 Good morning and welcome to the 16th meeting in 2023 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee. The first item on our agenda is a round-table discussion on the Scottish Government's Public Service Reform programme. I welcome today we have eight witnesses. Gary McEwen, director of corporate services at Food Standard Scotland. Stuart McQuarrie, deputy director of business services and transformation at Nature Scotland. David Page, deputy chief officer at Police Scotland. Chris Kerr, registration and policy director at Registers of Scotland. Elaine Lorimer, chief executive of Revenue Scotland. Karen Watt, chief executive of the Scottish Funding Council. Anthony Day, director of finance and corporate resources at South of Scotland Enterprise. Kerry Twyman, director of finance and corporate services at Transport Scotland. Thank you to all those who have made written submissions, which we have been reading. When you speak today, you don't need to press any buttons. The gentleman up at the corner there handles all the sound for us. We have around 90 minutes for this session and if you'd like to be brought in, this is quite a free-flowing, round-table discussion, rather than our more formal systems. If you'd like to come in, witnesses and committee members, please indicate to myself and the clerks, and we'll try to bring you in. We haven't split this into themes, but if a particular theme comes up, it would be quite good to stick around that for a little while and then we'll move on to something else. We do want it to be free-flowing, but there are 15 of us around this table, so we're really not wanting long speeches from any of the committee members or anyone else. If I could start with Police Scotland, your paper was quite positive about reform that you have already seen in the police force. You're welcome to say who you are and what your role is. Maybe just say a few of what you feel has been positive on any challenges you've faced. I'm David Page. I'm the Deputy Chief Officer for Police Scotland. I joined Police Scotland in 2016 as a civilian and I joined to replace the Deputy Chief Constable on part of the rationale for bringing a civilian in at Deputy Chief Constable level, which was the first time it had been done in the UK, was a recognition that bringing eight police forces into other organisations together, whilst there's an operational element clearly to that, which Police Scotland did an excellent job in terms of creating national capabilities, which, to some, hadn't been available across the whole of Scotland, so that was a huge positive. There's a huge amount of complexity in bringing effectively eight different business models together. That's a special skill set. I think that the first three years of Police Scotland, there was a lot of attempts to do it, to be quite frank, in a clunky way. Because of the way that the police reform started at the beginning, which is probably the right way to do it, which is a forced takeover effectively, you're bringing eight organisations together without a choice, which means you have to make it work. I'll come back to that in a second as to why that's really important. Because of that, and because of the way that the budgets were managed at the time, the budgets were cut immediately, which meant that there was £200 million effectively cut from the policing budget. That put a huge amount of pressure on how is it going to work, and because you can't make police officers redundant, because of a commitment to 17234, and because Police Scotland had to reduce the cost base, the acts fell on the civilian staff. 1,600, 1,700 staff went in the early years of Police Scotland through voluntary redundancy and early redundancy. It achieved its kind of aim to a degree, which was to reduce the cost base of Police Scotland. What it did do was leave a dysfunctional corporate centre effectively, because it basically gutted your capabilities. There's another issue in there as well, which is if you bring together 10 bodies with people who are used to working in much smaller bodies and create one very large body, the skills needed to run the much bigger body are different from what it takes to run a smaller body, and you've gutted that capability. The way that Police Scotland tried to handle that at the time was by using police officers to backfill the civilian staff that had gone. From a kind of change management perspective, that's perfectly acceptable for a short period of time, just to cover a gap in a transition to a new operating model. It makes no sense to put police officers into civilian roles where they are not expert and they are more expensive for a sustained period of time. It doesn't give you the outcomes that you need. It's a waste of policing resource from doing operational policing requirements, and it disaffects the civilian staff. That was a lot of the challenges that we had to overcome. There was an awful lot of measuring things to prove that it was a valid move to create Police Scotland. Getting over those initial hurdles and then settling down, what we moved to then was bringing in the right skills with the right people. I'm talking very much from a corporate perspective here because again members will be aware that we had multiple section 22s in the first years of Police Scotland where there was no financial control, no grip of risk management, no strategies, no long-term strategies, no medium-term strategies. There was a big kind of gap there. What we did was build capability to allow us to map out what was required for the future of policing in Scotland. We considerably beefed up the capabilities of our civilian experts and recognised that you do need civilian experts to do certain things and then build a relationship between officers and staff. Can I just come in at this point? Do you think that the police is unique in this respect in the way all of this went, or do you think that there are points from your experience that could help other reorganisations and reforms and things? The way it went was a reaction to the circumstances in which the Police and Fire Reform Act forced it together and then the budgets were cut. Because of the constraint on, you couldn't reduce police officer numbers, you cut the civilian staff, you create a set of conditions, if you like, where the only way forward was effectively the only way forward. We have moved away from that. Where we are now looking both inwardly in terms of on-going police transformation and reform, because we're continuing to strive to get to where we want to be, but working with a wider public sector, one of the major challenges is, and we've been asked to do this and we continue to do this, is can we achieve reform through collaboration? Now you can, but it's really, really slow. Collaboration with whom? Public sector bodies, local authority bodies. Collaboration in the sense of working with local authorities, that tends to be a, if it works for me and it works for you, we'll do it together. We have some really good co-location work going on with public sector bodies. We'll make a comeback to some of that later about working with the other bodies, but I'm keen to bring other people in at this stage. First of all, Gary McEwan, you're also in one sense quite a new organisation and you've been looking at your structures. Can you say anything about that? Yeah, I could, convener. I'm with Food Standard Scotland, which is a sort of independent non-ministerial public body, and our primary focus is around delivering safe and healthy food environment. What we noted from EU exit was a significant shortfall in the resources that we required to deliver the service because of the retained EU law and the implications and the work that was getting done elsewhere in Europe that then fell within the Food Standards Remit. We prepared a workforce plan maybe 18 months, 24 months ago, and that identified a shortfall of about £3.1 million in resource, which equates to about 56 member of staff, which is a fifth of our, we're a small and I would say quite an agile organisation. So there was no increase in our settlement, so our CEO kicked off what we called a reprioritisation exercise, which was around getting right back to basics and trying to understand what was the regulatory, what was the statutory requirements, what were our strategic risks and where should we be focusing our resources and our skills best to deal with these priorities. So that reprioritisation exercise went on for about 10 months, required a movement of skills and staff and training, as well as a reconfiguration of the middle and senior structures to try and accommodate that. That's phase one. That's your efficiency part, I suppose, and what we were really keen to do was to build into that transformational change that ran alongside that, particularly around data and digital. So we managed to ring fence, I put all my money to enable that, and that's on-going just now. Phase three is more the collaboration side that David touched on. For example, we need a head of digital, but there are a number of small organisations that also need similar skill sets, which are very expensive, actually. We are writing the middling negotiations just now with Marine Scotland to collaborate and co-fund a digital strategist, if you like, to enable he or she to actually take oversight of the implementation of digital and data strategies across both organisations. So that's where we are moving now into that collaborative space with other similar organisations, as well as the shared services that we do with the Scottish Government, particularly around the HR and finance in ITX. I noted in your submission that you talked about some activities where being stopped or paused. Can you say anything about that, how you decided on them? Yes, we did quite a lengthy benchmarking process, engagement with staff, and we have a board that sits above us that reports to Parliament, so we tried to make it as inclusive as we possibly could from all across the organisation, including the board member, based on risk, what's our risk appetite, where's our strategic risks, and then we put a paper to our board which was considered and approved around certain things that we would scale back around marketing, certain