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I ask John Connolly and Antony Clark whether they agree with that point about positive action to involve the public fully.

I nominate John Mason.

John Mason was chosen as convener.

It is alphabetical order, and T comes last.

I thank the witnesses for joining us. I have a few questions. I first want to come to Alison Payne. We have had an interesting discussion, but we have not touched on public perceptions all that much. Arguably, the public are behind the curve, and react to changes by thinking, “It’s going to cost me more,” or, “I am going to get less.” In your opinion, in light of the step back by the former Deputy First Minister from the resource spending review—we now know that the local bodies will look at their own efficiencies or reforms—and accepting all your earlier comments, where do the public fit in that? To what extent is the new approach a missed opportunity for making the public part of this “burning platform for change” that Antony Clark talked about?

Professor Connolly, I hope that you will be able to add, from an academic perspective, your recommendations on the most effective ways in which the Scottish Government could involve the public.

Yes. I suppose that my point is whether, given the data that we have on the strict definition of public services, that is actually an underestimate of the implications, and, therefore, when we look at public sector reform, whether the implications are greatly more significant. I am just trying to get a handle on that.

My last question is slightly more about the nuts and bolts. By getting individual bodies to look at their own efficiencies or reforms—however we want to phrase it—we are missing the opportunity to create shared services, which is not an unusual way to get economies of scale. I am thinking about having multiple finance directors and human resources directors and, of course, procurement, where you can get economies of scale.

Probably for that reason alone, I was surprised by the step back from the RSR. It seems to me that, with the best will in the world, turkeys do not vote for Christmas. Do you agree that those areas are perhaps obvious ones where we might want to start to look at change, if it is not reform? I appreciate your analogy, Alison, and I accept that that is rather crude. I would regard that not as reform but perhaps as lower-hanging fruit. Since you are smiling, Alison, you may as well go first.

Can I have comments on that from John Connolly and Antony Clark?

It is about the framing, if you like.

I have a slightly technical question for Antony Clark to help furnish my knowledge. As I understand it, there are rules about what is deemed to be a public body and is therefore pulled into the figures, the increase in which I saw in your submission. It strikes me that there may well be other bodies that do not fulfil those criteria but that receive the majority of their money from the Scottish Government. There is an analogy with IR35 in the private sector—arguably, if the rules were applied, those bodies would be deemed part of the public sector. Are you aware of that scenario? I am not asking you to name anyone; it is an in-principle question.

I have just a couple of quick questions, because I know that we are coming to the end of the session.

Permanent secretary, you have been in post since 2022, as you have pointed out, and you have been able to make a pretty fair assessment of what you noticed at the start. What now keeps you awake at night, and why?

Yes—to get some flavour of that.