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It is really important that we learn from previous rounds of funding as well as consider what is in the annual report, but it will feed into how we shape funds in the future.

I am absolutely open to considering that. Obviously, I want to listen to island communities as we develop proposals. One of our key commitments is to develop a remote, rural and islands housing action plan. I cannot yet give a definitive date when that will be published—it is led by my Cabinet colleague Shona Robison—but that will be critical in trying to address some of the issues.

You talked about travelling around the islands. Whenever I am out in our rural and island communities, housing is raised as being critical to the ability to retain young working-age people in a community. It is not always a case of a lack of jobs. There can be job opportunities but the ability to house people is frequently raised as a critical issue.

I believe that engagement work in relation to the action plan has commenced but I would be more than happy to feed back the information that you give to ensure that it is part of the process, too. There will be extensive engagement with our island communities so that they can be part of it.

It has had a massive impact on all the areas in my portfolio, so I see it at first hand and hear it in my engagement with different communities and businesses. As you outlined, a lot of the industries on our islands have been those most adversely affected, which means it probably disproportionately affects our islands more than other areas.

Tourism was affected by the impact of Covid but also by the critical labour shortages right across the piece. Those shortages in tourism itself and right through our food and drink businesses have also meant that those sectors have really struggled and are continuing to struggle. Those shortages are because of losing the free movement of people and the additional barriers to businesses in trading with the EU, which have made it a lot more difficult because of the added layers of bureaucracy and the extra costs that businesses have to incur. All of that has undoubtedly had a huge impact across the food and drink industries, of which there are a lot in our rural and island communities.

We have seen escalating costs for a while, and that is getting worse rather than better. It has had a disproportionate effect on our island communities because there are extra costs for transport to get the materials to islands before projects can even begin. That means that our islands already have an extra financial burden that areas on the mainland do not, so increased costs are a problem.

That is a really important point and something that we need to consider. Especially now that more people are working from home, we want to encourage people to embrace hybrid working as well.

I do not know whether there is a specific strand of work on-going in relation to that at the moment. Erica Clarkson can come in on that.

I will have to turn to officials on that. I am not sure exactly what stage that work is at.

We are certainly planning for that to be the case. Obviously, technology is changing all the time and it is really important that whatever infrastructure we put in place is, in essence, future proofed and can deal with any changes or upgrades that there may be in the future. It is important that we made that extra investment to ensure that we reach as many areas as we possibly can. That is where that extra investment has been absolutely critical.

I do not have figures on that. I do not know whether the team would be able to answer that question, but I would be happy to come back to the committee with more information.

We do not want island community impact assessments to be tick-box exercises, because that would defeat their purpose. If there are any particular examples that you are aware of in addition to the one that you have mentioned, please raise them with me in writing. I would be happy to look at them in more detail.

I do not have the detail of that particular community impact assessment before me, so I am not able to give a view on that today, but I would be happy to follow it up for the committee. There is an option available for the local authority to ask for a review of an island community impact assessment.

The annual report sets out our commitments, and you will see that it also sets out where we are in relation to them. Many commitments in the report have been completed, but work is on-going for a number of others on which we cannot take immediate action. Many issues have gone on for a long time and we are working very hard to resolve them.

For example, in relation to some of the areas that you touched on, such as transport, and some of the other projects that we have been working on, I mentioned in my opening remarks the work that has taken place on the Kerrera project. Through our islands infrastructure fund, we awarded more than £500,000 to connect the length of the island, which we know will have a tangible and very visible impact.

I also touched on the Fair Isle Bird Observatory project, in which we have invested through the same programme and which will also have a positive impact on the island itself, as well as on the wider island communities. Those are the tangible things that we can see, but huge pieces of work are still under way and we continue to make good progress on them.

You touched on transport, but a power of work is also under way on addressing population decline. I briefly mentioned the islands bond, on which work is being done at pace and in which extensive community engagement is taking place so that we can develop a proposal that will work for our islands and for our island communities. I do not know whether officials want to touch a bit further on the islands bond project, if the committee is interested in hearing a bit more on where we are with it.

The islands bond itself will not solve the problem of depopulation on our islands, for which we know that many different, complex reasons are responsible. The bond is not seen as a silver bullet that will resolve the issues that we face, but we believe that it can help if it is used in the right way. I hand over to officials if there is any further information on it.