Chamber and committees

Earlier, when I asked a similar question, you gave a completely different answer, cabinet secretary.

Thank you. Allan Faulds has been scribbling furiously over the past few minutes.

I thank all our witnesses for their active participation in the discussion. We will continue our evidence sessions next week. Thank you very much for coming along. I also thank members of the committee for their involvement and contributions.

We will have a break until 10.30.

The next item on our agenda is to take evidence from the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs on the financial memorandum for the Police (Ethics, Conduct and Scrutiny) (Scotland) Bill. The cabinet secretary is joined by Scottish Government officials Donald McGillivray, who is director of safer communities, and Steven Bunch, who is the bill team leader.

I welcome you all to the meeting and invite the cabinet secretary to make a short opening statement.

One of the issues that we raised with the bill team was about the bill being a framework bill. The bill team said:

“The legislation is an enabling and framework bill, and a number of provisions will be set out in secondary legislation.”—[Official Report, Finance and Public Administration Committee, 26 March 2024; c 6.]

However, in your response to my letter, you said:

“I do not consider the Police Ethics etc Bill to be a framework bill. The Bill is an amending one”.

I wonder why there is that difference in view.

I am sorry, but it did, because nine months later it came to committee with all the additional information. That is why we are here today, because we were unable to scrutinise figures. I know that you do not like us to refer to other bills, but when other ministers and bill teams have come to us and it is clear that the financial memorandum bears no relationship to reality, they have gone away and redrafted it. Given that that has been the case, surely it would have been a lot simpler for the Government to decide that, because there has been a huge difference in the proportions and total sums involved in the bill, it should revise the financial memorandum before coming to the Finance and Public Administration Committee in March. There is no sense in coming to the committee with figures that are wrong, just because they were right nine months earlier.

You have said that stage 2 will not be until after October, so there will be a further difference between the figures in the financial memorandum that was presented in June last year and the figures that will apply in October this year. Surely, therefore, it is common sense to decide that, because the figures have completely changed, you will come to the Finance and Public Administration Committee with a revised financial memorandum. If that had happened, it is unlikely that you would even have had to give evidence today.

We will leave it at that. I thank the cabinet secretary and her officials for their evidence this morning and I thank colleagues for their questions and contributions.

Are members content for me to write to the lead committee to provide an update on the evidence that we have received in relation to the bill, so that it can take that into account in its stage 1 scrutiny?

Members indicated agreement.

You said—I will quote you—that you “inserted” figures straight into the financial memorandum. What work was done to interrogate the accuracy of the figures that you were given?

I am sure that colleagues want to interrogate the financial memorandum in greater detail, as I have hogged the first 15 minutes of the session, but I will ask one last question before I open it up to them.

One of the costings in the financial memorandum is about the code of ethics and the duty of candour. Those were costed at zero because, originally, they were to be absorbed within the existing police budget. However, that has been reconsidered and we are now looking at a one-off cost of £1,522,000 and recurring costs of £793,500; a breakdown of those costs follows in your letter.

How can there be such a huge differential? Surely there must have been discussions before the bill was introduced on whether there would be such significant costs. It seems to me very odd that a huge section of the financial memorandum was classed at zero cost, given that there is not only a significant initial cost but on-going, recurring costs.

Aye, indeed.

That concludes questions from committee members. I have a couple more questions.

I am sure that I asked this earlier, too. Did your officials interrogate the figures that were given by the police, to check that they were an accurate reflection? My understanding is that officials just accepted the updated figures from the police.