Chamber and committees

Thank you—that was extremely helpful. I am persuaded of the need for a finance bill, which I think would enhance scrutiny and help people to understand a bit more about where their money is going to be spent, which is crucial.

Audit Scotland has said a lot about enhancing transparency and scrutiny. Auditor General, is it your opinion that we should look at introducing a finance bill?

I have one question, Ms Flanagan, which is on the back of Michelle Thomson’s first question to you.

I know what you are saying about the fact that some councils are not terribly keen on sharing services because they feel that that would dilute their best interests when it comes to delivering services. In the areas and councils that have delivered shared services, has there been an audit of how much money has been saved by having joint services? It would be helpful to know whether it is good practice, and having the information that Michelle Thomson asked about would be helpful to the committee.

Again, that is an interesting answer. Audit Scotland has quite rightly suggested that we need to improve scrutiny in this Parliament and to have greater transparency around a whole lot of things, but particularly tax and spend. If the devolved taxes group did its job properly and its report came—let us say—to this committee and then went to the Scottish Government, that would not necessarily compel it to be part of a chamber process with stages 1, 2 and 3, whereas a finance bill would compel that. I am interested to hear whether you think that we need to have both of those together or whether we could operate with them being separate.

Thank you.

Therefore, that is a particular worry.

Therefore, are there really two issues? You have some concerns about the resources that are required to go into solving that problem. Is there also a specific issue about the consistency of the data? Do we need to do more to align the data that the DWP has had with the data that Social Security Scotland has? As well as solving the resource problem, does a methodological alignment need to take place?

That is helpful.

Claire Murdoch mentioned the issues around the consistency of the social security data. Can that problem be fixed quickly? Were you surprised by its extent? Historically, the DWP has had better data than Social Security Scotland, albeit that it is a new body. Can that be solved so that there is consistent data? As Professor Roy rightly said, it is absolutely essential that we get that fixed, given the scale of what we are talking about.

Professor Roy, my question is in relation to the recent problems in the census and the collection of data. As well as all the other obvious aspects of collecting relevant data for economic forecasting, to what extent has the lower rate of response to the census affected your forecasting work?

Professor Roy, I was interested in what you said about the issue around social security data. Do any other aspects of the data collection cause you any problems? You said that data has improved in many areas, but do you need any other aspects of the data besides social security?

Good morning. You mentioned in your introduction that the Audit Scotland review showed some concerns about a lack of transparency, particularly regarding outcomes, and that the Scottish Government had worked hard to address that issue. Please expand a little on what you did to measure those outcomes. Did you take evidence from international situations? What did you do to address Audit Scotland’s concerns?