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There is a feeling that we could have planned ahead better, which leads me on to a further source of confusion—there is a lot of that in this evidence session, I have to tell you.

We have an excellent performance framework, but a link to the budget is missing. Other countries link the two. What other countries do it the way that Scotland does it? Why is it done in that way, rather than by linking the budget to the performance framework?

I am sorry—I am not asking you to look at the issue from Scotland’s point of view. I am asking about what happens in other countries that you deal with; I know that you have not had a direct link to Scotland.

You have actually led me very neatly on to my next question by talking about what data is included. Brian Whittle stated that we had a bigger cost during Covid because of our particular health challenges. Is that correct? Has Scotland had to pay more during Covid because of our particular health challenges? Has it cost us more, financially, than other countries because of Scotland’s health challenges?

Your point that what goes into a budget never comes out of it again is a really interesting one. In other words, once it is tied in, it is baked into future spending so that the money is never lost. Speaking anecdotally, local authorities will spend money at the end of a financial term in order to get rid of it, so that they do not lose it out of the budget. We have forward spending reviews, but you are saying that we could help to tackle those issues by having previous spending reviews to look at how the money was spent and whether that gave us value for money. Is that what you are saying? I am putting it in very simplistic terms.

Do the spending reviews look back?

I have listened to all the questions and answers, which has given me a very splattered picture of where we are. We have a spending review that is not actually a spending review—it is a forward plan—but we are not looking back to see whether we have spent the money wisely. You will have to bear with me, because I am trying to piece all this together as I go along.

In response to Murdo Fraser’s questions, you talked about the fiscal consolidating that was done in 2008. During Covid, we spent money regardless—it was just paid for—but lessons were learned from the 2008 crisis. I know that this is a big ask, but if we take the war in Ukraine and the energy situation that that created out of the picture, could the current cost of living crisis, which has been exacerbated, have been predicted from applying the lessons of 2008 to the massive spend during Covid, when economies stopped working? It is a wee bit like putting a dam in water—once you lift the dam, the water flushes out. Should we have known what the effects would be? Could we have better predicted the cost of living crisis, given the spending that we racked up during Covid?

That is hugely interesting. Thank you very much.

Exactly. [Laughter.] One of the things that Álfrún Tryggvadóttir, the lead of spending review and machinery of government at the OECD, spoke about was the link between the spending review and the budget. Do you recognise that there is a problem there? Is that issue on your radar?

As I said, I will jump around. I will raise an issue that John Mason mentioned. You spoke about the Covid recovery strategy being mainstreamed. The link between the spending review and how you look back at previous spend is one of the issues that we considered in the previous evidence session. The point was made that, once something goes into a budget, it becomes stuck; it stays there for ever. As the spending continues over the years, the thing that you did at that particular time for a particular reason stays in place. Our current spending review method is not to look back and ask whether that spending is still relevant. That was emphasised in your response to Murdo Fraser when you mentioned that the Covid recovery strategy funding is now becoming part of mainstream funding.

You might have answered this in your earlier response to Brian Whittle, but is there an ability to look back at something that was included in the budget, say, five or 10 years ago? I am sorry—I am rambling; please bear with me. Local authorities quite often get to the end of the financial year and still have, say, half a million quid to spend, which they try to get rid of so that they do not lose that money in the coming budget. Does the Government use a mechanism currently in which there are incentives—Álfrún Tryggvadóttir used the word “incentives”—so that budgets are not spent in that way and the money is redeployed in a more sensible way? I am sorry if that was convoluted.

I have a question in relation to the cost of Covid to the Scottish budget and the preparedness for another pandemic. Brian Whittle made the point that we have bigger challenges because of our distinct health challenges, which our previous witness did not agree with. I am sorry if I am jumping around, but I am picking up pieces. We had previous evidence about PPE. Do you still have the funding available for that 12-week rolling stock? When we took the evidence, it was very much in my mind that, if we have a stockpile of PPE, it will go out of date, so it will be a waste. However, NHS Scotland reassured us that it had a rolling contract. Is that under threat due to the budgetary pressures that you face?

I will make two final quick points. Jackie Baillie talked about economic inactivity, which this committee has looked at. It came out in an evidence session that a definite cohort was simply not going to go back into employment, on the basis of lifestyle or pension provision. After we took that evidence, I started asking people in my peer and age groups, “Why did you retire now, when you are in your mid or early 50s?”. Although it is anecdotal, I am hearing that, if employers were far more amenable to part-time work, a lot of those economically inactive people, who are more than capable of going back into the workforce, would do so on a different basis. I have been given evidence of a big organisation advertising 240 jobs, only one of which was part time. The Government might want to look at that, in terms of relationships with industry and whether it can change the way that it works. That is purely a comment.