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We will certainly be able to provide the committee with information on how we have made progress on that, yes.

Decisions to reduce employability budget lines have not been easy to make, but in the challenging financial context they have, unfortunately, been necessary. Every savings decision related to employability funding has been taken with the primary aim of protecting investments in front-line services as much as we possibly can.

The number of parents accessing services since parental employability support became a funded priority in April 2020 has risen year on year, and we remain committed to increasing the effectiveness of our services for parents in line with our child poverty commitments. That is, of course, done very much in partnership with local government.

The draft budget sets out our plan to invest up to £90 million in devolved employability services in 2024-25, and we will continue to prioritise specific investment that is aimed at supporting parents during that process.

The budget ensures that we continue to mitigate some of the worst excesses of UK Government decisions, and we will continue to do that next year. We have the funding to continue to mitigate the bedroom tax and the benefit cap, and we have the Scottish welfare fund.

I will raise two points alongside that. I would class the Scottish child payment as a mitigation measure, because, quite frankly, if universal credit was at the rate that it should be, we would not need to come in with additional funding for the Scottish child payment, and we could spend that money elsewhere.

The other aspects of mitigation, apart from the Scottish child payment, cost £127 million in 2023-24—the financial year that we are currently in. Clearly, that is money that we could have spent in a different way this year or next year if the UK Government had agreed with the proposal for an essentials guarantee that would ensure that universal credit was at a level that allowed people sufficient money to deal with essentials. We are simply talking about paying for essentials—not for a high standard of living.

If we were not having to mitigate UK Government decisions, the Scottish Government could be spending the money that is being spent on mitigation measures and the Scottish child payment on other poverty measures, and not just on child poverty.

Again, I am happy to provide in writing to the committee further detail on the mitigation costs.

As I said in my earlier remarks, we have endeavoured very much to protect investment in front-line services as much as possible. That includes our focus on parental employability support, which is a funded priority. I totally appreciate that members will have views on what budgets might be increased, and I am happy to work with Scottish Labour—as are colleagues across the Cabinet, I am sure—should members wish to come forward with costed proposals for how employability budget lines could be changed. As always, where there is a request to increase employability and other budget lines, we would need to discuss what changes could be made in other budgets that would allow such an increase. I am happy to work with Mr O’Kane if he feels that something should be done in that regard, and I am sure that my colleague Neil Gray would be happy to do so, too.

Because of the lack of time that we have to go into that, I am happy to furnish the committee with the forecast for the Scottish Government budget for capital and tell it why we continue to have to make difficult decisions. If Mr Balfour would like to see that forecast increased, he will have to suggest where the money will come from.

A number of the funding streams are being provided on a multiyear basis. For the sake of time, I am happy to provide the committee with some examples of how multiyear funding has been introduced. There is not a blanket approach, but there has been movement on it.

I suggest that one of the main ways to give the Scottish Government certainty over its budget and thereby allow further work to be done on multiyear funding is for the Scottish Government to receive multiyear funding packages, so that it has better knowledge of the funding that it will have. A great deal of work and implementation has been done, and I can provide the committee with some examples of where multiyear funding has been introduced in the past few years for different third sector streams, if that would assist the committee. It is work in progress.

There are two parts to that funding. First, there is the child poverty practice accelerator fund, which supports nine local authorities with small-scale projects. That important fund was opened for applications last summer, and the announcement that was made today was on the successful applications.

Secondly, there is the cash first fund, which meets our plan to end the need for food banks—which, it is worth remembering, is the first plan of its kind in the UK. The fund will provide £1.8 million during the next three years to support a number of local partnerships and improve urgent access to cash in a crisis.

We do not provide cost estimates for individual benefits such as the two that the member mentions, because the Social Security Scotland system is an integrated one in which much of the work on new benefits builds on what is already there. We are not building separate systems for different benefits and attaching them together; there is one integrated system. That is important, because it allows some of the functionality that we design into the system, such as application forms or correspondence with clients, to be used for a number of benefits. That helps with overall costs and ensures that we are using the system as effectively and efficiently as possible.

The member asked about differences. I will explain pension age disability payment first. One particular difference is that there are inclusive application channels. One of the most important ones, which colleagues will already be aware of, is the in-person support through our local delivery service. That increased support is provided directly by Social Security Scotland and improves access. In essence, that will help to improve take-up rates, so that more people get what they are entitled to.

Some of the improvements coming through for pension age disability payment are similar to those that are already there in child or adult disability payments. For example, there will be new definitions of terminal illness, and short-term assistance will be available, along with important help in gathering supporting information.

The pension age winter heating payment will replace the winter fuel payment for winter 2024-25. We intend to deliver a replacement that will ensure a safe and secure transition for around 1 million eligible people. We have committed to the fact that no one will lose out once we take responsibility for pension age winter heating payment. Under a like-for-like replacement for the winter fuel payment, everyone who is currently eligible to receive winter fuel payment will continue to receive the benefit that they have been entitled to.

The member is right to point to that recent work by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. The JRF estimates that, if the universal credit standard allowance was set at £120 per week for a single adult and £200 for a couple, that could lift 1.8 million people out of poverty, including 600,000 children, across the UK. That recent report provides stark figures on the number of children who are being held in poverty because universal credit is not fit for purpose.

We will protect the £41 million investment that we are making in the Scottish welfare fund, which will deliver support right across Scotland, which is on top of the continuing investment in discretionary housing payments—which mitigate the bedroom tax—and a number of other measures.

That might be an aspect of how the Scottish child payment could be developed in the future. The way in which the payment was introduced makes that rather impossible, but it might be possible to change the statutory underpinnings for the Scottish child payment when the bill on those statutory underpinnings comes to Parliament soon, and we might be able to look at a more nuanced approach.

The Scottish child payment was delivered as it was to ensure that that happened as quickly as possible. The time between policy decision and implementation was only 18 months, which was the quickest introduction of a benefit either in Scotland or the UK, and was an important aspect of this Government’s anti-poverty measures.