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That is very helpful.

This is my final question, convener. What does the future of UHI Perth look like? Many colleges have been explicit with the Parliament, other stakeholders and the Government that they may hit a financial wall and cease to be going concerns in the future. That is not a situation that anybody in any of our local areas wants to see for our local colleges, and I am sure that the same is true in Perth.

Given what we have heard today about some of the issues that are outside your control, you surely must be left in quite a perilous financial position now. I am thinking of your relationship with UHI; the top-slicing model, which has been criticised by many board members over the years; the cap on your FE credits, the flat-cash settlement from Government; your indirect relationship with the Funding Council; and the fact that you have pretty much maximised cost savings to the bare bones. What does the future look like?

Did it break even, or, if there was a surplus, what was it?

At a more forensic level, have you seen from any of the audits of these boards any evidence of the repayments featuring in their accounting?

In your opening remarks, you made it clear, as you have in the past, that there has been what one might call record, or increased, funding for health—I guess that it depends on how you quantify it and over which period of time—with health spending by the Government 25 per cent higher in real terms than it was 10 years ago. One could argue that it is a good thing that the Government is spending more money on the health service but, in the same breath, you said that the outcomes are not necessarily matching the extra spend.

I do not know whether any analysis has been undertaken of what is driving that or what we might need to change. I will not ask you to delve into policy changes—I understand why you would not want to do that—but I am interested in what was said earlier about the disparity between the performances of health boards. I will come on to levels of intervention in a second, but I note that exhibit 1 paints a complex picture of how the funding is allocated and spent through the territorial boards, the national boards and the complicated integration authority structure. Is that complexity part of the problem?

Okay. The Glen Rosa has now been forecast to cost £185 million. That figure is reflected in your own report. Is there any understanding on your part that that will be covered by the Scottish Government? Your report makes a very specific reference in paragraph 75, which says:

“slippage and cost overruns ... represents a poor use of public money.”

That also seems to inhibit the Government’s ability to present proper accountable officer assessments of the costs of the projects.

Looking at the table that you submitted in exhibit 5, in layman’s terms, it seems that the cost over the last six years has just been spiralling out of control with an unending price attached to the project. Is it your understanding that there is simply a blank cheque available to get this job finished?

Will the business come with any associated debt, according to your analysis of its accounts? In other words, has the Government loaned the business money meaning that someone would inherit that debt if they took the business over?

I want to interrogate a little further because—certainly in politicalspeak—money is tight, times are tough, and so on. That is a message that the wider public will certainly perceive from how any Government manages public spend, and I guess that they will be wondering how on earth money can be tight when there is such a huge underspend in the budget. The question is: could that money have been used, or could it still be used, to avoid cuts or one-off savings in next year’s budget? That is a fair question.

As you say, doing nothing is not an option.

Okay. I will move on—I am sorry that I took so much time on Ferguson and Glen Rosa, but it is an important area for the committee.

I will move on to the bigger picture around Scotland’s fiscal position and pick up some of what you said in your report and in your opening statement. As you mentioned, the Scottish Government has a requirement, essentially, to break even each year, but you talked a little with the convener about the £1 billion underspend. Is my assertion correct that that was made possible only because of consequentials of around £2.2 billion that arrived in-year from the UK Government? Therefore, is it safe to assume that, if £2.2 billion of consequentials arrived in the Scottish budget in-year and there was an underspend of £1 billion, about £1 billion of the consequentials was spent. Is that correct?

What I am asking, I suppose, is that if this business were to be sold as a going concern by the Scottish Government to a private company, what would its value be? If I came along and said, “Right, I want to buy Ferguson Marine off you, what is the value of the business?”, would I be looking at £99 million or is there another figure?