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There have been issues when short-term planning has taken over from longer-term planning. As you rightly said, that tends to happen in difficult economic circumstances, because quick adjustments are having to be made, particularly if something happens internationally. Sometimes, an exogenous shock affects the UK. Do you feel that that is an issue? When we look at the transparency of this, is having to make adjustments on a short-term basis very quickly creating some challenges for medium-term and longer-term financial planning?

Last week, we had some very interesting conversations with the OBR about some of the challenges that forecasters are facing. I suspect that we might have similar discussions with the Scottish Fiscal Commission in the evidence session this morning. I raise that because the OBR expressed considerable frustration about the recent spring statement, as its projections on welfare spending were based on policy commitments that the UK Government had made but that were no longer the case. The statement made short-term and late adjustments, creating considerable frustration and difficulties for the OBR. In Scotland, the Scottish Fiscal Commission expressed its concerns that the mitigation of the two-child cap came very late in the day.

I know that you cannot comment on policy or on whether the right policy is in place, but do you think that Governments making very late announcements is creating genuine challenges and difficulties for forecasters and, therefore, for people like yourself, who are having to audit what is happening? Is that causing greater difficulty?

Thank you for all the excellent work that you do. I want to ask about the challenge of trying to measure the effect of putting more money into something to improve outcomes against measures that are not related to money. The reason I ask this is that, some years back—it was probably about 10 or 12 years ago—Reform Scotland did an interesting study on the considerable increase in the amount of money that had gone into education in Scotland in the context of declining outcomes in literacy, numeracy and some other issues.

Building on what the convener said, more and more money is being put into health—that is what has happened in Scotland. Some of the outcomes are not encouraging at all, while others are. How easy is it to get a handle on the effectiveness of measures that are financial—that is, measures that are down to more money being put in—against other measures that are having a positive effect but have nothing to do with money?

It was more than that—it was about 15 or 16 years ago.

Does the member accept that the weakness that he has just identified—rightly, in my opinion—is hampering improvements in educational standards, because the system does not have sufficient trust or sufficient accountability? That is creating some of the limbo that he has mentioned for parents, pupils and teachers.

Would Mr Greer comment on whether he thinks that part of the issue that we are facing is that we are trying to put structures around education in Scotland without knowing what the future vision of education in Scotland will be?

I speak with a bit of experience, having sat on the Parliament’s education committee, along with other members around the table, on two separate occasions—under Mike Russell and then under John Swinney as education secretaries—where we tried, and I think that we all failed, to come to an agreement about what the vision of education in Scotland should be, and therefore what the structure should be.

I have been following this debate quite carefully. There is a danger that we will create structures that do not necessarily articulate the vision that we are trying to establish. Would Mr Greer agree with that?

Thank you for your evidence so far. I want to ask about a specific issue. Although you are obviously not responsible for policy making, you have to respond to it. In recent times, at the UK and Scottish levels, we have seen some very late adjustments. At the time of the spring budget statement in the UK, the OBR stated that the welfare reforms would not deliver as much money as the Government had previously estimated, and so last-minute adjustments had to be made.

In Scotland, the Scottish Government was very late in announcing its mitigation of the two-child cap, and it did not provide enough information in time for the SFC to build that into a forecast. To what extent do such adjustments present a problem with forecasting? I know that you cannot set the policy in any sense, but does it create considerable difficulties when Governments make changes to their policy proposals that are a bit late for forecasting?

Is it your view that we are getting better at forecasting over the short, medium and longer terms?

Thank you for the excellent evidence that you have provided for us. I will concentrate on scrutiny by Parliament. Professor Bell, I noticed your interesting comment about the role of committees and why the committee system might not lead to the most effective scrutiny. Professor Spowage has made clear some of the issues with Parliament itself.

If we wanted to improve parliamentary scrutiny, would we need to make structural changes to the scrutiny process during the next session of Parliament, or is it a question of improving the culture within Government and the relationship between Government and Parliament regarding how scrutiny takes place?

What would be the difference between what we have, which, I would agree, is not particularly cutting edge, and something like the arrangement that Finland has? You mentioned that it has a discreet body that has been set up to do that work. What is different about those two options that makes Finland a bit better?