Public Sector Jobs Relocation Inquiry
For agenda item 2, we will discuss matters that arise from case studies that members undertook. Each committee member will have received copies of the reports of all the case study visits that were undertaken, which were to the Scottish Public Pensions Agency in Galashiels, to VisitScotland, to the Scottish Executive inquiry reporters unit in Falkirk and to Dublin to investigate the Irish Government's decentralisation policy. Members who undertook the case studies will talk about their visits, after which we will have a general discussion of the issues that have been raised. Ted Brocklebank has lost his name-plate, but I am sure that we all recognise him. He will talk about the SPPA, which he and I visited.
I am indebted to Emma Berry not only for pulling together all the information competently, but for waiting 45 minutes in the freezing cold for me because I was late on the morning when I was to pick her up on the way to Galashiels. She has done an excellent job in the circumstances.
I do not propose to read out the whole report of the visit. I will simply highlight the background to the study. The SPPA is part of the Executive's Finance and Central Services Department. It administers and regulates the national health service and teachers' pension schemes in Scotland, and other occupational schemes for which Scottish ministers are responsible.
The lease was due to expire on the SPPA's offices in St Margaret's House in Edinburgh, so it was announced that the SPPA would relocate. Before its relocation, the SPPA employed about 175 staff, most of whom were at clerical grades A and B. Staff were involved in the consultation process, but they commented that the time between the decision to relocate and the announcement of the new location was of concern to all staff, and that morale was very low at that time, especially among staff who knew that they could not relocate outwith Edinburgh.
However, in July 2001, it was announced that the agency would relocate to Galashiels and it moved to a purpose-built office in Tweedside Park in September 2002.
Following the decision to relocate to Galashiels, 30 staff members decided that they would remain working for the SPPA. Some who lived close to the agency's previous office in the east of Edinburgh opted to commute. I believe that, had the SPPA relocated further from Edinburgh, the number who decided to relocate would have been lower. In the event—although I do not think that this is included in our report—only seven people actually moved to Galashiels. I will come back to that point. The SPPA currently operates with an overcapacity; it has 210 staff members, but it is intended to reduce that number to 180 through natural turnover in the next few years.
What about the advantages of the move? The SPPA management has found it much easier to recruit staff in the Borders, which is partly because there are few major clerical employers in the area and partly because the Scottish Executive's basic salary is above the average in the Borders. As for disadvantages, it has been identified that in the longer term progression and promotion opportunities for staff may be a problem. That relates to the fact that the grades of employment are fairly basic.
We talked to a number of staff about their experiences of setting up in Galashiels. Many were delighted with their new offices, but they had clearly gone through a difficult learning process while settling in. They said that it would have been beneficial if a project team—comprising staff members, Scottish Executive representatives and a project manager—had been in place to manage the relocation and to provide specialist support to staff.
On the positive side, the SPPA continued to meet all its operational targets throughout the relocation process, except the targets relating to correspondence. Those figures fell initially, but have now risen to a higher average turnover than was the case before the move.
My only question would be to ask—we will discuss this in relation to other relocations—what is the purpose of relocation. Is it to move people from the capital to the regions of Scotland, or is it to take jobs to the regions of Scotland? If the purpose is to take people to the regions of Scotland it has failed, based on the experience of the SPPA, because only seven people moved to Galashiels. If the purpose is to push valuable jobs out to the regions, that relocation has obviously worked.
I think that we will go through all the reports briefly and then have a general discussion at the end. Jeremy Purvis will talk—briefly, I hope—about VisitScotland.
I take the hint, convener, in the good spirit in which it was intended. For the record, I would like to mention that I joined the convener and Ted Brocklebank after their visit to the SPPA at a meeting with Scottish Enterprise Borders and Scottish Borders Council to discuss the work that was done before the relocation of the SPPA.
John Swinburne and I visited VisitScotland to discuss a relocation that did not happen and the reasons behind that. We met the chief executive and a senior director involved in the process, and subsequently we met people who were described as representing a cross-section of staff. Those people included representatives from finance, corporate affairs and industry liaison. The make-up of the labour force at VisitScotland differs considerably from that at the SPPA. A quarter of VisitScotland staff are in clerical jobs, so the situation in terms of clerical and administrative posts and more senior posts is the reverse of that at the SPPA.
