 Good morning and welcome to the 20th meeting of the Covid-19 recovery committee in 2022. The committee has agreed to focus its pre-budget scrutiny on how the Scottish Government plans to fund its Covid recovery strategy and the on-going costs associated with the pandemic as set out in the Covid-19 strategic framework. I'd like to welcome our witnesses to the meeting this morning, who are here to speak to us about the Covid recovery strategy, and could I invite witnesses to introduce themselves as we go around the table? We do have two witnesses remote, but if I could start with you yourself, Sarah. Sarah Waters, I'm the director of membership and resources with COSLA. Thank you. Lucas. I'm Lucas Hart. I'm the policy and engagement lead of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance in Scotland. My name is Rob Gowens and I'm the policy and public affairs manager at the Health and Social Care Alliance. If joining us virtually, and I have to apologise if I mispronounce your name, but it's Alfred Trivedorte from OECD and also Mary Spouridge from Fraser of Allander Institute. Mary, would you like to introduce yourself? Hi, so I'm Professor Mary Spouridge and I'm the director of the Fraser of Allander Institute at Strathlade University. Thank you, and Alfred. Yes, good morning, everyone. My name is Alfred Trivedorte, perfectly pronounced, and I come from OECD where I'm leading the work on spending reviews. Thank you very much, Alfred and Mary. If you'd like to respond to an issue being discussed this morning, if you'd like to type R in your chat box, and we'll try and bring you in at the earliest opportunity. We will facilitate this discussion this morning by inviting each member to speak to our witnesses, and they will have approximately 15 minutes each to ask questions about specific issues. We need to finish the discussion by 11.30am so that members can attend chamber business later this morning. We should be okay for time this morning. However, I apologise in advance if time runs on too much. I may have to interrupt members or witnesses in the interests of brevity. I'll now turn to questions. If I may begin by asking the first question. Obviously, we're facing very challenging times, and what extent could current and future inflationary pressures impact on the potential effectiveness and outcome set out by the Covid recovery strategy? I think that we started off by talking about a cost of living crisis, but I think that the rhetoric has quite helpfully changed within, for example, programme for government. We're now talking about cost crisis, and I think that that's actually more reflective, certainly, of local government's position and the position of our suppliers and partner providers, because not only is demand for services increasing because of all the crises that are out there, so in social care, business support, all sorts of areas that local government touches, but actually the cost of providing services because of inflationary pressures is huge. Now, we've heard a lot in the press this week about energy costs, so absolutely focused on households and businesses, totally understand, but actually local government and health providers and social care providers are huge users of energy, too, so I think that the inflationary pressures are going to bear out in that sphere. I think that a very live issue obviously is pay inflation for COSLA, and for Scottish Government, but we've got to realise that there is a mismatch between what we are able to offer our workforce and what's happening in the external context, and I think that what we're going to see is that ripple right through the whole supply chain of local government, and I suppose another pressure, as well as inflation, that has come to pass today, is the announcement, which is obviously welcome because it does support people, but the increase in the real living wage, which will put even more pressure, especially in local government and some of their partner providers in social care, where actually we've got some of the lowest paid people in the workforce. So I think that calling it a cost crisis is helpful because it reflects all the pressures that are around at the moment. Thank you very much. It's interesting. Did anyone else want to come in on that question? Rob? It's undoubtedly a big concern, and it's an enormous concern to our members at the moment, both in terms of third sector organisations and concerns about energy bills and to write things, but also to our individual members, disabled people, people living with long-term conditions and unpaid carers who would be disproportionately hit by the cost crisis and were also disproportionately affected by both the Covid pandemic and issues with the recovery. So it's also concerns around pressures on inflation, making things like social security payments less valuable. There's a recovery strategy. There's a lot of priority to tackling poverty and spending on health and social care, but that would undoubtedly be made harder by rising inflation and living costs. Yes, it's, I think, an additional challenge. Just when we need it. Absolutely. If I can just bring in Alfred, I know that you're online at the moment from the OECD. I have to say I'm really impressed with the Covid-19 recovery dashboard that's online. I could have spent hours on it and I refer anyone to have a look at it because it is really fascinating. Can I ask how this was developed and why were the indicators chosen? Thank you. Yes, I hope you can all hear me well. So thank you for this question. I just want to mention that I was not directly involved in developing the dashboard personally, but of course I've been in touch with colleagues who were involved in doing this and I'd be happy to get back to you with any more detailed answers relating to the dashboard. But just to briefly mention how it was developed, it was built at the request of, of course, OECD ministers to keep track of national efforts to build back better, as they call it, I mean to spend better in the future. And the development of this dashboard was led by an advisory group and representatives of national statistical offices, which is of course very important to have them included in this work because they are the one who know the indicators very well. And those of course from OECD countries alongside policy experts and representatives of several OECD committees as well. So it was very kind of like it was a broad consensus around the dashboard, both internally at OECD and then of course of member countries as well. And the indicators, they were specifically selected to a process in which different ministers from across all OECD countries were consulted. So this was a very important step as well in this work. And just to touch a bit in more detail about this in line with OECD's multidimensional approach to measuring progress, the dashboard features, of course, 20 outcome indicators across sport dimensions. And this is, you know, you look at what matters for people, of course, the economies of financial indicators, and then of course green. I mean, that's the biggest topic that OECD has been focusing on, these green indicators as well. And just to take a bit deeper into this, in this period the indicators are not aggregated or ranked according to their importance. I mean, we just look at it as equally important, all of them. Instead, they are presented alongside each other to convey a comprehensive picture of how countries are doing in the context of recovery. So this is just a broad picture, but I'd be happy to get back to you with any more detail that you need on this and consult in more detail with my colleagues at the OECD. No, thank you, Elfin. I think it's really important, especially as we, from going back to the last question, all the challenges that we face at the moment. And I think there was never any guidebook that, when the pandemic hit on how to do things correctly for each country. So I think the comparisons between the different nations at the moment see who's doing things well and who isn't doing things well is really important for us to monitor. So that's a fascinating website. And if you could get back to me about any information, that would be appreciated. If I could move on to our ambition in recovery of moving towards a wellbeing economy. I note, Lucas, that you have concerns that the current spending allocations will not be sufficient to achieving a meaningful redesign towards a wellbeing economy. Do you think that the Scottish Government can balance the competing pressures of the cost of living crisis and Covid recovery and also achieve a wellbeing economy? I think the important thing about that question is that I don't think those pressures are competing. I think they're just pretty much the different sides of a resided coin, if you want to say that. So what I quite thought was interesting about this committee and about the Covid recovery strategy is that it says it's not a recovery just to get back to where we wanted to be before, but it's actually about how can we use that process to rectify some of the inequalities that we had seen before, that the Covid pandemic has been exacerbating, such as the fact that a lot of the most important jobs in our economy from care work to teachers to supermarket workers are actually one of some of the lowest paid. And I think the Covid pandemic is essentially kind of exacerbating exactly the same inequalities to see it again in the sense that it's again the lowest paid people who are going to be hit the hardest by the rising energy prices. So basically I think the job of the government is that a lot of these crisis have the same root cause, at