Good morning. Welcome to the 13th meeting in 2023 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee. We have received apologies from the convener, Therefore I will be chairing this meeting in his place. We are joined today by Keith Brown, MSP who is attending the meeting as the substitute member in the convener's absence. I am pleased to welcome Keith to the meeting and invite him to declare any relevant interests. I have no interest in the register of interests, but I would mention that I am a member of the local government pension scheme. Agenda item 1, we continue our inquiry into effective Scottish Government decision making. Today we are joined remotely by Sophie Howe, sustainability futures and wellbeing adviser and former future generations commissioner for Wales. Professor Steve Martin, director of the Wales Centre for Public Policy Cardiff University, and Professor Matthew Flinders from the University of Sheffield. We welcome you all to the meeting. Thanks for giving us your time. I intend to lie up to 90 minutes for this session, and we will move straight to questions. If any of the witnesses should wish to come in on any of the questions, I would be grateful if you could post that in the chat function. I will know to bring you in at that point. Committee colleagues, if you could please name the first witness that you want to put a question to, and I will then indicate, as I say afterwards, who wants to come in. One of the key issues that has been exercising our minds as a committee over all the evidence in these sessions is about how effective is the clarity of purpose when it comes to decision making. Given that, if we do not have that clarity, it is very difficult to get good quality decision making. I just wondered if I could open up with asking you as to how easy do you find it to set in motion that clarity of purpose? Do you have a good understanding of what the clarity of purpose is when it comes to decision making? Somebody first, Liz? We will go to Wales first. Steve Martin Good morning. Thank you for the invitation. I'm really pleased to be here with Sophie and Matt to share what we can this morning. I should explain that my role is not as a policy maker, it's as an academic working in an evidence centre whose role is to provide evidence to both Welsh Government ministers and officials but also public services in Wales. Where we come into contact with your question is that we are often presented with evidence needs but we then engage in a dialogue with whichever policy makers it is who are asking us about evidence around that topic in order to properly understand what it is that they need and why. That's where the clarity of purpose I think becomes really into sharp focus for us. Part of our role, I hope, is to help policy makers to think through that issue of what exactly is it that they're trying to achieve and how. It's often helpful to disentangle those two questions. We get asked sometimes for evidence which is presented as an evidence need. I want to know how to do X, Y, Z. A very early example, we met with the then Deputy Minister for Tackling Poverty. One of his first requests to us was, I want to know how to establish a network of credit unions across Wales similar to that, which they have in the Republic of Ireland. I was amazed to hear myself impertinently say that that's really interesting minister. Can we understand a little bit about what it is that that network of credit unions would be aiming to achieve for you in terms of policy objectives? That led to a whole discussion about the underlying social and political and economic challenge that the minister was wanting to address. To which it turned out, credit unions were probably not the answer or were only a small part of the answer. I think disentangling what you're trying to achieve and the way in which you're trying to achieve it is a really important part of the policy process here, presumably in Scotland, certainly in other territories that I've had interactions with. Evidence can feed into questions like, is it a problem, a problem for who and where, but it can equally well feed into what have other people done about this issue. I want to do something about it. I'm sure it's a problem all my constituents are telling me it is, what have others done about it. Sometimes we're getting asked a question further down the line. I know it's a priority for me as a minister. I understand what I want to do about it and what is the best way for me then to go about delivering that change that I want to achieve. At which point we get into questions about evidence to feed implementation? Professor Martin, that is interesting the distinction you have made about two processes that you have to advise on with the minister. When it comes to the second process, in other words, looking at the evidence and guiding the minister into the data that might have been there previous to the decision that's about it, how easy do you find that? Are you data rich or are there gaps in the knowledge that you have to provide to the minister? It's more of a latter than the former, but it does depend on the topic and the policy challenge as you would expect. We have a process that we go through, again, in discussion with policy makers who establish whether this is an issue that we can meaningfully contribute to. Where there's no evidence at all, the answer is, I'm really sorry, there isn't any evidence that we can find across the world. There are no experts who we can find who can advise you on it. That's really quite rare. In those circumstances what we'd be recommending is that a process of primary research is undertaken or some pilots are launched or some experiments, trials, rapid turnaround, try some things and find out what does and doesn't work. More usually we're in a world between very rigorous academic research evidence, which often isn't there, but some really helpful expertise, which we can bring in from academia and pitch to research colleagues. If you were the minister, what would be your best guess about what to do? That's not a very purest view of evidence, but we found that that's much more helpful than saying, sorry, there's no randomised control trial on this issue. There's nothing that the academic community has to say on it. More often than not we find that there's evidence that we can deploy, but the quality and nature of that evidence varies. Is it relatively quick to be able to access that information that you require? Our modus operandi is designed to be much more timely than traditional academic research because we're drawing on evidence and expertise that's already in existence. At our very fastest, during the pandemic, we turned around some think pieces in a couple of weeks. More usually, we probably are spending four to five months from the first discussion we have with a policy maker through to the end of a piece of work. Thank you, it's very helpful. May I just come to the other two witnesses that we have as to whether you have identified any difficulties in establishing the clarity of purpose in what you're trying to achieve? I think that Wales is relatively unique in that we're quite clear on our clarity of purpose both in the short and long term because the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act sets out seven long term well-being goals that our government and all of our public institutions are required to set objectives to achieve, so all policy making should be done within the context of those seven well-being goals. As I said, they're long term, so they span beyond political cycles, if you like. I suppose a level above the sorts of requests that perhaps Steve was describing there. I think what Steve was describing is ministers looking to take steps to achieve those well-being objectives and then what steps should they take and the various processes and discussions that he would go through there. The clarity of purpose is there and it's set out in law. The other part of that law, which I think is really important for decision making and the policy making context, is a requirement to demonstrate that government and others across the public sector have applied five ways of working and those are considering the long-term impact of the things that they do, preventing problems from occurring or from getting worse, integrating their actions across government and indeed across the sectors and collaborating with each other and involving citizens. That provides a framework by which the decision should be taken and the seven well-being goals provide the purpose for taking those decisions or the vision if you like for the country. My experience is that that's not always operating absolutely perfectly, but what it does do is provide not just for government but for the whole of Wales, the public sector organisations that are covered by the Future Generations Act and increasingly those not even covered by the act, knowing where Wales is headed. I suppose it's a bit like your outcomes framework but it's set out in law. That's very helpful and I just say at this point that several of us around the table had an excellent visit to the Welsh Senate just a couple of months ago and we were really very taken with quite a few of the things that we were hearing then, so please pass that back. Could I just finish with our final witness on this clarity of purpose? I think that maybe Wales is... Sorry, we didn't catch the start of that. Maybe we just start again Professor Flanders. Of course. Good morning everybody. I think the issue around clarity of purpose is often the key challenge. Ministers particularly will feel they want to do something. What that something is is up for discussion and often the role of working with external advisors, academics in various centres is to narrow down what is actually the problem solved here and often that's a key challenge because in many really super wicked policy areas with overlaid different issues actually narrowing down what the core problem is that needs to be addressed can actually be more challenging than is often really understood. The other interesting issue just following on the other speakers is that when we talk about evidence it's interesting to think what we actually mean. I think now there is a much broader understanding of the need to combine different sorts of what we might call useful knowledge. The academic knowledge, professional knowledge, experiential lived experience knowledge and sometimes taking that broad approach to evidence the evidence doesn't all flow in the same direction. That can be a real challenge. Also one of the main things that's happened in recent years is the development of an infrastructure which is designed to bring academic research much closer to policy makers at different levels of government. I'm not saying it always worked but there are clearly a lot more boundary spanning structures that are designed to try to close the gap between research and policy than there ever were in the past. Thank you. Could you just give us an example Professor Flinders of where evidence, different types of evidence are pointed in an opposite direction and the difficulties that might have caused for you? Rough sleeping is a classic example there. Rough sleeping for one minister might be around getting people off of the streets into temporary accommodation or hostels. The issue there is that rough sleeping itself it may well be manifested in people choosing to be homeless but the root issue is often far more complex mental health alcohol drugs dependency. So unless you are able to approach that problem in a rounded way you might deal with the rather obvious manifestation but you won't deal with the root issue and I think that's one of the issues around the policy making dimension that often policy making interventions are relatively short term. I often talk about this idea of there's a spark there's an injection of money resources and then what happens when that funding finishes? There is often a lack of development about the interaction between different policy approaches between housing mental health education or there's a failure to develop a notion of policy momentum that understands that a policy will be finishing the funding stream is going to finish but what happens next? Very often we end up throwing mud at walls to see what sticks and very often very little sticks. Good morning thank you for joining us. I wanted to ask a couple of questions of yourself Professor Flinders and it's from a slightly academic perspective now in your submission you make comments about culture and behaviour and avoiding group think confirmation bias and so on and you also point out the need for critical friends but my question to you is how is that limited when power comes into play where power over someone's job power over someone's career and power over their future line of funding if they're a third sector organisation relying on government can you just give him give us some general thoughts about a how prevalent that is and b how commonly that is understood as a risk in the public sector? Yes I think that one of the great challenges which is is almost a contextual issue is that we have a rather I would say immature often approach to accountability and scrutiny it is often around finding out what went wrong who is to blame and who should take responsibility now that is obviously one part of the discussion but what that approach what I would call a gotcha mentality it creates a rather negative view of accountability structures where people will not often speak with candor because they're scared of the implications that may have for them or for their minister and then by definition will have on them so one of the key issues is how do we create a culture where accountability is seeing us about both finding out what went wrong but instead of finding out who's to blame has an equally strong emphasis on what can we learn from that experience from the future because at the moment our structures tend to be largely blame focused rather than learning focused and actually I would just say I completely understand the issues you're raising about power and implications for honest straight talking but in my experience I very rarely worked with ministers who weren't happy to face constructive feedback and challenge as long as it was evidence based so I think it's often not a case of not being able to challenge it's about being able to challenge but based on a sound understanding of the existing evidence and often ministers really want that challenge okay thank you for that leading on from that slightly you also make in your submission allude to complexity that exciting question wait okay we appear to have lost Professor Flanders will we try and get him back can maybe is there we seem we also seem to have two Steve Martins maybe one of the Steve Martins could answer a good question that Michelle Thompson possible put it to yeah I mean