Health and Community Care Committee, 05 Apr 2000
Meeting date: Wednesday, April 5, 2000
Official Report
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Budget Process
The next item of business, on the budget process, is more substantial. Members will remember that, at the end of a previous meeting, we discussed the timetable, the list of witnesses, and the possibility of having a special adviser.
We will deal first with the timetable and the list of witnesses. The proposal is that we have three meetings, on the first three Wednesdays after the Easter recess, and that in the first meeting and the first half of the second witnesses will give oral evidence. The witnesses will be the chair of the health boards chief executives/general managers group; a representative—I hope, the chair—of Scottish Directors of Public Health; James Dunbar, medical director of Borders Primary Care NHS Trust; Charles Lind, associate medical director of Ayrshire and Arran Primary Care NHS Trust; and last but not least, Pat Dawson, of the Scottish Association of Health Councils. It is proposed that the witnesses in the second half of the second meeting will be Scottish Executive finance officials, and that in the third meeting we take evidence from the two ministers. Are there any suggested changes? I think that there was general agreement about that at our previous meeting.
The outstanding issue is the matter of the special adviser, which we will deal with in private at the end of the meeting.
On the budget process, we considered various areas in which the committee might require greater explanation and a more detailed breakdown of the figures. There are a number of points that I wish to raise, although not necessarily today. It should be noted that we will want a breakdown, not just to ensure that the figures are given in real terms, but because many issues arise from Gordon Brown's budget relating to funding priorities that are not reflected in the figures. The committee will want to return to the detail and the way in which the figures are presented.
That point was raised last week. Obviously, before the first meeting, we will want to discuss the questions that we will ask.