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I thought that Mr Balfour made some very reasonable points. I would be a bit more concerned about the answers if it were not for the fact that the end-to-end delivery time appears to be improving. That is positive, but it was a challenging question from Mr Balfour, and quite rightly so.

Those improvements are based on staff delivering at the coalface. I want to look at support for staff and how they are faring. Looking at your staff survey for 2023, I can see that 59 per cent of staff think that they have all the information that they need to do a good job, and 64 per cent think that they have all the tools that they require to do a good job. I think that it is reasonable to say that the figures have come down quite substantially over the past couple of years. Why is that the case, and what is Social Security Scotland doing about it? Do you believe that the figures being down has impacted the delivery that Mr Balfour was talking about?

I am not seeking to contradict you, Mr Wallace, but the statistics contradict what you are saying. If staff are saying that they believe that they have less information and not enough tools, that is what staff are telling you. Is there a lack of confidence among staff due to the complexity? That is the only other explanation that I can think of. I am not trying to contradict you, but the staff are saying something different, and they will be listening to these exchanges.

I would like to have some concrete examples—due to time constraints, maybe not just now—of what you are doing as an organisation to support staff. I think that that would be helpful.

This is not my substantive question, but I noticed that 60 per cent of those who are working with clients, or who will soon be working with clients, feel confident about how to refer on for advice from other bodies and organisations. I am thinking about income maximisation and the discussions about how we maximise take-up of pension credit, which the cabinet secretary mentioned. I would hope that Social Security Scotland could assist with that. That figure means that 40 per cent of staff do not yet have that confidence around or expertise in signposting. Could you say a little bit more, or write to us, perhaps, about what more Social Security Scotland has to do to lift that number?

Finally, it would be remiss of the committee not to mention that we can see that over the past couple of years—I think up until September 2024—the whole-time equivalent staff absence figure appears to have gone from just under five days to 10 days. That is almost a doubling of staff absence, on average, over the course of a year. What is driving that, and how are you supporting staff in light of that quite worrying statistic?

I am looking at why the numbers may have dipped. I hope that they will increase again over the next couple of years as steps are taken to address the issue. Miriam, can you say a little bit about what steps Social Security Scotland is taking to work on that?

This is not a question for an extended answer, but, for clarity, can you confirm that it is the Scottish Government’s intention that the Scottish Fiscal Commission will be fully resourced as appropriate, so that, when the draft climate change plan is published, it will already have given relevant appropriate advice to the Scottish Government?

I will finish my line of questioning. Will the Scottish Fiscal Commission have to upscale in terms of its expertise and number of officials? Depending on the level of detail that it provides the Scottish Government, it might see quite a significant increase in its costs and need for additional expertise. For example, the committee had hoped that, as the draft climate change plan is prepared, the Scottish Fiscal Commission would give detailed advice that would inform the choices that the Scottish Government makes. We would want to make sure that that work was appropriately resourced.

You say that the CCC is pulling out all the stops. I come back to the issue of resources—after all, this is a budget scrutiny session. Are you able to say how much money the Climate Change Committee has had or is getting in the current financial year and what it will get under the budget that we are scrutinising today? The key question is whether, if it had additional funds, it could provide that advice more quickly.

I assume that the Scottish Government makes sure that the CCC is appropriately resourced to provide advice.

Okay. That is the substance of what I needed to know.

I am conscious of the fact that, when you previously gave evidence to the committee, you suggested—I realise that this was for illustrative purposes only—that the Climate Change Committee might publish its advice on 24 March. You then ran through what the timescale might be for parliamentary scrutiny of the advice and the production of the draft climate change plan and the affirmative instruments and so on. Theoretically, we were looking at a final publication date of November 2025. However, we now know that the advice will not be available on 24 March and will not be available until late May. Are you in a position to give the committee a revised timetable for all the subsequent scrutiny?