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Welcome back to the European and External Relations Committee. Item 2 is evidence from our second cabinet secretary of the morning, and the focus of this evidence session is European structural funds. I welcome to the committee the Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure, Investment and Cities, Keith Brown. Good morning, cabinet secretary. Supporting him this morning is Shane Rankin, who is the deputy director for European structural funds at the Scottish Government.
Cabinet secretary, I believe that you want to make an opening statement.
I do. Thanks very much for the invitation to come and speak to the committee this morning. I provided the committee with an update on structural funds in advance, which I hope you found useful. I will be happy to respond to questions on that. I will start with a few remarks to put the update that I provided in context—not least because the committee has received substantial submissions on structural funds from three important and experienced stakeholders.
As the committee knows, we are in the second year of the new EU seven-year funding cycle and we have a new Commission with new priorities and new programmes. It is fair to say, from previous experience, that this is always the most difficult point in the funding cycle. The new programmes have been approved by the Commission, but the old programmes are still winding down. The old funds have been used up, the closure process is commencing and we have significant issues with the audit weaknesses that have been exposed in that process.
Organisations that previously secured structural funds are hoping that the Commission’s priorities have not changed and that they will secure funds again. They often hope to sustain and evolve projects from one programme period to the next and try hard to sustain capacity until the new programmes are operational and they can secure structural funds.
Linda Stewart’s submission for the University of the Highlands and Islands captures much of the complexity of this point in the cycle. Similarly, the submission from the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations captures the frustrations and anxieties of smaller organisations.
We have tried, wherever we can, to mitigate the impact of this transition period. We have tried to stretch funding from the old programmes as far forward as we can by recycling underspent funds and putting alternative gap funding in place, particularly for the national third sector bodies but also for local authorities that use structural funds to support third sector bodies in their localities.
What was different in this funding cycle was the economic crisis in 2008, which drove the Commission’s and member states’ expectations of the 2014 to 2020 structural funds. The priority for the funds has become economic growth and youth unemployment. For that reason, there is a significant funding allocation for youth unemployment in south-west Scotland. Hence, too, the expectation that the new Scottish programmes will concentrate the funds on innovation, business competitiveness and higher-level skills, and not as much as previously on tourism and physical regeneration. We recognise that those are extremely important areas, but they are not considered to be as high a priority as innovation, business competitiveness and higher-level skills when it comes to fostering economic growth across Europe and making Europe more competitive with China and the US.
What is not different in the new funding cycle is the Commission’s focus on sound financial management of structural funds. It cannot avoid that. You will know as well as I do the pressures that are on the Commission to ensure that its accounts are in order and that it can account for the public expenditure that it is involved in. It is, quite correctly, closely and constantly monitored by the European Parliament and the European Court of Auditors.
The 2007 to 2013 Scottish programmes were regularly criticised by Commission auditors for having too many projects, and the interruptions to those programmes prove their point. We have therefore been determined to avoid, where we can, the same kind of audit difficulties in the new programmes.
Interruptions are triggered when organisations that are receiving funds are found to have not complied with EU regulations, the rules of the programmes, procurement regulations or state aid law, or when they cannot, after several years, trace receipts, invoices or staff time sheets. Although it is absolutely correct to expect sound management of structural funds, the disruption and difficulties for smaller organisations that have to repay funds or that have their grants cancelled after several years’ work can be severe.
We have taken advantage of the requirement that we concentrate structural funds on a limited number of key themes to focus funds through the Scottish Government’s policy directorates and agencies and through local authorities, on the basis that those organisations should have match funding and the capacity to cope with regulatory compliance—which has increased in recent years—and the considerable EU audit burden that is always associated with structural funds. Those organisations also have the capacity to run procurement and challenge fund processes into which the smaller organisations that would previously have bid directly for structural funds can now bid without having to carry the audit burden and risk directly.
Our approach is yielding fewer projects but much wider use of procurement and simplified costing methods. It means, for instance, that structural funds are being used to expand a Big Lottery Fund poverty and social inclusion programme, which means that third sector bodies do not now have to apply separately for Big Lottery funding and structural funds. It means that local authorities can procure local third sector organisations to deliver employability programmes without those organisations having to be accountable to the European auditors. It also means that the business gateway can be expanded to support local growth companies in partnership with Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise.
