 I welcome to the second meeting of 2023 of the Economy and Fair Work Committee. Our first item of business is a decision to take items 4, 5 and 6 in private. Are members content? Our next item of business this morning is an evidence session on the Scottish Government's 2023-24 budget. The budget was published on 15 December 2022. The stage one debate on the budget bill is expected to take place in the next few weeks. Today's evidence session is about those areas in the budget that come within the committee's remit. I welcome John Swinney, Deputy First Minister, who is joined by Colin Cook, director of economic development, Aiden Greasewood, interim director of economic strategy, Kathleen Swift, head of economic directorate finance unit and Richard Rawlison, director of international trade and investment. As always, if members and witnesses can keep their contributions as concise as possible, that would be helpful. I invite the Deputy First Minister to make a short opening statement. Thank you, convener, and good morning. I welcome this opportunity to give evidence on the Scottish Government's draft budget for 2023-24 and also on the delivery plans for the national strategy for economic transformation. If it is acceptable, convener, I will just make opening remarks that will cover both of those areas if that would be acceptable. Both the national strategy and the budget support our long-term aims and ambitions for transformation to a stronger fairer greener economy, and in the short term, while our levers are limited, also provide immediate support for our businesses through the current cost crisis. That continues to present a significant challenge. The latest inflation figures published just this morning, covering December 2022, show that inflation remains very high at 10.5 per cent. When facing some of the most turbulent economic and financial conditions that most people can remember, the Scottish Government has had the difficult task of providing as much support as possible when our budget is lower in real terms than in 2021. That means having to make difficult choices in the forthcoming financial year. We have chosen to concentrate our efforts to eradicate child poverty, to provide sustainable public services and to transform the economy to deliver a just transition to net zero. The national strategy provides the right foundations upon which we can transform our economy and help to secure better outcomes as we emerge from these difficult conditions. In setting the budget and in the development of the end-set delivery plans, we have firmly prioritised the actions that will give us maximum return on our strategic objectives. In the coming financial year, we are bringing forward measures to boost entrepreneurship and productivity across sectors and regions, as well as investment in our infrastructure. We are committing to funding the transition to net zero, not only to meet our climate change targets, but because the transition will help us to realise our long-term economic ambitions, bringing investment jobs and growth. The skills and employability aspects of end-set are also being supported so that more people can access more job opportunities both now and in the future, helping some of the most vulnerable in our society into employment and improving their wellbeing. We have consulted with the public, private and third sectors throughout the development of end-set, and we will continue to work in partnership with them as we push forward with delivery. I appreciate the committee's pre-budget scrutiny and report, as well as being given the opportunity to respond. I look forward to discussing some of those points with the committee this morning. Thank you very much, cabinet secretary. You referred to the letter that you received from the committee and the areas that we had considered in our budget considerations. Notwithstanding the significant economic challenges that Scotland is facing due to a number of external factors that have been pressures on the budget that have led to some difficult decisions that have been made, one was about the reduction in spending for employability services. The Fraser of Allands is published a report and analysis into the decision that has been made and evidence that the committee heard from businesses did talk about the tightness in the labour market and the value there is in bringing people who are furthest away from the labour market into employment. If she can be talked through, because we have had a number of correspondence from—I mean, I asked the First Minister about it. Is it convener's group? We have had letters from Richard Lochhead, I think, from yourself about the cuts. The money—the £53 million was money that had not been spent, because it looks a bit like we are being told that there is nothing to worry about here, but there has been a reduction in an area. Was it money that had not been committed? Is that why the decision was taken in this area? Essentially, if you will forgive me, convener, I fear that this is going to be a long answer, but I will try to make it as quick as I can. Essentially, as the financial year has progressed, the scale of pressure on our budget has become more and more apparent through really two factors. The additional resources that we have had to find for public sector pay, we had budgeted on 2 per cent for public sector pay, were clearly paying more than that to address the legitimate claims of employees. Secondly, the effect of inflation for which we have had no—there has been no change in the resources available to the budget. I have had to take some pretty difficult decisions to balance the budget. As I explained to the finance committee last Tuesday, I am still not in a position to be confident that I can balance the resource budget this year. The scale of financial pressure that I am still wrestling with, and this is now mid-January, is between £200 million and £500 million that I need to save before I can balance the budget this year. In trying to get to that position, I had to make reductions in planned expenditure. One of those reductions, as you correctly pointed out, was in employability programmes. Essentially, what I did was I removed an increase in budget that was projected. I did not take away any spend that was being delivered. What I did not put in place was an increase that was planned. The opportunity cost of that, which is the point that you are driving at, is a fair point to raise. Obviously, the more we can spend on employability, the more we can try to erode the levels of economic connectivity within our society, because the programmes that we work on and fund as distinct from the programmes funded by the Department for Work and Pensions are essentially on that group of individuals who are furthest from the labour market, who will require much wider and more holistic support to get them back into employment. The reason why I accept that the opportunity cost is that we perhaps could have put in place programmes that would have provided opportunities for more people to re-enter the labour market. I think that there are two factors that I would set out to reassure the committee on its understandable concerns that you put to me, convener. One is that we have seen in employment data yesterday a fall in economic connectivity in Scotland of about nearly 1 per cent in the year. That is quite a substantial reduction in economic connectivity levels, given the fact that many people in that category face significant challenges. It is a much higher reduction in economic connectivity than in the rest of the United Kingdom. The second point is that, when I took that decision and still today, there remains capacity in our existing employability programmes to take on new individuals. If an individual wanted to re-enter the labour market and require support, there would still be capacity in our employability programmes to do that. Finally, for completeness, convener, the budget does envisage an increase in employability support in the next financial year. Although I have had to take a short-term decision to remove planned expenditure to help me to balance the budget, we are increasing the resources that are available for employability support in the forthcoming financial year. That is helpful. How much would that increase be? Does it compensate for the 53? No, it would not. It will be 68 minus 53. It is an increase of about £11 million. It is not off the scale of the original position. When you talked about NSET, you stressed the importance of helping the vulnerable into employment as being part of the 10-year strategy. There is a net gain to the employability budget of £11 million once we had subtracted 53. Would there be an intention in future years to put increased investment into the area? You have recognised that there is an opportunity loss here. There will be activity that was planned or there was activity that was seen as being important that now will not take place because of the reduction in the original increase. The question relates to what is the necessary capacity that we need to have available in the employability budgets to support the return of people to the labour market. We projected a significant increase in those budgets this current year. We have not been able to fulfil that because of the issues that I have raised, but we would be looking to support that activity as much as we can do in recognising the effectiveness of such expenditure. It will be something that I want to very carefully. I would also give the assurance that one of the issues that I have looked at in taking this decision was the capacity of programmes to deliver support to individuals. There is almost a demand-led element of those programmes. If we see during the course of the financial year that demand for programmes is rising and we are finding it difficult to meet the demand within the labour market, then obviously I would look to address that issue during the financial year if it was possible to do so. The committee is about to undertake a short inquiry into the employment disability gap, so that will help inform our discussions in that area. Obviously, the committee's deliberations on that question would be helpful for the Government to understand because we recognise that. If we look at the data on the labour market that was published yesterday, we find ourselves in the position with employment at a record high, unemployment sitting very low at 3.3 per cent. Despite the fact that we are experiencing enormous volatility in economic conditions, employment remains very high and unemployment remains very low. Obviously, there are a couple of observations about that, convener. One is that that might not be the case on a sustained basis because there is obviously a lot of economic turbulence coming our way. Secondly, we have to be mindful of the importance that NSET attaches to increasing the value of employment, and that is a major consideration of the approach to employment support and employability and economic development that we have within our wider programme. I am now going to bring in members who are initially focusing on the letter in the areas that we wrote to the Cabinet Secretary about. Gordon MacDonald, would you like to come in? Good morning. I want to ask you about the pressures on businesses. You have talked about inflation at 10.5 per cent. We have got high energy costs and labour costs that are flowing out of that because of that. What support is the Government putting in place in the areas where it has responsibility to businesses, given that businesses are looking for some form of certainty so that they can plan for the recession that is being suggested? There are a number of areas where the Government is trying within our resources and areas of responsibility to provide that support. The first area that I would highlight is the approach that we are taking on non-domestic rates, where the principal request of 16 business organisations was for the rates poundage to be frozen. Normally, there would be an expectation that that would increase in line with inflation. I took a decision to freeze the business rate, but that does not come without cost to the Government. The estimated cost of that was £308 million. The freezing of the business rate means that businesses in Scotland have the lowest business rates poundage in the United Kingdom, and they do not have to face an inflation increase. Secondly, I recognise the implications of the revaluation that is taken place. We have put in place some transitional relief for businesses. Thirdly, the small business bonus scheme is designed to provide support to companies in sustaining their operations. I am not going to suggest that all of that is going to address the issues that we have engaged in dialogue with the United Kingdom Government on the successor energy package that the UK Government is bringing forward. We have obviously contributed our thinking to that. Those are decisions for the United Kingdom Government. I welcome the fact that there is some on-going support, but I think that we are all conscious that there still remain significant challenges for businesses as a consequence of those issues. In addition to some of those measures, other investments that the Government makes, whether it is in the support that we have put in place for skills training, which is obviously important, in particular in the area of apprenticeships, to try to link with the points that the convener has rightly raised with me about the labour market and some of the other investments that are made around trying to ensure that colleges, for example, are adapting their provision to meet the challenges that are prevalent within the labour market and the shift that has to be made within the labour market to support the net zero ambitions. I am thinking particularly here about the