Chamber and committees

You talked about the political will and, in his submission, Professor Roy said:

“There are huge institutional, practical, and political constraints in public service delivery.”

Is the issue that political parties fear the electoral consequences of such radical changes, is it to do with vested interests in the public sector or is it perhaps a combination of those issues? If you were to start the ball rolling from where we are at this time, where would the number 1 bottleneck be? I would like all the witnesses to answer that question.

Thank you very much for that very interesting opening statement. We talked in private session about the spring budget revision. Will that be coming out in January or February? Do we have any indicative dates in that respect?

Thank you for your opening statements. The esteemed Professor James Mitchell asked:

“if we are all agreed, why has it not happened?”

Why do you think?

Thank you. A number of members are keen to come in. The deputy convener will be first.

I have a couple of other questions before I open it up. Forty million pounds has been allocated as a general revenue grant for local authorities. Is that for anything specific, or is it just to oil the wheels of local authorities by giving them additional money to spend as they see fit?

You mentioned capital, and we understand that there have been huge increases in material and labour costs at rates that are higher than inflation. Given that, how is the Scottish Government planning its capital investment? Because of the changes, does it look as though we will get less for the same amount of money? Given that our capital budget’s buying power is decreasing, is the Scottish Government looking to increase its capital budget in order to do the same with more money?

Time is against us, folks, but I will take a brief question from Daniel Johnson.

It seems that there are no further questions from committee members, so I will ask one or two more, if I may.

Some considerable changes have been made to the net zero and transport budget, but there is not a lot of detail. For example, on rail services, page 66 of the budget revision document just says,

“Additional funding to support rail services”,

for which it shows £77.3 million. We also see increases for buses, airports and light rail, but the percentages vary significantly. For example, rail gets 5.3 per cent, buses get 1.2 per cent, Highland and Island Airports gets 8.1 per cent, and light rail gets 4 per cent. What is the reasoning behind those differences? What detail can you give on additional funding to support rail services, for example?

Sure—but I was asking about a specific issue. The changes that have been made this time are significant and the pandemic has contributed to them.

Transport is an obvious area where additional resources have had to be put in—for example, to make sure that the railways could continue to run when the number of passengers diminished. In what areas of the budget have savings been made—not because of cuts, but because the budget that was allocated is no longer required? What areas in the budget have been most able, because of the pandemic, to provide funding for the Scottish Government to reallocate?

Stephen Boyle, a lot of that is obviously in your area of interest. One thing that you said in your submission was:

“Our report last year on affordable housing noted that the Scottish Government had not set out the outcomes it intended to achieve from its investment.”

Is there an issue there about not being able to see the wood from the trees sometimes? Building houses is obviously a good thing, as you get new, modern houses that are easier to heat, safer and more comfortable, et cetera, but is that an aspect of it?