I could go on, but I think that I have illustrated our approach and demonstrated our concern not to put smaller organisations at risk, our concern to make best use of delivery capacity and available match funding, and our concern—this is our overriding concern, and I know that it is the committee’s concern—to achieve the best possible impact from the structural funds.
Thank you, cabinet secretary. I am happy to go straight to questions.
I want to start with a question on the transitional funding for the Highlands and Islands. The UHI tells us that it has
“concerns that the concentration of activity and timescales does not allow for these intentions to be fully realised.”
That is a reference to the setting up of the Highlands and Islands territorial committee. UHI goes on to say
“this has led to the process often being rushed, with papers coming out very late, and information being circulated with insufficient time to agree a coordinated, regional response.”
Can you comment on that and say how it could be improved, or what the matter is?
There is no question but that there is a tension around trying to do things as quickly as possible. We have had criticism from others that we are taking too long with some of the programmes. As I said in my opening statement, the transition period is the most difficult part and there are undoubtedly tensions.
If Jamie McGrigor wants to write to me with specific concerns that UHI has in relation to its receiving material without having sufficient time for a response—as his question implied—I will look at those to see whether we can improve that. That is one of the tensions that are part of the transitional period.
In your letter to the committee of 18 June, you talk about the formal suspension of €144 million of social funds being down to errors. Can you tell us what those errors were and what percentage of the total programme they represented in monetary terms?
I will bring Shane Rankin in shortly, because he was involved in the process previously, whereas I took on responsibility for this area from October.
In my understanding, there were various errors. I mentioned some of them in my opening statement—there was a lack of audit trail, with receipts not being kept, and sometimes the funds that were sought were for projects that changed after the funds had been received. The errors occurred for a number of reasons.
I will ask Shane Rankin to provide some detail and to deal with the point about the percentage of the total spend involved.
The other principal reason for the errors was procurement failures of one kind or another. The procurement failures are typical across Europe—something like 40 per cent of errors across Europe are down to procurement failures, which become more and more challenging as the years go on.
Mr McGrigor asked specifically about the amount of money. There were two error rates: the error rate was about 3.9 per cent in the Highlands and Islands and about 8.8 per cent in the rest of Scotland. Those were the provisional error rates that were submitted to the Commission in the 2014 annual control report in December. After further work with the grant recipients, those rates have reduced to 2.3 per cent in the Highlands and Islands and 3.8 per cent or thereabouts in the lowlands.
As regards the specific funds that are at risk, somewhere in the region of €1.4 million will be recovered, and that represents the scale of the error in the programmes.
It is worth saying that, from a technical point of view, although the errors are very disturbing, there are errors and interruptions across Europe. There are about 77 interruptions on the European regional development fund side and a similar number on the ESF side. At any one time, about half the programmes across Europe are interrupted.
In view of the fact that there were errors in the 2000 to 2006 programme and a system was set up that was meant to prevent such errors from happening, are you disappointed by the current number of errors?
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Yes. As I said, I took on responsibility for the issue from October. With an error rate as high as 4 per cent, or nearly 5 per cent in some places, the reputational damage to Scotland and to the individual organisations is substantial. The officials concerned are doing a lot of work to get the figure down below 2 per cent.
That is also important for reasons to do with the amount of clawback. By and large, the Scottish Government has to stand in when there is clawback or when moneys are not passed on from the Commission but we have already passed them on to organisations. We have to pay for that, so of course it is in our interests to work the figures down.
The fact that, as Jamie McGrigor says, the issue persisted after the previous structural funds programme is worrying, but that explains why we have introduced simplified procedures and why we have structured the process so that, by and large, the organisations that will have a managing role have the capacity to put in place audit processes. We have learned lessons from the past and we are determined that such a high error rate should not happen in future.
Have the new simplified costs been approved?
That is the process that we are following.
The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities response says that there has been significant effort to create new simplified costs. How much of that effort was funded by technical assistance?
The effort is in two parts. There is the effort by Scottish Government officials and the effort by the lead partners, which are the agencies that will use the simplified costs. The technical assistance is used to fund only the managing authority, which is the civil service side. Therefore, no technical assistance was used, other than for the Scottish Government officials who were involved.
I have two questions—the first is general and the second is more specific. First, how will the Scottish structural fund programmes contribute to Scotland’s achievement of the five Europe 2020 targets?