need to shift activity to support the development of renewables and the significant opportunities that arise out of Scotland. Those are just some of the measures that the Government is able to take forward, but I would say that we remain very much open to listening to the views of the business community. That is why we set up the business regulation task force, which is jointly chaired by my colleague Ivan McKee and the COSLA Enterprise spokesperson, Councillor McGregor. The purpose of the business regulation task force is to listen carefully to business and where there are issues in the regulatory environment that are causing obstacles and there is no good reason for them to be there. We try to address that as swiftly as we possibly can. You touched upon the small business bonus scheme. When that was introduced in 2008, there were roughly 60,000 premises that benefited from it. It is now over 100,000. Can you say how much that is actually helping to businesses in Scotland in terms of financial development? As Mr MacDonald correctly identifies, there are more businesses benefiting from the small business bonus scheme than when we set out on that particular scheme. I should also point out that we have put in place further incentives in the non-domestic rate scheme for companies involved in renewables to try to tailor the relief package to encourage more development in that respect. The number of properties that will benefit from business rates will, I would expect, be around 100,000. We also have some transitional relief available for small companies in that respect. In relation to the small business bonus scheme, I carried out an inquiry into the small business bonus scheme at the request of the Scottish Government. I think that it was Tom Arthur, who is the minister responsible, who has answered a few questions in Parliament. I was just wondering if there is an update on the Government's consideration of the work from Professor Bond on what steps would be taken next in relation to that. Those are commitments that I suppose might have the hallmark of being part of the fabric of our proposition that we make available, but we have to take an active choice to maintain schemes of that type. The Government has considered the issues that are raised in this area of policy and determined that our small business community continues to require that degree of support. We have tried to address some of the issues by the design of the transitional relief scheme that is available and also to ensure that we are constantly monitoring the continued appropriateness of the companies that are involved in the small business bonus scheme so that we are monitoring and assessing the appropriate levels at which the business rates relief should be set and some of the thinking from the Fraser of Alamden Institute helps us in that respect. Last year, the approach to relief was recognised as being less generous than in England and Wales. To quote the Fraser of Alamden Institute in its budget response, John Swinney has taken an even more hardline approach and there is no additional relief supplied to the hospitality and retail sector, as is the case of south of the border. Given the very real pressures on those sectors that the committee highlighted, why was that choice made? I appreciate that there is a freeze in the multiplier and relief for renewables, but why no specific relief for hospitality and retail, given the pressures that they are under? It is important that, when we look at the area, I understand the comparison that Mr Smith puts to me. We are not looking at directly comparable schemes as to what Scotland offers in relation to business rates and what is habitually offered in England. We have two different propositions. A small business bonus scheme is a much more generous scheme in Scotland than comparable schemes south of the border. Of course, any measures that we take are come at a cost, so the overall estimated cost of the business rates measures that we are taking is an estimated £744 million. A substantial investment has been made in supporting business. One of the factors that bore heavily in my consideration of what was the right thing to do was the representations from business organisations asking us to freeze the poundage, which of course gives that comprehensive approach right across the business sectors. I was pleased to be able to do that. The second relevant factor is that our estimate is that about half of the properties in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors will be eligible for 100 per cent small business bonus relief in 2023-24, so there is a substantial contribution being made to alleviate the issues and the challenges that that sector will face. I wanted to follow up on a deeply held interest of mine around the role of women and their contribution and the contribution of entrepreneurialism and so on. Our pre-budget calls sought to mention disaggregation of data and progress in the women's business centre and thank you for the replies from the Scottish Government. The ironic thing was that in our pre-budget letter from last year, we also asked about disaggregation of data. I have three simple questions today. First, I recognise the worthwhile efforts that are going on from the Scottish Government to promote the area, and we all look with interest and anticipation to Anna Stewart's review. Setting that aside, my simple three asks today to start to move from review into getting under the skin of what is a structural issue is. Can the Scottish Government, and can you play your part in ensuring that all data collected by the Scottish Government is routinely disaggregated by gender as a matter of routine? I think that generally that would be the case. Obviously, if there are specific data sets that Michelle Thomson has in mind, I would be very happy to look at where we could enhance that. Generally, I think that we do try to look at all issues through the prism of gender. The particular point that Michelle Thomson puts to me about entrepreneurship is a particularly relevant question because I think that the data that I have certainly seen shows a position where we have a deteriorating position in relation to women's involvement in entrepreneurship, hence the work that Anna Stewart is taking forward for the Government. Just finishing off on that first question, I do not know the entirety of data sets, so it is hard for me to say that this is what is missing. That perhaps talks to the problem, because if we do not collect the data routinely, we will not be able to then start to create the complex patterns. In principle, what I am asking is, as a minimum, will you take away today to ensure that to undertake a review of where data is disaggregated by gender and, critically, where it is not, perhaps be prepared to return with a compelling reason why it should not be? Well, let me just place on record that we do know already from data that the number of women led SME employers in Scotland has reduced from 20 per cent in 2015 to 14 per cent in 2019. That is an issue of real concern to us, which is led to the prompting of the review by Anna Stewart. We also know from other data that females in Scotland are around half as likely to be early stage entrepreneurs as males, so the data already tells us that, hence the action that we are taking. So I would not want the committee to feel that we do not have the data to prompt the review and the action that we need to take, because I think that data exists and I have placed it on the public record today. I am certainly very happy to take away the questions on data and to respond to the committee. Some of those issues may of course be part of what Anna Stewart recommends, so I am speculating on that. However, I think that it would be sensible for me to wait to see what Anna Stewart produces and then perhaps reflect on the issues that Michelle Thomson is putting to me in the context of her response to Anna Stewart. I agree that we all wait with great interest and anticipation. I am very hopeful, having had Mark Logan here last week. My follow-on question is, are you able to make it compulsory for any and all agencies receiving any money from the Scottish Government as part of their fair work agenda, or indeed any other business initiatives to routinely collect and disaggregate by gender? I can tell you categorically that having asked this question a number of times in this committee, they do not routinely do that, which I actually find quite shocking. On what type of questions? There are two examples that jump out at me. A question about any research being done by a business agency. I asked the question, do you routinely disaggregate the data so that you can understand the breakdown by gender? The answer came back, no, we don't. There is also another agency to do with commerce and development, where I asked if they routinely did that. I would expect that as a minimum. Regardless of Anna Stewart's review, is the Scottish Government, and are you able to commit today that you agree, as a minimum, that any agency receiving money from the Scottish Government should routinely gather and disaggregate the data? That is an entirely reasonable proposition, but I will take it away and look at it in detail. I have one final last question around the same theme. You might not be able to answer that just now, but I would like you to be able to give consideration and perhaps even respond to the committee to setting targets to increase participation of women, particularly with regard to entrepreneurialism, and give firm consideration and perhaps come back and say why you cannot do it to make any funding conditional on meeting those targets. On the first part of that, I would be very surprised if we did not end up in such a position as a consequence of what Anna Stewart recommended to us. I am simply trying to get my process correct that we have commissioned this review and we will hear from it, but I would be absolutely staggered if we are not in a position where we are taking specific measures to enhance the participation of women in entrepreneurialism as a consequence of Anna's review. That is highly likely, but regardless of what the review produces, the Government is committed to taking such actions. That is why we have commissioned Anna Stewart to do the work that she is undertaking. The second point of conditionality is a much wider question, because if I just play that back, what that essentially means is that we would only fund Scottish Enterprise in the future if we met particular targets for particular aspects of women's participation in entrepreneurialism. There is nothing wrong with that. It is an idea, but I think that it has wider implications about the future sustainability of organisations such as Scottish Enterprise. We have not used the model of conditional funding for public sector agencies. I am not saying that there is not a legitimate argument for it. Indeed, it might be a way of prompting the type of performance outcomes that we want to get. I am not dismissing it. I am simply saying that it would require very wide consideration about what is the nature of public expenditure and how we should go about that. I think that the Parliament would have some pretty broad views about that question. I completely agree that it is complex. I would be careful what you wish for, particularly where you have early start industries. However, as an approach to look at that with an open mind and to stress that agencies will have to do that as well as a way of turning the dial, because Mark Logan, who was in front of us last week—this is my last comment—was very clear that the initiatives that are under way are good in of themselves, but what he was emphasising and what drives me is to start to plant the trees that will affect structural change. Unless we ask those hard questions and start to look much more firmly at conditionality in those areas where we can be clear or at least make a good assessment of the outcomes that we will carry on producing worthy reviews. I agree that they are worthwhile, but it will not shift the dial. I think that the experience that we have about one of the points that Mark Logan made to the committee was about the health of early stage entrepreneurial activity in Scotland today. I attribute that to seeds that were planted pretty close to 10 years ago when I took a decision to invest in Scottish Edge, which has created a very vibrant entrepreneurial community. There is a lot of risk involved in it, a lot of risk. When I was being advised on the considerations that I had to have in supporting such a scheme, I was properly advised of the degree of risk that would be involved because of the likelihood that there would be business failures and that there would be reputational risk to Government as a consequence of business failures. In my view, that was a risk worth taking because what has it done over all these years has now created exactly what Mark Logan said to the committee, which was not always the case because there was, go back 10 years before that, and there was substantial concern about early stage entrepreneurial activity in Scotland. I think that we have largely arrested that problem and that we have resolved it because of appropriate decisions taken, must be about eight or nine years ago. The challenges that we now need to focus on, many of our other measures are supporting, particularly around the Scottish National Investment Bank, about the question of scaling up business activity, where we have the necessary investment capital to enable new start businesses in Scotland to flourish to become much more significant contributors to the economy. Before I bring Graham Simpson, can I just ask a quick question about our budget letter? We asked about the Women's Business Centre, which there is a commitment to. The