least the impact of these crisis have the same root cause in the terms of how inequalities kind of designed into our economic system. And so I think, and the well-being economy is very much about addressing that in a way that also takes into account planetary boundaries and that makes sure that we are staying within the environmental limits that we have. So I think they're not really competing pressures, but they're really kind of the same challenge but in slightly different guides, so to speak. In terms of the resource spending review, I think obviously it's a kind of a broad overarching framework so it hasn't got a lot of detail, but I think and in terms of a well-being economy it's probably worth saying that it's a lot, a well-being economy is a lot more than just where you spend your money. So it's also about the process how you develop budgets, it's a process of how you design the rules of the economic system. But I think on balance there's quite a lot of things if you want to address the current inequalities, where the Scottish government might struggle within the funding envelope they've set out because it needs a kind of shift to more preventative spending, but that means in the interim period, which means we can save a lot of money down the line where our economy is currently fading. You spend a lot of money on topping up wages if we had an economy with fair wages, we wouldn't have to do that. So yeah, but in the interim when you shift over you do need to spend on the root causes, but you're also still tackling some of the other things, so that needs more spending. I think a well-being economy is going to need some more collective provisioning of services of fundamental needs that people need to have a good life, which the energy crisis I think is showing very well. And so I guess I recognise the challenge for the Scottish government that a lot of the powers are reserved to Westminster, but I am a bit surprised that this kind of funding limitations are so readily accepted if there are powers the Scottish government has in terms of for example devolved power with local taxes, where I think there's possibilities to think a bit out of the box and maybe challenge the idea that this is the money we have and we don't have any any more. And there are reports from like IPPR on local taxes reform Scotland. I think it's called recently published a report on why we need tax reform in Scotland in terms of the ageing population and and the crisis we're facing. So I guess yeah, so I guess my question is why there isn't more thinking maybe it's happening behind the scenes, but maybe why there isn't more thinking about using the powers that the Scottish government has a bit more creatively to make sure that we've got the funds to build a well-being economy. Okay thank you that's interesting. I'm going to just bring in Mairead, I think you wanted to come in. Yeah, sorry, convener. Just to add to the thoughts on the first question that you asked about the inflationary environment and how significant that is, I mean we can see how much has changed obviously since the Covid recovery strategy was published last year. We've had the end set and then the resource spending review, which to be honest, you know the resource spending review didn't really deal with the fact there was going to be lots of inflationary pressure on public sector pay and set out that the bill would stay static in a period of managing down the public sector workforce in Scotland and it's difficult to see perhaps where those people are going to come from to keep that bill constant even at that point in time and now obviously we've seen a subsequent number of pay deals which are sort of shooting past that. I think that that inflationary pressure particularly on wages but also costs as Sarah set out for service providers is one of the biggest issues that the Scottish Government are facing and I agree with the last look with saying that these different challenges are interlinked but I think it's just interesting to see how much even some of the challenges organisations and service providers and individuals through Covid are kind of paled by the current challenges that we're seeing around the cost crisis and what we're going to go into this winter. So this inflationary challenge is huge and there's so much uncertainty right now. We've obviously got the UK fiscal event tomorrow. The Scottish Government have committed to a further budget review within two weeks of that happening. We have no idea how much detail we're going to get tomorrow that we would normally expect alongside the fiscal event. I suspect not as much as any of us would like and there's huge implications for the Scottish budget if the UK Government decides to fundamentally change devolved taxes in England. That could mean there's a boost coming to the Scottish budget envelope if stamp duty or income tax is significantly cut. We don't know how much detail we're going to get about spending plans and obviously that could have consequences. So there's not only huge pressure, there's also huge uncertainty and because it's not going to be a proper budget tomorrow, I worry about the amount of detail we're actually going to have to be able to give more certainty to both the Scottish Government and local government, for example, after tomorrow's event. Thank you, Mary. I think you raised some very valid points there. Can I bring in Alffrin? Thank you. I just really wanted to because I mean just to emphasise in an international context, I mean Scotland is definitely not alone in this crisis and countries are I mean most countries are struggling with measures that were brought into the budget during Covid and I mean to just to they need the tools to be able to analyse if this is something that benefits citizens in the long and medium run because when you bring something of course into the budget this is what we see in OECD countries. It's difficult to keep track and difficult to mark them as one-off measures and sometimes they just stick within the budget. I mean this is a common problem in countries and what we see in countries such as Canada and Norway and this is what I wanted to just briefly touch up on. I mean as I understand it the Scottish spending review process is quite different from the traditional kind of OECD definition of spending reviews. I mean you it's more in Scotland it's similar to the UK it's the budget setting process that when you just like you are preparing the budget and you call it a spending review of course. So in countries and I wanted to mention that maybe what is needed in Scotland is a tool to analyse existing expenditure and how you can balance this with you know the needs of the citizen while being budgeting as well. I mean how you can look at what is needed in the future and what is not needed within the budget and this is what essentially makes spending reviews the traditional OECD definition of spending reviews that we have seen being specifically important at times of crisis when countries can do a thorough analysis of existing spending through the spending review process and just look into what is it that benefits countries and well-being of citizens by doing this analysis and I think maybe you should look into having some sort of a process in place where you can do this. Specifically now we see countries I mean we just talked to Norway the other day they are just looking at all the budget measures that came into the budget during Covid and doing kind of the spending review or reviewing if this is something that should be beneficial in the long run and medium run for the citizens of Norway the same has happened in Canada. So I just really wanted to throw this in during this discussion because this of course kind of is an important aspect when you look at if you want to implement well-being you of course have to focus on green you have to I mean many countries are focusing on equality and gender as well so this is one important tool to have in place. Thank you Alfred and I'm in agreement with that I'm going to move on to Meadow. Thank you thank you community and good morning to the panel. I'd like to ask a question around the issue of how we rebuild public services and maybe I could start by directing it to Sarah Waters from COSLA. The Covid recovery strategy from the Scottish Government talks about accelerating inclusive person-centred public services and you know I think post Covid perhaps one of the opportunities is to look at how we design public services for example moving to a lot more services being provided online which we realise is much easier to do than we thought previously but at the same time the resource spending review was proposing substantial increases in spending on health social care and on social security but real terms cuts across the board in other areas of public spending so I suppose my question is how do we square this circle how do we move towards this more inclusive person-centred delivery of public services at the same time as we're seeing reductions in the budget. Thank you for that simple question. Yeah it's really tricky I mean it goes back to what Lucas was saying you know we almost need you know you need well as councils have had in the past transformation funds for example to move you from A to B so that you can actually put in the the kind of dedicated time and work required to get to a better place and you know councils have been doing that for the last 10 15 years out of necessity but I think already we're seeing and obviously COSLA is involved in the Covid recovery board chaired by the Deputy First Minister and at the last board a couple of weeks ago we had an insurance