Finance Committee, 03 Feb 2004

Meeting date: Tuesday, February 3, 2004

Official Report 269KB pdf

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Scottish Executive Relocation Policy

The second item on the agenda is consideration of an approach paper from the clerks outlining proposals for developing into an inquiry the committee reporters' investigations into the Executive's relocation policy. Members will see from the final page of the paper that we need to discuss and agree on a number of issues. I invite members' comments on the broad thrust of the paper and questions on matters of detail.

The paragraph on written evidence, which is on the second page of the paper, suggests that we might be able to make use of electronic questionnaires. What controls would be in place to ensure that the evidence that came in was accurate and not, perhaps, stacked up by people who wanted to make a particular point? Obviously, the views that we hear need to be properly representative, rather than skewed. Are there checks and balances that can be used to ensure that, for example, the same person does not submit several questionnaires?

On the paragraph on oral evidence to the committee, I notice that it has been suggested that we hear from the Scottish Trades Union Congress. It would certainly be worth while to take evidence from trade unions, but would the views of the Public and Commercial Services Union and Prospect, which represent the people who are involved in relocations, be more valuable to us than the views of the STUC, which has a much wider remit and might not be particularly involved in the matter?

The Deputy Minister for Finance and Public Services recently gave evidence to the committee on the issue, so if we intend to speak to him it might be better to do so towards the conclusion of the inquiry, rather than early on.

On the case studies, I have a presumption against overseas case studies. It does not show the Parliament in a good light to have MSPs swanning around the world on various wee junkets. However, a visit to Ireland might add some value to the inquiry. I note that it was suggested that that visit might take place over a couple of days in March, but I think that it would be better to organise the trip outwith the period of the Parliament's business. It would be difficult to co-ordinate such a visit with people's other parliamentary duties in March.

Perhaps I can respond to the issues that you raise. The clerks are in discussion with information technology staff about the checks and balances, to ensure that the questionnaires offer an effective mechanism for gathering information.

You are quite right to say that we would need to hear oral evidence from the relevant trade unions, but I think that the correct protocol would be to approach the STUC and suggest that it might be useful if its delegation included people from the trade unions that have had direct experience of relocations.

In the normal course of events in an inquiry such as this one, we would invite the minister to give evidence at the end of the process, after we had developed our interim thoughts on the matter and were ready to test them out.

I envisaged that the inquiry's agenda would be based more on policy development than on scrutiny. One of my concerns is that insufficient thought might have been given to how to implement a relocation policy in a strategic way. The committee might play a role in contributing to that discussion, rather than passively—as it were—holding the Executive to account.

We might consider the Irish visit in that context. Looking to learn from somewhere else, rather than just from what we do here, is a valuable exercise. Rather than focus narrowly on relocation, we might, on a visit to Ireland, consider some of the economic planning issues that underpin the strategy in Ireland. That might be a useful exercise for us to undertake. Although I share your concerns about people disappearing off to anywhere, I wonder whether we ought to take more than two committee members to Ireland to look into the matter with a clear idea of what we want to get out of the visit.

I am not denying the fact that, in this instance, value could be added by direct discussion with ministers, civil servants and others who have been involved. My only concern is the timing of the visit. Is March the best time for it, given that a lot of other parliamentary business will be going on? A recess is coming up in April—

The assumption is that, if we went down the route of a visit to Ireland, we would schedule it in place of a committee meeting and adjust our committee business to suit that. The clerks say that we could do that. The projected date is 15 or 16 March. We feel that we can manage the committee's business around that.

Committee members have other duties in the Parliament.

Yes, that is right.

In keeping with our role as the Finance Committee, we should encourage people to undertake cost-benefit analyses of any area that they are looking at. In that respect, the Treasury has, in the recent pre-budget report, highlighted a commitment to using economic rationale for relocation in a United Kingdom context. It would be slightly unbalanced if our only evidence session were used to listen just to the interests of those who are affected—I do not think that the committee paper intends us to do that. Clearly, there is a bigger rationale behind why a certain policy might be pursued.

The Treasury has obviously done all the legwork on that. We could seek its advice about who has done the best work outwith the Treasury and invite that person or body not to be an independent adviser to the committee, but to come and testify. A piece of the testimony should be on the economic rationale for relocation decisions and how they are thought through. That is probably obtainable from the Treasury, which has been investigating the matter recently.

