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Do you feel that it is Government’s responsibility to establish a standardised approach to measurement?

Does David Ovens have any comments?

Auditor General, in paragraph 13 you say that, to take forward any new or revised approach to community justice, the Scottish Government needs to consider and understand

“Whether all stakeholders involved in the planning and delivery of community justice have a shared understanding of lines of accountability and areas of responsibility.”

That suggests that that is not happening at the moment. How do you see it being put into place in practice?

Good morning. I refer you to the Auditor General’s finding in paragraphs 136, 137 and 138 of the report that there was not a link between spending per pupil and educational attainment. The Auditor General has listed a number of different elements. Are you satisfied that each education authority is capturing data in the same way so that it is directly comparable? I know that there is always a problem with data. However, are you satisfied that, in this case, we are capturing the same data?

I think that that is probably a no.

In paragraph 138, the Auditor General has listed a number of issues, many of which are not directly to do with a student’s tuition, but one factor that is missing is the family circumstances of the individual student. All the other factors that are listed might affect students from a financial point of view, with regard to loading the costs and so forth, but we know that the family situation impacts heavily on a student’s performance. I realise that the family element is a difficult one to capture, but no indication is given of the impact of family circumstances or of what can be done by way of a joined-up approach to help students to make the best of their education.

What I am trying to understand is whether some local authorities are better at this than others. I want to know whether some authorities are following a more successful methodology than others and, if so, how we can transfer that.

You mentioned Covid, which brings me neatly on to the recover, renew and transform programme and how it affects community justice. Do you see the programme as an opportunity to push forward the shift to sustainable community-based alternatives to custody?

With all such things, the issue comes back to the spending of public money. How do we measure and evidence the impact of that? How do we make comparisons between local authorities to measure their performance when it is so variable?

I was not suggesting a league table.

This committee looks at the public expenditure and outcomes from that public expenditure. The Auditor General’s report does not pick up the work that you described as a component of the cost per pupil, and I wonder why. You said that all those measures are in place and good practice is being transferred back and forth. There must be some measurement in there, because if there is no link between spending per pupil and educational attainment, do we know whether the money is being spent in the right place, for the right purpose?

I recognise that some of the issues that the Auditor General picked up are technical, which adds to the cost. If we strip that out, do we have any idea how much the outreach to pupils’ families—that sort of wraparound approach—is costing and how effective it is? Is it being targeted in the right way? Is the volume of expenditure enough? I am trying to grope towards where the most effective expenditure of public funds is to achieve the outcome that the Government is looking for.