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Thank you very much. David Weston has his hand up.

The panel covered one question that I was going to raise, which was about making clear how the money is spent and how it benefits the local community. You have made it perfectly clear that you would like to see that strengthened in the bill so that it can be demonstrated to the public that the revenues gained were for the purpose intended. Thank you very much for that.

I mentioned to the previous panel that the broad principle and policy aim of the bill is to develop, support and sustain facilities or services that are substantially used by persons visiting the scheme area for leisure purposes. In your view, is that the correct approach? That kind of assumes that we include business travellers in that. Is that the correct approach? I am just looking for a simple response on that.

I want to return briefly to the data gathering issue. Every time the Public Audit Committee looks at a report by the Auditor General, there is always an issue with data gathering. That is the case every time. If you were a betting man, you could bet that his next report will include reference to the subject. Why is there a general issue with data gathering? Why do we continue to ask questions about data during the course of whatever work we do?

Is there any chance that we could think about defining a data gathering standard in advance of a piece of work being done so that, when that work gets under way, the participants—the people who deliver the service for us—have an idea of the range of data that is expected to be gathered? To my mind, that would assist the councils to achieve a consistency of approach in data gathering, which would help us to build up the national picture that Colin Beattie referred to. I feel that we do not do that in advance; if I am wrong, please correct me. Do you get a sense that that might be worth while doing? Should we look across the board at the types of data that we want to collect, define those and gather the information as we go so that, one day in the future, the Auditor General might not make that point about data gathering in one of his reports?

I want to nip back to the issue of infrastructure for a moment, if I may. It was raised earlier in the discussion with the convener, but my question is: how well are we set up to achieve our net zero targets with the existing infrastructure? I imagine that most early learning facilities might not be net zero compliant at the moment. Is the Government thinking about that issue and how we will achieve that aim?

What about the retrofitting side of things? I am scared to ask this, but is there any data that would tell us the estimated cost of that?

I am sure that the committee will be interested in following through with that.

I have another question. There is a little quibble with regard to £9.1 million less being allocated to fund early learning and childcare. It has been highlighted in the Auditor General’s report, and there seems to be a little bit of an issue between COSLA and the Scottish Government as to whether that was fair and so on. However, paragraph 64 of the report sets out an explanation. Can you expand on that and explain the reason for the £9.1 million shortfall?

Is that because we have not thought about the issue up front and have not defined the data that we need, or the range of data that we need, in a standard? It is almost as if we discover midway or part way through the process, “Oh—we need that data.” We should have thought about it at the beginning, should we not? Is that fair?

I look forward to seeing more of that data as it emerges. Thank you very much for answering those questions.

Okay. Many thanks for answering that supplementary question.

I understand.

I have just one final question. We are talking about a £1 billion programme, the principal aims of which are to reduce child poverty and help support economic transformation. In your opening remarks, Neil, you reminded us that the programme has been running for two years now and that all 32 councils are delivering the 1,140 hours. That brings me back to the data issue again. In the Government’s view, how successful is the programme at the moment? I know that the Auditor General will be looking at it, but with two years’ worth of experience in service delivery, the response from parents and so on, can you give us the Government’s view of how well the programme’s principal aims have been met so far?