleagues before we decided on it, and they were comfortable as well with the use of CPI as a measure. If it would be helpful to the committee, we would be happy to run the figures again based on the GDP deflator rather than on the CPI. It is just that we are comparing apples with oranges with regards to the rest of the Scottish budget, otherwise it just seems really odd that one particular aspect of the Scottish budget should be different from the rest in terms of it. We all agree that the GDP deflator is not necessarily a realistic assessment, and it has not been certainly in the last current years, although the SFC has hoped that, in the next two or three years, we might be more aligned with the GDP deflator, but the reality is that it is just what we are using. Error on our part, I was across the whole piece and we would be looking at the cost, but always in all areas of the various different costs, even though the costs are also significantly lower, we tried not to be too optimistic almost that the costs might be less, because there is always a worry that you put out a set of costs and the reality then does not match up with that, and you have underestimated it. It always fell across the piece what we have done. If we slightly overestimate it, it is a better position to be in. They are underestimating it because it gives a better indicator of potential scale then. Would it be helpful, convener, to see the cost re-run? Yes, it would be actually. That would certainly be helpful for us on that. I will move on. The Fraser Valander Institute has noticed particular uncertainties in relation to the costings provided for rights to breaks from caring due to a lack of data at local authority level and no specific allocation for care or respect in the local government settlement. That is obviously an issue of concern because, proportionately in the new financial memorandum, annual costs will increase from between £55 million and £225 million. Given that caveat that was made by Fraser Valander, I am just wondering whether he can explain how he came to those figures. Yes, convener, I am happy to. The updated data that we received just at the beginning of December certainly helped us to refine the costs. There were a number of new pieces of information that helped us to do that. I will hand over to Lee to take you through the specifics there. Certainly, we are still operating within quite a large range there. We will continue to refine that as we go. Lee, could you maybe talk through the data? It was one of our colleagues who pulled together the list to break calculation. It is a very detailed calculation. There is a significant number of different variables built in it. When chatting with Paul, he pulled it together. In terms of the cost differential, there were three main parts to it. The new Scottish Health Survey data that it just released on 5 December showed a drop in the number of overall carers. The basis behind that was the prior report that I was done during Covid. It was also done by number of telephone consultations that seemed to overestimate the number of carers that were sitting in that, based on historical data. The number of carers came down. What also came out of it was the intensity of the care that has ramped up based on the new figures. The other factor about the main differential between the previous iteration and this one was in the original financial memorandum. The costs were based on the 22-23 unit rates, and they were continued all the way through. In that instance, we have the new 23-24 unit rates, but they have also been built on inflation based on the same inflationary assumptions that we have. They have been the main drivers behind the cost. I do not know if it would be helpful to the committee because we have got a note of that before coming. It is a very detailed calculation in the background. If it would be helpful for the committee, we can send that on to set out the detail behind the assumptions that were made, because having had a run-through at myself, in conjunction with the person, it is a very detailed calculation with a significant number of assumptions and variables that I have built on within it. The Scottish Government and COSLA are operating a partnership approach to provide legal accountability, and accountability is one of the things that you touched on in your opening statement, Donna. That is to improve the experience of people accessing services, but, due to the new structure of national oversight to drive consistency of outcomes, we will maximise the benefits of reform local service delivery. That will provide Scottish ministers local authorities and H boards with overarching shared accountability for the care system. Is this not a bit of a recipe for confusion? How will this partnership with local authorities, NHS boards and Scottish ministers relate to the new national board, the exact format of which it is still to be decided? As you say, convener, the exact format is yet to be fully agreed. We have been able to agree the potential functions for the national board and we outlined them in the letter to you in December. The intention is that shared accountability will be discharged through the national board, so there will be membership from representatives of Scottish ministers, of local government and of the NHS. It is likely that there will also be other members to make sure that people with lived and living experience are represented, whether they are people who are using services or people who have caring responsibilities and staff-side representatives. However, the exact combination of membership is not yet decided. The intention is that the board will have oversight of the provision of community health and social care in Scotland. It will have the opportunity to engage with local areas and understand how their strategic planning is working, how their ethical commissioning strategies are working and also overseeing and seeking delivery assurance on that local strategic planning. One important change is the monitoring of system performance to ensure consistent and fair social care support and community health services. That is a significant change that we would propose to maintain a support and improvement framework that will aim to provide support to local areas when monitoring indicates that they are needing support and that standards are not being met. That is also attached to powers of intervention when required as a last resort. Coupled with that, we will need to ensure visibility of data, information and analysis about community health and social care support, social work and other areas covered by integration authorities. There is an opportunity to drive up standards and ensure consistency. The intention is that the people around that table will hold each other to account for their statutory responsibilities and that it will be a transparent approach. One of the things that has come to us throughout the co-design, particularly with people and with staff who work in social care and community health, is the issues around transparency of how decisions are made, the transparency of data and transparency on performance. I think that the board will really help with that. It sounds from the length and detail of your answer that we are in a situation whereby we still do not know really where we are with the national care board. We are going to stage 1 in only a few weeks. I imagine that, although I know for certain that parliamentarians will want answers at that stage 1 debate, we will demand them of the minister. When will the hatches be battened down on that, but will we have that information before the stage 1 debate? We have given a fair amount of information to the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, which outlines the functions and responsibilities of the national board. We have also provided information about the relationship with local integration authorities. The intention is that they will account to the national board through the mechanisms that we will put in place. We have given quite a detailed set of information on responsibilities and functions. The membership is something that is going to be really important. We still have work to do on that, but we will not be proposing to put that in primary legislation, given the potential changeability of that. Further detail will be in the secondary legislation that sets out the exact nature of the board. There is also a read-across to the Public Bodies Act 2014 for local partnerships, as I described, because we are not planning to have care boards. The intention is to reform integration authorities. Do you see that as being a fairly small, perfectly-formed board, like Community Justice Scotland with maybe 45 staff members, or do you see that as a much more encompassing organisation? We need more clarity in terms of the costs and staff numbers, if you get any kind of information you can share with us on that. Lee can talk through the detail of the assumptions for the national board, but we are expecting that it will not be an expansive board. We are obviously conscious of good use of public funds. We have still got work to do to finally define exactly the numbers. We also need to think about the interaction with what Government does at