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Yes. As the fund evolves, the situation will not be fixed. We will learn lessons from how this first tranche of funding has been delivered and will consider what impediments there have been and whether anything needs to change with regard to flexibility. We are not set on having exactly the same arrangements again. We want to encourage people. As I said earlier, I am keen for this to be seen as an on-going process, not as a one-off event. Transformation will take many years and so we need to make sure of our support for what needs to be done.

The process involves more than just that fund. The Improvement Service has a huge role to play, as do SOLACE and all the professional advisers. That support for transformation can come in the form of funding or it can come in kind and through the use of the expertise of those who have already gone through the process and can share their practice. Glasgow City Council has done good work around reducing the number of children in care, for example, and I am aware that a lot of local authorities have been knocking on Glasgow’s door to find out how that was done, because they see the value of reducing the number of children in care and of doing things differently.

Thanks for the opportunity to come to the committee to talk about reform and associated matters, the budget and anything else that the committee may wish to ask about.

I understand the value and importance of multiyear envelopes and having a line of sight on the funding over the spending review period—not just for local government, I hasten to add, but for other parts of the public sector and third sector organisations as well.

We have not been able to provide that before because we have had only single-year budgets and, therefore, it has been incredibly difficult. We will, of course, have to wait for the autumn budget at the end of November to know whether any changes to spending review assumptions will be set out by the UK Government, and whether those will have any unknown impact on our assumptions going forward. There are a lot of caveats to the size of the pie to consider before we start to discuss what that looks like over the spending review period.

I understand the importance of flexibility. Prior to the 2025-26 budget, ring fencing had been removed, but the 2025-26 budget delivered a baseline of a further £524.9 million of funding. That is almost £1.5 billion in the past two years, which was prior to agreement on an assurance and accountability framework, because those two things go hand in hand. We give flexibility, and there are areas in which there are clear Government and, most often, joint objectives, but we need an assurance and accountability framework to make sure that all those things are delivered, because ministers in this place will be asked about the delivery of key areas of policy that are delivered primarily by local government.

I am keen to look at how much further we can go on that and to work with local government to see whether we can make further progress.

Indeed.

I have not seen that particular podcast, but we are always up for good ideas. I will pick that up with one of my colleagues; Ivan McKee leads on planning. We have looked at reform through the planning hub and being able to supplement some of the challenging big planning applications that local authorities will be faced with. The whole idea of the planning hub is that it is a transformation and a vehicle to support some of the pressures that local authorities are facing. If technical digital solutions can help with that process, I am all for it. If Tom Hunter has not been contacted, I will make sure that he is, and we will follow up to see whether that can be looked at in more detail.

We needed to start somewhere. We wanted to see what the interest and level of ambition and ideas would be for an invest to save fund of that magnitude.

We are very thoughtful about, first, the need to keep the fund going beyond one year, and secondly, the level of the fund. For example, we will give some thought to what ideas were not able to be funded through the pot and whether we could crank up some of the momentum, as I am personally very keen to keep it going.

I very much appreciate the points that you have made. I will of course reflect on everything that is said today about the timing of the budget and other matters.

I go back to the point that the timing is intrinsically linked to the SFC’s final deadline for receiving detailed information on borrowing, funding, expenditure and public sector pay proposals. The protocol with the SFC requires that we confirm that information four working days before the budget. For a 15 January date, that would be 9 January. However, if the date for the budget were 7 January, which you suggested, that deadline would be 29 December. The issue would be all the public holidays during that period and the requirement for us to get all that information. It would be better to have that first working week in January in which to work with the SFC to finalise the information.

There are also the unknowns at the moment. For example, we do not know what new tax propositions might emerge on 26 November or whether they will impact on the Scottish budget and devolved taxes. The SFC will need time to work through that complicating factor.

I am willing to reflect on committee members’ views on the date, but I am trying to set out some of the challenges that would come with that.

I do not know whether Alasdair Black wants to say anything.

The reduction will happen over a five-year period and it is being delivered through a number of mechanisms that Ivan McKee has set out in the framework.

We expect all parts of the public sector to produce plans on how they will reduce their corporate costs. Some of that will be in the shared services space, so it is about sharing some of the corporate functions, such as human resources or payroll. Our Oracle system is on offer to the public sector, and a number of public sector organisations have approached the Scottish Government about coming on to the Oracle system. Organisations will have to look at how those functions are shared, rather than, for example, every single health board having all of the functions, which cannot be the way forward.

All areas, public bodies and parts of the public sector—even some of our small public bodies—are expected to set out detailed plans on how they will get there and make efficiencies. Ivan McKee is regularly monitoring that as it comes in. The invest to save funding was also important to oil the wheels of some of that work. Some of the efficiencies might be in the voluntary redundancy space, but others will come from automation and being able to do things differently. A lot of interesting bids for that money have been agreed to.

Richard, do you want to say a little more about that?

Yes. However, I will come back to you with the actual numbers. The target is significant, but it is more than achievable on the bigger scale, as you have said. However, it must be done in the right way: it is not about randomly taking an axe to services but, in the main, about natural attrition and voluntary severance. We have talked previously about the need to be clear about the no compulsory redundancy policy: in extremis, if all other routes have been explored, that will remain a possibility.

We have a Cabinet sub-committee that is specifically aimed at tackling and eradicating child poverty. At its most recent meeting—again, without giving away any trade secrets—we got into that space. For example, we talked about whether the mental health offer through the health service is reaching those children and families who need it most.

The same applies to our childcare offer. Is it flexible enough to meet the needs of families who are either not in work or are in low-paid or part-time work? It is about employability. More flexible childcare could assist those families out of poverty.

I assure you that, whether it is colleges, childcare or health, we are looking at what more we can do with the tens of billions that we spend on our public services to point them more in the direction of lifting families out of poverty.

As you would expect, we are bringing that degree of examination and challenge to all of our programmes—