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For the sake of clarity, that remains the policy of the Government; it has not changed with the new Administration. You are taking the same approach that was set out in the resource spending review and the First Minister has asked you to do that. Is that correct?

But you are continuing on that basis. There has been no change of the policy that you are working to, by the sounds of things.

Has the First Minister requested revision of the ministerial code?

I thank all of you for your evidence and for answering all our questions.

That concludes the public part of today’s meeting.

Ross Greer has a question on that point.

There was a big failure in that regard. Permanent secretary, have you and your officials reflected on that? We are told that lessons have been learned. What is the central lesson that you learned?

Michelle Thomson will start the questions.

That is interesting.

I will move on to a different issue. On 5 May, the Secretary of State for Scotland, Alister Jack, questioned the appropriateness of UK civil servants working for the new Minister for Independence. You have talked about the new regime and the new ministers. I think that the Secretary of State wrote to Simon Case at that point and that, in essence, it was bumped to you. As I understand it, it is a matter for the Scottish Government permanent secretary in the first instance. What is your response to that, please?

Deputy First Minister, does the Cabinet recognise that culture and accept that it has to be adopted? In May 2017, there was a meeting between Nicola Sturgeon and Jim McColl to discuss issues at Ferguson Marine. Those were significant issues involving huge public expenditure and waste, but no minute was taken of the meeting. Given what has just been said, do you and your colleagues recognise that it is completely unacceptable that no records were taken?

So you think that your Cabinet colleagues will not undertake such practices again.