Chamber and committees

Like those in other parts of the UK, Scottish taxpayers contribute to the UK Government’s international development work, which is delivered through the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and also a number of other UK Government departments including the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The Scottish Government’s own £9 million per annum International Development Fund budget, focussed on our seven priority countries including Malawi, comes from the Scottish Consolidated Fund.

The UK Government has not discussed nor raised in correspondence with the Scottish Government the use of UK international development funds to fund a post at the DFID in East Kilbride to communicate the benefits of the union to the Scottish public.

The Scottish Government would be concerned if the salary for a post to communicate the benefits of the union to the Scottish public was to come from the DFID administration budget, when that international development budget itself counts towards the UK Government’s target of spending 0.7% of gross national income on overseas development assistance.

The Scottish Government shares the concerns of the Devolution Further Powers Committee that the Bill in its current form does not fulfil the Smith Agreement. On 8 June 2015 the Scottish Government published amendments which would fully implement the recommendations of the Smith Commission, and these amendments have been discussed with the UK Government. The Scottish Government now expects the UK Government to share with us their proposals for amendments for further discussion between the governments prior to the next stage of the Bill’s passage in the Commons. Progress on these amendments will be required for the Bill to meet the terms of the Smith Agreement.

Full implementation of the Smith Agreement is also reliant on agreement of a fiscal framework between the Scottish and UK governments. Discussion on the fiscal framework is continuing alongside the passage of the Scotland Bill. The Scottish Government has made clear it will only support a legislative consent motion if there is a satisfactory fiscal framework agreed between the Scottish and United Kingdom governments.

Scottish Government does not consider that these provisions in the Scotland Bill fully deliver the Smith Commission agreement. On 8 June 2015 the Scottish Government published amendments to the Bill that would implement Smith Commission recommendations in these specific areas.

The Scottish Government has not had formal correspondence from HMRC about its operations in East Kilbride. As part of the civil service local arrangements, Scottish Government resourcing works routinely with colleagues across UK departments to ensure that staff displaced from any location are considered for positions in other departments and administrations.

The following information on HMRC employment in Scotland is provided in the Offshore Northern Seas 2014 statistics release on civil service employment. This is not broken down by building or otherwise by location in Scotland.

HMRC – 8960 staff.

HMRC valuation office – 60 staff

Total: 9020 civil servants

Like those in other parts of the UK, Scottish taxpayers contribute to the UK Government’s international development work, which is delivered through the UK DfID, and also a number of other UK Government departments including the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The Scottish Government’s own £9 million per annum International Development Fund budget, focussed on our seven priority countries including Malawi, comes from the Scottish Consolidated Fund.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on staffing numbers at DfID in East Kilbride, other than that which is already available publicly.

The Scottish Government has not had formal correspondence from HMRC in this regard. The Scottish Government resourcing team regularly discuss staffing matters through their engagement with the Civil Service Local Co-ordinator Group for Whitehall Departments based in Scotland.

The Scottish Government does not have any information on the cost of Scotland Office publicity activity on the Scotland Bill.

On receipt of a request for referral to independent adjudication, the Scottish Government provides local authorities with the application and a non-statutory guidance document on dispute resolution specifically tailored for education authorities. In addition, the supporting children’s learning code of practice provides guidance on dispute resolution under the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004.

Information relating to PPP/PFI contracts and the associated unitary payments is available from the Scottish Government website under ‘Unitary Payment Charges’ by way of the following link: www.scotland.gov.uk.