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It is inevitable that there will be much greater focus on shorter-term issues in relation to service performance or configuration. That is essential, but we need to have our eyes on the long term as well as the short term and have greater focus on the national performance framework. Looking at current trends, are we satisfied that we are making enough progress in particular directions? We could do with strengthening that attention.

To take the example of child poverty, my colleague with responsibility for social justice will make statements to Parliament about progress on tackling child poverty, which is a constant and on-going priority. That is an example of a long-term focus that is the subject of updates to Parliament. My colleague who is responsible for net zero has to make climate change statements to Parliament that are about how we are progressing towards our long-term policy direction. There is always scope for more focus on those issues, and the Government would be happy to participate in that scrutiny.

That is correct, but the audience for the national performance framework is decision-making bodies. If a decision-making body such as a local authority or public body takes decisions that are contrary to the direction of travel of what is hoped for in the national performance framework, that is a problem. The key audience in my view is the organisations that will be part of delivering on that journey and that need to, as statute says, “have due regard to” what is in the national performance framework. A local authority that pays no attention to the national performance framework in its formulation of policy would be an item of concern to me.

We should always be mindful of that balance, because time-limited targets can provide greater focus and impetus for progress. We just have to be absolutely certain that we are putting them in the right areas to make the greatest possible amount of progress. We have time-limited targets on climate change and child poverty, which are fundamental issues in our society. A lot of activity will be focused on ensuring that we are in a position to achieve those measurable targets.

I am very happy for the Government to have open dialogue with Parliament and its committees—in particular, this committee—on ensuring that those processes are closely linked. Many of the internal discussions that I have had about the wellbeing bill have involved ministers and officials who are also involved in the national performance framework, so those are not compartmentalised conversations. However, I am happy to assure the committee that we will have open dialogue around those questions.

Audit Scotland’s observations are reasonable. I hope that the committee has got the sense from my observations this morning that I think that it is important that we look at the information in the round and that we do not just make glib judgments about individual components.

The Audit Scotland comments highlight the difficulty of making a direct connection between every single pound of public expenditure and every outcome that is achieved. That connection is more obvious in some areas than in others, but it can be difficult to make that link. A couple of weeks ago, the Auditor General commented on the ways in which we need to operate to ensure that we improve outcomes. He talked about approaches that are heavily based on collaboration, partnership working, disrespecting organisational boundaries and focusing more on outcomes than on inputs. Those comments help to structure the legitimate discussion on whether public expenditure is being used as effectively as it could be used to achieve the outcomes that are widely shared in our society. The national performance framework helps us in that respect.

We are in a better place, because we have a much greater focus today on the achievement of outcomes than was the case in 2007. The substantive policy development over those years has been that we have a much greater focus on the achievement of outcomes. That is a prize that is worth having, because Governments in general can be bedevilled by focusing on short-term and immediate high-profile issues at the expense of taking the necessary steps on the long-term outcome-based journeys.

That does not mean that everything is smooth and lateral—that it all takes a lovely neat course. The road is very bumpy, but focusing on the long-term policy direction and the outcomes that are to be achieved is a significant strength for Scotland today.

The national performance framework tries to put a concept such as GDP, which is important, into a proper and full context. In other words, the framework tries to set out the factors that we as a society and country need to think about, one of which will be GDP. There will be a range of others, but it is about putting them in a proper context.

Daniel Johnson asked about the balanced scorecard; the aim is to have a framework that enables people—and, indeed, parliamentarians—to judge where the balance of our policy making should be struck after seeing the range of different patterns of development in particular policy areas and how we can take decisions that better reflect a more rounded approach to policy making instead of just saying, “I’m only going to look at the GDP indicator at the expense of everything else.” That is clearly the antithesis of the NPF, which is our attempt to put concepts such as GDP into their proper context.

The point that Mr Fraser raises—which Neil Doncaster expressed this morning—is entirely reasonable. We are aware of the labour market challenges, which are visible to all of us, and the challenges around the availability of stewards are well documented. I do not in any way, shape or form dispute that point—I accept it, hence the rationale in the Government’s paper that we published last week, in which we indicated that there was a necessity for organisers to take reasonable measures and that there was likely to be a proportionate approach in different settings such as a crowd of 200 versus a crowd of 60,000. We envisage that there will have to be different approaches, and we are working through the issues in detail with football authorities in order to have that proportionate approach—principally because they will be the ones with the big crowds that will be affected, although other events and sectors will also be affected.

