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Ms Rowand, when you talked about the opportunity cost of developing a new social care system, you said that we had to bear in mind not just the cost of introducing a new system but the fact that resources might have to be taken away from elsewhere. Can you expand on that? Are you saying that any new system will create an additional administrative burden or do you foresee some of the social care services that are provided on the ground being changed or removed?

Thank you very much.

Indeed, and thank you very much for those helpful answers.

Ms Kelly, given what has been said, am I right in thinking that COSLA’s position is that some of the change to a national care service could be extremely difficult as far as the current services are concerned?

Mr Sim, I hope that you will not mind if I continue with questions on exactly that theme.

In your submission, you were very clear that one of the issues that worry you is that things such as research, innovation and artificial intelligence are now classified on the capital side of spend, rather than the resource side, and that the national performance framework concentrates on the latter.

I think that all of us in Parliament would argue that research and development is one of the great strengths of Scotland’s university sector. Earlier, you mentioned that Scotland is able to attract absolutely the finest people. What would you like to see being done in recognition of that? It is obviously one of the sustaining factors of the sector.

This question is much more technical—I apologise for that—but it is important. You set out in your letter the methodology that has been used to measure the areas that you believe are most in need. That methodology is also on the UK Government website and is largely based on the indices that the Office for National Statistics produced.

When the Scottish Government makes an assessment of the areas that it thinks are most in need, it uses the formal Scottish Fiscal Commission budget analysis and estimates, with some based on ONS input and others not. I want to check that the UK Government’s assessment of the areas that are most in need—that is, the methodology that you use—does not use data that is different from the data that is used when it comes to the Scottish economy. If there was different data, there could be different interpretations.

A conclusion from our budget report was that the Scottish economy sometimes suffers from the Scottish Fiscal Commission and the Office for Budget Responsibility having different timescales. Are you confident that the methodology that is being used to decide which areas are most in need uses a formula agreed by both Governments?

That is very helpful. Is it your understanding that that would be done on an independent basis for all spending across the UK?

I reference the fact that the co-operation on deals such as the Tay cities deal was absolutely first class, because everybody was on the same page. The UK Government, the Scottish Government, local authorities and local interest groups were on the same page with regard to what the ambitions were for the Tay cities project, and I think that that was true of the other city deals, too.

If there was a slight difference between the Scottish Government’s priorities through the national performance framework and those of the UK Government, how would that be resolved to the satisfaction of both Governments?

Secretary of state, you will be aware that the committee has recently published its report on the budget for 2022-23. It was a unanimous report. Not only does it flag up quite a lot of concerns about the Scottish economy, it raises concerns about the budget process. One of the conclusions in that report is that there is not sufficient transparency between the UK Government and the Scottish Government about where the income streams come from and, just as important, where they are being spent. Those points were also raised by people who gave evidence to the committee during our scrutiny of the budget.

On the three new funds that we are discussing, are you confident that both Governments are absolutely clear about the amounts of money that are available and what the timescales are?

That is very helpful, secretary of state. It is absolutely crucial that the data that is used in making these decisions is agreed on, because, as I have said, and as has come up in our budget report, if it is different, that makes policy making all the more troublesome.

That is very helpful.

In your helpful letter to the committee of 21 February, you spoke about engagement with the devolved nations on the three new funds. Could you expand on that? As the convener hinted in relation to investment, concerns have been expressed that the UK Government was choosing to engage much more with local authorities and stakeholders in local communities than with the Scottish Government.

I would like to know about the process. The Scottish Government develops many of its policy ambitions through what is called the national performance framework. If the process is to work, there must be some articulation between the aims and objectives of the UK Government and the aims and objectives of the Scottish Government. Could you expand on how you see that engagement taking place, especially in relation to the aims and objectives of the Scottish Government?