Chamber and committees

I will not repeat my earlier questions, because they lead on to a similar question. In the budget submission, you say that the SPCB is

“committed to enhancing the scrutiny function of Parliament, including promoting citizen participation, to enable our legislature and its members to perform their roles.”

You also talk about the

“scrutiny challenges arising from Brexit”

and say that

“these complex issues will create significant ongoing scrutiny challenges for the Parliament, and its committees, throughout session 6”.

You continue:

“we now need to move towards a more stable and sustainable staffing structure to best support scrutiny in this new, more complex environment.”

Both you and Jackson Carlaw have touched on that. You went on to talk about the “huge challenge” of net zero.

For the record, how long do you expect the uplift in scrutiny work that has been caused by Brexit to last? You say that it will be “throughout session 6”. Will that work peak at any point or will it continue at the same level? How do we quantify the huge challenge of monitoring progress on net zero and how do we estimate the additional staff required to assist MSPs in that work?

I asked specific questions about how the requirements have been quantified, because the budget bid, at £112.161 million, is very specific. If additional staff will be required, either to look at net zero or Brexit, or to enable committee scrutiny by strengthening committees, it would be helpful to know what has been decided with regard to staff numbers and the additional budget that would be required for those staff.

Good morning, and welcome to the Finance and Public Administration Committee’s 15th meeting in 2021. I thank Daniel Johnson for chairing the pre-meeting briefing.

We are meeting remotely today, and we have a single item on our agenda, which involves taking evidence from two panels of witnesses as part of our scrutiny of the Scottish budget for 2022-23. First, we will hear from the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body on its budget bid and then we will take evidence on the budget from Kate Forbes, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy.

I welcome our first panel of witnesses. Jackson Carlaw MSP, the SPCB lead on governance issues, is joined by three Scottish parliamentary officials: David McGill, chief executive; Michelle Hegarty, deputy chief executive; and Sara Glass, group head of financial governance.

We have around an hour for this discussion and should direct questions to Mr Carlaw in the first instance. If he would prefer for an official to respond to a question, I ask that he make that clear to our broadcasting team who operate the microphones.

I remind members that broadcasting will also operate their microphones and that they should allow a few moments before speaking to ensure that they are heard. I plan to bring members in to speak in the order that we discussed previously but, if anyone would like to come in to follow up another member’s question, for instance, they should type R into the chat function.

I will begin the questions. Paragraph 9 of the SPCB’s submission says:

“greater scrutiny capacity within the existing committee structure was needed to address the substantial increase in committee workloads arising from the impact of Brexit.”

The following paragraph goes on to say that

“additional staffing investment in respect of Brexit-related scrutiny”

has

“been provided over the preceding three years”.

What is the level of that investment and what are the continuing cost implications?

Thank you for that clarification. I could ask more questions on that, but I want to move on and then let colleagues in. I have a couple more brief questions.

In developing its budget, the Scottish Government assumed that it would receive extra income of £620 million to the resource budget in 2022-23 from a number of sources, some of which is still a matter of negotiation between the Scottish and UK Governments. Last week, the committee pressed the Scottish Fiscal Commission and economist colleagues for details of that and they were not really able to solve the mystery of those sources, how much they will be and the likelihood of them coming to Scotland. Can you enlighten us a wee bit on that, cabinet secretary?

David Eiser, I do not think that you want to make any opening remarks, but you can if you so wish.

One of the issues that we have with this budget is the plethora of different figures. For example, the Scottish Government is saying one thing about figures and the Scottish Fiscal Commission is saying something slightly different. Of course, the UK Government is probably saying something different again, depending on whether Covid figures are included.

Where do you and the Fraser of Allander Institute stand on the figures that we are dealing with? On page 2 of the budget document, which you have seen, the Scottish Government says:

“In practical terms, between 2021-22 and 2022-23, resource funding is 7.1% less in real terms.”

The key words are “In practical terms”. It goes on to say:

“The equivalent reduction for Scotland’s capital budget grant funding is a 9.7% real terms cut between 2021-22 and 2022-23.”

From the figures that others have presented, the second figure appears to be less controversial. Where do you feel that we are on those figures? Obviously, when we scrutinise the budget, we have to look at the figures and see where we are and what room for manoeuvre the Scottish Government has.

Is it not the case that the capital budget is declining quite significantly—by about 9.7 per cent in real terms—in the next financial year?

Is one productivity issue not that much of the Scottish budget is demand led? Given our ageing population, we need more care workers and more people in the national health service, and it is harder to increase productivity in those areas. Much of that work is highly people focused and labour intensive. We cannot just decide to reduce the number of people who are seen by a certain doctor, nurse or carer in a shift. It is much more difficult than increasing productivity through technological change in manufacturing, for instance.

Good morning and welcome to the 14th meeting in 2021 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee. Today, with the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body’s agreement, we are meeting in hybrid format due to the timing and nature of our budget scrutiny. Additional mitigations are in place, with fewer people attending the meeting.

The only item on our agenda today is evidence from two panels of witnesses as part of our scrutiny of the Scottish budget for 2022-23. First, we will hear from the Scottish Fiscal Commission, and we will then hear from David Eiser from the Fraser of Allander Institute and Professor Graeme Roy from the University of Glasgow.

Our first panel is from the Scottish Fiscal Commission. We are joined remotely by Dame Susan Rice, chair; John Ireland, chief executive; and Professor Alasdair Smith and Professor Francis Breedon, who are commissioners. We have up to 90 minutes for this discussion. I remind members that our broadcasting team will operate their microphones.

I would now like to hear an opening statement from Dame Susan Rice.

I thank the Scottish Fiscal Commission for its evidence and for producing such an excellent and detailed report.

That concludes this section of our evidence taking. We will reassemble at 11.37.

For our second panel on the Scottish budget 2022-23, we are joined by David Eiser, senior knowledge exchange fellow at the Fraser of Allander Institute, and Professor Graeme Roy, dean of external engagement and professor of economics in the college of social sciences at the University of Glasgow. I welcome you both to the meeting.

I remind members and witnesses that our broadcasting team will operate the microphones. We have up to 90 minutes for this session.

Before I open up the discussion, I ask Professor Roy to start us off with some opening remarks.