report that was produced by COSLA Scottish Government and Improvement Service and there were some really good examples of the ways in which councils and their partners are tackling that person-centred approach. I mean councils always take a person-centred approach whether it's as intensive as it needs to be but it is always you know it is always aimed at people within communities but places like Glasgow City Council are doing a great piece of work the no wrong door approach working very intensively with families case managers sort of approach that was developed during Covid but they're extending that now and kind of rolling it out across other service areas. Dundee City Council equally doing some great work with DWP but I think we need to now take that into the space of the community planning improvement board because I think you quite rightly point out that the resource spending review well Covid recovery strategy sets out that we want to be more people person-centred. The resource spending review was quite interesting because it didn't really talk about local government transformation and reform what it did say that it talked about other bits of the public sector being reformed or taking a reform approach and that local government could take a complementary approach which was we found that quite kind of strange wording and I don't know whether it's because they thought well actually local government has been involved in a huge amount of transformation you know for example if you look at the workforce back in 2006 local government it was up about 240,000 full-time equivalents it's now down to just over 210 full-time equivalents so we've taken around 15% of the workforce out now albeit it went up slightly during Covid but a lot of that was because of Scottish Government policy commitments around things like school councillors and other you know policies that drive staff because at the end of the day policies need people you know you can't deliver policies without them but I think we're we're there's a bit of a I think there's a bit of catch-up for other parts of the public sector in terms of the reform agenda and I think well certainly COSLA has been pushing for the local governance review to be exactly that looking at what's happening in the whole local governance landscape as opposed to this focus on what are councils doing to transform because at the end of the day I think as public health pointed out in their submission you know the health service is only one small part of the whole the whole system that improves people's health and it's councils that deal with the social determinants of health and do it on a daily basis and I think it would be probably interesting for members of the community to see the community to see the assurance report that's been put together by for Covid recovery purposes because I think it would it would show some of the examples that are being are being taken forward within local government with partners. Thanks very much I'm sure other members of the panel want to come in too on this but I've got two specific follow-ups in relation to what you've said and you talked about the reduction in staff numbers overall in local government do you have any sense of has overall demand now compared to pre Covid gone up gone down or stayed the same and secondly you mentioned that there was need for other parts of the public sector to catch up in terms of reform who are you talking about okay so in terms of demand like I mean just interesting you're talking about the OEC dashboard I mean we had a there was a local government dashboard developed with the Scottish government at the beginning of Covid and it's still running that you know that dashboard it's looking at things like staff absence crisis grants rent arrears delayed discharge and actually yes demand is increasing and a lot of corporate management teams within local authorities have continued to monitor that dashboard because it actually gives them some really valuable information that they use and join up so yes demand has increased it's increased in all sorts of different areas from housing to demand from businesses for business support we're seeing that through business gateway services in terms of other parts of the public sector yeah I think there are challenges in particular with health services and I mean we now health services now account for 44 percent of of Scottish government's budget it used to be a kind of you know the third a third a third local government health and other public services local governments now down about 28 percent and I think it's just looking at that you know we absolutely are there to support people getting out of hospital keeping them out of hospital in the first place but it's just getting more and more challenging and I think the period that we're going into with restructuring within health and social care is is going to be even more challenging to get that that kind of join up and reform that I think we we need I'm not I don't want you to think I'm picking on health it's just one example because it's probably the the touch point it's the daily touch point for local government in terms of other public public services thank you very much I don't have any other members of the panel want to contribute Rob yeah I think the in terms of how to sort of create sort of inclusive person-centered public services there's a few things the first it's recommended is is sort of co-production and co-production with people who are who are sort of using the services to to sort of shape how they're how they're delivered you mentioned sort of sort of digital example and that's an example where it can allow some services to to sort of take place in a different way but it's also can include some people but also exclude others so there's a a kind of a piece of work that's done around a sort of a human rights based approach to to sort of digital particularly digital health and social care but the this sort of lessons that can across around sort of taking a sort of digital choice approach and and sort of how this can be delivered in terms of demand for services in particular sort of third sector services many of members report sort of an increased sort of demand sort of during sort of immediately sort of during the the sort of the pandemic but has has continued and now sort of anticipating a sort of a sort of increasing demand with the with the sort of cost crisis but around half of them have also seen a reduction in their in their sort of turnover and an income and there's really concerned around around sort of short-term funding arrangements and sort of future ability to to meet the the sort of demand for services so it's sort of I think it's kind of considering sort of uh the sort of third sectors by the mix and um yeah and I think we recommend um the sort of uh kind of production and human rights based approaches in in sort of designing public services okay thank you i think mary spoilage wants to come in thank you um yeah just on the um the public service reform point that was in the resource spending review um I think many of us who've been around um Scottish public life for a long time that a lot of this sounds quite familiar to you know what was put out in in the christie commission and um that I think it would be important for me to see um you know where these things have been tried before and perhaps didn't work um you know there's been a focus on preventative spends apparently you know in policy making for a number of years so um and um you know the drive for efficiency savings and an investment in preventative spend at the same time can be quite difficult as one of the contributors already pointed out generally we have to invest in order to reap the rewards of preventative spending in future years so quite often obviously government looks towards efficiency savings and investing in preventative spending times where budgets are tight um I think that that is going to be quite challenging so as you said um in your remarks myrdo um where are these efficiency savings going to come from in order for you know the budget to sort of square up um I was we were sort of conscious when we were looking at the health and social care line and the resource spending review it's obviously a very big line we don't have the detail underneath it but it does include significant reform of the care service um and so that kind of implied actually quite a site a tight settlement for health despite all of the huge hugely increasing demand on it um and despite the inflationary pressures it it actually faces thank you so you want to come back in I can up on a point that mary made I think you know local government has been involved in a lot of kind of work in the past pilots etc on shared services and I think that was done quite a long time ago now if you think about you know Covid as the kind of watershed moment and the advancements in in digital technology and home working and remote working and I think sometimes with the shared service agenda so if we're looking at back office um you know it actually I think some of the concerns that perhaps people like our trade unions might have had in the past actually you know aren't the same now because you know people can work in you know from anywhere so you could actually have a situation where you know councils deliver services on behalf of other councils and you maybe have a lead council model so you know I don't think local governments unwilling to go back and revisit some of those because I think we're just in a really different time shared services in the past was you know you took everything from one council you put it in another one you