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To follow up on that, you refer on more than one occasion to the need to trust public service professionals, which is obviously fundamental.

On the other side, I know that, when the Scottish National Party Government came in in 2007, there was concern that there was not any buy-in from the civil servants who were there, who did not think that the SNP was gonnae win and that, if it did, it was gonnae last six weeks and that Tavish Scott, as was famously said, was gonnae come in. Of course, that did not happen.

Civil servants are appointed to ministers. That is not how we, as MSPs, recruit our own staff in our own constituency offices, many of whom we have known for years; sometimes we have not known them that long, but they tend to be much more open about their political views with us.

How can we build that trust in such circumstances? Personal relationships are obviously key, but how can we do so on a broader basis?

I think that, from a politician’s point of view, there are some ministers who fear that they will be perceived as having a “Yes Minister” kind of relationship and that they will not be the ones who are running the show in their own departments, or that that is how it will sometimes be perceived. That can perhaps make relationships a wee bit difficult.

I will end on the “policy cycle” and “policy spirograph” images on page 17. Will you talk us through that a wee bit?

Well, the floor is yours.

Good morning, and welcome to the eighth meeting in 2023 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee. Our first agenda item is an evidence session with Professor Paul Cairney to inform our inquiry into effective Scottish Government decision making. Professor Cairney is a professor of politics and public policy at the University of Stirling and an adviser to the committee. As part of our inquiry, the committee commissioned Professor Cairney to provide a research paper on effective Government decision making, which has been shared with committee members. I welcome Professor Cairney to the meeting.

Before I invite Professor Cairney to make some opening remarks, I pass on apologies from Liz Smith, who is unable to make it to the meeting.

It was actually me who asked the question of the cabinet secretary. He said that the maximum cost in the financial year that is about to commence would be £50 million. What Liz Smith and the rest of the committee are keen to know is how much has been spent to date and whether that will come up in, for example, the autumn budget revision. As the ABR is some months away, if you have any information that you could provide the committee with now, that would be very helpful.

Fair enough.

My final question is based on a question that Daniel Johnson asked. He talked about the £898.7 million that is going out of health and social care. There are seven lines on that, and the £898.7 million includes £257.2 million for the integration of health and social care; £233.5 million for the funding of the real living wage; £120 million for mental health transition recovery, which you touched on; £65 million for implementation of the Carers (Scotland) Act 2016; £27.3 million for free personal and nursing care; £22 million for increased social work capacity in adult services; and £20 million for interim care funding in local authorities.

That is a huge amount of money. Surely some of those things could have been anticipated at the start of the financial year. Are we going to be in a situation in the next financial year where we again see those things being transferred from health and social care to local government? Are you going to look—if not in the next financial year, in the one after that—to have them embedded within that portfolio?

I know, because every year in the autumn revisions, we have money for education training going from health to education—I think that I pointed that out last year. That has happened for the past five or six years, at least, and it seems a bit odd. I could understand it if it was a one off, but if it will happen year on year, it almost seems dishonest to have the money in one portfolio when we know that it will always be spent in another.

So how does it form part of the additional £713.4 million if it doesnae matter for the total budget? The finance update says:

“The changes proposed in the Spring Budget Revision result in an increase in the approved budget of £713.4 million … to £57,698.4 million.”

That includes the portfolio changes that we have discussed, the technical changes of £130.6 million that we have just talked about and Whitehall transfers of £80.6 million. I will not ask about those transfers, because I am sure that one of my colleagues will want to do that. If the technical changes do not matter, why is that figure added to the total amount of money that is available to and being spent by the Scottish Government?

There are a couple of issues that I would like you to talk through. One is the budget for the Scottish teachers’ and NHS pension schemes, which is going up in the current financial year by £495.7 million, which is quite significant. In addition, the budget for education and skills has gone down by £582.4 million. There is clearly a relationship, but will you talk us through the thinking behind that?

As a share of the overall portfolio, it is huge. That is the thing. I am trying to understand why the changes are so huge not only within a year. This is the second set of revisions. You have explained part of the reason, but I am still a bit concerned that the changes are so huge; I wonder how they can possibly be so big in such a short period.