Chamber and committees

Our next agenda item is consideration of a negative instrument. I refer members to paper 2.

Do members have any questions about the instrument?

No member has indicated that they wish to comment. Are members content for the committee not to make any recommendations to Parliament on the instrument?

Members indicated agreement.

I will bring in Rona Mackay with a small supplementary.

I call Jamie Greene and then I will bring Russell Findlay back in.

Pauline McNeill, would you like to come in? Then I will finish off with a final question for the panel.

Thank you all for—

Our next item of business is our first oral evidence session as part of our pre-budget scrutiny of the Scottish Government’s forthcoming budget for 2023-24.

Submissions received from our call for views have now been published on the committee’s web page. Submissions from the witnesses who are before us today are included in members’ meeting papers. I refer members to papers 3 and 4.

We will hear from two panels of witnesses, who represent the policing and the fire and rescue services respectively. I extend a warm welcome to our first panel: Lynn Brown, chief executive of the Scottish Police Authority; and David Page, deputy chief officer, and James Gray, chief financial officer, both of Police Scotland.

We will move straight to questions. I will open with a general question, but it is one that might be helpful in the current circumstances in which we have a difficult financial climate. Before we deal with any implications of the indicative flat cash settlement announced by the Scottish Government, perhaps you would share your initial overview of its proposals. I appreciate that that might be difficult.

I put that to David Page initially, and then I will bring in Lynn Brown and James Gray.

Fulton, do you have a follow-up question on that?

I thank our witnesses for their attendance. Perhaps I can just follow up the earlier question about faulty RAAC panels by asking you to send us some more information on that and on any implications such as the potential closure of stations. That would be very helpful indeed.

We will have a short suspension to allow our witnesses to leave.

Thank you very much. I think that members will have follow-up questions on that opening topic, but I will first bring in Lynn Brown and James Gray.

We will have a short suspension to allow for a change of witnesses.