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That does not mean that it is correct.

Look—I say again that, in setting pay policy, we draw on the range of judgments that are in front of us at the time. The policy was based on inflation forecasts over the three-year period and on a desire for long-term certainty on public sector workers’ pay. That is why we tied in the fact that anything that went beyond 3 per cent for year 1 would have to be a multiyear deal. We had to buy some peace in the industrial landscape through multiyear deals, and we have been quite successful.

The cost of industrial action cannot be overestimated. Imagine how many appointments would be cancelled in the NHS if there was widespread industrial action—that would well outstrip the value of the pay deals.

Another thing to bear in mind is that it is difficult to walk away from the verdicts that have been given by UK public sector pay bodies, which we do not control. The UK Government set a policy of a 2.8 per cent pay increase, but pay review bodies’ verdicts went way beyond that. They took into account a more up-to-date inflation figure, because they had it to hand. To be fair to the UK Government, it was left in the same position as we are in. What is the point of having an independent pay review body if you ignore its findings? The UK Government did not ignore the findings, and it would have been difficult for us to ignore them.

Through having mainly two-year deals, we can now focus all the effort on reform, efficiency and doing things differently, rather than on the annual round of pay negotiations. That has a big value, and it is what my colleagues and I are focused on. We have been pragmatic. We have tried to land somewhere reasonable that gives some certainty, buys us some peace and gets us moving into reform territory.

A lot of work has been done to try to put a ring around things that can be agreed on. I am working with local government on codifying elements of how we do business in relation to budgets, so that that becomes the framework. That is about having no surprises, early engagement, an open book approach and so on.

We have made good progress, but there is a bit of frustration that one or two things have prevented us from agreeing to and publishing the framework. I am optimistic that we can get there, because it is 95-plus per cent of the stuff that councils say made a huge difference to budget setting for 2025-26.

I am sympathetic to that point. There were some good examples in the 2025-26 budget in that regard, including the support to Shetland and Orkney for infrastructure and investment in their connectivity space.

I simply want to say that we will come back to the committee on the areas on which we said that we would provide more information, which we have taken a note of. We will do that as quickly as we can, and we will keep in contact about the date of the budget. I will reflect on what has been said about that.

Thank you for the opportunity to set out the work that we are doing to strengthen accountability and to ensure that equalities and human rights principles remain at the heart of the budget and spending review process. The Scottish Government places the utmost importance on being open and transparent about how, where and why decisions on public finances are taken. I will take a moment to reflect on what has been achieved.

Given the focus of this meeting, I am heartened that the SHRC’s report last year on how the Scottish budget for 2021-22 stacked up against international best practice showed that Scotland would be the highest-scoring country for budget oversight in the 2023 open budget survey global rankings. The most recent results for Scotland represent good progress since the SHRC last ran that assessment, in 2019, when it assessed the 2017-18 Scottish budget. Scores were up across the board on participation, transparency and oversight. When compared with the latest country rankings in the OBS global rankings for 2023, all three of Scotland’s scores sit higher than the respective global averages. When global comparisons are made, Scotland is one of only a small number of comparison countries to have made progress rather than stagnating or slipping backwards.

Of course, as ever, more must be done, and we remain committed to making further improvements and responding to feedback. For example, the committee has asked us to move towards multi-year budgeting to demonstrate accountability. As a result, we are this year undertaking a spending review alongside work on the Scottish budget for 2026-27 and that review will set spending envelopes for three future years for resource and four years for capital.

To support those processes, we are continuing to conduct impact assessments so that we can make decisions informed by high-quality evidence, ensuring that we focus on the impact on protected groups and comply with our statutory duties. We are, of course, operating in a challenging fiscal environment and it is critical that we focus our resources to deliver value for money and to advance equality.

We are introducing a new strategic integrated impact assessment approach this year, aiming to integrate multiple statutory duties to provide a more rounded and holistic understanding of the potential impacts. Our goal is to enhance both the efficiency and effectiveness of those assessments. That work is being shaped in collaboration with stakeholders, including the equalities and human rights budget advisory group and the OECD.

I am grateful for the committee’s time today and now hand over to the Minister for Equalities.

It is a fair challenge. One of the reasons that the national outcomes are being overhauled is that we want them to work better. The challenge that you present is one of the reasons why we want to have a refreshed set of national outcomes. A lot of work has gone on to gather evidence from experts and public consultation. Getting that right has meant a delay, but getting it right is the most important thing.

The Deputy First Minister has been clear that the national performance framework remains an important vision and can create the thread that you mention. There are regular holding-to-account sessions with senior civil servants, cabinet secretaries and ministers on the delivery of the national performance framework and where we are on the outcomes. That is an important, high-level mechanism to hold ourselves and others to account, because getting the outcomes right is very important.

You are right to challenge us, but that is exactly why the substantial overhaul of the NPF is being undertaken. There absolutely has to be a thread and a linkage to the missions and priorities. I hope that, when the refresh is concluded, the committee will see the benefit of it.

First of all, there is always more work to be done—we have to acknowledge that. The National Advisory Council on Women and Girls is very challenging in this space; it has challenged the First Minister and all of us to do more. Our work with them led to funded work with the OECD to explore how gender budgeting approaches can be applied to the budget process in order to make it better and evidence that we are going deeper and further with gender budgeting across all our investments. Through that pilot, we were able to identify some of the gaps, for example the need to have a more strategic overarching gender goal and the need to move away from a portfolio-based budget model to one that is, as you described, not siloed. Those form part of the need for a longer-term reform programme.

We are getting better at avoiding siloed working. If we take the example of tackling child poverty, the child poverty delivery plan does not relate just to the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice’s job but to everybody’s job. The inputs to that plan include not just the Scottish child payment but things such as employability programmes, childcare and other services, fair work, the living wage and transport—in other words, things that sit across Government that have to brought to bear in order to have the biggest impact. I had a meeting last night with local government on how we work together to align ourselves on our child poverty objectives for the next delivery plan. I assure you that that work is continuing.

Regarding the employability service itself, we recognise that there is a strongly gendered element to child poverty and that children in single-parent households are particularly likely to experience poverty, which means that support to get parents towards and into work must fit round the person. Some of the most successful programmes have been delivered by third sector organisations, some of which are quite discreet; they build up trust with women and parents and bridge the gap into statutory services. We must look at what works and some of that has been very successful. The job is far from done, but we can point to good examples of where there are strengths that we can build on.

There should be accountability. As I said earlier, we need to hold to account our senior leaders in the public sector—or whatever organisation—for the services that they provide. The point that I was making is that they have quite a challenging job to do because of all the pressures and demands in relation to an ageing population. The population health framework has set out a real intention to enhance population health measures that can have huge benefits further down the line. We know, for example, that the investment in early years and family nurse partnerships and all those upstream investments have great benefits later on. Breastfeeding is absolutely one of those interventions.

We absolutely recognise that there will be variation among health boards. The question for us is how much variation we are prepared to tolerate and where the accountability is. There has to be accountability and there has to be a service standard across the boards. As I said, I will take that issue back to health colleagues.