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My very first conversation with the unions was on exactly that topic. The language used varies round the table, and one of the first things that needs to be done is define that in your sector.

Do you want to have a go at that, Martin?

I did not know that minutes had not been produced.

I do not think that we are planning further consultation, but, once the legislation is passed in the UK Parliament, we definitely need to pause and reflect on whether we will pursue the process with statutory underpinning or continue with our voluntary process as envisaged.

The fair work in social care approach was specifically brought in for Scotland, and, when we consulted the fair work group, it clearly liked the work that has been done so far. We will need to pause and reflect. I do not think that we need to consult too much more, and we have the mechanisms in place to ensure that we hear from the sector.

The UK Employment Rights Bill, as it is amended at the moment, includes provisions to establish a social care negotiating body, but we do not have to do that. We can choose not to implement that part of the legislation in Scotland, but we might find that it is more effective.

Yes. As we have illustrated with our answers, things are not quite agreed, although we are very close to agreement. I absolutely understand the frustration of people working in the sector that their terms, conditions and pay are not improving fast enough. That is the concern that was outlined to the committee last week. I agree—I would like to go further and faster. A number of limits are in place. We have just about managed to work out a mechanism that can help us to navigate what is a complex landscape. The other challenge will be finding the money, but we are keen to do that. We are committed and we have a track record.

You are absolutely correct that employment law is reserved. The bill is required to devolve some power to the Scottish ministers to make changes. We saw the bill coming on the horizon and recognised the opportunity to underpin much of the work that we have done on sectoral bargaining by seeking to extend the bill’s scope to Scotland.

When the bill was introduced, it was intended to be for England only. Scotland and Wales in particular were pretty keen for its scope to be extended. That will give us the option to regulate for negotiated fair pay agreements for the sector as an alternative to the voluntary process, which we think will be useful.

On your point about the reserved nature of employment law, the Scottish Government, much of civic Scotland and trade unions are all keen for employment law to be devolved. Under the mechanism that is in the bill, there is an issue that, despite the area being devolved, UK ministers will still have to consent. It is fair to say that we would have preferred not to have that. At the moment, relations are very positive with the UK Government, but there have been times in the recent past when we have had very different views on how we should proceed. Having to ask the UK Government for permission to implement fair work is not my choice.

We have negotiated a change to that. The arrangements were introduced in that way for England, but we and Wales are both keen on including children’s social care staff, and that will be the position in Scotland.

We can probably furnish you with some costs. I have spoken before about the on-going costs of the increase in employer national insurance contributions, which we think will cost social care in Scotland between £84 million and £100 million a year, every year, from now on. We are trying to regularly update people and help them to understand the situation, because some of the figures are enormous. We will gather some costings together and provide them to the committee.

As I said, the national care service team does not work entirely on bill delivery—bill delivery is a great deal of what they do, but the ambition behind the national care service initiative, which is to reduce variation in the level and quality of care, is greater than the bill. The bill team delivers a large amount of work in that regard outside the work on the bill itself.

To put those costs into context, that £30 million over three years relates to work on understanding a system that costs £6.1 billion a year. That means that less than 0.2 per cent of the cost of the system is being spent on understanding how it works, on consultation and on the creation of ways of achieving improvements in the system.

Over the past few months, I have raised many concerns in the chamber about some of the changes that have hit us in social care in Scotland, such as the increase in employer national insurance contributions, which has had a devastating impact and will undoubtedly lead to some care providers going under, and the changes to immigration arrangements. I wish that all Governments spent time understanding the sector before making substantial changes.

I do not agree with that. A great deal of the spend by the bill team has been on co-design. Perhaps John Paul would like to say a little bit more about the work of the national care service team of civil servants.