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That would be great, and it is much appreciated. Thank you very much. That is all from me, convener.

Good morning, John.

Earlier, you mentioned that students have to exist while they are at university, and you mentioned all the other factors that have a significant impact on their ability to get there in the first place and then to complete their studies. I am interested in the housing situation, in particular, and in hearing about any work that you have done on that and evidence that you have gathered on it, particularly in the light of the point that was made by Miles Briggs about care-experienced young people, who often have difficulties in accessing housing and accommodation when they are at university.

The Scottish Government’s programme for government in the previous years of this session contained a commitment to a guarantor scheme for estranged young people and students, in particular. That is not present in the most recent programme for government, so I presume that the Government no longer intends to progress it. What impact are you aware of on the ability of students, particularly those who are estranged from their families, who are care-experienced and so on, to complete their studies as a result of their inability to access housing and the lack of a guarantor who can help them with that?

I have one final question, which that segues into really nicely: it is about young people and learners.

You spoke about setting up your new schools unit to have a more direct line of communication, which I think is excellent. As you might have heard, one of the questions that I asked Fiona Robertson and the cabinet secretary when they were before us was about the challenges of not having a system in place whereby you can directly contact every learner. In the higher history situation, there was no mechanism by which you could have contacted everyone who took the exam to explain to them what subsequently went on.

Are there any on-going discussions about creating some kind of direct communication tool, or using existing tools in the system, so that you can have a direct line of contact? As it filters through councils, schools and so on, the key information very often does not get to learners. Given what you have just said, the first that they hear of a situation is often, unfortunately, in the media or on social media, and the information is often not presented accurately.

That is all incredibly useful.

I do not want to reopen the specifics of the higher history situation—I think that we have exhausted that this morning—but it is an example of the board’s involvement in specific situations as they arise. In relation to higher history, what has gone to the board, and what discussions has the board had? Has it given the organisation direction in how it has responded at any point in the process?

I echo what colleagues have already said and thank you for the evidence that you have given. It is difficult for you to balance your duty of transparency with the duty of care to your own staff in particular, and I think that you have done that well this morning.

Shirley, you have clearly been a very proactive and involved chair, and that is exactly what the SQA has needed, so I welcome that. However, I am interested in the role of the wider board, with regard to not just what has happened with higher history—although that may be a useful example—but how informed the board is, in the first instance, and how involved it is in formulating the organisation’s response to such situations.

Over the past 10 or 20 years, there have been various instances in which some of the criticism of the SQA, including from me, has been about what appears to be a lack of action, or even a lack of interest, from the board, in particular on performance and issues of policy. Historically, the board has focused much more on corporate governance, operational issues and so on, which is an important part of the role but not all of it.

Can you share with us a little bit about what the board is doing now and how involved it currently is in the organisation’s activities?

John Mason correctly predicted where I would be interested in going with my line of questioning. First, I have a question about record keeping. Ahead of the meeting, in preparation to ask questions about council tax, I looked for the commission on local tax reform’s website, which was set up in 2015. The domain has expired and the website does not exist any more, so I am a bit concerned that many of the documents that were associated with the commission have been lost. I was able to find a copy of its report on gov.scot, but it appears that it is there only in response to a freedom of information request. Could the Government commit to reviewing all the documents that were produced by the commission and ensure that those documents are uploaded to gov.scot, so that we have some continuity?

That would be useful. Thank you.

The last time that we had this discussion at committee, you mentioned that Councillor Hagmann was going to lead on cross-party engagement efforts.

That makes sense. The question that I was leading up to was about when Mr Hoy, Mr Marra and I should expect invites to cross-party discussions.

Thank you very much.

That would be very helpful. The only part of the process that has a timescale associated with it is the town hall element of the public engagement, which will happen in the autumn. We are used to those in the public sector saying that autumn can take us up to Christmas eve, but the engagement will happen this year, which is fair enough.

Can you lay out the overall timescale for the other specific elements? For example, for the first part of the process, when do you expect the commissioned experts to come back with something, and when would that be published? Would the open public consultation exercise be held over the summer, or would it run concurrently with the town halls exercise in the autumn? It would be good to get as much detail as possible.