things we would scale back in relation to some of our science provisions, some of our risk analysis work. So I'm moving, being honest, from a platinum standard down to a more sort of gold and silver standard just to meet the efficiencies that were required. OK, that's very helpful. Thank you, Michelle. I think it wants to come in. Thank you for that contribution, Gary. I actually just wanted to go back to David and cover off one thing before we move into some of the general themes. One area you didn't mention that is habitually difficult for that sort of scale, of transformational change, is taking cognisance of merging different cultures. Often people do due diligence on the legal stuff, about the culture and you were in essence bringing all these different cultures together. How did you actively manage that and what have been the outcomes off the back of that? That's a really good question. In fact, it's probably one of the hardest things of any of these transformations. One of the really big things when Police Scotland was brought together was don't lose the community, don't lose the local sense of police officers looking after our own communities. There is that risk that you turn it into some sort of neutral thing that doesn't really connect with its local communities. There was a huge amount of effort put into ensuring that local policing communities continued to be local policing and we did do that. I think the thing that probably grated a little bit in the early days was by imposing national metrics on everything which basically created a forced change of behaviour. Things that weren't working in certain communities or would work in other communities, if you take one view of that which might have been at the time of Strath Clyde view, then apply it across everywhere it feels a bit like a square peg going into a round hole and it did great and Sir Ian has noted that, as said the things we didn't get everything right at the beginning because of that cultural friction but I think that later over the years there has been a big recognition of the need to really engage through councils with what does the local community need and ensure the local policing shape in that area reflects the need but it is supplemented by the national capabilities. That's the really big thing that I think Police Scotland for my perspective has been pretty neutral coming in. Police Scotland is a highly effective major public sector policing body compared to everything in England and Wales because England and Wales is incredibly fragmented and expensive because you do not get any economies of scale where you get massive economies of scale the economies of scale and this is one of my frustrations with public sector reform is you make the savings allow the money to go back into that service to continue to improve the service and that's where we've been struggling which is to get enough money to go back in to continue to develop capability to provide better services to the front end. Just quickly off the back of that last refinal question is you pointed out that change was forced upon you by the legislation had it not have been is there any way actually or all the different forces would have volunteered to come together? Not a prayer, not a prayer. If you look at public sector reform at the moment and blue light collaboration whilst I chaired the blue light collaboration bought for the last 18 months your effective groups of people sitting together to work out how can we leverage working together as Gary has said as best we can but what people tend to do is pick off the bits around the side that doesn't threaten their own jobs and go to public sector reform to really achieve significant cost savings and really improve services there has to be a mandate to get people to want to do it and I think that's the key thing if you look at resource spending review and the forecast for all of our budgets over the next three, four, five years asking people to work together and do collaborative sharing in a cosy way isn't going to work you're not going to get the outcomes you want much more compelling but make sure you do it in the right way so it's not a slash and burn that doesn't deliver the results it's got to be a compulsion learn from the mistakes that police Scotland made but still do it under a mandate to deliver cost savings and improve service without a mandate it won't happen that's very helpful quite provocative some of that so I think we'll see members coming in on some of that Michael Marra from the submissions on what's been said already I'm interested in what drives that reform because we've heard about Brexit there's an awful lot of talk about budgets clearly and meeting the Scottish Government it's got to meet that budget gap and it was pushed through it are there other things about what we want to achieve coming through that so are we adapting to demographics are we adapting to climate are we adapting to technology or is it just those negative drivers that are reactive I suppose I'm asking that maybe Keenan Brown I think that Elaine is indicating she'd like to come in on that one I've got with that I'm Elaine Lorimer I'm the chief executive of Revenue Scotland which is Scotland's national tax authority we are also quite a young organisation we're in our eighth operating year so I think there's a lot that we can we can pull from here in terms of positive opportunity for reform we're an organisation that's wholly digital 99% of our tax returns come in digitally so we haven't had the legacy systems that we've had to work of so I think there is real opportunity here using the latest technology to really drive improvements and quality in the delivery of public services but back to the point about collaboration in order to do that really powerfully we need to be able to share data across public service we need to be able to have systems that talk to each other across the public service and I think there's also real opportunity around automation of processes bringing in AI to deliver efficiency but also improve the quality on your point about are we responding to the demographics I think there's also a point that we need to remember too because there's still a significant part of our society who are not digitally capable or enabled so the other thing we need to remember too is when we're delivering public services is how do we try and bring those citizens into our services and can we create opportunity for them to have support in accessing services so in our organisation like many organisations we've got an enhanced support policy so if you are not able to access our services digitally you can still phone up at the end of the phone and you can still be guided through using our services so I think digital is really paramount to the future of public services in Scotland but I think it's got to be done in a really citizen-centred way where you're engaging with the citizens who are using your services to be able to design services that they are able to access I think that's very useful if there's a book carry to come in next and then I'm going to Douglas and we'll take it from there. Just on aspects of positive change I guess so the Scottish Funding Council is a big spending body we have £2 billion a year to spend in colleges and universities on learning, teaching and research but we're a very small organisation so we've got about 230 people so running costs of about £8.7 million it's about 0.43% of our spend is how much it costs to administer it but what was really positive in terms of change was being asked to lead a national review on how do you make education sustainable how do you think about reforms and we came up with a range of recommendations including better direction from Government about what they actually wanted from the sector you can't really think about reform without a kind of very strong sense of where you're taking that, what the intention is and we had a range of other recommendations really encouraging Government to think about how you invest in infrastructure and as we were going through this review process it was very clear that we couldn't expect to reform a sector if we weren't reforming ourselves so we have spent a lot of time thinking about as a small organisation how do we transform in terms of systems and people when I joined in 2019 it was an organisation that had not invested in its ICT in a decade you cannot do public service reform without underpinning infrastructure investment and data, we are hugely data rich but analytically poor across I would say a number of organisations unlocking that evidence and that data has been part of our transformation journey and bringing new people in because innovation in public bodies isn't we often think about innovation in terms of shiny boxes and things but it's actually people doing things in smarter and better ways so I would for us it's been really positive to have the opportunity to look at reform in a more fundamental way but to challenge ourselves about being an agent of change in enabling the environment that the colleges and universities can transform within and that's funding, it's systems it's people it's looking and challenging the short termism that inevitably comes with annual budgets and trying to work through a different set of planning assumptions for the future Douglas I'll come to you now and then it'll be Stuart and Kerry Thanks John, I was just going to ask a question about automation and data one of the aims of the Scottish Government is to take the head count figure back to pre Covid levels and some of that will be through automation better use the data, some of it will be sharing services but I'm trying from a lot of the submissions we've seen we've seen the head count going up so obviously the wrong way so the question I have is do you have the resources required to make that changes to actually reduce the head count going forward You're aiming that at anybody? No but I think Gary was a bit to come in on that Yeah I think that's a really good question to pose and the reason behind that is the delivery body group, I think there's maybe 23 of us, small organisations we kicked off a feasibility review probably nine months ago now and you know that identified some key areas