Cross-cutting Inquiry into Deprivation (Executive Response)
Agenda item 3 is consideration of the Scottish Executive's final response to the committee's report "Cross-cutting Expenditure Review of Deprivation". As members will recall, after we published the report in April 2006, the Executive provided an interim response as it wished to consider the issues that would be raised during the parliamentary debate on our report, which took place in June 2006. The committee has now received the Executive's final response. Do members have any comments?
On page 7, in response to the committee's concern about the ability of the new system to have an impact on large budgets, the Executive understandably suggests that more time is still required before we can judge that. I want to know the Executive's operational timescale for making a judgment on whether core budgets have been influenced. It is true to say that, until local authorities, health boards and others redirect their spend, we will not get the kind of shift that we need. It would be interesting and helpful to have clarity on that issue.
On page 11, paragraph 48 mentions that
"the Executive will review deprivation weightings within the … local government finance settlement".
Can someone remind me what the timescale for that is?
No commitment on that has been given as far as I know.
Paragraph 48 states:
"the Executive will review the deprivation weightings within the core local government finance settlement and is also examining how healthcare needs are accounted for".
The response states that the Executive will carry out that review in the context of the next spending review, with a view to making any change from 2008.
In my view, the Executive's final response is much more constructive than its initial response. Clearly, the civil servants have been put under pressure—by ministers, I hope—to take on board the key comments that emerged from our report. For example, the response now states that the idea of a single regeneration fund will be considered in the context of the spending review. The response also states:
"the Executive will review the deprivation weightings within the core local government finance settlement".
Those are significant commitments.
On voluntary sector funding and the commissioning of services, which were issues that were highlighted in our report, the Executive's response seems to offer only a kind of halfway house. It agrees that we have provided some interesting ideas, but it gives no positive commitments to do much about them. We may need to respond to the Executive by pointing out that its claims to be in favour of commissioning and to be actually putting it into practice are not in line with the experience of the delivery organisations.
We should suggest to the Executive that the introduction of a common funding-application pack is not the most significant progress that it could make and that action above and beyond that is required to move matters forward.
The Executive has not quite grasped its responsibility to hold the stage and co-ordinate the different funding and policy frameworks; it seems to be stepping back from that responsibility and saying either, "Local authorities are already doing that", or, "We will channel funds to achieve specific ends". We argued for integration of and proper articulation between national and local policy frameworks, but the Executive has not sufficiently taken our recommendations on board.
I will not say much on the matter, because I was on maternity leave during the latter stages of the inquiry. Suffice it to say that the committee's report was excellent and, as the convener says, the Executive has risen in part to the challenge. If certain issues had not been put on the agenda by the committee they would have been missed, so the Executive's response represents a significant victory for the committee system—although that might go unnoticed.
It is good that the Executive has taken on board some of our recommendations, but it could do more. Perhaps we should incorporate our concerns into our legacy paper. The Executive has made significant commitments, which we should give it the chance to fulfil, but perhaps we should suggest to our successor committee that it hold a meeting to consider the recommendations in our report to which the Executive has agreed but not yet implemented. It would not be compulsory for our successor committee to have such a meeting, but it would be good if the interesting work that we did was seen through. At last week's meeting, we discussed the right to buy and the commitment that was made in 2001 to return to the statistics five years later. Because that happened, there was an opportunity to revisit the issues.
We will probably not make much more progress with the Executive during the next four or five months, but some of the issues should be on the agenda for the start of the new parliamentary session. Perhaps the convener will liaise with the clerks to consider how best to approach the matter in our legacy paper. For example, we could suggest that our successor committee receive a presentation on our findings, how the Executive responded and what we regard as unfinished business.
Are members broadly in sympathy with that suggestion?
Members indicated agreement.
I am very sympathetic to Wendy Alexander's suggestion.
The Executive's response marks progress in some areas and I take Wendy Alexander's point that we can probably achieve nothing more at this stage, but I am disappointed that the structure appears as congested and prone to duplication, overlap and lack of clarity as it did when the committee produced its report for the Executive. The response does not demonstrate any significant progress in challenging the structural problems, but I accept that this is probably the wrong part of the parliamentary cycle to be able to do much about that. The course of action that Wendy Alexander proposed might help to ensure that the issues are addressed in due course. Unless the structure is simplified, we will continue to feel that although a lot of money is being spent, it is not having the impact that it could have. Post-election, there might be an appetite to tackle the problem.
What John Swinney said is true, particularly in the context of the Executive's remarks on Communities Scotland and community planning partnerships. The Executive's response does not seem to acknowledge the points that we made, which were based on evidence that we heard about Communities Scotland's multiple roles. The Executive says:
"there is a clear distinction … between the role of Communities Scotland at the centre and the role of local offices as CPP partners."
That might be true in a formal sense, but in evidence we heard that people do not think that that is how the system works on the ground. Communities Scotland's role should be explored further.
In paragraph 39 of its response, the Executive acknowledges:
"we will therefore need to keep the arrangements under review."
The issue should be pursued, to ensure that the Executive keeps matters under review and explains the distinction between what Executive departments do and what Communities Scotland does.
I share members' disappointment that the Executive seems not to have acknowledged how the voluntary sector has changed. I am sure that the common funding application pack will be helpful, but the Executive's response does not fully address the concerns of the organisations from which we heard. Voluntary organisations are more professional and businesslike but continue to face demands such as the requirement to come up with a completely different project every three years—that is the classic example. Such an approach does not help organisations to deliver services. More could be done in that regard.
I have a slight reservation about Wendy Alexander's proposed course of action, although I agree that it is proper that we include the policy issues in our legacy paper. Given that the spending review will take place between July and September or October 2007, perhaps we should also write to the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform, to ask that the financial matters that we discussed in our report, such as the combination of budgets and issues about local authority finance, be factored into and addressed in the spending review process, so that we do not miss that cycle. Are members happy with that suggestion?
Members indicated agreement.
While we are on the subject of our legacy paper, perhaps we should also flag up our concerns about the local authority single status agreement in the paper. I hope that such matters will not come before our successor committee, but I anticipate that they will do so.
I support the comments that Wendy Alexander, John Swinney and the convener made about ensuring that work carries on. The tables on deprivation, which are reproduced at the end of the Executive's response, provide a useful and enlightening summary. I am ignoring the table on mortality rates, which is not quite complete, but of the other six tables, two show that the national situation is worse and four show improvement—some of it considerable. However, the breakdown of the results for specified areas shows worse results in 16 areas and better results in only 8 areas. If work is to continue, I make a big plea for a large element of statistical control to be foisted on the Executive, because the results are the nub of the issue. The Executive can clutter or unclutter its approach as much as it likes, but ultimately we want the statistics to improve progressively over time.
I do not disagree with that.
The next item will be evidence on the budget process, but witnesses from the Scottish women's budget group are currently giving evidence to the Equal Opportunities Committee. I could suspend the meeting for 20 minutes or we could deal with the items in private in that time. Do members want to consider items 5, 6 and 7 now?
Members indicated agreement.
We will resume in public at about 11 am.
Meeting continued in private.
Meeting continued in public.