Chamber and committees

I get it. Mr McAra, do you have anything to add on that?

You have given us a good picture of that, so we have got the message.

My question is on that point. Does the national performance framework help us in that regard? Allan Faulds has just said that it does not help us to prioritise cuts, because there is no hierarchy in it. Is the same not true of spending? It does not really help us to prioritise spending, because there is no hierarchy.

I have mentioned dualling the A9 and building houses. If you are choosing between the two, the national performance framework does not help us, because both can fit somewhere in the national performance framework, can they not?

Mr Robertson, you might want to comment on anything that has been said, but I have a question about something that I picked up in the Scottish Borders Council’s submission. Can you explain what the problem is with bid funding? Instead of having to bid for funds, what would be a better approach?

As a supplementary to that, are you—is anyone else—aware of the situation in other countries? There seems to be the suggestion that the issue is talked about more in Wales or elsewhere. Why is that the case?

I will follow on from that. In your consultation response, Allan Faulds, you talk about how delivery against the NPF

“is reliant on the government dedicating sufficient resources to doing so.”

Are you arguing that there would have to be more resources in order to do that, or do you think that the present resources, given that we are quite constrained, could be better used to fit in with the national performance framework?

As an aside before I get into my main questions, I was interested in a figure that Jamie Robertson quoted as an example. I think that you said that building a house in East Dunbartonshire costs £420,000. You could have my flat for £100,000, although admittedly it is not in East Dunbartonshire and would therefore not do you a lot of good. However, that raises the question of whether local councils are a bit too keen on doing everything in a gold-plated way and absolutely perfectly. Would it not be better to use that money to buy four flats off the shelf? They would not be perfect, but we have a housing emergency and you would get four families off the streets.

Mr Burr, you can come in on any of the questions that have been asked, but, on a completely different note, I want to ask you about the idea of a single island authority. Would that save money, or would it just make things a bit more efficient?

I will take information technology as an example. You would still have to link to national IT services in the NHS and COSLA, so you would not really save in that area, would you?

Is the depreciation not £1.1 billion?