Meeting of the Parliament 24 May 2018
It is good to have that on the record—I thank Mr Simpson for that.
The cabinet secretary touched on other issues, such as trade union engagement, which is extremely important. Some people have described the mention of the concepts of love, happiness and wellbeing as “waffle”, but they are very important. It is true that they are difficult to measure. I am not sure that we can manage love, nor should we want to. However, those ideas and priorities have come from many people across Scotland, including our young people. It is important that that aspect of the outcomes has been part of the debate, and it is a shame that it has turned some people cold.
The Presiding Officer was generous in allowing interventions throughout the debate, so a lot has been said already that I do not need to repeat now. However, in closing, I will say that it is important that we have had the opportunity to scrutinise this matter. We have heard from James Kelly and Willie Rennie that we need to get into the guts of this, and that annual scrutiny will be really important—I see that I have just received a thumbs-up from Alex Cole-Hamilton, so I am doing something right today.
I thank everyone across the Parliament. We did not have a huge amount of time for scrutiny. It is great that the cabinet secretary has said that he will be more flexible in that regard in future. Colleagues would welcome that, as would people across civic Scotland. It is important that we get our approach right and that the national outcomes are embedded across the public sector. The Public Audit and Post-legislative Scrutiny Committee and Audit Scotland have told us that we are not seeing the necessary evidence, particularly with regard to the recent annual report of Scottish Enterprise, which did not mention the national performance framework. However, I know that the cabinet secretary has said that he will hold a high-level event on the matter. I am sure that we will all be interested to see what that will entail.
Again, I thank everyone who has made a contribution to this important scrutiny.