stopped people being able to work there and then you increased employment in another area it doesn't have to work like that anymore and I think we need to to accept that and perhaps revisit some of these things I really want to focus on how robust this Covid strategy is for a fairer future so Audit Scotland this morning have brought out a report on child poverty and they basically are saying that Holyroed needs to be far better at long-term planning to address the problems including preventing more children from falling into poverty in the first place and we're seeing that that the levels of poverty child poverty are rising and then you've got the cost of living pressures that we've talked about so how robust is this document and the strategy? Is this the right strategy to be working to give them all these factors? Mary, could I perhaps start with you? Well I haven't seen the detail of the Audit Scotland report but I note that a number of contributors to your inquiry in terms of the evidence including the wellbeing economy alliance we're talking about in measures to deal with the consequences of economic injustice that exists and looking to sort of top up people's incomes who perhaps aren't able to earn enough to live on it is one of those issues so whether it's the right sort of ambitions I mean it is difficult to sort of dispute a lot of the ambitions that are in the Covid recovery strategy for creating a fairer, wealthier, more equal society and more good green jobs. The question is I suppose is how we achieve that in the current very tight fiscal settlement and the Government has to set out clearly where it's going to prioritise its funding in order to make the biggest impact. Thinking about the way that the sorts of policies the Government can introduce to avoid children falling into poverty in the first place, a lot of this can be about supporting people into employment, parents into employment, ensuring that young people have positive destinations so that when they become parents they're likely to be in a positive place in an employment and obviously one of the areas that has been cut in the emergency budget review is around employability support and given the tight labour market we're in the high levels of an activity we have in our economy in Scotland compared to other parts of the UK and the numbers of people we know in theory would want to have a job if they were able to be supported into it. That is a bit of a concern. I think overall here there's a bit of an issue with the Government understanding really what would give it the biggest bang for its buck in terms of achieving the outcomes it wants to see and we sort of harp on about this a lot but that comes back to understanding the evidence about what works have been prepared to evaluate the policies that you're implementing and you know stop things which aren't effective. Thank you. Can I also say that we're coming to that point in terms of a deputy First Minister announced last week, as a result of the pay awards and the money that the Government's put in the cuts but most councils will not have budgeted for the levels that they have put in and assumed so what's the knock-on effect there and another issue that's come up in the evidence is that the third sector, which we rely on heavily across Scotland, what's the impact on the third sector in terms of their resources being cut and I assume that they are struggling to meet the kidney pay awards that the local authorities are now meeting? Yeah, as was on the pay award, whilst the intervention from Scottish Government for the 140 million and the money for the consolidation bit at the bottom end is welcome but there's still a gap, there's still a one and a half percent gap which equates to about 140 million and you're absolutely right that has not been budgeted for and I think like Mr Swinney said in parliament the same decisions are being faced at a local level and I think it comes back to something that Lucas said that we're still on this one-year treadmill of find the cuts, find the savings and that does not sit well with what Audit Scotland are highlighting in terms of long-term planning because you're absolutely right it has that ripple effect right through every part of local government and its communities and its suppliers and its service users and I think that's really unfortunate. I think just to go back to your first question you were talking about how robust is the strategy? I think the strategy was written at a very particular time and I think what it did is it focused kind of hearts and minds on what was absolutely critical coming out of Covid. I think what we've seen now though is there's kind of priority creep you know so we're back into you know so the RSR came out slightly different set of priorities national performance framework a lot of priorities end set a different set of priorities oh child poverty plans really important again so what we're seeing is you know a number of priorities from other strategic contexts is now becoming important again and I think within the Scottish leaders forum when they got together and I think it's important that you know the leaders kind of leave their hats from their their organisations at the door and focus on on leadership and issues that are important poverty was the thing that was just screaming out at health leaders at local government leaders and I think if we could you know take pick the the bits that focus on poverty from each of these strategies and refresh it in the current context I think that's perhaps what's needed because at the last recovery board there was there was a few people saying is this is it still about Covid recovery or is it actually about just delivering services in this new context which just seems to be full of quite different types of crises that brings me into my final question convener and perhaps perhaps others might want to come in on that and it is this question about strategy after strategy after strategy I think to myself these days if you were asking youngsters what they want to do they'll want to go and write strategies when they're older for the Scottish government because there's cupboards for them and what do they actually achieve but Shelter Scotland wrote to the First Minister two weeks ago putting forward a Scottish house and emergency action plan column for action and just to highlight a couple of the points there over 250,000 people living in poverty are trapped in private rented sector unable to access social housing 130,000 people on housing waiting lists for social homes and you could go on there's horrific the increase in the number up 17% the highest since records began in Dublin since 2014 for children stuck in temporary accommodation and so when I hear about strategies to tackle poverty and strategies for that the next thing I think to myself I'm quite a practical person I think why are we not addressing this you know is there too many strategies and not enough clarity on what is it we have to do to tackle these big issues yeah good question personally as having a job with limited resources and having to read all these strategies I definitely think there's quite a lot of them but I think one of the things I wanted to bring up which I haven't mentioned is that because we're talking about the budget it's all about spending I think there is a lot of things that can be done to tackle the crisis that doesn't necessarily rely on additional spending in a big sense so for example the rent freeze that has just gone in is a classic example because the other side of the coin of the cost crisis obviously that money goes to somewhere you know like somebody is getting that money and in some ways the arising costs are because of supply shortages and some but there's also a big aspect of increasing profits like we see that definitely in the energy sector and then a few other sectors as well including including rent private rented accommodation so I think so what a webbing economy is about is about kind of redesigning these kind of things out of the system so that then you don't need to spend as much money on tackling poverty down the line by topping up wages because they're not there in the first place and some of that is more about the money to facilitate and experiment and enable that kind of redesign like a big example I think that's interesting in Scotland is the community wealth building agenda which had some successes impressed and I think it's an interesting way because it's not about spending loads for money it's about how can we re-route existing spending locally to keep more wealth in the community and prevent it from flowing out but that is not an easy thing to do and I think and in some ways that requires resources to try these things and to do that to do that kind of redesign which I don't think for example are there at the moment and it also features into public sector service reform because in some ways like what community wealth building does is it's asking the NHS to be an anchor institution and look at the the economic impact of its its spending like become a local economic yeah contributing to local economic development which is not something the NHS has traditionally done or seen itself as something that is part of the remit so it's quite a big change um so I think there are like as Mari said it would be really interesting to look at where are the kind of bits where you need the funding to try new things which are actually compared to some of the bigger spending tickets not that much because it's about funding some some people to to put these policies into place um but I'm a bit worried that especially around the community wealth building