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Marina, I will bring you in.

Following on from that, the view of the international council of education advisers is that Scotland should aim for an “egalitarian culture” in education. What does an “egalitarian culture” mean to you? Do you agree?

Perhaps Marina Shapira might like to answer that.

Would anyone else on the panel like to come in, specifically on the question about how we should go about changing that? Janet, you are looking at me.

For the avoidance of doubt, in giving 10, you are saying that the costs that are set out in the FM will be the final costs to the Scottish Government and to taxpayers of implementing the bill’s provisions.

You are describing a benefit, not a cost.

Good morning. Two weeks ago, I asked the witnesses what number, on a scale of zero to 10, where zero is no confidence and 10 is complete confidence, they would give for their confidence in the FM. I ask the same question to you, minister: what number between zero and 10 would you give for your confidence in the FM?

Thank you.

I have a couple of brief questions off the back of what has been asked.

Going back to the issue of police pensions, minister, you said correctly that this was demand led and that there had been more volatility. That has piqued my interest. To what extent is that an overhang from Covid, when we saw more people choosing to retire as they realised that there was a life out there to be lived? In other words, have you any sense of the extent to which that will continue, or was it a one-off? You might not know the answer to that.

I am asking the question, because if it looks like something that will continue—and you are right that there is more flexibility in the way in which people take their pensions—it would be useful to know that. Indeed, it applies not just to the police scheme—I am thinking across the board.

I have a second wee question. I know that you have already agreed to write to us with what reserves are actually in place, but it would also be useful for me to understand the rules around agencies that are able to gather reserves or not, as you have pointed out, and whether there is any policy thinking in that respect. I think that most of us on the committee are pretty comfortable with agencies being required to use existing reserves where we have this fiscal tightness, but I am interested in, for example, the situation with the Scottish National Investment Bank. When it eventually moves into profit, I think that we will want it to be able to keep its reserves, because that is how we will get to scale. It would be useful to put a bit of meat on the bones of that.

My third wee point is to thank you for your contribution today. I recognise the extra effort that has gone into this, and as a member of the finance committee, I find that heartening. It does not happen often, so thank you very much for that. I also wonder whether you can speak internally to your colleagues about this. The kind of rigour and discipline that we are seeing in this session contrasts with what we saw in our previous session, when we examined a financial memorandum. It made us run over time, and the committee felt that there had not been a sufficient level of rigour, as what we were dealing with were estimates. I do appreciate that, but it would be nice if we could square that circle a bit with the actuals represented in this document. I know that things can only be accurate when we have the actuals, but we are increasingly finding ourselves in quite a fluid position with FMs that are coming to the committee with estimates.

You are making an argument when you say that the costs are as indicative as you can make them for a framework bill. Following that logic, the estimated costs cannot be very accurate at all, because it is a framework bill, as you have emphasised. That concerns me greatly. I absolutely appreciate the complexity, but our job, as a committee, is to scrutinise the FM. In some respects, we almost need to set aside the policy and the excitement that is generated by the policy and the change. Our job is to look at the FM, as it stands.

You have heard from the convener that concerns were expressed by the representatives two weeks ago. Indeed, in answer to my question, Kirsty McGuire from South Lanarkshire Council gave a four for her confidence level, and someone else gave a five, because they were reflecting that they do not know the final costs.

As it stands, from looking at the FM, we can have simply no idea as to the final costs of implementing the policy. In fact, it is fair to say that, in any project, you never know the final cost until it is done—that is just a statement of fact. I am trying to establish the confidence level, given that, in all your previous evidence to the convener, you have set out exactly why we cannot know and the mitigations that will come through co-design. How confident are you, having explained that, that the FM represents the final cost to the Scottish Government and the taxpayer?