I think I suspect you'll have a view on this as well professor following on my questions there to professor flinders where we were talking about culture and behaviors I was going on to ask about complexity and how complexity is relationship with risk and therefore limitations on innovation based on your experience of what you've seen how does appetite for risk or attitude to risk linked in with complexity inadvertently limit innovation in the public sector in general terms sure and I think Sophie probably wants to come in on this as well and we'll have okay thank you more interesting things to say than I I wanted to come in on your previous question if that's all right just around how do we create a culture in which criticism can be constructive and not raise all sorts of answered bodies within the system and I think that does relate to this question of complexity that you were just raising and maybe Matt can come in now is back and I we have an interesting relationship with ministers in that we're part funded by Welsh government but also funded by a research council and part of the university and we've had to navigate with ministers this question of of how do we give honest independent evidence which is at times challenging and doesn't necessarily point in the direction that ministers would have wanted it to and I think that's a lot about developing the trusting relationships which I know you talked about with other witnesses in previous sessions it's a lot about how we as advisors conduct ourselves and I completely understand why policy makers might be wary of working with academics they the character is we take ages to report anything and then we heavily caveat everything that we say and there's always a risk that we go into critical mode and and start kind of spouting in the media in a way which is very unhelpful so in the role that we've got we've had to be absolutely clear that we will we will follow wherever the evidence leads but we will transmit that to ministers in a way which isn't going to cause them any difficulty or surprises and so we we have a publications protocol for example which sounds very boring but has proved really important where we present the evidence that we've been able to assemble to ministers they have six weeks to assimilate that and then we make sure that it's published more widely so that everybody can have access to what we're doing and that that steers a sort of middle cause between not working in secret and depriving other policy makers of the evidence which we're providing to ministers so that they can be proper scrutiny of the evidence which they're receiving and questions to them about why they're not following that if they choose not to and that's absolutely they're right not to but at the same time creating an environment where they can trust us that we're trying to be constructive and helpful to them in helping to inform their decisions so it sounds dull and it sounds obvious but i really do think it's about the relationships about the culture and about the behavior and and it's really important that if researchers want to engage with policy and practice they're willing to take on some of the kind of constraints that that relationship involves that that's very helpful thank you that that kind of continuous improvement middle road academia has brought that's something worth the committee exploring further when we look at comparables in scotland but i know sophie wanted to come in with my earlier point and then i'll head back to professor flinders thank you thank you i'm not sure if can i just check that you can see me i can't see myself so i'm not sure if i've lost you i can't see you but we can hear you very clearly right okay and i just wanted to pick up on the point around the sort of that map made around the sort of immature approach to scrutiny and certainly you know we have seen that during my time as future generations commissioner in terms particularly of the government's willingness to self reflect i suppose and be honest in that sort of self reflection it's quite interesting actually that the welsh government changed some of these requirements for local government to focus more around performance reporting and self reflection and peer review and so on but actually i think the government itself challenged that you know finds that that doing that itself within its own organisation quite challenging and that's not really a kind of well it's a slight criticism but i've got some sympathy for that because everything that is around the government makes that quite difficult to do if we look at our processes around audit generally there's going to be more of a focus on you know if you've tried to do something new and different and a bit innovative but failed rather than just continue to manage the status quo if we think about the kind of politics of government that's often quite unforgiving if there are mistakes and likewise in terms of the media and i think that that that sort of environment makes it quite difficult for a government to enter into a space where they might feel like they're washing their dirty linen in public if you like they might see it as that i think i would see it and i think perhaps my colleagues don't speak for them but i think my colleagues might see it as an important part of a kind of self-improvement journey if you're able to genuinely reflect on on where you are now as future generations commission my job was to monitor and assess the progress that the government and all of our public institutions were making on meeting the seven well-being goals and we actually did that through a self-reflection exercise the first one that we did back in 2019 was really interesting because what we saw is those organisations who were saying all is good here nothing to see here we're all doing incredibly well and those were the organisations actually that we took a much deeper look at the organizations who were genuinely reflecting and having those kind of critical conversations within a framework that we we co-created with them which was to look at okay you know where are we on this sort of you know improvement journey if you like what are the barriers to us making progress you know how could we address those barriers you know are there things that we could be doing better with partners or better internally those organizations in my experience of the kind of seven years of being future generations commissioner are the organizations that have kind of continued to make more progress the organizations who are perhaps not wanted to wash their dirty linen in public are the organizations who you don't don't necessarily make that same level of progress and that was one of the reasons why I use my powers as commissioner I have powers under section 20 of the the future generations act to to conduct a review into what it could be into a particular organization or a collection of organizations I've only used those review powers twice once into a number of public sector organizations looking at the issue of public sector procurement and then laterally in my final year of commissioner working with the Welsh government to look at I suppose the the review question be how being how well is the machinery of government embedding the requirements of the well being a future generations act and that was interesting because we essentially did that collaboratively with the Welsh government which is not usually how these reviews start to happen we did we had you know quite a long process of building sort of trust some of that was very bumpy along the way because as you can imagine government doesn't necessarily like an external organization or commissioner coming in looking at the ins and outs of how they're taking decisions but we actually found that process incredibly useful and I think the Welsh government even found that process incredibly useful I feel that we were able to push them more into the space of really critically reflecting you know where things were working and where things weren't and actually you know what we did at the end of that was to develop a jointly constructed or jointly developed improvement plan for areas which they could and well for areas that they could improve on implementing the future generations act but I think the main point for me is that that is quite difficult for governments to do it's quite difficult to be in that space and that doesn't necessarily create a healthy environment for good public policymaking well thank you very much for that just to finish off with yourself professor Flinders since you were cut off in your prime is it where throughout all of this conversation there's a theme running around maturity whether it's regard how we deal with risk and innovation or complexity or power have you got any final reflections on all of what you've heard thus far because I suppose this is a kind of academic side of decision making just any final thoughts if you could thanks I think we're following on from Sophie what is interesting is that ministers and officials are often very open to having these questions about complexity and challenge but they will have those discussions off stage very mature very open discussions but when they become on stage in front of committees or the media then we tend to lock everything down in a very immature way so one of the thoughts I've had really is how do you move those more mature off stage conversations about the inevitable messiness of policymaking and how to learn from failure how do you move them on stage in a way that might promote a much more sensible culture and understanding of the inevitable challenges of policymaking any ideas bright ideas on that then well I think there are issues around policy advice I mean if you look at accountability in government accountability for the policy advice given to ministers is generally still kept in the black box it's kept off stage if there were a process where some level of accountability was introduced for the basic advice given to ministers not only I think would that demand that officials really lifted the quality of that advice because they knew they would be held to account for it in the future it would often also provide a firma foundation on which to say to ministers explain your decision but again one of the knock on here is one of the great issues we have about accountability and expertise is the amount of churn and turnover amongst civil servants and officials a fluid system which means that just as somebody gets on top of a role develops the informal relationships and trust to really understand their specialist policy space they move on and the whole process starts again so greater stability greater maturity around publishing some level of the policy advice ministers received and an obligation on the media and scrutineers to to fulfill their side of the bargain which isn't to jump in with both feet going for the low hanging attack fruit but for them to accept themselves that these are complex issues where there aren't any silver bullets and simple solutions complex problems yeah well thank you very much for that i'm laughing slightly given that we're operating in a political environment so thank you very much for that input though thank you can be there i've come to Douglas Lumsden please thanks community it's actually just building on the point that Michelle Thompson is making and it's around transparency and Professor Flinders you have in your submission you talk about transparency in two different ways the transparency of the decision making process and transparency around the reason of why our final decision was taken and i think that's what you were just talking about just now and in our previous evidence sessions we've heard you know i think in new zealand cabinet meeting minutes are published i think a few weeks after the meeting takes place i'm trying to get from your point of view would that be a good thing or do you think that we'd almost drive some of the decision making we've heard what's up by you know government by what's up mentioned in previous meetings as well do you think that would drive a lot of the decisions away from cabinet meetings if it's almost too transparent i think again it's about policy making is all about pragmatism and of course anything you do there will be unattended consequences in a degree of gaming and of course we are working in both a big p and a small p political context however i think that by publishing a statement of the policy advice ministers received and also a statement from ministers a very uh it doesn't have to be a lot about a detailed exposition but some statement of the standard of policy advice received by ministers and an explanation by ministers for why they took a particular decision they did particularly when they go against the advice they received would provide more of a firm foundation for a mature discussion to take place and i think what's interesting about this and i new zealand is an interesting but it's always the the obvious example everyone goes to new zealand is a very small country as you'll know it's on the other side of the world it's got working on a much smaller scale and it also has a different political culture and i think going back to the previous question that is what i'm talking about is that if you really want effective scottish decision making where everybody can make a contribution in an honest way with candor it has to accept that everybody won't get what they want all of the time and that it will still be messy but i think the question for me is is transparency in terms of the quality of policy advice ministers receive and then some post decisional explanation for why they took that decision because then at least you've got a lot firma foundation for sensible scrutiny where at the moment almost everybody works in a vacuum and i do think it would improve potentially the quality advice coming through to ministers that again just creating that knowledge amongst officials that the advice they give will at some point be subject to public review and discussion will again help them support them to lift the quality and arguably the range of advice they provide to ministers and you don't think there's a a danger of some of that decisions obviously being taken behind closed doors and and done in different ways well i suppose at the moment we might say that all of the decisions and everything is done behind closed doors and we have very little so that's what i'm saying it's like a halfway house i mean if you look back people used to say the same about the freedom of information act that and again New Zealand was a model there that what we would have was government by post it that people would not write stuff down in official documents and actually that hasn't really happened and i think what's interesting is again long termism the often thing that happen are seen as quite radical at first but then they become accepted