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There is a lot going on in terms of fair work as part of our on-going work to set minimum standards for pay and conditions, as we move forward. The fair work in social care steering group that we established will continue to explore that across the entire spectrum of social care work. The group’s work is critical; we are working on the objectives that were agreed with the group at the start of last year. I look to officials on my left and right to see whether I am right, but I understand that the steering group will meet tomorrow to agree new priorities. I will correct that later if it is not meeting tomorrow; it is certainly meeting very soon to look at the new priorities.

As I have already pointed out, we are taking action now with partners in local government and the care sector to accelerate improvements, including to levels of pay. We are also in discussions with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities about our next steps on workforce development. Members might be aware that COSLA leaders took a paper on the issues to their final meeting before the local government elections. We will revisit that with the new and reinvigorated COSLA when it appoints new leadership and spokespeople.

We are fully committed to working in partnership with trade unions, staff and providers, including on recruitment, leadership at all levels, pay, terms and conditions, learning and development—which I touched on earlier—and career pathways. We will focus specifically on the commissioned-care sector in the first instance, but we will reach across the whole of adult social care.

I am sorry if I am going on for too long, but I am being as specific as possible about the 2019 fair work report. As part of our commitments from that report, we are ensuring that we move forward on social care workers having an effective voice in workplaces. We have included the requirement to consider effective-voice measures as part of fair work first procurement guidance, which includes there being appropriate channels to be heard, such as trade union recognition. I could go on at great length about that, but the convener is probably going to stop me.

I will continue to listen to folk—I gave the example of my meeting yesterday—and officials continue to do so on a daily basis. It might be useful if we provided the committee with an idea of what has been going on in the past month or two both from my perspective and from the officials’ perspective. Some folk have said, “Oh, you’ve been quite quiet during the pre-election period,” and there were obviously things that we could not say at that time. Even so, we have continued to talk to stakeholders, listen to them and take on board what they have to say. At the very heart of it all is listening to the voices of lived experience, which, as far as I am concerned, is key.

I would say that the work that we have done on the social covenant steering group is citizen leadership. However, citizen leadership is not just for the level of folk who will help us to co-design the NCS. We—not just Government, but the public sector as a whole—need to listen to the voices of the very articulate and experienced folk who know how the system works, what works well, where the system does not work and where it has failed many of them. We need to listen to people as we shape the right care system for all.

Let us take, for example, a call that I had yesterday with disabled people’s organisations, folks from the independent living movement and folks with lived experience of disability.

Although a lot of the conversation yesterday was about the national care service and how we move forward on that, folk also talked about the here and now, because that is relevant to them. A large part of yesterday’s discussion was not about the national care service per se; a lot of folk were discussing the difficulties that people in certain parts of Scotland have in accessing self-directed support. The committee knows that there is a bit of a postcode lottery with that at the moment. In some parts of Scotland, the options that are available to people are restricted, which does not really conform to the Social Care (Self-directed Support) (Scotland) Act 2013 itself or to the spirit of the act.

At the moment, we are reviewing the guidance on self-directed support to make it easier and more understandable for people to access what is their right. That is one example from yesterday that is not focused on the national care service and is focused on the here and now. As the committee is aware, we are reviewing the guidance in order to improve the law for people.

Yes, I do. Thank you, convener.

As you will be aware, Audit Scotland recognised that our commitment to a national care service indicates our recognition of the significant challenge within social care in Scotland. Indeed, the findings of the Audit Scotland report were largely in line with the independent review of adult social care that was led by Derek Feeley, which is precisely why we are acting now to further increase investment in social care and deliver a national care service by the end of this session of Parliament.

I am clear, though, that we should not wait to establish the national care service to take action where it is needed. Therefore, the Scottish Government will increase public investment in social care by 25 per cent over this session of Parliament so that, by the end of the session, we will have budgeted over £800 million more than current spending for increased annual support for social care.

In the latest programme for government, we restated our commitment to transformative social care reform, including the development of options for the removal of non-residential charging for adult social care. In addition, I have committed to invest £50 million over the life of this parliamentary session to support the regulation and development of the social services workforce through the Scottish Social Services Council. For unpaid carers, the Scottish Government announced an additional £4 million to help organisations working with unpaid carers to put expanded services in place.

Other more immediate action that I am happy to take questions on includes support for the workforce to address recruitment and retention issues, and work that is under way to develop the healthcare framework for adults living in care homes in Scotland.

For the interim steps, as well as the establishment of the national care service, we are committed to listening to the voices of lived experience. Conversations with those with lived experience are already informing our review of self-directed support. Keeping those with lived experience at the heart of our decision making will help us to shape a system that improves future services and makes things better for everyone.

I touched on that earlier. It is absolutely right that folk take opportunities to move on if they are getting better terms and conditions. A lot of folk in the social care profession may be moving on after a period of time—staying within the social care profession but with better terms and conditions. Those employers whose conditions are not the best at the moment should be considering that because, every time they lose a member of staff, it is costing them—in recruitment costs and many other costs. It would be in their interest to act now to improve their pay and conditions.

I cannot remember off the top of my head what the number was, but the Coalition of Care and Support Providers in Scotland did a calculation not long ago of the cost of constant recruitment. We can provide the committee with that figure, I hope, but it was not insubstantial. Rather than constantly forking out money on recruitment, it may be best for some employers to invest and put in money to improve pay and conditions. Then they may be able to retain a lot more of their staff.

I will make this caveat a few times: I should once again say that there are employers out there who pay their staff well and have good conditions, and they are retaining their people.

Gosh—I think that I have that number somewhere, but I am not sure that I can find it. [Interruption.] Oh! Ms Bell has the information—she is much more on the ball than I am.

The independent review of adult social care estimated that approximately 36,000 people who would benefit from access to social care support do not have access to it at the moment.

We have committed to enhancement by £800 million, but we have had no indication from the UK Treasury of what money we are likely to get as a result of the rise in national insurance. Ms Webber might be able to help the Scottish Government in that regard. If she has a word in Rishi Sunak’s shell-like so that we finally get some numbers out of him and find out how Scotland will benefit, I might be in a better position to answer her question. However, we have committed to the £800 million.

Sometimes it is very difficult to build that evidence base. I gave the example about stepped-up and stepped-down care, but can I—or, indeed, those folk in Aberdeen—tell you in the here and now how many folk have been prevented from going into hospital? That is a very difficult thing to do. It is not so easy to work out what that stepping up has or has not done.

However, we know that the approach has been helpful for people. We can make the broad assumption—and it would not be far off the mark—that it has probably saved a lot of people from going in through the hospital front door. It is also one of the reasons for the lower number of delayed discharges in Aberdeen compared with many of our other cities. As I have said, these things are sometimes very difficult to measure, particularly in the short term, but the broad assumption that the approach has been helpful in keeping folk out of acute services would not be off the mark.

I am not afraid of pinching, stealing or plagiarising, Ms Callaghan. We will have a look at the dashboard that education is using and consider whether it would be useful to us as we move forward.