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Finally, on the savings exercise that the cabinet secretary announced in September, a couple of programmes that it was announced at that point would be cut, paused, suspended and so on have been agreed in the coming year’s budget. I am thinking of, for example, the rolling out of free bus travel for asylum seekers and more free ferry travel for young islanders.

Is there a point towards the end of the financial year when the Government will be relatively confident about its position and can put in some of the up-front money—that is, the start-up money—for those kinds of small schemes? At this point, it does not look like balancing the books is going to be a huge challenge. The initial operating costs—or the set-up costs—for asylum seeker bus travel are, as far as I recall, in the region of half a million pounds. If that is available in this financial year, does it not make sense, by the time you get to January, February or March, to just allocate that money and get the ball rolling so that the scheme can be up and running as soon as possible?

I appreciate the need for spending controls, but there must be a point at which you and the cabinet secretary are confident enough about the Government balancing the books that you can look at what has been paused, reduced and so on throughout the year, take a cross-Government approach and ask, “What are our strategic priorities? Where will we get best value if we put the money back in now, instead of waiting until the next financial year?”

I appreciate that. Most of my examples were of things that had been pushed back to the start of the financial year and that probably could have been brought forward to some midpoint in the year, but I take the point.

That’s me, convener.

That would be great.

My second question is somewhat related to that, because it is on the costs of concessionary travel. To some extent, we are in the early stages of the under-22 concessionary travel scheme. It has been in operation for only a couple of years and we are still learning about the demand. It has been pretty consistent, year on year, that we have needed an in-year allocation to that budget line to cover the costs of the scheme, because demand has been higher than expected. Given that that has been the case for a couple of years in a row, as far as I recall, what work is being done to re-evaluate the methodology for projecting demand for concessionary travel? It seems that we have been pretty consistently underestimating it.

I will start with questions on specifics. You might have to add the answers to the list of details to come back to the committee with, if that is okay.

First, on support for bus services, I note that there is a £5 million reduction in that budget line, but I could not find a narrative explanation for that. I was a bit surprised, given that bus services in Scotland continue to decline and we lose routes regularly. Was that money reallocated on the basis of there being a lack of demand for that support, or was it reallocated because there was a need to cover costs elsewhere in the transport portfolio? I am thinking about the increase in concessionary travel costs, for example.

I am sorry to interrupt, but my understanding is that the support for bus services budget line is to support operators to run routes, which is distinct from covering the costs of concessionary travel. The support for services budget line has gone down by £5 million while services are being lost, so I wonder whether that is because operators did not want that support—because they wanted to end services—or because the money needed to be moved into, for example, the concessionary travel budget line.

I understand that this is not part of any of your portfolios, but, given that just under £30 million, I think, has had to go into concessionary travel again, and given that that has been pretty consistent year on year, it might be worth interrogating Transport Scotland’s methodology. If it is a consistent in-year allocation, it might just be a case of adjusting the methodology and allocating the money better at the start of the year.

Going back to the SQA increase that the convener mentioned, I note, minister, that you indicated that the Government is looking into that. Again, this is a recurring story. Can you share with us what you mean by “looking into that”? Is a specific exercise under way?

That would be great—thank you.

Lydia, are there any examples from UHI of how you address the housing issue, given that the rural context makes it significantly different? Glasgow offers a great example of widening access for estranged young people, but urban and rural contexts for housing and student accommodation are very different.

The witnesses may have caught my last question towards the end of the session with the commissioner for fair access. It was on student access to housing, which is a significant barrier in the context of the widening access agenda. Some universities have done a lot of work on that, particularly for care-experienced and estranged young people.

Claire, are you aware of any wider work in the sector to address the housing issues that students from backgrounds that are considered to fall under the widening access agenda have experienced and of how those issues have been resolved?

That would be great, and it is much appreciated. Thank you very much. That is all from me, convener.