ecast of the future fiscal revenues and indeed to fulfil its functions the SFC will need to be able to produce independent forecasts. Professor McGregor and Professor Swales point out that in a national practice suggests that fiscal bodies not provide their own forecasted typical of access to sufficiently detailed independent forecasts and the Canadian parliamentary budget officer states that if the SFC produces its own forecasts this will allow parliament to challenge the assumptions underlying the Scottish government forecast and finally there's loads of these but I won't read them all out of course. Doctor Armstrong and Doctor Lysincova argue that the SFC should prepare their own independent forecasts on the basis that producing a forecast greatly adds to discipline so I'm just wondering why it is given that there's so many commentators and not all of them of course I mean as I cast and others who don't take that view but the general thrust among your academic colleagues for example is that the SFC should produce its own forecasts so why are you continuing to take the view that you should really comment in the Scottish government? A number of topics that would pertain in terms of a response let me start and I'll turn to both my colleagues as well because we've talked about this a great deal. If we produce this gets back to my opening statement earlier about the official forecast and forecasts and I wonder whether some of those comments that you've quoted have to do with forecasts in the sense that amongst our toolbox we should be able to produce forecasts possibly for some taxes at certain points in time for certain elements it's our choice where we think we need to see that and in a way you referred already to the work on forestalling as being a sort of mini forecast and we think that is part of what should be in our toolkit along with the ability to do analysis to do some technical papers and research as Campbell has pointed out that is different from producing the official forecast we think there needs to be one producer of the official forecast and an assessor of that forecast now if you turn to the fiscal commission and said well actually we've changed our minds you do the official forecast we would need to be assessed by someone if we were to do the entire forecast ourselves and we're really duplicating what the government is doing and that doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense in terms of value for money we if we did our own forecast and needed to defend it we might then be biased as well so we've had a conversation about a lot of these elements but it is that we believe there should be an official forecast right now it's done by the Scottish government that needs to be assessed that is our role and we should not be doing an official forecast as well I'll turn to either or both of my colleagues yeah I think well my view in this it really goes back to some of the issues we already discussed in relation to types of economic forecasting types of economic analysis so the Scottish government currently has to produce the forecast it uses essentially statistical models based on historical data to do short term projections of that of that data if we were to produce an alternative or to produce the official forecast we would on a day to day basis we would probably have to replicate that style of modelling I don't think there's a great deal of added value in having the fiscal commission replicate that kind of modelling where I think the value added would be is if we do deeper more fundamental projects which delve more deeply into behavioural aspects results of policy change bits of bits of analysis of the economy which are not currently featured in the forecasting methods and we need to do these depending on economic circumstances because sometimes some issues will be more relevant than others and that's the point in which we need to do that piece of analysis and bring it to the fore in order to effectively evaluate the quality of the short term forecast so I would give us the role of doing this portfolio of research we're not just sitting there twiddling our fingers when we're not doing an official forecast we're doing lots of bits of research which are really fundamentally going at the heart of what's driving the official forecast okay Andrew you want to go in yes yes yes at length I don't what Campbell said is is right so that's one aspect of it so I'm not going to comment on that further that's absolutely right I would suggest my reading of what's going on is slightly different from yours there are some people saying we should be doing forecasts and there are plenty of people saying we should not one of them is the IMF and I think it's well worth listening to the IMF they have oversight of these kinds of commissions everywhere else there are not many of the regional level as opposed to the sovereign level but so that is the case I mean look at the numbers there are I think two out of 23 in the OECD which are doing forecasts as the official forecasts and nothing else there's a question of second opinions that's to say we're doing a kind of second opinion exercise the government producing the forecast as they will anyway and we're doing the second opinion and I go back to very old experience of mine in the Netherlands when the central plan bureau was doing the forecast and it was the only one doing the forecast and the constant complaint all the time is we don't know whether to believe it or not we would like to see some second or third opinions and other features so I think that aspect is important and that doing that way around it gives us here the freedom to compare with other forecasts there aren't many and there's the OBR and there may be I mean when when Smith comes in there'll probably be a new industry what I would assume in doing that sort of thing so that's an important aspect and then if I'm going to depart from my colleagues at all and I don't know if I'm actually departing with them it's just something that haven't said I think being asked to do the forecasting the official forecasts ourselves was seriously compromised our independence you imagine how you do these forecasts you've got to get data you've got to talk to we don't have access to all the data in the world we're going to have to talk to other people so you're going to have to share some knowledge of what you're trying to do at that point if we were then to put forward one forecast as the official forecast favoured over other possibilities you've seen when we're talking earlier that there are a lot of alternatives at any one point that's going to leave the perception in the world that the policies which underlie that particular forecast are the ones which are favoured so in some sense we're prejudicing the discussion an important point I didn't realise in talking to OBR people a month ago is that when in their operation they're doing the official forecast of course of course the Treasury often comes along with a proposition and they say we're going to think you're making the following policy change here are our projections what do you think of those now it's natural enough that they want to do that because they don't want to be slapped down by the OBR saying total rubbish a bit later on but of course you know the Chinese walls have been broken down and the influence is seeping in at that point and so and having no influence sorry having outsiders having no influence over independent forecast made by us does not guarantee that they don't try and influence the commentaries the one thing to have an independent forecast is quite another thing to have an independent commentary attached and the OBR's got problems with that so these are various different possibilities which suggest that the independence will be compromised by us doing that the other way round which is what we're doing at the moment is a different matter altogether because we take what we're given and we say is this reasonable or not and maybe we haven't published enough but here the reasons why and we can we can make a judgment at that point and people can take the judgment or dislike it as as they wish could I just add a final comment a personal view based on informal and other conversations I've had is that I think that there will develop over time as you might expect a bit of an industry in Scotland of think tanks or you know university bodies or whatever doing their own version of forecasts or delving into some of these areas as well some of the comment you've had from others is well there's nothing else to refer to you know what else is out there I think that will develop over time it's not surprising that it hasn't developed yet because the devolved taxes are so new this is a almost a market thing that I think will happen okay thank you an extra one sorry this is an enduring conversation but an extra point that I hadn't realized that when the OBR was set up and given an exclusive forecasting only mandate um give or take a little sensitivity analysis of some but it's on the forecast official forecast that this was done in securing the knowledge that the IFS would do the further analysis that doesn't exist in Scotland and if you didn't allow us to poke about and think of other factors that should be important in that and that sort of thing but we had to make the official forecast um then I think we'll be in a worse place okay I'm keen to probe further but I did say it's self denying ordinance and I know a lot of colleagues want to come in so the first one to ask questions will be Richard before by Jackie. Thank you so just to be clear I mean a Scottish government has informed the committee that there'll be no restriction placed on the commission to engage in forecasting which is to do so that there's no um nothing in legislation which would stop the commission from engaging in forecasting but as it stands you've got no intention of actually engaging in any forecasting uh independent forecasting yourselves as part of the the practice of assessing the reasonableness of the Scottish government's own forecasts. If you don't mind go back to the forecasting with the lower case f yes we will be and we have started doing that kind of thing so yes we are engaging in forecasting as an exercise that is absolutely something that we will do what we're saying that we ought not to do is to somehow develop an alternate official forecast that it doesn't make sense and would compromise our ability then to assess the official forecast that there is so we're doing lots of pieces of economic analysis we've got lots of projects starting up but we don't plan to replicate item by item the entire set of Scottish government forecasts and of course there'll be a learning process of parliament too in terms of scrutinising the the the work you're carrying out in assessing reasonableness but in terms of you know some of the international comparison for example we've looked at a Swedish example as well which I know you've studied and and there I mean their fiscal council doesn't produce its own forecasts but they have a national institute of economic research producing its own forecasts they were very many bodies assessing producing their own forecast figures and that means there can be a very lively public debate about therefore how accurate the government's forecasts are how close are they to national institute of economic researchers figures I mean isn't therefore beneficial to have those kind of comparisons out then and given the fact that as things stand currently it may change in the future it may not there is a dearth of separate forecasts from Scottish government figures that we've been beneficial for perhaps the the commission to consider taking your you know more forecast a greater forecasting role than that thing currently is in your mind I think that's a fair point that you want and this is sort of just not second opinion but third opinion and fourth opinion and so on and you make some comparison I think our comparative advantage will be making the comparisons between them you're right that there's a dearth of these things at the moment there may be forecasts of particular taxes or particular bits of a market or something of this kind from professional agencies but there isn't much else available apart from the OBR which forecasts everything that we want to talk about but on a on a different basis so we've got a second one already but if you want to and I'm sure it's case in the future it'll be more and so that's one thing and the other thing is the the deeper economic analysis in in the rest of the UK is pushed off in the IFS there isn't one here if there were one here that's likely to be where that would happen and if you look at Belgium or the Netherlands I think it's right that these functions have got split into they've got separate agencies for doing these things so they've obviously recognised the point there's just a question whether the resources available which is the most efficient way of doing it very nice if other forecasts came from somewhere maybe I'll just add a little something to that so I think if we did have alternative forecasts it does obviously provide some additional information I think it may be slightly overstated how much additional information that that would provide those so if if there were other