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I will move on to something that we have already talked about a little bit—exams. Paragraph 42 on page 22 of the report correctly says that the people who work in education are very much focused

“on children’s and young people’s wellbeing as a key priority”.

So they should be.

Is it possible to measure that focus in any way? So many things have happened in respect of local authorities and the Scottish Government trying to support young people through focusing on their health and wellbeing, and on ensuring that they are in a safe environment. Is there any way to measure that? Can an objective view be taken on it? It has obviously taken a huge amount of time, resources and effort.

Thank you, convener. The report overall seems to be pretty positive, but of course, this being the Public Audit Committee, we have to focus on the negative bits. Key message 4 on page 5 of the report says that there is

“wide variation of educational performance across councils”,

in terms not only of declining performance but of improvements, against indicators. I am thinking back to previous discussions that we have had around the committee table. Are you satisfied that the indicators and how they are constructed by councils are directly comparable across the whole council scene?

Surely, the elements that go into populating indicators are the same in every council. If they are not, they are not comparable.

So, variation in indicators must be directly comparable between councils. In spite of variations in numbers of teachers and all the other things, the indicators themselves should be robust.

I will follow on from that. Given that, in a number of councils, indicators have gone the wrong way, are there any signs, looking across the board, that there is a common denominator? Is it mostly to do with schools in more deprived areas? Is there a social element? Is there a physical element? Is there anything that you can point to as the cause of indicators going down in a particular place?

It seems to me that indicators are there to inform and guide us on future investment and future focus on where we put resources. If the current indicators do not do that, is there a case for saying that however comparable they might be, and however accurate they might be, we need different indicators in order to extract more detailed or cogent information that will allow us to take decisions? Is that possible?

What discussions have you had with the Scottish Government on that?

I have one last question on this subject. We have highlighted in questioning that there is disparity in the indicators in respect of the prominence of exam performance versus the wider outcomes. In your report, you make it clear that the Scottish Government and local authorities should be working together to ensure that more prominence is given to the balance. Is there any indication that is happening?

Skills shortages are not a new thing. Back in the sunlit days before Covid and Brexit, a number of sectors were under pressure—IT perhaps being one of the most obvious. If we compare the skills shortages then with those that we have at the moment, have new sectors come under pressure because of skills shortages? If so, is it possible to identify whether the cause is Brexit or Covid? That question is for Chris Brodie.

Would it be correct to say that Brexit and Covid have accelerated some of the changes, so that the skill shortages that we are seeing now would have come anyway, but maybe further down the line or more gently?