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Yes.

I do not have a breakdown of the figures, because there are many rape crisis centres around the country. However, I can reassure Pam Gosal that there is increased funding, and there is multi-year funding. The need for more sustainable funding has been the biggest issue that rape crisis centres have raised with me, and we are acting on that.

I reiterate some of the cabinet secretary’s views. Ms Gosal, you mention the word “failure”, along with an increase in reporting. I would have thought that having mechanisms that have increased reporting is some sign of success—it means that women are able to come forward and report, and that they have faith in a system that is more responsive.

There are many elements to the issue of domestic abuse, and we must not, in a bid to apportion blame, forget where the blame actually lies. It lies in deep-rooted misogynistic behaviours, and that is what we need to be looking at. The rise in domestic violence around the world is absolutely appalling, and it is not Governments that are to blame—the blame lies in the misogynistic, abusive behaviour and coercive control that is demonstrated by men. We must remember that.

We know that disabled people face significant structural barriers to employment and that we need to do more to support those individuals to enter and remain in sustainable employment.

With regard to our programme for government commitment and our commitment to halve the disability employment gap, specialist employability support for disabled people is now in place across all 32 local authorities, to ensure that more disabled people and those with long-term conditions can access fair and sustainable work. The cabinet secretary mentioned the no one left behind plan, and we have seen progress with the disabled people’s aspects of that.

In the local employability partnerships, in 2023-24, 27 per cent of participants reported being disabled and 40 per cent reported at least one long-term health condition. By 2024-25, those figures had risen to 33 per cent and 46 per cent, respectively. There has therefore been an improvement in participation, but I accept that there is more to do. I hope that that gives an indication that the trends are showing real progress in reaching and supporting disabled people.

The recommendations that you are referring to relate to the employability case study, which provided detailed recommendations in specific areas. In my letter of 19 January to the committee, I responded to the committee’s pre-budget report and laid out my detailed answer to those specific recommendations. However, I have the opportunity to highlight a few key points from that letter.

First, we now have a national customer charter that has been co-designed with people with lived experience of employability support, and that sets consistent service expectations across all 32 LEPs. Secondly, the refreshed local employability partnership framework has made it clear that those LEPs are required to undertake the design of services with the involvement of people with lived experience, in line with our wider commitment, through employability policy, to embed the Scottish approach to service design.

Finally, our employability strategic plan for 2024 to 2027 sets out our commitment to develop a national evaluation plan and effective ways to ensure that the voice of lived experience informs continuous improvement at national and local levels. As part of that, we have recently commissioned independent research to explore the experiences of people who have accessed services that are funded through the no one left behind fund. That project, which is scheduled to be completed during summer 2026, will help to shape policy on the development and delivery of employability services.

The principle of participation is really important to us. We are just about to head off to an important participatory process—the takeover of Cabinet by disabled people’s organisations—which will build on the previous takeover of Cabinet by children and young people, who were able to directly express their views early enough in a process in order to influence decision making.

I assure you that we keep in mind the aim of securing benefits for communities in everything that we do. Sometimes, that means that we have to decide to realign things so that they fit together better and run more smoothly. I am constantly trying to embed communication, integration and mainstreaming.

As Rob Priestley has said, the restructuring was an internal civil service process. Departments were realigned to ensure that my expectations are realised to the best effect and with the greatest efficiency. As always, that process will be evaluated to ensure that it is having the impact that we want it to have. The ultimate aim is to benefit communities.

I would just like to clarify this. Ms White, are you referring to historical—

No, we are not. We increased the funding for the delivery of our equally safe strategy by £2.4 million, which will bring it up to a total of £21.6 million, subject to the approval of the budget. We recognise the increased need in that area. I confirm that that is part of our commitment to the fairer funding approach. I heard loudly and clearly that people want multiyear funding in order to stabilise their services and their workforce, and all the rest of it.

It is frustrating when we announce uplifts and they are taken away. The uplifts have not had the effect that we would like, because we had an increase in employer national insurance contributions, for example, which is the ultimate frustration.

We currently support 115 projects from 107 organisations that cover every local authority in Scotland.

I just want to highlight a wee example that might help. The child poverty tagging pilot study found that high-impact lines span multiple portfolios, as has been said, and cluster around a small number of primary child poverty drivers, including social security, household income support, income from employment and parental employability, and early learning and childcare. That gives an indication of how you can start to track things across portfolios.

Something else that we should remember about budget tagging is that, although we absolutely want to follow the money, we need to ensure that we prioritise the areas where we can have the biggest impact. I mentioned child poverty, because tackling that is one of the Government’s key drivers, and we need to ensure that we consider the tagging and the evidence in that respect quite deeply and scrutinise it rigorously so that we can have a better outcome and can evidence that outcome in a better way. My concern is that we are asked to budget tag everything, because I think that the effect would be diluted.

I totally understand that frustration. That is why I think that it has been a massive step to have Cabinet takeovers, with the people who are responsible for every portfolio in a room at the same time, given the example of the crossover that you gave about bus services and employability services. As I have said to the committee previously, and as the cabinet secretary has mentioned, part of my equalities role involves ensuring that people come out of their silos and get the best information possible, so that they know the impact of one budget line on another.

Just to help you—I did actually see that bit.