���˿���

Incidentally, I have a wee query. Why are carer breaks classed as “Service Strategy” in the financial memorandum? I would have thought that “Carer breaks” would have been a much easier way to explain that, so that anyone looking at it—a layperson—would understand a wee bit more about what that money was being spent on.

Okay.

On digital, the business case says:

“New technology will be required to deliver the integrated social care and health and social care record.”

It mentions the

“need to invest in the sector”,

and it says:

“There is significant work already underway to ensure the NHS has the capability and capacity to support the introduction of the record.”

The word “significant” can mean anything, of course. What are we looking at by way of costs for that? When will that work conclude?

Thanks. I will make one final point.

Minister, you have spoken about the 36,000 people in relation to unmet need. You have also talked about the many excellent people who work in the sector and about the need to improve quality, pay, conditions and so on. How many additional people will be needed to deliver the service on the ground? If we are improving the care that people receive and the quality of that care, that takes time and people. There are chronic recruitment challenges. Jamie Halcro Johnston has mentioned the islands. I have two islands in my constituency, with more than 6,000 people living on them. Trying to get care staff there is a nightmare. Even if hourly wages could be increased to £15, £16 or £17 an hour, we would really struggle to get people, as the demand is high. We have a demographic challenge.

We are looking at a financial memorandum with 2 per cent inflation and a 3 per cent real-terms increase, but some of that 3 per cent real-terms increase will be absorbed by the increasing number of people receiving care. How many additional staff will we need, and where will we get them from? What kind of recruitment and training programmes will be introduced in order to find those people?

We will have a final question from Michael Marra after which we will wind up this evidence session.

I am saying that the implementation delay of three years impacts on the full delivery of the bill and that the costs will hit further on than we are seeing now. In the new financial memorandum, there are only seven years of costs instead of 10 years, so it is hard to compare a given year. Under the new financial memorandum, the costs for 2027-28 look totally different than they did under the old one, simply because a lot less will be happening then as a result of the three-year delay.

There may be some moves to put things in the bill, but the reason why the committee is so concerned about having more in primary legislation is so that we can scrutinise the costings and so on. There are very challenging financial circumstances across the Scottish Government and we all worry that a bill of this magnitude and quality, if it is delivered as it should be, might not end up doing what it says on the tin because of resources. It is about knowing what the resources are. I have a feeling that the more co-design that is done before primary legislation is enacted, the better. That is the view of most people on the committee, if not all of us.

We previously asked a lot of questions about the GDP deflator and so on. On five separate occasions, I think, Donna Bell has said that she would get that information to us. When will that information—for example, costings based on the GDP deflator—be given to us?

I am asking about that for consistency, because it is very difficult to scrutinise when you are looking at one figure that is increasing in cash terms and one that is increasing by inflation plus 3 per cent. It seems that we are almost looking at two separate measurements, which will inevitably have different figures.

Social Work Scotland said that it has concerns that that target will not be met. You are saying that it has been met in cash terms, but it thought that the figure was meant to be in real terms, so some clarification is required.

Sorry—where is the greatest variability within the overall package of £631 million to £916 million?

I am sorry, minister—I do not like to interrupt, but time is against us. General questions in the chamber start in less than 20 minutes. You have kind of body-swerved the question. Costs are built into the bill, and we are now pinning them down. There is the new, revised bill—never mind whatever was proposed over a year ago—and there is the range between £631 million and £916 million. An element of that costing must be for the additional staff component that is required to deliver the bill on the ground, taking into account the improvements in conditions and status that you have mentioned.

I am asking a straightforward question: how many additional people will be needed? I appreciate that we talked about its being four years before implementation, but how many additional people will be needed in a rapidly ageing workforce? I do not know what we will do when women over 45 get to retirement age in 15 or 20 years, because I am not seeing young people coming in in the numbers that we require. How many additional people will be needed to deliver the bill as envisaged? It is one thing to develop a wonderful bill, but you need to have the folk to deliver it. How will they be recruited and trained?

Most of those costs must be for staff. The money that the bill costs must go on people’s wages. For example, we have mentioned the £10 million spent on 170 civil servants. A colossal proportion of the £631 million to £916 million must surely be for staff. That clearly tells us that wages will improve, but numbers must improve if there are 36,000 people with unmet need. That is why I ask about how many people we will need to deliver the bill. They might not be recruited by the Scottish Government, but the Scottish Government is putting money into the bill to ensure that it is delivered, and that must filter down to staff.