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Excellent. Thank you. That is all from me, deputy convener.

Given that we have established this morning that Parliament needs to step up its work, are there any local authorities that you can highlight as being particularly strong examples of embedding the work. I ask that particularly in relation to democratic scrutiny. Is there a local authority where the elected members are engaged in making sure that embedding the NPF is guiding their work and the work of their partners?

I should say that I am sure Aberdeen City Council is absolutely nailing it. Mr Lumsden can confirm that later on. [Laughter.]

Jennifer Henderson made an interesting point a moment ago about the role of corporate boards. I have mentioned in committee a few times that there seems, particularly in the public sector in Scotland, to be quite a wide spectrum of understanding among board members about the role of the board of a public body. Is the role about scrutinising policy, decision making, strategic direction setting and so on, or is it purely about corporate governance, including human resources practices and so on? Did you find, among the board members to whom you spoke, a wide spectrum of opinion about their role in the process, or is there some consistency—whether good or bad?

I thought that that would be the case. That is informative. You mentioned a number of organisations that make a clear link between NPF indicators, corporate plans, strategy documents and so on. Not all have done that, but some have.

Of those that have, are there two subgroups—one being those that have genuinely built corporate plans and strategies around NPF outcomes, and the other being those that have come up with corporate plans and strategies and then worked backwards and said, “Somebody needs to go through this and find a couple of indicators that tick these boxes, then include that in the foreword”? If I am categorising them correctly by broadly grouping them into those two types, what was the balance? Of the organisations that included the NPF in their corporate plans, how many had genuinely followed the correct process, as opposed to having worked backwards to tick boxes?

Thank you, Professor Muir. In that section of the report, you raise quite a challenging question: to whom is the inspectorate accountable? Is it Parliament or Government, or some mix of the two? From my reading of it—correct me if I have totally misinterpreted your meaning—your intention is much more to have direct parliamentary accountability, in the same way as we have for some of the commissioners who are appointed by Parliament.

Is there not a need, to some extent, for Government to set a strategic direction? For example, in recent years, we have gone through the process of embedding LGBT-inclusive education and practices in all schools. Is the inspectorate not exactly the type of body that we would want to ensure that something like that had indeed been implemented? Is there a need, therefore, for Government to set a strategic direction—to say to the inspectorate, “For the next five years, it’s very important that this is part of your inspection programme, because we’ve set this as a priority for all schools, with no exceptions”?

I have found the conversation about the inspectorate—particularly the question about who the inspector should be—to be very interesting. Given what has just been said and remarks in your report, Professor Muir, about the need to make greater use of peer review processes and for inspectors to have recent first-hand classroom experience, does that all point towards a system in which the ideal inspectorate is largely staffed by teachers who are on a three-year or five-year secondment? If we want there continuously to be people with very recent classroom experience, people cannot be in post as inspectors for a particularly long period of time, because they will get further away from the last time they were in the classroom. I think that that is an attractive proposal. Does that not lead us to say that the inspectorate should be seconded teachers on short-term contracts?

Does Professor Donaldson have any thoughts on the make-up of the inspectorate workforce?

If the intention is for the Government still to set the strategic direction of the inspectorate in some respects, how different is the governance structure that you envisage? You have made points around direct accountability to Parliament. What are you looking for in accountability terms that is not in place as part of the current model?

Thank you both very much for that.

Are there elements of the inspectorate’s role and the inspection process that would be better moved to regional improvement collaboratives or even to local authorities and conducted entirely through a peer review process, rather than by seconded teachers who have become inspectors, or inspectors who have come in through some other way? Should elements be removed from the inspection process and taken into a purely peer review space? Are there any areas that that would be more appropriate for?