That leads quite well on to my next question. I will start with Ms Rowand this time.

One of the submissions that we have received says that, in taking the five-year approach, the Scottish Government would not have to spend all its money now but could save some and put it into reserves to give more certainty towards the end of the five-year period. Following on from what you have just said, I have a feeling that, although that would give more certainty, local government and others would not be happy if we held a lot of money back.

There is a lot of material to consider in the evidence. I have noted down some comments that have been made by witnesses, but not always who made them. Some might be from you, but some might not. Some witnesses have commented that the whole review is too high level and that there is not enough detail in it. Do you agree? If so, what else should be in it? How much more detailed should it be?

Yes. Although local and national Government might not know exactly what they are going to get, they know that they will get a chunk; however, your members might end up getting nothing in April.

Mr Sim, would you like to come in on my general questions about whether the framework is too high level, and whether the Scottish Government should be holding back reserves?

I am interested to hear you say that, because it relates to my next, and probably final, point. I took the opportunity to look at the accounts of the University of Glasgow, which is where I studied. As at last July, its unrestricted reserves were £766 million and its total reserves were more than £1 billion. That is more than the Scottish Government is allowed to have in reserves, let alone what it actually has, and it is more than the university’s total annual income. I accept that the University of Glasgow might be one of the richer universities, but when it is sitting on so much money, how can you plead that we are not paying enough per student?

I also take the point that you made in answer to Michelle Thomson that the first bid that appears will not necessarily be typical of what will come thereafter. The first one in Glasgow that I am aware of is for £13 million for the Pollok stables. I am all for horses and I am all for a bit of culture, but some people would feel that that is not the top priority if we are trying to level up the poorest communities in Glasgow. I presume that we could build 130 houses for that money. What is your answer to that? I would have thought that that bid sent out a strange signal.

I am all for budget discipline. In your letter, you talked about helping to “troubleshoot delivery issues”, which is a bit vague, but I am encouraged by the fact that you have said that you would “look sympathetically” at such situations, which is a bit stronger and will probably reassure people a bit more.

To change the subject, you have a very long ministerial title. I want to ask about the intergovernmental relations part of it. Liz Smith touched on the budget and issues such as transparency, but I am thinking about the timing of it. It is clear that the past few years have been strange, so, in a sense, we can leave them aside. For me, the ideal scenario would be for the UK to set its budget, after which Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland could set their budgets, and then local government could set its budget. That would seem to be the logical process, but we have not had that recently.

I do not know whether that falls within your remit; I am sure that the Chancellor of the Exchequer and other people have a part to play in that, too. In the longer run, do you think that we can get to a place where first the UK sets its budget, then the devolved Administrations and local government set theirs?

I take your point that there are poorer people in all communities. I have been in Aberdeen and seen the poorer areas there, for example. However, it could also be said that, in general, a poorer person who lives in a richer area will do better than a poorer person in a poor area. Would you accept that?

That is a fair answer—it is actually quite a good one. I will leave it at that.

Last—I will let others decide whether it is least—I would like to return to the question of whether the money is going to the neediest areas, although I realise that colleagues have already touched on that. In your helpful letter to the committee, Mr Gove, you say that 60 per cent of the bids have gone to priority 1 areas in Scotland. I find that a little bit surprising. If we are really levelling up, should it not be 100 per cent?

We have a cross-party group on industrial communities, which tends to focus on the former coalfields and other industrial areas. It also works closely with the Industrial Communities Alliance. It did an analysis of the 105 successful bids and made the point that, of the 94 successful bids in England, Scotland and Wales, only 42 came from the poorest third of sub-regions, going by gross value added per head, and that 14 of the successful bids came from sub-regions in which GVA per head is above the UK average, including six in London. Based on those figures, people might think that the money is not just going to the poorest areas.