Staff at VisitScotland learned about the relocation through a press release on the Scottish Executive's website. They raised that as an issue with us. However, senior staff were aware of the Executive's relocation policy to the extent of the triggers to relocation such as lease breaks. Staff had participated in a major internal structural review that led the management team to put forward forcefully the argument that, because the review had recently concluded, there was a strong case for VisitScotland not to be relocated.
Management established a steering group that included staff representatives. It is fair to say that VisitScotland management had quite an open and proactive relationship with staff in disseminating management views on the process of relocation. Staff indicated that uncertainty had had a detrimental effect on morale but that that effect had been offset by the management's proactive approach.
Management put forward a business case for keeping VisitScotland in Edinburgh and it was supported in that by the sponsoring department in the Executive and, interestingly, by the relocations unit in the Executive. The key to the business case was the recruitment and retention of senior staff, especially in marketing and creative areas, in which many staff are employed. VisitScotland identified problems with recruiting staff to areas of Scotland where staff might see difficulties in career development opportunities or interaction with the private sector in those areas. We were given the example of some VisitScotland staff relocating to Inverness but, subsequently, senior marketing staff relocating back to Edinburgh to gain access to those kinds of opportunities.
Management was at pains to point out that, because VisitScotland is a national body and because the review has recommended that it should have a number of regional hubs across the country, the relocation of staff would be considered in future. However, management was very firm that that would be done only on the basis of a strong business case. Its argument was not predicated on the idea of staying in Edinburgh, but it pointed out clearly that the business case had concluded that Edinburgh was the best place for VisitScotland.
Kate Maclean will report back from the Scottish Executive inquiry reporters unit.
Susan Duffy and I visited the new SEIRU headquarters in Falkirk on 31 March. That was only a few weeks after the move so it might have been a little too early for staff to say how things were settling down. Originally, 26 staff were based in Edinburgh city centre; only seven opted to move to Falkirk. In at least one case, the move was based on a promotion and might not have happened otherwise.
Because so few staff members relocated, they had to do a lot of the training. Some training was done before the relocation and some continued after. I do not know whether the cost of that training was included in the relocation costs, but such costs will certainly have to be considered in future.
We spoke to two managers and, separately, to some staff. The staff felt that they had been kept informed about the process and knew about the basic options for moving. All the staff would have preferred to stay in the city centre, but they felt that they had been consulted. However, despite that, staff felt that they had not been given any practical assistance on, for example, even simple things such as mail collection. Despite the fact that they were now working in a different area, staff were not given information on that area or even on how to apply for assistance with travel if they were commuting. It seems that a lot of work will have to be done to help staff who are relocating.
Managers and staff felt that the relocation had been positive in that it had allowed changes in working practices because so few of the original staff had moved.
I think that everybody felt that it would not be easy further down the line. Of SEIRU's 26 staff, only seven moved; the other 19 were reabsorbed elsewhere in the civil service in Edinburgh. All the staff who started working in SEIRU's new headquarters were existing civil servants who were able to take up posts nearer their homes that suited them better. However, further down the road that will not be possible, especially in the case of larger relocations. The staff to whom we spoke felt that we had not properly seen the impact on staff, who may be unhappy about relocations.
Finally, Elaine Murray and Fergus Ewing will report on their visit to Ireland.
We were the lucky people who got to go on the exciting trip to Ireland.
The trip to Falkirk was exciting too.
I am sure that there was nothing wrong with Falkirk.
Our visit to Ireland was extremely interesting. The Irish relocation policy is based on two ideas. First, people are moved voluntarily. If staff do not wish to move, provision is made for them to transfer to other parts of the civil or public service. As an aside, I must say that I was interested to read in the other reports that that has happened in practice in some of our relocations. Although the voluntary principle is not part of the Scottish system, it seems to have been used in certain respects and it is important. Secondly, the locations to which jobs are moved in Ireland are determined in line with the national spatial strategy, which is a national strategy for the regeneration of various parts of the country. The policy is therefore holistic as it is aligned with the country's regeneration strategy.