We have to look at the whole principle of relocation. In theory, it looks perfect, but an organisation can try to relocate and find that 93 per cent of its employees in Edinburgh do not, for various reasons, want to go to Inverness. In Edinburgh, they might have two family incomes, whereas if they move up to Inverness they might have only one family income. The relocation is not just for the one person; the whole family may have to relocate and find new jobs. The issue has not been looked into deeply enough. I fear that natural wastage could creep in, because of the ham-fisted way in which the issue is being handled at present.

I broadly welcome the paper. I am sorry that I missed the first part of the discussion. I wonder whether some of the information that is referred to in the section entitled "Scottish Case Studies" will be obtained by means of correspondence rather than oral evidence sessions. I thought that correspondence might be the way to go, as it would enable us to spread the net a bit wider.

I support Wendy Alexander's suggestion that we should consider the economic rationale. Perhaps we could invite a Treasury minister to come and explain that to us so that we will have the chance for an obstructive—

Obstructive?

That must have been a Freudian slip. I was testing whether everybody is awake. I meant to say that we could have a constructive session with our friends in the Treasury.

My final point is on rather a different matter. I support the reasoning behind the trip to Ireland. I hope to go on that trip and be constructive over there as well. In the light of Tavish Scott's remarks about the differing views of relocation there—I think that Fine Gael might be against it—we might, as a matter of courtesy, see whether we could get together with politicians from all the parties, including the main Opposition parties. We should not be seen to talk only to the Government party.

I think that members were told about the expected visit to the Scottish Parliament by members of the Irish Parliament. Following that visit, members of the Finance Committee could make an exchange visit to the Irish Parliament. The visit of the Irish members might mean that we can do part of our work in Edinburgh. We should see the visits as a double opportunity to exchange views.

On Fergus Ewing's point about case studies, I think that what was envisaged was not an evidence session for each of the case studies but a visit from MSPs to each of the settings. The intention behind the visits is that they would allow members to see for themselves what had been happening.

I endorse that useful proposal. Instead of just calling for written evidence from staff who have been relocated—to Galashiels, for example—we should ask the agencies involved about any work has been done in that respect. I do not want to add an additional burden to staff in those agencies by asking them to fill in yet more forms if they have already undergone an exercise about their views on relocation.

I agree that it would be useful to hear from the Treasury. The minister also talked about the work that the Scottish Executive is undertaking to attract UK Government and European Union jobs into Scotland. Given that we want to look at policy formation, those would be useful elements of the call for written evidence.

We can write to the Treasury to get preliminary information. After that, we can see how we take forward that element.

The Scottish Natural Heritage case involves the relocation of a non-departmental public body. Specific issues arise in that context. It might be useful to explore the issues with the trade unions when they give oral evidence. We need to look into the impact on people who do not have the rights that civil servants would have in the context of a relocation decision.

I support what Jeremy Purvis said about UK job transfers. I suggest that a sensible connection could be made with Gordon Brown's announcement—I think that it was around last November—about the transfer of 20,000 civil service jobs out of London.

Okay. I will go through the questions that are set out in paragraph 7 of the paper. I think that there is a general acceptance of the methodology and schedule that is outlined in the paper for the implementation of the inquiry. I also think that we have given the clerks adequate guidance about witnesses and the direction that we want to the inquiry to take.

We need to agree that, once we have completed the report, it will be given full publicity via press briefings in the normal way. We also need to agree that the three Scottish case studies will be undertaken as visits and that we will carry out one overseas case study. We need to decide how big an element the overseas case study should be.

If we are going to visit Falkirk and Galashiels, I do not think that we should shy away from visiting somewhere else just because it happens to be in another country. We should visit all the places on the same basis.

If we go to Ireland, we will do more than we do when we go to Falkirk, to be honest. We shall try to make that a visit with a number of meetings over a two-day period, whereas I suspect that the visits to Galashiels and Falkirk might take two or three hours of members' time. Once we have decided on the scope of the Irish visit, we will need to seek agreement through the Conveners Group for that to go ahead. I would need to get a bid in, through the clerks, relatively quickly, so we should perhaps deal with those issues by correspondence. Those members who want to express an interest in being part of that delegation should do so at that point.

Finally, I suggest that we agree to conclude our consideration of petition PE670 by drawing the petitioners' attention to the committee's on-going work on relocation. I have written to Tavish Scott asking for more information, following receipt of a letter from PCS. I hope that, when we have that further information, we can complete the process.

Does the committee agree to allow up to two members to go on three separate Scottish case studies in March and two or more members to go on an additional Irish case study, also in March?

Members indicated agreement.