parts of due process and almost the system matures around them my concern is that if you were to start to introduce some of these issues around the publication of policy advice in the short term it would likely to fall in a political context that was very immature and would be problematic but i would hope in the medium to longer term that innovation would settle down and be just be seen as part of due process and people would then in not long say i can't believe this ever wasn't the way we did things thank you and soffy and steve do you have a view on transparency and decisions that were were taken yeah i mean i think i take a slightly different view to um to matt and i perhaps to just give a little bit of context i have you know been worked in in government um with the with politicians and the the first minister and then cabinet um prior number of years prior to being future generations commissioners so um i'm actually of the view that that would um drive people to not express the full picture in terms of um in terms of the full range of of evidence and insight that they might otherwise take because they would feel that it's not a safe space to do that and on the one hand i you know i i agree in an ideal world i totally agree with with matt that you would want that sort of um you know that that transparency on the other hand we are you know operating in the world of you know political reality um and i'm not you know i'm not convinced about the foi points i'm you know saying i don't have any evidence to to prove or disprove this but i'm i'm getting the issue is on foi we don't know what we don't know we don't know how much is only being recorded as a bare minimum um as a result of of foi and i my feeling is that um in terms of of government policy making um i'm not sure that that would drive civil servants to do a really kind of comprehensive approach i think it would drive them back to the bare minimum i think that the um it's certainly in the short term um a more fruitful exercise would be to really focus on building in our internal challenge within the system so i do agree with matt that there are problems around the the churn in the system and the level of expertise most civil servants by the very nature of the way the civil service operates are um are generalists and move between um different policy departments and i think that there can sometimes be a reluctance to bring in um external expertise to work with um alongside civil servants um on particular policy areas now where we've seen that happen um i think that we've seen better policy making and i can give an example of um violence against women uh bill that was passed in the um by the wash uh by the by the senate a few years ago where uh civil servants who were generalists um were working alongside experts from the field who were seconded into government um for that sort of period of taking that um that bill through the parliament doing the sort of policy development and so on and i think that that is perhaps um you know a safer way in the in the short term of building in that kind of expertise i think the other area is creating some safe space around internal challenge so some of the things that we were trying to do as part of the section 20 review was to say okay let's have a look at a number of ministerial submissions um and let's critique those in a safe space so that we can you know explain perhaps or help officials who are filling in those submissions to understand how that could have been done better from the perspective of using future trends or from the perspective of looking in an integrated way or from the perspective of involving citizens and there was quite a reluctance to do that um to have that kind of safe you know even though i would say that we were in a space of safe external challenge um i think if we could build that in somehow that would be quite um quite fruitful and then the final element i just want to talk about there is um the role and expertise of more senior civil servants in providing that challenge themselves so um in i'm assuming it's a similar process in terms of the Scottish government but in Wales you know policy development will will often start from um you know either from a minister or from a particular pressure from outside officials will be looking at um you know what policy can be developed and so on and then when submissions go up to the minister a more senior civil servant will um will consider that submission now that comes back to the question how skilled is that senior civil servant or perhaps in some cases a group of senior civil servants in actually really critiquing that from the perspective i would say if the well-being of future generations acts and those five ways of working um and um you know is there work to do there with those senior officials and even if they've done a really good job in critiquing it how well is that used then as a learning exercise for civil servants who are in their policy development role saying okay this is where we could have done better this was done really well we'll share this um elsewhere here's the learning from this and so on and i'm just not convinced that that happens effectively enough but i would say in the early phases and you know i would very much like to get to the point where um you know we had what map describes but done in a way which is being done genuinely rather than box tick in i would like to get there but i think in the early phases i think really it's about improving the internal culture mechanism and safe space for external people to come in size and challenge thank you steve do you have anything to add on transparency or very briefly one additional thought i i too am amagnostic on maps proposal but i think it's entirely legitimate for you as scrutiny is for the public for the media to require policymakers to explain the evidence base which is behind the decisions which they make or if it's not an evidence-based decision to explain that that too and evidence is only part of the policy process of course and ministers have a democratic mandate and they can decide to implement whatever it is that they feel it's right to implement but but i do think sometimes there's a lack of inquiry into on what basis has this decision been made whether that's about what to do or how to do it as we were saying earlier and i think that that mature questioning of have you looked at the evidence what's your take on what the evidence says would be a really helpful injection into into our policy making question and and it would at least make more transparent the basis on which the decision was made not necessarily the process by which it was made okay thanks the points that you're you're all making about accountability provokes in my mind some questions about the role of private sector consultancy companies which are obviously involved and i think in all governments in in the UK in terms of policy advice policy development i wonder if we had any reflections on the role that you have seen those organisations play and how they are involved in the decision making processes maybe come to matt flinders first please i think the private sector consultancies do play a key role i think they're often brought in almost to provide expertise and specialist knowledge which the more generalist civil servants may not have i think for me the key issue is almost part of the the culture very often is that for some reason the private sector consultants know best and know exactly what should be done and actually i think often that they're bringing in very private sector based ideologies and models which might improve and have some evidence of challenge but i think the idea that the public sector consultants is always know best is problematic and i'm not sure always i mean i think when we're talking about decision making in policy we're talking about decisions at the very highest level i think my understanding is that the consultancies are more involved in the fine-tuning of operational issues, organisational structures, management, things like that rather than the top end of the sort of minister senior official special advisor interface which we are talking about how do we make sure they understand what effectiveness might does could look like but on that i'll hand over to one of the other witnesses there was a conservative minister quoted in 2020 saying that white hall had been infantilised by the use of consultancy companies and kind of reflected on your point of where they positioned almost in the policy making chain i thought that was highly critical at that point but i'll draw um steve martin is on the screen so i worked a lot with the UK government 15 20 years ago and it seems to me there is a contrast between the use of public sector consultants by UK government and say the world's government which i'm now for me i i think in part it's a reflection of civil service policy making capacity which is a serious issue which which we need to address over the short meeting term um and we often ask now to take on roles which i kind of feel if the civil service was fully up to capacity and was given the capabilities that it really should have they wouldn't be coming to us asking us to do some of the work that we're asked to do so i do you think some of this is about gap filling as well as kind of opportunism on the behalf of private sector consultants and i think that directs our attention to understanding what the capacity and capability of the civil service and local government and other policy actors currently is and every time we have some form of engagement we are reminded that that we're in a state of permanent crisis that that it might be very nice to be able to analyse the evidence in a measured way that that's that's not the world we're operating in steam so so and that to me talks to to being realistic about policy ambition so can we actually do everything that we would ideally like to do or or do some of our strategies and policy ambitions out script our current capacity so so rather than questioning too much whether private consultancies are the right or the wrong i think i prefer us to turn our attention to how to develop the capability capacity within the system to deliver what ministers want i don't feel aware if there's a fairly recent book from Marianna Masecato and Rosie Collingham on this particular area and the role in government and they say that the more government outsourced the less they know how to do does that bring truth here um based on our own experience um and both Sophie and that were talking about finding ways to bring in external expertise i i wouldn't formulate it quite that way certainly if you're outsourced policy making to to the big four consultancies all the time of course that's going to happen but the co-production principles that Sophie was talking about i think in which policy making so if you're taking different forms of evidence from different forms of actor i think that greatly enhances the chances you've been here to deliver on the policy that you're trying to enact so involving local government involving the voluntary sector involving users of services women who have lived experience of domestic violence as Sophie was saying but also involving academic expertise that there's a really is a wealth of expertise and research in our universities and my personal mission is to help policy makers to tap into that much more easily and much more excessively. Thank you um Sophie how do you have thoughts in this area? Yes um i agree with both Matt and Steve i think in terms of um external consultants particularly the sort of big four that um Steve was talking about i don't think our experiences in Wales reflect um the Whitehall experience or and i agree i wouldn't quite describe it as Mariana Massacuto has described it either i think that we have a much stronger approach around co-production with the sorts of groups that um you know that that that Steve was outlining there and increasingly i think we're seeing them not just be um you know a ministerial advisory group that sort of set up slightly um slightly outside of government but we're increasingly seeing them being brought into the civil service another good i talked about violence against women bill but another good example is the um the social partnership and procurement bill which is currently going through the senate um and that is uh trade union this is about social partnership between trade unions private sector um and and government i'm putting that on a statutory footing and trade unionists were actually seconded into um into government to help with the policy development around that now i think that that is you know a good model and i think we see better policy making um come from that i think that um just going back to the the point that Steve was making on the sort of um the pace of being able to provide evidence and so on i think sometimes what politicians want to do is to just borrow your brain um they don't necessarily want you to spend five months um you know crafting all of the evidence and so on that i completely agree would be absolutely ideal but they are continually responding in this now you know this new word poly crisis and they are trying to respond on all different fronts and they're often trying to respond very very quickly because there's a necessity to real lives out there to respond quickly um and there's also political pressures um and so on so i actually think that there's something around you know how can you convene experts um who can in a safe space who can have conversations with um with ministers and with civil servants to say you know within the context these are my boundaries you know i'm only going to get this amount of money this is the political reality that i'm working with this is the scale of the scale and pace at which i need to deliver what is you know borrowing your brains what helped me craft the best possible solution within those boundaries and i think it's those sorts of things that ministers actually want i think that's why they often rely um very heavily on their special advisers and sort of trusted networks if you like um from perhaps their own backgrounds or professions or or contacts that they might have developed throughout their career um and i think that there's something about is recognising that and and the system as a whole um respond into that the final thing that i just wanted to say about um trying to develop that internal capability and um capacity um i think that there's certainly something around um succumbents into government i mentioned a few there but i think if there was one thing that we could do to drive better policy making um you know across the whole public sector it would probably be mass job swap or or succumbent so you know you do have the social worker who's in policing or you do have the green infrastructure experts who's in um you know working in health or those