It is too early to say whether the Irish programme, which is very ambitious, will succeed in its aims. Some people told us that it could not work; others felt that it could. However, the Irish Government should certainly be commended for its breadth of vision: it wants to relocate more than 10,000 public sector jobs over three years. It is perhaps too early to say whether that target is achievable or whether it will cause problems in the public services. It is also too early to say whether adequate budgets have been set aside for the policy, but the Irish certainly have a headline strategy.
Although we were not able to look at anything that has been done under the new strategy, we saw what had been achieved under the old policy. We visited Dundalk, which is where the finance section of the Department of Social and Family Affairs was relocated under the previous policy. Aspects of the old policy are relevant, in that nobody who now works in that section had relocated. Instead, the staff had transferred from other parts of the civil service. Members of staff were recruited and trained in sufficient numbers for the office to be able to operate successfully. In fact, some benefits came from the relocation because of the fact that new members of staff came in with new ideas. Apparently, those who wanted to stay in Dublin were able to do so by being redeployed elsewhere and people were found from other parts of the civil service who were quite happy to be relocated to Dundalk—perhaps because they lived there or because they lived in areas from which it was easier to commute up to Dundalk than down to Dublin. We were impressed by how well the policy seems to have worked.
At an early stage in our discussions, concerns were raised about the national spatial strategy. The trade unions, as one would expect, flagged up concerns about possible problems for their members. At the moment, we do not know whether all those fears will be realised, but the trade unions certainly made their case forcibly. The national spatial strategy was also criticised by Bernard Durkan, who is a member of the Opposition. When I asked him, he said that the strategy was horse manure, but he did not explain why he felt that way.
Personally, I was quite impressed with the Irish idea and by the way that it ties in other policies and aligns them with the national regeneration strategy. There are certainly advantages to a policy that tries to match up the different policies of Government. I found it extremely interesting and commendable. We certainly spent a valuable couple of days learning how things are done over there.
Does Fergus Ewing want to supplement Elaine Murray's comments?
Obviously, the Irish model is different from the Executive's policy in several respects. Elaine Murray was right to say that it is extremely ambitious.
First, the policy is described in terms of decentralisation rather than relocation. That is significant. The aim is not simply to shift jobs but to move them out of the centre as part of a national spatial strategy. The policy has already been in operation on a smaller scale over the past 16 or 17 years, during which time nearly 4,000 jobs have been relocated, but the Irish Government now plans to step up the level of decentralisation by moving 10,300 posts over three years. That is an extremely short period. Many of those to whom we spoke argued that that was too short, but the Irish Government certainly cannot be criticised for a lack of ambition.
Secondly, I understand that the desired upshot of the policy is to have half of all civil servant jobs in Dublin and half outwith Dublin—so much so that half of all departmental headquarters will be moved outside Dublin. All the proposed decentralisations were itemised by the Minister for Finance, Charlie McCreevy, in a speech on 3 December. His speech was notable for the fact that it not only described the principles behind the policy but detailed every job that was to be decentralised down to units of a very small number. In other words, the policy that was announced was comprehensive and detailed.
As Elaine Murray correctly suggested, the policy is not without controversy. Indeed, it is difficult to see how such a policy could be anything but controversial. However, our discussions with some of the civil servants who have been close to the process were extremely useful. The approach of both senior civil servants to whom we spoke was one of total candour, which I found very refreshing as it contrasted with what has been our experience here from time to time.
We heard about the move to Dundalk of the payroll function of the Department of Social and Family Affairs. During that move, despite the concatenation of a number of difficulties—the fact that none of the employees who carried out the function in Dublin moved to Dundalk; the introduction of the euro and of a new information technology system; and the last-minute withdrawal of a very senior person who had been engaged in training the new people—there was no disruption to the efficient running of the payroll department. That is a tribute to all the staff, especially to the civil service lady whom I am thinking of, who seemed to be extremely capable.
The Dundalk relocation illustrates the fact that, although the unions have rightly identified that there are difficulties with the policy, the lesson of the past is that such relocations have been a success. No loss of function has been experienced, while considerable economic benefits have been moved outwith Dublin to other parts of Ireland.
