Chamber and committees

Well, not quite, because another person was offered the opportunity to make an opening statement. Alan Sutherland, do you want to do so?

Before we move on, I ought to declare that I am a customer of Business Stream. I would like to ask Johanna Dow how Business Stream does all its meter readings. Are they done manually by people who go out to customers? If so, are there plans to streamline that in the future?

Sorry, Mark—can we hear from Peter Farrer in answer to your question? After that, I would really like to hear from Alan Sutherland—I am giving him prior warning—if he would like to add anything, because he may have a role in that regard.

My final question is about staffing costs. Wages and salaries increased from £168.7 million to £173.4 million, which I understand to be an increase of roughly 3 per cent. Where do you predict the figure will be after addressing the cost of living crisis? Will it be considerably higher? When do you negotiate wages and agree staff costs?

The flipside is that Scottish Water could ask the Scottish Government for more money—if it had it—because it is not getting the investment from revenue to allow it to carry out various projects.

I will let Jackie Baillie ask another question, if she is very quick.

Thank you for clarifying that. I thought that I was off track there.

Okay. All that I can say is that I am not going to play cards with you, because you kept a very straight face when I obviously made an error.

I will go back to the deputy convener, who perhaps would like to ask her question again.

Looking at the accounts for the period in question, the revenue during the first Covid period appears to be about £54 million down on what it is currently. That is a 10 per cent drop. Was that all down to Covid?

A drop of £54 million or 10 per cent in revenue over that period seems quite large.