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I will not push further on that, and I know that that was a very detailed question to ask you to respond to at committee, but if COSLA could have a think about that and perhaps give us additional information, that would be genuinely welcome. We are not seeking to be awkward about it, and I get the point that there are still challenges, but we need to follow the money from Government to local authorities and from local authorities to delivery at a local level. Any additional information that you could give would be helpful.

We have Mike Corbett here, and he could give a union perspective. Mike, have there been discussions with union representatives and local authorities or COSLA, given the amount of additional money that is going into the system—quite rightly, as the need is clearly there—about how the money could best be deployed and about ensuring that there are permanent contracts? Has the focus been on additional support needs or on lost learning in secondary schools among pupils who are getting towards exams, for instance? Is it on primary schools? Is it all of the above?

The important thing is to ask what discussions are taking place between local authorities, COSLA and union representatives about the best way to shape and direct that spend.

I am pleased that Mike Corbett mentioned temporary and permanent teachers. Over the years, one of the issues for local authorities has been the many temporary teachers out there who are not getting permanent contracts. That has also been an ask of unions. It is surely positive that a lot of temporary teachers can have that contractual basis made permanent. I hope that Mr Corbett would welcome that.

The money is being spent in real time. I have absolute sympathy for the idea of an audit of where the greatest needs are and how the money is deployed strategically. I get that, but I also get that the money is being spent in real time, so we have to get it out and use it as quickly as possible. Given that we are spending the money in real time and are still analysing needs in the education sector when it comes to where the money can best be strategically spent, could that be an argument—for clarity, I am not making this argument, but it might follow on from Mr Corbett’s point—for some of the new posts to involve temporary contracts, so that a strategic decision is not locked in in still deciding how best to deploy resources? Would that be reasonable?

My preference would always be for permanent, full-time, contracted teachers at the local authority level, who are given that absolute security, but I am conscious that you mentioned locking in decisions on permanent posts when we are perhaps not sure about how best to direct that money. From a union perspective, is there an argument to be made for some of the new money that is coming forward being used initially for temporary or short-term appointments, as we start to audit or assess where the greatest needs for our children are across local authorities?

Yes, but we need information that allows us to measure the impact and what is actually happening on the ground. In any case, we need something consistent, because all the politicians around this table can pick different figures and use them as they see fit. For me, the important thing is to have a dispassionate, factual and robust reporting exercise on this matter, and I do not feel that we have that just now.

I would like to ask Laura Caven of COSLA a couple of questions about the funds that have been put in for education recovery through Covid and beyond.

There was an £80 million Covid fund running throughout the pandemic up to now. It has now been made permanent, so it will be in the core budget next year. I suggest that that money has been employing throughout Covid, and can employ permanently from April next year, 1,400 teachers and 250 support staff.

There will also be a £65.5 million new release of cash from April next year—again, in the core budget—which can employ 1,000 additional teachers and 500 support staff. Overall, that is 2,400 more teachers and 750 more support staff. I suspect that the demands are such that those staff are very much needed and that schools could always do with more staff—I get that.

However, with regard to the staff who are already in post and those who are likely to be recruited, what is COSLA’s view on how they should be deployed? Should they be deployed generally across the education estate in both primary and secondary schools? Alternatively, are local authorities looking to target the use of teachers and support staff to address, say, additional support needs or to free up teacher time elsewhere? What is COSLA’s sense of how that money has been spent to date? More importantly, how should it be spent in the future?

I have some further questions relating to that, depending on what Laura Caven’s thoughts are.

I see from the meeting papers that how we assign and categorise notional expenditure will change under the UK bill. I also see that the Scottish Government has a degree of sympathy for that. Will you say some more about it?

As the minister would expect, I have a follow-up question. Have you made any assessment of whether there could be potential confusion with different rules on notional expenditure across the UK? You said that taking different approaches to how that is operated has not been a choice of the Scottish Government, but, as you look, perhaps, to legislate separately on notional expenditure, what reassurances can you give that you will make sure that there is no confusion with potentially different rules across the UK?

That is interesting, because it is about consistency of argument, and the UK Government did not have a concern about Scotland deviating from the rest of the UK in order to improve matters. I will leave it at that.

I have a final, specific question. Has the Scottish Government had any discussions with the Electoral Commission about the need for clarifying legislation in the area of notional expenditure? The particular example that is given in our committee papers—I wish that I could say that it was my clever thinking, but it is not—is discussions in the light of the 2018 Supreme Court case R v Mackinlay and others (Respondents).

That is helpful. Other members may wish to highlight that certain groups are more significantly impacted by the requirement for voter ID than others—I will let them do that, but we should acknowledge that those are the facts.

My line of questioning is on the possible dangers of having voter ID at UK elections but not at Scottish elections. That would not be a reason for introducing voter ID at Scottish elections, but do you see any such dangers? Are there any concerns about polling staff possibly needing to become gatekeepers and having to turn people away if they did not have voter ID or had ID that turned out not to be on the list of acceptable IDs?

Can you talk specifically about any concerns around having different voting regimes in Scotland for UK and Scottish elections? On that issue, I think that Mr Mountain makes a reasonable point, although I do not agree with his conclusion; it is for the UK Government to decide what voter ID looks like at UK elections. However, it is absolutely for the Scottish Government to take a view on whether that could have negative consequences on democracy in Scotland for devolved elections.

When the legislation on digital imprints was introduced in Scotland, did the UK Government raise concerns that it would lead to different election rules across the UK?

It is important to set out why voter ID has been ruled out. We heard last week that just 0.7 per cent of poll workers thought that electoral fraud was an issue, which is a tiny amount. In one of the voter ID pilots in England, up to 30 per cent of voters were turned away from the polling station.

It might be helpful to put on the record, minister, why you believe that voter ID should be categorically ruled out. I happen to agree, but it is important to be clear about why that should be done.