I thank the clerks and Ross Burnside, who is present, for helping to produce our report, which is a substantial piece of work that details some extremely interesting issues. Let me allude to some of those issues to supplement what Elaine Murray said. In particular, I want to highlight the stratified process for deciding who has first shot at applying for a relocated post. The series of preferences is described in paragraph 30. I think that that sequential ranking method provides a clear indication to staff of how the system will work. Paragraph 30 states:
"First preference will be given to staff currently serving in posts being decentralised;
Second preference will be given to staff serving at the same grade in other posts in the same Department, Office or organisation".
Some issues were not yet resolved, but instead of being skated over—as we see here on occasion—they were acknowledged explicitly. A particular problem about which we heard on several occasions was that in many cases husbands and wives were both working in the civil service, which creates particular problems. The Irish have not resolved those problems, but they acknowledge them, which is stated in paragraph 30.
As I understand it, the issue of transferability from the civil service to quangos has not been resolved. In the report, we say that there will probably need to be transferability, particularly if the relocation of quango-type functions goes ahead. In a quango such as Scottish Natural Heritage, if the staff do not have the right to take up a position within the civil service, their options are limited. If there is to be a large-scale policy in the Irish sense, the widest choice for individuals has to be available.
Another benefit of the scale of the policy, which we acknowledge in the report, is that every part of Ireland will receive economic benefit, which means that there will be options for people in Dublin to relocate to various parts of Ireland. Many people in Dublin came originally from rural parts of the country and now have the opportunity to return to where their family came from, which is popular in some instances.
The downsides have been outlined; it is impossible to have such a policy without tears. However, I was struck by the evidence from the senior civil servant who served at the Department of Education and Science, which was that the previous relocations had gone ahead without a single compulsory redundancy. I thought that that was a remarkable tribute to the work that had been done.
Despite there being opposition to detail of the policy and to particular moves, for reasons that we acknowledge and understand, there was an abiding sense in our discussions that the decentralisation policy that has been announced as part of the national spatial strategy is acknowledged as being for the good of the country. Although there was criticism of certain details, there did not appear to be criticism of the principle behind the policy. The fact that the policy is linked to a national strategy for the good of the country seemed to me to contrast with the ad hoc approach to relocation policy in Scotland, where it seems that the usual trigger for the relocation of any function or department is a lease coming to an end. That is an unacceptable, ad hoc approach to a policy; we are crying out for a national strategy. I am not saying that we should replicate all the detail of what operates in Ireland, because that is neither possible nor desirable, but the voluntary principle, the lack of compulsory redundancies and the undoubted huge benefits to the less well-off parts of Ireland are commendable aspects of the policy.
I open out the discussion to members.
I am glad that I was brief, to allow other members an opportunity not to be. On our visit to VisitScotland, the clear message from the management was that decisions about any relocation should be based on the business case for what is best for the organisation and for staff as well as on the objectives that ministers have set. A far more voluntary system, such as that in Ireland, which is set out in the thorough report, can work only if there is a national approach, because otherwise there would be no options for civil servants. There can be a national approach, with the proposed geographical spread and number of civil servants to be decentralised, only if there is a national spatial strategy.
I would welcome the thoughts of Fergus Ewing and Elaine Murray on the Scottish context. I note that the Irish strategy is called "People, Places and Potential". If in a Scottish national spatial strategy we used only the indicators of unemployment and social deprivation, relocations would be directed to the central belt, which means that it would be impossible to have a system of decentralisation. There would be no relocation to the Highlands, the south of Scotland or the Borders, which do not meet the social deprivation and unemployment criteria. I am interested in hearing views on whether the Irish model is relevant to Scotland, given that context.
We should consider also the economic development of areas where there is not the pool of unemployed and so forth. It is important that outer areas get regenerated as much as possible through relocations. That factor does not come into the Irish model, but we should take it into consideration in Scotland.