the moment, what calls they do at the moment and what the NHS does at the moment. The directorate that I run at the Scottish Government obviously has a number of staff. We will need to think quite carefully about the distribution of duties, how functions are discharged, and it may be that there is some cross-referencing there and cross substitution that we will need to think about. I am struggling to have confidence in this process given how far on we are. It is now 15 months since we last discussed and deliberated over the previous financial memorandum, and we have thought that some of that would have been pinned down a bit more by now. I will move on, because colleagues will know what to come in with further questions on that area. One of the issues that concerned the committee from the start has been co-designed. As a committee, we are much more in favour of having primary legislation for scrutiny reasons and also because it helps to pin down the costs. The problem with the framework and co-design approach is that there are increased uncertainties surrounding the cost estimates and the timing of those costs. Given the fact that it has been around 15 months since we last deliberated over financial memorandum, how have we moved forward in terms of co-design and how much of that co-design will now be incorporated into the primary legislation perhaps through amendments at stage 2? If it would be helpful to refer to your previous question, we can give you the breakdown of the assumptions around staff for the national board unless it comes up in further conversation. I am quite happy for you to tell us that. The co-design work has been very intensive over the past nine months. We did a huge amount of work over the summer with people. I am engaged with thousands of people who use services and work in services on five themes, so keeping care support local, information sharing, making sure that my voice is heard, realising rights and responsibilities and valuing the workforce. We have taken all of that information, and that has helped us to refine the primary legislation. One of the key things for us, obviously, is that we have been engaging with colleagues from local government and colleagues from the NHS who have particular views about how they think things should move forward. We have balanced that with what we have heard from co-design work and that is an approach that we feel presents a good consensus based on the engagement with public sector partners, third sector partners and with people and staff. We have factored that in to the activity. We said in the letter to you that the co-design for primary legislation is effectively concluded, and we will move on to the development of further work on areas such as the charter, on complaints and advocacy and so on. We have made significant progress, certainly since we last spoke. Much of that will come in at stage 2. We have a good understanding of what is required for the secondary legislation already, and we expect that there will be amendments presented, but we have a good understanding of the amendments that the Government will likely present, and they are outlined in the letter that we have sent to you. Obviously, there are some costs associated with the NHS board, but they are varied from £20 million to £29 million. The estimated costs have been rounded up to nearly a million with the result that any cost below half a million has been rounded to zero. That makes it difficult to understand the detail of the costings and where the costs are indeed zero or just below the threshold. Why is there not being a bit more detail put into that? If something costs £421,000 and something else costs £385, why not just add them all up to try and narrow the kind of variances here? It just seems a wee bit. We have just presented with those kind of bulk figures, you know, very rounded. It just does not look very… It is almost… They have been plucked, you know, rather than actually assessed effectively. I mean, I can assure you that they have not been plucked. I am sure that it is just how it looks. I am sure that it is just how it looks. I am sure that it is a presentational issue for us. I mean, we are very happy to give you the detailed figures. I mean, Leigh, I know that you worked hard to make sure that we are absolutely clear about what is needed. So, if there is a rounding, we are very happy to provide you with the exact figures, or is there a specific area that you want to… I was so just to quietly jump on. With honour, the totals were rounded just in keeping with the original finance memorandum to the millions, but the backing calculations, I will feed them down to essentially the pounds. The overall totals as well are not rounded, so it is not the rounded totals that, then, fighter into the total totals. The total totals are based off the actual specific numbers. It is literally just presentationally. We have just kept it to millions. We can give a more detailed breakdown, of course, of sitting, so we cannot show it. It was just to keep the consistency format that was the reason behind it. I have just one of these people who likes precise figures, and we have a plenty of finance memorandums over the years that I have done exactly that. Just one more question from me, because I know that colleagues are keen to come in, and it is about additional Scottish Government staff costs. I mean, the final section of the new FM notes that the certain Scottish Government staff costs have already been incurred in the region of £10 million per annum, and will continue to be incurred even if the proposals did not go ahead. I am just wondering what the staff are currently engaged in, what the role will be if the NHS proposals do not go ahead. There does not seem to be any details on the number of staff involved, salaries, grades, et cetera. It is just a region of £10 million. It is not very transparent, should we say. I mean, again, we are very happy to provide a breakdown if that would be helpful. The £10 million that you refer to is associated with the development of the NHS, and we did talk about that a bit before. Obviously, there is the bill development activity, but everything that you see in the bill has a development need, which is being addressed by staff and the directorate at the moment. More broadly, the directorate also covers social care improvement, policy development for a whole range of social care policy aspects such as carers, self-directed support. There are multiple aspects of performance and delivery. The reason that we have said that those costs would continue to be incurred is that we would need to continue to carry out that work, regardless of whether the NHS was going to be in place or not. I will let others ask further questions on that. By just as at the table 2, the new financial memorandum shows cost to the Scottish Administration between arm 28 and £193 million, but it is unclear whether those are associated with the establishment of the board. The new financial memorandum is only nine pages, whereas the previous one is 28 pages. It just feels as if there could have been a wee bit more detail. We have all the underlying assumptions. As we move forward, the shared accountability paper, which we have asked that you read in tandem with the financial memorandum, will add further detail in there. We have taken out quite a lot of the figures, because they are no longer relevant. Is that possible, adding to the feeling that there is less detail? No, I appreciate that. There is no point in having talked about the transfer of local authority workers if that has not really happened, but I just feel it, because we are keen to get a wee bit further under the skin of the new financial memorandum, because of the sheer importance of the bill from a financial perspective alone. We will first person in the committee to ask questions. We will be joined before by Liz. Thank you very much, convener. Convener touched on various areas that I wanted to explore, maybe the integration authorities a little bit more. First of all, just from my ignorance, there are a lot of terms that float around here. We used to talk about integrated joint boards. In Glasgow, we talked about health and social care partnership, and now we are talking about integration authority. Are those just three different names for the same thing? Not exactly. The integration authority is how the integrated partnership is described in the Public Bodies Act. The integrated joint board is the board that delivers that integration authority. The health and social care partnership is slightly different. That is where you get the operational activity coming together. I understand that it is confusing, but they are all essentially slightly different parts of the entirety of the governance and delivery landscape. That is helpful. I will probably explore that on my own at some future point. I think that some of the points that have been made refer back to the way let us just call them integrated joint boards in the past, or integration authorities, and the way the funding works. Sometimes it seems that the council and the health board have put in funding and then almost taken it back. The suggestion, if I can find the wording, is almost circular. At one point, funds