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There is a recurring aspect in connection with the support given by and participation of the sponsor teams. They were involved in 2017-18 and then their involvement seemed to peter out. I know that the Scottish Government is doing a review of the whole sponsorship issue, but what happened here? Why were the sponsor teams not raising red flags, and who would they have raised them to?

To learn lessons, we have to understand what went wrong. Here we have failure in leadership and, it would appear, a failure of the sponsor teams to properly engage and raise the issues that were quite clearly there. I am surprised that we do not have that information—that such an investigation has not taken place. Without it, how do we learn the lessons?

I mean feedback to the Scottish Government. The report says that

“the Scottish Government lacked clear oversight” .

I would have expected there to have been feedback to the Scottish Government from at least two sources, one being overall management and the other being the sponsor teams.

Given that the letters are due fairly soon, perhaps it might be possible to share them with the committee. It would be useful for us to see them.

There has been a history, which has been over an extended period, of a divergence in views—I will not call it a “clash of cultures”—as to the future line of march. How has that been overcome? Why is it different now? Have people changed? Have heads been knocked together? How has that been resolved?

I am surprised by what seems to be a bit of a downplaying of the role of the sponsor teams. Paragraph 19 of the Auditor General’s report says:

“However, over time, the Scottish Government lacked clear oversight of progress.”

Would the Government not have relied to some extent on the sponsor teams giving feedback during that period? Who should have been giving it the feedback that it did not get so that it lost oversight?

There have been issues in relation to the working culture between SDS and the SFC. How are you working with them to agree how they will work together to deliver the shared outcomes?

I have one last question. How is the Scottish Government ensuring that the objectives for skills alignment are consistent with other national strategies and plans, such as the future skills action plan and the coming national strategy for economic transformation?

Is it about money? Are people simply job-hopping for more money?

As part of the process of formulating a national care service and getting it in place, we really need good data behind it to ensure that it will be effective. Is that correct?