at the moment that that's not being done that it's a bit like pushed onto local authorities to do without actually backing it up with the resources that that are there or another aspect is like the the review of the national performance framework I think internationally it's it's a very recognised positive bit of of Scotland and the Scottish government's policy but it hasn't got that money to be really participatory and to really that review that the review is really going to be based on people's inputs so that it really reflects what Scottish people want and that's not a big like running a good participatory engagement process across Scotland for the national performance framework which should really be which because it's a hard of policy making should really be a priority it's in the big picture of the spending review it's not a lot of money but even that it's going to be cut okay thank you Mari you wanted to come in just before we finish yeah just on a few different things that were mentioned in terms of are there too many strategies we're on record and saying yes there are too many strategies and quite often they can be fairly high level and and less practical in terms of the the policy actions that should actually be put in place in order to achieve the the very grand and broad and difficult to do disagree with outcomes that we're sort of trying to achieve I think it is notable quite often that the national performance framework is supposed to be driving government activity but it's not often referenced in a lot of the strategy documents or if it is it's quite perfunctory we saw that in the end set for example you know so it there's not a lot of evidence that it is actually driving policy making so first understand look is concerned about the sort of participatory nature of the consultation on the review of the national performance framework my bigger concern is that it's been in place for 15 years and I don't really see it driving decisions and whilst you can see from your contributors that you got a very different definition of what different people think a wellbeing economy means essentially the outcomes that are expressed in our performance framework are trying to do that they're trying to see you don't just want to think about economic outcomes we need to think about lots of different outcomes and that's been in place in Scotland for many years and I don't really see it driving policy making on the private rental point that look is made I mean I wouldn't want to conflate the profits the energy or the gas giants are making at the moment with private landlords you know the issues that there may be based on the evidence of these sorts of interventions in the property market is that this may reduce the supply of private rental properties which is just going to exacerbate the problem for renters and also make it much more rigid market where people are anxious about moving the problem here is the supply of housing both social housing but the private rental sector is an important part of provision of housing for those who aren't able or interested in becoming homeowners and the danger with this sort of intervention in the market is it simply reduces the supply further which will ultimately push up prices for for renters thank you thank you can I move to Jim Fairlie please thank you so much convener thanks I welcome to the committee panel I have to say I've come into public politics very late and I find some of the budget talks and discussions really quite confusing if I'm running my own business I'll look at where my priorities are and say right we need to spend some money there because that's where we have a problem right now politically I can see why that's incredibly difficult for the government because everybody is saying that's my priority now so I struggle to get my head round how the government the strategies that Alex talking about I'm assuming that all of the strategies that are produced are because we need transparency the government needs to be seen to be telling people how this is going to work so how do you take the £1.7 billion cup that has effectively happened to the Scottish budget and then turn that into we're looking at the future how we're going to make this so much better which will take massive investment but we're still going to continue to spend the amount of money that we need to spend on all of these things that everybody's priorities now how do we square that say I want to come to you first sorry no that's okay I think when it comes to budget time obviously cosla does a huge amount of budget lobbying with you know cross-party and I think we're always asked you know well you know if we're going to give local government more money where are you going to take the money from and the resource spending review has set out Scottish government's stall very clearly in terms of the role of local government there's a flatlining of funding until the final year and there's a 100 million increase but you know that's so far down the line and in terms of real terms it just won't make it won't make a real terms difference so I think we could always argue about competing priorities and you're absolutely right if you're running a business you say well you know if that's the resource I've got you either you've either got to make more money or you've got to make changes within your business and I think if there's no more money which is what the the kind of fiscal context looks like right across the UK then we've got to look at doing things differently and I think that this plethora of nationally directed strategies overly directs what has to happen on the ground and I think that's if there's no more money then we've got to look at the way we're doing things and I think it's it comes back to things like community wealth being community wealth being the clue is in the first word it has to be rooted in the community in which it's trying to build wealth and that will look very different in the highlands to it will in Dumfries and Galloway so I think there is a plea I think every year from COSLA to say can you give us more local freedom and flexibility to use the the limited resources we have in a in a different way you know to allow that experimentation locally to allow that that change in approach and the other area that the resource spending review covers is is revenue raising for local government that you know it's it's visitor levy that's back on on the table in terms of revenue raising now whether you agree with it or not it is an option it's used in many many European countries without tourism without tourist batting and eyelid and it's and it's tourism based it's not it's not affecting you know people in in this country who are for example living in poverty it's tourists that pay it but I think the disappointment for local government over the recent years is that we haven't moved into a space to talk about enabling legislation that could look at a range of other things I mean parking levy okay we've got that now it's hardly it's hardly a great one for raising revenue and people are working from home and there's lots of different exceptions in different sectors quite rightly you know in hospital sectors etc so we've got to think creatively but at the moment we're focusing on legislation to allow the visitor levy solely whereas we were saying could we not allow legislation that actually enables local revenue raising in in its broadest sense and then we work up proposals at local level discuss them with Scottish government and then implement so you know if there's no more money we've got to think creatively and flexibly okay can I ask you one more question before we move on to the rest of the panel Murdo's question to you earlier on was about there's an increase in demand in services and you said there's an increase across all sectors why is that increase happening just now is it because people changing their their life patterns that are the what is it that is driving the changes that you're that you're talking about where they are the increase in demand in your services what's driving it I suppose it comes back to the inequalities that were created through both covid and then now in terms of the cost of living crisis so the people that that councils were you know the interventions and the people that councils were working with most intensively before covid that work is even more intensive now because of the situation that those families find themselves I think there are there are lots of different ways that covid has left its mark so it's in terms of health conditions that then require more social care that mental health that you know young people and children young people require business support I think it's in areas that you you wouldn't expect it and local government is the one the kind of safety net in a lot of communities that that is there to deal with it right well that very quick I've got time yeah very quick leads me on to during covid there was a great collaboration and breaking down of red tape bureaucracy and everything else and things got done which is great as far as I'm concerned brilliant is that continuing from local authorities point of view and do the third sector believe that it's continuing in the way that local authorities might think that it's continuing us that yourself against okay so yeah you're absolutely right we the the kind of scrutiny landscape was pretty much suspended overnight but obviously regulators want to come back into the space in which they were in in local authorities I think you had you know the committee structures within councils were were streamlined there were it was it was the absolute essentials