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That is interesting. We will come to the aspect of collaboration between different local authorities, which is important in trying to close up some of the gaps.

My final question is about how easy—

Could I push you a little further on that question, Mr Kelly? It is extremely important. How easy is it for you to identify where the gaps are in the national data, to improve the measurability of your policy commitments? You mentioned that you would like to see better data on employment in particular. Are there any other ways in which having better data could help in identifying how successful we are being in different areas?

Thank you for those extremely helpful comments, Mr Booth. Are policies likely to be more successful in tackling child poverty if they tackle poverty in general? Implicit in what you have just told the committee is the idea that it is really about helping families to get out of poverty—which, by definition, helps children. Does the data that you have collected recently show that policies to tackle the overall level of poverty are best at tackling child poverty—on top of the child payment, obviously?

Mr Booth?

Would anybody else like to comment on how easy it is to get the various stakeholders to collaborate with you within the local authority that you run? How easy is it to get health boards and other stakeholders on the same page as you? Mr Booth, would you like to comment on that?

I want to ask Mr Beswick if he has any further comments on that point, because it must be very difficult to collect the relevant data in Argyll and Bute. Is it a particular problem to do that in rural communities?

Of course.

Good morning. I want to frame my questions around an important comment from the recent Joseph Rowntree Foundation report, which was published in October this year. The report was very supportive of the Scottish child payment, and we know that there has been excellent feedback from families who receive that payment.

However, the report criticised the United Kingdom Government and the Scottish Government on the point of data, saying that it was extremely difficult to measure the impact of the policy on actual outcomes. How easy is it for you to capture what you think is the most meaningful data, to measure how successful you are in reducing poverty?

I have finished, convener.

I can do, yes.

In response to the original questions, two or three of you flagged up that, when it comes to the use of data, it is important that local authorities can learn from one other. Is there sufficient collaboration across local authorities on addressing the issues? Mr Beswick, you are from Argyll and Bute, and I am sure that it is not as easy for you to collaborate as it is for those in the inner cities. Is the collaboration good enough?

That is a good question. I have to say that, even after considerable research, it is difficult to tell how many schools have their own minibuses, how many minibuses there are within local authorities or, even within local authorities, how much of that service is deployed to schools. A lot of schools use coach services. Again, it comes back to the numbers. The average school minibus now seats 17. That includes the driver and will almost inevitably include two other members of staff. Realistically, each minibus of the type that we normally see on the roads has only about 14 or 15 pupils in it. A coach can take up to 44 pupils. I have a lot of experience of organising minibuses and so on, and there is considerable variability. It also depends on how far you are going and the capacity of the outdoor centre when you get there.

We do not have all the data on that. One of the fundamental issues is that we need more data. I was very pleased that the Education, Children and Young People Committee has written to the outdoor centres to get a bit more intelligence back from them about how many people are pitching up.