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The Government encourages all local authorities to approach SDS in the same way so that people understand their options and are offered the full range of choices through SDS. I am aware that the support that is available is inconsistent across the country.

In April, the Scottish Government relaunched the support in the right direction programme and has committed £9.2 million to fund the programme for the next three years. I have to say that I was absolutely delighted to see the multiyear funding for that programme, because it is important that it is embedded and that it continues. It will ensure that people who require social care support will have access to independent information, advice and advocacy in line with the Scottish Government’s vision for self-directed support.

Inspiring Scotland is the fund manager for the support in the right direction—SIRD—programme, which is delivered through partnership arrangements with third sector organisations and local authorities right across Scotland. The Scottish Government funds 33 organisations across the country through the programme, which covers all 32 local authority areas. That is one really significant piece of work that is being done in order to ensure that people have the right information, options and support in order to make the right decisions.

We are keen to identify any barriers to the implementation of full integration across the board. We will look at any barriers that this post-legislative scrutiny identifies. We will then make improvements to the system and take action to ensure that it operates as intended.

I do not know whether Rachael McGruer wants to say a bit more about the evidence that has been gathered so far in this inquiry.

I agree that there is a lot of variation in how teams are set up around the country, and that that presents challenges for people. As we try to drill down and understand what is happening and what is leading to the acute pressures that are being felt at the moment, we have come across situations in which social work has not been involved, even though it has had capacity. There are definitely barriers to do with the way that teams are set up locally that are making things difficult.

An exciting piece of work that the Government is doing is our work on GIRFE—getting it right for everyone—which is an approach for adults with complex needs. You will be aware of the GIRFEC—getting it right for every child—approach. GIRFE involves taking a proper multidisciplinary and, indeed, multi-agency approach to more complex cases, in recognition of the fact that some people require services to coalesce around them and provide a package of care that means that they cannot fall through the net. It is about ensuring that we find ways to deliver that care to people with complex needs.

Our services operate in silos, but human beings do not, so we are always trying to crack that one. There are a few GIRFE pathfinders currently operating across the country. They will give us an understanding of how we can provide a more personalised way to access help and support when it is needed, and put the person at the centre of the decisions that affect them in order to achieve the best outcomes.

There is an overlap with the GIRFEC approach, which is about putting a team around the child. GIRFE is about putting a team around the person and making sure that all the public services are involved. I have mentioned previously that some individuals whom I meet are like a pinball, pinging back and forth between different systems and struggling to have their rights upheld and their needs met. The approach of ensuring that the person is at the centre and the team is around them, working together to ensure that their needs are met and that their rights are upheld, will help.

We are currently working carefully on that, and I think that it will really help with those complex cases in which there are not just multiple disciplines, but multiple agencies, involved.

That is fine.

We can go back and look at it. It was long before I was elected, and certainly long before I was in my position as minister. We will go back and have a look at what was discussed around the time that the bill that became the 2013 act was introduced, with regard to the metrics that were put in place to ensure that it was delivered appropriately. Times have moved on somewhat since then, but Sandesh Gulhane is right to highlight that it is important that we look at what the intention was at the time that the bill was introduced.

I think that the three-year commitment to the landscape in which we are operating shows the intent of Government. We see that as crucial. We know that the third sector is playing a really important role, and we know how important it is for it to have secure funding.

I am delighted that there is secure funding over three years, which demonstrates the on-going commitment to that particular aspect of self-directed support.

Absolutely. As I always say when answering questions of that nature, I am a Highland MSP, and I know at my core that one size does not fit all. In fact, where I live, in a rural west Highland village, social care is delivered very differently even from the way that it is done in Inverness, which is just along the road and within the same local authority and integration authority area. It is challenging to be prescriptive. However, that should not prevent us from recognising that there is an issue. Time and again, when we have looked at the health and social care system, we recognise that the variation is too great and that there are not good reasons to explain it.

We can see real and significant variation, and we talk about good and bad variation, or necessary and unnecessary variation. We are not interested in ironing out the sort of variation that has to occur in a remote west Highland village where limited assets are available. In that situation, we really want flexibility. In my part of the world, I mostly meet people who are desperately keen to stay in their communities and who are happy to tolerate some variation in how care is delivered to enable that core aim.

The unnecessary variation, which comes from culture, systems and, in particular, risk aversion, is what we need to iron out. We need to give people the confidence to operate the system properly and to properly put the person at the centre of decision making and in the lead on that. That will not look exactly the same in every part of the country, but it will reach the standards of quality that we are aiming for with this legislation.

