Chamber and committees

I think that members would be more sympathetic if there had been a change in finance secretary, but there has not, of course. As I said, I am not speaking for all the committee at this point because we have not discussed it, but I am sure that they would be supportive of my view that a three-week delay to almost the very last minute prior to recess is not acceptable. We will be feeding that back and I am pleased that you will also feed that back.

We have a huge range of areas to cover. My colleague Liz Smith, who sends her apologies that she will not be able to come until about 10 o’clock, said that I will probably still be questioning at that point. That certainly is not my intention. However, we have been given quite a range of issues to talk to you about. I will try to touch on a few things and colleagues will, I hope, come in at a similar depth. I may come in at the end if there are any gaps, although knowing my colleagues I do not believe that there will be.

The committee has looked at how the Scottish Government assesses the quality of engagement across different policy areas in Government to identify areas for improvement. How difficult is that when you have a situation of churn in ministerial appointments and portfolios?

The issue for us is that we are keen to see as much stakeholder engagement and so on—and, indeed, co-design, which is a phrase that has come out of the woodwork over the past year or two—taking place before stage 1 wherever possible. That is a priority for this committee, because of the difficulties in scrutinising as we progress through legislation.

Others colleagues are wanting to come in. I do not want to cover that issue any more, as I think that others will want to ask about it. However, I want to cover financial memoranda. Page 92 of the bill handbook says:

“Financial Memoranda are required so that the Parliament can have the best possible information about the costs and/or savings arising from proposed legislation ... Estimates should be comprehensive and the level of detail should be sufficient to enable the Parliament to come to a view on their robustness.”

We had a cabinet secretary at the committee a couple of weeks ago who was arguing that when a bill is introduced, we should more or less accept that financial memorandum, despite the huge changes that could happen between then and it coming before us for scrutiny. Do you not agree that the financial memorandum that a committee scrutinises should have the most up-to-date and comprehensive information at that time rather than when it was introduced?

Talk for as long as you like.

I understand what you are saying but, if you think about it, the national health service was allocated a 4.3 per cent increase and the police were allocated a 5.6 per cent increase in resources, and they have to deal with that. The commissioners—it is not just the Ethical Standards Commissioner—all seem to be asking for significant increases in funding, and another half a dozen commissioners are in the pipeline. We, as a committee, are trying to address that. People will be thinking that, if front-line services like the NHS have to work within an envelope, the commissioners should be in the same place.

The difficulties with the Ethical Standards Commissioner and the increase in budget alerted us to the significant year-on-year increase in commissioner costs. It was between 8 and 10 per cent each year over the last couple of years, which has an increasing impact on the Scottish Parliament’s budget.

How can the Parliament best deal with that seemingly exponential growth in budget costs? If you think about it, the cash increase in the Scottish budget this year was 2.6 per cent, but commissioners went up by 10 per cent, or more in some circumstances. Should we continue to review that annually? Should we cap it? How do we address that issue, given that so many other commissioners are in the pipeline? Sue, I will come to you after Martin.

That has concluded questions from the committee. Do our witnesses have any final points that they wish to make? Do they think that we have omitted anything, or feel a burning desire to add something to our deliberations?

Thank you for your contributions this morning. We will continue to take evidence as part of our inquiry at our meeting on 21 May. That concludes the public part of today’s meeting.

The next item on the agenda, which we will discuss in private, is consideration of our work programme.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you for that very comprehensive answer, Audrey.

Of course, the Scottish Government has said that it

“is committed to the establishment of a Victims and Witnesses Commissioner”

and that it would fill an identified accountability gap. Did the committee recognise any accountability gap that needed to be filled?

Yes, there is a perception that there are gaps, but there is also concern about duplication.