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That resonates, because we have some of those issues in Scotland. Our paper says:

“capacity issues and speed of decision making makes prioritisation and following those processes challenging. It also favours decision-making focussed on firefighting rather than addressing longer term challenges and squeezes the time for data analysis and identification of data gaps at the start of policy development.”

How is your new process in New Zealand able to overcome that long-term difficulty, which many Administrations face?

That is great. Thank you.

I am the very handsome and charismatic one. [Laughter.]

I notice that there is a head of the policy profession who is responsible for improving the policy system—its capabilities, processes and standards—and helping to improve the outcomes that they contribute to, including higher quality policy advice, better Government decisions and better outcomes for people in New Zealand. Our briefing on the Policy Project goes on to say that

“a sample of policy advice papers is assessed by a panel”.

Do you have an example of how that has worked in practice? How do you ensure objectivity, as opposed to subjectivity, in that process?

That concludes questions from colleagues. I have just one more question to finish off. There are a number of similarities between Scotland and New Zealand, in terms of parliamentary structure. Obviously, the populations are not too different.

You have 120 members and we have 129. You have been a unicameral Parliament since 1951 and we are a unicameral Parliament. You have select committees and we have committees, and your committees interrogate policy and ministers as ours do. How effective do you feel that the select committee structure is in doing that, and if you could put in place one change to make the process more effective—if you believe that a change is necessary—what would it be?

Yes, we can. I apologise. I think that you were cut off when you were responding to John Mason.

We were hoping that the evidence session would only go on until 10.10, but three members have yet to speak and we have lost more than 20 minutes because of interruptions. Would it be possible to extend our session a wee bit?

When I was in Glasgow City Council, if people wanted to apply for a grant, they were much more likely to get it if they put the word “workshop” somewhere in their application. Communication is key.

If you could implement one improvement to Government decision making, what would it be?

One of the things that the civil servants said often frustrated them about their departmental remit was the lack of capacity—in terms of expertise and numbers of people—to deliver some of the things that the Government wants and, indeed, the public and other bodies demand.

You also touched on prevention, and Ben Thurman talked about horizontal working. This committee and the Scottish Government have wrestled with that for well over a decade. As Mark Taylor said, because people are looking for instant results, it is very difficult for Government to persuade organisations to disinvest in one area in order to invest in another that might have more effective results in the long term. How do we square that circle in a situation where resources are not increasing?

From a personal perspective, I think that that would be very healthy. I see that Liz Smith is nodding, which is probably because we both submitted questions on that topic for First Minister’s question time this Thursday. Liz beat me to it and was selected to ask one, which I hope to come in on the back of.

That is certainly a good starting point, you are right. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has reviewed it and also sees it as being very positive. It talks about other things being added. As well as climate change, which you mentioned, it suggests health and poverty. The OECD also looked at intergenerational fairness, which economists talk about a lot but perhaps not many other people do—certainly not as many as should.

I asked about the five-year situation because paragraph 2.15 of the SFC’s report says that, in August 2022, the forecast was that the Scottish population would fall to 4.6 million by 2072, yet only six months later the projection is that Scotland’s population will fall less, to 5.1 million, by that time. That is good news, but it is a dramatic change in six months, so one wonders how seriously the forecast should be taken, given that it is a 50-year projection. Who knows what bumps will come along the road? It is difficult to see whether the forecasts should be taken as seriously as—well, not quite tablets of stone, but it is hard to see how seriously they should be taken.

I think that it is an excellent and thought-provoking report. I have to be honest with you. The things that we have discussed are just wee tweaks that would be helpful.

A key aspect that the committee has talked about over the years, including with the SFC, is productivity. You look at that primarily from a demographic perspective and you say that, under current projections, Scotland’s productivity level is likely to continue to be below that of the UK far into the future. What impact would an increase in productivity of just 0.1 per cent have? What role does policy have in increasing our productivity?