Chamber and committees

I am quoting back to you the numbers that you gave us. You said that, in year 1, you would require £190 million, in year 2, £195 million, in year 3, £192 million and, in year 4, £190 million. That is obviously way above what is on offer in the flat cash settlement.

Indeed.

In the table, you have presented the proposed allocation as a flat cash settlement of £170 million per year for four years. On top of that, you detail the cost of various functions, the first of which is the Covid deaths investigation team. The cost of that is on top of the £170 million. When it comes to budget time, if the Government presents you with more than £170 million—between £170 million and £190 million—which of those functions will you be able to deliver and which will you not be able to deliver? I refer you to page 19 of the papers.

That is interesting confirmation. You say that certain costs will have to be met. I presume that the cost of that would be deducted from any £170 million cash settlement. For example, because you have an obligation to investigate Covid deaths, the £4.5 million cost of that would come out of the £170 million, so you would have £165 million left. If, for example, the Government gave you £175 million, once the Covid investigation costs were taken away from that, you would be back to £170 million again. That is what I am getting at.

I want to move on to the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service. In the submission that you made last year as regards your budget requirements, you made a request for £145.7 million. The final budget that was delivered was £133.5 million, which was a shortfall of £12 million on what you requested. Looking back, did that have any effect on the work that you did last year? That will help us to get a feel for might happen if you experience a similar shortfall this time round.

Just to clarify, then, is the expectation at the moment that the backlog of court cases will return to normal levels by 2025 or 2026?

I appreciate that, in your submission, you mentioned energy and food costs, but those are 4 per cent and 2 per cent of your overall budget, whereas pay is 60 per cent of your budget and therefore the lion’s share of your costs. You say that

“a flat cash position ... would require restraint on pay increases and a review of the current employee operating model.”

You suggested that neither a reduction in staff nor a pay freeze can take place, but it sounds like both would have to take place. I still do not understand what a flat cash settlement would mean for pay and staffing numbers.

It sounds as though you might not have any choice, though. You get what you get with finances for resource budgets, so it will be one or the other, will it not?

Do you mean a strike?

Are they able to do that?