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What reception did you get for your research? Have you met the team subsequently and have you taken any feedback from it? If so, what was that?

Thank you very much. That is all, convener.

However, as you set out in your statement, the team wants there to be a new commissioner—that is a statement of fact. You have found out some other incidental stuff but, as Ms Smith pointed out at the start of our session, we are looking at the wider landscape including independence, governance, accountability, costs, budget lines and overlap, which are underpinned by strategic positioning and—critically—outcomes. It sounds very much as though you were given a different brief, to look more gently at the concept of introducing a further commissioner, by the directorate that wants to do so.

Thank you. You mentioned human rights earlier. In any discussions about the concept of a number of commissions or commissioners looking at human rights and the complexity around that, was there any recognition that creating a hierarchy of rights could be problematic, or did the discussion not go to that depth? In the Parliament, we have seen challenges with recognising different sets of rights, and we see that in the wider environment, too.

You kind of make my point for me, when we look at the lack of longer-range thinking. The Scottish Government set up the Scottish National Investment Bank, for example, using financial transactions. This year, we have seen a change to financial transactions and their ultimate withdrawal. The Scottish Government’s ability to have a sufficiently long range to be able to match or attract and use leverage for public sector funding is quite diminished without that longer-term aspect. Your report makes that starkly clear, not least with the reminder that you cannot carry forward across years.

Good morning. First, I put on the record my thanks for the report. It really fills a gap, and I think that everyone should read and understand it. I am heartened to see that you are doing the session for MSPs tomorrow. I would like to see further iterations of the report, because it is so helpful. The CCC should also read the report, because it gives much more insight into the complexity of a fiscal framework with that level of granularity. Will you have meetings with the Scottish Government about it? I hope that you will, because it is so valuable.

To be clear, how many of the bill team who have had an input into the FM have attended the entirety of that training?

Yes.

So that statutory responsibility was not known about prior to that. The fact that there was a statutory responsibility that brought associated costs was not known at the point of the original conversations. Is that what you are saying?

My specific point is that, as a direct consequence of the co-design process, there is a risk of overspending, of inefficiency in spending and of sunk costs. That is against a backdrop of significant public sector cuts. Understanding that, and any understanding of how money operates in such programmes, goes against the use of framework bills, because those bills bring significant risks. Within your hierarchy and your understanding of what is going on in the Scottish Government, what active discussions have you had about the risk that adopting that approach might lead to inefficient spending?