if you like during covid but quite rightly we've got back to you know full committee structures with with decision making going through its due process I think there's things we could learn both locally and nationally but actually when you've got a regulator you know coming down on you for for something that is required a national requirement and us and being you know an audit taking place then you've got to you've got to pay attention to that but you know that two-year suspension of that kind of environment did breed creativity and focus on on what needed done kind of comes back to the very first point I made to you how does the government or local authorities say right okay that's where my priorities are but you've got all these other competing things like regulators demands et cetera coming in look as kind of yourself and then Rob on the same question I think it's going to be quite brief because I've only been in my job for a year so I don't I missed a lot of the pandemic but I think for me what springs out of um um Sarah's answer there is is two things so one is that some of these committees and regulators are there for reasons so we can look at suspending them but um I think that you can do that in an emergency but I don't think that's a prudent thing in as a principles a prudent thing not necessary to do although we can always look at to reform that I mean when you look at what happened in Westminster this is some of the COVID spending then I think that's a very good example of of of why we need some of that scrutiny but I think the the more important point is really that um what kind of maybe was different in the pandemic that you have this shared sense of purpose and focus on this is the stuff that's really important and that was very much providing people with the essentials that they need and making sure everybody was um was looked after and so I think there's maybe a bigger point there of trying to bring that because I think what are the other priorities like you've got obviously the climate emergency and the nature emergency and you want to make sure that people have you know are fine like all the other competing priorities is maybe goes back to the first point that I made should be in line with supporting these kind of targets like that's what a webbing economy is about like so I think if there's a lot of presumed competition then it might be worth looking at where the priorities are and why have these priorities changed from the pandemic because I mean you know addressing the inequalities making sure people have enough to live on and and addressing the climate emergency should still be the priorities like that was not just during the pandemic um yeah I believe for them yeah I think in terms of competing priorities um the sort of allowance recommends taking a human rights based approach to budgeting and public finances um so that can set out a sort of a framework to to kind of assess the sort of priorities in terms of sort of advancing people's people's human rights um there's a couple of um particular concepts in terms of that um so that any change in spending must not erode people's human rights um and also that the sort of maximum use of available resources is basically is the government doing all that it can to sort of raise revenues which would include sort of looking at at sort of taxation and and sort of raising as much as they can to um to realise people's human rights um in terms of the uh this of the this of the question about um I suppose sort of kind of Covid changes and it by permanent um there were there were some ones that um uh examples of sort of regulations and and sort of red tape being big lifted during Covid which uh which were welcome and sort of had a sort of positive effect in terms of um sort of the allowance um which is to operate better some of the change around um around sort of social care in terms of who um who people could um to sort of uh sort of pay to um to sort of deliver their their sort of social care um there were some to sort of um equally there were some uh sort of concerning things so for instance um sort of there was a sort of complaints processes being suspended for a period of time um so I think they'll um uh the um the kind of the independent inquiry um sort of chaired by by sort of Lady Paul um hoping we'll sort of reveal some of the lessons in terms of of kind of what sort of some of the things that that sort of worked well um and that can be continued and some of the things that um uh that sort of sort of shouldn't shouldn't be repeated in in sort of future pandemics and and so thanks much thank you very much thank you was being I was being cut out of them thank you good morning to the panel I'm listening to the the conversation this morning I really don't and I'm trying to work out a way how to frame what I want to say here um I know that and I know that some of the some of the these you know buzz phrases you know build back better which which I think we you know post Covid we should be taking that opportunity and a wellbeing economy which again is something I think that you know we should always be be striving for but I think that this this perpetual issue that that seems to it has been exacerbated and highlighted especially during Covid and now during the current cost-loving crisis or cost crisis as you say is that am you you said to yourself say that currently the the NHS budget is now up at 44 percent so the health and social care is up at 44 percent we we have the unhealthiest nation in in Europe and I had a conversation yesterday with the the cabinet secretary for health in the chamber around the fact that people are turning up at services sicker than they were before so that that problem is is going to be exacerbated therefore there's going to be much more of a pool on resource into NHS services that has to come from somewhere and say you highlighted it's good that there is that increasing pressure on on council budget there is an increasing pressure on third sector and perversely by putting pressure on both of those budgets it makes it puts more pressure on the health of the nation does the the way in which the the the government I've brought the spending review forward when we look at that is that in any way looking has it an ability to tackle this perpetual problem of the here and now rather than long-term easy question I'll go I'll go to you see it I think if you look purely at the resource spending review I think local government's perspective would be no because what you're seeing is increases in the areas that are there to treat the sick to deal with the problem to to alleviate poverty so that and I think pretty much every other area is seeing a kind of flat line which you know a flat line is basically a real terms cut so it's there's no other way of of looking at especially now because the resource spending review was published you know before 9.9 percent inflation so I think it was disappointing that you know we had come through Covid recovery we had those clear priorities I think we were focusing on the social determinants of health the things that really you know the upstream stuff that Christy absolutely nailed 10 years ago and yet there's a focus on on on dealing with the problem within the budget now that's not to say that that's not you know without a kind of without some parallel universe where you can see whether or not it would work you've still got to deal with with sick people and poverty but try and put the interventions in place but I think it's it's just thinking about the kind of freedom and flexibility that could be allowed and the trust I think that could be allowed at a local level to get to to think creatively about those problems and I think involving local government partners third sector early in the conversation so that we can absolutely be there thinking about the problems as they exist and not be be dragged along with us with a solution that has already been already been formed I think being part of the the creative solution but it's not going to look the same in every area of Scotland nor should it and I think that's certainly that's the position that local government would advocate if we're going to look at at prevention it will look different and different doesn't always sit comfortably with with national strategies and national policies if I could come to you Rob here I think it's fair to say that during during Covid the third sector was put under extreme pressure I mean there's some of the things that we work with especially around things like addiction services and that kind of those essential services that really augment council services and augment NHS services where are we now in terms of recovery are as a third sector being funded properly I think probably the short answer would be would be no and I think it's this it's still a need to to kind of move away from from sort of short-term funding as I mentioned earlier it's around sort of half of organisations have reported that their their sort of turnover has decreased compared to where it was sort of pre-pandemic and it's it's got a sort of key part to play in whether it's sort of recovery a sort of huge part in terms of prevention and and yeah so I think that's that basically that's the third sector should should be sort of prioritised in terms of funding and budgets. I've got one more question I was going to come to Marnie I was I was interested Marnie you talked about one of the solutions we have is ensuring that there is positive destinations for for our children and you also talked about the green economy and green economy jobs and actually that plays directly into probably the first two