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If the bill is passed, until the systems are in place, will it make it more difficult for the Scottish Government in the short to medium term to cut budgets as it has in the past, because there will be an increased focus on this area?

Finally, on the problem of alcohol misuse, in its submission, SHAAP called for

“a new robust national needs assessment to be carried out”,

followed by

“a full calculation ... to estimate the costs of upscaling provision to meet the currently unmet need”

in relation to alcohol dependence. Do you sense that there is agreement to extend the scope of the bill to cover all people with alcohol-use disorder, as SHAAP has suggested, or would you want to look at that further down the line?

Thank you very much.

Given that we are again talking about preventative spending, it would probably be good to see on what basis it was assessed and whether any progress has been made.

Jumping forward to last autumn, Audit Scotland took up a similar position, in which it said that there is still

“no evidence of large-scale change on the ground”

and that the Government

“does not know what additional funding is required to support reform”.

You have put £30 million in the budget this year for invest to save. Can you give the Auditor General some assurance that you are working towards getting an actual figure that you will work towards to leverage in the reforms that ultimately might meet the initial objectives of the act?

Finally, finally—sorry, convener—you identified the concept of the single authority model in relation to health boards and councils. Is that a lesson that you should roll out through Government more widely, given that you say that it is quite difficult for you as the minister in charge to drive reform? Do you need to consider coherence in relation to the number of public bodies that are out there?

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?

You are patting yourself on the back and saying that you have managed to balance the budget yet again, but what conversation would you have been having with us today if you did not have the £2 billion that your crystal ball correctly said was going to come? You criticised your political opponents. The Scottish Conservatives suggested tax cuts, which you said would lead to public expenditure cuts, but that is not necessarily axiomatic. What conversation would you be having with us today if you had not got that £2 billion?

Good morning. My questions will continue Mr Marra’s line of questioning. The committee has expressed concerns about the Scottish budget’s long-term sustainability, but is the truth not that, this year, all the cards fell in your favour? You got £2 billion more than you would otherwise have got, and therefore you got lucky this year. It was not that your modelling was correct; it was more about the nature of the transfers that you got through the Barnett consequentials.

In the past, we have talked about your efforts to make Government more efficient, to reduce the contingent workforce head count and cost and to reduce the expenditure on the workforce more generally. Shona Robison helpfully responded to my written question about the contingent workforce, and her answer shows that, on 31 March 2022, the contingent workforce across all directorates was 989 and on 30 September 2024 it was 668, which represents a reduction of 321. Over precisely the same period, the number of senior-grade civil servants increased by 500, which is significantly more than the reduction in the contingent workforce.

Are you in a position to provide figures on the net saving from reducing those contingent workers versus the senior civil servants that have replaced them? Do you have an idea, as you progress through this year, of where those figures will be at the end of the financial year, for both the contingent workforce and the senior civil service workforce?