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Local government is a different construct and has a different status. Authorities can borrow, and it could be argued that they have more borrowing powers than we do. However, they must be cognisant of their ability to repay. Scottish local authorities have not made similar investment and borrowing decisions to some English local authorities, and we can see some of the results of their decisions. However, for the time being, the accountability and governance structure of organisations such as Police Scotland and the college sector are unlikely to change any time soon, I suspect.

It will be in the next parliamentary session, although it will depend on market conditions.

I will update you to make sure that the costs that you have had so far are accurate.

The enterprise agencies are very important, but the Scottish Government’s investment in economic growth goes well beyond them. We have £900 million of capital investment in local and regional economies and £480 million in key growth sectors through the enterprise agencies, so we are targeting key growth sectors through those agencies. We have £4.9 billion of investment in housing, which is an investment in the economy, and the infrastructure investment pipeline generally, which is worth £11 billion, is absolutely an investment in the economy. We are targeting key sectors—offshore wind is another major investment area—and we are trying to ensure that the money is spent as smartly as possible. Likewise, we are ensuring that investments made by the Scottish National Investment Bank and through the use of financial transactions all face towards areas of high growth and housing opportunities.

That reflects the pace at which investments can be made. We have made a commitment of £500 million over five years, but there will not be an even split each year. We want that sector to grow, but its growth has not been consistent. I do not think that anyone can criticise the Scottish Government for not investing in offshore wind. We have, and we will continue to do so.

In most sectors, we have two-year deals, which is a good thing because they create efficiency, effectiveness and time for discussions about things other than pay. Those deals are very important in bringing some stability to our public services and mean that we do not have to be constantly in negotiation around pay.

As for the third year of the public sector pay settlement—2027-28—I have said that it should form part of the budget for 2027-28. We need to see where inflation goes. It was going down, but, because of the global situation, we now have a question mark over whether inflation will continue to reduce. That clearly drives the pay position and pay bargaining. My overall comment would be that pay increases for 2027-28 will need to be extremely modest, given the financial pressures for that year in particular, although, again, there could be multiyear deals that come off the back of the two years that have already been agreed. The more multiyear pay deals that we can get into, the better, because they remove some of the uncertainty for our service delivery partners.

It is their argument, absolutely. Every organisation still has areas that it can continue to transform, but I recognise the work that the police and fire services have already done. That has been a standout transformation and it was very ambitious. Will it be the same everywhere? No, it cannot be, because there will still be areas where that is not possible.

You touched on the demographic challenges of social care. It would be crazy to reduce that front-line workforce, would it not? We could not do that in the face of those demographic challenges, so the savings will not be evenly spread. Of course, we have already said that front-line workforces need to be prioritised, which means that back-office supports and corporate functions will need to be delivered differently. We need to look at the use of automation and technology for some of that, so that roles can be changed.

All of that work is under way. It will not be the same everywhere, and the savings will not be evenly distributed. As is ever the case in any organisation, there will be some who are first out of the traps and getting on with it, and there will be some who take a bit longer to get to where they need to get to.

There were PFI deals that were absolutely dreadful for the public purse and should never have been agreed to—let us agree on that. Lessons have been learned from some of the negative experiences and costs, and I think that the public sector is now much better at negotiating. It was not a good negotiator in some of those deals. Some of the new revenue finance models are better value for the public purse and they deliver better social benefits. We have regularly spoken to the Welsh Government about the mutual investment model, much of which was based on our non-profit-distributing work.

We probably would not use those models if our borrowing powers were not constrained. The question is then about how we can pivot and save resources to secure better outcomes for patients by building primary care hubs if we do not currently have the capital to do that. We would have to say, “I can’t put £4.1 billion into housing, because I’m going to have to spend the money elsewhere.” We have a range of competing priorities, all of which are absolutely essential. If we regard doing things and delivering things differently as essential for the population health framework, there must be capital investment. The capital departmental expenditure limit is just not available at the moment, but I would like that to change. We bang on about our capital limitations to the UK Government all the time, but, in the absence of any movement on that, the only way to increase our resources is through revenue finance and by getting the best deals that we can. We can get better deals through economies of scale and through something such as a primary care programme that extracts the best deal, although those deals will still have to meet the value-for-money tests, otherwise they will not get off first base. I can assure you that those tests are robust, which is sometimes a little frustrating.

I think that there is a realisation that carrying on with the structures and landscape that we have is not going to be sustainable or optimal. I do not think that that outlook will be a peculiar to the SNP—I suspect that the manifestos of all the parties will be in that transformation space. The proposals might look different, but I think that there will be an appetite to be bold, which is good, because that should mean that the scope of collective debates on such issues in the next parliamentary session is not as small when it comes to considering change.

It is a recognition that, over the next 10 to 20 years, any Government will need to grasp issues relating to the way in which we deliver services and what the landscape should look like. For example, demographic challenges are coming down the line, so our existing structures and landscape will need to change to meet those challenges, even if everything else stands still.

I do not want to open a can of worms and debate this issue for the next two hours, but the Government brought forward plans to do things differently through the creation of a national care service. I am not saying that those plans were perfect, but there was a knee-jerk reaction to them that went well beyond consideration of whether the details were imperfect. We have reached a situation at the tail end of this parliamentary session in which the chances of change happening are very limited. I hope that, in the next parliamentary session, the Parliament collectively—not just the Government—will see things a bit differently and will not try to stop things happening just because it can.