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Thank you very much.

That will be useful. Thank you.

On the substantive point, John Mason was asking about what the Government would define as consensus on the matter. The final line of the commission’s report in 2015 said:

“This is an opportunity that must not be missed.”

From your response to John Mason, it sounds as though you believe that that opportunity was missed in 2015 because of a lack of consensus. However, many of the recommendations in the report had consensus. I accept that there was not agreement between the four parties that were part of the commission—the Conservatives did not participate—and no single unanimous view on what system would replace council tax. However, we all agreed on some of the other recommendations. For example, one of the final recommendations was:

“Further work should be done over the next parliamentary term to assess both general and targeted land value taxes, and their introduction should be given consideration as part of a broadened system of local taxation.”

There was consensus on a range of recommendations, such as those on further policy development work. Do you have any reflections on why that work did not take place?

One of the points that the Government rejected in response to the commission on local tax reform in 2015 was on a revaluation exercise. At that point, the property values that council tax is based on were 24 years out of date—they are now 34 years out of date. In the Government’s view, why has there not been the space, the opportunity or the political bandwidth—whatever it is—to conduct a revaluation exercise in the intervening period?

It seems—correct me if I am wrong—that we all agree that substantial reform will require revaluation. If we are ever to get to the point of replacing or substantially changing council tax, there is no point in the system continuing to be based on valuations from 1991. Given the agreement on that principle, what has prevented us, in the course of the past decade, from starting a revaluation exercise?

I agree with you that the key issue and the elephant in the room is that there would be winners and losers from a revaluation. The direction of travel, as set out in the commission’s recommendations, is that the losers from any change—those who do quite well in the current system—will generally be wealthier people with more social and political capital. That is the reality.

However, no one has ever proposed a cliff-edge revaluation. The commission in 2015 was very clear that any change would require substantial transitional arrangements. For at least 10 years, there has been something approaching a consensus that any substantial change would include a long-term transitional arrangement so that there would be no cliff edge. Given that there would not be a cliff edge—we have already agreed that that should not take place—is it not a source of regret that, 10 years later, we are not any closer to revaluation, never mind replacing the system?

I agree with that and welcome the offer. However, in 2015, the commission on local tax reform undertook an exercise that had not been done before—that level of depth, detail and substantive policy development was unprecedented—and my worry is that, 10 years later, we are in danger of repeating that work in the first part of the process that you announced a few weeks ago.

Can you confirm that the next stage that you mentioned, which relates to commissioning experts to give us a starting point for public discussion, policy development work and so on, will not repeat what the 2015 commission did? When you look at the policy development work that has been done since then, you see that very little has changed.

It was on the Strathesk report and whether the lessons learned have been followed up. Joanna Campbell has just covered that. Given how far over time we are, I am content with that.

One of the messages that came through clearly from the sector in the lead-up to our inquiry was a desire for clear strategic direction from Government and an understanding of what Government expected of the sector. In response, the Government committed to develop the purpose and principles document, not just for the college sector but for the wider landscape. Now, around 18 months, I think, after that document was published, do you feel that it was the answer to the question about strategic direction? Has it been clear enough in setting a direction for the sector?

Before I bring others in, it sounds as though you are saying that the purpose and principles document was so agreeable that it did not really provide direction. Is that a fair summary? The sector has therefore needed to make a series of decisions about strategic direction itself, because that document did not provide a clear direction of travel.

Thank you. When you are doing corporate planning for your institutions, have you sat down with the purpose and principles document and thought, “Right, we will work back from here”? Does it provide that kind of value and, if not, what value has it provided?

I would love to go further into that point around data with Neil Cowie, but I know that colleagues will come back to that later on.

Does anyone else have anything to add? Do not feel that you have to, if you feel that the points have already been covered. If there are no further comments on that, I will leave it there.