I will respond to Jeremy Purvis's points and raise a couple of others. It seems to me that the economic and geographic profiles in Ireland are quite different from those in Scotland. The issue in Ireland is the overheating Dublin economy and the need to disperse jobs to other parts of the country. Here the areas of most concentrated unemployment are in west-central Scotland. One of the issues to consider is whether there should be transfers of jobs from Edinburgh to places such as Glasgow and perhaps Dundee, which have problems with high levels of joblessness, or even beyond to places such as Lanarkshire and Dunbartonshire, in the context of there being a travel-to-work area around Glasgow.
There is a separate issue around whether and how best the dispersal of jobs to other parts of Scotland where there are few or no civil service or Government jobs can be achieved. We have to separate the issue of transferring jobs from areas such as Glasgow to areas where jobs are needed more, but where there are civil service jobs already, from the issue of dispersing jobs to areas where such jobs do not exist or where there is not sufficient access to them. Any national spatial strategy for regeneration in Scotland would need to take account of both transfer and dispersal of jobs. That is not to say that regeneration is all one thing; it must mean different things in different parts of Scotland. In Ireland it makes sense to frame the policy in terms of decentralisation, but in Scotland we need to take a different approach that takes account of our slightly more complex geography.
I want to highlight two other issues. One is that, from the evidence that we have taken—I did not have the opportunity to go to Ireland with Fergus Ewing and Elaine Murray—neither in Ireland nor in Scotland does there seem to be an adequate acknowledgement that relocation is costly. In effect, relocation will bring with it associated training, recruitment and operational costs. It may be that there are positive benefits in the long term, as was the case with the move of the Scottish Public Pensions Agency. Although people had to make adjustments, no one lost their job. The process led to the creation in Galashiels of 200 or so good quality jobs that had not been there before, which was a positive boost for the area. That is something that can be examined in other areas.
As Fergus Ewing has suggested, relocation is presented as a decision that is triggered by the ending of a lease arrangement. There is no coherent economic pattern for how such a programme is to be developed. No assessment is made of what kinds of jobs should go to what kind of place and what the benefits might be. It would be helpful to have a more strategic approach that identified that a cluster of relocations might be particularly appropriate in a place such as Galashiels but might not be appropriate in another area.
At the moment, the situation is the result of happenstance. Happenstance has meant that clusters of relocations have taken place in Dunfermline and Falkirk but not in Galashiels or Dumfries or other parts of Scotland. There needs to be some intellectual co-ordination of the process and it must be properly costed, just as we try to properly cost bills and other measures.
We should not just consider the Executive and Executive quangos. A number of new bodies that have been set up by the Parliament, such as the ombudsman and the freedom of information commissioner, have made relocation decisions that, in my view, are past comprehension. Those bodies do not seem to be accountable in any way. Perhaps the Finance Committee should pick up that issue by saying that it does not matter whether the policy is an Executive policy or a quango policy; what matters is that there should be a Scottish policy into which bodies should be required to fit, whatever their constitutional mechanisms are. We need to avoid sticking close to Edinburgh, which is the default position, as it is defeating the purpose of the policy.
I agree entirely with what the convener says. The word that occurred to me was "coherent". There appeared to be no coherent strategy, at least in relation to what happened in Galashiels. In that case, the alternative locations that were suggested were places such as Wick. Immediately, people thought, "Oh my God! We do not want to go to Wick." Wick is a wonderful place—I would not say a word against it—but, from the perspective of the people concerned in Edinburgh, Wick was put down as the area to which no one wanted to go. The choices began to be boiled down to more centralised places that were within an hour's drive of Edinburgh, as they seemed more acceptable. To some extent, that is why so few people went to live in the Galashiels area—they could still commute backwards and forwards from Edinburgh.
We heard from the business group and the enterprise people that we met in Galashiels that they were asked to come up with their best shot at a location. Hawick might well have had a good claim but because the right office facilities were available in Galashiels, that became their proposal. Similarly, Dunfermline was the proposed location in Fife. To my mind, that did not seem to take into account the fact that Dunfermline was one of the two overheated places in Fife, because it has a tremendous number of developments on the ground of its closeness to Edinburgh. The other overheated place in Fife is St Andrews, which is at the other end of the county. As the convener said, it has the freedom of information commissioner, because the commissioner simply elected to go there with his staff. There is a lack of coherence to such decisions. Although Glenrothes has a major employment problem and is haemorrhaging jobs, it did not seem to register as a possible location.