bodies providing additional forecasts using very similar techniques to those that were used for the official forecast then they may make different assumptions at different points there'll be different numbers but they'll be within the kind of bounds of to which these forecasts vary what what you really want to see is additional information on some aspect of behaviour or some aspect of some development of the economy which is not being captured in the official forecasts or is not being addressed in the methods that underpin the official forecasts that that's the bit that gives you genuinely new information and allows you more fundamental scrutiny of the official forecast if you know the is a concern um wonder can see hands off it's an obviously having duplicating effort in terms of producing a full a separate forecast but I mean is it is a concern primary concern over the fact that would be duplication in itself or is it a resource issue I mean do you think that if you chose to undertake such an exercise as it stands the commission wouldn't have the resources to carry that out if we chose or were required to carry out such an exercise we would resource up in order to be able to do it we couldn't do it with today's resources we already have in the financial memorandum the ability to increase our our staff to some extent in our minds what we would do with that increase in staff would be very much would reflect what Campbell has just said to really look into some elements more deeply to understand what is really happening out there so that we can make a better more refined judgment about the reasonableness of the official forecast but if we had to do forecasting we would simply say to yourselves we need to resource up to do it um we'd have no hesitation I mean that would be you know our choice to the extent we needed more resource and of course experience in Ireland was that there the fiscal council decided to undertake its own forecasting later on as it as it developed its own work and I guess therefore that if it transpired there wasn't the additional forecast which you are expecting then you could at a later point take on that that role to greater extent if you thought it was appropriate at that point I think you make an interesting point because my sense of a number of the ifs the independent financial institutions is that they have evolved over time from their stark point and I would be surprised if we didn't evolve I don't know that we would evolve in that direction but I would imagine we would evolve My final question then Carina thank you very much again for your answers to the panel is um we've talked about the memorandum of understanding how important they are you've got an initial one with Revenue Scotland I mean at this point you've had a lot of meetings with different agencies are there any problem areas in terms of accessing information are there any departments of the Scottish or UK level government which you think need to be a bit more receptive to any request you've made for information or have broadly found it to be quite a constructive relationship we for where we have requested information you know broadly those requests have been met we are sort of interested I don't know if concerned is the right word but we're certainly interested to see how the relationship develops with HMRC obviously the Scottish rate of income tax isn't yet in place so all we have is anecdote about what that agency may or may not be able to deliver to us but our understanding is that they're very conscious of the need to deliver data to us in a way which keeps safe under privacy regulation and law what has to be kept safe just as Revenue Scotland has to has to do that so um there are some areas that are not tested but we have not had major issues to date thank you thank you thank you Jafster for by John um it obviously forecasting has been explored with you I'd like to move on to um the question of appointments and reports because I think your independence is is absolutely critical in in moving forward would you accept that you can't really be both an advisor to government and also scrutinise what it does yes again advisor may need a you know definition so that we are saying the same thing but we we do not conceive of ourselves as advisors to government on policy or whatever um but we do see ourselves as assessors the the body that scrutinises what um government produces that requires interaction with the government teams and I think I was referring you know quite particularly there were members of the commission who had a role on the council of economic advisors and I think there there could have been a perception that that um would have been unfortunate I gather that position has now changed there that position changed it was actually raised at our um appointment hearings or I'm sorry what the term is uh and um sort of we we took action then to um uh you know end our terms with the council of economic advisors although I could actually say to you that would not have been a conflict but that's a case of there might be perceived to be one and we wanted to address it and perception is is all unfortunately um in terms of appointments some witnesses have suggested that the powers that ministers wish to have over appointments and you know all of that area of work might be excessive and and be considered to be um dare I say it interfering do you think they've got the balance of powers right or would you again in terms of perception to secure your independence prefer it to be a relationship more directly with the parliament look to both my colleagues to give a view I mean we've talked about so many of these issues um at the end of the day we are answerable to the parliament at the end of the day the parliament approved our three appointments we were recommended through a ministerial line but uh we were debated um and I read the debate uh transcript and actively debated on the floor of the parliament and then our appointments were approved and we are answerable here I mean you represent the the fuller parliament so that's ultimately uh how we conceive ourselves but um Andrew or Campbell any other view no I substantially agree with that I think perhaps only to slightly rephrase your position on that if I may um I'll do it anyway and that is it's not it's not it's not so much uh it's not so much the power of the ministers it's you're really suggesting with it an alternative appointments committee or something should sit to make the nominations rather than the ministers and I wouldn't want to intervene on that I don't think we make much difference in reality but it's the perception maybe important can I also say sorry am I cutting you off okay um can I also say that um as we build in um a little bit of a team um to help us in our work and we have started that this over recent months with two part-time research assistants but we would probably look to uh some full-time uh you know economist strength bench strength um we would hire those individuals externally I mean we would we would advertise we'd have an open process um to hire those individuals so um if that is helpful to to your thinking I think again perception is all the fact that ministers control the degree of the appointment process and take powers to themselves to do so I don't think is is helpful to that perception but but um let me see if I can manage this question without it being rephrased um submission of your report okay um what's interesting we have experience obviously of public bodies submitting reports to government in advance of publication um technically for um checking your issues of accuracy but actually in practice issues of presentation have been covered as well um again as a perception in some cases of government interference in that process some witnesses have suggested um that actually you shouldn't give them any notice of your report on theirs um and that actually they should they should um or if they're being generous they should have 24 hours notice to enable them to respond and I would be interested in your view on what you would think would be appropriate given that the OECD thinks that providing a report in advance favours the government again we've given a lot of thought to this and we've heard views from this committee in the past as well we feel first of all so we have done one report which you were very kindly said you had read being new to the committee um and in that case we did submit it because we're told this was the proper thing to do last year for fact check and that was very helpful to us and we continue to think that that is very helpful to us to make sure we've got our facts uh correct um so so there's there's something in that we didn't change our findings we didn't uh uh you know we weren't concerned that um we were offending anyone by doing this and no one came to us and said change anything this was purely a fact check so there is something about that kind of engagement um that can be the timings are um when can play with the actual timings so the forecasters could have the forecast essentially done um and not to be changed and they could see our report and correct any facts uh or suggest facts were different um or it could be done before the forecast is finalised we could look at those details but we think that that is valuable we think it is hugely valuable to have a series of challenge meetings um with the forecasters because that is really the value that we add as Campbell has said that's what we can do um and what we tried to put out in our our submission to you was a way to to balance um what is a bit of a conundrum um how do we get this right so we proposed this may or may not be right we'd happily take some guidance but we propose that we have those challenge meetings early in the process we would go back to the previous year's budget we'd uh look at any suggestions we made or criticisms we perhaps had and discuss those we'd find out what the forecasters were doing in terms of changing or adapting their approach to a forecast or indeed taking on a new devolved tax because we'll be facing those relatively soon and what they're doing do that early early days give them our challenges or whatever we give them uh which is not advice um we do this by the way in the OBR teleconferns as we join as well this seems to be normal practice um and then let the forecasters get on with doing running their numbers we wouldn't be part of that because we don't look at the numbers and the outputs we look at what their thought process is going into it um at the end of the day we've proposed that we could come out with our uh report on the budget um right at the end of the process but quite honestly if we're to add value there need to be the right points in time to add value if we simply sit aside as a think tank might do and analyze the budget once it comes out um you know if the budget um I um changed my wording here so forgive me for speaking in slang but if the budget turned out to be the draft budget turned out to be rubbish um I don't think it would but if it did um surely um that does no one any good in the parliament and surely it doesn't do the commission any good because people would say well where were you um so we do need to engage we need to engage in the right way that's our thinking just now okay um can I go back to something because I absolutely accept that you look at the processes and the assumptions that are made um but from our perspective you you gave advice on non-domestic rates um the cabinet secretary reflected on that okay on the assumptions the modelling reflected on that made a change we've no idea of what he changed it from you know and what what was wrong with the underlying assumptions equally with lbtt you made a recommendation about behaviour we don't know what's happened since then if the Scottish government have taken that on board or not so that there's almost a bit that doesn't feel transparent about what's happened since you've said what you've said on on those issues and my fear is um that that the interaction you described that might be quite reasonable amongst reasonable people um isn't transparent and the perception is there's something not quite right there so you know my approach to this is not to make things difficult necessarily um but but how do we ensure that your independence is absolutely guarded that's the most precious thing I think here it is the most precious thing and we continue to ponder on how best to do this um but one thought that occurs to me is that when we write our report on the draft budget uh we should give you more or give anyone who reads it more detail uh you know we said he said he said that kind of thing um so that may be that may be helpful in terms of of those kinds of movements but in terms of the change which the um minister made um uh the economic determinants and you know non-domestic rates um we didn't advise on what that change should be or give a parameter we simply thought that the range from our perspective our judgment was that it looked somewhat optimistic so we would in that case probably have to have the government spell out as well what it changed from and to or you would have to speak to the government I suppose and ask that question I don't know but keep keep challenging this because we will get it better and better