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What I would say to local authorities is that they still have responsibility for delivery. I trust local authorities to do what is right for the populations and the people they represent. It would be particularly daft to stop delivery and to stop investment.

With regard to your question about front-line staff—I agree that the focus of front-line staff at the moment is on delivering for the people they care for and support daily—I will use not my words, but those of Mike Burns, who is the assistant chief officer at Glasgow City Council and the vice-convener of Social Work Scotland. He told the Education, Children and Young People Committee that he agreed that change was needed. He said that there was little impact on front-line staff, that the focus of delivery at the moment was on the valuable and valued work that they do on a daily basis and that senior managers were beginning to consider the proposals.

I think that that is right. The main focus of front-line staff at the moment is on the delivery of care and services. I hope that we can get front-line staff involved in the co-design process, too. I recognise that we will have to be adept in doing everything that we can to allow them that opportunity. As far as the national care service is concerned, I have no evidence that any of what is proposed is having any impact on delivery.

I would say that the bill entirely fits in with the charter. I will write to the committee with all the details of how it does so. I have some details here that I cannot find at the moment, but I will write to the committee to show exactly how the bill fits in with the charter, if that suits you, convener.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity.

Absolutely, as we work forward in all of this, we will continue to provide business cases and impact assessments for scrutiny by all committees and by Parliament. We need to do that in the interest of openness and transparency as we move through the co-design process and we have to take cognisance of any impact on any part of the system at all.

However, as I said minutes ago, the bill as it stands has no direct impact on local authorities. There are a lot of myths going round about what may happen. Let me give you examples. You talked about transfer of staff. In the bill there is the ability to transfer staff, because care boards, as envisaged, will be the provider of last resort. If a care home or care service fell over, there would have to be the ability to transfer staff and assets in order to protect that service. However, nobody has suggested—certainly, I have not—the wholesale transfer of staff from local authorities to local care boards or to the national care service. As I said earlier, I see local authorities as being important delivery partners, which is why I want them at the table co-designing.

Equally, there has been a lot of talk of transferring assets. Again, that is not something that is necessary. It has to be looked at in the co-design, but some of the witnesses who have been at this committee and others have suggested that there will be the wholesale transfer of staff and assets including, I believe, electric cars. That is not as we envisage it, but we have to have the ability in the bill to ensure that there is a provider of last resort.

There are a number of things in that. Oversight and accountability came out very clearly in Derek Feeley’s review and recommendations, and in the work that we have done prior to, during and since the consultation. National oversight will be better in terms of sharing of good practice and innovation. Developments that take place in one part of the country are often not easy to export to other places.

The bill will also remove unwanted duplication and functions, and make best use of public funds.

I have come across no one who does not want high-quality national standards. That is a priority for folks with lived experience of care and their carers, and it is extremely important for front-line staff. It is very clear from everything that we have heard that people want national accountability—they want ministers to be accountable. Among the faces around this table and people around Parliament are many who write to me to ask me to get involved in cases in their constituencies to do with social care. I have to say that I have no responsibility and no accountability, in that regard. I can set policy direction as a minister, but I am not accountable and do not deliver the services. People do not get that; they think that national accountability and national oversight are needed. In particular, people want high-quality national standards in order that we can end the postcode lottery of services.

Another aspect to consider is local accountability. It does not work well in some areas, so we need tighten it. People need to know what to expect in delivery of services.

There is a huge opportunity to improve standards; we have different standards in different places. The change also gives us the opportunity to ensure fair work and fair terms and conditions, which is not the case at the moment. Terms and conditions and pay cause a great deal of grief not only in social care, but in social work. Without naming authorities—that would be a bit naughty of me—I point out that certain parts of the country are having real problems in recruiting social workers because other authorities nearby offer better terms and conditions and pay. There is an argument that that represents local flexibility, but there is also an argument that it leads to real difficulties in recruitment and retention in some areas, which means that there is diminution of services there. In respect of pay, conditions and fair work, the national service is the right way forward.

We have uplifted pay twice in one year in adult social care. That has not been easy for me or my officials because we are dealing with 1,200 disparate employers. We need to change that, as we move forward, in order to get it right.

Those are a few reasons why we need to move to national oversight. At the top of the list is high-quality national standards so that people know what level of service they can expect, no matter where they are in Scotland.

I will let in Ms Bell. We will provide you with more detail on that, too.

That will not necessarily have to be the case, Mr Mason. As I said in a previous answer, there are without a doubt opportunities to have shared services here. I am not going to make any comment about jobs for accountants, but there is an opportunity to have shared service aspects to all of this.

I do not think that it is possible to change the financial memorandum before stage 3, but let me check that and get back to you.

As I said, we have made no decisions on assets or staff transfer. That is part of the co-design process, and I hope that local government and others will be fully engaged in that. However, currently, services are often transferred to local authorities, as provider of last resort, if there are difficulties with delivery. As I have said, the bill will provide for transfer, if Parliament agrees that care boards should become the provider of last resort. That will make such transfers possible if a particular service collapses.

We have a mixed model at the moment, and I am sure that we will continue to have a mixed model. However, there will be changes because, at the end of the day, one of the main aims is to ensure that people have fair work and that there is national sectoral bargaining for pay and conditions—that is extremely important. There is also the aspect of ethical procurement, and fair work absolutely has to be embedded in that.

That is what we need to do to ensure that we attract more folk to the care profession—to create the right environment to attract people to come and work in the profession and, beyond that, to ensure that we can provide the career pathways that young people want but feel are not there at the moment. Those are some of the main opportunities of the journey that we are embarking on. If we do not move forward on that front, it will be more difficult to have a sustainable care provision as we move forward.