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Cabinet secretary, I am interested in getting a sense of the direction of travel of the new bodies, specifically the new qualifications body and its governance arrangements. There has been a lot of criticism—I have been one of those making such criticisms—of the SQA’s governance structure. For example, there are three management consultants on the board but only one current teacher.

I am interested in hearing your thoughts on the balance, in the governance arrangements, between appointing to the board individuals who have knowledge and experience of the area for which the public body in question is responsible—in this case, education—versus the need for corporate governance. Both are important, but I feel that we do not currently get the balance right.

What are your aspirations for the board and the governance arrangements for the new bodies?

The budget line for student support and tuition fees payment is down £23.4 million compared with what was allocated in the previous year’s budget. The explanation for that is that it is a combination of recognising the in-year savings that took place—the allocation for next year will more closely reflect actual spending during this current financial year—and some presumptions about anticipated demand. Can you give a little bit of detail about exactly where in the budget line the savings are coming from, particularly in relation to the effect they might have on student support?

Will local authorities have to apply proactively for that fund and give evidence of the level of debt that they have? I am asking because, when I began doing freedom of information research on that, it became clear that some larger local authorities, in particular, were actually masking their level of school meals debt. They were confirming only the debt data that they held centrally and were not bothering to ask all their schools about that. In some cases, the actual level of school meals debt is larger than what the local authorities have been telling us all. I am not sure whether you have different information.

The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities has produced excellent advice and guidance on how schools should manage their school meals debt. Will local authorities that have not adopted that guidance—I think that there is quite a high overlap between authorities that have not written off the debt and those that have not adopted the guidance—be encouraged or even required to do so by the Government in order to access the money that you are making available?

Yes—he had printed out his spreadsheet and brought it with him. However, I cannot remember his name—sorry.

This is not a supplementary, convener. For the sake of the Official Report, I have found the name that I was looking for. It was Professor Jim Scott, from the University of Dundee, who gave the evidence that the cabinet secretary and I heard in the previous parliamentary session. He found that just over half of schools in Scotland were offering six courses in S4, that about a third were offering seven, that about one in 11 were offering eight and that three or four—presumably those doing a two-year higher—were offering five.

As you said, that work is independent analysis by HMRC or the SFC, but does the Scottish Government ever pose questions to them? Knowing that HMRC is about to undertake exercise X, does the Government ever say, “We would particularly value having data point Y? Are you going to collect that data and analyse it?”

I can see that in the number of planning applications in my region for various elements of the renewable energy economy.

I will jump on to tax and behaviour change, to follow up on some of the convener’s questions. I would like to understand a bit better how much in-house analysis the Government does of potential behaviour change versus the work that the SFC does for the Government. For example, concerns have been raised—I think that a lot of instances are overegged, but there you go—around avoidance of the new income tax rate or people simply putting more money into their pension pots.

Does the Government conduct any analysis, even within the public sector, of how many higher-paid public servants have increased their pension contributions, given that we are now five years into income tax divergence? It would be good to get an understanding of how much of that analysis takes place within Government versus SFC work. Where it is SFC work, are there questions that you specifically pose to the SFC or data points that you would like to have?

I want to press you on that a wee bit. I agree that the uprating of social security payments in line with inflation will be widely welcomed, particularly by people who are in receipt of them and who really need them. However, uprating in line with inflation will not lift anybody out of poverty; it will just prevent people from falling further into it. That is not a bad thing in and of itself, but I am trying to understand whether the £1 billion of additional spending, which I welcome, will take us any further forward. Will we reduce poverty and inequality as a result of it, or is the £1 billion simply what we need to spend to mitigate the decisions of the UK Government and the context of the cost of living crisis?

Deputy First Minister, after my questions, I will have to pop next door for about five minutes to substitute in the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, before coming back here. I apologise if I finish my questions and then get up and leave.

Michelle Thomson asked about public sector reform and the disposal of public sector assets. In mentioning shared services between different public bodies, you have touched on some of the discussion in last week’s debate on the estate. How much co-ordination is there when it comes to reducing the size of the public sector estate? I am thinking in particular of Glasgow city centre. I realise that most of the Scottish Government’s office space in Glasgow is rented rather than owned, but there is a lot of owned property in the public sector there.

The city council has an objective to increase the city centre population significantly, and the city centre does not particularly need more office space. Is there active, on-going discussion with the city council on that? If we are disposing of what is currently office space, what potential is there to have it converted into housing to meet the city council’s objectives? I am not asking about that specifically, but that is an example of co-ordination across the public sector. Sharing services is one thing, but when we are considering reducing the size of the public sector estate, is there on-going co-ordination at that level or is a siloed approach being taken such that the Government simply needs to get property out of its portfolio and, if anybody is willing to buy it, that is great—they can have it?