sorts of things and actually i think there's something there around that cross fertilisation which needs to be encouraged in government and isn't very often um actually encouraged there was something that our former permanent secretary um Sean Morgan did which was a small intervention but i think was and i'm not sure actually if it's still continuing but i think it was quite good it was called step it stood for short term experience placement and this was where um civil servants um were given time to go out into um an organisation outside of government for up to six months and it could be um a day a week or it could be you know a sort of a month placement or whatever it it whatever it might be and there were some really interesting things that came from that i mean one of the things that i can point to is someone who came from the major events division or department in government into my team and okay we're now sort of two years later or possibly even three years after the pandemic but actually there is now a major event strategy in Wales which is built around the well-being the future generations act and that's because that civil servant was immersed um in a team that was giving her a completely different perspective to what she would get perhaps internally so i think there are these um innovative ways of trying to shake up the system and build that expertise in i think there's just something about um civil servants are so busy managing crises um and even senior civil servants of course are managing those crises there needs to be some capacity in the system for people to lift their heads up and say okay what are these potential things that we could do which in the long medium and some of it i think actually is even short medium and certainly longer term is going to help us to craft better responses when we're in this constant state of crisis okay thanks Sophie um Steve Martin you wanted to come back in thank you really brief um i like Sophie's concept of borrowing your brain and that's certainly been our experience that ministers and officials really welcome the opportunity for dialogue and more usually for us it's about borrowing a number of different brains so i'm an academic when i started in this role 10 years ago i envisaged we'd be writing reports and perhaps there'd be a summary or a policy briefing alongside it what we found really rapidly was probably the most useful thing that we do is convene safe spaces round tables where experts come together with officials and sometimes with ministers to really talk through an issue over over a couple of hours and it's not a case of just throwing those people together we structure those really carefully we pick the experts who have a range of complementary experiences and expertise because it's very rare to find a kind of renaissance woman or man who has all the answers so bringing together a group of experts to really work through what the evidence suggests and how that evidence might apply or not in wales has probably been the most truthful thing that we've done if we listen to the feedback that we get and that doesn't need to take five months that that can be done in two or three weeks but i think you need an intermediary there because academic colleagues even the most confident are aware without coming into those sorts of fora and need need to be helped to understand how the expertise they bring is really going to be relevant. Okay, Mark Flinders you want me to come in? Yes, very briefly I'm taking with this issue around mobility and short-term placements if you look at what I would say world-class policy making structures they are often defined by a capacity to facilitate mobility the mobility of people and talent and knowledge across traditional institutional and professional boundaries and I really think that that emsys on facilitating the flow and mobility of people learning and different environments putting up linkages both formal and informal is really really important and there's a great example of this in Scotland with the Scottish Crucible. The Scottish Crucible is all about innovative thinking bringing people from different backgrounds together that would not normally meet and I think it is those how do you create structure of serendipity which allows ideas linkages and perspectives to emerge that wouldn't normally take place in siloed traditional environments? Okay, thanks Mark. John Mason. Thanks very much convener. I mean maybe to continue the theme of who does what I'm interested in the concept of commissioners and I think also start with yourself Ms Howe perhaps. I mean I think I don't you personally your position has been held in quite high regard and there's been quite a thought in Scotland that we should be copying the Welsh model of having a commissioner for future generations or something like that but at the same time there's a kind of multiplicity of commissioners being desired in Scotland and I can see us ending up with 14 or perhaps more in the short term. So I just wonder where do commissioners fit into this whole thing of decision making? Are they basically taking work away that the MSs should be doing? Well I'll speak to my own experiences and perhaps some of the interactions that I've had with commissioner colleagues, children's commissioner, older people's commissioner and Welsh language commissioner in Wales. I think that yes we are providing scrutiny. I think that certainly from my perspective if you look at the future generations, I have to cover all policy areas potentially every decision that could be taken for anyone who's alive now and anyone yet to be born so obviously that's a huge kind of remit but what that and I couldn't look at every particular issue but what that did enable me to do is to have a helicopter view if you like over policy making at a government level and across government departments but also how that policy making then flow down through into the rest of the the public sector and I often think about something like the future generations act being a bit like you know when we talk about mainstreaming equality or mainstreaming gender or you know those sorts of things and the the overall aim that you want to get to I suppose is that commissioners aren't needed and that level of intensive scrutiny and specific scrutiny isn't needed because the what we're trying to achieve in this case and ensuring that we're taking decisions in a way which meets today's needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs that that is completely embedded in the system but everything we've heard this morning points to all of the challenges and everything I'm sure you've heard throughout all of the evidence you've taken points to the really specific challenges and really significant challenges in actually doing that so in terms of the role of a commissioner perhaps I could just give you a flavour or perhaps some of the things that might or day to day interactions look like and it was about sometimes taking the time out and commissioning my own research and convening people and experts to put forward what I would say is sort of progressive policy ideas to government a number of which actually have been have been taken up some of which perhaps would not be considered you know as something that we're at all possible for example a first pilot of a basic income was not on the kind of political agenda at all just a few years ago when is now we're now seeing the first pilot in Wales and you know that was a lot of my work with with others in communities and in NGOs and third sector and so on and I would often be looking at particular policy areas and making the connections with other organisations and I spent an enormous amount of time introducing civil servants to each other in different departments which you wouldn't think necessarily was the role of a future generations commissioner but you know when you've got that requirement around long term preventative and integrated policy making and I think Steve's sorry Matt's example at the beginning around homelessness is a really good example of that what we still see is that kind of siloed decision making trying to do a short term fix rather than looking at a long term view and so a lot of what I was doing was working directly with civil servants to try and join up the dots between different aspects of public policy making and asking them how they were applying the future generations act and holding their hand in many cases to apply the future generations act and I suppose the other issues that I was involved in was really trying to provide that link to what was happening outside of government on those policy areas so sometimes with the private sector the voluntary sector and so on to bring again that kind of integration to it and then the other areas that we were really heavily involved in was building capacity and capability amongst the civil servants and civil service around applying foresight long term trends and future generations thinking and so on which they you know was an entirely new thing to them when the future generations act came into force so to the role of commissioners would any of that have happened if there work wasn't a commissioner I don't know of course I can't say for certain but I'm not at all convinced that it would if there is not an institution be a commissioner a commissioner however you want to sort of you know terminate or set it up that was whose primary role was was to do that and had some legislative mandate to directly work with government and others to do that okay thanks that's very helpful I'll come to professor flinders just in a minute but if I can press you on this I mean you've mentioned short term and long term quite a lot of times in your answer there and I just wondered do you think it's impossible for politicians and civil servants to take a long term view unless there's somebody outside kicking them well first of all I'm not sure that I would use the term kicking I think I would use the term working alongside enhancing capability helping with learning and development and so on in those areas and but to your point on is it impossible of course nothing is impossible but I think it's very very difficult when the system itself is continually in a state of crisis and is continually being asked to respond so without an external challenge and support to require the system to lift its head above the poly crisis that is in continually um I do think it's incredibly difficult thanks very much that's been very good a professor flinders I saw you nodding at one point there um this idea of the long term do we need commissioners for that well um I would use the word nudging rather than kicking and I think commissioners can be very very useful in terms of nudging and creating that sort of oversight and I think it relates back to an issue we discussed earlier which is about the big P politics here one of the benefits of having an independent commissioner is that they can come to topics issues challenges with slightly less heat than might be expected if the issue was being examined by a parliamentary scrutiny committee we do have similar issues of course at Westminster where in recent years we've had a rather ad hoc growth in the number of different commissions and commissioners and this creates an onward a cycle of reviewing how many we've got and whether we should get rid of them merge them amalgamate them but in terms of their capacity I think particularly for policy because they do have they're almost slightly depoliticised I think they have a good role to play in nudging sensible discussions review and integrating and just one little issue that was raised there by Sophie is just a and I'm sorry if I'm telling people stuff they're well aware of the amount of fragmentation and disconnection in government is incredible I often have officials from Whitehall contact me in Sheffield to ask me what's going on in different directorates of their own department so this simple role of joining up and introducing people to let people know what's going on is an absolutely key role you think it wouldn't be needed but that integrating role that a commissioner can play or an organisation like the well-centred public policy is absolutely crucial okay thanks professor Martin to move to the next question I don't have much to add to that discussion except to agree with everything that my colleagues have said and we have exactly the same experience sometimes I think and my function is to introduce civil servants to each other or to remind them of the initiative which their predecessor undertook so that that organisational memory role is something which I think that we and commissioners can helpfully provide okay thanks so maybe for yourself then I mean I'm interested in the centre for public policy that Wales has and it's been spoken of quite positively by other witnesses and therefore I mean the question for Scotland is do we need something like that I mean I get the impression and correct me if I'm wrong that I mean Scotland we have a kind of ad hoc relationship between I think government parliament and academia and we bring people in for a particular issue and then kind of don't speak to them again for a while it isn't the case as I imagine it is in Wales that there's just a better relationship between government and the universities and academics and that that's there for a kind of longer term relationship and I think that there was certainly a relationship similar to the one that you're describing 10 years ago where different parts of government and local government health and others had their own links to research centres or individual academics within Welsh universities and I had the experience of of often being contacted about issues about which I knew next to nothing just because I was a professor of public policy in Cardiff and civil servants knew me and so what we've tried to do is to open up the policy making process here to a much broader range of different kinds of evidence so evidence not just in Welsh universities but from across the UK and internationally I think when we first started some of my colleagues thought oh this is great we'll be able to have even more interaction with Welsh government through the Wales Central Public Policy and they've been slightly disappointed to find that most of the time we're drawing in expertise from much further field so I think one of the differences between what we do and the relationship you're describing is that much wider world of evidence which we're trying to draw in. Secondly I think it was a danger in the ad hocory that certain kinds of voices get privileged that people know me so they come to me there are many other sources of expertise and advice which don't get taken into account because they're not known and they don't have those kind of pre-existing links so taking a more systematic approach which involves scanning the horizon of who are the