The Irish programme is on a far bigger scale, as it involves relocating 10,000 jobs over three years—that represents a major strategy. Ireland is perhaps not the example that we should be concentrating on. I was amazed by how little strategy there appeared to be. Suggestions just seemed to pop up and people would say, "That seems a good place." Prizes seem to be awarded to different places—dare I say it—on a political basis. The logic seems to be, "That seems a good place to get a few votes; let's put a centre there." That is what came through in what we heard.
If you had examined the situation about seven years ago, you would have noticed that Stirling's name kept popping up.
The paper on Ireland is wonderful. An enormous amount of work has gone into it, and it is easy to read and very positive.
In my view, there are essentially three issues. The first two issues are how we boost competitiveness across the board in Scotland and how we achieve some balance. In far-flung places such as Wick, hospitals are under threat and there is a huge migration of local graduates out of the area. An enormous demographic skew is kicking in, which we just do not see in the central belt. The third issue is the cost-effectiveness of government. I am not suggesting for a minute that decentralisation will handle all that, but the alternative that we face is to sit back and watch areas implode, fall below critical mass and be handled in the same way as places such as Oban, Fort William, Rothesay and Wick, where key services such as hospitals are being downgraded because of lack of economic activity. The only thing that is certain is that downgrading those key services will result in a further spiral of decline.
The Irish example is of great interest, but I do not view decentralisation as being the only tool to remedy matters.
I suspect that we will all get lots of letters and e-mails from people in Wick telling us what a nice place it is; I am sure that it is a nice place.
I want to pick up what the convener said about jobs. When we come to publish our report on the relocation inquiry, it would be useful to separate posts and jobs. With many of the relocations, posts are being relocated to other areas. I visited Falkirk and the SEIRU relocation did not result in any new jobs being advertised externally. My understanding is that the 19 posts that were vacant because people did not want to move from Edinburgh were filled by existing civil service staff.
I would have thought that areas submit bids for the location and relocation of bodies because they want new jobs to come into the area, but that often does not happen. In Dundee, the Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care posts were taken almost entirely by people who had moved from the three local authorities that are nearby and from local authorities that are further away; not many jobs would have been advertised. It would be useful for us to identify in our report how many jobs have been created through the various locations and relocations. We might already have that information.
In my view, the Scottish Executive would want to base any future policy on the benefits to particular areas. Having the headquarters of an organisation has obvious benefits—it means that the name of the city in question appears on the organisation's headed paper. There is a kind of prestige involved, even if not many jobs are created. If we are to make suggestions to the Scottish Executive on a national strategy, those suggestions must be based on how many jobs have been relocated from Edinburgh. I suspect that we will find that not many jobs have been created; it is simply that posts have moved. Having good-quality posts obviously offers some benefits to local economies—it helps people who are looking for housing and gives them more money to spend—but that is not the same as creating good-quality, sustainable jobs in an area. It would be useful to have the relevant figures before we make any recommendations to the Executive.
I want to respond to Jeremy Purvis's not-so-brief question. I do not think that it is being suggested in the exceedingly well-written paper on the Irish policy—which was written by Ross Burnside, not by me or Fergus Ewing—that we should transpose the Irish model to Scotland. It is a question of what we can learn in a Scottish context.
Ireland is a very different country and, as the convener said, Dublin is very expensive and has an overheated economy. We were told by the unions that one of the reasons why people do not get a relocation package is that it is felt that people will make so much money by selling their property in Dublin that they will do quite well and will not need such a package. That is also one of the reasons why the amount of money—about €20 million—attached to the cost of the relocation policy is not large. The Irish Government assumes that selling its properties in Dublin will help to fund some of the relocation, although it is not known whether that will work on such a large scale.
