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Can I just check some information, Mr Little?

I am interested to know what criticisms you made at the time, Mr Sim—and I apologise if you did so. It would be very informative for the committee if you could tell us what criticisms you made of the emergency powers in 2020. I think that you are conceding—constructively—that there is a need for an emergency framework power to be put in place now. What changes would you make to the current proposals in that respect?

Did you raise those concerns in 2020?

On the daily diktat—

Does Mr Little really believe that this bill is a daily diktat? If so, I think that he loses credibility.

I think that, in his comment on the 2020 emergency coronavirus powers mirroring the powers that the Scottish Government is seeking to take in this bill, Alastair Sim was drawing an equivalence. If the 2020 powers were fit for purpose with regard to partnership working, meaning that they did not have to be exercised with universities and colleges, what is the difference with this set of powers?

But 2020 is a whole year, Mr Sim. You had constant conversations with the Government; indeed, you said how constructive your dialogue with it had been. I assume that, at some point during 2020, you must have mentioned to the Government what parts of the powers you were not happy with.

I will speak briefly, convener. It is for Mr Mundell to make whatever points he seeks to make at the committee, but I am conscious that, when the committee first met at the start of the parliamentary session, we said that we would work collegiately and across parties and would challenge the Government as and when appropriate, and in the strongest possible fashion, when we had to. We said that we would seek to work constructively with the Government and across the committee.

I am therefore disappointed that Mr Mundell has made a set-piece statement that I consider to be grandstanding. There have been many opportunities to raise those concerns within the committee before now, including in private session earlier this morning, when you, convener, asked if anyone wanted to make us aware of anything that they might wish to raise at today’s meeting. No member took that opportunity.

I am keen for the committee to work collegiately to decide how best to respond to Mr Mundell’s comments, but I am very disappointed by the idea of ambushing a committee at the start of a meeting when he has had many other opportunities to put this to members and to work collegiately. I find the tone unhelpful and overtly party political. That is not the way that I want the committee to work.

That is helpful. It is about how we get to a structure around that, without a bureaucracy, and still have that local autonomy. Sara Spencer made a similar point about the local authority and schools and getting the balance right in procurement around that. Maybe I will go to Sara—or was it you who said that?

Maureen McAteer has made an interesting point, which has been made to me before—that the money does not follow the child. An indicator of need and poverty within a school results in a financial sum to be spent on raising attainment within that school. Clearly, that does not follow a child when they go to another area.

I was going to ask Sara Spencer whether something around co-production could be a way forward. PEF is to be guaranteed over three-year periods, I think, to allow greater planning. School headteachers will want to talk to their parent councils and wider school communities, and they will want to make decisions that are based on the needs of the school—which sits within the wider community that the third sector is part of. Are there any good examples of co-production with the use of PEF moneys, or should we talk about co-production more in relation to the direction of some of those funds—keeping the school still in charge of deciding how that money is spent, but knitting in some of those third sector organisations? That might be pie in the sky, but I am trying to find a solution.