Chamber and committees

On the point about the underspend, I am interested in whether the Government thinks that there is a presentation issue, because the single biggest chunk of the underspend related to variation in the student loan market—not a pot of cash that went unspent. We regularly have stakeholders engage with us who are frustrated that their priority did not get the spending that they believe that it deserves, and they see reports that £2 billion was not spent. Is there a basic presentational issue with regard to the terminology when we talk about underspend?

The resource spending review last year was supposed to get us towards a point of fiscal sustainability. Obviously, that happened during a period where inflation continued to rise. Nonetheless, reflecting on the fact that we had the RSR in the summer and then an emergency budget review and a second round of additional savings in the autumn, it appears that quite a lot of what was in the EBR probably could have been in the resource spending review. Has there been any lessons learned exercise around why the RSR did not generate some of the savings in the EBR that, certainly when I was looking at them, felt very obvious? Some of what was in the EBR was painful and difficult, but not all of it was.

I will drill down on that a little bit. I will try to be brief. Would the outcomes be better if the Scottish Government was doing less, but doing each of those initiatives with more resources available to it? At the moment, there is a huge number of priorities spread across a range of initiatives, and we know that there is a gap between ambition and outcome. Would the outcomes across the board, particularly in relation to child poverty and net zero, be better if there were fewer but better resourced programmes?

From a policy perspective, I completely agree with everything that you have said, and I accept your point that we should not, in general, see this as a unit price thing. However, for the purposes of the financial memorandum, we need to. For the sake of clarification, then, can I confirm that, as far as the costings in the financial memorandum for the additional hearings are concerned, it is assumed that the unit price is essentially the same as the unit price of the current average in the hearing system—or is it more?

Thanks very much. That is all from me.

I have a couple of questions on the increase in the number of cases that will go through the hearings system and the relative cost.

There have been some suggestions—and agreement—that the number of hearings will increase and that the complexity of the additional cases will be greater on average than that of existing cases that are in the system. That has raised questions about the averaged-out cost per hearing. Could you clarify whether it is assumed that the cost of the additional hearings will average out at the same cost as the hearings that are currently in the system? If so, how do you respond to the suggestion that those hearings are likely to be more complex? If you have a different cost average for the hearings, can you expand on how you came to it?

I have a final brief question. I was glad to welcome the minister’s response to my question about secure transport at last week’s meeting of the Education, Children and Young People Committee and the comment that the Government is considering either amendments to the bill in order to reflect that or taking measures in that area in one form or another. However, will that be taken into account in revising the financial memorandum? Various submissions have suggested that savings could be made in the area of secure transport provision through, for example, creating secure transport provision in Scotland. Indeed, we have previously discussed how most of that provision comes from England.

The flip side, though, of trying to raise standards in secure transport provision is that it could have additional costs. It would therefore be of interest to Parliament if it had some indication of the financial implications of changes to secure transport provision. I accept that a decision has not yet been made on what those changes will be, but can you just confirm that the financial memorandum will take that into account?

That is fantastic.

On standards in transport, you mentioned in relation to the wider issue of restraint in secure accommodation that you are considering a mix of regulation, guidance and precise reporting. One issue that has been made clear to us is that there is no consistency in reporting on the use of restraint in a transport setting. Sometimes, the secure accommodation provider is informed by the transport provider about the use of restraint but, sometimes, they are not. Sometimes, the local authority might be informed but, sometimes, it will not be.

As part of its consideration of possible amendments, is the Government considering introducing a consistent reporting requirement on transport providers, or whoever the responsibility would lie with? The requirement could be on the accommodation provider, and there would then be an onus on it to find out from the transport provider. Is the Government considering some kind of requirement for consistency in the reporting of instances of restraint on transport?

I will come back to questions about standards for secure transport and, specifically, to points about restraint. However, first of all, the minister will be familiar with the evidence that the committee has received on the provision of secure transport. We have had anecdotal evidence that most secure transport providers are based in England. There have been instances of a young person being taken from one side of Glasgow to the other or from Montrose to Ninewells hospital and a secure accommodation provider needing to call up transport from south of London—Portsmouth was, I think, one of the examples given.

Does the Scottish Government recognise that there is an issue with the availability of secure transport provision in Scotland? Why is that the case? We have tried to find out from witnesses in previous evidence sessions whether it is a question of market failure, whether it is about procurement practices or whether something else is going on. It seems a significant problem if we have to call up cars from Portsmouth to take somebody on a half-hour journey across one city in Scotland.

I welcome that. Is that consideration being undertaken as part of the bill process with a view to lodging, or being open to the potential for, amendments at stage 2 or 3 that would, for example, give ministers the necessary regulation-making powers if the decision was taken to regulate and establish a registration system?