were ceded to IAs and then largely given back to the hosts. In practice, much of the funding appears to be circular, with funding allocated to the IJB from the local authority and health board, which then directs it back to the local authorities and health boards and health and social care partnerships. Is this going to work better? Is there going to be better integration in going forward? On the one hand, integration is a good thing. On the other hand, it can make it difficult for the councils and the health boards to follow the pound. The integration joint board is responsible for the commissioning of community health and social care support and services. They undertake the strategic planning and commission the services and supports that are required. The health boards and local authorities are usually quite often the providers of those services. That is why there is a circular nature there. The local authorities commission a third sector, which is important to procure from the third sector. That is where that circular nature comes from. The improvements in the transparency of funding are important because there are a couple of contributors here. One of the things that we and the minister will probably talk about this on Thursday is that we are keen to understand the relationship between the strategic plan and the delivery plan and the funding of that so that the plans are funded and can be delivered. The consolidation of funding within the IJB allows you to see across the piece from both the NHS and from local government to see what the totality of that funding is and how it is being spent. If the chief executive or the board of the integration authority wants to do something or wants to stop doing something, who is going to be answerable to? Will the new national body be able to say no or veto them? Will the health board or the local council have to keep pleasing all three bodies? The locality integration bodies will remain a partnership between the local authority and the NHS. There will likely be other members of the local integration authority, so people with lived experience, carers etc, as yet to be defined. At a local level, we are very clear that local decision making is really important here because we need to make sure that the supports and services that are made available are suitable for that local area. The current accountabilities to the integration joint board will remain. The integration joint board will be accountable to the national board for strategic planning and for delivery. We will have to ensure that local decision making is still a paramount because it will certainly be a real priority for local government that there is an on-going discharge of their democratic accountability at a local level. Certainly, where there are improvements required, the national board will be able to support areas to make those improvements and, as a last resort, will have powers of intervention. The intention is not to intervene on every decision that the Government does not agree with. The national board will be able to take a view, particularly on things such as statutory duties, if, for example, an area is not meeting statutory duties in the care inspectorate or another regulatory body flag that. I am sure that that is something that the national board would be very interested in. I was thinking of practical issues. We had an issue in Glasgow, a slightly different topic, with link workers linked to GP practices. The local GP opinion in NHS said that they are good and that we need to fund them. NHSCP said that it cannot fund them and that the Government can come in with more money. Would that change in the future? There would certainly be a better mechanism for having that discussion and for seeing the impact of the decision. People tell us that there is not always a comprehensive impact assessment, particularly for the impact on people who use those services. I think that there would be a different relationship with the national board and local boards, but we need to be clear that local democratic accountability will remain. Would that also suggest that integration authorities could amalgamate or join together? Would that be an entirely local decision or would there be national input in that? That is the intention. Again, we have spoken with local government and the NHS at length about that. There was a strong view that that should not be a central decision either by ministers or by the national board. However, where areas want to come together, that should be facilitated. There are clear public value opportunities there that local partners may want to take advantage of, so we should facilitate that through this bill. On the integration authorities, there is some mention of VAT, and would there be an issue if money went directly to the integration authorities? Does that create a VAT problem? We are still assessing that with Her Majesty's Treasury. At the moment, we do not have a decision on whether the IGBs are not that exempt. The issue will be if we fund them directly, and we are expecting that that is only in very specific and limited situations that we will do an assessment at the time. I would expect that we will have a response from HNT in advance of taking any of those decisions. However, it is important to note that, given the specific and limited nature of the likely investments, we would consider those on a case-by-case basis. Something that we have touched on so far is the idea of integrated social care and health records. It says in the papers that those records do not yet exist, and as such, they will require major investment in their own rights. I am right to say that there is not money set aside for those records because there could be data sharing without them. The bill itself makes provision to allow information to be shared, rather than for the creation of the record itself. We have not gone into huge detail about the investment in the integrated care record technology. Given that what we are trying to do here is to make sure that information can be shared and that there is a legal basis to do so, that is what we have costed on. Richard, you might want to say a bit about the record itself. That is absolutely right in terms of the actual bill itself and the financial memorandum. There is not the cost associated with the infrastructure that is required to support a digital care record, because it is not a primary part of the financial memorandum. However, it is separate to that. It is quite critical that we recognise that. This is going to be a core plank of our digital investment in health and social care moving forward. It is part of the wider budget considerations for the health and social care portfolio, particularly the investment that is made in digital by health boards and local authorities and the Scottish Government. That is something that will be costing up and working forward in the coming months and years as well. Are there even rough ideas as to what it would cost? At this stage, we are still working through that. As you alluded to, there is a lot of capacity within our existing budgets to proceed with digital sharing that will not incur significant additional costs. However, we are still working through the specifics of the business case around the integrated care record. In the programme business case, I noticed that you are contrasting what would happen if we carried on as usual and what could happen if we have the new system. It says that various things enable strategic integration, national oversight, accountability and opportunities to invest in preventative care rather than crisis responses, avoiding expenditure and poor outcomes such as those that are experienced by people who are delayed in hospital and so on. The community cannot say that there could be considerable costs that are avoidable if the current system cannot be improved. Can you go into that a little bit more? Are we saying that just by passing the bill and having this national care service that will automatically produce savings that we can put into preventative care? That is something that the committee has looked at for quite a long time. Or is it just that there is the possibility of savings? One of the reasons that we have not defined the savings is because we do not want—I think that Lee has already referred to this—what others might appear to be spurious claims so some of the comparisons that we have looked at around improvement for example if you consider and delayed discharge is always a popular area for focus so if you consider the areas which are performing best on delayed discharge and the areas that are in some real need of improvement, if we were able to improve those areas where there are some real issues, we have done some calculations to suggest the sorts of savings that might be available and there will be others. If you look at the work that we are doing on getting it right for everyone at the moment where we are taking a multi-agency, multi-disciplinary approach, there are efficiency savings that are being realised there just in terms of things like information sharing. Sorry, surely information sharing cannot in itself lead to big savings? Certainly the availability of information so if you have a person and some of this