response from the Government does not provide much confidence. It is still a policy area, and it seems conditional on Anna Stewart's review. Do we still have a commitment to a Women's Business Centre and the £50 million that is being committed to developing it? We have a continuing commitment to the Women's Business Centre, but for completeness, the Government believes that we should look at how we take that forward in the light of the review that we received from Anna Stewart. On financial issues, one of the points that I placed on the record when I set out the budget statement to Parliament is that, given the financial challenges that we face, there may be some policy commitments that take us longer to deliver than we ordinarily would have wanted to, quite simply because of the financial pressures due to higher inflation with which we are wrestling. It might be helpful if the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport spoke about how the £50 million will be spent this year and if we might get a note following the meeting about that. Graham Simpson will be followed by Colin Beattie. I just want to follow up on that last question. I am a little confused by your answer. Is there going to be a Women's Business Centre or not? We remain committed to the policy concept of a Women's Business Centre, but for completeness, what I am saying to the committee is that it would be best to consider how we take that forward in the light of receiving Anna Stewart's review. You mentioned the Scottish National Investment Bank, and I will ask you about that. Before I get to that, I want to ask you about the line in your budget in relation to Ferguson Marine. It had £47 million in 2021-22, £35.9 in 2022-23, and that goes up to £60.9 million in 2023-24. At times, when you look at the money given to the Yard, it is almost like watching an edition of Anton Dex's Limitless Win. There does not seem to be any kind of cap on it. Can you guarantee that that is £60.9 allocated in 2023-24? Is it, or is there going to be any more? I certainly hope that that is it, yes. That is not a commitment. I am required to give the committee honest answers, and I hope that that is the last thing that we have to contribute for the construction of 801-82. Do you have a maximum in mind that you are prepared to put to it? Let me be absolutely crystal clear about this. That is what I hope. That is what we have been the assessment from the Yard of what they require. That is what I have provided for both in the additional commitment of around about £15 million that I have allocated in this current financial year and the sum that is provided for in the budget for 2023-24. I am responding to the plans that are put to me by the Yard, and the Government looks very carefully and scrutinises those propositions that are put to us. I hope that that is the last of the contributions that we have to me. I will ask you about the Scottish National Investment Bank, because that is also receiving quite an increase, a real-terms increase in funding. I wonder if you could just tell us what is that based on? Are you expecting them to deliver anything particular? Have they come forward with particular projects that whitted their appetite, which has prompted you to give extra funding? The Government gave a commitment that we would invest over a 10-year period about £2 billion in the Scottish National Investment Bank to support investment in ventures in the Scottish economy that would generate significant economic impact and financial return. What the budget provides for is the building up of that investment. As we build up that investment in the Scottish National Investment Bank, the bank takes its decisions on the investments that it makes. For example, just in early December, the bank announced an investment in a company called North Star providing £50 million in a £95 million capital expenditure facility to allow the business to expand its fleet of service operation vessels that are expected to support offshore wind projects in Scotland. That is a very good example of the bank using the resources. The bank considers all the risk issues of investment, because the committee will appreciate that there is no guarantees about those investments that are made. That is what our organisations at the Scottish National Investment Bank have to assess. They consider that there is a long-term business opportunity for which there will be a return for that investment if the bank provides the investment at this stage. There will be other ventures of that type where the bank will make an assessment and draw down on the resources that the Government provides to them. You have decided to give them a real-terms increase. What are you expecting in return for that real-terms increase? I am expecting them to invest in companies that will deliver economic benefit and employment benefit to Scotland that will generate financial returns to the bank so that we see a return on that investment, which can then be utilised for future years long-term patient investment. You can tell us or your officials can tell us how those investments are monitored. I was looking at one of the companies that the bank has invested in is a company called Travel Nest, which was awarded £5.5 million last year. Just to explain, that helps property owners get their holiday rentals advertised on different sites such as Airbnb, Booking.com and others. It struck me that those companies might be able to fund that themselves. When I was looking on the company's house about Travel Nest, it appears to have a London address rather than Scotland. I wonder how it is monitored. The Scottish National Investment Bank will look at propositions that are designed to create economic and employment benefits in Scotland as a consequence of their activities. They might not be uniquely concentrated in Scotland because companies are operating in a much wider context. The investment that I highlighted there in North Star is £50 million. I suspect that not all of that money will be spent uniquely in Scotland because of the nature of their activities. I want to assure the committee that we are expecting the Scottish National Investment Bank to assess what is the business case for an investment, what the returns are likely to be because there has to be returns out of this. There has to be, certainly from my part, an acceptance. I would rather say that it was not the case but that I have to live in the real world that some of those investments might not be successful. It has always been part and parcel of the issues that we have wrestled with the Scottish Enterprise. Some of the investments that Scottish Enterprise makes, some of them do really fantastically well, others don't do so well and you have to take it in the round. I can remember an early conversation when I became a minister many years ago with the leadership of Scottish Enterprise who wanted to just go through with me some of those challenges so that I was aware of the fact that I might have to defend a situation where an investment was not successful. I accept the fact, but the quid pro quo of that is that others must be successful to balance that out. It is the nature of investment. Some are going to work out and I am not picking on that particular company. I just have to look at that and it struck me that they may not be particularly Scottish. I appreciate that you want a return for our investment for Scotland, so I am happy to leave it there. Jamie Halcro Johnston, do you have a supplementary update on that? Yes, thank you very much. Just on the Scottish National Investment Bank, about a year ago, nearly 27 January, Aileen MacTaggart resigned as chief executive of the bank. Sarah Ruffhead has been the interim chief executive, obviously leadership in this organisation is key going forward. Can you give us an update where the bank is in terms of appointing a new chief executive? The process has been taking forward. The bank has not been, has got to a position in the last appointment consideration that a candidate emerged, but then decided not to take the post. I think that it is the fairest way for me to capture that. So Sarah Ruffhead continues to exercise chief executive responsibilities, obviously, under the leadership of Willie Watt, as the chair of the Scottish National Investment Bank, and the bank continues to make the progress that the Government envisages, but the recruitment process continues to be taken forward. Will that process have to restart then, if there was one candidate that did not want to take it forward, regardless of what the reasons were? It is a process that has been undertaken with recruitment consultants, so I think that the short answer is yes. Do you have any estimate on when there may be an appointment? I think that we obviously would like to see that completed as soon as possible, but only with the right candidate. First Minister, I would like to continue with SNP, just to get a better understanding on the funding side. SNP has been largely capitalised using financial transactions, which comes with certain restrictions to its use, and it has to be repaid over the long term. In the back of my mind, I have a memory of 30 years or something for the repayment, but that may be historic, I do not know. The banks said that they are pursuing regulatory approval that would enable them to manage third party funds and increase their total capital resources. Do you have any considerations on allocating other forms of funding outside of financial transactions, which might give SNP a bit more flexibility? Obviously, that option is available to me, but it is very much conditional on the wider pressures that there are on the public finances and the programmes that would be expected to fund and support. Financial transactions are, I think, really quite appropriate as a mechanism for securing the investment in the Scottish National Investment Bank. I think that the nature of financial transactions lends itself to some of the issues that Mr Simpson was raising with me about the fact that there has to be a recognition of the importance of return, because of the nature of the repayment that is required on financial transactions. That is appropriate as a mechanism at this time, but there is a wider agenda about the regulatory strength of the Scottish National Investment Bank. It is pursuing some of those steps as part of developing the critical foundations of the bank in taking forward its investment activities. Do you think that the nature of the capitalisation and the restrictions around that have impacted at all and the range of investments that SNP are able to do? I am aware that, although there are restrictions that SNP can still invest in private capital and all the rest in private equity and so on, are there other areas that SNP might have wanted to invest in that they are precluded from doing? I do not think so. All SNP investments have to be made on a commercial basis, so the bank is in a position to make judgments about the ventures that merit its support and investment. I think that what the bank has successfully developed a very strong view on is the role that it can perform in being a neighbour of other investment. Where the bank is able to invest in a particular proposition, it gives rise to potential investment from other parties, which therefore makes ventures able to be better supported as a consequence. I do not think that the bank is operating under any particular constraints in being able to fulfil the remit that the Government has set for the bank. The bank is on a journey to develop its financial strength and its reputation. The steps that have been taken are encouraging steps. Earlier in the discussion, you mentioned that the Scottish Government wanted to put £2 billion over 10 years into SNP. Is it anticipated that it will continue to use that form of capitalisation? Is there a confidence that that type of funding will continue to be available in its nature? SNP is a long-term proposition for the Government. I would describe SNP as a long-term source of patient capital in the Scottish economy. We envisage SNP being able to perform that role on a long-term basis. Obviously, it has to be a long-term commercial basis, so the issues of repayment are significant, the issues of returns are significant and we are keen to ensure that over the long-term lifespan of the Scottish national investment bank, SNP continues to perform that role in the Scottish economy. Coming back again to the nature of that type of capitalisation, is there any risk at all that funds from this source might not be available in the future? Are we comfortable that that will not be the case? Obviously, the use of financial transactions is relevant to the current arrangements of the United Kingdom Government and what plans they have. Financial transactions are quite a good means that the Scottish national investment bank route is quite an effective means for the Government to utilise the financial transactions that are made available by the United Kingdom Government, because financial transactions cannot be rarely used for many other aspects of public sector activity, so that arrangement is quite suitable. Obviously, I am not privy to the future direction of the United Kingdom Government policy on those questions, but the option remains available for the Scottish Government to continue its investment alternatively through traditional capital investment in the Scottish national investment bank. For completeness in relation to the earlier points that I made in relation to the leveraging of investment, the bank has so far committed £366 million to 24 projects, but that has leveraged £526 million of other private sector investment. I use that to illustrate the fact and to provide some detail on the enabler point that I was making to the committee that the bank is