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Douglas, I am going to keep calling you, because I imagine that it is hard to get in when you are the only person online. Do you want to make a comment?

Does Dawn Roberts want to come in?

There is no need to apologise. It is always good to uncover other perspectives. Mark Griffin has another question.

Yes, if witnesses keep their answer brief.

That concludes today’s evidence session. Thank you all for coming. It has been good to get your perspectives on the situation in relation to housing and homelessness, and that has added another layer to the evidence. We will be taking further evidence on the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill at our next meeting on 15 November.

As we agreed at the start of the meeting, we will take the next two items on our agenda in private. We have no more public business today.

If you have parked a certain aspect, how do you communicate to stakeholders who work in the area that it is okay and that we are moving forward?

I will dig down a bit further on divergence. The Soil Association Scotland, in its response to the call for views, raised a number of concerns. It noted:

“the framework for Organic Production states that there is ‘existing disagreement’ between parties on whether certain matters are devolved or reserved”,

and it pointed out:

“It is concerning that there is such a lack of clarity about what is devolved and what is reserved, several years after ... the UK officially left the EU.”

I am curious to learn what work is being done on that specific framework to generate clarity. We have an ambition for organic production, and it would be useful to hear what is going on there.

I get the overall impression that there is a sense that common frameworks are a positive measure. They are about collaboration through agreement rather than about imposition. I am curious to hear whether, in the future, such frameworks could be created in areas that are currently reserved to or legislated for by Westminster, thereby strengthening devolution instead.

So, there is not specifically a new common framework, but there are areas in which collaboration is agreed upon, and it seems that that is happening more.

My question is about funding capacity for the additional work.

There is the work that you need to do in your directorate in relation to policy in Scotland; there is the UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Continuity) (Scotland) Act 2021, through which we are tracking what is going on in the EU; and now there are the common frameworks and the need to track the relationships between the four devolved nations. Is there agreed resource and funding that makes it possible for you to do that work well, or are we having to stretch between departments and move people around? It seems that another layer of work has to take place. Is there funding for that?