is coming out of getting it right for everyone activity and it links very much to prevention as well, some of the serious case reviews that we see as part of the activities under way at a local level where there has been a lack of multi-agency joined up working. Not only are people worse off for that but the system itself sees a huge amount of inefficiency. If you look at the hard edges report that was published a number of years ago now with people who have multiple services involved in their support, there are estimated savings that could be brought about there. There are a number of areas where we believe that there will be savings but we have not recorded them in the programme business case because we do not want to make spurious claims at this point. My final question then, you mentioned programme business case. Am I right in saying that it is going to be updated when there are significant changes? So would we see every quarter a new version or every month or every six months or how does that work? There will be a few key milestones here. That is based on the proposals for the amended bill, if you like, for the next phase. Obviously, we will take into account the changes associated with stage 2 and any change that occurs during that period. There will also potentially be other issues that we need to take into account in whatever context that is. We can bring it back to you quarterly. I think that we will not update it monthly but we can either agree to do that quarterly or at the point of any significant change if that would be helpful. I will get there. I have got it exactly in front of me. I understood that we are saying that even six months they would not be able to report because it contradicts the Scottish Government's actual annual financial assessments and that we would have to be once a year now, you are saying that it could be once a quarter? If there is any significant change to the assumptions, i.e. the policy assumptions that we are talking about here, so I do not think that we will necessarily change the financial aspects of it. We may want to do that in a different way. That is whatever is most helpful for the committee. Thank you. Can I pursue the issues around co-design and the implications for cost, which is the central concern for the committee? Can I have a bit of clarity, please? You said in answer to the convener that there has been considerable co-design over the last nine months, which would take us back to April 2023. Can I just be clear that there was obviously co-design on-going before that date, if you could tell us when that co-design started? We have been co-designing since the beginning of this process. We set up the initial phase of that with the social covenants steering group. At the same time, the consultation began. We also had the consultation process, and throughout that period we had various engagements with people and stakeholders. The more formal co-design approach with the lived experience expert panel and the stakeholder panel kicked off in spring last year. We have done a number of areas of work with them, so various surveys, engagement on the charter and then the broader work over the summer in person and online. The substantial changes that have been made to the bill in terms of no transfer to local authority of staff and assets and no new care board plans—did those changes result from the co-design discussions that you had since spring last year? The significant changes on accountability and governance have resulted from engagement with COSLA and the NHS. The shared accountability agreement and everything that flows from that. As I said earlier, what we have then done is to balance that with what we have heard from co-design. The minister will talk about that on Thursday. She has been absolutely clear that she does not want the principles or the policy intent of the bill to change. Where we have achieved consensus, we have been confident that we can still achieve the aims and the principles of the bill whilst delivering in a different way. Why was that not possible, given that co-design was on-going before? If people were advising of those changes, why did the Scottish Government not respond to that at an earlier point? The majority of those changes and the shared accountability activity came from local government, as you will be aware. We have kept the on-going conversation with local government since we have introduced the bill. There was a change in May last year where there was a ministerial decision to re-engage with COSLA and the NHS and to seek to achieve consensus. Was that decision to re-engage largely out of concerns over costs? Or were there other factors that required that re-engagement? I do not think that cost was at the top of the list. I think that there were some questions about relationships with local government. Secondly, about the on-going deliverability of the work under way. Probably a fair bit of discussion about the potential disruption associated. That is helpful in a way, but do you accept that one of the difficulties about co-design, which in principle can have a very strong case behind it because you are obviously engaging with the stakeholders who are making representations to the Government collectively about what might be the right process? Do you accept that, because that process is on-going, it is exceptionally difficult to come to any accurate assessment of what the costs are going to be? I do not accept that we find it difficult to come to an assessment of the costs. I think that we have a range within the costs and that is illustrated throughout. Doing the work on co-design over the past nine months or so has allowed us to pin down those costs further and we now have them within a much more acceptable range. Is it not the case that co-design is on-going? If co-design is on-going and there are further representations that are made to the Scottish Government about possible changes, does that not have implications for future costs? In terms of the primary legislation, we are confident that the co-design activity has given us a very comprehensive and helpful set of issues that we need to include, and those have all now been included. In terms of the amendments that might come forward at stage 2, there may be amendments, but the Scottish Government has set out the amendments that it intends to propose. What you are effectively saying is that the co-design up until this point has made the Government have a bit of a rethink about the bill and made three substantial changes, but two in terms of reducing the costs that there is going to be no transfer of local authority staff and assets and no new care boards saving a lot of costs. Should there be co-design on-going and the outcome of that further co-design is that there are more substantial changes suggested, does that not have implications for the costs? It may do. I do not see where those substantial changes would add. Where we have got to now I think is that we have a good understanding of the framework that is required to deliver the policy intent and the principles outlined in the bill. I do not see that we are likely to have more significant change in the primary legislation. The secondary legislation will need to fit in with the frame of the primary legislation and I do not see any additional. If co-design is on-going, what do you think that the on-going discussions in co-design will be about if they are not going to make suggestions of further substantial changes? I think that the on-going discussions will be about how we deliver on the bill, rather than what is to be delivered. If I can give an example on the national board, so we have defined the intention to have a national board, we have defined the functions, we have set out as best we can at this point in time. I understand that. The key point here in relation to what you have just said is how it is implemented has a direct relationship to cost, surely. Our concern in this committee is to try to assess, with more certainty, and just as the convener said in his question, we need much greater clarity about the nature of the costs that are going to be involved in this bill. That is the central issue. There may be lots of good things about it. I am not taking sides on whether it is good or bad. I think that the principal role of this committee is to understand what the future costs are going to be and how accurate is the new financial memorandum. Personally, I think that we have quite a considerable difficulty because of the uncertainty that is unfolding in quite a lot of your answers this morning, because we simply do not know some of those things. Do you accept that? No, I do not. I think that we have built in the range of costs that are required to deliver on the framework of the bill. Are not related to future co-design? The future co-design will be about how we deliver the frame of the bill. The activities that we have undertaken to develop the costs for that have included assumptions. For example, on the national board, we have included assumptions about the staff that will be required. The co-design will be about how the board delivers its functions and the staff that will be required to deliver those functions have been included in the costings already. I