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Up to 50 per cent of placements are cross border.

There are four centres, and I have evidence from two of them stating that they are reliant on that money. It is worth emphasising, minister, that your stated policy intent of reducing the number of or eliminating those people is not a marginal issue. There are concerns from across the committee for those young people—young people in England as well as those in Scotland—and their welfare. I understand your legal responsibility in that regard, but, on a human level, we all have great concern for the outcomes of those young people.

More generally, we are concerned about the fact that we have a sector that is entirely dependent on that money, yet I am not hearing a lot of evidence from you or your officials that that is being dealt with in the long run. There is talk about dealing with it in 2030. Let us hope that the meeting with agencies in June comes up with some answers, and that, when we see the second version of the financial memorandum, it is in a state that we can agree with.

Thank you for your evidence today. That brings to a close the public part of the meeting. We will take the rest of the agenda items in private.

To whom are you directing those questions first?

I am sorry, but we did not catch the start of that. Can you start again, Professor Flinders?

The points that you have all made about accountability provoke some questions about the role of private sector consultancy companies, which all Governments in the United Kingdom involve in policy advice and policy development. Do you have any reflections on the role that you have seen those organisations play and on how they are involved in the decision-making process?

Thank you, convener—I mean, thank you, Mr Mason. I am the convener. [Laughter.] I thank all our witnesses for joining us and taking the time to speak to the committee today. Your evidence has been invaluable.

With the committee’s agreement, we will rejig the agenda slightly and move to item 4 now, which we will take in private. We will then reconvene in public to take evidence from the minister at 11 am. Do members agree to do that?

Members indicated agreement.

On a point of clarity, will the updated memorandum take account of pay inflation, and will there be some reference to the increased demands?

The memorandum as it stands appears to indicate that the calculations for social work resource are based on a social worker working 35 hours a week for 52 weeks a year. Will that formula be rejigged following the criticism that came from COSLA and Social Work Scotland?

That is reassuring.

I have a final point of clarification. The memorandum recognises demand for aftercare but does not allocate any resource for it. Will you be looking again at that?

Of course.