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I have a potential daft-laddie question about the funding. If a young person injures himself or has some kind of medical issue that means that they need to go from secure accommodation to a hospital, who pays for that? Someone needs to procure the transport provider. Does the secure accommodation centre pay for that from the block grant of funding that they are given for the child, or does it invoice the local authority for individual journeys? How does the funding work?

Might it delay the journey if negotiation about who is going to pay for the trip needs to take place before the young person is actually placed in a vehicle and taken to wherever they need to go for whatever it might be?

Tony Buchanan, the COSLA submission says that you believe that secure transport should be included in the regulations. Do you support the inclusion of a power in the bill for ministers to make regulations in this area? Is it correct to say that you are not looking for anything specific, such as the criteria and standards for secure transport, to be included in primary legislation and that you would be content with ministers having that regulation-making power?

If it was to take that on, would it require a change in primary legislation or could it be done through secondary legislation?

Alex Thomas, I am particularly interested in the suggestion by the Institute for Government of a new statutory duty for the civil service to serve the public interest as well as the Government of the time.

That goes back to the exact point that you just made about countering the anti-democratic, deep-state argument in that regard. You said that the key would be parliamentary accountability. It sounds like you are essentially saying that the civil service should serve both the Government and the public through the Parliament. That leads to the question of what the civil service would be doing for and at the behest of the Parliament that the Government would not be asking of it.

Thank you very much. That is all from me, convener.

I again go back to one of John Mason’s earlier points. Dr Foster, in your written evidence you said that the Scottish Parliament is generally well regarded on public engagement. The flip side of that—and a point of criticism that is often levied both at members here and at the Scottish Government—is the length of time that it takes to make any particular decision or to deliver any particular policy in Scotland. Any piece of legislation will go through multiple consultations at Government level. It will then go through parliamentary consultation before it is considered by committees. That is not to mention co-design processes, which, for very good reason, are becoming more popular. However, in all sorts of areas of public policy those approaches are cumulatively leading to a lot of frustration about the length of time that it takes to deliver on issues that are not even vaguely politically contentious. There might be complete consensus in the Parliament on them, but it still takes us years longer to deliver on than either the public or we ourselves would want. That is in part—although not entirely—because of what has been referred to as “consultationitis”.

How do we wrestle with the tension between having thorough public engagement, which, by necessity, takes time, and delivering policies in the timescales that the public would expect of us and within which we would want to deliver?

I come back to one of John Mason’s latter points, on transparency. I will set the scene with an example. You might have seen that, a couple of months ago, there was a leak from a private conversation in which a senior NHS official suggested that in order to ease pressure on the health service we needed a two-tier service, with the wealthiest people paying for it, so that for some people it would no longer be free at the point of use.

The then health secretary, who is now the First Minister, had to immediately come out and say that there was no chance of that happening under this Government. However, there is a strong enough argument there to say that, given the pressure on the health service, senior officials should feel free—at least in a private space—to come up with whichever ideas they want, as long as there is sufficient accountability, and that, ultimately, it is for ministers to decide on them. In that case, that idea should never have flown.

My understanding of the argument on transparency that both of you propose is that whatever decision has been made needs to be correctly minuted and documented—the evidence base for it needs to be presented—but that we should not necessarily compel the civil service or our Government to publish what the alternative options were in each particular case. Every idea that is floated should not necessarily make its way into the public domain, because that would have a chilling effect. Is that a correct paraphrasing of your positions, or is a level of transparency required around proposals alternative to whichever one the Government eventually lands on?

Convener, I am substituting on the Parliamentary Bureau this morning, so I will have to leave in five minutes. It would be rude of me to get up and leave while people are answering my questions, so I am happy to let another colleague in at this point.

Thanks very much.