Chamber and committees

Thank you.

I have just one question. If a piece of legislation has not worked very well and has lots of problems, how effective is the post-legislative scrutiny in the Parliament? Would your group ever be involved in considering why a policy commitment has not worked very well?

Your first example about biodiversity is a classic example, because the data that you need will not exist until years from now. That might be slightly different from the business case for deciding on business rates or whatever, because that detail potentially exists, although you might not have it. In the case of biodiversity, the data that you need on which to base policy might not come for another five or 10 years. An example of that is moorlands—we were having that debate last year or the year before. To what extent is that a serious problem for the Government in devising policy? Effectively, there is nothing that it can do to get that data.

I do not think that there is much scope to be able to reduce costs. As you rightly say, if we want a world-class health service, costs are going to rise in that sector more than they will in the rest of the economy. That has been the nature of health service costs for a long time.

Is there scope for reform elsewhere, in the non-health, non-social security aspects of the economy, that could help us to make some savings?

I will come to other two gentlemen, but first, when you say that there is a case for making better use of the existing data, what is it that acts as a barrier to doing that?

Indeed.

You have referred in a number of your projections to the size of the increase in the health spend, which I think you are estimating will be just under 50 per cent of the change—it is about a third now. Obviously, there will also be an increase in the social security spend. Do you have any views on the scope for public sector reform in the economy to address the increase in the costs that we are having to cope with?

I want to ask about data. It was put to us by two former ministers and one civil servant last week that, when it comes to good-quality decision making in the Government, it is essential that good-quality data is available—if the Government chooses to ignore it, that is another matter. Having such data available is critical to good-quality decision making. Are there gaps in the data that it is necessary to put before Government ministers? Is there anything that we can do to improve that?

I have to say that I think that Scotland is blessed with an awful lot of people who are putting the facts in place for the Government. Perhaps we need a few more organisations like the Fraser of Allander Institute but, nonetheless, I think the ones that we have are pretty objective.

James Black, when you make a submission on, for example, a very objective analysis of the economy, does that submission reach the right circles? I am thinking about the civil servants and Government ministers who will be making some pretty big decisions about the economy. Is the analysis reaching the right quarters?

That would be very helpful. The convener has asked questions about the significant amounts of money that are being transferred between portfolios. If we are talking, on a longer-term basis, about a figure of £1.3 billion as a minimum—it could be more—that is a considerable amount of money. It is important to the Parliament, and certainly to this committee, that we know what the plans are for how that money will be deployed. If there are any delays in the process of the project, which is what is happening, that frees up money that could be spent on other things, which might address some of the constraints that we have before us. Could we get some more information on that?