Chamber and committees

Perhaps I can ask the minister to take into account the extensive work that was done by the Economy, Energy and Fair Work Committee in the previous parliamentary session, which threw up a number of key issues, including the question of independent financial advice.

How do they identify that they have been refused on the basis of their gender? I am interested in how that process works.

Clare Reid, do you have anything to add?

Stacey Dingwall, do you have a view on that? How confident is the FSB?

My concern is to get to the bottom of whether female-led enterprises need to be better skilled at making applications or whether they get turned down or rebuffed when they try to apply. I am still not sure what the answer is on that.

Okay, that is good to know.

In your report, you state that, in order to

“improve the response rate, NRS field force staff offered support and assistance across Scotland”,

and that, in particular, they

“focused support in areas with lower response rates”.

Which areas had lower response rates and what additional support, as referred to, was actually given in those areas? Was it just more of the same, or was there something extra?

Auditor General, I would like to go back to something that you started to talk about in, I think, your conversation with the convener. The rest of the UK—England, Wales and so on—had access to other databases, which enabled them effectively to boost the census return levels. Do you have any idea what percentage improvement was achieved because of that?

Your report also states that NRS is investigating, or continuing to investigate, the reasons for the lower-than-expected response rate and why it was lower in comparison with rates in other countries. How is it doing that, what progress is it making, and is there a target date?

You have not mentioned anything about timescales or actual progress.

You referred to Glasgow as an area that had a lower response rate. Are there other areas of significance where similar patterns emerged?