able, by its actions, to encourage and enable investment from other sources. Tourism clearly is a sector that provides for sustainable economic growth right across Scotland. We also know that it is under particular pressure for lots of different reasons, but we also know that international spend by international visitors is one of the areas that can help it to recover. We previously expressed our view that support should be given to VisitScotland, particularly for its international marketing, but bearing in mind that VisitScotland's budget was £65 million in 2021-22 is now proposed to be £49 million in 2023-24, with a 2.7 per cent reduction since last year. The response from the Scottish Government to our request simply said that the VisitScotland board will fully consider scenarios that will enable it to successfully carry out its marketing activity in light of the Scottish budget. It does not really leave us with much comfort. I want to provide reassurance to the committee on this question. I think that one of the formidable strengths of VisitScotland is the brand marketing activity that is taking forward of itself. However, what VisitScotland has done, which has been a long-term ambition of Government, and it has played a significant role in enabling this to happen, is to gather together the marketing activity of a range of different organisations to be put together to promote Scotland to a wider audience. VisitScotland's record speaks for itself. It has an absolutely colossal reputation for marketing success and marketing recognition for many of its activities. That has persuaded a number of different organisations to collaborate with VisitScotland in pooling their resources to support international marketing activities. I reassure the committee on two fronts that VisitScotland is able to undertake that domestic and international marketing activity, but secondly, it is able to do that in concert with a range of other organisations, and I would contend to deliver much more effectiveness as a consequence. In putting the financial position of VisitScotland into context, I would highlight the fact that there has been a strategic shift in the activity of VisitScotland in recent years, much more in the direction of digital marketing. I do not mean that disrespectfully, but in some respects it was a bit of a bricks-and-mortar model of the distribution of tourism and marketing information around the country. Now it is a much more digital model, and that can deliver much greater value for the public expenditure that is made. I might point out that that was happening in 2021-22. Indeed, that shift probably took place about five years ago, but I also agree that they are very effective in their marketing spend. I move on to another area. That is in relation to the need for Scotland to improve its productivity rates. It is great to see that that gap has been closed with the UK, but recruitment and retention is a key issue, particularly in the current labour market. The programme for government had support for a four-day week, and funding for that. Perhaps you might want to reflect on where the policy and funding support is currently in this year, but also what your view is about that going forward. We are about to see the results of the UK-wide pilot on this, which I think will be very positive. I would not want to see the Scottish Government falling behind on that agenda. There are a range of steps that we take to try to enhance productivity, and a lot of that is associated with, for example, the investment that we are making through the university research channel. I think that our universities have responded very positively over a number of years to our appeal to them to engage much more closely with the wider business community, to collaborate on business and economic research. We are now seeing much stronger levels of collaboration and co-operation there, which I think will help us in relation to the partly answering the question on productivity. The wider investment that is made on skills is designed to do likewise. We are operating in an incredibly tight labour market, which is putting additional pressures on the work that we are able to undertake to ensure that the needs of the business community are properly and fully reflected in the support that we are able to make available to ensure that businesses have access to the productive skills that they require. I acknowledge that as an on-going and significant challenge that we have to undertake. In relation to the work on the four-day-week pilot, the budget lines on fair work provide where the activity is being undertaken. We will be taking forward work in relation to the four-day-week pilot as part of the 2324 programme. That will be part of the wider agenda that the national strategy is focused on improving the productive capacity of the Scottish economy. Finally, I want to move on to the issue of jobs and skills from the renewable energy sector. Yesterday, in the net zero energy and transport committee session on the budget, the cabinet secretary for Michael Matheson was talking about the opportunities there, and specifically our question of unhydrogen. He also said that the constraints in that sector were largely to do with one availability of labour, which we know there is real pressures on that, also on planning consents, and particularly on skills. Clearly, in a tight labour market, being able to transfer the skills that we have already is really important. Looking at the budget lines and the pressures that were within that portfolio, clearly there is emphasis by Scottish Enterprise now with hydrogen finally as one of the key sectors. Clearly, there is a big focus on inward investment. My concern may be that, if all the focus on funding is on inward investment, how can we ensure that the jobs and the manufacturing that we need is being supported for domestically initiated companies, not just inward investment? Perhaps, if you could go through that area, that would be helpful. It is an absolutely fundamental critical question for realising the opportunities that arise out of the offshore wind environment. I make one comment in relation to what Michael Matheson said yesterday to the committee on planning consents. It is an issue that I recognise is of great significance to ensure that those involved in that activity are assured of an efficient and effective planning consent process to enable them to make decisions in a reasonable timescale about the investments that they make. It is important to address the substance of Mrs Llew's question across a number of different areas in relation to the role of colleges around the skills environment and the work of the Scottish National Investment Bank to take three particular elements of all of this. In relation to colleges, for example, I do not particularly want to live by anecdote to the committee this morning, but I did have a conversation that warmed my heart with an entrepreneur who is involved in the offshore wind sector and wanted to develop a facility in Ayrshire. The particular skills were not available in Ayrshire, but there was a venture that enabled him to pursue in that area. He engaged in dialogue with Ayrshire College, and Ayrshire College engaged constructively with him. A particular course was put in place to enable employees to be trained to meet his requirements in partnership with Ayrshire College. It was a splendid example of the college sector adapting its provision to meet the needs of a substantial economic opportunity in its locality. That is what has to be reflected and mirrored in other parts of the country. Again, Mrs Llew knows the college sector intimately and particularly in her constituency experience in West Lothian, and she will know that that is the outlook of colleges in wishing to seize those opportunities. The second area is in relation to skills development. We have had some interruption to the apprenticeship progress that was being made prior to Covid. We were on course to have 30,000 modern apprentices. Skills Development Scotland is now ready and programmed to deliver the 25,000 modern apprenticeships that are envisaged in the budget programme, and they are obviously available to the sector. Thirdly, the Scottish National Investment Bank is obviously part of its mission to invest in the net zero aspirations of the Government. I cited an example in my earlier response to Mr Simpson about specific net zero-related investments that are being made by the bank. I think that there is an opportunity. I think that the committee should be assured that there are investment vehicles available to assist in that respect to ensure that we can support and nurture the development of Scottish companies that can realise some of the manufacturing ambitions in Scotland. Michael Matheson made it quite clear that the planning constraints were being absolutely addressed by upskilling and expanding his areas of responsibility. I was in terms of the staffing for that, and I hope that the Cabinet Secretary for Finance can support that. If you can maybe just address my question about Scottish Enterprise's focus, and will that be on investment or can you reassure us that that will also be about helping to support the supply chain? It will be about assisting the domestic supply chain. Just before Christmas, we drew together a range of interested parties, the Government, the Scottish Enterprise principally. With ministers, Michael Matheson and Ivan McKee were involved in those discussions to ensure that we have a very aligned approach to the development of the hydrogen proposition within Scotland. Mr McKee and I met with the board of Scottish Enterprise. It must have been just some time before Christmas. We spent most of that discussion, which was the annual strategy discussion of the Scottish Enterprise board, talking significantly about hydrogen and the net zero opportunities. Scottish Enterprise, with the leadership of Adrian Gillespie as chief executive, who has formidable experience in this area of activity, will be concentrating and focused on that proposition. Colin Smyth is followed by Maggie Chappan. Thank you, convener. It is obviously widely recognised that we are in a recession, and you said earlier, Deputy First Minister, that, despite the fall in the levels of labour and activity, we could be at a labour market turning point. We are seeing fall in vacancies and rising redundancies, yet, in addition to the cut in funding to Visit Scotland, which Fiona Hyslop highlighted, the Enterprise Agency will also see cuts in their overall funding to the Scottish Enterprise. There is a 4.9 per cent real-terms cut. Highlands and Islands, 5.5 per cent south of Scotland Enterprise, 9.7 per cent cut, continue a longer-term trend. What are the reasons for those cuts, and what assessment have you made over how that will impact on support for businesses? I think that it is important that I put a few things on the record about those numbers. For example, the Scottish Enterprise resource budget is projected to increase from £135 million to £141 million. The hands and hands budget is projected on resource to increase from £29.6 million to £29.8 million. The south of Scotland Enterprise budget projected to increase from £14.8 million to £15.1 million. All three of the Enterprise agencies budgets are projected to increase in cash terms. They are revenue budgets. You have not mentioned the cuts in capital, so the overall level of reduction is quite clear in real terms and in cash terms for all three of those agencies, if you combine capital and revenue investment in other changes. It is not just revenue that is capital. No, I do not accept that. The Scottish Enterprise resource is going from £135 million to £141 million, so that is an increase of £6 million. The Scottish Enterprise capital budget is going from £80 million to £76 million, which is a reduction of £4 million, so it is a net increase of £2 million. The situation in south of Scotland on resource and capital together is an increase of the two together. Does that mean that you include financial transaction funding? Yes, but as I said, financial transactions are a slightly different proposition. The wider point that I would make, however, is the point that the budget has got to be. I was very candid about this to Parliament on what I said. We are sitting with inflation at 10.5 per cent. The budget is not increased by 10.5 per cent. The budget has not even increased by the GDP deflator, hence the real terms reduction from 2021 to 2022. I cannot allocate money that I do not have. There have been tough choices. I have tried to do that because I have got multiple pressures. We are in the economy fair work committee today, but the health committee is probably meeting somewhere else in the building just now, and they will be looking at the colossal pressures in the health service. All budgets will be an attempt to deal with financial strain when resources are tight. I have tried to strike the most reasonable balance that I can. I am not going to disguise the fact that organisations face financial challenges. They will have to change the ways in which they are working. I was explicit about the requirements to Parliament when I set out the budget proposition. My question was before we started debating figures how will that impact on support for businesses? What direction are you going to give to agencies on how they will implement what is, as you have said, a very challenging financial budget for them? We will set out letters of guidance to the boards of the three organisations involved, which will reflect the priorities of the national strategy for economic transformation. The agenda will be entirely consistent with the Government's wider agenda, and we will look to those organisations to take forward, as they always do, those priorities within