Chamber and committees

Might that include more IT investment?

Okay. I will leave it at that. If you want to write to us, you can do so. I am an outsider to this, so I was simply intrigued.

My final point is on the question of costs for other organisations. Scotland’s Rural College suggested that farms would have to produce whole-farm plans and that there would be a cost to that. Would you accept that?

Okay—I will leave that with you. It would be good if the figure were less than 10 per cent, I suppose.

My next question was going to be whether 11 per cent was a reasonable figure. Do you benchmark that percentage against costs in other countries? I do not know what Denmark or anywhere else spends, for example. However, at last week’s meeting of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee, we heard that Social Security Scotland is aiming for a figure of 5.2 per cent for its costs to distribute benefits, which is also quite a complex area.

There would still be a core cost even if you paid out no grants.

Is there no estimate for implementation costs?

I am assuming that the IT systems could probably cope with it if you tweak the present system but that, if you do something radically different, we might need a new system.

I do not think that the national reserve is referred to in the policy or financial memorandum, although it was in the consultation.

It was Social Security Scotland, which is aiming for 5.2 per cent. I therefore wonder whether the figure of 11 per cent is okay, or good. How do we judge that?

So, although the financial memorandum says that the implementation cost has been excluded, in effect, it assumes that the present costs will carry on roughly as they are. Is that fair?