Diolch, John. I very much welcome the committee's engagement on this, and I look forward to discussing both the public audit report with you, and, indeed, the future commissioner has recently done a housing report as well, which I know the committee is aware of. I look forward to discussing that with the committee in my next evidence session.

Just in terms of the specifics, the support for rough-sleepers—I should have answered in response to Mabon as well—we have outreach workers who get to every single person who hasn't come into services to make sure that we know who they are and that they're contacted. It's not just as simple as finding them a space to live—and I know that the committee and other Members know that—many of these people who are sleeping rough have very complex needs and a deep distrust of public services and so on. So, the outreach workers, who are amazing people, need to get the trust of that person and slowly coax them into accepting services and then eventually a place to stay. The local authorities are under a duty to give everyone a place to stay. Let me note that we're not—. The local authorities are not under any instruction to keep people on the streets or anything. We are not accepting night shelters; there is no need for that kind of provision. Support services can be given to people who have a bed and a room; there's absolutely no need for the kinds of night shelters we used to see. But some people have complex needs and they will not be able to come indoors, so we work very hard with the outreach workers to make sure that they have all of the help that they're able to take given their circumstances and that coaxing continues to make sure that people come in, especially when the weather gets very, very cold.

It is sad to see the number of rough-sleepers climb a little, but we have got those outreach workers getting to them and we are very keen to get them in and into services as soon as possible. And one of the heartwarming things about the pandemic was the people you met who were very distrustful, but who came in in the pandemic and accessed services for the first time and are now back on the road to recovery, which is really great.

In terms of the legislative burden, we will be putting a White Paper out towards the end of next year, the beginning of the year after, which sets out the legislative framework that we need, but the committee will be aware of it—we need to reform the housing Act and we need to do things around priority need and intentionality and all the things that the committee will be familiar with in order to remove those barriers to housing and to place legislative duties on the local authority to give people permanent housing. So, there'll be a White Paper that I look forward to discussing with the committee in due course.