questions in terms of you know trying to join up the portfolios here in a drive you know under this banner of wellbeing economy again I have to ask the question just that the the current you know review of the budget does that lend itself to helping to to increase that those green economy jobs throughout in Scotland? Yes it's a great question and again I come back to the wellbeing economy thing I think the different response you show that people have what that means is very much in the eye of the beholder in terms of what the vision for a wellbeing economy actually is but when you're talking about how we I guess grasp the opportunities that will come through decarbonisation of our economy there's a huge challenge with the transition away from oil and gas related employment and economic activity mostly centred around the northeast and moving into what will be a quite different spread of industry geographically and also nature of employment and economic activity it's unlikely to be so high wage and focus in one area it's much more likely to be spread and not low wage but just just not quite the sort of wages we see in the oil and gas sector I think one of the real constraints to us caching in on these opportunities in Scotland is the labour market so that comes back to ensuring that people entering the labour market and perhaps people who are needing to reskill have the opportunities to have the skills that we need to take advantage of these opportunities and so you can't get away from the fact that investment in the skills system is needed to ensure that we have the labour market to grasp those opportunities because that's the constraint here you can talk about the jobs that will be generated by different sorts of investment but if we don't have the labour market to take those opportunities then we just won't so Scotland both needs to decide where it has that comparative advantage to generate those green jobs and how we invest in the skills system so we have the labour market ready to take advantage of it and again as Sarah mentioned you know the sort of investment in the skills system in Scotland is another one of the areas that is flatlining there are no easy decisions here but in terms of long-term investments to ensure that we can have a successful economy and you know and in the end that will generate prosperity for communities across Scotland you know we do need to think about the longer-term investments to generate that kind of benefit. Thanks very much convener and I mean if I could start with the OECD who were questioned by the convener earlier on I'm interested in how other countries are thinking about future pandemics and Covid and are they putting money into it just now given all the other pressures that we've just been talking about so for example we talked to this committee about how much of a store of PPE we should be keeping waiting for the next pandemic and should we be keeping laboratories open functioning mothbalds in preparation for future requirements when we don't need them right now so I just wonder if you could give us any flavour or examples of what other countries are doing in that regard. Of course this is a very interesting question and I mean what is interesting to note now during this crisis situation is how little countries or the OECD or the IMF any international organisation has actually learned about crisis and I think this is kind of the lesson that we I mean when we look at the 2008 financial crisis and then in relation to this crisis it's of course completely different I mean during the last crisis countries went directly into strict fiscal consolidation measures but now it's been you know money has been flowing through the system but what generally what we see in OECD countries is that countries are very much looking into informed spending cuts so that means that they want to make better decision than they did in the last crisis situation and as I mentioned I mean many countries are now looking into scaling up the use of spending reviews so what they want to do is that they want to systematically be able to analyse where it's possible to cut expenditure in an informed manner without doing just across the board spending cuts and doing it in an informed way because of course what also happened during the last crisis which is interesting and good is that I mean what countries did then OECD countries they implemented budgetary tools and they learned kind of right away they did many countries implemented performance budgeting the implemented spending reviews medium term expenditure frameworks and they implemented responses to be able to respond better to the next crisis situation so I mean and this is definitely what we see benefit countries right now and they are as I said they're very much looking into ways to prioritise in a good way making informed spending cuts and I think it's probably a bit too soon to say what exactly the Covid pandemic has taught us I mean we just know that governments are kind of waking up now and we know that I mean if they don't respond soon I mean the situation will be quite bad in I mean I mean next year that a year after it's it's going to be immediate that the budget pressures are they are showing right away so I mean but this is really what we see in OECD countries that they are being much more sensible now than they were in the last in the 2008 crisis and making use of the budget tools that they have in place what and what I find interesting listening to this discussion today is this discussion about for example well-being I mean many countries have been implementing well-being budgeting green budgeting gender budgeting all those kind of conflicting I mean overlapping not conflicting but overlapping measures as well and I mean it's something that looks good for government of course also to to have in place but it's also important if we think about budget of course they should focus on the well-being of citizens naturally and it's important that this is something that is also reflected in the responses to the Covid pandemic so in general this is just what we see making informed spending cuts I would say and and also if you have like you have many countries have implemented performance budgeting what we see as a problem in many countries is that the performance framework is like it's an isolated initiative it's not linked to the budget process what we see as countries for example that are quite advanced in performance budgeting they have this link between you know budget resources allocations and performance indicators and everything countries can make use of those those tools that they have in place okay I mean that that's very helpful if I could just press you just a little bit more on the specifics of Covid and being prepared for another health pandemic I mean you suggest I think overall that countries are being quite sensible and trying to think through what cuts they would make so do you think our most countries kind of protecting practical things like PPE supply laboratory availability all of that kind of thing we'll say yes that they are they are doing that but I mean what countries are also doing and this is of course a controversial matter so of course I mean for example the health sector in general you need to take stock of like you know what like spending has been going up I mean in most spending areas but specifically in health I mean but maybe in other areas you need to think about how how the health sector is performing in relation to the funding that it's been receiving that's just a general thing in most countries so I mean just to take stock of that but I would say yes the quest to the answer to that specific question is yes that you asked that that's great that's very helpful thank you if I could move to the alliance I picked up in your paper that you were very positive about the spending emphasis on health social care social security and that side of things but I mean here and then also the other day at the finance committee I mean we're hearing from COSLA and local government that you know they get what a lot of what they do is more preventative and that people wouldn't need to have social security and some of these other goatee and Ian things if local government was funded better and a had prevented some of these things happening I mean what would your response to that be I think there's I think that it can be it can be both and I don't think it's necessarily that that it's a kind of an either or social security for instance then the best ways that we know to tackle poverty is to increase people's incomes and to reduce costs social security is a way of increasing people's people's incomes for those who need it sort of instance particularly in our sphere for for disabled people and for for unpaid carers I think there's in terms of a kind of that's particularly sort of social care can have a sort of preventive approach in terms of sort of spending on sort of acute acute health right so I think it's it's that yes it's a yes to a preventative approach but it's also sort of that it's sort of about sort of social security health and social care being being priorities has there been sort of essentials for for sort of people's wellbeing I mean just to focus on social security and I don't know if Mary Spouridge might want to come in as well but I mean the Scottish fiscal commission's been kind of warning that if we spend if we're more generous in social security than the rest of the UK is we are going to have to find that extra money from somewhere and that looks like being quite a serious amount of money and that has to be there for trimmed off somewhere else although we'll