think that what she was trying to flesh out is a concern of mine as well. I can see that you have done a huge amount of work from when we last met, and I absolutely give you credit to that, but it talks to one of the process in terms of co-design. It also mirrors our concerns as a finance committee that, to what extent can we be confident that the end cost bears some relation to the start cost and accepting that the end cost is never accurate. That is the only point when your costings can be accurate and I understand all that. However, the question for me is that, as it goes into stage 2 and amendments, it will be done by the health and social care committee and we will not have the financial scrutiny and oversight of them. As the co-design process carries on and further business cases are development, that will incur costs. I accept what you are saying about their being framed, so I do accept that, but it will still introduce further costs over which we will have no oversight over a 10-year period. It is that, so if you said to me notwithstanding that you have clearly done a huge amount of good work and I am not saying that I am against a co-design process because of the issues that are being brought out today, what I am remarking on is that, as it stands, I personally cannot be confident that we as a finance committee have any sense of the ultimate cost of that. From a parliamentary perspective, that is a concern against a backdrop of huge challenges around public sector funding. Do you accept that framing that I have set out and the rationale that I have given? I understand what you are setting out there, Ms Thomson. What we have done to the best of our ability is to build in as much of that uncertainty, including the activities that need to be undertaken through co-design. Ms Todd has already offered to the committee that, as we have already referred to, the updated business cases, the specific business cases and regular updates to the finance committee. There is also an opportunity for on-going engagement with Parliament, so I will ask Lee to come in. I think that there are two points here. When we are looking at the plans to enter over the cost, there are probably two points. If we look at the revised financial memorandum, I am still assuming the transfer of staff, I am still assuming the creation of the care boards. There is a large degree of uncertainty there because you have in theory 75,000 staff that may or may not transfer and depend on the type of transfer that they moved across. We have obviously built in a large cost base for them on the shared accountability front. That is removed because we will not be transferring the staff, so that reduces a significant portion of the cost. Link to that under the revised FFM, where the FFM has started, there was a proposal to create 31 care boards in that entails all the operational costs associated with it. Again, under the shared accountability agreement, we are looking at a reform of current IGB and the cost base for them appears to be significantly smaller. What we are doing is we are taking a large extent to the uncertainties, and certainly we are not being costing it the ones that had the biggest range of potential swing in it. They have broadly been removed, so yes. Within codes design, depending on how that is approached, there can be some changes in cost. What I think from having done the revision to the financial memorandum, then looking to do the shared accountability, the potential range of cost differentials, looking at the national board, looking at the reformed IGBs have been reduced quite considerably, so yes, there will still be variability. However, what we have tried to do within that is, within reason and looking across, so when we are looking at the national board, we have assumed on the basis that this would still be agreed through the ministerial control framework, a sort of non-departmental public body type approach, because, through the sum of the work that has been done before, it looked to be the most expensive. In terms of the scale yet, we have looked at similar NDPBs, so Community of Scotland, we referenced, we had a couple of colleagues who had worked in the setup of that, and from their involvement in terms of the policy development for the national board, they felt that it was broadly comparable, so we have got reasonable certainty, and it is reasonable, because there are still culverts around it, that that should be roughly where it is. The reform of the IGBs, again, there is obviously still question marks around it and we have got the range, but again, the scale of the change in that is significantly reduced from where we were with care boards. If we look at the Scottish administration cost, you will have seen a significant drop in that. If you do not mind, sorry to interrupt, but again, what you are articulating to me increases my confidence level that you have taken on board what we were saying before. Those are all the examples of that, but it is the basis in which it will proceed. Going back to Ms Smith's point, the continued co-design, even from a well-estimated framing, has a significant potential of cost overrun, because if you have not got us breathing down your neck saying, you said this, it is going to be that. I have seen this a million times in another life where we thought it was going to be A plus C plus E, but that is a very good point, the person who is made of it, G, and then you go away and look at it. That is the critical risk factor in terms of costs that you are outlining. I have seen this in private industry, where in this kind of situation, because this is a function of complexity, why you are doing this this way, we have said, right, there is going to be a fixed budget, that is it, end of, and if you are there for, as managers come in, they change, are entertaining, that, oh, actually, E looks quite interesting, you are then required to say, well, you are going to de-scope and take out because you have got a fixed budget. So maybe the question is that we have ultimately no control over the end cost despite me crediting you with doing all that work, so has anybody asked a question allowing for an inflationary uplift because we can't control that and various, potentially other variables said, we are going to put a fixed cost on that because for me that would be the real test of how much extra work you have done. So I think, I mean, we are obviously happy to, we haven't done that, but we would be happy to consider that. It might be helpful because a lot of the engagement that we've had on co-design is about working practice rather than financial investment, so thinking about the keeping care and support local theme, people were really clear that there was some excellent care locally, but some of the areas that they were really keen to highlight were areas like no portability of support between local authorities, for example, so we know that this is an issue where there are differences in provision made across, so things like that. You're almost making my point for you, things like that where there's a very good rationale and there's a very good reason, but that by going through the depth of that discussion by time, I mean by resource, collecting all that resource, rather than necessarily capital expenditure or whatever, that is by necessity going to increase costs because you're doing the job that you expected. I'm just trying to set out why, from a financial perspective, I ultimately conclude that despite the good work that you've done, I think that there will inevitably be significant cost-over-runs over the time period we've got, and I just again put on record that that's a concern and it's counterintuitive to a very difficult fiscal environment, so it's a bit technical, I appreciate that. Just to be clear, are you talking about the investment in co-design? Yes, I'm talking about the investment time because that's where often significant costs are incurred by the activity that's doing a good job of working, taking in soundings from other elements, because if you've got multiple stakeholders, we need to work this through with multiple stakeholders, that incurs a real cost on an on-going basis, which by operating to a fixed budget would keep a sharpness to it, but with no fixed budget line, it won't. Yes, so we have built in the co-design activity to the programme both in terms of time and in terms of budget. In other words, it will not take any longer than what you've already costed. Yes, so the intention is that we have built that into the programme of activity for development and what happens if somebody comes out with a really good idea that you've not thought of yet? So the time is built into the programme, what would then happen if that was the case, is that we would pivot our policy approach to that, which may take a bit more time, but it would really depend on what it was. I'm keen to get on the record a little bit about the costs in the first instance, because it's quite unusual set of papers we have in front of us in terms of the original financial memorandum, then there was an updated financial memorandum, and now there's the new financial memorandum. So the first set of figures on the original financial memorandum was it could cost