Chamber and committees

I will concentrate on economic inactivity which, as has rightly been said this morning, affects not only economic growth but wellbeing. I firmly believe that we have to address that situation in Scotland, so that economic activity is reduced.

What do you each feel about the comments that have been made within the business and industry sectors following the budget—that the budget has not done enough to address concerns about inactivity or to stimulate growth in the areas with the higher-paid jobs? What are your reflections on that?

That point about whether we have sufficiently accurate data on the reasons why people are inactive is a very interesting one. Do you think that there is a gap in the data? What do we have to do? If we do not have the right data, it is obviously very difficult to address the policy concerns.

For clarity, do you think that the ONS is doing something about that issue? It is quite serious if we do not have the right information.

Do you think—

I will start with a very technical point. Your forecast for median earnings in Scotland for 2024-25 is £28,200, while according to Office for National Statistics data, the median salary at £29,675 for the current year. What is the difference there?

I have a quick suggestion, which is that you repeat the wonderful lunchtime seminar that you did for MSPs and staff about four months ago. All your diagrams were far better than reading through an awful lot of text. It was a fantastic seminar and much appreciated by the staff and the Parliament.

Yes.

It seemed a bit strange, because I would have thought that it would be relatively easy to work that out. If you could get back to us, that would be extremely helpful.

I also want to ask about the gap between private and public sector earnings, which seems to be widening, as far as I can work out. Can you give us a bit of background on that?

Given that the committee is trying to drill down into where the greatest potential for economic growth and productivity improvements might be, those gaps are quite important.

Yes. They seem to be moving apart quite a bit. Is that correct?