experts in this field and what can they bring to the table I think has been a really helpful part of what we've tried to do and then thirdly we find that there are parts of government which are well served by evidence and other parts which are largely evidence free zones and a lot of what we've tried to do in the last few years is to provide evidence to those directors those departments on those policy issues where there hasn't been a strong evidence base in the past so in very broad terms health policy is often underpinned by evidence education policy is reasonably well served by both the Welsh government's internal research function and and relationships with universities here in Wales but there are other areas like housing like net zero like tackling poverty which which haven't historically had those links to good reliable sources of evidence so I recognise the picture which you're describing in Scotland I think that would be a good description of how we were 10 years ago but I think having the infrastructure of evidence intermediaries who can help define what's needed through discussion with policy makers in the way I was describing earlier and then go out and seek sources of advice and evidence which specifically address that particular evidence need is a different ballgame to depending on its links or serendipity or who knows who and Matt referred earlier to the very big investment that's now been in evidence infrastructures in different times here in Wales but across the UK as well and I'd be concerned that if if you don't have something in a similar role to ours you might be missing out on some of those sources of evidence out with Scotland which you might want to be tapping into in spite of the political differences and the need to navigate those so there's a what works network 13 what works centres which we're part of we provide Wales with a strong link into those other what works centres looking at things like educational attainment regeneration early intervention children's social care and higher education policy at the moment Scotland doesn't have that link into that network and I suspect that's a missed opportunity. Okay that's all extremely helpful thanks so much I can just ask you one final question you talked about the round tables earlier and how they were safe spaces does what happens there get recorded or published or a summary of it or how does that work? Yeah exactly as you described so we wanted to be a safe space where people can ask the questions that they want to ask but we also want to make sure that it's not a secret space so we publish our work program in advance so opposition parties and others can understand what it is that we're working on on behalf of ministers and then we publish key findings from something like a workshop or a round table so that the evidence is available to everybody without identifying who said what and who's asked what so those all happen under a sort of Chatham House rule but the key evidence points to emerge from the advice are made available to the whole world and they will probably be FOI if we didn't but we choose to do it anyway but we think it's a good thing to do. Okay that's great thanks so much thanks thank you Mr Mason I'd like to thank all our witnesses for taking the time to speak to committee today it's invaluable evidence and thank you for joining us with the agreement of committee we'll move rejig the agenda slightly and move to item four which we'll take in private and the public session of committee will reconvene at 11am for evidence from the minister in agreement okay thank you thanks again to our witnesses thank you colleagues i moved to agenda item three which is an evidence session on the financial memorandum to the children care and justice scotland bill and a welcome to the meeting natalie dawn msp minister for children young people and keeping the promise who is joined by scottish government officials brendan runey bill manager tom McNamara head of youth justice and children's hearings and helen duncan from the children and families analysis thank you all for coming today welcome to the meeting and i would invite natalie dawn to make a brief opening statement thank you very much convener and good morning members the fundamental principles this bill takes forward are as follows where children come into contact with care and justice services or into conflict with the law scotland must respond appropriately and this should happen in age appropriate systems and settings our obligations under the un convention on the rights of the child and commitment to keep the promise are clear on these points and those commitments benefit from cross party endorsement in this parliament the bill takes forward important measures to improve experiences and outcomes for children in scotland especially those who need extra care and support the bill builds on our getting it right for every child principles and youth justice vision by helping to address the causes of the child's offending behaviors we can assist them to desist and to rehabilitate and in turn we can prevent further harm and minimise the number of future victims in doing so we can help to improve outcomes for everyone in society in terms of public expenditure it is important to recognise the wider backdrop of the benefits that these change programmes are advancing the negative cost to society both economic and social of offending in crime both at the time into the future are well documented so for example the promise follow the money report estimated the cumulative private costs of physical and emotional harm lost output and public service costs to be 3.9 billion pounds so by investing in services that take an early intervention approach we can lead to more positive pathways more often for individuals and communities and we're coming from a strong baseline between 2008 to 2009 and 2019 to 20 there was an 85 percent reduction in the number of children and young people prosecuted in scotland's courts and a 93 percent reduction in 16 and 17 year olds being sentenced to custody whilst the government is not complacent and recognises there will always be a level of offending and a requirement for care and protection in any society this bill represents a solid step forward in terms of the costs the government has engaged widely on forecasts in addition to our full public consultation extensive engagement has also taken place with a host of partners and stakeholders the cost forecasts in the financial memorandum are based on the feedback and figures provided from that engagement i am aware that the stage one process has brought some helpful additional detail and updated information to light and that is part of the legislative process and we we absolutely welcome it the government is alert to the need to ensure forecasts can be refreshed and as up to date as possible that's why the multi agency resourcing and implementation group which starts meeting next month will be crucial to our preparations we will work with partners to explore individual and combined resource requirements in more depth and report any necessary updates or clarifications to this parliament this work will feed into budget profiles for next year and the years beyond as is the established process for financial planning regarding proposed legislation and we are of course mindful that parliamentary agreement is required and therefore will keep projections refreshed as the bill moves forward and is amended through scrutiny the issue of secure care funding has been a key topic in stage one scrutiny we have had a last bed pilot running in each of the four independent secure centres and we are exploring extending that exercise towards funding up to 16 secure beds during 23 24 so that sufficient capacity will stand ready should the bill be passed we're also looking closely at the appropriate mechanisms for funding remand costs and will update when we have concluded that work we welcome the additional insight and precision emerging from the stage one process at various committees in the parliament it's integral to producing the best possible quality in our legislative output i hope these opening remarks have been helpful and i'll look forward to taking your questions thank you minister can i ask when parliament might see a revised financial memorandum on the basis described i don't have a date for that at the moment obviously i said that the working group will start it's got a meeting scheduled in the fifth of June and obviously stage one that stage one needs to to be completed before that can happen so everything that we've heard from committees and stakeholders so far will feed into that but i don't have a final finalised date for that at the moment so prior to the completion stage one that i've revised no stage one will feed into that so it would be following that following following stage one okay and can i ask on your point around regarding the last bed policy and putting that in place for 23 24 is the funding continuing at the moment or has it expired for the policy so it expired at the end of march 2023 and we are looking to expand and increase on so the secure accommodation don't have the funding in place at the moment not just now but it would be for the full financial year so that that wouldn't be an issue for secure care centres at the current moment in time okay we'll concert that okay michelle tomson thank you thank you minister for attending i mean obviously we're all pleased to hear about the updated fm and in our scrutiny of the fm and the kind of processes around what happens with money and costs and all the rest of it we i'm sure we all agree as to the worthiness of the bill but our specific focus will always be on the money and the spend and obviously you've indicated yourself the the level of uncertainty as to the estimates that were put in place originally but i suppose i wanted to explore with you how you see the scale of the challenge going forward given that we know there are multiple areas of various sections excluded from the original fm with no estimates at all uh plus we've got the group you mentioned sorry i forgot the the the name you used for it how are you going to be able to assure yourself that all costs are included albeit in estimate form and two that they've taken account for what is now a very high inflationary and cost environment and so critically i suppose a question i'm probing is to what extent will that be given the full weight it deserves alongside the undoubted kind of enthusiasm for what is some very strong policies so that's a really important question and i understand the committee's concerns around that obviously the financial memo is was completed well prior to my time in office but it was completed as the member has rightly pointed out prior to some some wider issues such as inflation we the financial memo was completed with as i've said contribution of stakeholders and organisations so it was a good starting point a good snapshot in time of what the costs were at that point however going forward as we've rightly said that does need to be updated but we are confident that that we can fulfil that the mountain multi agency meeting sorry that i referred to my opening statement that will be meeting on the 5th of June and that will take these discussions forward with the appropriate stakeholders and appropriate organisations and based on the feedback that we have already received or heard at this stage so that's going to be very helpful in terms of those longer constraints i think it's really important to recognise that the wider backdrop that these benefits and these change programmes could have and the potential savings that they're going to have to public expenditure so the negative costs to society both economic and social of offending and crime they're well documented so for example the promise follow the money report estimated that the cumulative costs for physical and emotional harm lost output and public service costs equated to 3.9 billion pounds so that is going to be something that that we need to look at in terms of the savings that this will have in the longer term yeah and i suppose i don't disagree with you about any of the principles the devil will be in the details so i suppose what i'm looking for are your assurances that the multi agency meetings will put an equivalent level of attention to both the costs and as you outline the savings as we will to driving forward the policy itself because the last thing you would want to see is a new minister in post and of course i appreciate you know you're talking about something over which you had no say but the last thing i want to see is that you as a new minister are then subjected to considerable cost overruns because some of the things that are missing out the fm the reason they're missing is because they're complex and difficult where you also don't have policy detail so i suppose i'm simply looking for assurances to you that some people think the funding is kind of quite dull compared to the policy but if you think that you're taking a risk and i wouldn't want to see you do that so i'm just simply looking for your assurances that you will pass that on to your people that are supporting you absolutely it's a priority for us to get this right because we want this to be implemented appropriately as i said the the financial memorandum was a snapshot in time the committee evidence in the scrutiny will feed into that and will direct and help to input on the conversations had gone forward in terms of the finances that are needed and we will also continue to press the UK government for additional funding for joint priorities and would welcome support from across the Parliament, COSLA and other individual local authorities in this respect but please i would like to ensure the committee that this is absolutely a priority for us and something that we are well tuned into. I want clarity then the updated memorandum will take account of pay inflation there'll be some reference in terms of increased demands will there? Well as far as i'm aware it will take part in taking heat of inflation but i will just pass over to one of my officials to clarify that for me there we go thanks yes it will be updated for inflation so the figures in the financial memorandum as they stand took us up to 22 23 but obviously we recognise that inflation has changed quite a lot since then and we we will be updating for that and the memorandum and thank you for that the memorandum as it stands appears to indicate that the calculations for social work resource are based on a social worker working 35 hours a week 52 weeks a year are we going to see that formula rejigged that's part of the i think the criticism that came from COSLA and social work scotland so again i understand there have been some concerns raised around the funding for social work again i would just like to reiterate that these figures were worked