the constraints of the resources that we are able to make available to them. That might involve organisations changing the way they work, perhaps moving to more digital propositions. There is scope for greater digital propositions to be used in the delivery services. Fundamentally, as I answered to Fiona Hyslop, we want the enterprise agencies to be engaged in working directly with companies to increase and improve their performance. Will we see a scale back in direct investment for businesses from the agencies? I do not think that that necessarily has to be the case. I think that what I have tried to do is to provide a financial settlement that allows organisations to adapt to what is a much more pressurised environment financially and for them to adjust their way of working to enable that to be the case. Deputy First Minister, thank you for joining us this morning. I want to pick up on a couple of points that we have touched on and expand on them a little bit. In response to questions from Fiona Hyslop around tourism, you talked about digital connectivity and the importance of that in the shift in their marketing strategy. I think that if we think about digital connectivity more broadly, it is clearly important for local and regional economies. It is important, as we have seen, to shift in working practices and more people working from home. Entrepreneurs often start off at home and therefore require that. Within the budget, we see digital funding being reduced by over 26 per cent significantly in cash terms compared to last year. I am just wondering how in the comments that you say that that relates to new spending profiles over the life of that programme, can you elaborate on that and give us a little bit more detail? Importantly, what are the impacts on people who have been waiting for connectivity? How is that going to materially affect their ability to be connected? That principle relates to the completion of the R100 programme, which, as Maggie Chapman in the committee will know, is a programme that has been taking forward over a number of years and is now operational in all parts of the country. Essentially, the commitment exists to achieve the objectives of the R100 programme and what we are essentially looking at is the detailed delivery of that year by year. It is also an approach that takes into account the changing picture of investment made by telecoms companies themselves as they roll out their investment programme into the bargain. On occasion, we have seen that in recent years, as changes take place in the technology that is available and the ability of telecoms companies to broaden their network, that reduces the scale of the challenge that is required under the R100 programme. It is a bit of a combination of those two factors. I recognise all the relevant issues that Maggie Chapman raised about the importance of digital connectivity and its centrality for the ability to live and work in a broad range of locations around Scotland. It is important to remember that we have made absolutely colossal strides forward on the availability of digital connectivity around Scotland. That is helpful tonight. I suppose that the focus or the geographical areas that are most disconnected in a wide variety of ways are still those who have yet to see some of the connectivity. I think that there is a real imperative that we get this right. If I can shift to another issue, again following up from one of Fiona Hyslop's questions about financing the just transition, we have spoken about skills and the importance of getting that element right. There is also something particularly—again, if we are thinking of the Scottish economy and breaking it down into regional and local economies around supply chains and making sure that we sustain local supply chains—what are the major challenges other than total sum of budget that we have in terms of the financial and investment decisions that regional economy boards and regional economy forums are or are not making around securing sustainable local supply chains? That will inevitably vary around the country. Let me provide the committee with an example of a discussion that I had with the convention of the Highlands and Islands in the autumn of last year, where I chaired the convention of the hands and hands on every occasion that it has met in the last 15 years since we came to government in 2007. I have rarely taken part in a more optimistic conversation about economic prospects in the Highlands and Islands. Despite all the challenges, there is a very buoyant conversation about opportunities. However, one of the common themes of concern about the realisation of those economic opportunities was, for example, the availability of housing and the availability of people. It was not just the availability of affordable housing, it was housing across all the different strands of the market. Quite simply because of the challenges of delivery in more sparsely populated areas, it is a different proposition developing a site in West Lothian, for example, where there is vast housing expansion being undertaken compared to sites that might be 10 or 12 houses in a rural part of the Highlands and Islands. I think that the availability of housing and the ability of putting in place specific solutions, and I stress that it is not just about the affordable housing programme at other stages in the market, but also the availability of people. The availability of people is a challenge in many other parts of the country. That is down to the Government's concerns about the loss of migration as a consequence of the Brexit process, because we are undoubtedly seeing greater pressure on our labour market as a consequence of the reduction in the number of people who are available. What that emphasises, then, is the importance of trying to maximise the number of people who are living here and enabling them to be economically active. As I said, we are seeing the early signs of progress in that respect, but it represents a fundamental part of the Government's policy programme and its budget to do more in that respect, because that will help us to address the issue of child poverty, which exists in our society and by enabling parents to enter the labour market to ensure that there are good economic and employment opportunities for young people in our economy. We can enable people to join the labour market. We are running towards the end of time, but if questions and answers could be as concise as possible, I will get a few more people in. Jamie Halcro Johnston will be followed by Colin Beattie. Just a couple of quick questions about tourism and hospitality. As was raised earlier, Scotland's tourism budget has been cut. The Irish tourism budget has gone up by €13 million for next year. What impact do you think that has on our competitiveness with similar or competitive nature in terms of tourism? Just for the record, the VisitScotland resource budget has gone from £41.4 million to £41.6 million on resource. It has increased slightly in cash terms, but that is just for the record. VisitScotland does a fabulous job. It is a really successful agency. It is well led. It is marketing propositions are absolutely first-class. They are inspiring. They win a whole host of global awards and recognition for their strength. That helps in our competitiveness. The question was about when a competitor nation is increasing its budget for tourism. It does not necessarily follow by spending more money on it that we achieve better results. I do not think that that necessarily follows. It is about effectiveness. VisitScotland is a supremely effective organisation. It is a country that we compete with on the global stage for tourism. It is increasing its tourism, but you do not think that that has an impact. I cannot allocate money. I do not have. I can do my level best to fulfil the needs of the budget cycle. I have had to increase tax to enable me to meet all the commitments that I am taking forward. I have taken some hard decisions to enable us to have the position that we have, but I have great confidence in VisitScotland. The other important part of the question is to recognise the strength of the investment and commitment that is made by the tourism sector. Scotland's tourism proposition now is of formidable greater quality because of the investments that have been made by a range of private organisations over many years. The Scottish National Investment Bank has taken some significant steps to try to assist that. The development out in the outskirts of Edinburgh at Rathol is a major tourism development that has been invested in there by VisitScotland, which will enable people to develop their surfing skills on the outskirts of Edinburgh, which is something that I have never said, so I never thought that I would ever utter it. There is a future media opportunity for you, but given that time is slightly... Maybe for us both. I do not think that anybody wants to say that. If I can move on very quickly just to wider issues around tourism and hospitality, I think that Colin Smyth talked about the business relief package that is available in England. There was a lot of disappointment from the tourism and hospitality sector. That was not available. I think that it was about £200 million of Barnett consequentials, but obviously you have decided, as is your right to put that money elsewhere. We are seeing, although you made a stupid dispute at less money for tourism funding and for some of the enterprise bodies, we are seeing more regulations for the sector such as the deposit return scheme, the short-term licensing. The Scottish Beer and Pub Association, talking at the budget, said that it put Scotland's pubs at a significant disadvantage in their recovery, given the challenges that they are facing. The Scottish hospitality group said that they welcomed the freeze on business rates, but they said that the budget was simply nowhere near enough to see the sector through. There is now a clear differential between England, Wales and hospitality businesses in Scotland. It is a fact that many small businesses will not survive the Scottish Tourism Alliance. Again, they welcomed the freeze, but they said that 23 per cent of Scottish tourism businesses are in survival mode. Do you recognise those pressures on the sector and do you think that you are doing enough to support them? I absolutely recognise how tough things are out there. I hear it in my constituency case load. I engage much more widely with the economy, so of course I recognise that. What I have tried to do is to address the issues that are put to me by a range of organisations. As I said earlier on, 16 business organisations asked me to freeze the business rates poundage and I have done that. That does not come without a cost. It is estimated to be a saving to taxpayers of about £308 million. About half of retail, hospitality and leisure businesses will be eligible for 100 per cent small business bonus relief, so a very big part of the sector will be relieved of that pressure. We rely on the United Kingdom Government to come forward with some of the issues that are facing forcing the increase in costs for business, which are the energy costs. That is probably the biggest factor of change in the cost base of businesses. I hope that the successor scheme, which will take effect in March, is able to support businesses to the extent that they recognise. I would point out that, for all the agencies, in a very tough budget settlement, I see modest increases in the resources that are available to them. I feel as if, within the resources that are available to me, I have done as much as I can to help out these sectors, but I appreciate that they face tough times. I would like to pick up on a couple of cuts and get your comments on what the impact of those is. City's investment and strategy funding is reduced by 12.5 per cent and the regeneration programme's budget by 20.9 per cent. Both of those reflect the changing spend profiles of programmes and projects, but can you perhaps tell a little bit more about what the impact of those reductions in spending will be? Essentially, I hope that that involves us responding to the profile of the range of, if I use the summary, title of city deals or growth deals, because they span a number of years. I think that the shortest is 10 years, the longest is 15 or 20 years, so there is quite a variation in the financial commitments over those years. As projects come forward, they will have varying demands on the public purse. Some of those projects will face issues that we are wrestling with in our wider capital budget, which are around the cost of some of those propositions because of the increase in input prices, so that may be creating some challenges about the timescales around projects. If the cost is rising because of rising input prices, there may be an argument for developing a proposition at a later stage. I assure the committee that there is the commitment to the schemes that remain in place, and we are supporting the delivery of those in consult with a range of local authorities around the country to reflect the varying timescales that are put to us. Can I ask about the international trade and investment spending, which has seen an increase of 11.2 per cent? The Government has a target to increase international exports by 25 per cent towards the end of the decade. The document that directs it was published in 2019, and I think that, within priority 1 markets, where is the European Union? Obviously, the relationship there has changed, so does the cabinet secretary be able to give an update on what the increased spending is hoping to achieve, and if we are going to see a refreshment in the export strategy? Obviously, the increase in expenditure is designed to support the increased international activity of the Scottish