���˿���

We on the Public Audit Committee love timeframes and targets—we live by them—and we and the public make judgments about whether the Government has met them. Although the targets are helpful, the closer you can get to such a reshaped reporting mechanism, the better it will be for us. Looking forward to the next report, it would be of great benefit to have reshaped reporting on timeframes and targets that can be and have been achieved.

I would like to ask about the regional dimension of the national strategy. I represent Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley, which is in Ayrshire. What is in it for people in my constituency? From the Auditor General’s report and some of your comments earlier, all that I know about is the £50 million for just transition, the £42 million for Techscaler—I know what Techscaler is—and so on, the £25 million for ScotWind projects and the £10 million for hydrogen projects. There is a variety of projects, some of which you mentioned, as well as the 25,000 homes that have been connected through R100.

How do we show the various regions of Scotland that they are part of the national strategy and that we are all benefiting? In the framework, you talk about regional inequalities. In any further reporting, I would expect to see information on how the strategy reaches the various regions. I am sure that colleagues will feel the same way. What is in the strategy for us in our various parts of Scotland? I am particularly interested in Ayrshire and what our slice of this cake is. How do you plan to develop that aspect?

That would be appreciated.

The fact that the UK Government’s planned project gigabit scheme is a £5 billion scheme would suggest that Scotland should receive some £450 million in consequentials to take many of the premises in question to gigabit capacity. Do we have that money yet?

Let us put it to the test, convener.

Good morning. Before I ask about reporting and evaluation plans, I want to return to a point that was made by one of my colleagues about the roll-out of the broadband programme. I think that he suggested that it was the UK Government that funded that. However, as we all know, the Scottish Government funded it, despite its being a reserved UK matter, to the tune of about £600 million. If memory serves me right, the UK Government’s contribution to that was £49 million—in other words, about 10 per cent of the input from the Scottish Government. Gregor Irwin, could you confirm that those figures are reasonably accurate?

I appreciate that, but some of the projects that I mentioned a moment ago are items of national spend. They are the result of a national strategic decision—a Scottish decision—to spend on targeted areas of the economy. When my constituents knock on my constituency office door and say, “Where are ours?”, what do I say to them?

Project gigabit has been around for a wee while—it is not yesterday’s news—so I would have expected a part of those consequentials to have arrived on our doorstep by this time. I would appreciate it if you could update the committee if and when that happens.

Gregor, on the reporting and evaluation side of things, you said in your opening remarks that you were refreshing and reviewing quite a number of these things. While colleagues have been chatting, I have been having a look at the NSET annual progress report from last June, in which the Auditor General’s briefing highlights that there is

“a lack of detail on when actions are expected to be delivered”.

I can see that—the NSET report from last June is full of things called “Ambition indicators”. That is another bit of jargon for committee members. It is not clear to committee members—or, perhaps, anyone else—what is meant by that, or what the outcomes of some of the actions have been.

You have spent a little bit of time telling us about some of the positive deliverables that there have been, but why are we not beginning to see those things in a formal report such as the NSET progress report, so that we can clearly see the outcomes, the benefits and so forth? Could you comment generally on whether that style and nature of reporting and evaluation is clear enough for everyone to understand?

I simply make a plea—I am sure that other members will agree—for us to be able to see on a regional basis, if at all possible, what the shared benefits are, because at the moment it is difficult to see that. For the R100 programme, it is easy to see that. We can see that throughout our constituencies and regions, but I would certainly appreciate it, from the point of view of the bigger picture, if that regional outlook was woven into the fabric of the supporting mechanism so that we can see that taking place.

Thank you.

Are developers expecting these additional components—let us call them—to be funded differently and separately by somebody else, not them, even though they are including them in their proposals?

That is really helpful. I will turn to planning for housing and the much-talked-about minimum all-tenure housing land requirement. What are your views on the MATHLR proposals? Are they sufficient, acceptable, useful or otherwise?

Okay—thanks for that.

We are now a year into NPF4. I realise that it is still early days in what might be a long journey, but are you picking up any change in developers’ proposals to reflect the principles behind NPF4? Are you seeing any evidence of that? Craig McLaren mentioned the Fife document, but that is really a guidance document for local development planning. What about developers themselves? Are you getting any sense of proposals beginning to change to align with the principles behind NPF4?