for shared service and collaboration around digital, procurement around HR but what we found is we're all trying to do it as well as the day job and you know it became really pretty intense and I think if there was an opportunity to ring fence a group of experts from the organisations that could actually come together and that would be their primary focus I think we'd see some really positive movement in that regard rather than doing that as well as your day job because you know the staff just didn't realistically have the capacity and the time to do it so ring fence and some resource for me I think we'd see some major strides in that area Sorry would you see that as almost a central pool that the government could use to put round bodies to try and see how they can change and reform the services? Yeah and then you could cascade the learning perhaps a lot better than it is just now in the evaluation, I do think you need business experts you need some form of expertise those that have got the knowledge and the respect of organisations but maybe a twin approach maybe a bit of both I think we could really see some positive dividends Okay Stuart I'll bring you in as Stuart McQuarrie Yeah thanks very much Let me just pick up the thread on that as well before we go back a little bit There is certainly attention there in relation to coming back to pre Covid pandemic levels for an organisation like ourselves now we are 658 FTEs or not huge but at the same time we've got additional expectations coming over to us as well related to the nature climate crisis so that has had added to our headcount in the last couple of years so there's definitely a dynamic there between ambition and delivery and ambition needs to be considered in the overall resource envelope that we have Having said that we can drive efficiencies through digital as we've heard and that can take us so far and we can do the shared service piece as well that we've been discussing too so there's pushes and pulls in both ways to get to that point It's interesting that the statement also says that yes we go back to pre Covid levels but also there's adjustments within that in order to reflect new service requirements too so there's scope within that to I just want to go back to the drive reform a question I think in some ways this isn't rocket science it's right skills in the right place at the right time vision is really important and shared vision I kind of cast that in the context of leadership an organisational leadership so a shared vision across organisations that are pulling in the same direction for the outcomes that are sought I'll not say much more about the data but absolutely from our perspective access to data and open data is really important I think there's something also about measurement you measure what's important and it's quite striking that all of us will have our corporate plans and we measure in relation to performance against those but again it's certainly from our corporate plans perspective we don't have an indicator in terms of our contribution towards public sector reform so there's a unifying piece in all of that in relation to that element of it I think and that should be reflected in all of the various types of governance that we have for us we share a board as well my last point is I guess there's a sense also that necessity is a mother of invention and we look at the funding challenges that we're faced with all of us and I think there are opportunities within all of that we need to think collectively about how we drive joint working how we drive collaboration through that lens because I don't think there's any other way through it so whilst there are real challenges ahead there are real opportunities and I guess look at what we've been through the Covid pandemic and the transformation that public bodies have gone through in that process there are currently there to where we're looking in terms of the finances so thank you very much thank you I'll bring in Kerry Twyman sorry to keep you waiting so I guess I mean we're the sole executive agency at the table Transport Scotland so ministerially led what's known as a close in agency so we get most of our services and systems and processes from the Scottish Government and in some respects we work very very closely with the rest of the director general unit that we're in net zero that's indistinguishable from other departments in the way that we interact so we're in quite a unique position we're in that and we also have eight subsidiary public bodies of our own so a somewhat unique position so starting on the head count reduction point I mean similar to what a lot of folks have said here obviously we've taken on a lot of new areas active travel, the nationalisation of ScotRail to name but a few so we're working at how do we go back to pre Covid levels what does that look like what makes sense one of the areas that we are looking at very closely is use of consultants which we've always done a lot of so for us it might not be pure head count reduction it might be smarter ways of using less consultants which tends to cost a lot more how do we generate more of our own in-house there's always been a bit of an issue with engineers keeping retaining engineers so that's one of the areas that we're looking at similarly with finance growing our own but really a lot of it is smarter working and a lot of what we're doing with the rest of the DG area is looking at surge capacity a bit like I think was just mentioned there so when you know when there's a huge issue in one area over a couple of months making sure that the rest of us are supporting that and then moving that when necessary and making sure that we're really collaborating and working together in that way and then I guess it's rigid prioritisation I mean we've said that already but that's what we're really focused on and we're doing a big organisational review at the moment which is really linking that prioritisation with resources and budget and I guess linking back into the previous question it's all about outcomes isn't it so a lot of our reform both internally but probably our wider reform that's crossing our public bodies is really looking at the outcomes we're trying to achieve we're very closely linked with all the government's outcomes net zero is obviously the biggie for us in our poverty and public services so just looking at what we and our public bodies are doing we've got Project Neptune which is really looking across the ferry companies looking at the wider journey the public offering there and how we actually make that person centric which I think somebody said Scottish Rail we're doing a lot of work linking ScotRail and Network Rail really thinking about the entire rail journey I think we like to call it rail so how do we get our Network Rail infrastructure colleagues really thinking about what drives the successful journey above the rails and collaborating in that manner we've also got the fair fairs review which again is looking at making the entire public sector transport network more affordable and accessible and then as I say linking all of that with the kind of internal work that we're doing I mean can I ask what you said that you kind of unique your structure for the bodies around the table so is that a structure you would recommend that we should have more of that or is that a structure you would not recommend and we should have less of that oh goodness that's a good question so what I'd like to say is we've got a foot in both camps so I guess in some respects we see we can I was going to say we can pick the best of both worlds but we can we can call on the wider DG family when we need it we can see the reforms that they're doing I think somebody mentioned that Marine Scotland for example in our director general unit is championing a lot of change so we're there at the table seeing that seeing what they're doing but we also have a seat at the Scottish delivery bodies group I go along and represent that so then we hear what the rest of the public bodies are doing so in some sense I think having that wider understanding of both what's going on at the Scottish government at the national level but then also concrete examples in other public bodies is actually helpful so I would recommend it in that sense I'm not sure that it would work for everybody but it does feel like a foot in both camps and to some extent the best of both worlds now when we get we were discussing this earlier commissions from the Scottish government and commissions that are directed at public bodies I probably wouldn't necessarily have such a positive response but it seems to work quite well okay we might come back to that one as well later Keith Brown yeah I just referred a couple of interesting examples for example Brexit the way that impacted on one organisation had to change from platinum down to gold so and also the way that trying to affect public sector reform during a time of constrained budgets so a post-crash 2010 onwards can affect public sector reform but one thing that strikes me is that the prevalence of public sector reform being frustrated or foundering on IT projects not necessarily digitisation but just like so Disclosure Scotland about a decade ago a terrible experience with the IT project Police Scotland sitting with at least eight different legacy systems that they have or the one in the UK with the NHS but £4 billion achieved nothing I just wonder if the organisations around the table perceive themselves to be too small to wrestle with some of the big IT providers to get a grip on the budget and the timescales for big IT projects which are fundamental to public sector reform for example and the police even implementing what Parliament has said in terms of new laws is very difficult with legacy systems they've got. The point that Gary made about getting a smaller group of experts across the piece with experience in some of these projects good and bad be a way to try and overcome that what I perceive to be an imbalance very large IT companies sometimes and quite small organisations trying to deal with them I'll let David come in on that one because I think you're wanting in anyway and David Page and then perhaps one of the smaller other organisations