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Yes, I do, and I think that there is ageism among many employers in Scotland. People who are aged 50 to 64—potentially older; it is up to individuals—have a lot to contribute and offer. We must tackle ageism.

Perhaps because of labour shortages and the number of vacancies, employers are now much more open-minded and willing to listen to what they can do to make their businesses more attractive to older people and to recruit those who are aged 50 to 64. I am in that age bracket myself and I have not been made unemployed or forced to take early retirement yet—although who knows what will happen. People of that age represent a huge part of the population and a fantastic resource, and we should do what we can to encourage people in that age band to come back into the workplace, if it suits their lifestyle and their personal circumstances. Your country needs you.

Yes, and I will take the message away from the committee that we have to focus on working with employers more to encourage them to tap into the support that is made available by the public sector. The Scottish Government is funding various initiatives, and there are agencies working on that. Resources are available through primary care and, in some cases for employers, through occupational health and other channels.

At a time of labour shortages, it is in the interest of employers to look at all of the options that are available and at the support that is out there for them. We need to help employers and ensure that the NHS provision is there, as well.

Yes, it includes a lot more than the real living wage. One other key additional measure that we are looking for employers to adopt is offering employees flexible working from day 1. More and more employers are doing that. Scotland has more accredited employers who have signed up to fair work criteria than the rest of the UK. We are making good progress on the fair work agenda, which is more important than ever before. Because of the cost of living crisis, we want more people to have the real living wage, and because of labour shortages, we want more employers to be more flexible so that they can attract people back into the workplace, particularly those in the 50 to 64 age group who have taken early retirement.

That is a good question. I was discussing it with colleagues, because I anticipated the question, but I am not sure that I have a precise answer for you. It is clear that there is a very serious situation facing the NHS in Scotland. It is under huge pressure; we are all familiar with the reasons for that. There is no doubt, therefore, that there are people who are unable to work because they are waiting for treatment. However, it is difficult to get evidence to back up that point, because the statistics on inactivity in Scotland relate largely, as we have seen, to long-term illness and sickness. Indeed, the increase in the proportion of people who are inactive with long-term illness was beginning before the pandemic, so it is difficult to link it directly to the pandemic or to back up the point that Murdo Fraser makes.

Of course there will be people in Scotland who are currently unable to get treatment as quickly as they would like because of the pressures on the NHS and who are therefore unable to return to work. They may be on sick leave but, as I said, the inactivity figures are largely down to long-term illness and people who have a combination of long-term illnesses, not just one condition.

We take that into account. The Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy and others are probably a bit closer to that work than I am, but overall we look at how we can support people in getting back into work or education. That includes support through the national health service—for instance, through the expansion of mental health services or occupational health support. The Government makes that support available, but we also need support for employers and—you mentioned young people—educational institutions. That is all taken into account in the round. The Government wants a healthy working population, and that is why those services are made available.

There is more than £50 million in the no one left behind strategy. That is not including fair start Scotland—there is more than £80 million overall. The money is allocated to each of the partnerships across all 32 local authorities. The money is held by local government, but it is not for local government to invest or spend; it is for the partnerships to agree how that money will be allocated locally to commission local services. In my constituency, the local employability partnership is called Moray Pathways. Every other area of the country will have its own way of approaching it.

I am encouraged by the development of those partnerships. I have visited the partnership in Renfrew, I think it was, and in the Shetlands and two or three other partnerships across the country, and it is heartening to see how local authorities are approaching this, because you go into a hub and there are different services within the hub.

To go back to Alex Rowley’s question, those hubs are good one-stop shops for the public to use, and some mental health support, counselling or other services can be brought in to that one location. I think that clients are finding it really helpful to have that one-stop shop approach. Not all local authorities are doing that, but some of them are being very innovative and forward thinking in doing that. It is a decentralised, devolved way of approaching employability services.

The short answer is yes, in that the data guides us to the mental health services and support that we are delivering. I gave examples of how we are helping employers, so that they in turn can help employees. There are many different ways in which the NHS is responding to the mental health crisis, and there has been a huge expansion of resource for that.

Alastair Cook may know more about the data and how we use it in detail.

Of course we can always deploy and collect our data better. A lot of employment data is collected at the UK level and not the Scottish level. You are referring to data about mental health, which is largely a devolved issue, but a lot of the data for the relationship to and impact on the employment situation is collected at the UK level. We have small samples for Scotland out of that UK collection.

For instance, when we interrogate and try to drill down into the inactivity rate, we often have to rely on very small subsamples from UK surveys. It is difficult to reach firm conclusions, because a lot of that data is collected by UK exercises. Obviously, health data is a devolved issue. I am just saying that the relationship between the health data, the employment situation and economic activity is quite difficult to pin down, because data on that is collected at a UK level and we have very small subsamples. It is important to make that point.

I think that Lewis Hedge wants to comment on the point about data.

We are still committed to a centre for workplace transformation, and for all of the reasons that we have discussed, it would be very timely. We will make announcements on that in due course. That commitment was to be fulfilled during this parliamentary session, and we are keen to make an announcement on it as soon as we are able to, but we have a lot of considerations to take on board in the current climate. We are still committed to that, and we will keep the committees and the Parliament up to date on it.

Yes—we are looking at all these issues in order to learn more.