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We had quite a long discussion at Tuesday’s committee meeting about balancing local government’s demand for more flexibility—which I am sympathetic to—with making sure that discrete areas of spend, such as homelessness, deliver the progress that we need to be delivered. The question is whether the progress that has been made on the housing first programme and the rapid rehousing transition plan would have happened if that money had not been earmarked for the purpose. Those are not easy things to balance.

If local government representatives were sitting at this table now, they would say that those are joint priorities and we need to trust local government to get on and deliver them. We have joint accountability for the delivery of those joint priorities, so we need assurance about that.

The discussions will continue. I am keen to make sure that local government has that flexibility, albeit against a very challenging backdrop. Again, we have discussed at length the £570 million that has been made available for local government against that challenging backdrop, while bearing in mind the fact that we had only £800 million of consequentials from the UK Government budget settlement. We will, no doubt, continue to have these debates, but within that global amount are some really important discrete areas of spend, and homelessness is definitely one on which we need assurance that the good work that has been done jointly with local government continues.

In summary, it is important but it is not the only measurement. Nonetheless, it is something that we should keep an eye on.

We agree with the Child Poverty Action Group, and we have written to the UK Government on several occasions, calling for the two-child limit and the benefit cap to be scrapped. The Scottish Government is already mitigating the benefit cap through local authorities. However, we acknowledge that that would be more effective if it was done at source by the UK Government.

As a Government, we also agree that universal credit should be paid at the same amount, no matter the age of the person who is applying. That would help many people and families who are facing hardship as a result of the arbitrary age discrimination that the UK Government has introduced.

That is in sharp contrast to the significant level of support that the Scottish Government is providing to low-income parents. We have a lot of sympathy with what the Child Poverty Action Group is saying.

There has been a lot of independent analysis over the years. One of the most important reports has been the recent “Welfare reform report—Impact on families with children”, which was published in April last year. It estimated that

“Reversing key UK Government welfare reforms that have occurred since 2015 would bring an estimated 70,000 people out of poverty in Scotland, including 30,000 children, in 2023-24.”

That would very much help us to meet our child poverty targets.

Pam Duncan-Glancy makes a fair point. These are tough times for all sectors—whether it is local government, the third sector or public agencies—in terms of the quantum of finance that is available in the budget. Multiyear funding is important because it makes things easier by giving the certainty of funding availability. If we move to a position in which multiyear funding becomes the presumption and default, that will help with the planning of budgets.

We will work with third sector organisations to support them as much as we can. We need to look at how we can reform the way that we do things. That applies not just to Scottish Government agencies and public services but to local government. The Accounts Commission suggested that as a way forward, and that might have to apply to the third sector, too. We all have to look at, for example, the buildings, services and support structures that we use, to see whether they can be shared. We need to look at things differently. The pandemic has shown that different ways of working—which, before the pandemic, we might not have thought possible—have been achieved in a very short timeframe. In some ways, that flexible working can reduce infrastructure costs for organisations.

We need to continue to have those discussions, but I am not going to sit here and pretend that it is easy for any sector, including the third sector, which—as I said—we will try to support as much as we can.

We expect officials across the Scottish Government to work closely on that, to know what grant applications are in and to know which ones are likely to be approved or not approved. Sometimes that is important if a particular fund is under real pressure and we can look at whether other funds in Government can be brought to the table to support that. That happens fairly regularly.

It should not matter where the fund is located in Government. The same approach should be taken in the move to multiyear funding and towards the key priorities, which the Deputy First Minister has set out, of tackling child poverty, sustaining public services and moving to net zero. You would expect those priorities to be reflected through all the funds for the third sector across various parts of Government.

Will it be right in every circumstance? I am sure that there will be glitches on occasion. However, what I have set out is how we expect the system to operate, and we expect close communication to take place.

Yes, it is. I hope that our actions, whether it is through the £3 billion that has been allocated to help low-income households in the current financial year, £1 billion of which is available only in Scotland, or, going forward, through the budget decisions that we have made—not least the allocation of £780 million above the block grant adjustment for social security—are seen as active political choices and decisions about how we support household budgets and people on low incomes. That comes at a cost, if you like, with regard to the availability of funding for other things, but, in the current financial climate, it is absolutely the right decision and one that we would defend vigorously.

That is an important question. A number of processes are on-going across portfolios as they continue to assess the value and impact of policies. The vast majority of the programmes, policies and services that the budget funds are not necessarily freshly generated and announced at the point at which the annual budget is introduced; budgets are more likely to be reviewed and refined in the light of a number of factors, including the human rights dimension. A number of large policy areas have substantive evaluation programmes in place to assess the outcome of the spending programmes, and those deliver results at different points in the policy cycle.

We expect equality and human rights impact assessments to be a key part of that process but not the only factor in informing final decisions. Other considerations might include making budget adjustments due to changes in available resources to support the policy delivery, reprofiling the phasing of delivery and, as we did in the emergency budget review, focusing on other key priorities, which means perhaps not funding other things.

The equality and human rights impact assessment is key. Of itself, that is probably not a reason to change a budget decision, but it would be part of the assessment of the priority of that funding decision.

As I have said, and as Kevin Stevens said, it is not a target as such. It is more a measurement, alongside 69 others, around performance. With the charter being reviewed, the committee has an opportunity to look at whether the measurements are still fit for purpose. As I said, I will get the details on timelines and scope to the committee.

We should consider the growth of Social Security Scotland. When the charter was set out, back in 2019, it was a very different organisation, so part of looking again at the charter will be to reflect the fact that it is now a much larger organisation that is dealing with and processing applications from a far bigger group of people, and processing a larger number of supports and benefits. The context now is very different, and that can perhaps be looked at as part of the review.

I will pass that over to Kevin Stevens in a moment. I do not think that there is any attempt not to provide the data, or to be opaque in any way, with regard to the Scottish Fiscal Commission. It would not be in our, or Social Security Scotland’s, interest to do so, given the importance of the SFC’s forecasts and the adjustments that it makes on that basis. It is in our interest to ensure that the SFC gets that right, and that the forecasts are accurate.

Kevin, do you want to add anything in relation to the speed at which that information is provided?