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Let us go through this in a logical order. That is important, because I am trying to get to the nub of the decision making. After coming to that conclusion, what happened next? Did you seek approval from the Scottish Government, in accordance with the Scottish public finance manual?

Good morning to you, Auditor General, and your colleagues. I will start with a question that is less about the specific content of the report and more about the overarching theme that you want us to take away from it.

On the one hand, I am getting the impression that, as the committee often hears with such reports, we are pushing the Government to go further and faster on public service reform. It is said that too many public services still involve clunky, physical, paper-based systems that are not digitised and not modern in ways that they could and should be. On the other hand, though, we seem to be beating the Government with a stick for moving too fast and leaving people behind.

I am therefore not quite sure what the overarching theme of this report is. Is it that the Government is going too fast and needs to take people with it, or is it that it needs to pick up the pace of digital reform while not leaving people behind—or is it perhaps both?

That timeline is stark. To put a pin point on it, when I joined the Parliament in 2016, I sat in a committee room not far from here, in which we discussed the procurement of the reaching 100 per cent—R100—programme, yet your report points to the fact that around 10 per cent of people still do not have access to the internet. Some eight years—nearly a decade—on from that time, a large chunk of people do not have digital skills or digital access. That speaks for itself.

Is there any particular reason why progress on the R100 programme—which means, presumably, reaching 100 per cent of the population—was not quite included in this report? I appreciate that there is some overlap with some of the work that Ofcom has been doing, but surely the infrastructure needs to be there before you can start teaching people the skills to use it.

Obviously, addressing the associated effects of rural depopulation and tackling digital exclusion are key drivers to repopulating rural and island communities.

This is perhaps a more macro question. Was there any expectation in the draft report that some of those issues might have been addressed in the human rights bill that we expected to see in the programme for government? Is there any feeling of disappointment that that has not featured in the Government’s legislative plans? What effect will that have on the ability to ensure that everyone in Scotland is digitally included?

The five major providers of internet and mobile telephony in the UK made more than £10 billion profit last year alone. If Government has no money, might there be a role for the private sector to chip in and show its charitable arm?

I will be as quick as I can. I will do it in two halves.

Did any analysis take place around the mygov.scot portal, which seems to claim glowing success, with 2.3 million users in Scotland and the sign-up of more than 40 organisations? Not many of my constituents who I speak to have ever heard of it or use it, but it seems to be a glowing success. Was that part of the analysis?

That is fine. It sounds like something that may have potential for growth in providing more inclusive services or access to more public services, as part of a wider strategy, if the infrastructure is already there.

The second half of my question—I am sorry to be cheeky, convener—is on the social tariff issue, which I am still trying to get my head around. Around 5 or 8 per cent—I was not sure which—of those who are eligible to take up a social tariff are doing so.

I had a quick look, and those tariffs range from about £12 to £25 per month, depending on what sort of speeds you want, from 15Mbps up to about 150Mbps. It is not bad; it gives you basic access. Is there a place for Government subsidy in that area, even at a basic level? For example, 100,000 households connected at basic speeds at £12 a month would cost the Government £14 million per year, but it would bring 100,000 households straight into the digital sphere. Is that the sort of intervention that you think would be helpful and which we should be probing the Government about?

Is that not part of the problem, Auditor General? The language that you use in the report and which you have repeated in your opening statement is relatively harsh in its analysis. You say that

“leadership ... has weakened”,

that

“momentum has ... slowed”

and that there is a lack of an action plan and a lack of lines of responsibility. These are common themes that we on the committee hear arising from a wide range of public services and from Government management and oversight of them. Do those things come as a surprise to you? Is there a feeling that it is perhaps not that the Government has taken its eye off the ball, due to pressures on public finances, but that its eye was never on the ball in the first place? I am trying to get a feel for whether the direction of travel is towards a worsening situation or whether the strategy was never there in the first place.

That is great news. I was really taken aback by the statistic that one in six Scots lack foundation-level digital skills—not advanced digital skills, but basic digital skills. How does that compare with other parts of Europe and the United Kingdom? Are we faring well, or is that the world average at the moment?

I might come back in with other questions later.