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Thank you. I just wanted to check.

It certainly does—it was a very honest answer. Anil, do you have any comments?

My direct question to you, though, is: does this feel like we are using a sledgehammer to crack a nut? You have talked about weaknesses and strengths in the system, but would it not be better to address those weaknesses directly and get to the roots of some of the problems that social work and criminal justice social work face before introducing into the process a new tier of management that will inevitably take work from local authorities and then just give it back to them? It just seems like an unnecessary and cumbersome step in the process.

Finally, I have what you might call a simple A, B or C question. Would it be your preference to pause the bill in its entirety in order to go back and perform that much-needed consultation that you spoke of; scrap it completely because you think that the whole idea is completely bonkers; or remove the criminal justice elements from the bill and let the rest of it proceed? I guess that all those options are open to Government.

I think that it falls somewhere between A and B. Thank you very much for that. Does COSLA have a view?

Thank you. That was very helpful.

No, I will let others come in. I have had a good run.

Thank you.

I apologise because I was not on the committee when this sort of matter arose in the past, so I am new to the subject. I have a simple question: is the cabinet secretary aware of whether the organisation concerned has any employees or offices, or undertakes any activities, in Scotland? The reason why I ask relates to the point about income tax. If an employee of the organisation was ordinarily resident in Scotland, would they pay the taxation that was appropriate south of the border or the local, devolved income tax, which might differ?

I have wider questions on budgets but, as we are on the topic of prisons, I may as well carry on with that theme.

We heard stark evidence from HM Inspectorate of Prisons on Barlinnie and Greenock. The warning was clear that if, on the next inspection of Greenock, the inspectorate is unhappy, the prison faces the real potential of being closed due to health and safety. Some of the descriptions of it were disturbing.

From a budget point of view, Wendy Sinclair-Gieben made it clear that

“the cost of maintaining Greenock prison outweighs its value.”—[Official Report, Criminal Justice Committee, 09 November 2022; c 2.]

She also said that it costs a fortune to maintain Barlinnie because it is old, and that it is only a matter of time before the building collapses. Rather than look at that in the silo of this year’s budget, is it not part of a bigger picture of chronic underinvestment in the prison estate that has led to a situation in which they are expensive to run and therefore any factors such as rising energy prices affect them more?