between £644 million or £1,261 million over a five-year period, is that correct? I've extrapolated them out over the 10 years to factor in inflation, so if we took the original FM over the full 10-year timeframe, it was coming out £1.8 billion to £3.9 billion. If we take just it for comparability, just to keep everything consistent. That's going to be one of my questions, but my figures are correct in that regard. It was the original one was five years, but so much change. The original was the five years. It's just a little bit of just to make a comparison between the original FM and then a revised FM. If we extrapolate the original FM out, it's £1.8 billion to £3.9 billion. The revised FM will give us £487 million to £1.6 billion. The real... There's a number of light you've finished now. Could you give me those extrapolated figures again, please? Yeah, so the original FM, if we take over 10 years and be building inflation, and there is a slight tweak in the transfer of the staff, because at the end of the five years it hadn't transferred the full 100 per cent, so if I build that in the same model we've got now, we get £1.8 billion to £3.9 billion. That would have been under the original remit that you had the first time. So, if the committee had signed off the original FM, we would have been potentially looking at a bill with £3.9 billion. I've not heard that figure before, but maybe that's just my ignorance. On the updated financial memorandum, the figure that I have is £880 million to £2192 million, but that's over 10 years. Is that correct? That's a fine term in the Carersbanks course, but that's right. And the new financial memorandum, given the likely amendments at stage 2, is your plan at £631 million to £916 million. Correct. Is that correct? Yes. Okay, that's useful in the first instance. Can I touch on the integration authorities that have fallen on from Mr Mason's questions? Can you give me the cost of those updated, your estimated costs for the changes to the new versions of the IGB? For immigration authorities, if we're assuming we'll start phasing that in 26-27, we'll have you to go in full operation in 27-28. We've got £2.37 million in 26-27. It then goes to £12 million in 27-28 and then incrementally goes to inflationary. So then £12.4 million, £12.7 million, £13.0, £13.4 million. And so the total cost across that 10-year period would be... £65.8 million. That would be the midfagor, but then range that either side for us or the lower estimate and the upper estimate as well. Okay. So £65.8 million. It feels to me, given the answers that he gave to my colleague, he's pretty much going to be the same thing. At the moment, we have, I'll take for instance, the health and social care partnership in Dundee, which has 18 members that sit on that board. And they are the voter split, whether six voting members, three between local authorities, three from the health board. Are you proposing that we change that model? So that's one of the areas under discussion with local government at the moment. So one of the areas that we have not yet agreed with local government is the prospect of an independent chair of the local bodies. There is also ongoing discussion about the membership that we've discussed, and it may be that the make-up of those boards is different. There are also the accountabilities, which I've already outlined. There are other aspects around improvement and escalation, and there are options for ministers to fund integration authorities directly. Okay, so I suppose what I think is key within this is perhaps your last point, but in terms of how the dynamics of the money works, because these don't work at the moment, because they are joint funded between the NHS and local authorities, and they put money into the pot and then they pull it back out again. And there is no real strategic intent as to what they do, because you have of the voting members, there are six people, it's 50-50, and then that's where it lands. Your proposal is then that it would be that you change that, or you're just in a process of longer-term negotiation about what that might look like. Okay, but you don't think that the fundamental power dynamic of that changes, that the two organisations, the NHS and local authorities, are putting money into the pot to fund the social care outcome. So I think the funding flows will more or less remain the same. There may be some areas, as I said, in specific and agreed circumstances where Government does fund integration authorities directly. I think, and I've already talked a bit about this, the key issue that people have told us that are interested in is transparency. So the creation of the approach to strategic planning and delivery assurance, particularly assurance around funding for delivery, will give us a much better collective understanding of strategic planning, delivery planning and the funding to support that. You said earlier more of your answers that you wanted to enhance local democratic accountability. Of those 18 members of the IJB, Health and Social Care Partnership, Integrated Authority and Dundee, there are three elected members out of 18 people. Would you view that it should be a majority elected councillors on those bodies? So as I say, that is still for discussion. We just don't know. I think that it's really key in terms of that role, because that critical interaction between the two sources of finance is why these are non-strategic organisations, as my view. If you don't deal with that, and I'm not really here in any clarity with these proposals, it's how you're going to deal with those finances differently, because it's all tied up in the votes, as far as I can see, but I don't think we've got answers to that. On the interaction with the national care board, I'm still struggling a little bit to understand from the answers that you've given, how the point at which a decision might be taken nationally to instruct one of those integrated authorities to do something, is that the relationship that you foresee? I think that that is the relationship in extremis. So the intention would be given the partnership approach is that the board work together to support local partners to create appropriate improvement, support improvement options, working with obviously the improvement agencies. So everybody who's involved in health and social care is keen to see improvement and is committed to improving. I think that bringing that together on a national basis is a very sensible thing to do. Where there are issues and where those are highlighted either through data, whether that be performance data, whether it's inspection reports, the development of the escalation and improvement framework will set out where help and support might be required. You will be familiar with the NHS escalation framework. We're not suggesting a carbon copy of that, but it does have some really good learning for us on what works and certainly earlier support and intervention and particularly the support part of that to help areas to turn round their issues. Whether that be on a peer-to-peer basis or whether that be engaging with the improvement organisations or any other organisation that can assist will be really important. It's a culture of improvement that we're trying to create and to create those networks and learning collaboratives. That's, I suppose, the first bit. Where there are issues that require intervention, you'll know that ministers already have the power of direction under the 2014 act. That will remain and not change, but we would expect that the board would be heavily involved in providing support in advance of any ministerial direction. The intervention powers are already there, so ministers could do that already. I'm wondering about the interaction between what you've said that we want to increase local democratic accountability and the national board. What happens locally is that the local authority says, we don't have any money, we're skinned before our budget cut for over a decade, probably by then, by 15 years. We don't have money to put into this or any more money. Is your view then that that national body will tell them to put money into it? That would be a matter for the national board. I don't think that it's something that I would envisage happening. There is something there about statutory responsibilities and whether they are being met. I think that it will be wrapped up in the deliverability of the strategic plan and being very transparent about what is deliverable. I don't think that the national board, given its potential make-up, will want to be in the position to be directing or ordering local government to do different approaches. How much is that going to cost for this national body then? Under the national board. We're starting to phase it in. Some of the work will begin in 24-25. We've got half million bulletin for 24-25, running up to 1.4 million 25-26 as we finalise it. We have a view to going live 26-27, then it's 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6, 4.8. And the total? Total is 28.8 again. That's a mid-point, and we also stretch the upper and lower ranges. 