come to Mr Hart in a minute about raising more money so but you're still comfortable that we should have that focus on social security? Yeah I think there's that particularly where where there is sort of inflation and the sort of cost crisis then it's it is important that that that sort of keeps pace with with living costs because at that then the if that's not done then we've seen from sort of previous kind of reductions in sort of social security spending that that sort of passes on the spending to to sort of health services to homelessness services and so on so so yeah I think it's it is sort of important sort of when costs are are increasing that that sort of social security is adequate okay thanks well maybe I could come to Mary Spouridge on that point because we've been warned to some extent about the the potential costs of social security going forward is that something we should be worried about or can we cope with it? Well it's all a matter of priorities and I think Sarah said in the RSR you know the government sort of did lay bare that I had this is prioritising health spending and social security spending at the expense of other areas of the budget and we shouldn't I suppose lumps social security payments together too much because obviously some of them are about ill health and disability you know some of which obviously would be improved by preventative spend potentially some of which could be improved by specialist employability services for example to ensure people who wish to participate in labour market are able to but others are there to support people who are not able to to work and to ensure that they have a decent standard of living you know the other main choice that the government are making is in order to tackle child poverty is to focus on payments direct to households with children through the Scottish child payment so it is an increasing proportion of the budget that's forecast to become an even bigger proportion of the budget by the end of the forecast horizon at the moment and it's also once it's put in place it's demand driven spending you know the eligibility is set and then you know that that's therefore money that has to be found in year and it may mean that other things you know have to be cut as a result so it's really about the government's priorities but it is becoming an increasing proportion of the budget and some of these costs are quite unknown I think as well it's not just likely to come an increasing portion of the budget it's a bit uncertain because these new approaches to maybe assessing people's eligibility this sort of kinder approach and assessment things like that is only likely to increase take-up and that's not necessarily a bad thing it's just that it is going to mean that they were likely to spend even more on social security okay that's helpful thanks if I could move to mr heart now you've well I thought your report was good and this morning I was interested that you said you were surprised that there was a kind of acceptance of the fixed budget so I'd like to maybe go to that but also in your report it says that we should be doing preventative spending and downstream spending and that's the big challenge that can we do both at the one time and the finance committee certainly has spent quite a lot of time on that but you also refer to the reform Scotland report which I think it's called taxing times why Scotland needs new more and better taxes which I thought was an excellent report so is your main argument that as far as the finance I know it's not just about finances but as far as the finances are concerned we should actually be raising more finances so that we could do both preventative and downstream spending I think generally yeah I think so like my opinion is that as I guess the point of well-being economy ideas make is that some of that preventative spending is maybe going a bit beyond what we said in the sense that it goes across so across different departments so you change the economy you save money in the health sector and how that's going to play out so there are pretend long-term potentials there I think but yeah I struggle to see within that budget how to do that because we can't stop supporting people who you know who have needs because that's what a web economy is about as well and yeah and as I said some of the other investments into community wealth building or also as as Mari said on on housing maybe the issue is not you know the base issues housing supply we need more of that like and I think yeah so fundamentally I'm just struggling to see how that would go within that spending review and I'm as I said I'm surprised I'm not an absolute expert on taxes but it seems to me from the outside that the government is not even asking these questions and we know that counter tax reform is long overdue because it's very regressive um you know we know what scott this government has powers over income tax bands which it hasn't made a lot of use of I think um and so even if you know there might be good reasons that that not being looked at in more detail especially if you're looking at a five-year these are long-term projects it's not like for next year but it's a five-year spending review so I was just yeah I was just surprised that um that that was not there okay thanks very much I haven't got a specific question for you Ms Waters if you wanted to come in feel free but just a final one maybe for Mr Gowans you've mentioned already human rights budgeting which I noticed in your report can you just explain to us in a few words what that actually means I think it's basically um it will be um sort of assessing budgets against um how they realise people's people's human rights and using that as the the sort of the priority so it's it's very similar to um to sort of um some of the sort of the concepts described in terms of wellbeing economy gender budgeting caring economy and part of that that family um and that um it would look to um at least that that there's a kind of minimum of core of people's um human rights and sort of don't fall below that doesn't um that doesn't regress don't go backwards um and that there's there's sort of maximum sort of use of resources to to sort of realise human rights um so some of the things that needs um kind of transparency over what the what sort of budgets are being spent on and how how sort of um they work towards uh sort of progressing people's human rights and and sort of how it's done rather than necessarily where the money's spent which Mr Hart was speaking about earlier I mean because you know I would have thought that our education spending is for human rights our housing spending is for human rights clean water is for human rights so that is that not already happening it's um it's both in terms of uh to sort of um kind of prioritise and the and the sort of the mechanics of it so it's it's sort of examining sort of each of the things and sort of how how that that would have sort of advanced advanced human rights and um and using that as a as a kind of a sort of framework for prioritisation. Okay thanks and Mary Spouridge I think wanted to come back in. I mean obviously the Scottish Government implemented a large amount of changes to the income tax system in Scotland and you know just to point out you know we do have a overall higher tax take in Scotland than compared to rates in the rest of the UK. So and the Scottish Government set out or the SNP set out in the latest manifesto that there would be kind of stability I think in the tax rates for income tax anyway but I would agree that obviously the thorny issue of council tax has never really been dealt with and I don't think we need another review to know what the problems are with council tax it just needs a little um I guess it does need that kind of bravery to tackle that issues head on because I think we're all well aware of the issues with council tax. And just on on human rights budgeting if I may I mean obviously there are a lot of different things that are notionally done to assess the budget or spending on different lots of different aspects whether it's gender or generally equalities and perhaps you know alongside our commitments to our climate change targets for example it was really important that these don't things don't become tokenistic after decisions have been made and I think some of the documents I've seen so far assessing decisions against whether they are in line with the quality duties or human rights budgeting don't really shed a lot of light on you know how these things were really considered when decisions were being made they seem like kind of done after the fact so I think it's really important that these things become a real a real part of the policy making process and not done after the fact is tech box exercises. Okay, thanks very much, thanks convener. Thank you very much. Can I ask of any other members would like to ask any questions? Okay great I'd like to thank all the witnesses for their evidence and giving us their time today I think we can all agree it's very informative and beneficial. If witnesses would like to raise any further evidence with the committee they can do so in writing and the clerks will be happy to liaise with you about how to do that. The committee's next meeting will be on Thursday the 29th of September when we will conclude our pre-budget scrutiny by taking evidence from the chair of the Scottish Governance Standing Committee on Pandemic Preparedness followed by the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Covid Recovery. That concludes the public part of our meeting this morning and I'd like to now move this meeting into private. Thank you.