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I have one final wee question. You talked about prudent assessment of the potential scale of additional funds. That term “prudent” has a particular meaning. What do you regard as prudent? What margin of error have you built in?

The cabinet secretary will be pleased to know that, coming last, I have only a few questions because it has been such a comprehensive session.

We have talked a lot about outcome. Of course, everybody is focused on outcome and efficient and effective spend of public money. To go back to your points about the carry forward, do the limits on carry forward ultimately lead to less effective use of public money? We are talking about the complexities of a budget process, and I am trying to sum up why we should care about that, if we are focused on efficient and effective use of public money. If you agree that the limits lead to less effective use of public money, it would be useful to have some examples of where that has affected decision making—particularly in capital expenditure.

You will be pleased to hear that I am not coming in on that matter, although that was a very interesting conversation.

I realised that I missed something earlier. Kate Forbes made a point about the additional costs of grid connections when Daniel Johnson was probing about the net present value of ScotWind. So that I am clear, are you saying that those costs are baked into the ScotWind estimates? The cost of grid connections are historically skewed and we know that that has been subject to a long-running dispute. That could run for another 50 years, even if there is subsequent change. Have you had to factor the additional costs of grid connections into the figures that you mentioned?

I also want to pick up on the issue of procurement, but with regard to the Finance and Public Administration Committee report that was mentioned, I should say that I am a member of that committee and I note that the Scottish Fiscal Commission expects the Scottish labour participation rate to decline by around 0.2 percentage points per year relative to the rest of the UK. As a result, the figure is even less than you suggested earlier, minister.

I have a couple of questions about procurement. Some businesses have asked about the possibility of more pipeline visibility. I think that you mentioned that many businesses will create a component product as an offering in order to make a bid, and that sort of approach would give them time to do so.

My second question is around the use of mandation to help to develop supply chains and further target net zero. We have seen comments about that from the Construction Scotland Innovation Centre.

Good morning, minister. I am happy to see that progress is being made. One of the good aspects of Covid is that it has accelerated something that was intended to happen anyway.

I have a general question. How confident are you that the organisational capacity and capability from an information technology perspective is in place, with particular reference to safety and security? You may have already tested that. We are talking about extremely important documents that go back a long way, and hacking is a concern for any organisation.

Yes. You have accurately depicted the wider environment in regard to rules—you mentioned the WTO and so on—but I am asking about the general concept of mandation to effect change in the market, including with regard to the net zero aspect.

I will press you on this issue a little. We know that loss of control over situations will be regarded by many as further abuse. Although I fully accept what you are saying from the point of view of Government, ethics—to go back to that term—would require equal consideration of both sides.

I would also make the point that, in a circumstance such as that, the evidence tells us that there can often be a loss of cognitive capacity because emotion is running high. There is also a risk to the Scottish Government that, in taking the initial evidence where that might be the case, without necessarily saying, “You do realise that we could make a police report,” the chance of a successful or consequentialist ethical outcome could be diminished.

And their expertise, as well, of course. Thank you.

Within the process and the culture that we have talked about, what specific consideration have you given to the complexity of having special advisers as civil servants? It is a slightly special challenge, because special advisers come in through a political route and then become civil servants. Obviously, civil servants have different obligations. It seems to me that that is worthy of additional consideration and reflection. What have you done in that respect?

Okay—this is my last question. Again, it is a wee technical thing. Within the process, how much active consideration have you given to managing the weighting of evidence?

We know that contemporaneous, third-party evidence carries much more weight than evidence that is brought out at a later period, but it is quite a complex and technical area in terms of risk. Have you given that active consideration? It is quite complex, and it does skew results.