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Could I just push you a little on that? I note those activities and that you say that you expect improvements. Therefore, do you have an anticipated number that you expect to hit and that you can tell us about when we are sitting here at this time next year? Likewise, when do you expect to hit the 80 per cent standard? Will that be at this time next year or will it be in following years?

Thank you.

Second time lucky. Can you hear me?

Before I bring Jonathan Broadbery in, I note that he plucked a number of £6.80 for providers in Edinburgh, but I think that his members would be delighted if they were offered £6.80 in Edinburgh. I think that the rate that they were offered is considerably less than that, but it would be interesting to hear his views about the level of transparency that is provided by local authorities.

I am going to come on to the impact of that but, before I do, can I follow on from those points? Essentially COSLA’s contention in this morning’s session was that it is difficult to get data from the PVI sector and that is what blocks it from doing as thorough a job as it might. What is your response to that?

Thank you. I will leave it there.

I will ask the same questions of the National Day Nurseries Association later today, so we will see what it says.

What impact has the issue had on the sector? The one fact that we have in front of us this morning is that we have seen a decline of 25 per cent in childminders since the implementation of this policy. In my area, Edinburgh, which has had a relatively high reliance on the PVI sector, what I see is setting after setting selling up to big national chains. I do not have numbers but I can tell you anecdotally that it appears to have had quite a chilling effect on genuinely independent family-run providers and that the rates seem to have driven those people out and increased reliance on big national chains. Is that something that your data bears out?

Are you saying that every local authority has published how it has arrived at its hourly rate? Is that correct? Would you be able to point us to where those calculations have been published?

There is a flipside to that coin. I totally understand that there is variability, that different geographies have different factors and that there will be different models. However, there are a lot of things that are consistent. For example, if I was to come up with a high-level cost stack for running an early learning setting, every setting will have staff costs. Those staff costs are set out in statute in terms of the minimum staff requirement. I would have a requirement for overlap; I would have buildings costs in terms of rent; I would have utilities bills; and I would have insurance. What I am getting at is that you could have a relatively consistent approach for assessing those things. Does that exist? Has COSLA looked at that and come up with a model costing regime? What I am told by people in the independent sector is that the situation is not quite as straightforward as what you are describing. They are being asked to provide individual accounts, which, given that they are private businesses, I can understand their reluctance to do. I am questioning the transparency of the process by which that £5.31 number—and, indeed, the other ones—was arrived at.

I want to follow up on what you said about the lack of transparency in the process of arriving at the rate. That contrasts with what we just heard from COSLA, which is that every local authority is transparent and publishes—or should be publishing—how it has arrived at its rate. Is that your experience? What is your members’ experience of how the rate is arrived at and the level of explanation that is provided?