as we hear those those perspectives thank you okay john before by gene thanks convener um I mean I suppose to build on this because you do I like the word conundrum which seems fair and you mentioned that in your written paper and also in your answers to Jackie Baillie but but this whole question of you know more interaction might get us to better results as against less interaction might be perceived as more independent but we might not end up with the best result I think my main point on this would be do we need to have more some of this in legislation or can we leave the legislation as it is and there's going to be a memorandum of understanding or there's just going to be practice or you know how do we put that all of that into practice I'm not an expert on legislation I would give my two colleagues a minute to think about how to respond to your question but my first thought is in all my professional experience the more you know I think of regulation which is what I've dealt with so much in my business life the more restrictive the more those statements try to anticipate something the more they omit and don't anticipate the full you know the full so more general expectations can be enshrined in legislation but I wouldn't instinctively say we need to become very specific in legislation because I think ultimately that will have some unintended consequences or omissions I don't know but idea that I mean I think your key point is that all minutes would be published so for you that would be the the way we answer that in a sense yes so you'd see what it was that was being discussed and what came to the table the challenges we raised and you know you could see that on an iterative basis we started taking minutes of those challenge meetings once we had a bit of assistance which was the beginning of a summer and we have put summaries of those meetings already on our website so in essence we've said we discussed these topics in a challenge meeting we have the meeting the minutes and with our draft budget report we will append the full minutes so that those are completely public I think I just would agree with Susan but there's also it's a kind of evolutionary process if we'll post these minutes we'll add commentary in our report if the committee then finds that that's insufficient demonstration of independence or the whole method is still not quite convincing enough then as an iterative process we will we'll find something else until it works for everyone's satisfaction that's the we're we're here to make it work so and our goal is the same as yours that that we are perceived independent yes so that's how we're going to say something first out now and when those minutes come out if you look at them you'll see some thoughts comments as to what the Scottish Government might think of doing next on a particular problem so it's not just so and so said such and such it's a bit more detailed than that and second thing is that's exactly what the manager policy committee in London does is puts up the transcripts I mean it actually does it who said what and this is likely to be a little bit briefer than that but they actually do to get the transparency they do exactly the same thing they work on the minutes I mean as I understand it that model is similar to what was happening in Ireland and Gina Irker and I were over in Dublin meeting the Irish fiscal advisory council and others I think they'd come up against the problem I think this year that they were also involved quite early on with a lot of the macroeconomic forecasts they were not involved in the detail of the budget but when the budget was announced there was such a big increase in spending because the Irish are doing so well apparently that that was then knocking on to the macroeconomic forecasts and then there was a bit of attention between the government and the council as to exactly what was being endorsed while endorsed in their word reasonable in our words I mean is there a potential problem there if you're not involved kind of at the latter stage as the budgets being prepared it depends on the forecasting methods that are being employed whether they if there's a big regime change if there's a big change in tax policy that no one has discussed up until that point then there could be behavioural consequences and if the modelling isn't taking account of that then it's quite late in the state late in the day for us to then intervene to factor in that effect so your argument would be the model should be robust enough to cover these different scenarios that's the ideal situation yes okay enough I think just a couple of other points I mean again partly because I was over in Ireland myself the when they they also moved from a non-statuary to a statutory basis and I think we're somewhat taken aback at the amount of admin HR policy health and safety you know all of these kind of things which fall in once your statutory body because although you're a small statutory body you've got a lot the same responsibilities as a big statutory body is that something you're aware of and you've taken into account very much aware of that and we have been thinking about that and beginning to have discussions and give some shape to a transition team or transition board which would be supported out of the the civil service so there would be a team that would actually take us through all the stages we would be we would go on to a statutory footing on 1 April 2017 so from now we have about 16 17 months whatever it is but we feel we need to get ourselves well ready well before that and what I mean by that is we understand that the keeper of the records I think is the title or the office that we have to keep records of all of our exchanges emails notes everything now as a banker I'm quite used to that but we have they're trying to put in place or have put in place now processes to maintain those records so we want to get ourselves into those good habits well ahead of time but we will need a risk register I assume we will need to have our own finances audited we will you know need to do all of those things we've started having right now over this year quarterly what we call governance meetings although we discuss these things more frequently but those meetings are to discuss those governance issues so we're trying to anticipate both to plan what we need to do over the next year plus but also put a number of those things in place now so we're ready we also understand we have to have a an accountable officer and we have talked about my suggestion of a title so it may change or not but a chief of staff but a senior individual who who we would hire again hire you know ourselves if you see what I mean advertise for the post and I would look to that individual also to keep us right in terms of those matters but I wouldn't underestimate the amount of time that all of that takes at the same time those matters are important and we would undertake them okay that's fair and the final area touched on in your letter the final paragraphs about resources and you talk about you know future if your remit expands you'll have to commit more time and then leading on to the resources available to it will need to grow prudently to support the additional work I mean we have at some suggestion that we are funding the Scottish Fiscal Commission quite generously when we compare to Ireland which has full range responsibilities and also Sweden I mean are you anticipating that your budget might not be sufficient no a few comments there one is that the budget partly is built on an assumption of the this government's pay rates for if we have two or three or one full-time economists let's say that pay rate comes from this government that may be different in other countries the budget proposed also anticipates the potential need that we might have to go into fully commercial office space for instance right now we as you know are being hosted in our non-statutory phase by the University of Glasgow very generously so it anticipates some additional costs but I would also point out and I don't know I read your write-up from the the visit to IFAC in Ireland where it points out that they have half a dozen or eight sycandies the note didn't say whether these were carried in their own budget whether they came from government or or or what the OBR certainly Robert Chote has been very open with this committee in talking about the number of people in government at the UK level who provide data and information and support the work of the OBR so I wouldn't want to say that the budget that's proposed is right wrong generous or not it depends what that encompasses could I also just assure you that and we have had this conversation we're in absolute agreement that we would have no intention of spending up to a budget a budget isn't there to be spent the budget is there to allow us to grow and develop as we see fit in this very you know incredibly important moment as we go from non-statutory to a statutory footing we wouldn't go out and hire four full-time economists if that was allowed in the budget we might hire one if we feel we need another or as new taxes come in we might need to add to that and to answer an earlier question if we found we suddenly had much expanded responsibilities we might have to come back and say it's not enough but we certainly would not today say it's not enough we think it's a very fair budget and does give us some scope for making our own independent decisions about how and in what ways to expand thank you very quickly really having the Irish experience that was very interesting two things that come to mind first of all smaller country but in the Eurozone and of course independent and with different and you're right to say that the staff my memory was that actually they were all seconded one from central bank and so on for a period of time so that the staff were changing as well but came with different experience and that was that was interesting but of course they did have five members of ifac and I wonder whether that's something that you've thought about too that three people is that under discussion do you think about that going forward and further to that you mentioned earlier on today in an answer to a question that about the pool being very small that was also a discussion in Ireland and four of their five commissioners live abroad although they're Irish and that that was a bit of a revelation to me I mean suddenly we were looking internationally and knowing that the Scottish diaspora is even bigger than the Irish diaspora that there may be expertise around a globe that we might want to encourage and you did say earlier on that with 13 14 universities in Scotland that you know that there was plenty of expertise for people who would step into your shoes and I just wondered if you would address that question whether there really are the people that again perception being everything I mean three of your very high profile and so on is there really that pool available in Scotland I my colleagues may have anecdotal views being academics themselves and knowing knowing their peers we haven't sat down as a commission and said who would those likely people be but there is something about the governance of succession and succession planning and that should become part of our conversation so in a way your question is a good trigger in that direction should there be more than three of us as members of the of the commission it seems to me two would be too few and there is always the number 27 bus risk so there might be a thought about increasing our number but we all of us are quite prudent in saying let's grow in anticipation our view is let's grow as we need to as we become bigger as we go into statute if we need to grow so I wouldn't be surprised if we spoke to this committee at some point and said look we do think we need another another commissioner whose term would then be staggered who would gain the experience and the knowledge that was needed to keep all of this going but in in terms of is the pool out there or not I think you occasionally talk to some other academics who might well be considered candidates if they were interested for something like in something like this but we haven't determined who those might be or how big the pool is I would if we're thinking about having four four instead of three or something of this kind I would rather than fix on particular number I would fix on particular expertise and skills so there's a comparative advantage within the within the commission at the moment that's working fine but you know you keep an eye on that so we certainly talked about that going international the diaspora point it's not just Ireland a lot of these commissions do that so that's not from my perspective not an issue that's fine there are too few expertise there's always a sorry too few a too smaller pool there's always a problem there's plenty of people out there the question is whether you want actually want them it's a question of you know what kind of people are out there and that might be a bit more restrictive it depends and whether they would want to take on this role and they might want to do it yeah I mean certainly in the swedish example I mean I know quite a lot about these things in the swedish example the original chairman walked out in a huff because