That is why we have a programme in place to try to improve the data. We are working with Public Health Scotland to improve the quality of data. I agree with you: it is very difficult if we do not have high-quality data. We are therefore working on that with Public Health Scotland. It has suspended its collection of data. We will come back with better data collection, to enable us to manage more appropriately and more effectively the whole system through the use of that high-quality data.

As Joanne Finlay mentioned earlier, we have also looked at the health and care experience survey. That is a different methodology. It is always difficult to introduce different ways of collecting information, but we look at a variety of data sources. Some are well scrutinised and of high quality, whereas others are more anecdotal and less what you would call management information. We cannot publish those because the data is not of sufficiently high quality. However, we are looking at data and we are determined to find ways to measure the right things without putting a burden on a system that is already overburdened, in order to enable us—not just me, but the local system—to have that grip and assurance, exactly as you said, in order to ensure that delivery improves.

A number of pieces of work are in place to support the social work profession to ensure that a standard level of knowledge exists across the profession for all social workers. We are also beginning a programme of support for newly qualified social workers and for social workers who choose to specialise and continue to gain qualifications throughout their career.

We are trying to standardise that approach. You will be aware that there are 32 different employers for social workers across Scotland, with 32 different sets of paying conditions and 32 different local authorities that do workforce planning for social work. We see the national care service as a real opportunity to bring some cohesion to that picture. The planned national social work agency will sit on the national care service board and bring some national standards and planning to the particular challenges for that profession.

I see the national care service as a real opportunity for social workers. As you rightly say, they are crucial to the high-quality functioning of a social care system. Supporting the profession and ensuring that social workers flourish and thrive and are able to do the job that they came in to do is a really important part of how we intend to improve the quality of social care in the future.

My colleagues might wish to add something, particularly about the social work profession.

First, as a Warriors fan myself—as I say regularly to folk, I am Glasgow by marriage, so I am a huge Warriors fan—I was absolutely delighted, in a tough weekend of sport for Scotland, that their win in Pretoria was absolutely uplifting for the whole nation. We are very proud of what they have achieved—they are inspirational to many.

With regard to the social work profession, I absolutely recognise that there is a challenge in there for Government. I will put it simply. You are a clinician, and I am a clinician, too—I worked as a mental health pharmacist for 20 years in a multidisciplinary team, of which social workers were a key component. In my experience, social workers are social justice warriors: they come in to uphold the human rights of the people with whom they work. Over a number of years, however, the system has forced them to focus on issues such as budgets and eligibility, rather than on the individual requiring care who should be at the centre, and who requires their needs to be met and their rights to be upheld.

I see it as a responsibility of Government to ensure that social workers can go back to the job that they came in to do. One of the reasons that so many social workers are leaving the profession is because they are disappointed with the reality of their job once they are qualified.

As I have said previously, there are a number of issues. We need better workforce planning across the country, and higher numbers of social workers being produced and trained. We need better liaison between local authorities and universities in order to ensure that there are training placements for undergraduates and postgraduates so that they can be supported to become the professionals that we need them to be.

We need a strong postgraduate process of further education. Any professional—there are a number of health professionals around the table—will recognise that you do not come out of university ready to be the professional that you need to be. There is a period of further training once you are qualified, so we want that post-degree support, mentoring and training to be in place, solidified and nationally led.

The national social work agency will provide us with an opportunity to put in core standards to which every social worker will be expected to work. Although—as you allude to in your question—that might be felt by some social workers as a pressure, and as a further thing that we are asking them to do, many social workers tell me that it will give them the ability and the freedom to focus on the things that are important, such as upholding the human rights of individuals. They will be expected to work to a national standard rather than follow the local pressure of ensuring that the budget is delivered.

There is a huge amount that we can do to support the social worker profession. I reiterate how crucial social workers are. When I go around the country, in areas where systems are working really well, usually the social work profession there has a high profile and is well supported to do the job that it needs to do. The evidence is anecdotal, but it is clear that if we support the profession, the quality will be lifted throughout the country.

Responsibility for the social work profession lies with Angela Constance. She is a social worker, so has a passion for that. Natalie Don also shares some responsibility, as the Minister for Children, Young People and The Promise, so the three of us work regularly with the chief social worker, Iona Colvin, and her team, to try to ensure that we are delivering a social work workforce that is fit for the future and that it supports autonomous professionals who are empowered to deliver within the system.