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We are working on accurate data. It is not as simple as saying that we should put in extra money. If it were that simple, we probably would just throw money at it, but most people would recognise that a change in approach is required as well as extra money. There are challenges in following the money across the system and in seeing where the money goes within social care. It is quite complex to follow it.

There is a general acknowledgement that we are not getting in early enough. If we go back to data, one of the problems with data is that we focus very much on the things that are easy to count, such as delayed discharges—what we call the back door of the hospital. It is less straightforward to measure unmet need in the community. If we could get that fixed, that would help us with early intervention and prevention and mean that money was spent more efficiently. Some of the calculations on early intervention and prevention suggest that we could probably help twice as many people if we were able to get in earlier, rather than waiting until somebody reaches crisis and is admitted to hospital. A frail elderly person being discharged from hospital is likely to need twice the package of care than they would have needed if we had got to them earlier.

It is not an easy thing to do, but morally, ethically and economically, we have to get in earlier, higher upstream, and we have to have more grip and assurance across our system. We have to understand what is going on and make sure not just that money goes into the system, but that it goes to the right place. I think that there is general agreement in that regard. People have concerns about the national care service and about the Government’s delivery of social care, but very few people are arguing for the status quo and more money to do things the way that we do things now.

The Government encourages all local authorities to approach SDS in the same way so that people understand their options and are offered the full range of choices through SDS. I am aware that the support that is available is inconsistent across the country.

In April, the Scottish Government relaunched the support in the right direction programme and has committed £9.2 million to fund the programme for the next three years. I have to say that I was absolutely delighted to see the multiyear funding for that programme, because it is important that it is embedded and that it continues. It will ensure that people who require social care support will have access to independent information, advice and advocacy in line with the Scottish Government’s vision for self-directed support.

Inspiring Scotland is the fund manager for the support in the right direction—SIRD—programme, which is delivered through partnership arrangements with third sector organisations and local authorities right across Scotland. The Scottish Government funds 33 organisations across the country through the programme, which covers all 32 local authority areas. That is one really significant piece of work that is being done in order to ensure that people have the right information, options and support in order to make the right decisions.

We are keen to identify any barriers to the implementation of full integration across the board. We will look at any barriers that this post-legislative scrutiny identifies. We will then make improvements to the system and take action to ensure that it operates as intended.

I do not know whether Rachael McGruer wants to say a bit more about the evidence that has been gathered so far in this inquiry.

I agree that there is a lot of variation in how teams are set up around the country, and that that presents challenges for people. As we try to drill down and understand what is happening and what is leading to the acute pressures that are being felt at the moment, we have come across situations in which social work has not been involved, even though it has had capacity. There are definitely barriers to do with the way that teams are set up locally that are making things difficult.

An exciting piece of work that the Government is doing is our work on GIRFE—getting it right for everyone—which is an approach for adults with complex needs. You will be aware of the GIRFEC—getting it right for every child—approach. GIRFE involves taking a proper multidisciplinary and, indeed, multi-agency approach to more complex cases, in recognition of the fact that some people require services to coalesce around them and provide a package of care that means that they cannot fall through the net. It is about ensuring that we find ways to deliver that care to people with complex needs.

Our services operate in silos, but human beings do not, so we are always trying to crack that one. There are a few GIRFE pathfinders currently operating across the country. They will give us an understanding of how we can provide a more personalised way to access help and support when it is needed, and put the person at the centre of the decisions that affect them in order to achieve the best outcomes.

There is an overlap with the GIRFEC approach, which is about putting a team around the child. GIRFE is about putting a team around the person and making sure that all the public services are involved. I have mentioned previously that some individuals whom I meet are like a pinball, pinging back and forth between different systems and struggling to have their rights upheld and their needs met. The approach of ensuring that the person is at the centre and the team is around them, working together to ensure that their needs are met and that their rights are upheld, will help.

We are currently working carefully on that, and I think that it will really help with those complex cases in which there are not just multiple disciplines, but multiple agencies, involved.

That is fine.