would come in I think perhaps Anthony right I just wanted to answer Douglas's question about resources first the resources are absolutely critical it's the people for the most part that get the job done public sector reform and the requirement to keep the pay bill at the levels they were for an organisation like Police Scotland where we're incredibly people heavy 85% of our budgets people and with obviously the pressures on non-pay which all of us are facing at the moment means that any pay settlements over the next 3, 4, 5 years are going to come from the existing pay bill if we're going to consume our own resources for us we've already reduced Police Scotland's workforce by 3.7% for this year that would mean for this coming year financial year 23-24 if for example we were to pay another 5% payoff which is not on the table at the moment because we're still considering things and that sort of number going forward looking at continually reducing the head count of Police Scotland and that degrades capability one of the key things for public sector reform is if you do make the big changes in your organisations to reduce your costs to improve your service improve jobs ideally and you've created a different cost base you shouldn't then suffer on-going cuts into that place because what you do is to grade capability so we've moved ourselves up to a place of much better capability but we're on a cusp of a curve at the moment which is if we continue to have to absorb our future pay awards within our own organisation Police Scotland's effectively capability will just degrade over a period of time moving to Mr Brown's point I think it's a really really important one we're a big organisation and we're a big organisation even in terms of UK's policing so when we do face off to the major IT suppliers we have got scale they're only interested in money they're only interested in how much can they leverage it and they will use their power and influence to press down on smaller suppliers you're absolutely right if you could and this is one of the reasons we're looking at blue light collaboration at the moment to get bigger from an IT perspective it helps our procurement it helps our bargaining power it helps our data consistency the point that Karen was making about using data and about using it on really good systems if you don't have scale you're at a massive disadvantage when you're negotiating with these private sector suppliers because they will just box you into a corner drag it out and you'll cost a fortune effectively you really do need scale you need consistency maybe setting up something where you could do it as a kind of SLA KPI based central IT service or the kind of nature that Karen was talking about would help a lot of organisations not just IT though but HR shared services procurement lots of things like that there's advantages in scale let's focus on this IT side of things I think what Keith's raised is really important thanks David for your input a smaller organisation one of the newest ones at the table one important point I'll maybe come back to where we've started to give the committee a bit of an insight into that in terms of IT we looked at our CRM system when we came in and we had the choice of SC and HI so we very much went with what's there and looked to leverage that so that we weren't going out and buying new so we've spent quite a bit of time making sure that in terms of the digital journey that we're using already there and improving so that was really helpful for us as a small agency because we clearly couldn't do what Mr Bowne said which is try to leverage against bigger IT companies and really push them to give us a solution that would just cost too much money the other thing colleagues around the table have said is prioritisation so one of the first things we started and I think we are slightly unique in one of the newest agencies in that sense that we started in Covid with 10 staff and we've hired most of our staff virtually so we've been digitally working from day one and a big part of what we did in day one was really getting into partnership working in a big way so we've got multiple ways of partnership working in terms of what we call Team South of Scotland with the councils Visit Scotland and SDS and that's from day one in terms of making sure that we're dealing with the issues of Covid straight away regional economic partnership and other bodies like for the Scotland SDS Historic Environment Scotland and NHS together with us as well as private sector members so public private sector working on a regional plan for 10 years so partnership working's really been at the heart of what we've done because we're small and we need to leverage other organisations and other budgets and other resources to help us do what we need to do in our region NDPBs the Scottish Funding Council we're working with them in joint posts and also in pathfinders and similar with High in Scottish Enterprise and one of the things that works really well during Covid we tried to replicate is that kind of really close working and quick decision making and fleet of foot with other enterprise agencies and that would be something we'd look to try and continue in terms of how we've dealt more recently with public sector reform that were prioritisation or radical prioritisation we knew that we weren't going to achieve resource settlements that were originally planned so last year we went into a real planning phase around the end set and looking to align with that so we immediately looked at having less staff so we were planning to have 175 for about 140 so rather than plug in the staff that we could have had just because we said that's not going to work in terms of reform so we need to make sure that we're right size immediately we've planned to have four hubs and six spokes as officers we've got two hubs and two spokes and we work hybrid and we've done that right from the start so I suppose our approach to public sector reform has been a bit of a joint of partnership working and really pushing that as much as possible but also continually reviewing year and year how do we prioritise what we need to do with the budgets we have alongside our partners okay that's very helpful you're obviously working with a lot of different partners specifically on IT do you not have a problem dealing with the partners like the councils or the NHS which what I suspect have very different IT systems and presumably it's totally smooth between you and Scottish Enterprise and HIE because you're all in the same hem shape so I think the biggest challenge in IT is now cyber trying to deal with that challenge so that's the one that often comes up as the biggest challenge in terms of systems when we come in in Covid we move virtually without hitch so the IT infrastructure and kit that we had worked really really well and you can share data with these other organisations status sharing I think is a fair point it is challenging so we can't automatically but with Scottish Enterprise for example so there was an element of sharing but I would agree with others that it's a problem we need to unlock and also that analytics in the future use the data better okay Chris Kerr you've not been in yet do you want to come in as a relatively smaller organisation, is that fair? probably medium sized although from one of the youngest organisations possibly to one of the oldest so we've been going in one way or another since 1600 or so I just wanted to come in on Mr Brown's point really about IT I think an organisation of our scale and our age we do have some challenges with legacy systems a number of years ago Register of Scotland had a partnership with one of the large IT providers I think it's fair to say that that didn't go brilliantly well in terms of the response the organisation has taken to that we've moved towards a mixed economy so I certainly agree with what's been said about the ability of the public sector to use its scale more widely to interact with these organisations but also one of the things that Register of Scotland have done is we've taken some of that development work in the house very deliberately and there's a couple of things that flow from that so one of the things that it gives you I think is a real amount of flexibility that you don't have when you're engaging with a large provider to think about the changes that the organisation had to make in response to Covid if we weren't doing that with flexible in-house IT support and service and provision that would have been virtually impossible for us to do so that flexibility that comes from that is really important I think there are risks as well I think if you're going to take your IT provision in-house and you're going to develop your own services and you're going to develop your own products I think there's a couple of things that you need to keep in mind about that first is you need a management structure that understands that you can just outsource it to a company and say well they'll deliver on IT you need managers which civil servants maybe traditionally haven't been good at understanding how the technology works and understanding the costs and the risks of the technology and I think you also need to make sure that you're not being siloed for your own IT function for your own products and services how can you collaborate with colleagues across government to make sure that those things are built once and used many times I think is the terminology that's typically used for that once for Scotland rather than having lots of different organisations standing up products and services with lots of the IT infrastructure that enables them really being common should be common across the board but maybe not being so Ok, sticking to the IT theme I think, Leanne was going to come in Thank you We are one of the smallest organisations around the table I think we have currently just under 90 staff we changed, renewed our digital tax system five years into operation at Revenue Scotland and did that on time and in budget does exist but it's hard to find the right people to be able to help you as a leader lead a programme of such importance into your organisation so I do think there is definitely if there is a skill shortage anywhere