I highlighted some of that in my opening statement, not least in relation to innovation and competitiveness. We have agreed with the Commission that the funding programmes will reflect our economic strategy, which, as you will know, has shifted in focus. From 2007 to 2014, our economic strategy spoke very much about sustainable economic growth, but we have now shifted that to take account of the fact that we can have economic growth but, if it is not shared by everybody, we are not achieving what we need to achieve. There has been some synergy in relation to that.
I will mention some of the areas that I did not refer to in my opening statement. There are some exciting projects in relation to low-carbon transport, which will help with the 2020 goals and our longer-term goals on carbon emissions. We have done an excellent programme with the University of Edinburgh’s centre for the study of environmental change and sustainability, which is just up the road, and various other partners. That involves working across Scotland to help to achieve that. We have £55 million of European regional development funding going into low-carbon infrastructure and sustainable economic growth.
I mentioned business competitiveness and innovation. To give the member an idea of the level of priority that is attached to that, I point out that there is £65 million under ERDF for business competitiveness, £65 million for innovation, £40 million for access to finance and £35 million for next-generation broadband investment. On sustainable growth, there is £25 million for low-carbon transport, £55 million for low-carbon infrastructure and £45 million for the resource-efficient circular economy accelerator—do not ask me to explain exactly what that means. That gives an idea of our priorities in trying to achieve the goals for 2020.
On European structural funds, there is £156 million for inclusive growth. The fact that the biggest chunk of money is going into that reflects my point about ensuring that economic prosperity is shared equally. There is also £40 million for social inclusion and combating poverty. Those are some of the things that will help us to achieve the goals, and that is the kind of priority that we attach to them.
I am particularly interested in the programmes on raising the employment rate and reducing poverty—those are two of the 2020 objectives that dovetail with Scottish Government strategies.
We are seeing that with other aspects, too. We think that business competitiveness will increase employability, and I have already mentioned skills. All of that should be taken in concert with the Scottish Government’s actions on the living wage. I think that we discussed this issue at the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee a couple of weeks ago, but if you pay people a living wage, by and large, they will spend the money that they earn, and they should earn a wage that they can live on. Paying a living wage increases economic activity, which in turn helps employability.
We are also concerned to ensure access to employability. I have discussed supported employment, which can increase access to the job market for everyone.
Such things work in concert with other aspects of Scottish Government policy, particularly procurement, for which I am responsible.
I have a question on the concerns that SCVO has raised about the use of public sector agencies to manage the structural funds programmes. It thinks that that poses a risk to the adoption of innovative approaches in addressing socioeconomic issues such as the ones that I have highlighted. The SCVO argues that
“Innovation and ... priority for the social economy are the most obvious casualties of such a public sector led strategy.”
Would you care to comment on those criticisms?
I have had a number of discussions with the SCVO, including a meeting with its deputy chief executive, about those concerns. A number of the concerns in its submission mirror those that it raised during the previous transition period, which, as I have mentioned, is an anxious time.
I am very alive to those concerns. I am also alive to the fact that we cannot have the same level of interruptions and money being clawed back, which is damaging to the organisation concerned, the Scottish Government and Scotland’s reputation in the EU. That is a tension. The public authorities that you mention have greater capacity to undertake and sustain the audit function. We are trying to take away some of the burden.
I am very concerned about the SCVO’s anxieties. We have set up the third sector forum, where it can meet Scottish Government officials directly. In addition, as I said, I have met the SCVO, as has Alex Neil. The forum’s first meeting was very positive. I am more than happy to meet the SCVO and go through the issue with it again. I do not apologise for taking the action that was necessary to avoid placing a heavy audit burden on some organisations. Indeed, performing that audit function correctly can put a quite disproportionate cost on a small organisation.
There has obviously been a change to the co-financing of programmes. Did that impact on—or did it cause—the problems that you have mentioned?
Some of the public bodies that we have spoken about are better placed to access match funding, which could obviously increase the available pot of funds.
The SCVO also raised a concern about a lack of transparency in the discussions between the Scottish Government and local government. I am keen for there to be transparency, so I have asked officials to look at how we can make improvements in that regard. The SCVO is aware of that work and why we are doing it. However, it still has concerns, which we will continue to try to address. We will also continue to meet the SCVO to discuss its concerns.
Does Shane Rankin have anything further to say on co-financing?
The co-financing issue goes to the heart of the change. The old programmes generated around 800 projects for around £800 million. The projects were therefore small, so a disproportionate audit burden was placed on small organisations.
