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On the convener’s point about productivity, I note that a report that the Institute for Fiscal Studies produced recently says that the productivity changes in Scotland have been much worse than those in the rest of the UK. There has been a productivity rebound in the NHS in other parts of the UK but not in Scotland. Can you give us any reflections on why that would be the case given the reform process? Is the pace of change not strong enough? Why has the position in the rest of the UK not been reflected in Scotland?

You have been clear that that is partly due to the Government not having clarity of its own intent around post-school skills reform. Until the Government does that, how on earth are colleges meant to know? The idea is that we will have a public sector reform board and a change fund of £30 million, which accounts for 0.05 per cent of the overall budget. Will those things not simply be paying lip service unless work is actually done to say “This is where we want to go”?

Is transparency not also a key issue in that regard? I have similar concerns to the convener. In NHS Tayside, no vasectomies have been carried out for two years. None were carried out for a whole year and then, using the kind of arrangements that you have described, we managed to secure 400 procedures—these were family planning decisions—to be carried out elsewhere. Those services have, in effect, been withdrawn locally but nobody has been told that. People are sitting on waiting lists and they need to be told about that situation. Is engagement with the public in the processes that you are talking about key to what you do?

It might be useful to have some indication of the guidance that was issued, convener, given the committee’s interest in interoperability, particularly when new systems are being built.

What I am hearing so far from the various contributions is that you are all doing your jobs: you are delivering against the mandates that are set out for you in legislation and as directed by Government. We are interested in the opportunity for reform and change more broadly.

I suppose that what you are describing, Alison, is the changes that you are making in Transport Scotland to increase demand for public transport, and that is you meeting the mandate that is set out for you. I am interested in whether organisations feel that they have the agency to respond to the broader vectors with regard to the need for reform, not just the financial limitations of budgets—Garry McEwan mentioned the downward pressure on budgets—but the external pressures of demographic change, climate change and technological change, and to adapt what they are doing.

I was struck by NHS National Services Scotland’s submission. It refers to—this is the top of its list—a

“compelling case for change”

being a

“Burning platform”.

That seems to me to be about an emergency response rather than an organisation having the agency to say what it thinks that it, as part of a set of public organisations, will have to do to respond to the context that Scots find themselves in and how they live their lives. I want to know about the leadership opportunities that you as organisations have to respond to that. Maybe the witnesses could give me a flavour of that.

It would be good to have that new direction.

College principals and board chairs would disagree with you. They tell me and others that, essentially, they do not know what they are meant to be doing as organisations, what areas they are meant to be focusing on and what their priorities are. The statement of purpose and principles was derided pretty universally as a watered-down version of what had been a broader reform programme.

Essentially, there is another consultation about the previous piece of work, and the Withers review. Are we not limited by the absence of a real direction in the agenda? How can we expect the principals of colleges, who are the people delivering the qualifications and skills for our businesses, to be able to do that and to make strategic decisions?

In pulling my next question together, I will focus on colleges, on which you have done a significant amount of work. You said:

“The college sector is facing huge challenges. But to plan effectively for the future, colleges need a much stronger steer from the Scottish Government on what parts of their role to prioritise.”

That relates to a point that I would like to make about the long-term process of reform. Reform is a nebulous concept, but it is perhaps driven by a fiscal requirement due to the constrained fiscal situation, the ageing population and all the dynamics that come with that. However, there is a question whether the public realm understands the purpose of what it is meant to be doing. College principals and chairs of boards tell me that they do not know what they are meant to be doing because the Government will not tell them. How possible is it to reform if you do not know where you are going?

The other function of X-Road is interoperability among the various data sets.

The idea is that, rather than asking whether we can re-engineer legacy systems, if a new system is being built, it should be built to a standard that enables data to be shared between, for example, Food Standards Scotland and the Scottish Funding Council.

Lynne Raeside talked about building a new data system. You said that that was done independently. Did you consider, and did the Scottish Government provide any form of guidance on, the need to ensure that your data system could be used interoperably with the other agencies that are represented around the table today?