We are trying to encourage a climate in which vaccination uptake is understood to be a significant protection for the country against the spread of the virus. Even though there may not be a check of absolutely everybody who attends a football game, the more that we can do, the more we can make these events safer and less likely to be places in which the virus is transmitted and the more we contribute to the suppression of the virus.

We are actively involved in discussions with the football authorities and other players on these questions, and a proportionate approach is likely to be taken, as we highlighted in last week’s paper. As we also indicated, guidance supporting that information will be available to relevant parties.

I agree 100 per cent about the importance of the matter, and I can reassure you that we are making efforts to pursue it.

The other day, I saw a social media message in which a clinician shared a photograph of himself dressed head to toe in personal protective equipment, wearing a heavy-duty clinical face mask. It looked unbearably uncomfortable. The message that he set alongside the picture was, essentially, “If all you’re moaning about is wearing a face mask to go to the shops, come and stand where I’ve been standing for a minute.” I think that that made the point perfectly. Wearing a face covering is the least that we can ask people to do to ensure that they are taking precautions to stop spread of the virus.

All the baseline measures—wearing a face covering, observing physical distancing where possible, coughing etiquette, hand-hygiene procedures and so on—will interrupt spread of the virus, so it is important that we reinforce the messages on them.

About three weeks ago, the Cabinet discussed the issue. General frustration was expressed that, after 9 August, there had been a sense that there could be relaxation of those baseline measures.

We therefore took a number of steps. We deputised cabinet secretaries to intensify stakeholder discussion—basically, to get on the phone to supermarkets, retailers, transport companies, universities and colleges. Members of the Cabinet did that, along with their officials, in order to have those conversations.

Then, two weeks ago, I convened a stakeholder discussion involving about 170 organisations, including representatives of the retail sector and all the supermarket chains, transport companies, education institutions, local authorities, business organisations and trade unions. The aim of that was to reinforce the importance of application of the baseline measures. Of course, in such a conversation involving a range of stakeholders, some will be pressing strong arguments that are supportive of what the Government is doing. For example, I was delighted with the degree to which the trade union representatives on the call reinforced the message. They are, understandably, concerned about the wellbeing of their members. It was a helpful call that strengthened the attitude to application of baseline measures.

On Tuesday, the First Minister and I convened a follow-up call that included much the same cast list. There was quite a bit of feedback from the retail sector that the messaging from the Government about turning up the heat on following baseline measures had helped in the retail environment. Ministers have undertaken specific communications to support retail workers and to encourage members of the public to be respectful of those workers by ensuring that they wear a face covering if they are asked to do so by a retail employee.

I hope that that reinforcement of the baseline measures is contributing in part to the tempering of the level of infection in society. As the First Minister reported to Parliament on Tuesday, we are in a better place than we were last week and the week before.

I assure Mr Rowley that we intend to have no let-up in encouraging and motivating organisations to follow the baseline measures. I think that most organisations accept the importance of that, because they can see that, if we do not do it, we might have to do other things that they will like even less.

There are two issues to address in that question. First, the question whether the lady in question should be vaccinated is an exclusively clinical matter, so I will say nothing that would intrude on such decision making. These are, in some circumstances, very difficult judgments. It is estimated that fewer than one in 1,000 people—or 0.1 per cent—cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons. We are therefore talking about a very small number of people, which I think demonstrates the difficulty of the clinical judgment that has to be applied. As I have said, I would not seek to intrude on that.

Secondly, on the implications of non-vaccination for a vaccination certification scheme, we have to ensure that the scheme does not disadvantage people in accessing venues if they choose, as an unvaccinated person, to do so. In other words, someone who is unvaccinated for entirely legitimate and proper clinically assessed medical reasons should not be disadvantaged if they want to see their favourite football club playing. Obviously that will have implications for other members of society, but there is a limited risk of exposure. Fundamentally, though, that is a judgment for the individual, so we have to ensure that the vaccination certification scheme in no way disadvantages or discriminates against them.