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I have a few questions. Ross Greer asked what explanations there might be. One was that candidates were entered before they were ready and another was about falling standards of literacy. Is that a possibility?

That leads me to my next question. There is an idea that some subjects are more affected by such issues, and the suggestion is made that there is more variation in humanities subjects than there might be in maths, for example. Is that the case?

Ms Caven, COSLA has oversight of all that councils do. Is the system joined up enough? Is there a balance or is the balance not right?

I guess that we all have different preferences. That is why I preferred maths and accountancy to history and geography.

The report states that the marking instructions were “intentionally more detailed” this year. Was that because everything is improving year by year or was it specifically felt that they had not been adequate in the past?

Okay—thank you. The report makes the point that there was difficulty in recruiting markers in some subjects. That might lead me to think that people do not have the required experience or are inconsistent. Would that be a wrong assumption?

To build on that, Mr Smellie said that there should be transformational funding, but I think that we can assume that there will not be. It is a question of what we can do with current funding. I do not know what the budget will contain, but it looks as though the NHS will continue to be the priority, which means that local government will not receive as much funding. Given that situation, how can we work better with the resources that we have? I am particularly thinking about professions other than social workers, which I assume would include teachers, the police, the third sector and youth workers. Do those professions factor into delivering the Promise?

Would it be a question of being more joined up?

Where does the third sector fit in? Obviously, that is outwith councils. Does how the third sector gets involved vary around the country?

That is fine.

I am also on the Finance and Public Administration Committee, where we are always being told that we need to improve productivity in business, the health service and, presumably, social work as well. How could we do that in social work? We mentioned that we could if we had more finance. Let us assume that that will not happen—that we will not have any more, or that it will be 1 per cent or something like that. Could we use social workers better? I am thinking about the bureaucracy in particular. Could we use information technology or artificial intelligence to help people? I was struck by the phrase “purposeful work”—I think that Professor McCulloch used it. I get that we are all frustrated—we, too, must do stuff that we do not like doing—but could we make better use of the resources and the people that we have?

That is very helpful.

Ms Bavidge, it sounds like things are quite joined up at a local level. Does the Scottish Government need to do more with the other professions that are involved with the Promise?