economy and to ensure that we are able to assist companies in that activity. Obviously, that becomes more challenging because of what has happened around Brexit, which should ensure that it highlights the importance of us supporting that activity to enable companies to be able to trade internationally. In terms of the strategy, we will periodically review the focus and the emphasis of the strategy. It is very much the agenda that Ivan McKee takes forward on the Government's behalf. We have no immediate plans to revise that strategy, but we keep it under review and, if there are any updates, we can certainly share those with the committee. I have a final question on consolidated accounts, which the Audit Committee has been far looking at at the moment. The 2021-22 account shows an underspend of £536 million in the finance and economy budget. At the moment, in December, we will know the consolidated accounts for the year that we are currently in, but there have been a number of areas in which I mentioned employability. Ms Hyslop has mentioned Visit Scotland, where, if money was to be available, we believe that small amounts of money could make quite a big difference. Is there any expectation that there will be flexibility in the coming budget as we move into the 2023-24 period? You are a light on perhaps my greatest worry issue just now, convener. As I said earlier on, as I chaired with the finance committee last week, currently my estimation of the overspend on resource budgets is in a range between £200 and £500 million, and the variability there is about my assessment of the likely financial performance of a lot of organisations and whether they can come in on budget. My focus just now is on trying to reduce that number. Some of the figures that you put to me, convener, are often, and we go through those arguments in Parliament, particularly with the provisional outturns statement that Tom Arthur delivers and then also in the publication of the consolidated accounts, that some of the underspends do not translate into resources that the Government can actually spend. For example, last year, there was a large underspend on student loans funding, which we cannot spend on other priorities, such as ring-fen, annual managed expenditure. My priority is to try to get the budget into balance between now and the end of March. I am here in a temporary capacity. In my nine years as finance minister, there is no way that I was dealing with a likely overspend of this magnitude in the middle of January in any financial year. It would be well settled by this time, so I am acutely anxious about that position. Obviously, if we are able to constrain spending between now and the end of the year or if there is something that comes our way from the supplementary estimates of the United Kingdom Government, which we do not yet have sight of those, we expect to have those, I would think, within the next four to six weeks, then the position might change and there may be some resources to carry forward. However, this is the first year that the Government has set a budget without anticipating carrying forward any resources from this year into next year. That brings us to the end of this evidence session. I will briefly suspend the meeting before we start the next session. Our next item of business is an evidence session on the national strategy for economic transformation. We did previously take evidence from the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Economy in March 2022, when the report was published. On October 22, the Scottish Government published the delivery plans. I will ask members and witnesses to be as concise as possible. A number of issues have previously been discussed in the budget session, so if questions could be targeted, that would be helpful. This is the first session that we have had since the delivery plans have been published. It is a long-term strategy, so this is an opportunity for the committee to start to set out ways in which we will look to scrutinise the development of the strategy. There was mixed report, as it is fair to say, in March when it was published. I think that Tom Farmer said that it was a wish list and that Ross Foy had some critical comments about missed opportunities. I hope that the publication of the delivery plans has given people more engagement and some confidence in the way forward. Can I ask how the strategy will be different from previous strategies? We have, since the Parliament was created, created a number of economic strategies. Productivity in Scotland is still slower than our European counterparts. Our economic growth is not as high as we would like it to be. What is different about the 10-year strategy that will see a step change in Scotland's economy? The national strategy is designed to do. I suppose that the objective of it is consistent with other previous ventures, which is to give a very clear distillation of the Government's agenda and what we are looking to a variety of different organisations that contribute to the economic direction of Scotland to ensure that we can realise those ambitions. The strategy has a focus on a range of major themes around entrepreneurship, market opportunities, regional dimension of economic policy, skills, creation of a fairer and more equal society and, crucially, the concept of delivery of making sure that we turn the aspirations into practical reality. The key focus about the strategy, which is perhaps different, is that it comes at a moment when our economy has to make a substantial change in its profile and its focus towards net zero. It has to do that. In a sense, if you look back on strategies over the past 10 or 20 years, there was not that imperative to change the focus of the economy. I think that what the document and the delivery plans helpfully assist in doing is giving a clear idea about how the Government tends to do that and how we intend to engage organisations in that endeavour. I will bring in Graham Simpson to be followed by Fiona Hyslop. We had the chief entrepreneur, Mark Logan, in front of us last week. I raised the issue of his rather large salary, £200,000 for two days a week, and he mounted what I would describe as the L'Oreal defence, because I am worth it. How would you assess whether he is worth it or not? What sort of progress are you looking for from Mr Logan? How is his role going to be measured and how is it going to be assessed? The first thing is that I think that we are very lucky to have the skills and the capability of Mark Logan available to the Government. He is a formidable private sector player who has delivered significant economic opportunities and gains as a consequence of his judgments and decision making. Those are skills and attributes that we are very lucky to have at our disposal, to be honest. I think that the nature of the expertise that Mark Logan has both at a technology level and, if I might say, in a way of operating level, are skills that will be particularly relevant for the transition that the Scottish economy has got to make in the period going forward. Mark Logan has colossal technology expertise, but he has also delivered very successful projects and propositions. The response that I just gave to the convener on the challenge that we face in our economy of adapting to net zero involves a significant amount of transition in the economy, so having the skills of Mark Logan available to us to help us in that endeavour is important. Obviously, we need to see the fruits of that activity and we will see that through the monitoring of the performance of the Scottish economy and the measures that we take forward to ensure that we realise the ambitions that are set out within the national strategy. With respect, that does not quite answer the question. What is it that you are specifically looking for out of this role? Has it been set targets, for example? What we want to benefit from is the expertise that Mark Logan can bring to enhance the challenges that I have just set out. Those challenges of ensuring that we realise the technology capabilities and opportunities that are available to us. Secondly, he assists us in advising about how we make the transition within the Scottish economy to net zero through the encouragement and enhancement of greater entrepreneurial activity within our economy. If this committee is looking at this particular role, what kind of thing should we be looking at for Mr Logan to deliver? I think that you should be looking to Mr Logan to deliver progress on the shift to greater technology opportunities within the Scottish economy and you should be looking to Mr Logan to contribute towards the encouragement and expansion of entrepreneurial activity within the Scottish economy, some of which are relevant to the points that we discussed earlier around the Annas Stuart review, for example, and other questions. Aside from the £200,000 that I mentioned, which is paid to a company, has he been given any other resources to fulfil the role? He has some limited staff support that works with him to assist him in the work just to arrange the practical interaction of his engagement with either the Government or within the tech or the entrepreneurial community in Scotland. I have one final question because I asked him last week about his involvement with the company that I mentioned earlier, Travel Nest. He is still listed as a director of that company, though he told us that he pulled back, so maybe he has pulled back, but it struck me that not just for him, but for anyone in a similar role with Government, whether they are paid or not, we should have clarity on their business interests, either as directors or whether they hold shares in particular companies. Is that something that you agree with? I very much agree with that. I saw the comments that Mark Logan put on the record about his involvement in the company, so I assume that to be correct. There should be transparency on those points. If I look at organisations, let's take any of our public bodies—Scotland Enterprise, Hans-Anne Enterprise or South of Scotland Enterprise—their directors will have publicly declarable registers of interest. I think that all that should be done transparently. The point that I would make is that I do not view it as inappropriate for people in those roles to have wider involvement and activity, because, if they did not, they would not be bringing as much experience and expertise to the work that we are trying to bring them into. It is almost a catch-22 situation, but the way of managing that is to have transparent declaration about those things. That is something that would have to be set up? I will take that point away. I accept the points that Mr Simpson is making, and I think that there should be transparency over those questions. If there are any issues that need to be addressed, I will address them. There was a chief business adviser role that was created and appointed in the past week. How does that work together with the chief entrepreneur? Ellis Watson is providing specific advice to the First Minister to enable the Government's engagement with the business community. It is a slightly different type of role to the one that Mark Logan is undertaking. It is essentially about making sure that the Government is able to hear and engage with the wider business community directly to the First Minister by utilising the skills of Ellis Watson. That is also the role of ministers to be doing that with the First Minister. We had a very inspiring and refreshing session with the chief entrepreneur last week. To what extent will he have a remit that allows him to engage with other Government departments and public bodies? Specifically, he raised the issue of intellectual property ownership in universities and how that might preclude entrepreneurship. Clearly, the funding council might want to reward and stimulate start-ups from universities, and that might be a bit of a conflict. What kind of range and role does he have with public bodies and governance? There are two distinct questions in the points raised by Fiona Hyslop. On the first, in terms of the range of the chief entrepreneur, I want to make sure that he has the widest possible scope within Government to try to help us to improve the technological transformation of Government, for example, by making sure that our ways of working are as efficient as they possibly can be. I talked to Mark Logan on a regular basis and benefited from his thinking. I do a lot of work on public sector reform. It will be essential in relation to the realisation of the budget, so there will be ever more involvement. I want to see that at the broadest possible range. On the second question about intellectual property, I think that our universities are slightly more relaxed about those questions than they used to be. That does not mean that we are in a perfect position. Obviously, intellectual property is a formidable asset in some circumstances. Some start-ups that have emerged from universities have generated enormous economic benefit because they have been such good developments. Part of what Mark Logan is trying to do is to encourage more of that and to encourage more of that university research business dialogue. However, if I look at universities now and some of the arrangements that they have in place, I was in Glasgow University just a few weeks ago at the Mizzoumbour Shaw Advanced Research Centre, which is a fabulous investment. It is the result of a significant financial donation by Cure Mizzoumbour Shaw and her late husband, John Shaw, who, in partnership with the University of Glasgow, is developing a really exciting research collaborative environment in which other universities will have such facilities. The University of Edinburgh has the base centre, which is modelled on a similar type of concept. Those meeting