The move to strategic interventions with concentrated funding is a device whereby large public organisations, which typically provide the match funding to the smaller organisations in the first place, combine the funding before offering it. That simplifies the whole process. The large organisations take the audit burden rather than the smaller ones. Procurement flat rates and simplified costs are measures that simplify that audit trail. How much will be paid for what is all agreed up front. The cost methodology that causes the audit trail issue that the minister referred to is avoided if we can establish all those things. However, there are tensions in the commission’s guidance and advice on those measures, and that makes establishing simplified costs quite challenging.
Cabinet secretary, I understand that the total value to Scotland of all the structural funds is nearly €2 billion, and that roughly half of that comes from the European Union itself. What would be the impact on Scotland and on all those programmes if the UK were to leave the European Union?
It is worth pointing out that it would be very hard to quantify the impact, which is one of the worrying things. We receive around £900 million. Obviously, it would be very detrimental if we were to lose a significant chunk of that money.
Organisations and the Scottish Government plan some years ahead in anticipation of receiving those funds. If there were a threat to the funds—even if that threat did not eventually materialise—people would have to take early decisions to try to anticipate its impact. If we were forced out of the EU, the damage could be substantial. A quite substantial amount of funding is already committed, and I do not think that that could be changed. However, the uncertainty that is created could be extremely damaging. Also, we are talking about programmes that impact directly on disadvantaged people’s lives. Irrespective of the eventual cost in financial terms, the costs in terms of uncertainty would be hard to quantify, and the damage to programmes could be substantial.
Is there any commitment from, or even discussion with, the UK Government about the UK making up the shortfall if there is an exit from the European Union? If the funding from Europe suddenly ceases, either the programmes end or they continue to be funded from other sources. Has there been any discussion about that, or any commitment from the UK Government that it might make up any shortfall?
There has been no such commitment. As the referendum gets under way, the Scottish Government will ask that question.
As a Government, we are very keen to take a positive approach in the referendum by concentrating on the benefits of our being in Europe. We are not looking to concentrate unnecessarily on the downside; we want to make our approach as positive as possible. However, you are quite right to say that we should have the best and clearest information about the effect of a no vote.
It is still the UK Government’s position that it wants to stay in and reform the EU. That is the latest position, and we should work with that. However, you are right that we should understand the risks. The position will become clearer as the referendum campaign goes forward. We will ask those questions.
You mentioned the youth employment initiative, which is particularly important for the south-west of Scotland. Is that one of the programmes that will continue after the revisions that you outlined in your opening remarks?
In 2012, when youth unemployment was in excess of 25 per cent, an extra programme was devised for regions with high youth unemployment. That programme allowed us to concentrate funding on measures to assist young people under 29 into work or training. The south-west region qualified for and received that funding, which has to be committed by the end of 2015. It is worth saying that the total cost of the youth unemployment programme in south-west Scotland is around £100 million, which has to be committed by the end of this year.
Good morning. I apologise if you have already covered this ground. The SCVO has said, including in its evidence to the committee, that, as a result of the reduced involvement of the third sector, marginalised groups in society are not being reached. What are we are doing in Scotland to try to reach those hard-to-reach groups? How are we supporting them?
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You are right to say that we have already discussed the issue. We are not trying not to work with the SCVO; in our view, we have tried to be helpful to the SCVO. Its work is about trying to reach marginalised people, and we want to help it do that. If we can take away some of the risk and the burden around the audit function, that should help the SCVO reach more people. That is the overall aim.
Despite that, the SCVO has expressed concerns, including, as I said, its wish to know more about, and have more transparency around, the Government’s discussions with local government, so that it can be sure that the issues are being addressed. We are determined to make things transparent, and we are not trying to cut the SCVO out of the process. We are trying our best to address those concerns.
I mentioned some of our programmes, including the pipelines for youth employment and the programmes for social inclusion and to combat poverty. There is a particular focus on rural programmes—if it is mentioned at all, rural poverty often comes after urban poverty. We are approaching the administration of the structural funds in a way that maximises their impact.
Good morning, cabinet secretary. I have two points to raise with you today. The first is on broadband and wi-fi facilities across Scotland. There are many parts of Scotland that just do not have that service. The European Union reduced funding, so I know that there are challenges before we even kick off. I am hoping that you might be able to shed some light on whether, if organisations have received funding but have not been able to deliver, we could negotiate passing the money on to that sector in order to bridge the gap.
