Chamber and committees

An average that was based on the forecasts that were available was used when the financial memorandum was written. We understand that more recent Scottish Fiscal Commission forecasts are now available, and estimates will use the updated profile. We have seen a massive change in inflation in a very short period of time, which many of us could never have predicted. As we all know, inflation is very volatile at present and has moved markedly since the estimates in the financial memorandum. Our financial modelling will continue to reflect the most recent inflation rates, and we will update accordingly as we move forward. With that, I will bring in Fiona Bennett.

Let me assure you that we will update the financial memorandum and that, as we move forward with the formulation of the business cases, we will continue to take account of the current financial and economic circumstances, including inflation.

The committee is well aware that the financial memorandum and the business cases are not in themselves budgets. Budgetary decisions on spend will have to take place in the normal way in this Parliament, as you would expect.

I will come in on that. Some of the areas that you have highlighted are outlined in the policy memorandum as ones that require further detailed development, including those costings. We should perhaps have communicated with folk a little bit better around the fact that the documentation that we have produced forms a suite of complementary information to support transparency in all of this. Some stakeholders have picked that up a little better than others. In that suite of documents, we have been open and transparent not only about the work that we have done and the financial memorandum as it pertains to the bill but about the other work that needs to be done and how we go about doing it.

No, I do not. The financial memorandum covers the bill—that is the estimated cost of establishing a national care service as per the bill. What some other folk want at the moment is the detail around aspects of the costs of service delivery and other aspects that we have said will be subject to the co-design process. As I said to other members, it would be wrong to make assumptions about those costs, because the people who we want to be involved in the co-design process would say that we had made up our minds about how we would progress because we had already attached a financial cost to it.

In my responses to the convener and Ms Thomson earlier, I said that that co-design work will be subject to individual business cases, and I am more than happy for the committee and Parliament to scrutinise all that as we move forward. We will be open and transparent about everything, but we will not make assumptions before that co-design work is completed. I reiterate that the financial memorandum provides the estimated cost as per the bill.

I have already mentioned people from the Fraser of Allander Institute approaching civil servants on the financial memorandum. I will bring Ms Bennett in, because she will have featured in those discussions. As I said, my understanding is that they got no new information in that regard but were pointed in the right direction in relation to what is in the financial memorandum.

No, I do not accept that, because some of the folks you mentioned want information and assumptions around some of the things that we have said will be subject to co-design. I canna reiterate this point enough: if we come out now with financial assumptions on some of the aspects of the work that we want to achieve through co-design, people will think that co-design is a sham. I want folk to be involved in that co-design process to ensure that we have good law that leads to good implementation and that bridges the gulf in relation to the implementation gap.

I know that some folks out there—I know this because I speak to them—want to have detail about every aspect of service delivery as we move forward, but we cannot give that at this moment in time, because that would breach our pledge to co-design with the voices of lived experience, stakeholders and others.

The bill is there, and the financial memorandum covers the bill. We will come back again and again with the business cases for what comes out of the co-design process to allow further scrutiny, but I will not be bounced into making assumptions about what some aspects of the co-design work will cost, because folk out there would think that we had already made up our minds about how to move forward.

I do not think that it is a daft laddie question at all. It is a ducks-in-a-row situation. What we need to do is progress with the primary legislation and then move on to the co-design process for the secondary legislation and the service delivery. If we had done it the other way round, folk could equally have asked, “Why did you not deal with the primary legislation—the framework—first before moving on to the co-designing of secondary legislation and services?”

Ms Bennett will respond to that question.

I will let in Ms Bell. We will provide you with more detail on that, too.

That will not necessarily have to be the case, Mr Mason. As I said in a previous answer, there are without a doubt opportunities to have shared services here. I am not going to make any comment about jobs for accountants, but there is an opportunity to have shared service aspects to all of this.