at the moment I definitely think it's in the digital data space within the public service we're all fishing in the same pool for the same capability so I think there is in thinking about how can we pool that kind of resource better particularly where we see digitalisation and the use of technology to be absolutely a heart at the code of any further transformation of public services Does that suggest there are too many public agencies? I'm not suggesting that at all no, what I'm suggesting is that I think the level of change that I think is probably going to be in the public service in Scotland is so complex if we're going to have digital at the heart of that we need to have systems that can talk to each other most organisations in the public service are creatures of statute and we all have functions under that legislation that we have to perform and so organisations for instance like my own we have very very strict statutory rules around our data and what we can use that data for because it's personal tax and personal taxpayer information but we're really keen for the sort of corporate data we've got around tax that we hold to be able to share that with other organisations for the furtherance of better public policy decision making but our legislation constrains us from able to do that and I don't think we will be unique in that situation so I think there's too many public bodies it's maybe thinking about what do we need to put in place to enable the public bodies that are there to be able to work even closer together and if there are legislative constraints around that I didn't want to take us off too much on a tangent there, it's just that the fact that the IT and the number of bodies struck me now I've got more people this is what happens halfway through the session everyone wants to come in so I'm going to take Stuart and Gary and Cardin first if you can be brief on the IT question and then I'll come to Ross who's been waiting patiently in the background so Stuart McQuarrie first I'll be very brief, I think that Elaine's probably picked up what I was going to say on the IT point yes, there are challenges for us particularly on the IT side given the size that we are I think we would see our future more in shared services on the IT front and we're actively looking to pursue that that's really important but just on the skills thing we've heard from Gary in terms of the head of digital but if you think down organisations to individuals who are actually working or as data analysts and as fusion experts if it's fusion that they have you multiply up the number of individuals that you need to actually run these systems and you have single points of failure in organisations around about that and we are conscious that your individuals that we bring on within the organisation do rotate round other public bodies and I think that's an indication that there is certainly a skill shortage on that side of things OK, Michelle wants to make a quick point on IT and then I'll let the other two in it's just a quick question because I think it's a great thread that Keith Brown's opened we can hear lots of good stuff going on in a shared sense of what needs to be done but I just wanted maybe somebody to answer the question what do you think is the role of government in terms of enabling data harvest and capture within limitations because AI in terms of public sector reform is going to be utterly fundamental so I suppose I just want to get a view from somebody what should be the role in government given the challenges around scale that Keith pointed out with his opening question what was planning so maybe Gary can pick that up or then I'll come to you I'll just touch on just the very briefly FSS when the first came into being they outsourced all their IT none of which could talk to one another disparate systems blah blah we've tried to move it only very recently bringing the skillset in-house and I think there will be real challenges with that one is getting the paying the right money for the right experts that's why we're trying to co-fund with Marine Scotland because it's a single year budget year on year we're only going to move towards fixed term appointments because we don't know with any means or certainty for next year if our budget is going to allow us to invest in these experts in the digital world so to get some longer term investment or support knowing that you can recruit beyond a 9 or 12 months FTA I think that would help things and you could actually build a slightly longer strategic path around what do you really want digital to look like in my organisation or across other organisations Cun, what? As a small organisation doing a lot of digital transformation the big issue for us is smart procurement and unlocking purchasing power and I have to be really honest it's much less about our relationship probably with other public sector quangos and agencies it's actually about our relationship with the sector that we're funding so if we are going to be collecting data from colleges for example it makes a lot of sense for us to be looking at how we invest in student records management systems sorry to be a little bit dull about this in organisations and I think what we have done over a number of years is invest in good procurement so we have joint procurement right across colleges and universities we have invested in GIST which is an organisation that protects on cyber security it looks at the underpinning systems that colleges and universities have for us therefore to start afresh does not make sense it makes sense for us to unlock that purchasing power unlock that procurement and actually help government to invest best is actually in systems that connect and that while they're absolutely right to protect learning and teaching and research the underpinning systems could be jointly done with the funders so that we're actually much smarter about when we collect data it's being already collected and used in the organisations that we're funding in smart ways so I think for government to understand that kind of investment in that infrastructure at the outset is very important but just very briefly we are all fishing in a similar pool for data engineers for example we are paying a premium for data engineers just now and we're probably competing with each other and we're probably competing with government because they can also pay premiums for their staff you asked about are there too many public bodies that could quite go there however there is an issue here about where we are jointly connected so we have a data sharing agreement with Skills Development Scotland we are now funding a lot of apprenticeship programmes we have just arranged how we collect information from colleges and universities together so there is an issue for government about looking at the withers skills delivery landscape review and saying Scottish Funding Council, Skills Development Scotland and SAS the awards agency for students what does that landscape mean how can you really deliver for students for industry and business the kind of skills that we need for the future and I think that that is fertile ground to look at whether a lot of industry agencies work better together and do all the colleges and universities have completed different systems from each other some will so there is an element of commonality and particularly in universities quite a lot of different systems we have given the data a quite good airing so we will leave that unless Ross is continuing with that it is not on IT if you do not mind I have got two questions and hopefully I will be interested to answer them first is strategic planning I would be interested to understand if your organisations are still using the resources that were set out in the resource spending review this time last year for your planning over the next couple of years or given the substantive changes that happened between the RSR and setting the budget for the current financial year are you working on other assumptions than those that were contained in the RSR and the second is going back to Douglas's point on headcount but coming at it from a different perspective are any of you exploring different ways of working such as the four day or reduced working week to reflect the fact that by no means is this speaking for all unions but some unions have indicated an understanding that in the current financial context it will be incredibly hard for pay offers to keep up with inflation but they would be interested in other potential benefits for their staff around work life balance such as the four day working week right who would like to say something on any of that Gary cover off the four day working week I'm interested in your submission to you specifically said you need 370 people but you're going to work with 300 which I thought was quite an interesting approach so if you could comment on what Ross has said. So the four day working week there is a there's a small number of organisations that have put in a note of interest and the government are sort of coordinating that and my CEO is really keen in getting involved in that you know the health and wellbeing if it's around a four day working week as well as the impact on the environment as well as actually if you look at some of the studies Icelandic one and there's a couple others that I've had a look at that actually overwhelmingly suggest a four day working week for performance and productivity you know can quite excel so we're really quite excited and keen to get involved we have set an initial date of the first of October to kick off in that bit of work to do because food standards albeit quite a small organisation that you know there's some that are operational there's others that are scientists so maybe not all of the organisation can get involved in it because you know we're working with business operators etc etc and generate income so there's still a bit of work to be done but we're really hopefully committed to doing that for these benefits What was the second part around RSR? We are still working on the original RSR, the three-year one so we have not changed our budget build for next year it's a it's a bonus contention for me personally around this sort of single year on your