We acknowledge how much work needs to be done not just on broadband but on mobile phone connectedness. This is not an excuse for where we are, which is not satisfactory. I went to Canada for Scotland week this year, and the Canadians face exactly the same issues that we face. It is worth considering what they said about how to provide broadband effectively in many parts of Canada that do not have a large population to sustain the service. We could fit quite comfortably into any one of a number of the Canadian provinces, but they have the same issues there—the issues are not unique to Scotland. We have to improve the position here.
Mr Swinney is the lead for digital connectivity, although I also have responsibility. We are trying to maximise the funding: some comes from the EU, but the bulk of the funding on which we rely comes from the UK Government.
I take the point about whether we can use funds that have not been spent. I think that it is possible to do that with rural programmes, so the money could be put into broadband. Perhaps Shane Rankin can come in on this.
There has been an allocation from the current programmes for the broadband programme to support digital investment. We hope that that will be drawn down in the next six months or so.
In the new programmes, we have been somewhat limited in our capacity to use broadband infrastructure as a priority because the Commission did not view the area as a priority for the UK. However, it was persuaded that, in the rural and more remote parts of Scotland, there was definitely an argument to be made. Even more unusually, we persuaded the Commission that there should be an allocation from the rural programmes specifically for broadband. That allocation has been made, and it will continue to support the investment and roll-out of the infrastructure programme over the next six or seven years or so.
When I was the transport minister, there was quite rightly a great deal of focus on rail and road and other infrastructure in terms of connectedness. Broadband connectedness potentially increases many people’s access to healthcare and retail opportunities, which are very important to people in rural areas. It also increases people’s ability to work or conduct business from home, which helps the environment. You will see—indeed, you can see it now—an increased emphasis on broadband or digital connectedness, especially in rural areas, whereas perhaps the previous focus was on road and rail. For some people, having the right road to where they are or the right railway service is less important than having that digital connectivity.
The Scottish Government is trying to make as much progress as we can. We are seeing new developments in the hardest-to-reach areas and the increased use of things such as satellite broadband. We are trying to work on that in a joined-up way.
I am pleased that that is a priority. I hope that, if any moneys are left over, they can go to support that work.
My second point is on youth employment initiatives. Only yesterday, I found out that some colleges are not as eager to promote that training as they could be. I will write to the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning about that, but I will keep you in the loop as well, because part of your portfolio is about ensuring that people have decent employment. I flag that up today as a point of information. Perhaps we can address the matter again at a later stage. FE colleges can play an important role in such initiatives, and it is important that they are seen to be doing that.
If your point is that some colleges are not maximising the opportunities that come from European funding, I would be interested in hearing about that. However, as you rightly say, the primary responsibility lies with the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning.
There is support in European programmes for digital skills, which is one area in which we know that we have a lot of work to do. That takes us back to your previous question. There is a gap there. At a reception in this very room, I made the point that employers should take more cognisance of the number of veterans who leave the armed forces with those skills, even if they are not expressed in the same way as people talk about civilian skills. If you are saying that you are aware of circumstances in which the FE sector is not maximising the opportunities from European funding, I would be interested in hearing more about that.
Is rural Scotland, particularly outside the Highlands and Islands, getting a fair crack of the whip from structural funds?
There are two ways of looking at that. You could look back at how well rural areas did in the previous structural funds allocation, or you could look forward at what we are putting in place in rural areas for the next six years. The perception among the agencies that are involved is that the rural side of things has always had a high profile. I know that there are concerns—some of those are being dealt with by my colleague Richard Lochhead—but, through the LEADER programme and others, rural areas have had a high profile. It is not all strictly rural, but much of the agricultural and fisheries support also has an impact on rural communities. All local authorities get support from structural funds, especially when they represent rural areas.
It is probably true to say that—as in other sectors—we have done a great deal but there is more that we can do. If you can give any examples of how we could do better in terms of rural provision, I would be interested in hearing them.
The bureaucracy of the LEADER programme is often raised as an issue in rural areas. I do not know whether that will get any easier going forward. Do you have any comments on that?
I will get Shane Rankin to talk about the specifics. That issue was raised with me last year in a rural area in the west of Scotland, when the point was made quite forcibly that it can be difficult for tenant farmers and others to go through all the compliance that is required.
