Chamber and committees

It has to manage a lower amount than was previously estimated.

Have the forecast errors led to changes in the model going forward, so that you can reduce the level of forecast errors?

I come to my final point. I accept that you may not have seen these figures, but we were talking about the volatility around self-assessment taxpayers. What impact do you think the acceleration in the move to a cashless society has had? A report last year said that 23 million people in the UK no longer use cash, and that within a decade, the proportion of cash payments would be close to 6 per cent.

That leads neatly to my line of questioning. We have heard about how best practice and flexibility helps to retain staff and so on. If we are going to help parents out of poverty, the other aspect is encouraging employers to pay the real living wage. My question is about support for businesses. How do we improve engagement with businesses in order to provide practical advice so that the benefits that you guys have witnessed of having flexible working and paying at least the real living wage can be rolled out to the 85,000 micro and small businesses in Scotland? How do we improve that engagement and promote what you guys have spoken about?

You are right that it is a difficult question, but surely it is about promoting the benefits. If you pay the real living wage, you reduce your recruitment costs because you do not have staff turnover, and your training costs do not increase because you retain staff.

On that point, we heard last week that new legislation is coming in across the United Kingdom to introduce a day 1 right to flexible working, but that 49 per cent of businesses are unaware of that.

Is there a need for a business mentoring system to be introduced? If so, who would run it? Would it be the likes of Highlands and Islands Enterprise?

My final point is on the issue that you have just raised. You are right that procurement law can be used to promote the real living wage and flexibility. Last week, the Scottish Trades Union Congress called for employment law to be devolved. Would not it be easier if we had the powers to do something about these issues, rather than playing about with procurement regulations?

Are there on-going information technology problems?

What about duplicate profiles?