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Is it the case that they have to follow these principles, or do they want to follow them? What is your sense of employers’ participation in fair work? Do they feel as though they are being dragged into it, or are they willingly engaging with it? Do we know?

Are the staff saying what they are seeing or are the employers saying it about themselves?

You captured the fact that stress-related absence, which is a statutory indicator that has to be reported, has more than doubled. At least you have got that.

I have a final question around widening this out. Might employers be interested in establishing some kind of fair work accreditation scheme, either by self-assessment or otherwise, so that they could show their staff and people who may wish to work for them that they are a fair work employer? Is it worth reaching out to that wider sector of employers that we were talking about a wee minute ago?

The principles talk about things such as dignified treatment and wellbeing. If the framework uses those terms, it seems to me that you should try to assess those and ask staff what they think about them, to gather that data. Otherwise, what is the point of having them in the key principles in the first place?

As I was saying, the checks and balances issue that you have all mentioned is probably the key to protecting against those outcomes. We will all agree that the principle of devolving as much power as we can is sound, but that the checks and balances—such as we have in Scotland, with the Accounts Commission and internal audit—seem, for some reason that we do not know, to have deserted our colleagues in places such as Woking in quite a stark manner. Is that a positive note on which to finish our conversation?

Are you saying that Scottish councils should have the powers that Woking Borough Council had?

I suppose that the checks and balances are probably the key to it—

I want to turn back briefly to the issue of financial sustainability to try to compare and contrast what happened in England with what could—if it were possible—happen in Scotland. We have already referred to some of the reckless behaviours down south that led to the situation there, but do you think that that recklessness came about as a result of the general power of competence being granted to England’s local authorities? I know that we do not have that power in Scotland—I am going to ask you in a minute whether you think that we should—but do you think that the situation came about as a result of councils investing in the private sector and so on and running up huge debts? We heard some spectacular examples last week of how badly it all went, but what caused it? Was it the devolution of the general power of competence?

Do you have a view, Professor Heald?

That was a really fascinating response. I would suggest that there have been similar examples in Scotland over the years. This is where the word “brokerage” comes into play; colleges got brokerage when they had some deficits, as did national health service boards over the years. Perhaps those are smaller examples of stepping in to resolve issues so that you do not fail to deliver services.

Last week, we also heard about the abolishing of the Audit Commission and that story of failure, Professor Heald. However, we are also aware that internal audit did not disappear and vanish overnight. Councils such as Woking, which racked up a £2 billion deficit, must have had internal audit scrutiny of what they were doing. Either that was roundly ignored or no one was on the ball.

If we in Scotland decide to do something like what you suggest—devolve power and fiscal responsibility to our local administrations—are we at risk of ending up in the same place as Woking? Could that happen? We can call it a power of general competence if you like, or we could call it something else such as devolving further powers to local government. How do we in Scotland protect ourselves against the outcomes that happened in places such as Woking?