Chamber and committees

Right. I will come to Dr Scott next.

Okay. I have a question for Dr Scott, but I think that she wants to comment on the previous question first.

Right—so it is the actual sum rather than the amount of interest. I find that confusing. Most things are fixed—they are either in this year or next year, and there is no flexibility to move them around. I was a bit puzzled about why there is flexibility in that area.

Okay—fair enough.

The last issue relates to the technical agreement on resource borrowing limits, which is mentioned in annex D. I understand that there has been further work with the UK Government on when we could and could not borrow. Some of that is quite technical. I understand that, within a particular tax, we net off—I see that the minister is smiling so, obviously, I am in a difficult area—the pluses and the minuses, but we do not net them off between tax and social security. Can you explain that a little?

Just to clarify, I should say that, despite what the convener has said, I fully accept that a lot of this is technical, and I do not necessarily get very excited about it. When I see words and phrases such as “non-cash”, “estimates”, “economists”, “current macroeconomic climate” and “impairment”, I take it all with a little pinch of salt.

I do not have a lot of questions. However, I note that the UK budget is coming up next week, and it will be focused on 2023-24. Is there any risk to our current year from next week’s statement?

But if there is a positive in one area, such as social security, and a negative in tax, it sounds as though it is to our advantage that they are not netted off against each other. Is there a logic to them not being netted off against each other?

Okay. I will leave it at that. Thanks, convener.

So we have all the information. I think that the report suggests that you have better information from Westminster this time than you have had in the past, which has allowed you to be a bit more accurate.

We have had the slightly overused image of landing a jumbo on a postage stamp to balance the budget. It seems to me that this year is probably the tightest that it has ever been. For example, paragraph 117 of the report says:

“These movements ... leave the overall resource position as slightly over-allocated by an amount of £10.2 million.”

In the scheme of things, that is tiny. Are we currently expecting a complete balance, or maybe a little surplus, on reaching the end of the year?

That is great.

On the slightly more technical side of things, paragraph 138 mentions the allocation of the ScotWind funds. I was a little confused, as it mentions

“a contingency option for balancing the 2022-23 budget”,

but it goes on to say that, if that is not needed, it will free up funding for the future. Why is there scope for moving that funding between years? Is there something special about the ScotWind funding?