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Thanks very much for those comments. It was good to hear about the Scottish digital transformation project last week, and it is good to hear from you right now that it will be rolled out next year.

I will open up the session to questions. I will start. What, if any, engagement did your officials or Scottish Government planning officials have with the UK Government on planning data prior to the introduction of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill in the UK Parliament? You have indicated that there was a lack of consultation and collaboration in a way, but I am also interested to know whether any work was done before consideration of the bill.

Yes, we can. That is great.

Thank you for that response. Before your next question, Miles, I would like to bring in Paul McLennan with a supplementary question on that issue.

Talat Yaqoob, do you know about the access to elected office fund and whether that is having an impact?

Okay—super. Miles Briggs, do you have more questions?

I will move on to a question about the future, which I will address to Jessie Duncan initially, although everybody is welcome to contribute.

What would you like to happen over the next few years? We are taking evidence and trying to address the issue. What would you like to happen in the next few years to ensure that we do not have the same conversation in the lead-up to 2027?

I think that Paul McLennan has a question about data.

It does not look like anybody does.

I thank all the witnesses very much for joining us and giving us thorough responses. I have pages of notes on things that we can follow up.

I suspend the meeting for five minutes to allow a change of witnesses.

Thank you. You have touched a little on some of the issues that we are going to cover, but it is good that we have an opportunity to get into a bit more detail. I will begin by focusing on the slow progress towards increasingly equal gender representation among councillors. Given the steps that various organisations have taken over the past 10 years, what are the barriers? You pointed to remuneration as one, but do you have a sense of other things that might be barriers that contribute to the slow pace of improvement in the number of female councillors in Scotland?

I am heartened to hear that the barriers to elected office group has reconvened. I look forward to hearing what it comes up with.

We will move on to questions from Mark Griffin.