points, if I could call them that, are a great forum for the development of research propositions, which I think that we could be optimist. It will generate significant and productive benefits for the Scottish economy. Of course, universities are independent institutions, but it depends on what the funding council's funders might do, I suppose. Are we open to just thinking about things where we come across them? That is a repeated challenge that we have had. There is also a question here. I suppose that I appeal to the sense of community of our universities that there is a role for the universities to recognise that some of that intellectual property might have a wider societal benefit and a wider commercial benefit for the Scottish economy. I encourage our universities to be open to those propositions. Mrs Locke correctly said that there is an interaction with the funding council and the allocation of research resources. However, the more we all work collaboratively in this endeavour, and Mark Logan is in place to try to assist us in doing that to a greater extent possible, then we will be able to see the benefits of all that. I want to move on to the climate emergency skills action plan. You have been very generous with your time, so a short answer will be suffice. Is that on course to be published in 2023 as part of the delivery plan of NSET, and how will the refresh interact with the on-going review of Scotland's skills landscape that is being led by James Withers? The climate skills action plan will be published as scheduled. Obviously, if there are any issues or implications that emerge from the James Withers review, we will take those into account in the aftermath of the publication of the climate skills action plan. However, I recognise the necessity of us proceeding with the publication of that document. It is widely recognised that the increase in renewables in particular on-shore wind has cut emissions, but it has not delivered those huge potential economic benefits that we envidze particularly around jobs. It was a point that the STUC made in response to the strategy. Now, when you were last cabinet secretary for finance, and I think it was then called sustainable growth, we were promised there would be 130,000 renewable jobs per year by 2020. The Government does not record renewable jobs but at a recent report by the Fraser van der Institute estimates that actual number is just 27,000 per year. Does the Government currently have a target for renewable jobs that the strategy will help to deliver? We do not have a target in that respect, but I think that the focus of our agenda is about maximising the economic opportunities for Scotland from the renewables revolution that is going to take place. We have obviously got significant opportunities arising out of the Scotland process, the opportunities that we hope will come out of carbon capture, the opportunities that will come out of hydrogen that will enable us to realise significant economic opportunities. That will link very directly to the work that we have to do on the just transition to recognise the need for the transition, particularly in the north-east of Scotland, about the oil and gas sector. How do we measure that? At the moment, most of the onshore wind turbines that we see capping across our landscape are not built here in Scotland, so how do we really assess whether or not we are reaching that potential? Renewable jobs will increase because of the work that is taking place, but how do we assess whether or not that is delivering the scale of the potential that is clearly out there? We have a significant amount of data that is available on the labour market. I have gone through quite a lot of that data this morning. We are able to see at a sectoral level what employment levels are. We are able to see the gross value added that will come from particular employment, and clearly that flows into the productive capacity of the Scottish economy. I think that the data sets are available for us to be able to see all that information and to make a judgment about how much is being realised within Scotland. It will also be clear from the implications for supply chains about the extent to which we are seeing the turning of those projects into economic reality on the ground within Scotland. I am going to ask some more questions about women entrepreneurs, if that is okay. Again, when the NZ was put out, I can see that there are a number of worthwhile initiatives and the thrust of it. We all know who would not buy into that, but I wanted to explore a bit more as we start to get into specific projects on how we will be able to ensure that female entrepreneurs are absolutely at the heart of the strategy. Therefore, when we develop our key performance indicators, whatever success measures we have, we are very specific. For example, in development to begin under project 1, we have increased the number of talented early stage company founders, increased the number and diversity of entrepreneurs. I am not asking you to answer that question just now, but I personally want to know for female entrepreneurs, for female early stage startups, from what to what. Will you be able to do that? Do you plan to do that as you put the detailed development? Secondly, are you able to commit to making the targets bold, audacious, ambitious and, frankly, frightening in terms of moving the dial of female entrepreneurs and their contribution? On the last part of Michelle Thomson's question, we should have bold ambitions here, because we are not realising the potential of the Scottish economy and Scottish society because of the fact that we have such a difference in the level of participation in entrepreneurship between women and men. We have to confront the issue, which is why we have commissioned Anna Stewart to undertake an independent review on the question. From that, we will flow the specific interventions that we have to take to address the ambitions that Michelle Thomson puts to me. I want to ensure that the steps that we take in response to Anna Stewart's review are commensurate with realising the ambitions that Michelle Thomson puts to me. You can be fully confident that I will be back asking how specifically they are bold and ambitious. On the question of recognising its significance, ministers should come back to the committee to explain in greater detail where we are heading as a consequence of that activity. I will go back to my earlier point in the earlier session about data. As the individual projects are planned out, I will want to see specific data categories for the percentage increase or numerical increase of female entrepreneurs. I mean, there are various projects set out, but I will be asking to see that so that I can make my own assessment as to how bold and ambitious they are. We should be able to disaggregate that data to enable all that analysis to be updated. Thank you. Jamie Halcro Johnston will be followed by Gordon MacDonald. Thank you very much for a couple of very short questions. Obviously, we want to attract people to set up their businesses in Scotland. We want to attract entrepreneurship. What analysis or advice have you had on the potential impact that, if an individual is looking to set up in Scotland, they are likely to pay higher income tax than they would do in other parts of the United Kingdom? Obviously, that is an issue that is considered by the Scottish Fiscal Commission in looking at tax propositions that we put forward. From that, we can deduce the impact of measures in relation to expectations of behavioural change as a consequence. That advice is available from the Fiscal Commission in the forms, ultimately, of the expectations of revenue to be raised that are included in the budget proposition. There will, of course, be a wide variety of considerations that any individual will make about the choice of their location as to where to live and work based on a variety of different factors. Obviously, we have a very different proposition, as I said to Parliament, about the social contract that is available to people in Scotland regarding their income. There are, of course, many different questions around the quality of life and the quality of location that will be relevant in the decisions that people will make. Have you taken any advice or have there been any input from the chief entrepreneur on that and on their thoughts on that? I have not discussed it as an issue with the chief entrepreneur, no, but I am very happy to do so. It is just the last one. The national end-set delivery board was established in May 2020. When was the last meeting of that? The last meeting of it, I just can't quite think what the date was, but it would be in the autumn. When will the minutes of that be available or are they available? Does there need to be anything on the Scottish Government website? Yes, the minutes are published on the website. The next meeting is before the end of this month. The minutes will be available on them before that meeting takes place. There is a website webpage on the delivery board. I couldn't say anything about the minutes on that, so I'll check that out. I'll check that out. I'm sorry, I'm in the back. How did I save this after? Sorry, Gordon MacDonald. We followed by Megachat. Thank you very much, convener. I wanted to ask you about support for business startups, and in particular the new network of tech-scaler hubs set up via codebase. I realised that the announcement was only July and that it was only launched in November, but what will be the measure of success of those? How will we know whether it's been a successful venture or not? Obviously, I suspect that we'll respond to Michelle Thomson's questions. There will be data sets that will emerge about the number of ventures that have been supported and the progress that has been made in relation to employment levels, cross-value added, the impact of technology ventures that have emerged, and what is their journey? The aspiration of the tech-scaler programme is to encourage early start development and to build on that to ensure that companies are able to make the journey from start-ups to scale-ups. The data will enable us to explore the effectiveness and success of the venture. I think that what I would be very confident about is that codebase has got the attributes to enable us to be able to realise our aspirations from this programme, given the formidable track record that they've got here in the city of Edinburgh. The seven tech-scalers are mostly in Scotland cities, although I notice that there aren't any in either Perth or a new city of Firmland. Is there a proof to be the success that we're hoping for? Will it be rolled out in other areas of Scotland, including rural Scotland? I would remain open to those questions, but the way that the model is designed and given the significant dependence on technology capabilities, I don't think that location should be in any way a barrier to people benefiting from the resources of the tech-scalers. I think that there's also an important question that arises, which is about the ability of other bodies and institutions to support this direction of travel. Are universities and colleges, for which we've got a very extensive network of their premises right throughout the country, able to play a part in working with the tech-scalers and ensuring that some of the attributes of the tech-scalers can be used more broadly around the country? Is this model of hubs something that can be used in other sectors, non-tech sectors? Yes, without a doubt, but I think that what the tech-scalers programme recognises is the specific opportunity and necessity of making progress on the question of tech activity to ensure that we realise those benefits for the Scottish economy. I'm interested in exploring a couple of issues. You've spoken before about the purpose of what the economy is for. You state very clearly in various documents that it's to ensure that we serve people and planet effectively now and into the future. The wellbeing economy is clearly at the heart of the strategy. I suppose that one of the challenges that we have is that the economic strategy links into so many other elements of Government work. I'm interested to know how you think we could improve alignment across all those different strategies and where are the challenges around policy coherence. We could argue that there are some things that we do in one area that might counter or jeopardise some of the ambitions in other areas of Government work. I would want to hope that that was not the case because there should be alignment in Government policy. A lot of my role as Deputy First Minister is to ensure that I have responsibility for the delivery of the Government's programme. A lot of my time is spent making sure that we have policy alignment and that we do not have incompatibilities in our policy programme and that we work to ensure that there is a cohesive thread that runs through all of Government policy. That is something that I recognise as important in the delivery of Government work. I think that what the budget was trying to do and what the budget was, if you look at the thread that runs between the national strategy for economic transformation, the programme for government in September, the budget in December and the wider direction of Government policy, is the child poverty delivery plan, which was published earlier last year. If you look at the thread running through all of those, I would argue that there is policy alignment. It is reflected also in the energy strategy that Michael Matheson published just last week. I think that that question of alignment is critical of the areas that concern members. I will listen carefully to them to ensure that we have that thread running through all of policy. A little bit further on that before I move on. You