We can go back and look at it. It was long before I was elected, and certainly long before I was in my position as minister. We will go back and have a look at what was discussed around the time that the bill that became the 2013 act was introduced, with regard to the metrics that were put in place to ensure that it was delivered appropriately. Times have moved on somewhat since then, but Sandesh Gulhane is right to highlight that it is important that we look at what the intention was at the time that the bill was introduced.

I think that the three-year commitment to the landscape in which we are operating shows the intent of Government. We see that as crucial. We know that the third sector is playing a really important role, and we know how important it is for it to have secure funding.

I am delighted that there is secure funding over three years, which demonstrates the on-going commitment to that particular aspect of self-directed support.

It is challenging to achieve consistency across the board. We work not only with COSLA, but directly with chief officers in each local authority area. A few years ago, we updated the statutory guidance to make it clearer how we expect the policy to be implemented and to tackle the risk-averse approach that we see being taken in some parts of the country and the organisational or cultural barriers that might undermine the flexibility, autonomy and choice that are at the core of SDS.

My colleagues are probably best placed to comment on this, but we have funded Social Work Scotland to update the SDS framework of standards and to create the practitioners toolkit, both of which will help us to improve consistency across the country. However, I think that there is a strong case for a national care service. You would expect me to say that, but I think that it is really important that, in circumstances in which there is inconsistency and the situation is challenging for local areas, we will be able to provide national oversight and national support frameworks, and to ensure that different areas can learn from one another. At the moment, they are working in isolation, and we need to improve the learning that takes place across the country.

I think that everyone acknowledges just how challenging the landscape is at the moment, given the pressures that we face. This has been a long review of SDS, and some pressures were building before the pandemic. We have an ageing population demographic—it is great that people are living longer, but they are living longer with more complex health issues and are, therefore, requiring more social care support—and people with certain conditions are living independently in a way that they would not have been able to do in the past, so some pressures are built in.

There have been 14 years of austerity, which have, as nearly everyone acknowledges, challenged all our local services. All our public services are feeling stretched to the limit. Any changes that could be made to improve efficiency have been made, so any further savings have an impact on delivery. People are feeling like that across the board.

The pandemic has caused a real challenge. The health portfolio team has a meeting every week before the Cabinet meeting, and this morning we discussed some of the challenges that we face in relation to the stage at which people present with an illness, because people are presenting further on in their illnesses and when they are more acutely unwell. There is more complexity than there was before the pandemic, and there are also more Covid cases—there has been an increase in the level of Covid in our community.

All those issues still exert pressure on our health and social care system, so it is undoubtedly an exceptionally challenging time at the moment. In order to rise to meet the challenges and address the pressures that we face, we have weekly charging for residential accommodation guidance—CRAG—meetings where we look at the whole system in order to assess what is happening in health and social care in Scotland and to consider what can be done to improve the situation.

You will have heard from the First Minister that there is a real focus on delayed discharge, for example. The figure for delayed discharges used to vary by season—it would go down in the summer and up in the winter—but the pressure from delayed discharges has been relentless all year round for a number of years, since the start of the pandemic. Over the next few months, there will be a real focus on trying to improve the situation in order that we have some headroom.

From the letter that I sent to the committee yesterday about the national care service, you will know that we have paused our discussions on one or two amendments that have still not been agreed by me and COSLA in order to free up the space to focus on acute system pressures over the next few months, rather than on the systemic solutions that might be a little further down the line.

I do not know whether my colleagues want to say a bit more about eligibility options in the future.

In my casework as a constituency MSP, I certainly hear that concern. People think that option 1 is SDS, and that concerns me, because it suggests that people who are trying to access social care at the coalface are not being talked through the whole suite of options that are available to them, and that option 1 is being used as the default setting. That is a real challenge that we recognise.

As Rachael McGruer said earlier, we are working closely with NCS colleagues to ensure that the SDS principles are embedded within the creation of the NCS bill, and that the SDS improvement plan, which we are working through at the moment, is completed and embedded into the national care service, so that improvements in practice, that genuine offer of flexible choice and that change in practice are embedded in future social care delivery and available to everyone across the country.

Joanne Finlay, do you want to say a little bit more about that?