Chamber and committees

I will press you a little bit on that. Other people have argued that it would have been better to use that money to boost the Scottish child payment further because that would have targeted the poorest people. Am I not right in saying that the poorest people do not really pay council tax? A lot of ordinary people have had a 5, 6 or 7 per cent increase in their pension or their wages. They are paying that kind of increase for most things, albeit that they are paying more for energy. Yesterday, a constituent of mine came to my surgery and said that they were happy to pay a bit more council tax.

On a different subject, I go back to capital expenditure. Some of the amounts involved are quite small in the scheme of things but, over the past couple of days, concern has been expressed about SPT, which you said has considerable reserves. From a quick look at its accounts, I think that it has only £12 million of what it calls non-earmarked reserves, which is not a huge amount for an organisation with a turnover of £74 million. It has been suggested that, if SPT does not have funding to put in, work at East Kilbride station might have to be delayed. An example that affects my area is that Clyde Gateway is losing its core capital funding of £5 million, which could put a project at Shawfield in jeopardy. Can those projects still go ahead?

It seems to me that the key point relates to the difference between how much comes from grants and how much comes from other investment. Such money gets called private investment, but it is really a loan, or it might come from a pension fund or a bank. In a sense, that does not matter, because there is interest and so on, which has to be covered by the rent. I am seeking some reassurance that there will not be a big change between the grants and borrowing.

Okay—I will not go into that in any more detail.

Another issue is the £415,000 for net zero scrutiny. I thought that we were doing net zero anyway, but I note a reference to

“other projects, including ... embedding Sustainable Development thinking and support to members/committees on Net Zero”.

Is that work aimed more at committees?

I take your point that MSPs take up about 93 per cent of their staffing allocation. Is this just wishful thinking, or is there any way of encouraging MSPs to keep their spending down voluntarily, even if they are allowed to spend up to that limit? A problem that we have in the public sector is that, because you have a budget of X, you feel that you have to spend X. We see that in many areas; indeed, I have heard colleagues discussing this and saying, “I’ve got this budget, and I must spend all of it.” Is there any space for encouraging MSPs to save money? After all, if they save money, that will help someone else.

I will just finish off by saying that some of the products are very attractive. I buy scarves regularly for raffle prizes and things like that, and people are generally very positive about them. The slate place mats are very good as well.

Michael Marra mentioned pay policy. I want to press you a little bit on the figures. The Scottish Fiscal Commission has assumed that there will be a 4.5 per cent increase, but the SPCB, which we heard from this morning, is looking at a 6.7 per cent increase. Can you give us an indication of the kind of pay increases that we are talking about?

My next question is on the council tax freeze and its mechanics and logic. What is the aim of the council tax freeze? Is it to help those people in most poverty? There has been a bit of debate over whether the £144 million for that is enough. Whether or not it is enough, it depletes the public purse as a whole, does it not?

I will turn to some of the projects that are coming up. You have already mentioned the increased use of hybrid working, which means that there are more spaces where people can work. How successful has the hub been? We all pass it regularly, and it does not appear to be very busy, but perhaps it is well used.

The submission contains the line:

“Office space planning and moves - £200k”.

What is that for?

I will leave the subject of commissioners, as it has had a good airing, and we are looking forward to the inquiry on that.

I wish to follow up on some of the points that the convener has raised. I think that using the AWE index is a reasonable way forward, both for MSPs and for MSPs’ staff. I have worked out that the average for the MSP increase over the past four years is 2.9 per cent, which I think is pretty easy to sell, or reasonable, as some of the public, at least, do not want us to have any increase.

I think that you said that you are going to do more work on the ASHE figures and their volatility—which is the word that has been used. Do you have any clarity as to why those figures are volatile or more volatile than other measures?