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That is fine.

That is helpful. To refer back to the pilots, that is the one element in the financial memorandum that has an indication of potential additional costs; however, that seems to be phrased purely with regard to salaries. Does the Scottish Government not envisage any additional costs in the setting up and running of the legal entity—in particular, if the Scottish Parliament becomes involved at some level?

I will refrain from exploring the fact that, if the funding is not guaranteed, we could have problems if we set out that provision in the bill.

I will put it another way. Will the Scottish Government be in a position to give a better view of the financial implications once it has identified and chosen the best vehicle by which to make the board a legal entity?

That is helpful. Thank you.

Absolutely, and that has been my understanding of the Scottish Government’s commitment to the Parliament on the bill, from day 1. We have seen much work at that level, and my expectation is that that will continue.

My final concern relates to correspondence of 15 March that you sent on behalf of the Deputy First Minister to the convener of the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee, following its own letter to the DFM, seeking answers to various points. I became aware of that only by accident, and I am slightly disappointed that we were not copied into it, given that we were copied into the original correspondence by our colleague committee. We thought that an answer was still pending.

So, as happens at the moment, the electoral administrators will just accept what is written on the paper as an assertion of what is correct.

They will not have the responsibility, and there will not be an expectation on them to look into it beyond that.

Will we have an indication of the thinking on that?

Should the legal test for a postponement be in the bill, as Professor Alistair Clark suggested in his written submission?

The test would be the test to postpone the election, not the cause of the question being asked, so should we set the legal test as to the level of assessment in the bill, so that those who are making the decision have protection, as the previous question hinted?