it was taking too much time he wanted to publish a few academic papers at the same time I sympathise enormously so some people might not want to do it so it's a bit of a tricky thing okay and just finally I'm sorry that time's moving on but while you don't see yourself producing you know duplicating work that's been done in a full forecast and so on but selecting particular pieces of work I mean would you would you say that the that the change in in LBTT from stamp old stamp duty and the kind of figures that we've got at the moment that merit the kind of work that you would home in on to see whether that I mean it's quite a small part overall of the budget but it's quite an important one and I can see that there are there are kind of government policies which come through into these kind of forecasts how would you deal with with drilling drilling down into or looking more comprehensively at any one particular part of the forecasting and avoid or ignore government policy that will actually have a determinant on the outcome so I think in our initial report there's I think several instances where we suggest that kind of the behavioural effects of policy it would be I it would be best if these could be incorporated somehow into the method of producing the forecast so I would I would argue that the kind of analysis that we could do is essentially to analyse these kind of behavioural effects and then you build up a model you build up some piece of analysis and wherever the policy happens to be you feed it through that's that model so it's kind of ready to do the policy analysis that you need it to do there may be other factors as well not just government policy changes but if you look at mortgages regulation over the last year has made the mortgage application process much more rigorous particularly for first-time home buyers than ever before there's a lot of debate going on whether that's too much so that will affect the number of people who can qualify for mortgage completely outside government policy so it's important to look at all those factors the external ones as well so it's a bit does any kind of break and the economic conditions that underpin an extrapolation of historical data then its behavioural responses you're starting to look at to those changes a little bit we're quite right about priorities setting the priorities which taxes to look at and so on which is and there are different sizes so I would put more weight on the bigger ones and I would also insist that the errors when we quote them if we quote them not only in percentages but also in pounds so you see what it bang that going to have on the on the budget as it were that helps prioritise quite considerably so I hope we do that in the future and for this sort of thing I also think it's important to avoid implicitly commenting on the underlying policies that's to say you take them as is for now if you're told for sure next year we're going to put this tax up or something and then you might be able to do that because that's a public announcement that's being made but otherwise we we don't want to be in the position which we've said this forecast rubbish because everybody knows this tax rate is going to go up or down or something which is why we've got a slightly delayed effect on the first hauling which is a case in point you know it's only when it actually comes in do you able to do something about saying how much effect will this have in pounds terms and even then it's somewhat uncertain when it's important to do it at that point but not second guess ahead of time thank you thank you thank you very much thank you I just wanted to very briefly on on the on the forecasting issue just to get my head around where we are because obviously we've had the evidence that I think lady rice you've very helpfully tried to disaggregate between what you call the sort of the capital F and the small F forecasting which I think is a helpful analogy to draw I mean when you're undertaking your work presumably the the work you're doing involves a degree of modelling that essentially replicates elements of the forecasting method in order to test the robustness of forecasts without sort of beginning at the beginning and ending at the end of the forecasting process would that be a fair assessment of the work that you're doing there's a there's a mixture of things so we kind of go through the nitty gritty of the methods that the Scottish Government are using we're also undertaking as I've said a series of projects which are looking at things which are just not contained within the methods that are being used as well so it's it's not just replicating an element of the forecast it's looking at something that's off model as far as the Scottish Government's concern and to see whether that's an influence that's a factor that maybe should be taken account of but currently isn't so it's a mixture of you know step by step analysing what's actually being done and looking at other issues of forecast which maybe should be taken account of but aren't currently being taken account of so it's a mixture of those and also in terms of the independence point or the separation between yourselves and Scottish Government I mean the some of the perception that has been is of you essentially sort of looking over the shoulder and you know saying are you sure about that how how involved are otherwise do you think you need to be in order for your challenge essentially the challenges that you would put forward to be one taken seriously but also done in such a way that it ensures that the information that is laid before Parliament is as robust as it needs to be I guess I would answer that question by saying it's not really our job to ensure that the information laid before Parliament is as robust as it could be it's the Government's job they're laying the information before Parliament so um so we're not saying here you must do this but we're suggesting have you looked at these factors you know we think this might have a big impact the Scottish Government can take these on board or not it's there it's their choice at the end of the day if they produced a forecast which in our judgment was not particularly robust we would say that um and they would have laid a not a non robust forecast in front of you but I don't think it's our job to ensure that they do their job we would have a different role spec if if that was the case sure I appreciate that I mean Ian Lainart who has done some work around comparisons etc has suggested that exertion of influence over over forecasts changes the kind of definition from independent assessor to advisor would you would you suggest that what what you perceive your role to be maintains that independent assessor role rather than becoming an advisor because to me an advisory role is very very much much more heavily involved and directing what happens or at least having a role in direction of what happens rather than challenge but yes we would expect the teams to be accountable in some way or answerable to us about why they did or didn't take any advice we gave them we're not in that kind of relationship with them we we operate and again I would say what I said before this is really absolutely the way the OBR operates it has a series of challenge meetings that produces some tables some data this is our thinking so far speaks to key key individuals in these meetings who raise questions and challenges and whatever and they go off and do some more work we're doing the same thing here that's what we do my way of work what I'm used to as an academic economist is the academic seminar so if someone presents their work and you interrogate them while they do that it's not always comfortable for the person presenting their work you go through it line by line you make very critical comments and it toughens up what they do and that's the model I have in mind when we then go and do our own independent pieces of research we intention is we would release those as technical working papers present them to interested audiences as well and go through the same process ourselves of the the academic seminar and you know come and get get us see what we've done kick holes in it if you can okay as I said a lot I'm back how you approach it is motivated by would I do the same would I or would I do something different at that point you can suggest have you thought about looking at this variable or this factor which has got left out it is up to them to to decide they may well come back if we have this extended period in which we're not doing this maybe more difficult but they would come back and say we tried that and it didn't work and there are a number of things we've picked on in different forecasting models they're using where we're not come to a complete end of trying this and trying that and all the rest but it's entirely up to them as to whether they try it or whether they come back or not so the motivation from our side is would I do the same which is what of course what you're doing in a seminar and if you if you go to beyond that stage then you do get more heavily involved and as I said earlier in general peroration on on forecasting you then find your independence is compromised so that's why I think it's not a good idea to be doing that and most I think probably most of these kind of commissions have come to the same conclusion they have these sort of backup calculations if you like they don't produce the official forecasts okay thank you very much that's concluded questions from the committee I've got three or four still to ask I think it's been a very long session I do appreciate your your involvement and your concentration and the clarity of your answers anything further you want you to add before we wind up the session I don't think so no this has been very useful as always conversations are but nothing else okay well thank you very much and no doubt we'll see you at the committee again before too long okay at the start of the meeting committee agreed to take the next item in private therefore we'd like to close the public part of the meeting to enable witnesses in the official report in public to leave I'm just going to call a one minute recess so we can go straight on to the final piece of business in private


In this video, we're going to show you how to install the virtual machine in your personal computer. For that, we need three things. First, the file teleco n dot ova containing the machine, then version 4.0.12 of virtual box, and then an extension pack. The objective is to prepare the virtual machine to execute in your personal computer. If we go to the virtual box download page, we can see how we can download the virtualizing software, there in the example for the Windows platform, and then another link, the extension pack. Both of them need to be downloaded from here. Here we can see the three elements, the application on the left, the virtual machine, and the extension pack. We proceed to execute the virtualization application. And the first thing we do is go to the file menu and select the preferences. And we go all the way down to the last option, extensions. We click on the icon to add a package, and we select the extension pack we previously downloaded. We confirm the installation, and we read the conditions all the way to the bottom to agree with them. The system might ask us for an administration password. Once the extension has been successfully installed, as we can see there, we go back to the main screen, and now we select the option of importing and appliance. Again, we need to choose the file we downloaded from the course web page containing the virtual machine. And if we proceed with installation, a summary of the machine that is about to be installed is shown on the screen. And the process of importing the machine starts, and it takes around two minutes. Once we install the virtual machine, we can see here on the right side of the screen a summary of its configuration. We can start the machine clicking on the start button. A few messages appear telling us how the machine handles the keyboard. And once we accept, we see the virtual machine starting or booting up. This is a regular machine. It'll show us a couple of messages telling us that there might be some adjustments we need to make on the screen. And after a short while, we can see how the machine starts again. We confirm all these messages, and a regular desktop appears. The first thing we need to make sure is that the machine has an internet connection clicking on this icon at the bottom and making sure that the option at the top says activated. If it is not the case, we click until the word active is shown, which is telling us that we have an internet connection. The machine has a few applications. Here we can see the browser that contains a couple of links to facilitate the access to the course material as well as the virtual community where we host all the course material. One of the most important things to perform with a virtual machine is a proper shutdown. We need to select the option to turn off the computer and wait for a while until the machine stops all the services that it's running and makes a proper shutdown of all the applications. Once we do that, we can guarantee that we restart the machine correctly from the point where we left it. Thank you.


