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I am sure that Homes for Scotland will be pleased to know that.

One of the things that we talked about—the convener touched on this, and we also had a discussion with Revenue Scotland this morning—was mitigations or the putting in place of good behaviour through compliance and special purpose vehicles, because most building firms will use them as a matter of course. During the discussion, it has become increasingly clear that we will not have the detail via secondary legislation until some way down the line. That reminds me of the committee’s old hobby-horse about using framework legislation to come up with some principles, but the devil of the detail not being around for quite some time after that, and potentially until after you have set a rate, as was being probed.

I can see that you are looking, but just to give a bit of clarity, there is a real possibility that a building firm can set up an SPV and then promptly fold it before it pays the tax. Yes, mitigations can be put in place, but the process is long, involved, complex and expensive for Revenue Scotland. I am just trying to get your feelings about that approach. Surely, in a perfect world, we would not do all of this in that way.

Is cognitive diversity part of your mix?

That is good, and I will watch the situation with interest.

On the gender pay gap, women on average are earning 5.9 per cent less than men, but that figure has increased from 1.6 per cent since the previous reporting period. Again, I appreciate that the scale of the organisation can mean that that can quite quickly become skewed, particularly with senior appointments, but it would be useful to hear your reflections on why that is the case, because the figures are going in the wrong direction.

I have a final wee question about councils’ involvement. They are able to use section 75 as another mechanism for warding off bad behaviour. Are they involved in discussions on the issue?

Okay.

I appreciate that the active consideration has been given to developers, so that they get money in so that they can pay the tax. Build to rent is, obviously, a slightly different model. What consideration has been given to build to rent specifically? Obviously, it is also an important pathway to get us to the number of housing completions that we need.

Thank you for joining us—and thank you, Elaine, for all of your hard work in Revenue Scotland. You have created a culture that will influence and shape the organisation, which is very important.

Last year, I asked about the representation of, and the split between, men and women in the organisation. I can see that you have made determined attempts to improve that; I was heartened to hear about your new CEO and the two new board members. There is still a way to go in relation to the board and the audit and risk committee, which have 37 per cent and 20 per cent female representation. I can see that you have co-opted board members, too, because those are fixed-term positions. Aidan, will you state what your target is and give a sense of where you are in the journey towards that?

Good morning, minister. I have a few wee questions.

The Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland has commented on the use of what it called “quasi-hypothecation”. The RIAS subsequently wrote to the committee and, in explaining what it meant by that term, said that it thought that the legal basis was fairly “weak”. In other words, the RIAS would like to see it screwed down a lot more firmly that the intention—not just the policy intention, but the intention legally—is that the moneys raised from the levy must be spent on remediating cladding and not for any other purposes. Would you be willing to consider doing that?

Taking a risk-based approach will be very wise for all the areas that you have outlined.

I have a final wee question, which I also asked last year. Going back to the convener’s questions about digitisation, I asked you last year about your thinking on artificial intelligence. We are a year down the line. I have heard that some public sector organisations have said that their staff should not use AI at all, which seems somewhat luddite, but I want to get a sense of where you are at. A lot of people are routinely using Copilot, Gemini, ChatGPT or whatever, but where is your thinking on that this year?

I want to follow up on the issue that Craig Hoy raised. House-building companies commonly use special purpose vehicles, particularly for phasing—those are extremely common. Clearly, that represents a risk for your ability to collect. You mentioned connected party rules, which is the standard approach, but the issue is more complex than that, because payment will occur quite late on in the process and the Scottish Government has deliberately set that to be so. The usual remedy would be to ensure collection up front, as far as possible. That seems to me to be quite a risk. What assessment have you made of the risks around the cost of collection in that scenario? The other remedies that you have can be quite expensive and time consuming.

That is a standard sensible approach. I am trying to tease out the risks of the detail coming through in secondary legislation and you saying, “Oh, right. I wish we’d known that up front.” The figure that has been bandied around is £30 million, but the basis for that is pretty loose, and only time will tell.