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Yes.

How do you give the NPF teeth, if that is what you think should happen? The local government witnesses we heard from earlier today said that they have the local outcomes improvement plans and they feel that they are working towards those. They do not want things to be too prescriptive and too rigid, and they feel that, if they were going to be held more accountable to the NPF, that is what would happen.

Thank you very much, convener.

Last year, the Auditor General said that Scotland is suffering from

“a major implementation gap between policy ambitions and delivery on the ground.”

He went on to say:

“I am not convinced that public sector leaders really feel accountable for delivering change”.

Do you agree?

I guess that the Government would say that that is why we have so many ring-fenced funds—it is to put resource into certain areas—but that is too prescriptive as well, is it not?

Daniel Johnson touched on the relationship between the LOIPs and the NPF. You mentioned that mapping is done, but is that done after a LOIP is created, in trying to map it back to the NPF, or is the LOIP produced in looking at the NPF and seeing how it would flow down the way instead?

Is that typical across all local authorities?

I go back to your example about north-east Fife doing quite well and your having to commit resources there for community asset transfer when you could commit resource in central Fife, where there are larger areas of deprivation. Do you feel that your hands are tied because of some of the things that you have to do?

You mentioned in your written submission that, in funding for the voluntary sector, you do not assess grant awards against the NPF. Are those awards assessed against the local outcomes improvement plans?

Who was that scope agreed with? Did that go back to the corporate body?

The corporate body is putting forward a budget that is then approved by the finance committee, without us knowing what the overall cost is, until today.