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Precisely.

When I ask that question, I am not trying to lead you. It is not a political point; it is about programme efficiency. Fundamentally, the accountability has to be absolutely clear otherwise it leads inevitably to inefficiencies in spend and it affects the ultimate scrutiny of outcomes.

You, and indeed Mr Stewart, made the point about the value of communities. To what extent will local communities perceive these programmes as being done to them rather than done through them?

I want to bring in Audit Scotland here. Many years ago, I had another life doing project management and large-scale so-called transformational change programme management. Of course, the laugh was that the only time your plan was ever accurate was at the end of the programme or whatever. That comes with the job.

From Audit Scotland’s perspective, going back to the concept of scrutiny where there are diffuse accountabilities, it can become a bit of a circular firing squad. What role do you see for yourselves going forward in this complex multitude of city region deals? As we said, some started years ago, like Glasgow in 2014, while Falkirk, which is in my area, was signed last week.

The committee has chosen to do an inquiry into this but if we wait until the end of the deals, 25 years down the line, the only thing that we can be certain of is that we will have got lots of stuff wrong. Where do you see yourselves fitting in to avoid that circular firing squad? Where do you see a committee such as ours fitting in and, indeed, who else would fit in? We can be confident that a lot of this will be wrong because that is its nature.

Is it accountable or is it responsible for delivery? I ask that because, from a delivery perspective—perhaps this goes back to what Neil McInroy was saying earlier—the local authority will rely on the staging gates for sign-off, and they could be different from those for the Scottish Government and the UK Government, and it is responsible for delivery. I suppose that I am making the point that it is quite untidy to have two Governments and one local authority that is responsible for delivering. Having such a governance structure automatically builds in inefficiencies because of all the staging gates.

I am hearing from you that you agree that the arrangement is fundamentally quite untidy because we have, in effect, two accountable partners and a delivery partner in the form of the local authority. Neil McInroy, it looks as though you want to come in on that point.

Are there any final comments? Paul Mitchell, I am sorry that I have not asked you anything directly. Are there any final comments on the themes that we have explored?

I was about to say, “Always look on the bright side,” but the outlook does not seem to be terribly bright.

I want to return to the subject of growth and the link with capital. I think that it was David Miles who reminded us that, on capital, we have a short-term bounce of about 2.5 per cent. There was a lot of sleight of hand in the budget in relation to the short-term nearside position but, in the longer term, capital investment will continue to be very low. How on earth will we be able in any way to mitigate—if we can mitigate it at all—the damage of Brexit over the longer term, given that, as we have discussed throughout this meeting, we have had only marginal nearside increases?

I thank the witnesses for joining us—it has been a very worthwhile session. I want to finish off by getting your reflection on Brexit, which, incredibly, we have barely discussed. You comment that

“Weak growth in imports and exports over the medium term partly reflect the continuing impact of Brexit”.

You then refer to a decrease in trade intensity, which I think that I asked about this time last year.

My question is about the impact on potential productivity in the light of the budget being projected as a growth budget. I know that you commented on that in March earlier this year, but it would be useful to get your latest reflections on the specific impact of Brexit on productivity. Obviously, we have the nearside issues, but I am asking about the longer term—I think that you used a 15-year projection.