budget, I touched on it earlier because I really find it's almost trying to do some long-term strategic planning with one hand behind, tie behind your back so I would prefer if we could get some form of guarantee even if it is around digital or other areas but we are still working to original Anything Anthony Day? We are touching on strategic planning so we have opted from the RSR in the sense of looking at inflationary pressures and other pressures and trying to update our budget accordingly so I touched on that initially earlier about prioritising or radically prioritising in terms of what we need for the future against what we might be given so we have done a bit of that fully agree with Gary the one year I think I've been in the public sector since 2006 in the private sector before that and I think I've had one year where it's been multi-year and that was really helpful so I think that is a wee bit of a challenge but I don't think it stops you and it shouldn't constrain you can still do plans but of course the validity of those plans become much harder to prove in terms of the four-day working week similar to Gary probably in a similar trajectory might be even slightly closer in terms of considering that and looking at the real big thing is that balance between right to disconnect and therefore the link to productivity by disconnecting for longer it's a real challenge just externally how that is perceived but I think the studies show the health and wellbeing benefits and it is something we are really exploring in a similar group to Gary Stuart McQuarray Just on the first of the questions I think yes, that's the foundation the RSR is the foundation in which we are looking forward but and there's always a but associated with it we have new legislative provisions coming online as you'll know we feel that the other dynamic I think probably worth sharing here is that we feel very supported by Scottish Government in terms of that forward planning so in fact we've got a submission due at the end of this week just on future programmes so it feels like we're starting quite a bit earlier this year but that's helpful for us and we've been through a process just around about drop the fare and delay in support of all of that so on the on the second question we have moved 35 hour week we're not part of the same pilot here in terms of the four day week we've got a watching brief on that at the moment but we're due to review the efficiencies that we've received through the 35 hour week and by all accounts it's been good for wellbeing of our staff and Kerry Twyman again probably where we're slightly different because we're locked very closely into the wider Scottish Government budgeting so we are using our resource and spending review plans as our underlying base but what the Scottish Government is doing is a strategic approach to budgeting it's called, which is a quarterly exercise where we effectively take those original RSR plans and they're updated based on the kind of live picture which for Transport Scotland especially is absolutely vital because we are I think more exposed to inflation, there was some work done than any other part of the Scottish Government because of the nature of our contractual contractuals things across the transport network so that is helpful in a sense I think that there's a starting point but it's a live process to keep it up to date it's linked to what I was saying earlier about the prioritisation so constantly revisiting what are the priorities where do we potentially need to rethink seek efficiencies maybe go a bit slower on some things in order to ensure that the absolute critical work is going ahead I think it's probably fair to say that our work is linked very closely into the capital again the inflationary pressure everything there so we're making sure that those are hand in hand and as colleagues have said we are pretty much over the next week or two kicking off the 2024-25 budget process which is when we'll understand the allocations because obviously we're working to what were the original RSR allocations those are probably likely to change so we won't really understand the 24-25 picture until we see those allocations and start having those discussions but I think it's heartening to see that that budget work is happening sooner than I can recall over the last few years absolutely understand the frustrations with the single year budgeting I worked in finance for many years I could go into the fact that this is all to do with the guidance and the way budgets are set by treasury but for us it's actually about working within the system that we're faced with so what we try to do is flex as much as possible with those discussions with stakeholders we can't give them cast iron guaranteed budgets over the next few years but we really look at what are the priority areas to what extent can we give the next closest thing so a lot of that sort of working on the head count question probably a little bit easier in some senses for us we're part of SG main so we're bound by pay policy so we can't offer the pilots that have been discussed around the four-day working week per se but what we are doing is the flexibility that hybrid gives us we are using to maximum effect so we're looking at the ways people work what flexibility can we offer the extent to which people can compress hours and work for what fits them best while also looking at the organisation given for us resilience is a really big issue we absolutely need to make sure that there's people on the ground and also ministerial cover so we're possibly in a slightly different space but working through all of that thank you very much Liz Smith Can I come back to the question about data sharing because four of you have been very upfront about saying that that potential is very considerable if we get it right but you have flagged up about cyber security you've flagged up about the right kind of employment you've flagged up about confidentiality can I ask are there any other potential barriers to this and secondly are they surmountable Would you like to aim that at anyone? I just want to know if it can work that's the real because obviously you are saying most of you that the potential in this is very considerable there's Elaine Lawrence coming in I've got to make this work so we already are able to share some of our data our legislation permits it with other tax administrations for example so it is possible provided you have the technology that can speak to each other I'm a non-technical person so I'm going to use that sort of language but you need to have the technology able to speak to each other and be secure and then you have to have it wrapped around with a legal framework so that's why I made the point about legislation because we would like to be in a position to be able to share our data in a secure way with other parts of the public service but we can't because our legislation doesn't allow us we are piloting in very early stages of piloting a project with three local authorities using the digital economy act piece of UK legislation that we are affected by and that allows us to in a very small way begin to explore sharing data across those sorts of organisational boundaries but it's for very specific very defined purposes so I think looking at the barriers that legislation presents is a really important point I think the other thing too is around security so we have to make sure that we have systems which are secure and that we have people who operate those systems and manage those systems in a way that gives assurance to the public that's back to my capability point again and then the last thing sorry I would say is I think when we're thinking about sharing data it sounds and feels massive so I think it's about looking at it thematically or across systems or across sector so it's not it's about thinking about what data do we actually want to bring together here what would be useful across organisational and institutional boundaries to share and look at it that way I think Chris Kerr maybe are you going to come in as well? Yes I was I think I agree with what Elaine said I think there are four basic herrings for me, Elaine's covered I think three of them so security, technical and legal the fourth one I think and I will also caveat that I'm not an expert in this subject but the fourth one I think is probably around data standards I think both clarification of what standards should apply and then adoption of those standards appropriate adoption I think if you look at address data for example lots of organisations around the table will hold addresses many of us I'm sure will do so in slightly different formats that will make comparison or sharing of that data difficult there is a standard for address data numbers UPRNs so some of the answers are out there but I think it's about eliting on which standard agreement on that standard and then adoption of that standard for the various data sets that we're dealing with Liz do you want to come back in? No I'm just really interested because reading the room I think the area for potential change is very considerable but obviously there are quite a lot of difficulties in the way and it's just trying to work our way as to how we might address that on the ground One small addition so while we can talk about legal, cyber, technical data sharing and all the rest and that is incredibly important the bit that really matters is understanding how to analyse that data and what it means so we can share as much data as we can but actually I feel that we have the expertise to understand what is going on behind that data because we know the sectors and there is a big issue here about just how we have the expertise to interpret what it means and so that we are using the evidence in smart ways so it's just an additional layer to all the technicalities that need to go on you need to have people who are expert in knowing what that data is telling you Just ask very quickly is there a dearth of people with these right skills or is it because the competition is so wide that everybody is trying to access these people I think it's a number of things I was genuinely surprised at how hard it was to mine our data when I came into the organisation