Chamber and committees

I think that funding is going to come up a lot in our next evidence-taking session. It has certainly been mentioned by everyone who has made a submission.

Tim Kendrick, you are obviously very proud of Fife’s local outcomes improvement plan. Indeed, you highlight in your submission Fife’s specific focus on three priorities—

“tackling poverty and preventing crisis; addressing the climate emergency; and leading economic recovery”—

all of which look sensible.

However, with regard to how you would innovate as a council, you refer to

“A tendency for national policy and inspection arrangements to focus on certain, more easily measurable outcomes”,

highlighting SQA attainment as an example and saying that such a tendency

“distracts attention away from the importance of wider wellbeing for improving outcomes for the most disadvantaged and vulnerable children.”

Can you expand a wee bit more on your thinking in that area?

Thank you very much. I now open the session up to colleagues.

Yes. I think that, because the acronym is NPF, some people confuse it with the national planning framework. If it was called the national ambitions for Scotland or something, ordinary people who are not particularly involved in what we are deliberating would understand that it was something positive and what the Government was aiming for. It is a very dry and completely uninspiring title.

Anyway, talking of uninspiring, we have Douglas Lumsden followed by Michelle Thomson. [Laughter.]

I am about to name one of you any second if I do not have a volunteer.

Keith Robson has saved the rest of his colleagues.

Tim, at the Dundee session that we held two weeks ago—I am sure that Michelle Thomson and Liz Smith also picked up on this—some people said that, whenever there is an issue, another organisation, reporting facility or whatever is created. Given your experience in Fife, do you feel that there should be a decluttering? I am not suggesting that you should go into specifics unless you wish to, but, in general, do we have to look again at the structure in Scotland? I do not think that the public knows—indeed, probably only a few elected representatives know—exactly where everything fits. It is so incredibly complicated.

We might want to look at that further in the months and years ahead, given our public administration remit.

I have a question on best practice. Tim, your submission is excellent, but I thought that your response to the final question that you were asked to answer was fairly terse. The final question was:

“Please share any examples of good practice, areas for improvement or practices that have not worked so well.”

Your response said:

“Examples of good practice and challenges during the Covid 19 pandemic are detailed in the Fife Partnership Annual Report 2020-2021. A copy of this report can be provided on request.”

That was not really what we were looking for.

The committee has talked about there being a lot of examples of good work that is going on in Scotland, but there does not seem to be much enthusiasm for sharing it. This was an opportunity to share an example or two, which you did not take up.

Actually, my next question is on funding, and I will quote from Mirren Kelly’s submission rather than your own, Tim, on that particular issue, although you have obviously commented on the matter.

Mirren, you have said:

“councils are constrained by overall levels of funding”—

which I think we are all well aware of—and go on to say that this

“piecemeal approach to funding does not truly support an outcomes-based approach.”

How can the Scottish Government implement its manifesto commitments in areas covered by local government and, at the same time, take a more constructive approach?

Yes, so it is not just about talking the talk but about walking the walk.

Obviously, COSLA is not happy about ring fencing. However, the Scottish Government would argue that if it gave, say, £10 million to local authorities to employ more teachers, local authorities, if they had the flexibility, might spend that money on something else and then ministers would be attacked in the Scottish Parliament for not putting enough teachers in place. Ministers think, “We provided the money for teachers; councils didn’t spend it on them; and we’re the ones getting the kicking, even though we provided the money.” How do you square that circle?

Dr French, you said in your submission:

“The NPF has achieved limited (but improving) implementation success.”

However, the Scottish Leaders Forum action group says that the current status of accountability against the NPF is “patchy” and that

“typically, the NPF is not actively used to shape scrutiny, provide sponsorship, undertake commissioning of work or shape the allocation of funding”.

Therefore, have there been improvements? Where are these improvements taking place? Which area do we need to focus on most to ensure that the NPF delivers what it is supposed to?