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Quite a lot has been covered already with regard to how inspections could work, looking at the new inspectorate aspect of reform, and we have talked about the qualifications and assessments themselves. However, I am interested in the panel’s perspective on what the governance and structures for the new qualifications body could look like. What would address the issues that are regularly cited with regard to how the SQA operates as an organisation?

I will put essentially the same question on Education Scotland, which is being reformed rather than replaced. What organisational, structural and governance reforms would address some of the issues that you have been talking about?

I direct the Education Scotland question to Greg Dempster; I suppose that you have less locus on the new qualifications body. I would be interested in hearing from Peter Bain, in the first instance, on governance structures for the new national qualifications body.

Pauline Walker, I will direct the question to you, if you do not mind, although that is somewhat arbitrary. Communication has to be two way. A lot of criticism of Education Scotland has said that it produces huge amounts of resources that teachers did not ask for. Some are good and some are not, but they are fundamentally not what teachers were asking for. How do we create a structure in which the work of Education Scotland, however we rename it, is being directed by what teachers say they need? If we want bottom-up communication, what structure do we need to put in place for teachers to be the ones who direct the work of the body that is supposed to produce resources to support them?

I recognise that this is a somewhat different bit of work, so it is fine if you are not across the detail of it. Are the processes and structures that are being used for setting up the new qualifications body and reforming Education Scotland similar to what you think would be required to deliver on your recommendations? Looking at what is happening in that space, would you be concerned if that was the approach that we took to implementing what you have recommended?

I strongly agree with Janet Brown’s point about the importance of rhetoric and Gordon Stobart’s point about wider communication skills. However, I would be interested in your thoughts on whether those are the kind of skills that need to sit inside a subject silo such as English.

A lot of employers tell us that they do not need to know that somebody was able to get a B grade in higher English; they need to know that that person can communicate with their team, work colleagues and customers. Are those not exactly the kind of skills that Professor Hayward’s recommendations around the diploma could recognise? You can be recognised for your communication skills and your ability to persuade without having done three 50-minute periods of English a week leading up to that exam. Actually, we need to recognise those kinds of skills in a more holistic sense rather than get trapped in the subject silos that lead us to all the issues that were talked about, such as BGE just becoming a diluted version of senior phase.

Thank you for that. Is it the Government’s position that the money that has not yet been distributed through either the recycling improvement fund or other capital investment in local authorities will be sufficient for implementation of the code of practice plus that you are talking about and that the money that has been invested so far should be sufficient for them to comply with the existing voluntary code of practice—obviously, most local authorities are not complying with it, and we will talk about why in a moment—and the money that is still to be distributed will be sufficient to meet the additional infrastructure requirements on local authorities?

Thank you very much. That is useful.

My final point in that area is about fixed-penalty notices for littering and the point that local authorities make around cost recovery there, which was pointed out a few moments ago. The FM assumes that 100 per cent of fines will be paid whereas some local authorities say that it is only 10 to 15 per cent. Again, I am interested in whether you could speak to that a little more and specifically to what conversations you have had with local authorities about why the payment rate for the existing fixed-penalty notice system is so low. Nobody would expect 100 per cent—I am interested in why 100 per cent is in the FM—but 10 per cent to 15 per cent seems to be remarkably low. Presumably, there are specific barriers in place that Government wants to help local authorities to remove.

Thanks very much. What is the timescale for the research that you mentioned, and how will that feed into the strategy? I completely understand why the Government would not want to concede that fines are not being paid, but fines are not being paid. The financial memorandum works on the assumption that they are, so we need to take into account whether the additional measures that you are developing, which the research will, we hope, inform, and which the strategy will deliver on to help local authorities increase the payment rate, will be in place in time for the additional fixed-penalty notice powers coming into place. If they are not, clearly, we will not get close to the 100 per cent payment. It would be good if we understood the timescale for that a little bit more.

Thanks very much. I want to move from local authorities to ask about the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and its enforcement around preventing the destruction of unsold goods. The cost of enforcement for SEPA ranges from £30,000 to £200,000. What scope does SEPA have for cost recovery? Given the discussion around proportionality of enforcement, I imagine that that will be primarily aimed at very large businesses that produce or sell huge amounts of goods and that, potentially, destroy large amounts of the goods that they do not sell. Is there scope for SEPA to recover some of the costs from those businesses through financial penalties in that area?

I want to return to the issues that the convener brought up about the recycling improvement fund and what will be expected of local authorities under the code of practice. Some local authorities made the point that about two thirds of the improvement fund has already been distributed, but they obviously do not yet know what requirements will be placed on them by the code of practice. Can you say a little about what conditions the Government has attached to the improvement fund and how you expect the eventual code of practice to reflect the priorities that have already been set through the distribution of a not insignificant amount of money?

I want to look specifically at the estimates of the cost for local authorities of the household waste provision. There is a bit of a dispute about that. The financial memorandum estimates that they will need two full-time equivalent members of staff per 150,000 people for enforcement. Some local authorities that have fed back take issue with the financial cost associated with the two FTE positions and with the two positions per 150,000 ratio.

Usually, with the financial memorandums that we look at, the Government has an interest in seeking to minimise costs whereas, if we were to be cynical about it, we would say that local government often has an interest in overestimating costs because it wants to get its hands on as much money as possible, for perfectly legitimate reasons. It is the job of the committee to figure out who is right or where the point in the middle is. Could you explain in a little more detail the thinking behind the cash estimate for two FTEs—local authorities believe that it would require more than that—and the two per 150,000 ratio and how that balances out across local authorities that range from high-density urban areas to remote, rural and island communities?