out in conjunction with various different organisations social work scotland being one of them but we absolutely value the work for social workers and i want to ensure that their engagement continues throughout this they will be involved in the group that i'm discussing in the fifth of june in terms of those sort of intricate details i'll pass back over to halyn yes i am aware of the the section of the feedback from COSLA that you are referring to i think that there is maybe they're coming out from a slightly different point of view from us what we have done there is work out sort of indicative cost of an average hour of a social worker's time so that's why we're using the full time number of hours worked in a week and number of weeks of the year there's some criticism from COSLA about the weeks of annual leave within that year yeah so they have to pay for holidays as well so that would be reflected in the cost to their employer and so it is reasonable to to use the all of the hours across the year that the social worker is paid for and so that's why we've used those figures but of course we would be engaging further with COSLA on that so if they okay that's reassuring and my last point of clarity on this then on the and i think that memorandum recognises demand for aftercare but doesn't allocate any resource for aftercare will we look again at that yep again it's difficult to quantify that looking looking ahead as with many things as has already been alluded to within within this bill again that's something that will be looked at okay that's good Douglas convener minister what assurances can you give local government that they won't be impacted financially by this bill well again it kind of comes back to what i've already been saying COSLA where involved in the discussions and relation to the financial memo and the creation of the financial memo itself however i understand now have raised some specific concerns around around that funding again that COSLA are going to be feeding into the working group of the fifth of june and this is something that we are going to be working through and discussing with them and engaging with them so so those reassurances reassurances sorry will come as those discussions go forward right COSLA have raised some serious concerns about you know what this means financially to to our local authorities so it would be good to have some assurance for them that they won't be impacted so do you think that assurance will come out as we go through this process and they won't be impacted financially by by this bill yeah as i say we are working with local government in respect of that and there have already been things that have came out of the bill where we see that that we may be could have done things differently for example looking at the hearings and the projected number of hearings that are going to take place when creating the financial memorandum the lower number of hearings was was used to create those figures but we do now accept that the higher figure should have been used and that will be reflected in any updated financial forecasts so in terms of your kind of wider point around those reassurances i'm using that to kind of show you that we are taking cognisance of decisions that have already been made where that could be improved and working with local government to to again ensure that that runs the way that we want it to so areas like skills and training that's been been highlighted will that be covered by the the updated financial memorandum again that that will be based on discussions that go forward in terms of the working group because that is a concern that's been highlighted by local government or where they feel they will lose out financially due to this bill being being brought forward yeah as i say i've i've seen the the comments from causa and i'm i'm worried of them but as i say this is this is something that we will be we'll be engaging on and moving on to social work scotland you know that they've they were quite critical as well saying doesn't you know does not consider that the financial memorandum sufficiently appreciates the scale and financial costs of those changes so as a committee should we be alarmed by that statement from social work scotland i think that that's a point that social work scotland have made but again i just want to reiterate that social work scotland were involved in those initial discussions as i say that that's that's something that's on going if they now have raised these concerns then those will be looked at and discussed as we move forward so i appreciate those concerns okay and they will be hopefully addressed final point community if i may police scotland and the crime office have noted that the legislation had potential cost implications for their agnise for the organisation that are not reflected in the ffm but did not give any indication of their of their scale so what i'm trying to think what engagement was was done with like police scotland for example and why did they not feel they could elaborate further on what the potential cost might be so i'm sorry i'm not in i can't necessarily give an answer as to why they feel they couldn't engage but they were again involved in the group that was set up to establish this and they have been engaged in those discussions going forward in terms of you said there had been concerns raised by the procurator of physical and crown services yes that's right yep they obviously noted that the legislation had potential cost implications for the organisation that are not reflected in the financial memorandum but that did not give an indication of their scale and so that was quite strange that they've raised concerns but they haven't sort of quantified it at all again it's one of those things that it can be difficult to quantify those costs going forward however i'll bring my official toolman just to to clarify that for me yeah be helpful to the committee just to add to the level of detail in terms of engagement that's been happening with those key statutory and other deliver agencies going back a number of years now this bill has not emerged from a clear blue sky in relation to the care and justice sectors overall very heavily influenced by clear light hour's report back in 2020 and indeed the promise so we have engaged across those sectors yes at the level of principle but also at a level of operational implications and trying to quantify what the demand might be in particular with reference to police scotland and the crown office we set up a bit of a rapid review group at which the police scotland and crown office were engaged we're trying to quantify what would be the implications of displacing more children and young people and that sort of age territory away from criminal justice and into the children and family services so those discussions have have informed the population of the financial memorandum and the other community and documents to the bill but as the minister said all of those were products of their time and you know we're more than ready to refresh and intensify those discussions perhaps to get to the heart of the matter at the point that you're raising Mr Longstone around about that kind of quantifying part around about what would be the extent of the unmet demand so in order to help the Parliament and give the minister the advice he's looking for you know some idea about the numbers that they were talking about there would be useful tears too okay and final final point sorry me and social work scotland also know the lack of available secure accommodation so who would be responsible for providing that and have you got capital budget in the financial memorandum or will there be to to try and plug that gap so at the moment obviously this can fluctuate but at the moment there is capacity in the secure care there's currently six spaces and there are five 16 17 year olds and young offenders institutions however as already referred to previously we are looking to expand the last bed policy to 16 beds where it currently sits at four beds to ensure capacity for Scottish children that is something that is currently being discussed at ministerial level and we do hope to write an update on that soon so yes essentially that will be part of the updated financial memorandum thank you thanks give me now thank you to us thank you minister you said in your opening remarks about the fact of the initial engagement with stakeholders and that the evidence that they provided was the basis for the first attempt at a financial memorandum you're now suggesting obviously that the second financial memorandum will have to take connection so for the fact that some of that evidence was perhaps not as complete as it might have been could you tell us as to what you think has to be added to the second financial memorandum given that the evidence you took for the first financial memorandum is turning out not to be accurate I wouldn't say it's not accurate I would say as I referred to earlier it was an accurate snapshot in time of the issues and the finances that would be acquired at that moment as I say it so it wasn't fully based on the engagement with stakeholders but they did help to contribute to that to a high degree there have been things that have wider issues that have impacted on the financial memorandum itself such as the cost of living and inflation these are things that could not have been factored into when this was created and obviously with as with any legislation we need to set out the the financial considerations for the bill at that present time so I don't necessarily want to say what I think should be within the new financial memorandum I think that will be something for the working group to discuss based on the evidence that we've heard so far and the issues that have been risen from the first financial memorandum. Minister I entirely accept about cost of living issues inflation etc that's absolutely accurate but you seem to be suggesting that more information will have to come forward in order to make the second financial memorandum more accurate can you explain to us I mean if you're having this meeting on the fifth of june can you explain to us what expectations you have of additional information that you're looking for so that this committee is more confident that the second financial memorandum is more reflective of the true cost than the first attempt I apologize if I've given the impression that I think more information is going to be coming forward what I meant was the information that we have gathered from stakeholders thus far and the information or evidence that that we've heard in committees will ultimately feed into that where stakeholders and organizations and government can come together to discuss these issues and then present a new financial memorandum or new costs going forward so it's not that I believe there'll be any new information it's based on the discussions and the working group that has already been going thus far they will feed into that I think minister I mean no committee could expect the figures in any financial memorandum to be absolutely spot on first time round that's a given and Parliament experience would tell you that we're on the back of having a look at the financial memorandum for the national care service which as you know was found by general consensus to be very seriously lacking when it came to the first financial memorandum and to the extent that this committee sent it back because it just wasn't good enough if it comes to a second financial memorandum being required by implication that means that there will either be additional information that is forthcoming or there will be an updated set of statistics that build on the first financial memorandum we had before what I'm interested to know is to what extent do you think that the meeting that you're having with stakeholders will bring forward any additional information could I suggest that that's what the expectation is yep I mean I think that will be very useful and beneficial for the updated costs I mean the timing for this was picked expressly to pick up on the stage one committee evidence so so what I referred to in my previous answer and to support any necessary revision and updating work ahead of stage two these will the costs will need upgraded they will need updated and there's there's there's no getting away from that but as I say I think the engagement and the evidence that we've heard so far will be the the best method to prompt those discussions around that working group in the work of that going forward so you do expect that when we're given the criticism that's been levied at the bill by cosla and various other groups is your expectation that at that meeting they will come forward with a carefully worded argument to the Scottish Government about what they see would need to be adjusted for an accurate reflection of the second financial memorandum is that your understanding yes absolutely I mean as I understand that they've raised this in committee evidence to other other sessions to other committees so it would be best for them to raise it in the place where we can take action on that and I think you know this bill stands to benefit a little bit in that as I understand it the other committees have been looking at it there is a general agreement that the principles are a good thing the concern is that if we're not going to get the second financial memorandum till after stage one is completed then that raises questions about the process between stage one and stage two and it's our job in this committee the finance committee to make sure that that process is absolutely watertight that between these two stages the relevant information is put before the parliament because that as I say has been a concern for us in previous bills so can you give us an undertaking that that will happen so it's much more accurate on what these figures will have to be given assurance that this is absolutely a priority for us and as I said that that is why that multi agency meeting has been scheduled for the 5th of June and obviously without presupposing the express will of parliament but that has been implemented and sorry set up so that we can get on with these discussions as soon as practically possible because we are looking to implement seeing the bill go through we want to implement these changes as quickly or not as quickly as possible but as efficiently as possible to the benefit of our young people and in line with keeping the promise and in line with keeping to the UNCRC so I think as I say the fact that that meeting has been established at the beginning of June sets good stead in terms of showing the committees that this is a priority and this is something that we'll be getting worked on as soon as stage one evidence has been completed okay I understand these points in terms of reflecting what's right for children and in terms of UNCRC absolutely