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From my perspective as, if you like, a layperson who is looking in on this, it is difficult to see how the spend can be monitored effectively if everyone has different methods of assessing how the funding is calculated. That is why I asked the question. I am sure that colleagues will want to explore that further.

I was on the Finance Committee from 2011 to 2016, and when we deliberated on the financial memorandum, the significant things included not only the difficulty in obtaining best estimates, but the tension that existed—as it often does—between the Scottish Government and COSLA as to how much should be allocated. It is interesting that, over the three years 2014-15 to 2016-2017, councils received £329 million of additional revenue to provide early learning and childcare, but they increased their spending on it by only £189 million. COSLA said that that did not account for the need for council efficiencies and so on, but that is a huge difference.

In 2018, a report highlighted inconsistencies in how councils compiled local financial return information. In the current financial year—I may as well include this in the question—more than £1 billion has been allocated, yet it looks as if expenditure is going to be £935 million. It appears that, throughout the process, the amounts of money that have been set towards the policy have been more than has been required. Is that the case or would you dispute that?

I go back to my initial question, which I do not think I received an answer to. Do you feel that the policy has been overfunded? The information that we have is that, every time there is an allocation, there always seems to be a surplus at the end of the financial year. That includes the current financial year. However, I note that the money is ring fenced, so it cannot be used for anything else. That seems a bit odd. If there is a £1,006 million allocation and a £935 million projected spend, that tells me that there is £71 million remaining. Can you talk me through those figures?

I have one more question and then I will open up to colleagues around the table. The issue of partner provision is interesting. A lot of partner providers have raised concerns about the roll-out of the policy because they feel that, in some areas, they have been squeezed by local authorities. For example, in Aberdeenshire, the amount of spending on partner providers increased from 20 per cent in 2018-19 to 36 per cent in 2021, whereas, in Moray, which you would have thought would not be that different in terms of rurality and so on—it neighbours Aberdeenshire—that spending went from 55 per cent to 43 per cent over the same time period.

Sarah Watters, can you talk a bit about the relationship with partner providers? I can see also that there is a differential between Orkney paying only £5 an hour for partner providers and West Lothian paying £6. Can you also talk about the impact on that sector and on childminding, which has declined by more than a quarter since this policy came in?

This is why we prefer people in the room.

Cabinet secretary, thank you very much for spending so much of your morning in responding to our questions. That ends today’s deliberations.

It is just that, in real terms, there will be a decline in education over the next three financial years and then, suddenly, there will be quite a dramatic increase, and that is repeated in a number of portfolio areas. Time is against me, so I cannot ask all the questions about that that I want to ask, but I will try to touch on a number of areas. Colleagues can follow up on some of my questions if they so wish.

Another area is local government. Local government is alarmed and, although you have said that it will have a fair settlement over the years ahead, I do not believe that it would agree with that. How does the static budget—or declining budget, when inflation is taken into account—allow flexibility for local government? Local government spends much of its funding on statutory services. It has to provide those services; it does not have a choice. Statutory services already have a higher proportion of spend than perhaps they did five or 10 years ago, because of the relative reduction in local government resource. That is one point in relation to local government.

Also on local government, if there is greater flexibility—for example, I know that you are looking for public sector workers to be more productive, but perhaps over a four-day flexible working week—how will that impact on other areas of the economy, such as transport? There has been a significant reduction in the number of people who are using public transport, not only because of a lack of reliability. For example, in my area, there is a lack of bus drivers; we have also seen rail disputes. There are issues across the UK in that regard. What would be the knock-on effect on the retail sector if lots of public workers were staying at home?

You have talked about the multiyear estates programme. From reading the document, there seems to be an enthusiasm for selling off surplus public buildings if, for example, there are going to be fewer people in the public sector and more people may be working in a hybrid way or from home. The difficulty for local government will be that, in some areas of Scotland, there might not be much demand for those surplus public buildings, whereas in other areas, such as Edinburgh, there might be significant demand. That would mean that some local authorities would be unbalanced in terms of the resource availability.

I know that that is a fairly convoluted question, but it is about how local government will be able to innovate and reform and, at the same time, cope with those huge changes over a relatively short time.

Iceland has always been socially cohesive, but it was also historically one of the poorest countries in Europe. Independence in 1944, harnessing geothermal power and victory in the cod wars in the 1970s probably had a significant and positive effect.

I am comparing the MTFS with your forecasting document. The £250 million is exactly the same as the figure that the Scottish Government gave, but you have put in £591 million for 2026-27, whereas the Scottish Government has just £400 million in 2024-25.

Yes. I am just wondering why the Scottish Government has not included those figures but you have done so. That was all. There is a difference of £191 million.

Thank you very much.