Thank you, good morning, good afternoon, depending on where you are and what time zone you're in. Welcome to think tech Hawaii rule of law and the new abnormal. Please remember. This is a time of year where think tech asked for those of you who appreciate what think tech offers to help think tech continue to do that by contributing go to the think tech Hawaii calm website. You can donate button and whatever your move to share and contribute is tremendously appreciated so thanks all very much. So this morning, in no particular order, we have Professor vanilla Randall emeritus from the University of Dayton School of Law, one of the leading scholars on race racism and the law, which has become a pretty hot topic with school boards and others. At this point in time, David Larson, a highly experienced, respected professional professor at Mitchell Hamlin School of Law in St. Paul, a chair of the American bar associations section of alternative dispute resolution and a pioneer of the New York courts online case resolution project, which is expanding access to justice in ways that no one had imagined more than a year and a half ago. Jeff Fortnoy, one of our leading not only legal commentators and constitutional commentators and a senior partner at cage study, but also a sports commentator kind of always next step up from john Madden. Tina Patterson in Germantown, Maryland. No, not New Jersey. I will not get that wrong again. Tina has a wide variety of experience in business on entrepreneurship coaching mediation arbitration domestically locally nationally internationally. Thanks all of you for joining us. Hey, and we've always been kind of playing these topics with a lot of improvisation. And we were just talking about jazz before the show came on. Is there some connection between jazz and what's happening in our society and how we get through this from discord to harmony. Your thoughts. Jeff, you want to start us off. I guess it depends on what era of jazz you want to talk about. There was an era of jazz where all the musicians were in key and all playing together and it sounded like one piece with various elements. There was a period of jazz where the musicians all played what they wanted and hope that somehow it all came together. And many times it didn't, and many times it was in the years of the beholder and I would suggest to this very prominent group that unfortunately we're in the latter period of jazz where everybody is playing their own tune and rarely does it all come together. Is that profound or why. I think the ears of the beholder is a good point to make because I think the instead of if we think about jazz from the, I'm not a jazz connoisseur I, I like smooth jazz and my kids say that's not jazz. And the issue becomes, it seems to me that people play what they want, but people also like what they want, and that there is no amount of kind my kids can't get me to like the onus month is I just don't like it. And another you can say no arguments you can make that will get me to like it and I think maybe that's part of what we need to come to the realization is that we can't talk people into different value systems and liking different things and I don't know how we deal with that. But when, when, when people have these set likes and dislikes set values that they think are being challenged. You know, for me that kind of the jazz metaphor falls apart a little bit, because even during periods of time when jazz musicians were playing in ways that were discordant. And at least we're under under the oppression of play together even if music didn't blend together. And right now we're in a period where we're not playing together. And part of that is because of technology, and we all have avenues of communication that aren't connected. So we have people playing whatever they want to play and they're only reaching their own constituents, and we're not coming together in any way. And that's what's frightening. I want to follow this through and I should have said this. People are hearing what they want. We can all sit down in the room and listen to the same piece. And it's not likely that we're all going to have the same impression of what we heard. And I think in the light of these days and social media. People are hearing what they want to hear. And it is many times, not what they should be hearing or not what their neighbor is hearing. Tina I hear their wheels turning. He's going to put on a record right. Yes, you do. I'm going to go back to what Jeff said earlier. I think that's underscores every, every genre of music and jazz in particular, which is what is, what is pleasing to the listener, whether it's the base or whether it's the piano and recognizing that the sum of those parts is what made the music. Yeah, we can talk about Miles Davis and his solo work and we can talk about West Montgomery and his solo work, but we can also think about the trios and the quartets that have performed. And it was cooperation, which is one of the things that I think David is alluding to and I would completely agree. It's the cooperation that is lacking right now that is both disheartening, but I think could also literally see just separation and and not working toward. I'm trying to think of the word. It's not even agreement but just a recognition that I have, I have a right to be here. I have a right to play my guitar. And whether it's acoustic or electric, I'm supposed to be here. I'm keep trying to keep it musical. Yeah, no, I, you know, I think many of us believe that our national politics have gotten to a level where it can't go any lower. And I think I was wrong because this last week I have a Republican Congress person put out a video trying to kill a Democratic Congresswoman in an avatar like sequence is bad enough, and then not to have a single Republican in Congress criticize what he did.  I don't know how much lower we can go in national politics. I'm not sure I keep thinking we fit the bottom but I'm wrong. Well, the house, you know, part of the problem we have is that people just do verbal criticisms. I mean, is has the house and I don't know. I haven't actually been following this particular prop case I know of it but I haven't been following closely has the house actually put up issues a censure him. I don't know the answer I don't think so Chuck, you may have more knowledge about this than I did. And not publicly disclosed or known at any rate. And what we're hearing is that, you know, if you got a trio or a quartet together.  And there has to be some underlying respect and understanding for that communication to come together as a song, rather than just individual conflict and maybe individual conflict, maybe the theme of that song, it still has to be a collective product. And there's no respect for that that we're seeing in our leadership and at our societal levels. But I think that if we using the music thing as an example the problem is, is exclusion is essential to playing certain music. I mean the thing is, is that you do you don't come together to play a song. And if you bring, if you have different forms of music, different people are excluded when their musical style doesn't fit. And that's what people think. And the struggle we have is over the Democrats and Republicans arguing over which musical style is going to control. And who gets to sit at the table and if you're not in, and in the problem, and maybe this as an outsider, it seems to me that that is not new. Even now they have excluded socialists, they have excluded communists, they have, they have, they have developed rules where you end up, it's very hard for an independent even on a local level to run because the rules require so much to be able to even get on the ballot and stuff. And so up to now, I think they've been able to harmonize. And we can work together, Republicans and Democrats and exclude all these other people, but that process that they've developed is now being turned on themselves. We're the one thing, and to expand this a little bit. The one area of our culture that has always been inclusive is music. My father was a trumpet player played in bands with black and white musicians. You go back and look at old videos of big bands in the 50s 60s 70s.  There's one area that has been inclusive, and has combined the two races at the time them to predominant two races. It's music. And you don't see that in very many other areas of of our culture, or a politics, for that matter. But Jeff, I, I guess I take the exception. I think that I wasn't talking about racial. I know, I know, I'm just pointing out what I'm saying, but my view is even when you think about music for race.  It wasn't so much inclusive except as opposed to stealing and playing and co opting.  