that meant that when we were working with sister organisations like SDS it became much harder for us to actually, if we hadn't invested in our systems to unlock that for others so I think it's a bit of all of that but I still come back to the sense that when we have invested in the systems when we unlock the data we still, as I said we're data rich but actually for us it's about having the expertise to use that data and unlock it for decision makers for policy makers and to have sufficient time in headroom to actually say what is that telling us because we'll not get proper public service reform unless we have an evidence base that we all understand what it's telling us and we can really use it it's about democratising the data so that others can actually share it and interpret it in an effective way Right, there's more wanting to come in Liz now Elaine wants to say something on that Agree, with Carmen in terms of what she was saying so in my organisation I have a small team of analysts who are expert in our data but I realise now it's not just my analytical team we need to be expert in our data actually my tax professionals need to be expert in our data so this is becoming an increasingly important skill for a sort of core skill within our organisation so I think when we're thinking about organisational capability in the future this understanding of data being able to read data and understand what it means and interpret it is something that's a core skill that most civil servants certainly in my organisation will need to have David Page, you want to come in this as well? Thanks, convener just as an example of some co-operation that's going on across the public sector at the moment principally in the justice sector the digital evidence sharing project is a huge project which effectively involves Police Scotland the Crown, the courts and if you're looking at public sector reform it's an incredible piece of work because effectively it's where we get evidence Police Scotland secures evidence that we can digitally capture the evidence then pass it through the entire system to court and if you look at the amount of work that goes on and cost that goes on if you like the analog way of doing it as in we seize things and we take them away you may not get them back for months and months and we have to store them and we have to present them and go to them for a court that desk project which is a collaborative project initially led by the Government now led by us will have a huge positive effect on the justice sector in Scotland and as far as I'm aware it's a big project in the UK and that's sharing really sensitive data that's critically important to the people on all sides of that kind of court system so that's a really positive piece of work that's been going on for a good number of years a quick it's a different angle on all of this I think the whole it's helpful to think of data also in terms of landscape particularly artificial intelligence in the sense that the sort of scenario that we've heard where you've got experts that sit down are familiar with the data interrogate it, understand it and are able to articulate it that is changing rapidly really quickly so in our world we would have put field scientists out they would have counted birds or habitats or species or whatever now it's done from satellites it's done from field imagery the skills are changing so you don't need the individual to identify the puffin you need the individual to understand what the artificial intelligence is telling you and be able to critique whether or not the change that you're seeing is different back to the question where some of the barriers are I think it's that shift organisationally from how the data is interrogated and back to making good decisions about what needs to be done OK, we've given that a bit of an airing Michael Marra David Page, you mentioned earlier about a blue light review and I suppose one of the things I've seen in the press in recent days has been the reaction of the Metropolitan Police to the rise and tide of mental health problems it's kind of going back to my point about external factors and adjusting public services and their response has been a thing to say that they're not going to attend is that something that you think we might see in Scotland a similar response? No, we have a different duty in the police service of Scotland we have a duty of care for and wellbeing so our role and remit is quite different to English and Wales forces so that won't happen having said that the burden the mental health issues placed on Police Scotland and it could run straight back to the resourcing issue if our resourcing is squeezed and again the chief constable has mentioned this a good number of times effectively the thin line the thin blue line becomes thinner so there is absolutely no work going on to step away in the line in the way that the Met have come out and said that they will do that so it's not a conscious decision for us it may be an unconscious decision in the sense of we may not have the resources so there's no intent to step away but whether we can be there all the time now Is it on the same pressures? Huge pressures, yes the pressures are the same in England and Wales they're choosing to step away we won't choose to step away but we may not have the resources to go there Keith Brown, you want to go back in? That's okay, that's all right I just to say the reason for raising it in the first place was really to do with project management that can swamp smaller organisations but the things that have been drawn out are quite interesting so the data thing which has been mentioned by lots of people that seems to put an obligation on organisations to ensure interoperability really at the very start also I think there's a change in culture GDPR and data protection I think they're widely perceived now to have a tutoring and effect on data transfer and data sharing so that might suggest a big change there one is the data, one is the project management one is the more mundane thing about shared services however it's strike and going back to David's previous point and how we work our way through it I, to be perfectly frank had ministerial responsibility for four of the organisations around here I don't think it will happen unless it's mandated I think somebody's going to have to say you're going to have to have a group that can look at this and the cyber security thing which is contrary to data management it's hugely important now to apply that consistently and last thing just to say and it's really just an observation that if we don't join up the dots in a way that suits us for the data that we need AI can do this can do it right now so AI if we're not part of it will just supersede any Chinese walls that we have between collections of data if that makes sense so we'd be able to get ahead of the game but I don't see it to be honest with the way that current public bodies will look quite rightly after their interests I think it goes back to David's point unless there's a perceived benefit that both can see at the very start it won't happen unless mandated in my view That kind of brings in a wider question that was along lines I was thinking something I wanted to go back to which was what David had said about if the police hadn't been forced from the centre they would not have merged with each other so I was going to ask you perhaps with my tongue a little bit in my cheek what organisations you think you could merge with you should take over or do any of you think you should be de-merged into two bits instead of one I might ask Anthony Day that cos he's the newest organisation and also can I just say we've got approximately 15 minutes left if there's areas that people feel we have not touched on so far that you feel we should have we have spent quite a lot of time getting up within organisations what should be coming from the centre this whole question is in my mind as to how much does the Government say it's got to happen and how much is it all up to yourselves to change things That's a bit of space in there Anyone particularly on Keith's point anyone would like to respond to that Probably since you asked that I don't think we could talk about merging or de-merging The specific one for you is trying to reform and maybe simplify the whole system and we've just made it more complicated by creating yourselves How do we get that balance right between having more organisations which are more local and focused and all that kind of thing and yet how driven more reform from the centre That's a really good question and I suppose some of the stuff I touched on at the start in terms of really radical partnership working I think the data sharing is crucial I think a mandate for that and really kind of forcing it to happen it would be really important as well I think from sort of enterprise perspective the reason we were created and the stuff we're doing in terms of place in terms of reality it has got its place in terms of making sure that you look locally and deliver locally while trying to feed into the kind of wider system being able to share taking care of the south of Scotland but being able to take part with Scottish funding council or SDS and kind of more national agencies is really important so that does again bring in the data sharing aspect so how do you share data and analyse that data and therefore take joint projects forward To how many organisations we have as long as they're sharing data I think it doesn't matter as long as they're working effectively together so data sharing will be part of that but it will only be one part of it you know people working well together as another part of it so you know you talk about the AI I think some of the colleagues around the table and Ms Brown said they'll take over I think we do we do need to use technology and the AI is part of that we need to use that really well so I don't necessarily think it's about the amount of people or agencies there is it's about how we work and how we utilise the tools around that so whether that's data or other people it's just working really radically together to get the solutions we need for Scotland David Page, can you be a national organisation and also be local? I