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That is absolutely fine. Those points are useful.

I will put two broad questions. One point that comes across loud and clear is, as Tim Kendrick has suggested, it is all a bit motherhood and apple pie—no one disagrees that any of these things are good things. Perhaps we need to ask how the framework can be influenced. If we are going to change the framework, is there a strategy that needs to layer on it so that agencies and ministers can seek to engage and contribute towards the strategies, so that the outcomes are a bit narrower? Structurally, does that need to happen? Do we need a point of view on the outcomes? How are the outcomes influenced and how can people contribute towards them?

My other point relates to what Mirren Kelly said about greater clarity on contribution. A suggestion that came up in previous evidence sessions was that, in essence, the framework needs to be embedded by agreement with individual agencies, so that there is a bit of clarity. That is not so much about particular outcomes being one person’s responsibility but, where public money is being handed out, there should be an agreement on how a contribution will be made to national outcomes.

Should there be a point of view and a change in structure, and should there be specific agreements on the contribution towards the national performance framework between Government and agencies?

Mirren, do have anything to add, or do you broadly agree?

I have one final reflection and a comment that I did not manage to get in.

During the pandemic, I became addicted to looking at Public Health Scotland’s data dashboard. In a sense, it achieved something that the national performance framework has not achieved. For such things to be used, whether we are talking about qualitative or quantitative measures, they need to be engaging, and the NPF is not there yet. The Covid data on the PHS dashboard was complex, but it was rich and it allowed people to look at different things. That is a good example of what we might need to do.

From what has been said in today’s conversation and others, I am struck by the sense that there is a real desire for the NPF to work and for there to be a common language so that different agencies and different parts of the public sector can show their contribution. Ultimately, there has been a failure on the part of the sponsoring organisation to place sufficient emphasis on that. That is my reflection from today’s discussion and the preceding ones.

I will bring somebody else in but, in some ways—and I hope that this is not unfair—you are giving us a glass-half-full version of what is going on. If I could paraphrase, I think that you are saying that having the national performance framework is incredibly useful, but you are talking about how it should be working, rather than how it is. Would that be fair?

I want to bring Jamie Livingstone in, because I was interested to see that the Oxfam Scotland submission referenced what Germany did. That was refreshing, because we are lucky if we get an example from somewhere else in the United Kingdom, so it is good to get one from another country. I noted from your evidence that one of the key insights is that there was popular participation in generating the framework In Germany. Could you step us through that and also tell us whether there are similar structures there to ensure that, once the framework is developed, it is applied and there is a plan to use it? In a sense, what Vicki Bibby is articulating—certainly, it is what we are articulating—is that the framework is there but there is no real plan or structure to use it. Are you able to bring in any examples from Germany or elsewhere?

Exactly.

Lots of issues go with that, but do you agree with that point? If so, what have we lost along the way? If you wanted to revitalise the national performance framework, what would you revive from what was done 15 years ago? Should it be put into plainer language? Are there lessons that we learned back then that we have forgotten?

There are two primary issues. One is transparency about up-front decision making. The second is the amount of information that was provided by the project on an ongoing basis.

Mr Carlaw, neither of us is a website developer, but we are both businesspeople. In business, if you have undertakings with multiyear obligations it is a good idea—indeed, if you are a large business, it is a requirement—to specify those adequately on your profit and loss account. In the 2017-18 budget submission from the SPCB, the only indication that the Parliament was undertaking a £3 million website contract is a little line in schedule 3, which is the description against IT digital services projects. It reads as follows:

“Information Technology/Digital Change projects include rolling out the MSP case management system to more ���˿��� and their staff; delivering a new Parliament website and intranet”—

that is fair enough—

“software (Windows 10 and Office 365) and hardware upgrades for SPS staff; replacing the Parliament telephone system”.

What in those lines would have alerted our predecessor committee to the fact that the Parliament was undertaking a significant website contract? That fact is pretty hidden, is it not?

Can you clarify something for me? On the basis of that answer, I am still not clear about why you took the decision to deliver the project using third-party contractors rather than a single contract. Surely, that is inherently more complicated to manage. You acknowledged that there was not the expertise in-house to build the website. Was there expertise in-house to manage the variety and number of contractors that you have clearly been employing?

However, there was no real indication in the lines in schedule 3 that there was a three-year, £3 million undertaking, was there? Do you think that that was sufficiently transparent in terms of the level of detail that was provided, given the significance and scale of the website project?