get that what I'm concerned about and what this committee has been concerned about with previous financial memorand is the process of scrutiny of the figures that go into that that's our big concern and has been over the period of the last couple of years with various things and we're just trying to make sure that Parliament is absolutely watertight on that scrutiny thank you thank you at last minister can I ask what why do you want to see the number of cross-border placements reduced cross-border placements should really only be used in exceptional circumstances and I know that other committees have heard extremely powerful powerful evidence as to what those circumstances however at the moment the the the issue with cross-border placements is the fact that England simply doesn't have enough capacity for this and this is not something that should be impacting on children in Scotland if there's no places in secure care for for those what do you think will happen to those young people in England? At the moment I can't say that however that is something that I know England are working on separately my focus is obviously what we are doing in Scotland however I do have a meeting coming up with Claire Coutinho the parliamentary undersecretary of state for children families and young people and within that I will be raising the matter of cross-border placements and discussing obviously what they are planning on implementing to remedy this situation so in the absence of any remedy do you have any idea what would happen to those young people you're going to lobby for a remedy and I understand that and I would agree with you in terms of you know England should change what they're doing but if that isn't forthcoming what happens to those young people? I'm sorry but as a minister in the Scottish Parliament that's that's not something that I can give you assurance on at the moment that is something that I've said I'll be discussing with the minister the appropriate minister however my focus is on the promise for for children in Scotland and this bill works towards that okay so I think other members would have general concern for those the welfare of those young people also and but there also the money that comes across that is the sector in scotland insecure care is absolutely dependent on that money at the moment so we've had evidence to give into the parliament saying so Rossie young people's trust say that approximately 50% of current cohort of young people are cross-border placements how would you imagine if your stated intention is delivered that they would continue to meet their costs so in terms of the costs that's something that will need to be a gradual change but that is exactly what I've already mentioned the last bed pilot increasing to 16 beds and that will ensure capacity for Scottish children and meanwhile reducing the capacity for cross-border placements from England to be put in place and I want to re-emphasise that we are cognisant of the fact that these will still happen in exceptional circumstances these will still be required to happen but it's it's only when it is absolutely essential for the child's welfare so can I ask you what allowance you've made within the financial memorandum cost for a secure care place at the moment and what that cost will be after the legislation has passed if there's a difference between the two yes sorry I am yes I we have costs at the moment the costs for secure care are significantly higher than the costs for young offenders institutions sorry for the exact detail on that I'm just going to pass over to my official friends in yeah I mean the costs for secure care placements are running at about six and a half thousand pounds a week so as miss dawn said they're significantly more cost intensive than why why but that reflects the kind of you know the level of provision and support for the young people the young people within them so my question was though I recognize the difference between young offenders institute and secure care and the difference in cost but you're still working at that stable cost of six point five insecure care after the legislation has passed yes is that correct we don't see the allowance increase I'm sorry thank you thank you convenient yep so we don't anticipate that the bill itself is going to disturb the usual cost per per place weekly cost per place in secure care obviously those are you subject to annual fee level negotiations with the independent providers and with Scotland excel who managed the framework contract for causula so we don't anticipate the bill to disturb those specifically but you asked about the availability of secure care and the impact on the viability of the of the providers overall and what the government's interventions for all that meant I thought it would just be useful to the committee to just to highlight some of the work that we're doing with the secure care centres and some of the commissioners and purchasers around about preparing the Scottish secure care offer and to reconfigure that in concert with the providers in order to kind of match up to the expectations in the promise for the period beyond 2030 so for example when I guess that your question is premised around about what's going to be the resourcing arrangements in order to sustain the secure arrangements on the basis that they're offered to now the 78 places sorry so if I can just pursue that point at the moment so evidence is given to the Parliament from the Good Shepherd Centre saying that the sector is turning to England to ensure sustainability and that's a quote it's based on the fact that people pay above the rate referenced in the scotland excel frameworks that Mr Matamara has just mentioned but the minister's stated intention is to reduce the number of people who are paying above that rate so how is the sector going to maintain sustainability if that revenue is removed minister as I referred to in my previous response the 16 bed pilot will go a long way to ensuring the viability of secure care centres going forward and obviously we have a lot on going work around reimagining the secure care so in terms of that sorry that is a a phase that we're going into in order to prepare for the bill ending YYs for under 18s and the promise statement that Scotland must fundamentally rethink the purpose delivery and infrastructure of secure care being absolutely clear that it is there to provide therapeutic trauma informed support so this will create if if you let me finish please the work of reimagining secure care goes through four phases and this will will be looking at issues in terms of funding going forward but as I said the secure the sorry the last bed pilot will be the the the method at the moment that we are looking to make secure care centres more financially viable the last bed pilot is about ensuring that there is emergency search capacity so if there is a dispensation where a young person is sent to a secure care unit to make sure that there's a space there that the place isn't full but the evidence that the Parliament has had is that up to 50% of the current cohort it's not one bed or the fact that the place is full I'm talking about financial sustainability I think we all are minister um there's there's nothing in the financial memorandum to recognise the removal of your poll of that revenue from your policy intent is that correct well that's something that'll be looked at when the financial memorandum is updated and as I say based on discussions with the minister we will have to see how that will play out it's not simply going to be a case that all cross-border placements are removed the next day it's going to be an ongoing thing that we are going to be monitoring and so it might include it could include modelling in terms of that reduction it could absolutely okay but that's some some assurance minister okay can I turn to ross greer thanks community just a couple of brief questions the first is about the increase in the number of cases that will go through the heating system the relative cost there so there's been some suggestions that not only obviously well the number of hearings increase everybody clearly agrees on that but the complexity of the additional cases will be greater on average than that of existing cases in the system which has raised questions about the cost per heating averaged out so I'd be interested if you give some clarification on whether the cost of the additional hearings is assumed to average out at the same as the cost of hearings that are currently in the system and if so how would you respond to the suggestion that these hearings are on average likely to be more complex and if you have a different costing on average for the hearings if you could expand a little bit on how you came to that average cost just to get into some of the more technical details I'll bring Tom in for some of the facts and figures around that yeah so we worked with children's team Scotland for the children's panel element of that and the children's reported administration in terms of the throughput from local authorities police and other referers around about kind of quantifying the demand but you're quite right must agree here this is not simply a case of having a kind of almost like a unit cost in relation to children and young people and you know it's it's foreseeable and in many aspects it's reasonable to say that if we're looking to support 16 and 17 year olds older young people with arguably more entrenched needs and risks I suppose that's a legitimate point for colleagues in the hearing system to make but by the same token it's also reasonable to say that where there were really entrenched and chronic needs for young people turning 16 and 17 year old those may well already have been known to the system for example so therefore I mean I suppose it's a reasonable projection as well that you would expect most of the additional demand on the hearing system to be on the offence side and that in turn doesn't doesn't you know I don't think it lends itself to simplistically suggesting that every one of the additional cases that the children's hearing system would cope with would be of a nature that they simply haven't seen before so we think it's a reasonably safe projection that we've got I guess those will be discussions and negotiations that we'll home in and both with the the hearing system bodies themselves but also probably supported by work that will be taken forward by the Crown Office and SCRA in respect of jointly reported cases and those will be the ones that will be towards the more serious end and eventually you know the terms of that prosecution policy in terms of what eventually ends up being diverted to the children's reporter and then liable to be considered by a children's hearing those that will be framed by the Lord Advocate in the Crown Office and it would only be once we've got the benefit of that updated policy that we'd be able to be really really clear about it but we think that that while it's foreseeable that there is more complexity we've always kind of tried to respond to additional demand for complexity because obviously over a number of years now if you like the kind of gross number of referrals to the hearing system whether it's on care and protection or indeed on offence grounds those have come down appreciably over the year but we've maintained the funding commitment to the hearings bodies and the wider children's services recognising that what's left for consideration for compulsory measures tends to be more complex so they're already dealing with difficult cases. Thanks for that Tom and from a policy perspective completely agree with everything you've said but just for the sake of clarification I can just confirm that the the costings in the memorandum for the additional hearings and accepting what you say we shouldn't in general see this as a unit price thing but for the purposes of the FM we kind of need to. Is that unit price assumed to be essentially the same as the unit price of the current average in the hearing system or is it more? So the material that we have directly from the reporter and also from Children's Hearing Scotland kind of reflects the existing including 16 and 17 year olds that the children's reporter already sees anticipates you know what would be displaced from the criminal justice system and that would what would come in afresh in relation to 16 and 17 year olds on on care and welfare grounds and then kind of converts that into this would be the percentage that went from initial reporter referral on to hearing and then what would be then the number of appeals what would be the number of prehearing panels so that's all facted into those figures and numbers. Thanks very much and then just one final brief question. Minister I was really glad to welcome the comments you made to me in education committee last week in relation to secure transport and the government will be considering bringing amendments to the bill to reflect that or considering taking measures in this area in one form or another. Will that be taken into account in revising the financial memorandum because there's been various submissions both to suggest that savings could be made in the area of secure transport provision if we were for example to create a situation in which secure transport provision existed in Scotland. We've discussed previously how most of it comes from England but the flip side of that of course is if we're trying to raise standards in secure transport provision that could have additional costs. So I think it would be of interest to Parliament to have some indication of what the financial implication of changes to secure transport provision would be so accepting that a decision hasn't been made on what those changes will be yet could you just confirm that the financial memorandum will take that into account. Yes I'll thank Mr Greer for that question and just for the benefit of the committee obviously the bill does not make any alterations to the backdrop regulation for secure transport so it's not quantified in the financial memorandum however as I've already said this morning we are listening to the views that have came forward over stage one on this and a range of other areas and these will of course be explored in any refreshed financial forecasts for the bill. Thanks very much that's all from me Cymru. Thank you. John Mason. Thank you very much. I mean just pursuing this cross-border thing a little bit more I mean presumably it is better for a young person to be nearer the local authority area which is responsible for them because as I understand it they still are responsible for education and other measures of support. Yes absolutely that's why I'm saying that we really don't want these to happen unless they are absolutely essential or for exceptional circumstances we don't want to remove a young person from everything that they know