think it does matter about the proliferation of NDBBs and everything else sorry to disagree but if you want public sector reforms it's got to be about reducing your cost space any time let alone in times of a really difficult time to deliver better outcomes and to provide really good jobs for people because you have to provide really good jobs for people otherwise people aren't going to want to work in them so it's about the service delivery at the point of contact and that can be delivered through a variety of different means and then you've got a cost in the centre of delivering it so your IT systems your HR systems, your procurement systems for the most part all of us do the same stuff in big areas of our business but we duplicate it how many IT directors are there around the room how many finance directors are there around the room you don't need that many what you do need is the uniqueness of the service delivery outcomes at the front end so I think you need a bit of a radical rethink about how effectively can you deliver public services you don't need a proliferation of lots of organisations with lots of hierarchical structures and chief execs and FDs and the rest of it you do it in certain areas but I do think you need to have a real think about reducing cost space, focusing on delivery at the front end and money is finite especially in the current times so use it better OK, thought provoking again I've got three folk now Karen and Kerry so I think in Scotland we've been really smart in keeping a funding body that looks coherently at tertiary education colleges, universities and research and innovation in a particular place and that's not replicated in other parts of the UK although I think we need to take a leaf out of some other places so the Welsh Government is looking at a more integrated approach to education and skills research and innovation in Scotland we have a massive opportunity in the Government having asked James Withers to do a review of the skills delivery landscape and I think it will be incredibly disappointing if something more radical doesn't come out of that and I think it is about cost base I think it's also about capability I think some missions when we are set up are eternal so I think I can't envisage a situation where you wouldn't want a big funding body to look at the financial sustainability and viability of the organisations that we are funding on behalf of students of employers and for the public purse but I think while some missions are eternal I think Government and broader interests have a right to say some of our interests have now shifted so we do have a crisis of sorts in how we look at skills in the future now and into the future we do have a funding, public funding crisis in the sense that we are under pressure to deliver more with less and we have really big issues around how we support learners and students and at the minute and as I mentioned these bodies before between ourselves, Skills Development Scotland and SAS we should be looking at a more cohesive way of looking at skills delivery and student support into the future so I see massive opportunities if we want to do something more radical here OK, we're getting some bigger ideas now I think Kelly Twyman I was going to go back to simplicity so again I think I'm in the school of we probably do need less public bodies I think it's going back to that fundamental question what's best for the people of Scotland and I think at the moment the landscape is quite cluttered and it can be confusing for people that are accessing services so I mentioned some of the reform work that we have under way but we're looking at for example do we need three ferry bodies we've just created Scottish rail holdings which Scott rail goes into in the Caledonian sleeper as of next week when it comes into public ownership we'll go into that body as well so trying to keep things as simple and minimal as possible and I think there's a lot of historical here I think that's what you were saying Karen for some of these there's a historical body there it's absolutely needed we wouldn't necessarily touch it although we may look at what it delivers and what it covers we really need to ask the question does this need a completely separate body with its own as we've said corporate services with its own board or is there something more clever that we can do couldn't we have bodies merging but for example keep different divisions names something like that so people can differentiate I do think we need to be careful if we are going to be doing this sort of reform not to dilute and lose individual voices and I think this is the point about place making sure that whatever is set up there is a voice for the particular place or the particular service and I think the final thing is it's probably fair to say we've not always been good at this in the past I think probably Police Scotland is one of the successes but even there there was a lot of learning so I think the point is if we are going down this road and we absolutely need to go down this road we need to make sure that we draw on best practice past experience and we actually resource the work properly with people that understand it and can deliver and what we don't want is something where we do a reform piece and we start with three bodies and end up with five which has happened I certainly agree with that I'm going to have to ask people to be brief because we're beginning to run out of time Anthony Be brief, convener I've both just to clarify from David's point but Kerry's kind of touched on it a wee bit I think place is really important when South of Scotland enterprises come into being it hasn't cost more money so I think that's really important so bigger isn't always better so I think the place aspect's got a really a really important point so I think you just want to make that point Okay, thanks Elaine Lorimer, you wanted to say something can I also ask you though you've twice mentioned things about the legislation kind of required you to do certain things so I just wonder do we need legislation in this space to help organisations work together or whatever better Do two thoughts on that first one is what I was going to say which I think is probably linked to answering your question is there is another way as well which is giving public bodies powers to be able to delegate some of their functions to other public bodies rather than crashing two organisations together or indeed setting up duplicate units within organisations so for example Revenue Scotland we were given the power by Parliament when we were created to be able to delegate some of our functions to SIPA and to ROS we don't need to do as much with ROS now because technology has enabled us to be able to do that work that ROS used to do for us but SIPA still provides us with a load of services that are essential to our development and delivery of landfill tax so there what we're doing is we're using expertise in another organisation to help us do our work in terms of the legislation it's a particular issue for us and I do wonder whether it is the same for others whereby we cause so many of our tax-related processes are enshrined in legislation in to enable us to be able to be more efficient to bring the best that we can bring in terms of technology to those we would need change to our to our founding legislation so there is a need here for me perhaps for this committee or parliament to recognise that we possibly need a legislative vehicle that would enable organisations like ourselves to be able to bring forward change which is boringly administrative but would actually unlock efficiency OK that's a useful point we might take forward now we are definitely close to time but the final point Michelle is not coming in on that I'm going to let Douglas make a final point and then I've got Gary and Stuart to be the final contributor for me David's point is key about the whole point of reform is about reducing the cost and reducing duplication because we've got organisations probably round the table with the HR director finance director, IT director so the key question is organisations do you feel to reduce your head count and voluntarily put people into a a central pool or is that something that has got to be mandated because I still don't know what the answer is from listening to today OK that might be opening up even another debating area but Gary yourself My final point would I think that the last question you asked convener is actually fundamentally what this whole reform should be looking at the 32 local authorities it should be looking at the public delivery bodies it should be looking at health boards and saying right legislation aside what really radical structural reform can we can we do over the next 5 to 10 years and there would be massive efficiencies made and transformational change OK that's optimistic Stuart McCorrie I guess just to reflect that we've got experience in terms of measures back in 2010 the dear commission for Scotland measures with the SNH I don't want to end on a down note here convener but targets for us are to 2030 in terms of halting the loss of biodiversity now if we are pulled into an awful lot of noise around about public sector reform landscape that does take our eye off the prize in terms of the outcomes that we're looking to secure so it's really important to keep that in the mix I think that's a fair point and it's always whenever we look at local government that's one of the arguments against reforming is that everybody then focuses on the reform rather than the services so that is actually quite a good point to finish on so can I thank everyone for attending today's discussion we'll be continuing our evidence taking in the Scottish Government's public service reform programme in the coming weeks if any of you have thoughts or you want to expand on something you've said or just send in any kind of comments we're very open to that we'll be, I'm sure using some of the things you've said today to speak to question other witnesses as we go forward so that concludes the public part of today's meeting the next item on our agenda will be discussed in private is consideration of our work programme and we now move into a private session