Chamber and committees

I thought that the Scottish child payment had lifted 90,000 children out of poverty. It has certainly had a very positive impact.

The Scottish Government is in a more difficult position than the UK Government, because the UK Government deals with demand-led programmes such as social security through annually managed expenditure, whereas the Scottish Government has to fit it within a more or less set budget.

To finish off my questions before I open it out to colleagues around the table, because transparency came up a wee bit, I am going to ask about that very briefly. First, will the Scottish Government do more to highlight what it is spending in the budget on mitigating those parts of the UK’s reserved areas that the Scottish Government is paying for? The bedroom tax is the obvious example of that.

Secondly, when the representative of the Fraser of Allander Institute gave evidence, he said:

“We have reinforced that we think that it will be important to have more information about in-year execution and about comparing plans with actual outturns, because we might be missing some important information on, say, how much of the allocation of capital is being spent in-year. It might be that the 10 per cent cut in the in-year allocation is a different percentage in actual execution.” —[Official Report, Finance and Public Administration Committee, 19 September 2023; c 31.]

We all go into the debates in January for the usual budget knockabout, but it is important that we are all speaking the same language, at least on figures, so that the Scottish Government is not talking about apples while the Opposition is talking about oranges. This is about trying to ensure that the information that we detail on last year’s, this year’s and next year’s expenditure is measured in the same way and the figures can be compared with each other, so that we are all talking the same numbers.

The Scottish Fiscal Commission’s sustainability report was about where we would be by 2072 if things did not change, rather than what the allocations might be.

Jamie Halcro Johnston made a point about population displacement, and I think that you touched on it as well, cabinet secretary. It is a real issue. Arran, in my constituency, has the demographic profile that the SFC predicts for the whole of Scotland by 2072. It is important that we do not look at Scotland as one unit; we need to look at island and rural Scotland differently. It would be helpful if rural funding allocations for housing were spent and, indeed, if deliberations over them did not take three years to progress, as they have done in my constituency.

I have one further question. John Mason and one or two others touched on the issue of decluttering. We have Westminster, Holyrood, local government, health boards, integration joint boards, community planning partnerships, three enterprise agencies, region and city deals, 150 non-departmental public bodies and an increasing number of commissioners. A national care service board is also going to be established. You mentioned a presumption against new public bodies, but, surely, the Scottish Government has to be much more ambitious about decluttering the public sector. You talked about overlap, but there must be overlap, duplication and confusion. I do not think that there is anyone in Scotland—I would be surprised if there was anyone—who knows how all of those fit together and work. I suggest that the Scottish Government address that. Will the Scottish Government give greater priority to that?

Good morning, and welcome to the 25th meeting in 2023 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee.

There is one item in public on the agenda, which is an evidence session with the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Finance on the sustainability of Scotland’s finances, as part of our pre-budget scrutiny. The session will also cover evidence that we heard earlier in the year on public service reform.

Ms Robison is joined by Scottish Government officials. Dr Alison Cumming is director of budget and public spending; Dr Andrew Scott is director of tax and revenues; and Ian Storrie is head of local government finance. I welcome all of you to the meeting, and I invite the cabinet secretary to make a short opening statement.

Thank you. I thank the Deputy First Minister for her responses. It has been a real shift—almost two and a half hours. I congratulate you on your stamina. Unfortunately, despite the myriad questions, we did not touch on non-domestic rates, we did not really get into AI or data, and we did not really talk about public procurement or, indeed, council tax reform. I hope that you and your officials will look at the evidence that has been submitted by witnesses and deliberate on it as we move forward. I thank you once again for your answers, which are greatly appreciated by the committee.

That concludes the public part of the meeting. We will consider a report on the sustainability of Scotland’s finances and public service reform in private at our meeting on 31 October. We will now move into private session to consider our work programme. We will have a two-minute break to allow the Deputy First Minister, her officials and the official report to leave.

Indeed, but that is less than one third of the increase in social security spend. Do you accept that, if you are reducing money in other areas of public expenditure, that will, paradoxically, have an impact on people who are in the lowest quintile for household income, as they are the people who are most likely to depend on those services?

The Scottish Trades Union Congress’s evidence to the committee was that the Scottish small business bonus scheme does not necessarily work. It has been saying that for years, incidentally. When I chaired our predecessor committee between 2011 and 2016, it made the same argument when it said that the money should go directly into public services. What would you say to that, Rachel? The STUC also said that if small business bonus money is to be spent, it should be tied to fair work. What do you feel about that?

That concludes questions from committee members, but I have one or two questions to wind up. I assumed that period 1 meant quarter 1 and I know that other members of the committee also thought that. If it just means April, why does it not just say April? We are talking about transparency and that is a pretty basic thing. Just put April 2024 for period 1, and put July 2024 for period 4. We all need to talk in simple straightforward language if we are going to talk about transparency.

We have talked about this being a framework bill and there has been much discussion about primary and secondary legislation. Given the changes that we have seen in the evolution of the bill in recent months, has the balance shifted between primary and secondary legislation? Will the bulk now be primary or secondary legislation? Where has that balance moved over the past few months?

I think that you have a question for Sandy Begbie, so feel free.

We did not even get on to integration joint boards, community planning partnerships, and regional growth deals and city region deals.

I disagree with Mr Begbie; I certainly would take on such reforms. In Ayrshire, there are three councils and a health board. Why not have one structure? It is certainly my view that we should do that, and I have expressed it publicly over a number of years.