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Okay. The capital expenditure underspend was higher—I think it was 7.5 per cent—and focused on energy and housing capital programmes. Will that underspend in any way jeopardise the meeting of targets and outcomes in two important areas of the public policy landscape?

Do you plan to do any further work on that from an audit perspective, or will you wait to see where the Government gets to and then report through approaches such as this?

That is fine. I am just looking at the Covid-related funds. It appears that business support and energy programmes are two areas where there was, perhaps, a significant underspend. Does the scale of the underspend in those areas reflect any structural issues in the way that those funds were built or any weaknesses in the approaches to programme planning? I am just thinking, for example, of some funds that constituents contacted me about. The window of opportunity to apply for them was very short, and therefore there was underspend in relation to those programmes and initiatives because they were undersubscribed. Is there an issue, perhaps, in the way that those funds were constructed?

Yes. Looking at past expenditure and as we come through the recovery, what further action would it be appropriate for the Scottish Government to take to address any remaining or on-going concerns about the transparency of the spending of those Covid moneys?

Good morning, Mr Boyle. Your report identifies a £2 billion underspend across the capital and resource budgets. Is that level of underspend reasonable? Is it reasonable to reflect and expect that the reason for a significant portion of that underspend relates to the Covid pandemic and the expenditure of those funds, especially given that we are in year two or three of Covid and should have more predictability about the way in which those funds are disbursed?

Yes, and obviously there are rules governing how much can be carried over from one year to the next into the reserves. Is there a risk that any money was actually lost during that process, or can it all be redeployed into other areas?

Going back to Covid and transparency, a huge amount of money was made available to support public services and the public through the pandemic; I think that it was £5.8 billion in 2021-22. Do you consider that the Scottish Government has done enough to respond to concerns about transparency in the reporting of Covid-19 spend? Is there any legitimacy in fears that money that should have been destined for Covid projects was squirreled away for other areas of Government expenditure?

Good morning, Mr Boyle. I suppose that, as we approach Christmas, we should be reminded that censuses are nothing new; the Romans were conducting them every five years more than 2,000 years ago.

I want to reflect on what happened with the most recent censuses in England and in Scotland. Last week, the ONS published the report “Maximising the quality of Census 2021 population estimates”, which obviously relates to the census south of the border. One of the main conclusions and points that the ONS makes is:

“Our planned flexible approach to collection and well-tested response strategy enabled us to respond to changing circumstances, such as the coronavirus ... pandemic.”

I will focus on the phrase

“planned flexible approach to collection and well-tested response strategy”.

Have you looked at what happened in England to find out why the UK census was more flexible than the Scottish one and how the “well-tested response strategy” in England differed from what took place in Scotland?

Self-auditing.

In relation to the use and impact of the Scottish census data, you discussed with Mr Coffey the digital issue and the issue relating to the areas that are hardest to reach, such as those with the highest rates of deprivation. Given that Government bodies need data relating to those areas in order to work out which policy instruments should be deployed, is there now a risk that, unless we focus on the areas that are hard to reach, for which there were lower response rates, we might have a problem in addressing the social and economic needs of those areas?