30 million quid to not tell local authorities to do things differently. Under your last, you said that you don't envisage local authorities being told that they should do things differently or that they should spend more money on it. What I'm saying is that there are powers of direction remain, but the sole purpose of the board is obviously not to tell local authorities what to do. The functions of the board were set out, I think, particularly in the letter, so they are about oversight. They are about support. They're about national standards and making sure that people's human rights are embedded. There are a number of areas that both this committee and the Scotland have picked up on in the well over the past. I'm certainly thinking about the Audit Scotland report in 2018, and then subsequent reports on issues of data, information and analysis. There are also options for national commissioning and procurement, which is another area that we would expect to see savings on. There are urgent needs around workforce planning, which is not done at a local level and is done in multiple different ways across the different workforces. I wouldn't suggest that the board has that sole function that you described, but there are multiple functions that both local government, the NHS and Scottish Government agree will be useful at a national level. I think that broader illustration is useful. Certainly what I'm trying to explore here is the interaction between how the money is spent and raised at a local and national level and the point at which there is an instruction around that, rather than saying that this is the only function of it. When you talked about co-design, maybe you could explain a little bit about this to me. It's a little bit difficult to believe that there would be a group of people who are care users and people who rely on care services, and the great work that our carers do through local authorities and other areas came together in a room and said that this is what we need. What we need in order to make our lives better is a fairly cosmetic tweak to the IJB and a board that might advise ministers when they might want to use their powers that they already have. Was that the tone of the conversation? I mean, those people with a lived experience that you're talking about, surely what they were saying was, I need more frequent care visits, I need somebody that will be able to stay longer. I recognise that this is the framework that you're setting out, but drawing the line between the money that we're spending in this and those outcomes to me seems to be pretty tenuous at best. Okay, so I've already suggested the co-design that you've been saying, so keeping care support local information sharing, making sure that my voice is heard, realising rights and responsibilities and valuing the workforce. So there was some really comprehensive work done, we published five reports on the learning outcomes from those. There were many comments, particularly on keeping care support local, about culture, collaboration, communication, person-centred care, transitions, information sharing, but there were also comments about governance, transparency, accountability and resource allocation. Of course, people told us about their own experiences of care and their very specific circumstances and what they needed, but they were also interested in the infrastructure that supported people who were making those decisions, and we got quite a lot of clear opinions. Certainly we can resend the reports to committee if that would be a helpful thing to do, but the other area that is interesting and useful in this is information sharing, because the issues of governance, transparency and accountability and decision making on information sharing were highlighted as one of the major areas where people had real issues about their information not being shared or real issues about barriers being raised because people did not know what they needed. While they were not expressed as we need a national board or what the membership of a local care board needs to look like, there were clear themes about those issues that we have reflected in the primary legislation. That is so useful. Can I close, convener? There is a presumption against new public bodies in the policy of government, but your view is that that would be an exception. Ministers agreed that that would be a further exception to that rule. We still need to pursue the ministerial control framework. We have completed the first stages of the ministerial control framework, and we concluded that it would be most likely to give effect to the shared accountability arrangements that a public body would be likely, which is why we have recorded it as such, but we still need to complete the ministerial control framework and have that agreed. We originally said that we would have the 31 and 32 local care boards as public bodies. We have concluded that we will not do that, and instead we will have potentially one public body at a national level. For clarity up on those, because we talked about the different names for the same thing, IGB and the Great Authority, your suggestion is that the new integrated authority will replace what is there. You are not suggesting that that would be an additional further body? No, it is a reform of the current arrangement. Michael Marr has covered quite a lot of what I was looking to cover, but I will perhaps ask you to look at it from a rural aspect. Are there going to be any additional costs to councils that you envisage because of the bill? No, we have not included any additional costs to councils. For example, giving one of the aspirations seems to be about providing access, better access, combating postcode lottery. You will appreciate that delivering care services in rural island communities is very difficult and extremely expensive. If there is a shortage, as I know, there are a lot of people in parts of my region who are writing to me. They are not writing to me about transparency, they are writing to me, as Michael Marr says, about access, longer visits and longer time. How is this likely to improve that access? How is it likely to mean that they are going to get the care support that they are being allocated but not being delivered because of shortage of carers, et cetera? I will come to you in a minute, Richard, about specific rural funding issues. I will pick up on your point about workforce planning, for example. We now, at the moment, have quite a very agated approach to workforce planning, both for social care workers and for social work. One of the priorities, and we have quite a lot of work under way already around workforce, is the ministerial task force on social services workforce under way at the moment. One of the priorities there is recruitment and retention of social care staff. It may be that, in due course, they have a specific focus on rural areas. There are also really promising approaches that are under way around different models of care, different arrangements for the provision of care, so we know that there are co-operatives operating locally in rural areas that are working very well. I think that what we would be very keen to do is, at a national level, to think about the sorts of activities that the board might undertake, is to share in the learning around those things that are making a difference, as well as the workforce planning for specific areas. That could all be done without the board, that could all be done without the reforms, surely? I mean, councils could speak to each other anyway on best practice and, obviously, efficiency. What additional benefits is this bringing in those scenarios? Yes, councils can, in some cases, do. The national board provides a structure and a forum for that to happen in a planned way and in a very intentional way. I would expect that the data and the additional information that is able to be gathered at a national level will really lend itself to an improved position. It also allows us to bring in, I suppose, the range of partners more coherently, so the care inspectorate, the triple SC, iris and other bodies who are involved in the social services workforce. I think that there will be additionality provided by the national board. Richard, do you want to say anything about the rural funding? Yes, just very briefly. Funding is based on two separate formulas, one that is allocated to local authorities and one that is allocated to health boards. That funding is passed through to the integration authorities. Both those formulas are, in the case of the NHS, the NRAC formula. It takes into account a range of factors, including that remote and rural point that you make. That does not necessarily take away the workforce challenges but, in terms of the funding, that is to reflect the remote and rural factors. That is updated annually and it is updated to reflect changes in demographic and other factors. The current formula has been based on those two formulas coming together to give that allocation to integration authorities. I think that one of the benefits of having that national oversight will be to look at that funding mechanism and to continue to look at that. It is complex. There are many factors that go into that, but that national oversight is another thing that that board can do to help to ensure that the funding formulas are appropriate. Take a scenario then. For