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One of the reasons why participation and engagement are so crucial is that they help us to better understand budget priorities as we look ahead. We heard from the earlier panel today about the importance of long-term prioritising so that people understood what was coming and could plan effectively for beyond the annual cycle instead of using three months to set the project up, six months to do the project, and then three months to scrabble around and find money for the next year.

How can equalities allow us to get at some of the issues in that planning and strategic work? Do we need to take more seriously the significant asks from local government, the third sector and elsewhere around understanding the core costs that are very much part of sustaining the work that local government and the third sector do to deliver services across various ministers’ remits, and not only yours?

I thank the witnesses for what they have told us so far. I want to explore some of the progress and barriers a little bit more. I would like to ask this of all of you, but I heard what the convener had to say about time, so I will focus on Paul Bradley’s response. You spoke about the restrictions and the barriers around long-term funding, and about the bureaucracy around funding applications and so on. In a previous life—I am going back to the Scottish compact framework days of the 2000s—I was well aware of all that.

I will link those challenges and barriers to something on which we can all agree we have not made enough progress: prevention. Ten years on from the Christie commission, we are still not seeing the necessary level of investment in prevention, never mind the sustaining of current services or full cost recovery. What do you and your members need so that we can ensure that we can have preventative spend as well as sustaining current services using the full cost recovery model that is so important?

That is fine. I am happy to hand over to Pam Duncan-Glancy.

Thank you for taking the time to go through the procedure, convener. It is my first time at stage 2.

Carers fulfil an essential role throughout Scotland and the pandemic has placed them under unprecedented strain. That is why I warmly welcomed the bill last week. It will help more than 90,000 carers this winter by doubling the carers allowance payment. As there is no Green member on the committee, I wanted to place on record the Scottish Green Party’s support for the increase and I am grateful to the convener for giving me the chance to do that.

However, doubling the payment is only part of what we need to do to ensure that the social security system recognises and values the work that carers do. As with universal credit and other benefits, we have our work cut out for us. I welcome the willingness of the Scottish Government and others to work together to do better.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have had useful meetings with the Scottish Government about support for carers, including young carers. My meeting this week with the Minister for Social Security and Local Government was particularly helpful. Those conversations have been wide ranging, and I thank the minister for his time, for the information and assurances that he has given and for the discussions that we will continue to have.

On that basis, I am content that there are other avenues to explore and by which we can take action on the issues that my probing amendments sought to address. Therefore, I will not press amendment 3 or move any of the other amendments in my name.

I move amendment 3.

I would like to withdraw amendment 3.

Not moved.

Not moved.

I am happy to defer to the minister on that. We have had several discussions about the information that the amendments seek to require. Some of it is already available, and further reporting and information mechanisms will be made publicly available as consultation and discussions carry on. The minister might want to say more.

Thank you, minister, for outlining the Government’s position. You mentioned engagement with regulators. Are you aware of any concerns that either the regulators or other stakeholders in Scotland have about the bill’s provisions?

Good morning, cabinet secretary. I thank you and the rest of the panel for being at the meeting.

Cabinet secretary, you spoke earlier about some of the challenges in using metrics such as the number of jobs that are created to track the success of the economy or as criteria for eligibility for financial support. You also spoke about some of the constraints in our ability to build resilience because of restrictions in relation to procurement law, for example. On the programme for government’s commitment on conditionality to drive the changes that we need to see in respect of net zero, fair work and wellbeing, what are the barriers to ensuring that the pace of change in those areas is fast enough? Are we doing enough to ensure that we get the outcomes that we hope conditionality will deliver?