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Thank you. Matt Bailey, I can see that you want to come in.

I will pick up on a few entirely unrelated issues. Some of them have been mentioned this morning, but I also have some other thoughts.

Paul Lawrence, when we were describing the make-up of the programmes, you mentioned that governance has brought a sharpness of focus, which was a very interesting statement to make. Will you give us a little more information on why that is the case? Why did that not exist before? What is it about the wider perspective and the wider geographical pool that a lot of the programmes have brought in?

That is useful.

As we have said, all your deals are mature ones, and you have said that some of the deals have altered quite significantly. I want to explore the extent to which the influence of Government—whether it is the Scottish Government or the UK Government—has led to changes. What percentage of your overall programme costs were, in effect, sunk costs?

I appreciate that there is a flipside. There are necessary change control processes, but one can argue that a change of priorities—you mentioned that there were quite a lot of changes—can sometimes result in sunk costs. We do not know what we do not know. I am just trying to get a sense of the efficiency compared with the effectiveness of the outcomes of the programmes. That question might be one for Kevin Rush.

Good morning. I have a mix of questions as well, given that we are nearly at the end of the evidence session. I will start almost at the beginning. You have been quite critical about the extent to which you really see the UK budget as a budget for growth. Indeed, you suggest that the OBR thinks that

“the Budget will eventually boost output in a sustainable way, but only from 2032”.

We have also heard commentary about the front loading.

Given that wider context of really limited growth—of course, Brexit is in the room as well—and the limitations on the Scottish Government, on which David Phillips is obviously an expert, having done the work on the fiscal framework, in what ways can the Scottish Government really focus on making its budget one for growth?

I was going to ask about the fiscal framework, in which the IFS had quite a key role. You raised some concerns at the time around limits, noting that,

“rather than link the limits to inflation, it would make more sense to link them to the amount of revenue and social security spending at risk, which will typically grow faster than inflation.”

With the benefit of hindsight, what further recommendations might you have made, and do you still stand by what you said at the time?

Yes. You make a fair point about the budget being demand led and the implications of that.

A third aspect, which my colleague Liz Smith asked about earlier, is data. I have asked questions before about the lack of Scotland-specific data. I am thinking about inflation in particular. A lot of interesting geopolitics is going on that could impact on oil and gas, and Scotland’s economy has a reliance on that. We also have changes to national insurance contributions that could affect interest rates. What appetite is there in all the relevant institutions to make advances by starting to collect Scotland-specific data?

I do not disagree, but I think that we would struggle to get to £262 billion.

The idea of boosting the Scottish sample size is one that I have taken up directly with the ONS.

My final question is one that I tend to ask every year. I am not up to date with the latest statistics, but we know that the cost of corruption has a fairly significant impact on UK GDP. A figure of about £262 billion each and every year for money laundering and so on was being touted three years ago. What is your thinking on that? A while ago, at the start of this year, the UK again dropped down the Transparency International corruption index, but corruption continues to take a significant amount off UK GDP.

David, I may have asked you this last year or the year before, but to what extent do you take account of the cost of corruption, given the constraints on public finances? Do you have any thoughts on that?

Good morning and thank you for joining us.

I have a few questions that follow on from the themes that Kevin Stewart was exploring. We will all be familiar with accountability versus responsibility. All of the funding lines have three components—funding from the UK Government, from the Scottish Government and from the local authority. In that governance structure, who is ultimately accountable? Catherine Young, you are looking up. You can go first.

The whole change management function that you articulate is understood and people will use that as effectively as possible. However, when it comes to a key decision, it is exactly the same as when you set up a company structure. You always want to have a majority shareholder. You would never have a 50:50 shareholding because there is always the possibility that people will not agree. You need the minimum share to be 51 per cent to 49 per cent. Even though what you describe might make things marginally more effective, ultimately the accountability remains uncertain.