Chamber and committees

Okay—thank you. I think that other members will want to probe that point a bit further.

One of the things discussed in COSLA’s written submission, which is a real issue for the committee and has been for a long time, is the need for

“a genuine focus on preventative approaches”.

I think that is critical. You also say that,

“With ever greater levels of funding being directed toward the NHS”,

there are other ways to tackle child poverty. You mention housing, education and employment.

Surely the politics of that is a difficulty. Say, for instance, that the Government decides that you are absolutely right and it agrees 100 per cent with what you do, and that the next time it gets a Barnett consequential it will give a quarter of it directly to local government, rather than putting it all into the national health service. Surely the difficulty is that the media and Opposition politicians would then come down on the Scottish Government like a ton of bricks and denounce it for underfunding the NHS exactly at a time when there are huge waiting lists, blah, blah, blah. Surely the issue is that, while everybody knows—at least in my view—what has to be done, sometimes the politics gets in the way, given the hostility of the media. Some people might wonder whether it is worth it, in that we cannot necessarily tell the public what changes are going to be delivered over five or 10 years, as people may say that, if the Government puts money into the NHS now, they might not have to wait so long for their operation or whatever.

How do we square that circle with what we believe might deliver better in the long run? You speak about the NHS basically “fixing the problem” rather than actually “solving the problem”. How do we do that a time when we do not have a huge amount of additional resources? If there was lots of money for both local government and the NHS, we could do it, but how do we actually manage that difficult political situation?

I will now open up the session to colleagues around the table.

When I was first elected to the Scottish Parliament in 1999, local government got a higher share of spend than the national health service, but, of course, the ageing population has largely put paid to that. A point that I would make about having a set proportion for local government or for anything else is that the Government can decide what it considers to be expenditure in that particular remit. I realise that that is the policy of at least one party, but there is always a way of getting around things.

But that is the $64,000 question. I am sorry, but the Government sets its priorities and if people are going to ask for additional resources, it is surely incumbent on them to say where they should come from. Should they come from taxes or elsewhere in the Scottish budget?

Thank you. I have a final question. I opened with Mr Sim, so I will close with him, before I allow colleagues to ask questions. My question relates to the framework properly reflecting the current economic and political context. What you have said is:

“shouldn’t the Scottish Government set a priority of making Scotland competitive in attracting a working-age population from outside our borders, and stimulating robust economic growth to create jobs and attract them?”

Putting external migration to one side—obviously, we could attract many people from elsewhere in the UK to Scotland—why, do you think, is the Scottish Government not doing that?

Good morning and welcome to the eighth meeting in 2022 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee. The only item on the agenda is two evidence-taking sessions for our inquiry into the Government’s resource spending review framework. The evidence that we gather will inform our response to the Scottish Government’s consultation.

First, we will hear from Mirren Kelly, chief officer, local government finance, Convention of Scottish Local Authorities—who I am delighted to say is attending in person—and, attending virtually, Eileen Rowand, executive director, finance and corporate services, Fife Council and Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountability directors of finance. I welcome them to the meeting and thank them for their written submissions.

I understand that the witnesses have no opening statements to make, so I will move straight to questions, which will obviously relate to the submissions.

I note that, with regard to spending, COSLA’s submission says:

“With employability funding especially this has been notified late in the financial year and limited to spending by 31st March.”

Clearly, COSLA is frustrated at getting notification of resources late in the financial year, but how much of that is actually within the Scottish Government’s control? Are Barnett consequentials the reason for the late notification? Is it a combination of the two things?

If there are additional resource implications, one would expect that to be funded from core budgets. I am sure that you would agree that the Government does not want to undertake structural change for the sake of it. COSLA may not agree with all aspects of the proposals, but I am sure that it would agree that the reason for the Government’s measures is to improve the service overall in the long run. The Government may even be of the view that, while there may be short-term disruption, it might be worth it for long-term improvements. Is that not the view that it has, and is that not why it is going down that road? Why else would the Government be doing that if it did not believe that the measures would bring improvements in the long run for the people who require the services?

One of the difficulties is having to disinvest from areas that are, perhaps, not so effective and switch resource. At a time when resources are not increasing, difficult choices have to be made.

I have one final question, which is about how priorities link in with the national performance framework. The submission from COSLA says:

“There needs to be an improved mechanism for assessing how we are reaching the National Performance Framework goals.”

What could, or should that mechanism look like?

Ms Rowand, do you have any understanding of why that was the case? Have you tried to find out from the Scottish Government why that funding arrived so late? I would have thought that, with something so essential, you would be champing at the bit to obtain those resources.

Yesterday, I visited a social enterprise in my constituency, which echoed more or less exactly what you are saying.

About 22 years ago, when I was a member of the Social Justice Committee, we had an inquiry into the voluntary sector, and one of the issues that was raised during that was the problem of “initiative-itis”, whereby funding is provided for new initiatives for one to three years, and, by the third year, the staff of the project end up very nervous about whether the project will survive and spend their time wondering whether they will have to get another job and looking for other pots of funding. Often, good projects are established but are then discontinued. It seems that the situation has not necessarily changed as much as it should have done in the subsequent two decades. Is the SCVO concerned that there is perhaps an emphasis on the new rather than on things that have been proven to work and deliver on the ground?