Seòmar agus comataidhean

I suggest that we write to you with the report, and perhaps pull out some of that detail and draw attention to the key points in a covering letter, if that would be helpful. It would mean that folk would not necessarily have to wade through the report itself.

I do not know that I would be that optimistic. The figures on baselining speak for themselves. Over the past three budgets, about £2.2 billion has been baselined. That is a lot of money that used to be ring fenced and is now baselined.

There is a direction of travel, for sure, but sometimes there are good reasons for money sitting within a portfolio before allocation, because policy might change. For example, in the active travel space, the Cabinet Secretary for Transport wanted to change the way that funding was delivered. If that money had been baselined, she would not have been able to do that. There are checks and balances, and ultimately it is about finding a balance.

One of the principles on the budget in the Verity house agreement was about having an open book and being open about the challenge. I have had numerous discussions with COSLA in the run-up to the budget. I hope that one thing that it could not criticise is the process or the openness in discussions. On the £750 million ask for social care, I was clear that that quantum just did not exist—it was more than the entire resource consequentials for the whole spending review. I cannot produce something that is of a quantum that is out of the park. I had to be frank about that.

Then we went into the territory of the key asks. One key ask was for further removal of ring fencing and increased baselining, and we have done more of that. Another was for freedom over council tax, and we have done that. Another was for additional funding, which we have done through the £253 million in the general revenue grant.

Those were the key asks, and I feel that we have met them and that it has been a very open conversation. Ultimately, the response from COSLA is the response from COSLA. I think that we have provided a fair settlement in the context of the finances that are available to us.

I agree with that. We have taken a lot on board around the need for trade-offs between quantum and flexibility.

I am very much in favour of giving local government maximum flexibility. However, if I had my colleagues around the table, they would say, for example, that we have to make sure that social care is delivering so that delayed discharges can come down. I would also have education colleagues saying that we need to make sure that teacher numbers are maintained.

There are checks and balances, but we are in a better place. I do not know whether it will ever be perfect, but we have made significant progress. I did not hear the session before, so I am pleased to hear that there was some recognition of that.

Lots of other things are going on, which is perhaps not the headline-grabbing stuff, such as the work with the single island authorities, the accelerator deals with the islands, or the work—again, in relation to the islands—that is going on with the ferries task force.

Lots of innovation is happening that is a joint endeavour between local government and the Scottish Government. There is an awful lot going on that does not make the headlines, but that is really important.

Again, there is some progress. While we have to remove some of the ring fencing and flexibilities are important, there is recognition from local government that there also needs to be transparency and accountability on their side of delivery.

With 32 versions of delivery, as is ever the case with anything, we will have some local authorities performing better in some areas than in others. The Accounts Commission regularly gives reports on where it thinks that there needs to be improvement. The issue that comes up more often than not—I have seen the Accounts Commission talk about this—is transformation and change, the pace of which needs to be upped not only in local government but across the board.

We have more control over that pace in other parts of the public sector, but we rely on local government partners to get on with it, if you like. We can oil the wheels with things such as invest to save but, ultimately, they have to want to get into the discussions about shared services and doing things differently. As autonomous bodies, we cannot force them to do that; they have to want to do that. Again, we will not see everybody moving at the same pace with that. The Ayrshires, for example, are further along the road, and we need to see that happening in other places.

It is also a question of good practice. I will take the example of the work that Glasgow in particular has done through changes to social work services, which have led to a massive reduction in the number of children coming into care. All 32 local authorities should be doing that. If it works—and if it is so obviously delivering better results—authorities would have to have a pretty good reason as to why they would not want to go down that road and adopt those practices.

With the investments in the national public bodies, there are increases in those areas, particularly in forestry, peatland restoration and so on. However, convener, it might be best if I take that specific issue away and have a look at it, if you are happy for me to do so.

I accept that. We have 32 local authorities. If we were starting with a blank sheet of paper, we might not draw that situation up in the way that it is now. However, I am also conscious that, if we embark on a whole-scale local government boundaries review, with the best will in the world, it will tie us up for a decade. We could, however, accelerate the shared services space, where things happen more quickly by negotiation. In the neck of the woods that you are familiar with—Stirling, Falkirk and Clackmannanshire—there are discussions about the art of the possible around shared services. I encourage that, because it provides more flexibility and economies of scale and it also reduces the cost base. We are trying to encourage and support that type of thinking.

It is table 4.15.

It is really important that services are quality and are provided in a timely fashion. We are providing £2.3 billion of funding to social care, and we are supporting the real living wage. That investment in social care goes well beyond—by about £500 million, if I remember correctly—the commitment that was made in the Parliament a few years ago on the trajectory of increasing social care spend.

I understand the importance of local services, and it is important that we work with local government to focus on ensuring that services are maintained. However, how they are provided might need to look a bit different, in the same way that all other parts of the public sector are looking at delivering things in a different way. That is just the reality of where we are. We have to ensure that we change services so that they can meet the current demands and demographic challenges. Doing things in exactly the same way will not achieve that, so that is an important component. We are trying to oil the wheels of things such as the invest to save fund; local government will get access to that, too.

We are very cognisant of the impact on household budgets, which is why a good part of the budget is about trying to enhance some of those supports, whether that is the wraparound services during the school day, such as the addition of breakfast clubs, or extending the school day and trying to provide support for working families without additional cost to them, which is important. We have in place many other supports—they are not available anywhere else—that are designed to support household budgets.

I should have said earlier that council tax rates in Scotland are still significantly lower than they are elsewhere in these islands. For example, our average band D property has a significantly lower council tax rate than elsewhere, and water bills are lower than elsewhere, too.

I will make a point on the survey. As I understand it, the survey was carried out before the budget, so it was forecast before the actual uplift was known. It is for councils to consider their position in the light of what they now know.

I recognise that some councils will be in a more challenging position than others, particularly those that are smaller. That comes back to my earlier point that we must look at the shape of that across Scotland and at where there are opportunities, whether we are looking at single-island authorities or at that shared services landscape, where councils can come together, share services and reduce the cost base.

I think that that would be tricky, because that information all has to be digested, but I will ask Ellen Leaver to come in on that.