Chamber and committees

A question that arose previously was that we could not find the Scottish income tax board’s terms of reference published anywhere. Would you be able to supply those to us as well?

I will raise an issue that I think we raised with you last year. It is pointed out in the National Audit Office’s report in paragraph 2.32 that

“The tax gap is the difference between the amount of tax that should be paid and what is actually paid. HMRC does not currently produce a Scotland-specific tax gap.”

Why do we not know what the tax gap is?

Alyson Stafford, would there not be a benefit to the Scottish Government in having that data? We are talking about £11 billion or £12 billion of revenue. We are the Public Audit Committee, but would it not be sensible, even at the basic housekeeping level, to know the difference between what should be paid and what is actually being paid in Scottish income tax?

I accept that, but the quotation that I read out is from the National Audit Office’s report, so there is obviously an issue. It might be a low priority, or it may be a low risk in your estimation, but nonetheless the National Audit Office has drawn it to our attention as being worth commenting on. We understand that there are priorities and risks to be assessed, but to us it seems to be a pretty fundamental piece of data that it would be useful for the Scottish Government—and for the Scottish Parliament, because it sets the rates of income tax—to have in order to understand what the tax gap is.

We will move on now. I invite our deputy convener to put some questions to you.

Director general, you are in danger of straying into an area of policy that is of great interest to me, which is the extent to which we will have to rely on foreign direct investment versus the extent to which we are boosting our indigenous business base. However, that is not for this morning’s conversation.

We are really out of time, but I will make one final request. Could you supply to the committee in writing a list of the private debt collection agencies that operate in Scotland?

For the avoidance of confusion, are you going to get, or are you now getting, regional level data about Scottish income tax receipts?

Good morning. I welcome everybody to the 14th meeting in 2023 of the Public Audit Committee. We have received apologies from Colin Beattie. I welcome Bill Kidd, who is substituting for him today.

The first item on our agenda is to decide whether to take agenda items 3 and 4 in private. Are we agreed to do so?

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you very much.

As you have suggested, those are very much the kind of areas that we want to probe, question and better understand. However, before we get to questions, I invite Jonathan Athow to give us an opening statement.

We are a bit pressed for time, so we will move on to another area that has been of special interest to the committee. Craig Hoy will ask about that.