Scotland is different. I do not think that there is any way in which a regeneration strategy in Scotland would look simply at social deprivation and unemployment, because the problems in parts of Scotland are not necessarily connected with unemployment, but are concerned with demographic change. That relates to the issue that Kate Maclean raised. For example, we would want posts in Dumfries not because there is a particularly high level of unemployment there but because young people and professionals move out of the area and do not come back. Having those posts would assist regeneration through attracting people of different generations to rural areas.
That said, there are things that we can learn from a strategy that focuses on the problems that need to be addressed in the different areas of Scotland. I hope that what is relocated will be what fits in an area. In Ireland, where there was some criticism of relocation, the Opposition suggested that the location of departments had been decided on the basis of where the ministers lived. I do not think that that is terribly likely, as it would mean that, forever more, the ministers would have to come from those particular locations. I do not foresee any future Taoiseach being constrained in their appointment of ministers in that way; however, that criticism was levelled at the national spatial strategy. The Executive will have to be quite transparent about the reasons why certain locations are thought to fit well with the organisations concerned.
Jeremy Purvis also mentioned the business case for relocation. I do not think that there has been criticism about lack of consultation. Let us be honest: no relocation policy is perfect, and not everybody will be happy about it. Some criticisms have been made of the national spatial strategy; however, that does not mean that we cannot learn from the ambitious programme in Ireland. There are things that Scotland can learn to its benefit from the Irish experience.
Did the Irish mention any examples of things that they had learned in developing their strategy?
I do not remember anything specific. As Fergus Ewing rightly pointed out, the new policy was a stepping up of the old policy: the Irish were learning from previous voluntary relocations under that policy and seeing whether it could be stepped up in a much larger programme. It is early on and they have not yet had the results of their survey of people's locational preferences to inform them whether the strategy is going to work. Nevertheless, they can draw on the experiences of their previous relocations.
It is important to emphasise the fact that the figure of 10,000 posts has not been achieved but is an aspiration. The relocation of approximately 4,000 jobs has been achieved—there are issues there.
I will pick up on something that Elaine Murray said. It seems to me that a three-way issue is involved. First, there is a general principle about dispersal or transfer being a good thing in moving things away from the capital or an overheated area of the economy. The second part is about what is good for the bit of the office that is being moved and whether the Executive can produce a good business case for relocation in that context. The third part is whether adequate consideration is being given to the potential benefit to the relocation area. Relocation might be a good idea in principle but, if it builds up more jobs in Dunfermline, Stirling or wherever, the policy might just transfer jobs from an overheated area to an area that becomes heated up artificially simply because it happens to be only an hour away from the capital. It would be better to have a strategic policy to identify a number of areas towards which relocation should be directed in a co-ordinated way. That might deliver more returns, especially if it was done on a planned basis and if commercial organisations could buy into it.
I agree with what the convener says; however, we should take a step back and look at the broader picture. We are trying to locate jobs to various areas from Edinburgh, but the most overheated area is the south-east of England. Our Parliament should be pressing to get jobs from down south up to Scotland. We need new jobs here so that people do not have to commute. Unfortunately, the trend seems to go the other way—one just has to look at the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority leaving East Kilbride to go south of the border. I just do not understand how we in Scotland allowed that to happen.
I have a question for the convener. I am trying to recall the way forward for our inquiry. There is a question about what would be an appropriate strategy for effectively triggering relocations—whether there is an assumption that all organisations should have a relocation review or whether there should be a set target, as there is in Ireland, whereby we would say, "This is the percentage of jobs that we aspire to move out of Edinburgh".
My second point is to do with choice—the voluntary nature of relocation and what options there would be within organisations. My third point is on the fit of an organisation and how that is handled—whether there is a national strategy or whether relocation is done on a case-by-case basis to find the best fit.
I agree entirely with what Elaine Murray said about choosing an indicator. In her constituency and in mine, one can choose an indicator that is at the top of a list and another that is at the bottom of a list. That reflects the arbitrary nature of the criteria in the consultants' reports that we have seen. Those are big issues and consensus does not seem to be developing in the committee as to the way forward.
With regard to mapping the way forward, Tavish Scott is coming along to give evidence on relocation issues on 4 May. Information is coming back to us from our online questionnaire, which we might deal with next week or on 4 May—we need to look at the logistics of that.
