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I agree with you about highly paid jobs. Some of the sectors that we have mentioned so far—you have both mentioned tourism—are hugely important to our rural economy, but the jobs do not pay what an aircraft engineer is paid, for example. How we get highly paid, high-quality jobs into those areas is the challenge.

Has Professor Roy any comment on that? There are inequalities.

I will pose a similar question to Stuart Black and Nick Kenton. Stuart, you mentioned a 5 per cent reduction in revenue and a 10 per cent fall in capital. Specifically, what will you not do next year that you would like do?

I absolutely take on board the point about advice. I have spoken to many businesses in my region that have benefited from advice and support from the agencies.

I have one final small point, though. I note that, in the submission from HIE, your target for the number of jobs to be supported next year is substantially less than the target for this year. Is that purely because of a major investment from a Japanese company? For the “Number of jobs supported” line, the target for next year is 600 to 700, whereas the target for this year was between 1,000 and 1,200.

I want to follow up on that theme, turning to the enterprise agencies. What is it that you will not be able to do? You talked about having to change the way in which you work in order to deal with substantial budget reductions, but I am still not entirely clear about what you will not be doing. I suppose the best way to put it is this: if you had more money, what would you like to do that you will not be able to do next year as a direct result of the budget savings? The enterprise agencies have had very substantial reductions in capital and other areas. What will you not be able to do next year as a result of those budget reductions?

When it comes to that balance, with what proportion of your budget next year will you employ staff? As I mentioned, there has been a 13 per cent increase in the wage bill. What proportion of the budget will be your running costs, if you like, and what proportion will be direct grants from SOSE next year, compared with this year?

Has the balance of where your money goes changed? You published your annual report last week. About 150 businesses, I think, were involved in £9 million of direct grants. I am also conscious that, according to the report, your wage bill went up by 13 per cent. I appreciate that that is because you are a new business and are still ramping up your structures. However, the message that I often get from businesses in the south of Scotland is, “We had a really positive meeting with SOSE and got some really good advice, but there’s nae revenue or no money or no grants.” Will that balance of direct support through advice and grants tilt towards advice? Will the grants get progressively smaller next year as a result of those budget cuts?

You have indicated that, as a result of that, the pubs code will not come in in October 2024, and that that is now likely to happen in early 2025. The SLTA raised concerns that that delay could result in pubcos seeking to end tied pub tenancies prior to the code taking effect next year, in order to avoid being tied to some of the provisions that are currently in the code and those that could be included as a result of further consultation. Do you recognise that point, and is there any action that you can take—other than seeking to bring in the code as quickly as possible—to avoid such unreasonable action?

I will raise an issue that Kevin Stewart promised that I would raise with you, which is about the use of self-directed support budgets. That was brought to the attention of the committee during our evidence session.

Concern was raised because some disabled people were being encouraged by local authorities to use their self-directed support budgets to undertake placements. It has been suggested that that is done to plug funding gaps that are caused by pressures on the availability of traditional grant support to organisations. It has also been suggested to the committee that, in effect, that amounted to unpaid work. One witness said that it was a “potential misuse” of self-directed support funds, and another said that it was a case of people “paying to be volunteers”. Is the Government aware of that?

That would certainly be helpful, minister, because some witnesses suggested that there was almost an unintended consequence of the use of that support—for example, there was less scrutiny of those funds. When an organisation receives a direct grant, it has to report back to the funder on its meeting of the objectives of that grant, but that is not the case with self-directed support, the use of which is ultimately up to the individual.

The second concern was that there was almost an incentive for an organisation to hold on to somebody for longer because they were funded through self-directed support. If that person left—for example, to go into employment—they would take the funding with them. That was an unintended consequence. Will you absolutely investigate those issues?