example, somebody is not getting the care that they should be in somewhere in the Highlands. There are also a number of different ways—sorry, a number of people are not getting that. It is an issue. What practical role can the national board play in that? If there is an identified issue about funding, will they have any scope to allocate more funding? They do not hold reserves themselves, do they? The national board will build a much better understanding of things and areas such as unmet need, because we do not have a good understanding of that across the country, which then allows us to plan to meet unmet need, which is point number one. The areas that we would also want to focus on around issues of workforce that I have already mentioned and make sure that the demand and capacity are matched up—that is something that we would expect to see in any strategic needs assessment that would flow through to a strategic plan. We would be expecting the national board to be looking at that type of information to understand whether areas are matching their capacity to their demand. If that was not the case—this is all hypothetical, but if that was not the case, the national board would likely want to engage with it to see what that mismatch was and how improvement and support could be provided to help it to get that into balance. That intervention is not going to be fiscal. It is going to be essentially advisory and other forms of support. It is not going to be a financial intervention or a legal intervention to say that you have got to deliver these. I doubt that any council is delivering a poor standard of service intentionally because of the challenges that they face. I am struggling to understand how the new system is really going to help with that in those cases. The care inspectorate, as you know, already has a fair amount of regulatory activity under way on the provision of care, and it does thematic inspections on various different aspects of care. It may be the case that areas will be found to not be meeting the standards, and then there is a statutory responsibility for them to get back on track on that front. One of the things that was discussed in that joint accountability arrangement that was agreed with COSLA and the NHS is that local government and the NHS were very keen to retain the functions and the associated statutory duties that were already with them. They are continuing with those and are absolutely committed to meeting them. As the board develops, and again this is hypothetical, it may be that if areas are not meeting their statutory duties, there could be further intervention from the regulatory bodies or from the board itself in terms of the escalation framework or powers of intervention. I appreciate that the carriage breaks are a large part of the cost here. As colleagues have highlighted, there have been lots of changes to the original plans. If you take out the carriage breaks, which I would thought could be delivered in other ways, but are we now left with a costly rebranding of what we had previously, but with a few additional tweaks in there? Do you think that this is now still a substantial change to what is being to the kind of care landscape? Yes, absolutely. The functions that the national board will take on and that shared accountability agreement is definitely significant. It is really important to look across the bill as well, so we have focused an awful lot on the structures aspects of the bill and a bit on carers. As you know, looking at the entirety of the bill, the areas around the charter, complaints and redress, the aspects that support a whole range of cultural change within the first parts of the bill. When you look at the final part of the bill and think about the carers support parts, but also the parts that pertain to Ann's law, the bill and its entirety is a very strong package of change. Last day, on the national board, who will lead that? Who will put that up? The intention at the moment is that, and the minister will confirm this, is that there is an independent chair of the national board. Will there be a chief executive sitting under for the professional side of it? The make-up of the administrative function is, as yet to be determined, and we have said that we would bring back the business case to the committee further scrutiny. Thanks very much, Jamie. A couple of points to finish off. To follow up with what John Mason was saying on the IT front in the new financial memorandum, it says that the internal staff skillset will be utilised in favour of externally contracted services. I am not sure what that means but the internal staff skillset will be utilised in favour. I would have thought that the internal staff skillset will be utilised rather than externally contracted services. It seems to me that there is a contradiction there. Then it goes on to talk about how it is expected that a portion of the staff costs will be the data and digital space on which will be shorter-term contractors with specific skills for set periods of time. Contractors, when you see contractors, you will see pound signs that will ratchet up pretty quickly. I wonder where the parameters are for that. Wherever possible, we will take advantage of the wrong expression, but we will use the skills that we have. It is only in very specific circumstances where we do not have the skills necessary or we cannot access them through internal resources that we would engage with contractors. Digital is a very specific area where that might be the case, but Richard, you have got more experience of this. I think that you are right. I think that the push and the scrutiny that we will always push is that if we do not need to use contractors, we should not and we will not. That is the position that we would take. One thing that I would really want to highlight is that the focus is on the national care service, but we mentioned the care record earlier. That will have huge implications and a huge potential for the NHS as well. We have within national services Scotland a core and key digital function in there. The key thing, as well as the skills within the civil service and the Scottish Administration, is to ensure that we get the best use and the best value from our agencies within the NHS. That would be a key component of that as well. My final question is about timescale. We have seen a one-year delay in the stage one process, but we see that there is a three-year delay in full implementation to 28, 29. That is more than four years away, so we will have a stage one debate in a few weeks and then we will have more than four years before this is fully implemented. It is hard to see why, given the fact that there has actually been a reduction in terms of what the bill is trying to achieve, we are not going to have the transfer of 75,000 staff, blood assets, etc. We are not going to have 31 care boards or 32 potentially. We will have one national care board. It almost seems as if there is a lack of urgency in that. Is it because of the lack of resources to deliver? I wonder if you can advise us as to why we are having such a huge delay in the actual delivery of the bill. Our priority has been to make sure that there is a safe and secure transition for people. I would absolutely agree that the new arrangements will be smoother in terms of that transition, but the most important thing for everybody involved in this programme of work is continuity of care and making sure that people get the support that they need. I think that we have been pessimistic again. I mean, our overarching approach to the planning and the financial costings for this bill has been one where we have built in as much contingency as possible and that applies as much to the deliverability as it does to the financial costings. It may be that, as we work through the activity needed, we will be able to do it more quickly. If we can do that, of course we will, but we need to make sure that it is deliverable and safe and secure for people. It is just that if people are not working to a four-year deadline, it does not exactly create any oomph behind the delivery of a bill. If you know that it is expected to be delivered in a year or two years, it does create a greater sense of urgency. I find it really bizarre that a bill that has got less content than it had a year ago has got twice as long to implement. I am just wondering what the logic for that is. As I know, you have said that it is a bit pessimistic. I prefer realism to optimism or pessimism, but it is quite a significant increase in the timescale for a bill that is not as complex as it was a year ago. Although it is not as complex as it was a year ago, it is potentially still quite complex. We will continue to look at the phasing as we go along, and if we can do this more quickly, we will be very happy to do so. I want to thank Donabelli Flanagan and Richard McCallum for their contributions. The committee will continue to take evidence on the updated financial memorandum and its next meeting, which will be on Thursday, when we will hear from the Minister for Social Care, Mental Well-being and Sport. That concludes the public part of today's meeting. We will now move into private to discuss a work programme, which is a three-minute recess.