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I go back to the social justice portfolio and, in particular, the two benefits that the convener identified: adult disability payment, the figure for which is £100 million lower than you anticipated, and child disability payment, the figure for which is £70 million more than you anticipated. I think that you said that you would follow up on that point when you write to the committee.

Is the relationship between those benefits affected by the ways in which they are promoted? In 2023, there was a big push in relation to them in billboard, radio and television advertising. Is there a causal link between the promotional work that you do and the take-up of those benefits?

Will you also look into the breakdown of child disability payment between payments in relation to neurodiversity and payments in relation to other disabilities? It may well be that the change is an effect of the child and adolescent mental health services waiting list going down, as there are more diagnoses in one column as a result of people being put forward. I am interested in knowing whether the change is a result of catching up on delays in waiting lists or whether it is a structural trend in the Scottish budget, particularly in relation to child disability payment. It would be helpful if you would undertake to look into that.

In relation to the social security programme, there have been £11.3 million of savings, which you identify as being

“driven by staff cost savings.”

It is not clear whether that has happened through reductions in posts or some other mechanism. Have you managed to ascertain what drove that?

We discussed the money that is being held back in the local government portfolio and that is being rolled forward in the health portfolio. Through your conversations with local government and health boards, you will be aware that, this year, there is a real in-year problem in relation to integration joint boards, with some not making the cost savings that they anticipated, others potentially having to look at reserves and others scratching their heads in disbelief as to how they will roll the money forward into next year. Is there anything that you can do in year to look at the specific health boards, such as those in Aberdeenshire and Edinburgh, that seem to be grappling with a real issue in relation to their IJB liabilities?

Okay—fine. One concern on that issue is that it would be quite easy to close the stable door after the horse has bolted, so it is probably one of those areas that the Government, through its strategy, should be more aware of.

Let us turn to national insurance. Cabinet secretary, you are on record as criticising the UK Government for giving you only a Barnettised sum in relation to employer national insurance contributions. Do you accept that your stated public policy of having a larger public sector with a heavier wage bill is the root cause of the fact that Labour’s jobs tax is now having a disproportionately negative effect on the Scottish public finances?

But you would concede that you also have more senior civil servants now and that the number has grown significantly in the past two years.

I did not write down the numbers that you mentioned in talking about the Treasury figures and your estimate, but you said that approximately 40 per cent of the ENICs liabilities will have to be met from within portfolios. How achievable is that, and what sorts of measures will the departments take to meet those costs?

A criticism of the budget and of the Government’s approach and strategy is that we are hearing a lot of warm words—we heard a lot of warm words yesterday about the summit—but we are not seeing hard numbers. I question the scale of the ambition around public sector pay and public sector reform. Audit Scotland referred to your concept of “rightsizing” the workforce, which is something that you talk about often. However, as I suspect would be the case in the private sector, for that to be meaningful and to deliver best value, you will have to put numbers to it. In percentage terms, how much smaller do you anticipate the public sector workforce being in future years? In monetary terms, how much are you targeting to save?

Good morning, cabinet secretary. I want to start my questions by looking at tax. It has been confirmed that there will be no change to income tax rates in the budget, although it will freeze the upper rate thresholds, which is effectively a tax rise for many Scots. Why, at this point in time, has the Government decided not to raise tax rates, which, to a greater or lesser extent, has been your policy in recent budgets?

Do you consider that a more complex system has higher compliance costs and that those are passed on to businesses and individual taxpayers?

In the past, HMRC has expressed concern in relation to your policy and whether people are trying to find legitimate ways to reduce their tax bill, including individuals incorporating. The Chartered Institute of Taxation’s Scottish technical committee has said that the problem could become more acute as a result of the national insurance increases that have been levied on employers in the recent UK budget, which could lead to false self-employment and employers trying to get people off their books or out of PAYE, which could result in more people incorporating. In those circumstances, the Scottish Government loses that tax revenue. How concerned are you that the combination of the national insurance increase and your legacy tax policies could result in the Government losing revenues through personal incorporation, for example?

You referred to the sum of £30 million for the invest to save fund. Do you have a target for the savings that you hope that that will bring in? Is it a factor of five or something like that?