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Thank you for that. Does anyone else have any views on workforce issues?

I have two questions: one on workforce challenges and one on the council tax freeze announcement. Will you give us a flavour of how you see the workforce challenges panning out? We have mentioned that there has been a switch from capital to revenue to help to support staff pay claims of, I think, £121 million. I think that that was repeated last year. Is that the way to do that kind of thing? Are you confident that local authorities can meet the pay demands that you might anticipate next year with that kind of mechanism in place, or do we need something else? I will start with you, Martin Booth. You mentioned it.

Do you have anything on the workforce issue, Kirsty Flanagan, or will I move on to council tax?

My other question, colleagues, is on the council tax freeze announcement, of which you are well aware. There is £144 million, which is equivalent to a 5 per cent figure. The big question is whether that is enough. If it is not, what should it be?

I have a final point. Do you ever get the opportunity to ask, or consider asking, the public what their views are about increases to things such as council tax? We could probably guess the answer, but do you ever do that? I have been an elected member for a number of years and remember the screaming and shouting about increases to council tax year on year—“It is a disgrace. Get rid of it”—and the Scottish Government then freezing it for nine years. There is a history on both sides of huge increases, then flat settlements, and so on. Where do you see us going with it? Can you give us a glimpse of that? Have you asked the public in your areas how they see that tax, whether they expect an increase year on year and whether they would be happy with that? What is the perception in your areas?

Thanks. Do you have any views on the public perception, Sarah?

Thanks again, convener.

To go back to the capital allocations issue, I have another SPICe table in front of me. I am scared to ask Martin Booth this question, so I will ask Sarah Fortune instead. It shows that East Lothian’s capital allocation has gone up from £7 million last year to £25 million. That change stands out in the table, as most authorities show a reduction. Do you know why that is? We think that the extra funds might be a flooding allocation but, even taking that into account, East Lothian’s capital allocation is going up.

Good morning. Martin, in your opening remarks, you mentioned the 5 per cent real-terms increase. You said that, rather than being an increase, it is actually a reduction. Do you have figures that you can provide to the committee to support that? The Scottish Parliament information centre is independent of government, as you know. Its briefing for today’s meeting clearly shows that the settlement represents a 5 per cent real-terms increase, which it says

“is one of the largest year-on-year increases to the local government settlement seen over the past decade.”

There is quite a difference between what you said and what the independent briefing tells us. Can you provide the committee with something that will allow us to explore more fully what you said?

That is useful. Thank you.

Thanks.