From what I said earlier, you will gather that we are alive to the idea of trying to reduce the audit burden, and it is worth saying that that is going against the grain of what Europe is doing. The Commission is rightly coming under a lot of scrutiny. It does not get its accounts approved, and it has real challenges in dealing with the infrastructure in some of the new member states in eastern Europe, where the capacity is not the same as it is in countries that have been EU members for some time. The Commission is therefore increasing the audit function or compliance regime in those countries, and we are being caught by that. We are trying to mitigate that as best we can, but it will sometimes impact on very small organisations.
Shane Rankin may be able to say something about the LEADER programme.
Obviously, the previous LEADER programme was challenging. LEADER is supported by the European rural development programme rather than the ERDF and ESF programmes. One of the significant changes in the new regime is the ministers’ agreement that the rural and marine structural funds programmes will be governed as one and we will seek alignment between those programmes. Therefore, there is dialogue about what LEADER and the structural funds programmes will do so that there is no confusion, overlap or competition at a local level between two funds for the same thing, which would cause difficulty. I hope that some of the bureaucratic issues in relation to LEADER will be lessened in local areas because of the governance arrangements and the alignment between the programmes.
Thank you.
I have a question on the slightly different subject of the youth employment initiative in south-west Scotland. What are the expectations of that project? How will we measure its success or otherwise?
I will let Shane Rankin speak about the technical measures. It is worth saying that although we have managed to attract substantial funding for the south-west, our record on youth unemployment has improved exceptionally from last year. I think that we have the lowest youth unemployment in the UK now. A lot of work has been done, not least through education initiatives, which Hanzala Malik mentioned. I do not know whether Shane Rankin wants to talk about the technical measures.
Sure. That is an interesting question that goes to the heart of the whole European Commission approach to all the programmes. They are much more target orientated and outcomes driven, and payments are based on results. Because the youth employment initiative is a shorter programme that is front-loaded to be committed by the end of 2015—it is not supposed to run to 2020—its targets are relatively simple. It is a matter of getting young people up to 29 into work. I cannot quote the exact targets, but they will be very specific and clear cut.
Can you find those targets for us?
Yes, certainly. We will write to you.
We would appreciate that.
We will get back to you. Youth employment has changed quite substantially, as has female employment, over the past number of months. Some real progress has been made, so how the targets remain relevant is an interesting question. We will provide information on the targets that we expect to achieve and the way that things have changed over the past year because of the progress that has been made. Shall we write to the committee as a whole, convener, or to the member? Perhaps we could provide the information to you.
If you provide it to the committee, that would help with our deliberations.
Willie Coffey has a quick final supplementary question.
I want to follow up Hanzala Malik’s questions about broadband, cabinet secretary. We understood that mobile roaming charges throughout the European Union were meant to have been eliminated by this December. That fantastic move would have supported the principles behind the digital single market. We also understand that it was not the Commission that reversed that commitment, but that somehow the member states did so. There is a lack of clarity on who exactly was responsible for that.
Can the Scottish Government do anything to find out how those circumstances came about and—I hope—lobby for the commitment to be reinstated, with a clear timetable for the elimination of mobile roaming charges? If the European Union is promoting the principles of the digital single market, it seems key that we should support that initiative. The European Union has reversed quite an important commitment.
Yes, we can find out exactly what the circumstances were, who was responsible and when the process is expected to be completed by. A lot of change has already taken place. I was in Milan on Monday and got the usual message about the cost of calls and texts, which was substantially less than the costs that I remember in recent years.
We will find out that information and write back to the committee on how that came about, who is responsible for implementing it and when the process will be completed by. We are happy to do that.
Thank you very much, cabinet secretary. Obviously, we have time constraints this morning, but we have additional questions for you. If we can write to you with them, that would be very helpful. Specifically on youth employment, we have information that the youth guarantee has been criticised and that there is a question mark about it within Europe. Some details on that matter—for example, what the targets are, whether they have been met and how many jobs are involved—would be really helpful in informing the committee’s work.
Youth employment, broadband and a few other things are the main topics for the committee. We keep a close eye on them. Anything that can help to inform the process would be very gratefully received.
On behalf of the committee, I thank you very much for coming along and answering our questions.
I suspend the meeting for five minutes to allow people to get a quick comfort break.
10:45 Meeting suspended.