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Just to be clear, we are providing £62.5 million to support bus services. Within that there is £1 million in resources and £5 million in capital to support councils to explore providing bus services in their areas.

I would like to have seen faster and greater progress. Bus is the most flexible form of mass public transport. It is a very flexible resource and real priority for us, as reflected in our policy programme. However, it is important that we allow local authorities to consider what is the most appropriate model for their area. Something that works in a big urban area might not be effective in a more rural area.

There are several different options available to local authorities. One model that some local authorities are interested in is franchising: having a franchise service in the local authority area would allow the authority to set out the services that it wants, their frequency and the fare rates. It would give local authorities much more control and remove the need for them to own and run buses, although they would control the service. That takes away a lot of the capital cost that is associated with running a service. We need to allow local authorities the space to identify what would be the best way to go about that. The funding that we are providing is to support the development of some of that work.

It is fair to say that the bus industry is going through a really difficult time because of Covid, and that patronage levels have not fully returned to their previous levels, which is causing financial challenges. It is in all of our interests to find a more sustainable approach. If you were to ask me whether the current model is working in our interests, I would say that it is not. That is why the provisions were put in the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019 in order to give us options. I would like to see some of those options being developed and becoming active models that are being used. I hope that we will start to see that happen over the next couple of years.

We have more than 3,000 public charging points in Scotland, which does not include the number of private charging points. There will be several thousand private charging points, including those that have been put in at workplaces and so on, which are not part of the public sector network. There is a distinction. The 3,000-plus figure relates to public sector charging points. I do not know what the figure is for private sector charging points, but several thousand on top of that will be available. That is a growing network as well.

We have committed to doubling the public sector charging network from the 3,000-plus units that we have at the moment to more than 6,000 units over the next couple of years. We have allocated £30 million to support that and we are working with the private sector to lever in an additional £30 million to deliver that expansion of the network. A combination of further private sector investment, which will continue to grow, alongside the public sector investment in the public charging network will give us sufficient coverage for the charging network overall.

I have heard a number of times the figure of 30,000 charging places that the CCC believes is necessary. I am not entirely sure how that figure was arrived at. However, we believe that a combination of public and private investment will provide us with sufficient coverage, alongside encouraging people to make greater use of public transport.

It is part of a programme of work that we have taken—

We have been working with the Scottish Futures Trust to look at levering in private sector investment. That engagement is on-going. That is where the total of £60 million comes from. It is public and private together, but £30 million comes from the public sector.

Yes. I am happy to provide any further information that would be useful.

The additional allocation that we have made this year for the tree-planting programme is to see 16,500 hectares of tree planting, which will be taken forward by Forestry and Land Scotland. When you ask me specifically how we are going to achieve that, do you mean in terms of areas or something else?

Based on the budget allocation that we have made for this particular element and the discussion that we have had with Forestry and Land Scotland, the expectation is that it can meet that target of 16,500 hectares.

The public performance measure is not often closely associated with the financing of the frequency of services. It is often affected by the impact of infrastructure failure on the operation of rail services or by staffing levels. I am confident that we have sufficient funding in our resource allocation to allow ScotRail to be able to sufficiently staff services.

However, as the committee will know, historically, infrastructure failure has the biggest impact on PPM. The question might therefore be whether sufficient investment is going into infrastructure to reduce the adverse impact that its failure has on PPM. That continues to be an issue, and my view is that Network Rail can do much more to get value for money from the amount of investment that goes into rail services infrastructure and the costs associated with that. Anyone familiar with the detail about the rail industry knows that infrastructure failure is the factor that has the greatest impact on PPM. Reducing the number of failures requires investment from Network Rail, not just by introducing new technology and updating and digitalising systems, but also by ensuring that there is a proper maintenance programme to reduce the risk of failure.

Is there more that we can do to help achieve the PPM? Yes. Industrial action will be having a big impact on the PPM just now. However, I am confident that we are making enough investment in ScotRail to allow it to operate the level of service that there is a demand for, and also for it to have the staffing levels to achieve that. However, Network Rail could do more to get greater efficiency from infrastructure investment.

Yes; there is no point to having a bus pass if you cannot get access to a bus. I recognise the challenges that communities have. Our rural communities are probably more adversely impacted than some of our urban communities, where there are alternative options. I recognise that.

I made the point that I do not think that the existing model is sustainable, and Covid has brought that into even sharper relief. That is why an alternative approach is necessary, and I think that the powers in the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019 can deliver a much more sustainable and consistent form of public transport.

If we are to make public transport attractive to people, it needs to be safe, reliable and priced at a level that people feel is affordable. Over the next couple of years, there will be a big opportunity to reset the way in which bus services are provided in the country. From engagement with local authorities, I am encouraged to learn that some of them are increasingly determined to consider how they can change the model that is operating in their area. I think that there is the potential to change quite considerably the way in which services are operating.

Earlier last year, we ran a public information campaign about the range of help and support that is available to people having challenges with their energy bills. Within that, there was provision for energy efficiency measures. It was part of a wider Government programme. What we ran in November was very specifically about trying to create greater awareness of this particular programme, because the level of demand was not in line with what we expected it to be. I do not know why that was the case. It is not that we were doing nothing about making people aware of the help that was available, but we did even more in November and we will do more this year.

I do not know whether it was partly about the timeline between people thinking about the impact and then getting their bills and seeing the impact. In my personal circumstances, there was almost a lag, in that you knew that things were going to become much more expensive before the costs actually hit you. That might have had a bit of an impact, in that people were thinking about it before it happened and then it was possibly not as bad as they thought it would be—I do not know.

However, we had a public information campaign last year, including the website that Shona Robison developed, about the help and support that were available to people in relation to that wider cost challenge on the community side. However, what happened in November was very bespoke and specific in relation to trying to get more people to understand what was available on the energy efficiency side. I hope that that reassures you that it was not a case of doing nothing; it was just that we did something much more bespoke in November because we had not seen the level of uptick that we had hoped for.