and yes resources and support networks that could be around them so essentially to answer your question Mr Mason yes. So I mean you're not suggesting a quick cut-off you're suggesting this is probably going to take time but over time children from Kent and Cornwall should not be coming to Scotland? Absolutely this would be a gradual thing as I said this is not a case that every child that's in a cross-border placement would be removed in a short period of time. The overall aim is to get to a place where our young people and our children are being protected and being cared for in the areas where they are from unless there is reasons for them not to do so. So absolutely we need to make it less encouraging for local authorities in England to want to place children in secure care centres in Scotland and ensure the capacity as they are for children within Scotland who require those places. That's great thanks so much. Overall the costs at the moment I fully accept there's going to be a new FM or revised FM a 10.67 million to 11.94 million in total. I mean firstly that is actually pretty small amount compared to other bills that we've looked at in this committee. I accept it's still money that we need to look at. The other point that struck me about that though was how tight the forecast was there's only a 10 per cent difference there broadly between the bottom and the top and we have broadly that's a good thing because sometimes we have seen financial memorandum here before that have been absolutely all over the place but can you just comment on why you know your range is so is so tight because I think some have felt maybe it was too tight? Yeah I think that might be a better a question better directed to one of my officials so could I ask Tom? Thank you. I guess Mr Mason the the relatively narrow band that you're referring to the reason why we had the degree of confidence that we did run about that because those were referable to those sort of tripartite discussions that I mentioned earlier on we must have lunched in by the crown office and with the children's reporter and that was kind of looking at these were the types of cases for example the number and the gravity if you like that if the bills kind of structural changes were to go through that at that time that they felt were kind of liable to displacement across to the children's system so therefore and those in turn were referable to kind of real world under 18s cases that the crown office had dealt with in times past and then the ones that had been liable to kind of the joint referal mechanism between the crown office and the children's reporter and then which system ended up taking them so those were based on those discussions and therefore we felt reasonably confident about that was the sort of kind of the size of the shift in demand so alone the future is never predictable in one sense this bill the costs are a little bit more predictable than some of the other areas of legislation I wouldn't make that claim but I guess what we're saying is that we've discussed with the you know the relevant prosecutorial and the relevant statutory agencies and the children's domain and they've both case taken an informed view round about this is the kind of the range of cases that would be likely to move across with reference to like the real world data around about the cases that they dealt with under the old arrangements and therefore we felt reasonably confident to be pretty tight round about that and again that was about trying to offer Parliament as much precision as where we could while recognising that each and every one of those cases are and you know in the ultimate analysis those are in the individual professional prosecutorial gifted the crown office okay thank you and when it comes to funding for local authorities can you say anything about how that would be distributed among local authorities because you might have a few years say with with nobody from Shetland needing the change service so does that mean Shetland getting no money for these years and if Glasgow say had more than its share of young people it would get a bit more as far as I'm aware that would be that would take place through the usual budget process however that that could if that specific situation did become an issue that that could be monitored going forward and there also is discussion between the secure care centres within Scotland where they can manage issues like this and so I'm confident that that could be managed going forward yes because I mean some money money does get shared out doesn't it in different ways to local government some is by population share and some is by need or other methods so yet so at the moment as I say that that as far as I'm aware the the current the way it would currently lie is it would get distributed through the normal budget process but as I said we would have to monitor that if it did turn out that there was lots of young people needing secure care in in this area and not so much somewhere else then that would need to be looked at going forward but as I said the secure care centres do have these discussions among themselves and can work sort of work these out so that could be addressed okay thanks thanks again to the cross-border situation I understand the point that you are only legally responsible for what happens in Scotland and not for what happens because of failing south of the border however there are cases which have drew the way off of young people being accommodated well away from home bed and breakfast with private security guards outside their door in some pretty bad situations as long as the government was able to guarantee that the last bed was available and I know your responsibility to make sure everyone's Scotland has got the accommodation has there been a kind of in principle rejection of the idea that if there were available beds that they could and should be available to people from elsewhere to go back to the convener's point to help with the financial sustainability of the entire system if we have the people in the accommodation here in Scotland and there are some available and I know that's not an easy thing to do because you've got to judge how it fluctuates but why would we not want to do that I can understand that and as I say my priority would be ensuring that there is capacity in space for children within Scotland to require it I would also as I say in my meeting with Claire Coutinho I will be encouraging the practice and changes to the practice in England I mean as part of the on-going engagement with the UK government so far and again this predates some of my time in office but we do continue to emphasise the importance of addressing that lack of capacity in adequate care accommodation in England we do now have a place a memorandum of understanding which underpins regular discussions on these issues and I'm going to be taking these forward now this commenced in March 2023 and it is allowing us to pursue the UK government's intended course of action particularly in response to its independent care review so these discussions are on-going I understand the Mr Brown's point around if there was capacity in Scotland however the priority is to ensure capacity in Scotland and ensure that capacity in England is well working with the appropriate minister understand the priority I just think there's a big opportunity there which might serve everyone's interests including the financial sustainability the other and last question I had was in relation to sections 12 13 and 14 it's mainly to do with children at court and it gives a reason amongst others for why more information is not available more financial information is not available in the FM one of the reasons given is because of the reluctance to cut across judicial discretion I can't see I find that very convincing the idea that a judge or sheriff will think twice about their decision because somewhere there's an indicative budget being attached to it and I just wondered whether an imaginative response might be to say if you agreed with the judiciary through discussions this will be an indicative budget and it's only for that purpose but it might help the Parliament to look at some of the potential costs at the same time making sure that the judiciary didn't feel they were being in any way feathered no I understand that is an issue and that could certainly be looked into for the updated financial costs absolutely okay Douglas Lumsden just want to come back in on something that John Mason was asking about in terms of the lower cost estimates and the upper end cost estimates for part two and three the under 18s ending under 18s being kept in young offenders institutions secure accommodation it's fixed it's 5.41 million in the lower cost estimate and 5.41 in the upper cost estimate it seems quite unusual that there's no difference between those those two can you give us some explanation on that is it completely fixed I'm sorry for the details on those specifics I would need to pass over to Brendan yeah Mr Lumsden yeah I mean again I suppose they were are they completely fixed we've kind of talked about inflationary costs and and and other other issues I mean at the time those were the best forecast we could give to to try and get as much precision as possible as we've said they're based on the kind of current sort of weekly annual cost of secure care at that point in time so that's why they're in that that kind of reasonably fixed fixed range but again I mean those are predicated as well on number of children in secure care sorry why why is being at being at 16 so there was kind of care taken with the financial memo not to underestimate the costs there to both central and local government so as the minister said there's currently five children on the on the current figures in in young offenders institutions that under these provisions would transfer to secure so the costs there are probably significantly more than they would be at this given moment so again there is just that point there's been a lot of discussion about the fluctuation the numbers do you know do go up and down but at that time they were they were deemed to be the most appropriate so it does look like it's based on the six six and a half thousand weekly cost for secure accommodation so I guess my final final question was in terms of secure accommodation costs is that the same for a 12 year old in secure accommodation as a 17 year old in secure accommodation or would we expect to see differences in the cost what if it be helpful to just add to what Brendan said there so the the weekly cost of a placement in each secure centre is agreed as part of your usual annual contractual negotiations so that's why there's no there's no fluctuation in that so the the staffing arrangements to sort of high fixed costs associated with a secure care placement in a given centre is negotiated via scotland excel with each of the centres at the beginning of each year and that in broad terms doesn't vary depending on age so what's required to support each child or young person who's placed in secure care is you know is is really very very intensive and so those are the the usual anticipated costs there is flexibility and even you know an even smaller microcosm of that very small demand and high demand cohort of young people for additional kind of augmentation and reinforcement to be put round about an individual child so for example if you need to have space in bedrooms either side or you need additional specialist input etc in addition to the the kind of average six and a half to seven thousand pounds a week cost where an individual child in an individual case needs something extra that's negotiated with the individual centre but you don't anticipate secure accommodation providers to charge more for a 17 year old no no we don't because secure accommodation providers already care for 17 year olds so the average age of a child in secure care is round about 15 and a half 16 at the moment anyway they already care for 17 year olds the key distinction for the bill is the supervision status of the kids going into secure care okay thank you so there's no intention at the moment then to revisit the scotland excel framework in terms of the costs that are paid not in direct consequence of the bill the the that's why i suppose you know during my earlier remarks the the bill cuts into a context that's kind of suffused with change anyway round about the necessity of sustainability of the existing centres that's predicated on the 78 beds and the four centres when we're engaged in a kind of promise keeping exercise alongside the secure care centres to reimagine and reconfigure secure care and to meet scotland's needs in the period beyond 2030 what might be needed to ensure viability in that period might not be the same as the current sort of 90 occupancy break even so and in terms of you know national contribution local contribution in scotland and what secure care centres might need in the period beyond 2030 might look a wee bit different and that's partly based on the evidence that we've had that you see the sector relies on cross-border placement money to actually keep the lights on it's very important to them under the current funding arrangements and the current contract arrangement up to 50 percent of placements but again the the the prevalence of cross-border placements varies from centre to centre as well so the extent of that reliance does differ from centre to centre so therefore the extent of the expectation and the contribution that the Scottish Government and other partners would make to kind of resolve in that over time four centres and certainly i have evidence here from two of them stating that they're reliant on that money yeah i just i suppose it's worth the emphasis minister in terms of you know this is not a marginal issue in terms of your stated policy intent of producing or eliminating those those people and i think it's reflected across the committee that there are real concerns both for those young people frankly and their welfare young people in england as well as young people in scotland i understand your legal responsibility in in these regards but on a on a human level i think we all have great concern for the outcomes of those young people as well but also more generally the fact that we have a sector that's entirely dependent on that money and i'm not really hearing a lot of evidence today from you minister or from your officials that actually we're dealing with that in the long run there's talk about dealing in 2030 and we also let's hope that this meeting with agencies in June can come up with some answers and when we see the second financial memorandum it's in a state that we could agree with okay thank you thanks for your evidence today minister and officials and that closes the public part of our meeting we'll take for the rest of the agenda in private thank you