Seòmar agus comataidhean

Might there be some scope for cost reduction in following that approach?

I am making the point because I am quite sure that the Scottish Government, including you, will be under huge financial pressure to make difficult choices when it comes to social security. If universalism proves not to get the uptake that you would like, I would have thought that it might be an area for a slightly more targeted approach.

Two weeks ago, I was at a meeting with NFU Scotland in Perthshire, and it was reported that, in two of the local authorities in my area, the amount of food that is being sent back at the end of a school day is pretty grim. That suggests either that the school meals are not of sufficient quality that the youngsters want to take them or that families are still sending them to school with their own lunch.

I understand what you say about the stigma, although I think that the situation is very much better nowadays, with modern technology and so on solving the problem that pupils used to have when they had to take along a ticket, which was far worse. That problem is diminished because of new technology. When it comes to the choices that are made for universal policies, the evidence about whether that universal policy is hitting in all the right places is important.

In the evidence that we have taken, we have people asking for an increase of at least double in the child payment, the extension of free school meals, an increase in the value of the school clothing grant, an increase in funding of affordable housing and an expanding of free childcare—the list goes on. It would be nice to do all those things, but we cannot. I am sure that the Scottish Fiscal Commission will come out with that this afternoon. Is the Government doing any analysis of the effectiveness of universal policy?

Thank you for that. We have had the debate before about how far we can extend universalism on many things, because of the financial implications, but the Government looking at the real evidence of where the targets are most effective would be very beneficial.

That was very opportune, because I have just been looking at the conclusions in the Scottish Fiscal Commission’s report, which I mentioned earlier. As expected, the spend on the expansion of social security is quite significant. Given what the Scottish Fiscal Commission has reported, the extremely difficult fiscal circumstances and the fact that the Scottish Government does not have the money available to do everything that it would like to to deliver its social contract with the people of Scotland—as it is described—is it realistic to expect that the social contract can be universal, considering the number of payments that the Government would like to make?

Is that not a black hole?

If we put that into the context of the next child poverty plan and the strategy behind that, are you saying that, in order to address some of the shortfalls, the Government’s intention is to try to ensure that the additional money is raised through progressive taxation, rather than by targeting the most effective policies and removing some of the policies that are not delivering in the way that we would like them to?

I accept that. It is very difficult when you cannot take things away easily. I absolutely understand that. However, there are examples of policy areas, two of which we have discussed this morning, where the policy of universalism is not as effective, in terms of the delivery and the cost basis, as we might wish.

Good morning. I have a technical question. The Scottish Government’s publication from March this year referred to two improvements in modelling—that was in part 5.1, if my memory serves me correctly. First, the Scottish Government has improved the modelling based on analysis of potential mitigation of the two-child cap. The second improvement is to the modelling of free school meals. The report says that the reason for the change to that modelling was that the Scottish Government changed from assuming full take-up to assuming a partial take-up measurement—that is, because free school meals are not being taken up to the full complement, the new modelling is better. That is my understanding of the Scottish Government’s modelling comment in that report.

Can I ask about the free school meals situation? There are still an awful lot of families who are not taking up their entitlement. Things have improved a little bit, but they are not that great. Does the modelling show whether those who are not taking up the free school meal entitlement are those from higher income backgrounds?

My reason for asking is that I am sure that, when we get the Scottish Fiscal Commission’s report this afternoon, it will show that we are in very difficult fiscal circumstances again. If there are choices to be made about which policies are working, and if it is the case that free school meal take-up is not as strong as it could be—that there are people not wanting to take free school meals—perhaps that is an area in which the Government could be more targeting? Do you agree with that?

The corollary is that, if there is a large cohort of youngsters whose parents are a bit better off and who do not particularly want the free school meals in the way that we might expect, they are not part of the Scottish Government’s child poverty target. We want the uptake to be in the right place and to benefit those who are most in need. In my opinion, the Scottish Government would be well advised to look at that, because it is important to the very difficult choices that you, as cabinet secretary, will have to make.