I don't know that I think that music was an area to put up for racial for identifying racial harmony. It's true about rock and roll and know a little bit about that and you're right about white music producers stealing black music in the 50s, and, and turning those songs into white artists and etc and keeping black performers back then from getting their royalties I hear you, but I watch a lot of old black and white videos of bands in the 30s and 40s, and even moving forward but you're right about the rock and roll situation and that's clearly been documented by, by so many people and only recently have, I hate to use the word reparations been talked about in changing the structure and repaying people for the royalties that they never received but anyway, kind of getting back to this idea I was talking about before that you weren't coming together and Tina also alluded to it. We're not coming together and playing together. You know, I think we're in a period of isolation that's maybe unprecedented. When you combine the pandemic, when you combine the potential and the ability of technology to let us have this kind of screen time which is a virtual gathering but it's not a physical gathering, not quite the same. And, you know, we have our phones that are very sophisticated. And I don't know if you do but I spent a lot of time looking at the screen my phone which is, which is really quite isolating. I think millions of people are doing that they're spending a lot of phone time looking at the screen. So part of the problem in our kind of jazz analogy is that through on the pandemic through on technology through on isolation, and we really are playing a part. Where are the disconnects coming from that you see underlying communication and cooperation. So part of it is algorithms. You know, algorithms, we're getting tracked continually. This whole idea of privacy is no what doesn't even exist anymore. So profiles have been built for all of us. And to the degree that we that we receive targeted information now. We're all attentive to the streaming information. You know, and it's, it's targeted to us, and we're not getting a lot of diverse voices. We're getting voices that are consistent with what we've approved of and search for before. And, and that kind of drives us further into our positions and probably less, less open thinking. I'm here with David and I would take it one step further that I'm not going to say it's all technology, but I think technology plays an in our isolated state at this point, really has opened the door for discreet messaging. Based on where your sites you visit, the information you read, and other demographic information that is called from our visits. And how that messaging is repeated over and over and over again, whether it's the ads that appear as we're looking at a site or it's the links to a related article, and literally stepping back and saying, okay, is this is this real. I was listening to a presentation the other day and the gentleman shared how two groups, not even based in the United States had run back and forth on social media, and had told people to show up at a certain site, either pro or against this particular subject. And as it turns out, one, both of these groups were not based in the US, but people actually showed up, never thinking about the legitimacy of the organization or the messaging that was being put forth. They went because it struck a chord with something that they either believed intrinsically or something that they had learned to accept as a truth for them. I think that's one, I think that's an excellent point that what has happened is we have, we are a nation of cults right now because people get their ideas reinforced. And no matter how marginalized their idea may be, they can find 100 people, 1000 people on the internet that believe the exact same thing and then they get it reinforced because it, you know, they get these messages, and they say education, you can't educate people out of Polish values. And so no matter when you try to say disinformation, they, you become the sort of the source of disinformation, because you're saying something that is inconsistent with their value system inconsistent with what they want to believe. So we've always had, this might be a little bit extreme but I've always had cults, religion is cults. There's no question about it. I think the difference now is that because of social media, there are an exponential number of little mini-cults and they often conflict. So, you know, when we used to have the branch Davidians which were, you know, 150 or 200 people that just happened to physically hook up. Now all you got to do is push a button and you'll find a small group of people who believe in the most extreme views that you want to believe in. You know, I'm not a sociologist and I know people write about this every day and will probably for decades to come but, you know, the ability of people to, as you just alluded to find similar people is just a push of a button. It wasn't like that 20 years ago. So what has moved us from any kind of common identity, shared identity to conflicting identities that are directly hostile, destructively hostile to each other? I think the two-party system. I think it's a political, I think that we have two parties that are cults and we force people to identify with one or the other. And it's become all about election, all about the two parties are all about getting re-elected and funding. And so I think that if we, I actually truly believe that if we had more parties, politically, we'd have more positive actions because people would have to work together to come to a decision. They couldn't take a winner takes all view of things. Thoughts on that? Does that move us toward a win-lose rather than a? No, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. And I know that that's something that Professor Randall feels strongly about and we've been on many shows where she has espoused that view and I appreciate it, but look at Europe. They're no better. And they're multi-parties. They're six, eight, 10, 12 parties. Their governments can't last for six months. They have the same, you know, problems based upon their own politics and culture that we do. But I appreciate, you know, the fact that right now we just literally have two parties. The question really is, do we have two parties? How many parties do we really have under two names? I mean, just taking the demo. We have one party. We have a capitalist party. Yeah, well, that's true. But I mean, just, you know, just take the Democrats. There are clearly two parties within the Democratic name and the Republicans, they still had 10 or 12 people. Although I gather they're going to be censored by the way for voting for the infrastructure bills. Did you see that? The 12 Republicans who voted for infrastructure are potentially going to be censored. I mean, have we ever had, you know, I throw it out to all of the professors who have had much more academic background than I do. And you know, I know we've had discord in politics, but have we ever had such extreme discord among the major two political parties? I can't recall any either from the history books or my lifetime. Well, you know, it's disturbing that kind of iron fist leadership that, you know, if you, if you vary just a little bit, you know, good luck up in Alaska, because we're going to do everything we can to get you, make sure you're not reelected. You know, and that's particularly frightening when the leadership says that kind of authoritarian position that you have to follow our platform, our message, or we're going to throw you out. Then that pretty much publicly started with the Obama, with the Republicans in the Obama administration. Where they pretty much, I mean, they said our goal is to make sure that he doesn't have a successful presidency. And we're going, we're not going to focus on what is the best bill for our country. We're going to focus on how this will be, how this can be used by Obama in his, in terms of reelection, how people, and so they took a stance, they took a stance on bills. They took a stance on judges. They took, which was all, and they had discipline of anyone who wanted to do anything different. And so the Republicans have been going down this road of party loyalty, first and foremost, so that using that loyalty to vote against things that would be good for the country for a long time. They may have even done it. I don't remember. I'm trying to think whether they were that way with Clinton or not, but I'm just real familiar with how they so publicly said it was their goal to make sure that Obama had an unsuccessful presidency. But are they, and this comes up to the president, I think it's a huge question which deserves the whole show in itself. Are they reflecting the views of the constituents, or are they leading their constituents and I think that's been a major change. Politicians just to lead now clearly in the Republican Party. They're just following and that's the scary part that the majority of voters in their district, like what they're doing, encourage them to do what they're doing. And that's the scary thing. I don't find an individual representative to be a problem, although there are some really people with serious mental disease in Congress. The real problem is the 51% that elected them and continue to reinforce their views. I reelected. Authoritarian leaders have been democratically elected. They have not all been coups. So could that never happen here? It could happen here, sure it could. It could happen here, didn't it? Did I miss something? Yeah. And there's levels.  I'll put it that way. And in our last minute or so, that whole question of whether we even really have democratic offerings or elections, and what it would take to get there. At least another show in and of itself. Just quick straw poll. Would you say our elections are more democratic or less than democratic? How many say our elections tend to be more democratic than not? You mean like in 2022 or 2020? I'll vote for democratic in 2020. I'm voting for not democratic in 2022. I'm voting for never democratic. We've never had a democratic system in voting in this country. We've also, we've always had the facade of democracy. Well, if you look at what's happened to state legislators and if it's a comparative question, it's getting worse. I mean, I think there's no question. When you look at what's being done at the state level and Republican control legislatures, that it's getting less democratic. I would agree with David. I think the pendulum is swinging. And I've expressed this to you offline. Chuck, I'm concerned about the midterm elections. Just voting rights in and of itself is on the line in all 50 states and territories. So yeah, 2022, great concern. Yeah, I agree with Tina that if this Congress can accomplish one thing above everything else, it's the Voting Rights Act. If we can't protect that, if we can't protect democracy, we're going to lose everything. And so how well do you think the Democrats have been on protecting democracy? They put a bill for it, but they haven't been willing to go whatever mile it takes to get it passed. Now, what I'm saying is they, is we have to. I mean that that has to be our priority. So we're thinking, we're thinking will always keep us going wishful thinking David I look what's happened, where are they going to get that 51st vote or the 50th vote they don't have it. So we're out of time for today. But once again, we've come back to the point where there are bigger deeper questions that we're winding up with than we started with. Come back in two weeks, rejoin us. We're going to deep dive into more of those questions. Please support us and think Tech Hawaii. If you can. Thank you, Chuck. This has been great. Thank you.