It might be useful to prepare a discussion paper on what we have done. In such a paper, we would try to isolate those issues and point to a way forward. We could then discuss the paper to see whether we can arrive at a more coherent consensus. At the moment, people are chucking in different ideas.
At the start of the process, our objective was to ask whether we could arrive at, if not a policy, a framework for a policy that we felt was more closely geared to what the committee would like to happen. Since we started that process, big reviews have taken place down south. I do not agree exactly with what John Swinburne said, but we need to take into account the UK dimension and any dispersal issues that arise from that.
It might be helpful to begin work on preparing a discussion paper now. If we give ourselves two or three weeks to do that, we can feed in the other information that we gather. On the basis of our discussion of that paper, we could see whether we can move towards a map of where we want to go. I anticipate that we would look to complete something by mid-June. Does that seem a reasonable route forward?
Will it be possible for us to get some hard numbers on the table vis-à-vis the SPPA and SEIRU? We need to know what the operational costs were pre and post the move. The intention would be not so much to map this year's costs for both those organisations against previous costs, but to map costs against what they might have been if costs in Edinburgh had inflated over the year.
We could get that information. We also need to pick up Kate Maclean's point about the difference between posts and jobs. I will discuss the matter with the clerk after the meeting to see whether we need to get somebody to do additional work for us on some of the technical issues. We might need to submit a proposal for a relatively brief piece of work to facilitate the process.
It might be too early to get operational costs from SEIRU, because it has been in Falkirk for only four or five weeks. The organisation has not thought about some issues, such as the cost of mail when one is based in the centre of Edinburgh and all the mail is collected by a courier in a van. That is a huge additional cost, as are travel allowances and training. It might be a year before SEIRU will be able to give accurate figures for cost increases, and I suspect that there will be cost increases that were not accounted for when the proposals were made.
I have a question about some of the other case studies, particularly Ted Brocklebank's report on the SPPA. The paragraph headed "Relocation Decision" points out that staff were concerned about
"the time between the decision to relocate and the announcement of the location".
I presume that that means that the period was relatively short. Perhaps Ted Brocklebank can tell us when the decision to relocate was made. The report says that, in July 2001, it was announced that the relocation would be to Galashiels. I ask that question to make the point that it now appears that the process is ad hoc: there is no strategy, just an approach in which leases that are coming to an end are considered and the decision is made to shunt people out of town. If such consideration is to be part of the strategy, should not the leases of all public offices, civil service agencies and quangos be considered in a coherent way? Perhaps that information should be made available to the Finance Committee. Who knows but that agencies like Scottish Natural Heritage and the SPPA might emerge during the next year, with staff being presented with the policy but not given adequate notice. That appears to have been the case with the SPPA.
What actually happened was the reverse of that. I recollect that the reference was to the length of time that the problem hung over the staff. They knew that, in theory, they were going somewhere, and many different places popped up—rumours went round the organisation such as, "It looks like it's going to be Wick". Eventually, it seemed as if the staff were being softened up.
All the local authorities were asked to give it their best shot and submit their best place. The Borders proposed Galashiels—the location that was eventually accepted—but Fife proposed Dunfermline as its best shot. The places that seemed to be more in the loop were those that were within an hour's drive of Edinburgh. That is where the issue was settled.
I do not believe that there was a speedy resolution to the problem. It seemed to go on for a very long time.
Fair enough. I can see that giving too much notice would create as much uncertainty as would giving too little notice.
That undermined the staff's morale.
My point is about whether there should be a coherent approach to the topic. Perhaps we could get some more information from the Executive, particularly in relation to other major departments' leases that are shortly to come to an end.
There will certainly be an opportunity to ask questions of Tavish Scott when he appears before the committee on 4 May.
We have had today's session to consider the case study reports, and we have taken evidence from Experian Business Strategies Ltd. There is now a significant amount of information. Does the committee agree that we should try to distil some of that information into an issues paper or discussion paper on which we can start work but which might not see the light of day until Tavish Scott has been before the committee? That would give us something to work towards. We might try to complete the process by mid-June. Is that agreeable to members?
Members indicated agreement.