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I disagree that we are throwing the baby out with the bath water. We want to ensure that, where service delivery is good, we export it across the board, and the national high-quality standards will ensure that we are able to do that.

Again, I come back to the issue of accountability. People who are being cared for and supported on a daily basis do not feel that the accountability is right; they do not feel that it is right at a local level, and they want accountability at a national level. We need to listen to that. I always look for the best in everything so that we can replicate it where necessary, and the national care standards would give us the ability to do that across the board. However, that also allows for flexibility in delivery at a local level.

Many things that we have discussed today will come into play during the co-design process. If nothing else, I hope that many members of the public and stakeholders will play a part in helping us get it right as we move forward.

We need national high-quality standards. Indeed, that has come across very clearly from those who are supported by carers as well as from front-line staff who believe that national high-quality standards are the way forward.

The other aspect is accountability. I have now been in post for 18 months, and at the beginning, I was surprised by how many of the folks who are supported by our care system mentioned accountability. People do not feel that there is the accountability that there should be at the local level, and they feel that ministers should be accountable for more than just the policy direction that we are currently accountable for.

People also feel that national high-quality standards are absolutely necessary. That has come across loud and clear in almost every conversation that I have had with folks with lived experience of the care system. It has come across loud and clear from the social covenant steering group, and it has come across loud and clear from those who work on the front line.

I will give you an example, without naming anyone. I have heard time and again that, where there have been failings, folk get pushed from pillar to post. They are told, “That’s not our responsibility—it’s the responsibility of the health and social care partnership,” “No, that’s not our responsibility—it’s the council’s responsibility,” or, “No, that’s the responsibility of the national health service.” That leads to real difficulties for people, and we need to change that. That is why we need the national care service. We need to ensure that that accountability exists, so that people know what they can expect from the care system.

Indeed, convener. One of the reasons why we have put staff transfer in the bill is that local care boards will be—or may be, depending on what Parliament decides—the provider of last resort. It is important that we have the ability for staff to transfer in those situations, just as we have seen in recent times. When there have been closures of services in the independent or third sector, or people deregistering services, we have seen those transfers take place between third sector, private sector and other third sector partners or, indeed, local authorities. At the moment, that is happening fairly regularly. As provider of last resort, if that is what Parliament chooses, local boards have to be able to have the staff to ensure that there is a continuation of care for people.

Ms Bell may want to add to that.

You know how budgets work in this place. The reason for my language is that we go through a process for setting budgets. No matter what the circumstances are—and I hope that we see improvement in the public finances, although I am not overly hopeful; we will wait and see—and no matter what the UK Treasury does about public finance as we move forward, we have to be absolutely sure that we are establishing services that are fit for the future.

Key to all of this is improving services and moving away from that crisis spend, which costs the public purse a lot and also has a human cost. We need to change that situation dramatically, no matter what.

As we progress with all of this, I am more than happy to come before the committee again to talk about how we are moving forward with the financial memorandum and with updating our modelling and to talk about the business cases. What I cannot do is set future budgets, as you well know. The Deputy First Minister would not be very happy with me at all if I were to do that today at this committee.

I will let Fiona Bennett answer first and then I will come in.

Officials know my expectations in all of this and that I do not like surprises of any sort. I do not want to insult Ms Thomson, convener, but I will say this and she can have a go at me if necessary: I am a data anorak and I think that Ms Thomson probably falls into the same category. If that is an insult, I withdraw it immediately.

I just want to ensure that we get this exactly right, and that will mean having to scrutinise it to the nth degree. It will be not just you and me who do that; we have a tremendous amount of folks helping us, including those on the social covenant steering group, and those people—some more than others—want to know all the workings. We are under intense scrutiny, as is only right.

Beyond that, as I have said and as I will continue to repeat, I am more than happy to appear before any committee to outline how we are moving forward, particularly in respect of the business cases and where we are making amendments as we progress. That is only right. Ms Thomson is right to say that this is a huge piece of work—it is definitely the biggest public service change since devolution, so it is incumbent on us all that we get it right. I am therefore not afraid of scrutiny in that regard.

A number of stakeholders have said that they are unable to carry out the scrutiny that they desire to carry out. I say to those stakeholders that they should have conversations with us and that we will help them through what we are doing. The convener mentioned the Fraser of Allander Institute, which has been in conversation with officials. Anyone can do that. In the same way, as I said earlier, I am more than happy to talk to other folk about the assumptions that they have made. As I said, COSLA has made assumptions that we do not recognise, but I am more than happy to engage with it to see whether some of its workings are right and to take that on accordingly.

I think that Ms Smith wants to come back on that.

We continue to listen to NHS board chairs, chief executives and others in all of this. They are key in helping us to design the services as we move forward and will be involved all the way through the process.

I get that some folks want the process to be delayed, and I recognise the pressures that are out there, but the fact is that the pressures on delivery of care will only grow over the years, because of our changing demography and population, and we cannot have stasis. We need to invest now—which we are doing over the course of the winter—but we also need to get this right for the future. Stasis is not an option.

We will continue to listen to concerns and to ensure that we address them as we move forward. We will continue to engage and, as I have said, to listen.

I think that, if we had done things the other way round, the committee and others would quite probably have asked, “Why didn’t you do it the other way round, given that the primary legislation is the most important thing in all this?” It is a bit of a no-win situation for anyone.

A fair number of questions have been asked about VAT this morning, so I will write to the committee with the detail of where we are at. Of course, we will also continue to apprise the committee of the advice that we receive to ensure that it has as much detail as possible about where we are at.