Status of Women committee  We would be happy to do that.

Status of Women committee  I think I can be very brief in answering those questions and say that no one knows. To expand slightly with regard to buy-in, it comes and goes. This is what I mean by one of the challenges we face in terms of responding to political change. Some of our political champions, and

Status of Women committee  Yes, normally, but this year was different.

Status of Women committee  Yes.

Status of Women committee  No, I'm afraid there's not that much joined-up thinking, and I'm not being unfair to the parliamentarians in that. The equal opportunities committee would take their own evidence on looking at the budget and then feed it back to the finance committee.

Status of Women committee  Yes.

Status of Women committee  Yes.

Status of Women committee  For a start, we wouldn't look at that policy because that remains a reserved matter. In Scotland we wouldn't be looking at pensions and tax, because they remain the responsibility of the U.K. government.

Status of Women committee  As an academic, yes. In terms of gender budget analysis and advising the committee, I would be loath to advise that policy as being a bad policy, but rather to point out the perhaps unintended consequences of that policy and to be sufficiently cognizant of them in the evaluation

Status of Women committee  Yes, McKay.

Status of Women committee  My full-time job is an academic economist. I work in a division of public policy and I teach economics. There's a group of economists, political scientists, people who operate within a business school and a university in Glasgow. I've been an academic economist for longer than I

Status of Women committee  So gender budgeting is a research interest of mine.

Status of Women committee  Yes.

Status of Women committee  There is a token remuneration that all committees pay all their budget advisors. I think it's public knowledge; it's a very token payment. It's not a consultant fee.

Status of Women committee  Sure. The best way for me to explain it—and Angela may want to add something—is to give you a practical example of where I think we misunderstand gender in terms of the policy process. There appears to be, in Scotland, a practice of viewing gender as synonymous with women and