Welcome to NTN Nightly, I am Genelle Norvell, this edition's top stories. Cruise Tourism officially reintroduced to St. Lucia with the inaugural comeback call of Celebrity Millennium. The construction of a new wing at the Vibhutai Primary School commences and the members of the public urge to ensure preparedness for the hurricane season. Cruise Tourism has been officially reintroduced to St. Lucia with a cruise call by Celebrity Millennium. The return of Cruise Tourism to the island is indicative of the reinstatement of revenue for cruise-dependent income earners. Government officials and stakeholders will hand out podcastries to welcome passengers with grand fanfare and treats. How many Mark has detailed on this momentous occasion? The Castry spot lit up with fanfare as St. Lucia on Tuesday welcomed Celebrity Millennium to podcastries. The first cruise vessel to the island since the halt in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The arrival of the cruise ship signals the reintroduction of cruise tourism to the island and more importantly, the reinstatement of revenue for well over 1,000 cruise-dependent income earners. Celebrity Millennium called into port around 7.30 am with an estimated 400 passenger capacity and the government officials and other stakeholders were on hand to welcome them. Prime Minister of St. Lucia Hon. Alan Chastney explained the significance of the reintroduction of cruise tourism. We have been working with the cruise industry since March of 2020 and very actively to try to get their return which was originally scheduled for October-November of 2020. So to say that a lot of work has gone into this is an understatement. I want to thank the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Tourism and all of the stakeholders for their consistency, perseverance and sticking through this. So today is the culmination of a lot of work and effort to see Celebrity Millennium coming back into our shores. And this again, head of schedule. So this is a meaningful thing because of the persons that are impacted by the return of the ship. The street vendors, the taxi drivers, the tour operators, all who have depended almost exclusively on this sector have been impacted for the last 16 months. And while we have done some things to try to comfort them, it's certainly nothing can ever replace the income that they were generating from this industry. So this is a wonderful sight for them and we are excited to say the least. Continuous efforts were channeled into the safe return of the cruise tourism to St. Lucia with regular meetings with the cruise lines, handling agencies and the locally established cruise committee. High-level meetings were also held with officials of the Florida Caribbean Cruise Association, FCCA and a focus on safe resumption of cruise calls to St. Lucia. Meetings were also held with several cruise lines to finalize protocols that would guide the sector's operations while on island. The Prime Minister expressing gratitude to all stakeholders for their contributions highlighted the importance of the return. As many individuals depend on the cruise industry for their income. We continue to come into our reports even next summer. As you know, we are pretty much only getting tour tours so we've tried to take advantage of this crisis and show that the Eastern Caribbean is a world class destination on the European basis. But again, today's shift coming back means so much more. It represents the hard work of the team, the administration, the ministry, the tourism authority, the ministry of health. All of the event is going to be here today and many of the tours. I foster thanks to all of them who have put this effort in to make this thing happen today. Again, I want to thank the executives from Michael Bailey, all of them to the rest of his team for believing in St. Lucia and making this happen today. To mark the momentous occasion, a plaque was presented to the captain of Celebrity Millennium affectionately known as Captain Fio. Captain Fio also presented a plaque to the government of St. Lucia commemorating the inaugural Caribbean comeback call. Adding to the fanfare, there were also prizes to be won. The first prize went to a cruise passenger visiting St. Lucia for the first time. Minister for Tourism, Information and Broadcasting, Culture and Creative Industries. Honourable Dominic Vede expressed elation with the return of cruise tourism to St. Lucia. Oh, what a tremendous day for St. Lucia. All the workers that have been out of work since the pandemic began. This really is an absolutely fantastic day for them. A lot of self-employed individuals, the vendors of the arcade, the vendors at the craft market as well. I really want to thank the permanent secretary and Beverly, the CEO of the Tourism Authority for the work that they have put in. I want to personally thank the Prime Minister who really has been leading this from the front on the FCCA Task Force with the rest of the Caribbean. It's an absolutely amazing day for all of us. Activity Manager Al is a born St. Lucia and has been working in the cruise industry for over a decade. He indicated that he is ecstatic that cruise tourism is making a comeback, having been out of work for some 15 months. Al said that his job is very rewarding and encourages young people to take advantage of the cruise industry. I can't complain. Traveling the world, the salary is always something to talk about so I'm not ignored that the salary is really good. I'm meeting amazing people, networking as an entertainer. I've networked with so many people to get opportunities to perform in Los Angeles, in Georgia, in Miami, in Europe. So it's just a blessing working on cruise ships. Especially young people, if you're not sure what you want to do, even if it's not a career you want to take up, I would employ any young person to just go to MAMPA, there's agencies down here that get you booked to go on cruise ships. It's a good way to make money if you want to go back to school. The money you make that you can afford to go back to school. So any young person I would tell them to go into it. However, if you also into hospitality, it's definitely a place where you can be an ambassador for St. Lucia. Because that's what I'm doing right now. I've encouraged a lot of the guests to actually go on tours and I always say, St. Lucia, I've done the entire Caribbean and St. Lucia stands out. Honestly, St. Lucia stands out as one of the best island. Cox and Company Limited's Chief Operations Officer, Catherine Cooper, expressed gratitude to all who contributed to the return of cruise tourism to St. Lucia. Cooper indicated that although the road has been challenging, Cox and Company Limited has been persevering and is glad for the return. Our company, our staff, our tour guides, our drivers of the buses, have not had any work since the middle of March of 2020, 2020. So today is an unprecedented day. I have been working in the cruise industry from 1984 and we have never, never gone through this sort of interruption in our business. However, Cox and Company was started in 1926 by my grandparents and we never stopped and we're not going to stop now. We are back. I would definitely like to thank the Ministry of Tourism and all that they did to work with us to bring the ships back to St. Lucia and to help us to get ready. I would like to thank the Ministry of Health, Customs, Immigration, our tour guides and staff for everything that they did to make sure that today is going to be an excellent day and that St. Lucia can deliver. The health and safety of St. Lucia's remain of paramount importance as such safety measures have been put in place at the port. Karen Joseph is the Senior Environmental Health Officer of Port Health. This is our public health facility. This is part of our mandate of health security at our borders and as such our public health facility would screen everyone who's coming in. And of course today we're happy to have our first cruise ship and of course we're actually achieving this mandate of screening everyone as they pass through our facility. Continued calls with Royal Caribbean cruises to pod castries are tentatively scheduled for July 13th and August 10th, 2021 while other cruise lines will confirm their itineraries in the near future. From the Government Information Service, I'm Hermedi Mark reporting. The start of construction of a new wing to the Vibhutay Primary School is being seen as a welcoming addition to an institution which has served the community of lacklary and surrounding communities for decades. Chris Satney has more in this report. The Department of Education, Innovation and Agenda Relations under the Education Quality Improvement Project Equip broke ground recently for the construction of the school block which will comprise three stories with the third and second levels each housing five classrooms with accompanying male and female washroom facilities. The ground floor will serve as an open brisway with male and female bathroom facilities. Parliamentary representative for Castries North Honourable Stevenson King in whose constituency this school is located says he has advocated for the school's upgrade for many years since the new wing to be constructed will add quality to the instruction received by students and boost their ability for higher education at secondary schools of their choice, some of which are located within the district. I believe we are on the home stretch. On the home stretch to the finish line to ensure that those who are here now who are students and who are participating in this exercise can associate themselves with a vision for education in this country a determination for better education, better school facilities and a fulfillment of an education institution that can continue to participate in one of the more if not the most successful education district on the island by having the cream of the crop in secondary education and the cream of the crop in primary education. The sword turning ceremony conducted by the government last week follows on the heels of another conducted just over a week ago for the construction of the La Gare Primary School. Minister for Education, Innovation, Gender Relations and Sustainable Development Honourable Dr. Gail Rigabet says the ministry is actively pursuing the overall transformation of the nation's education sector in order to make those who benefit from it more globally competitive. While many important determinants of effective learning are beyond our systemic control, it is imperative that we collectively optimise the effects that we can control. One undervalued yet key determinants in fostering students' achievements in the physical learning environment or the quality of our school plans which impacts upon student morale and teacher commitment. The project also provides enhanced parking facilities for staff and visitors, upgraded water storage capacity and an improved sewage solution for the entire school. The contract for the unit's construction has been awarded to Construction and Industrial Equipment Limited CIE at a cost of 4.5 million EC dollars. Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Honourable Alan Chastney told students gathered at the ceremony to embrace their weaknesses in order to overcome them and excel in their education like many before them. You must embrace failure. You must embrace an idea and believe in it until somebody proves to you that it's not true. But now your power of knowledge becomes greater because you've learnt firsthand. This is what this new smart school is all about. Government will break ground for the construction of a new unit at the Gordon and Walcott Memorial Methodist School on Thursday of this week. The contract for the unit's construction has been awarded to Prudies Construction Services Limited at a cost of 6.5 million EC dollars. From the Communications Unit of the Ministry of Education, Innovation, Gender Relations and Sustainable Development, I am Chris Satney reporting. The St. Lucia Meteorological Services indicated that moisture and instability associated with an approaching tropical wave together with a low pressure center will cause cloudiness, showers and isolated thunderstorms over the Leicester Antilles from tonight into Wednesday. The system is about 750 miles east of the Leicester Antilles and is moving westward near 23 miles per hour. Some slow development of this disturbance is possible later this week and this weekend. A second tropical wave located over the eastern tropical Atlantic is moving westward near 21 miles per hour. Additional slow development of this system is possible during the next several days. The public is reminded that St. Lucia is currently in the hurricane season and that the necessary steps must be taken to ensure safety and preparedness in the event of a hurricane. The National Emergency Management Organization NEEMO advises the following. Before the hurricane ensure you know your emergency shelters, trim overhanging branches from trees around your home or property. Develop an emergency communication plan. Secure buildings by boarding up windows and doors. Store valuable documents in a waterproof container or ziplock bag. Develop a family disaster plan. Have a disaster kit or disaster supplies on hand. Place indoors any loose outdoor objects and secure those which cannot be brought inside. One must ensure that a disaster kit includes water, non-perishable food items, flashlight, batteries, portable radio, first aid kit, essential medicines, change of clothes, mask and sanitizer. During a hurricane, individuals are advised to listen to the radio or television or hurricane updates. Stay inside away from windows or glass doors. Avoid open flames such as candles and kerosene lamps if power is lost. Turn off major appliances to reduce power surge. After a hurricane, individuals are advised not to go outside until the oil clay is given. Only NEEMO can issue an oil clay order. Be aware of outdoor hazards such as downfallen trees and broken power lines and report them to the relevant authority immediately. Avoid floodwater because it may have harmful contaminants and dangerous debris. Caricum Secretary-General opines that the region should be concerned about the recently disclosed G7 tax proposals. To sank English Francis of Caricum Newstime has the details. Caricum Secretary-General Ambassador Erwin Leroy says the region should be concerned about the soundings of G7 Finance Minister's agreement to reform the global tax system by the introduction of a global minimum corporate tax rate for multinational entities. When they met in London recently, G7 Finance Ministers endorsed the principle of a global minimum rate that proposes multinational's pay tax of at least 15% in each country they operate. Reacting to the agreement when he appeared on Prime Minister Roosevelt's Facebook program Anupale, the Caricum Secretary-General said the Gold Post for international tax governance continues to be moved. They keep moving the Gold Post. When it was in their phase of development, it was quite fine. Now that they have reached a certain level and they are saying, well, you must follow us and not do that with it before. And it's a real problem. It's where the combined voices of Caricum countries matter. Whether it's in international financial institution, whether it's to the European Union, because, you know, sometimes they do want things from us. And I've seen sometimes when we have held our ground that maybe they might reconsider a particular position. And I think we have to recognize the strength that we have. Our combined strength is greater than some of the individual member states. It is greater. And I think we have to exercise that. Caricum Secretary-General Ambassador Irina Rock speaking there. The public is heard by advice that effective Tuesday 6 July 2021, the psychiatric outpatient clinics at the St. Lucia National Mental Wellness Center will start at 8 a.m. and end at 1 p.m. every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, except for holidays. Anyone who needs to make an appointment to be seen at the clinic should call one of the following telephone numbers. 458-5949 458-5975 458-5976 or 458-5977 This is NTN Nightly. Up next, Primers Hutchinson with the NTN Nouvelle Quayol. Be aware of and follow water conservation practices. Here are a few tips to help you save water. Wash dishes in a basin of water instead of a running tap. Soak pots and pans instead of letting the water run while scraping them. Check toilets for leaks by putting dye in the tank. If color shows in the bowl without flushing, there is a leak. A leaking toilet can waste thousands of gallons of water. Use a bucket instead of a hose to wash cars and reuse grey water from laundry to water plants. Water conservation reduces energy consumption and strain on the water distribution system. Conserve water whenever possible and remember, every job counts. A message brought to you by the Water and Sewage Company Incorporated, Wasco. Welcome back. We join Primers Hutchinson for the NTN Nouvelle Quayol. Mr. General, Mrs. Madame, the Department of University of Scotland with the information of the Government of the City, the GIS, and the National Television of the NTN Caposito Nouvelle Quayol Caposito Primers Hutchinson. Butto, Tuis Celebrity Millennium a twin-law adcast for Monday, November 9, 2021 to start operation service tourism in this country. Then, after the corona the whole operation of tourism in this country. And also in the Caribbean region. Celebrity Millennium will be here in this city for a month and four tours. Several tourist agencies will be here. Welcome the tourists to this city. The tourists will be here and the captains will be here. The Minister of Tourism of Dominic Fede is very excited to thank all the agencies who cooperate to make a new success in the development of this city. In particular, the Prime Minister of the city, the Prime Minister of the city, Honorable Alain Chastney was the first initiative to start the business. Minister Fede declared that today is a day that is magnificent and absolutely exciting. It is the Prime Minister of the city that is doing the tourism department, the taxi show. And with a lot of visitors The first Minister of Health, Alain Chastney, spoke about the significance that the visitation of the Batotuvist Salah has brought to this site, and mainly how this site is the first to start a visitation. He hopes that it will continue for the next year, and that the time will come, and that the country will continue to move out of Corona. He also thanked all who worked hard to make a good visitation of the Batotuvist Salah for this success. He also wishes that the New Zealanders come here, and that they will have the advantage of having the good will of this country. The visitation of the Batotuvist Salah has brought to this site the importance of tourism to live in the heart of the business, and the work in the tourism sector, which has surpassed its business in the Salah sector, to live in the business sector even more, since there is a lot of tourism work to be done to find the opportunity to benefit the Salah. All that has been done by Jid to make his team well protected in the public sector, to establish a good program of tourism management, which has been done, and to ensure that the Salah sector can live in cooperation. The Department of Education recently officially matched the placement of new establishments and the quality of the gas work in the Batotuvist Salah. The establishment of the Salah has three branches, the first and the third, which are the Six Shams, which are also facilitated by the public sector. The first Shams, which are mainly facilitated by the public sector, which are also facilitated by the public sector, are also facilitated by the public sector. I would like to ask the Parliament to make a note to the Honourable Stevenson King and deliver us the address that has been given to his facilities in the Batotuvist School in order to help him in his school. Honourable King Fekopuan, the initiative of the Salah has also facilitated his ability to perform the first three and the fourth steps to complete the education. Honourable King Kakweke, the school that has the best facilities, has facilitated this idea more easily, by establishing the best vision for the future. Honourable Minister of Education, we have Dr. Gayle Rickbert, who has declared that the Ministry of Education has pushed to establish a system of education that can be advanced in order to transform this education sector in order to place the students in their positions so that they can have the advantage of the education competition on the ground. Honourable Minister Alain Shasne, we have advised the students to embrace the skills that they have achieved with the work of the Salah, so that they can be taught and be able to educate them. For Genefla, a school that has provided a bottle of wine that also facilitates the work of the Salah, we have also visited the Masih facility in Chen-Gal, at the construction and industrial equipment level at $6.5 million. We have also made a call to the Methodist Gordon and Walcott Memorial at $6.5 million at the construction services level at the factory. The Mayor of Wilcastre, Peterson Francis, declared that this is the first facility in the place that will exist today. The construction of this building, which costs $22,000, began in 2019 with the help of the Ticabay Union, which was organized by the Weverdez in Poé. The first facility in this building, which was designed by the Weverdez, was built in 2019. The first facility in this building, which was designed by the Weverdez, was built in 2019. We'll be doing a waste-car visit. Like I said, your marketing board, Neff, X, you can do it, you can do it, you can do it, you can do it. The makers do declare that you can sit, they will cast you, you can do it. You can do it, you can do it, you can do it. You can do it, you can do it. We're organizing, we're doing it. If you're sad, you are uncomfortable, you can do it, you can do it. Before you just say, I'm not pleased, I'm not happy. Fortunately, we don't have any place for tourists to be displayed by the people, especially for tourists because we don't have any place for tourists. So if you're happy, you can do it, you can do it. If everyone has a place, if you're not pleased, then you can do it. You can do it, you can do it. You can do it, you can do it. You can go there, you can do it, you can do it. It's not complicated. It's not complicated. It's not complicated. We are all living here. So just stay in your place. It's a type of improvement. We are all working here. We are working here. We are all working here.  Oh, I will be a priest. I will be a priest. Mr. Lema Francis, you are also a plant that has the opportunity to be a priest and also to continue to find a solution for these people who have a good head and a good brain that can help them to be a priest. That's all, ladies and gentlemen. I would like to thank you for your invitation. I would like to thank you for the opportunity to be a priest. Thank you, gentlemen.