talked about house building earlier and there are obviously going to be negative impacts, whether they are environmental impacts or other impacts on construction, which can be mitigated and can be balanced out with our other mechanisms. I am just wondering whether it is your assertion that we have those balancing mechanisms right or effective. What is the on-going monitoring to ensure that we have those issues covered off so that we can ensure not only the policy coherence, but that we have our assessment of that coherence, correct? I think that again going back to the budget, there are three themes that I concentrated on in setting out the budget. One was about the elimination of child poverty, the second was about sustainable public services and the third was about the economic transition to net zero. To me, that provides the best distillation of the policy framework in which we are obligating where there is an absolute necessity to make the journey to net zero and to achieve that. We obviously have regular assessments of our performance in so doing and we are on the receiving end of a particularly challenging recent one from the Committee on Climate Change about the effectiveness of our current arrangements. The plans that the Government is bringing forward are designed at this moment to try to advance that agenda to the greatest extent that we possibly can do. The challenge that Maggie Chapman puts to me is one that I acknowledge and accept, but I think that it is best reflected in how we take forward the wider policy agenda to which I referred. My last question is about community wellbeing and social enterprises and the value of alternative economic models being crucial to that resilient, sustainable, prosperous economy that you have spoken about. Can you give us any more information about what you are doing to explore and enhance the role of social enterprises in our economy, given the local and regional benefits that they have over and above other models of enterprise? I very much associate myself with the aspiration that Maggie Chapman puts to me of the importance of encouraging a vibrant social enterprise sector. It represents a significant opportunity to contribute to the Scottish economy and the creation of meaningful opportunities. There is a long track record of social enterprise activity in Scotland. The co-operative movement globally was founded in Scotland. I had the privilege, as did Fiona Hyslop, of working for mutual life assurance societies, which have deployed the mutual principles, which are formidable principles of common ownership within our society. I wish that, frankly, we had more of them just now. I think that we would be better served by them if we had more mutual societies. Social enterprises are the 21st century equivalent. That track record is important. I think that, in how we support those, there are probably three things that I would draw on that we need to be mindful of. The first is the community wealth building agenda that Tom Arthur takes forward, and for which there has been some outstanding work undertaken by North Ayrshire Council, and we are now trying to apply that more widely. Secondly, there is procurement. As a public sector, we procure significantly from the business sector in Scotland. Procuring a lot of our social care from social enterprises would be a good step forward. We are enabling companies to be able to participate through the procurement system, and I appreciate that that is not always the case. Some of the gateway access points on procurement can be an impediment for social enterprises, so we are trying to tackle those. The third is that our business development network has got to support the development of social enterprises. Social enterprises are businesses. They are not a charitable sector. A way off here in the corner, they are businesses. Our business organisations, to their credit, and all of the South of Scotland enterprise, Hans-Anne's enterprise and Scottish Enterprise provide business advice to social enterprises, and I very much welcome that. I am sure that you were not suggesting that charitable enterprises should be a way off in the corner. I think that many of them would argue that. The point that I was making was that they should be on the radar of our enterprise agencies and not thought off to be somebody else's consideration. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to set out my thinking more clearly. In the light of the pressures surrounding public sector pay and the on-going threat of industrial action, how do you assess the success, so far, of prioritising wage increases over employability? I think that the experience speaks for itself. I think that industrial action is enormously disruptive to the operation of our economy and society. Minimising industrial action by resolving industrial disputes for me is a very high priority. We regret the fact that we have had some industrial relations difficulties, that we have had some disputes that have led to strike action. We try to minimise that. We are going to extraordinary lines to try to be available and accessible to trade unions to try to resolve those issues. The health secretary and I will be engaged in the question again in the course of this week. I think that the difficulties created by the lack of expansion of employability programmes for me are not as great as the disruption that could come from industrial action had we not resolved the issues that we have resolved. I want something slightly different. The Scottish Government has indicated that progress towards a wellbeing economy is a core principle guiding and other Government strategies. How aligned are those strategies currently and what areas of improvement can you identify that may need to be addressed in the future? We aim to secure that alignment through the relationship of all those strategies towards the realisation of the ambitions in the national performance framework. The national performance framework, which is when the subject of extensive consultation and dialogue with Parliament and stakeholders is designed to provide a sense of direction, a set of objectives for us to reach and to realise in all of our activity. I suppose that going back to the answers that I gave to Maggie Chapman, I would like to think that we are aligned to support those objectives. I think that we have to be open to challenge on this question. I do spend a lot of my time trying to make sure that we have that alignment. If colleagues believe that we do not have that right, the Government should be open to responding to where that might be the case. A classic example of that is in relation to some of the dilemmas that we have had to wrestle with in relation to the energy strategy, the use of resources and the generation of economic opportunities. We have tried to reconcile those to the best of our ability within the energy policy framework, and that is a very good example of how we have tried to do that. I suppose that an obvious question is to ask how we evidence that we have alignment. How do we know? We may have it in policy, we may have it in all the documents and so on, but how do we actually evidence that? See it in the data that informs the material on the national performance framework. Providing the national performance framework is delivering the right strategic perspective across the whole of economy and society. If we have that correct—again, I stress that that is something that has been consulted upon by the Government and the Parliament—it has been extensively engaged in that endeavour, if we assume that we have that correct, we should see that in the data that emerges in that process. Are there any areas that you know of where more work has to be done? One of the big lessons that I have learned in my time in Government is that probably a very good example of that is the child poverty delivery plan. If you do not look comprehensively at what every area of Government can contribute to a policy objective, if you just think, well, we tackle child poverty by increasing benefit payments, let me simplify it to that level. If you took that view, I do not think that you would have a particularly effective anti-child poverty strategy because you would be missing out on the whole range of different interventions that Government can make and different organisations can make to support that objective. When we formulated the child poverty delivery plan, we actively challenged different areas of Government about the way that they were working, how they were interacting with people who were living in poverty, what more support they could put in place to assist people living in poverty to enable us to achieve those wider objectives. That, to me, represents some of the challenges that exist. Off the top of my head, I cannot think of an area where I think that we need to do more in that respect, but obviously if there are issues on the minds of members of the committee, I would be happy to listen to those. Just a couple of quick questions, one probably more expansive than the other. The first one is around programme 4, which is skilled workforce. There have in recent years been a number of reports, including those enterprise and skills review. That is supposed to be implemented. There has been the Audit Scotland report that was critical of relationships between the Scottish Funding Council and others. We now have a James Withers review being undertaken into skills. It is the one issue that every industrial business panel that comes before us says that they do not have the right skills and the right people in the right place. When will people stop telling that committee? It consistently comes up as one of the key issues for all sectors, from tourism through to renewables through to every sector that talks about their frustration at the skills landscape. The key thing is that I have wrestled with this question for quite some time in different responsibilities. The key thing that can help us to resolve those questions is the quality of dialogue that exists between business and those who are responsible for the development of skills. I cited that example in Ayrshire, where it is exactly what should happen. A business wants to get off the ground, wants to develop an opportunity, they want to have skilled personnel, they cannot find them, they go to a college and the college says that this is what we will do and they get it all under way and we make progress. There can be a lot of work done, a lot of elaboration done on the formulation of skills, action plans and skills audits. Skills Development Scotland have learned a really good piece of work in different localities looking at skills development plans to make sure that these issues are invariably resolved in localities. The level of geographic mobility in the country is relatively limited, so we have to resolve those issues in localities. That is about making sure that the quality of dialogue between business and providers is at the highest level possible. The Rolossus Committee is to scrutinise the delivery plans and the 10-year strategy. I think that the culture of delivery programme does say that an annual progress report would be published. Do you be able to say when the first one is due to be published? I would expect the first report to be published during the course of this calendar year. Obviously, the strategy was set out in about May, so I suspect that the other plans were published in October. I suspect that we will make a judgment about that, but it will be due in this calendar year. I hope that it will be due in the calendar year, that would be a year on your report. When you are in a position to tell the committee a clear idea of whether it would be seasonal or not, it would be somewhere out of autumn. If the committee—I have been struck by some of the questions that I have put to you this morning without wishing to single out to Michelle Thomson—is about particular areas of interest. If the committee has got particular aspirations about the information that it would like to see and detail it would like to have available to it, I would willingly consider how we can most positively respond to that, if we can. Jamie Halcro Johnston, do you have a question that is a point of clarification? Yes, it was just regarding the question that I asked earlier about the Inset Delivery Board. I checked back because I am always conscious that these things could be my issue rather than anybody else's. I could not see any minutes on that and I could not see a date of the next meeting, so can we make sure that that is updated as it was? I also had a question on the investor panel. I think that that was meant to meet on 12 December. Did that meeting take place? If so, when would minutes be available for that? When will it next meet? On the Inset Board, the board has met—since I took over interim responsibilities, it has met on at least two occasions, if my memory serves me right. There is another meeting coming up because I have preparatory discussions for that tomorrow. We will make sure that Mr Halcro Johnston is absolutely correct. Minutes should be published and, if they are not up there, I apologise for that. We will rectify that as soon as we possibly can do that. In relation to the investor panel, it met in December. I am not sure when the next meeting is. There are a couple more meetings of the panel between now and the summer, after which it will make recommendations to the First Minister. When would the minutes be available for the— I will double-check and make sure that that is put up as soon as possible. Okay, thank you. Okay, thank you. That brings us to the end of the evidence session this morning. I thank you to the adept First Minister and to the officials for joining us and for the evidence that we have heard. I will now move into private session.