Chamber and committees

What specific detail would you like, Liz?

Yes, but we have 100,000 or so people who are unemployed, quite apart from counting economically inactive people, who, in areas such as mine, make up more than 30 per cent of the population. It seems to be a bit odd that employability support, which is designed to get people back into work, has been reduced.

My point about the autumn budget revision is that, if what you say is true, it looks as though you wildly overestimated demand by some 200 per cent. If £29 million is sufficient to address the issue, why was £82 million forecast? That is a huge difference. If the ABR figure had been £30 million, £33 million, £35 million or £40 million, I could understand it, but that is such a huge difference. How much was spent on employability in previous years? One would think that the amount would remain fairly level. It is odd that the budget seems to be wildly out of kilter with the initial estimate.

I will not press the matter further. I thank you for the responses that you and your officials have given us today.

Agenda item 2 is formal consideration of the motion on the instrument. Do members have any further comments?

Members indicated disagreement.

Motion moved,

That the Finance and Public Administration Committee recommends that the Budget (Scotland) Act 2022 Amendment Regulations 2023 [draft] be approved.—[Tom Arthur]

Motion agreed to.

Thank you. Initially, I will touch on the comments that you have made in your opening statement. You said that there is a need for privacy and confidentiality and that the process has to be fair to both ministers and complainants, and you spoke of the importance of striking the right balance. To a large extent, that seems to be the case with regard to ministers when a minister is found against. However, I am astonished to hear that, if complaints are not upheld, the minister will still be named and the information will be published for a fixed period of six months—that is nonsense, of course, because it will be on social media for ever. How is that fair to someone? If a complaint is made about someone and it is not upheld, why should the person be named? The complainant will not be named. How is that fair to both sides if the minister is named for something that they have not done? How is that natural justice?

No one on the committee has been a minister, but I imagine that it can be a stressful and wearying job at times. In this entire scenario, will ministers be allowed to occasionally display the normal human traits of annoyance, frustration and impatience without potentially being denounced?

Minister, in your opening statement, you mentioned the additional funds that have been allocated to, for example, social justice, housing and local government. The guide to the ABR states:

“The second largest allocation (£180 million) relates to Police and Fire Pensions which has been added to the Justice and Veterans portfolio. This is a volatile demand led budget with additional budget pressure beyond the core allocation managed in year.”

That is fair enough, but it is 6 per cent of the budget. That seems like quite a lot of money not to have been anticipated. One would have thought that police and fire pensions would be an area of spending that one could anticipate fairly early on.

Good morning and welcome to the 30th meeting in 2022 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee. We have apologies from Michelle Thomson, who is unwell, and Daniel Johnson, who is submitting amendments at another committee meeting.

Before I move to our first item of business, I thank all those who organised, supported, attended and participated in the joint taxation conference that was hosted yesterday by the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In what was a very interesting day, I know that committee members will have heard lots of ideas about proposals to inform our consideration of potential areas of future work on taxation. We will come back to consider those formally at a later date.

We will now take evidence from the Minister for Public Finance, Planning and Community Wealth on the draft Budget (Scotland) Act 2022 Amendment Regulations 2023. Mr Arthur is joined by the Scottish Government officials Niall Caldwell and Craig Maidment. I welcome our witnesses to the meeting and invite Mr Arthur to make a short opening statement.

I really sympathise with your position and understand how frustrating it is to have the level of uncertainty that you are having to deal with.

One thing that the presentation that we have been given does not provide is a full breakdown of the Scottish Government’s funding envelope by source, nor does it reflect the full forecast position for the remainder of the year. Why is that the case?

I am thinking about public perception and the media perception.

Who specifically in the Government?