Good morning. I welcome members, the press, the public and our witnesses to the 18th meeting of the Finance Committee in 2006. Before we begin, I remind everyone to switch off all pagers and mobile phones. We have received apologies from Wendy Alexander.
It is three in a row—I will be here next week, too.
Also with the minister is Morris Fraser, also from the public bodies and relocation division. He was at the meeting six months ago, so he is not such a frequent visitor. As usual, we offer the deputy minister the opportunity to make a short statement. We will then invite questions from members.
I thank the convener and the committee for this opportunity to address you on the progress that we have made on our relocation policy over the past six months. I welcome your continuing interest in it.
Annex C of the evidence that you have submitted relates to the evaluation of the Scottish Public Pensions Agency's move to Galashiels. You focus on three criteria: "Supporting Fragile and Declining Communities"; Helping Areas of Economic Hardship & Deprivation"; and "Decentralised and Sharing the Benefits of Public Sector Employment".
That is a good point. However, we are attempting to do something that is consistent with our guidance and that we would like to do in all areas. In our guidance, we have set out the six indicators that we would like to use to allow people to make a good, balanced decision. Having done that, it would not be a good idea for us to use something else to justify a decision. We are saying that the costs that will come out in the near future are not the only good way of measuring what we have done. We are looking in the cold light of day at the indicators that we have encouraged people to use to make a decision, to see how the criteria were met. That is not to say that we will not provide an accompanying narrative that indicates that Galashiels is good for the following reasons. We are simply providing evidence that we have used—and will continue to use in all reviews—the cold stats that we are advised are best for socioeconomic purposes. We may want to highlight other issues when the review is finished, but we have provided an indication to the committee of the standard issues that we are examining.
I see clearly why you would want to send jobs to Galashiels, Dumfries and other areas in the south-west of Scotland, on the basis of economic advantage. However, I do not see why deprivation statistics, in which Edinburgh, the most prosperous and dynamic area of Scotland, scores relatively highly, are relevant in that context.
What you say is true, convener. Two of the three main objectives of our policy are decentralisation and dispersal. Some areas of Edinburgh score more highly than others. We have started to talk to the City of Edinburgh Council, so that it can identify places in Edinburgh where it would like us to retain jobs. That information will be published and will form part of our assessment in the future.
We are talking about employment issues, but Edinburgh is a single travel-to-work area. It is difficult to locate jobs in such a way that there is a narrow impact on a particularly disadvantaged community in Edinburgh. I suspect that if an organisation were relocated to one of the more disadvantaged communities in Edinburgh, people would simply commute in and out. To what extent is it appropriate to use a deprivation indicator in that context?
That is a good question. We have good evidence on exactly the kind of situation that you describe. In the west of Edinburgh, the Gyle shopping centre was built partly to tackle disadvantage in the area; however, a staff survey carried out a year later found that nobody who worked in the Gyle lived in the disadvantaged area. They all travelled in. Working with regeneration colleagues, we would like to tackle that kind of problem. In future projects, we hope to be able to skill people up and give them a good opportunity to apply for jobs that they would previously not have applied for.
I do not see how using an indicator that suggests putting jobs in Edinburgh rather than Galashiels, or any other area that will clearly benefit from those jobs, can be justified.
Figures show that unemployment in Edinburgh has not grown over the past seven years. The working-age population has increased and employment has grown. The overall situation in Edinburgh is healthy, but you are right to make the comparison with Galashiels. The reason we are publishing the indicator is that it shows the realistic approach that we have to take.
An economic disadvantage indicator should be driven by the number of people seeking work who lack alternatives.
The indicator also has to capture wider information about age profiles and low wages in different local economies. Like many parts of Scotland, Galashiels probably has a high number of elderly people. Such information has to be fed into any assessment of how successful a relocation has been.
Why are we relocating jobs if the economic hardship and deprivation assessment shows Edinburgh to be in such a perilous position? That is what your table of figures suggests to me.
That is just one strand of information involved in the evaluation, and I do not think that we want to focus—
With the greatest of respect, it is not a particularly meaningful piece of evidence. If you presented information on the number of people in an area who were trying to find employment, or information on their age profile, and if that information confirmed all the points that you were making, that would be fine. However, this table seems to me to undermine the whole thrust of your policy.
You have to be careful—that table is only one piece of information. We are working closely with Audit Scotland on the evaluation process. The table is an example of some of the information that will be captured to give good figures for the committee. Audit Scotland is also working to produce information for the Audit Committee on the same subject—trying to evaluate the impact of previous relocations. I take your point, but this is just one particular piece of information.
Let me take you on to another piece of information—the table headed "Decentralised and Sharing the Benefits of Public Sector Employment". The figure for Edinburgh is 27 per cent for public sector employment, although I am not sure whether the figure has gone up or down, because no commentary accompanies the table.
You would have to look at the comparator to evaluate that.
That is what I am trying to do; I am trying to make sense of all this.
Clearly, the process is to evaluate relocations that have already been undertaken. We have provided some of the factors that are being taken into account in the evaluation. We will report back to the committee on that process. At that stage, we can engage on whether the evaluation is correct or whether more emphasis needs to be put on other factors. We have given information on our first approach in trying to ensure that we have an evaluation that gives us information on how effective relocations have been in improving the economy and the prosperity of the areas that are involved.
I take you back to the committee's report, which started from the argument that relocation should be used as an economic instrument to regenerate or provide economic development in the receiving areas. For example, we were told when we went to visit the SPPA site that the relocation had significantly improved the economy of the Borders area, particularly that of Galashiels. Our question was why the move was not more integrated into the strategy of Scottish Enterprise Borders at the time and factored forward. It is interesting that there is nothing in the paper that you have given us to say that that link is being made in Inverclyde, West Dunbartonshire, Dumfries or anywhere else. There is no sign that people are thinking about how the relocation process will build the economy in the areas that are involved. That is why I question the criteria that we are putting in place, which seem to be technocratic rather than strategic. Can we please have strategic criteria?
That is a fair point and we will certainly consider it.
You have made it clear that the criteria are for evaluation. What will the impact be if you find in the evaluation that, using the criteria of decentralising and sharing the benefits, you have transferred jobs from an area that has proportionately lower public sector employment to an area with higher public sector employment and from an area—Edinburgh—that ranks 11th in terms of economic hardship and deprivation to areas that rank lower in that respect? What will the impact be if you find that you have transferred jobs from Edinburgh to areas that are less deprived and which have higher public employment?
We will have to wait until the evaluation is completed before we consider that. Clearly, we are talking about only one strand of the evaluation. A wider approach must be taken, because we cannot simply compare the number of civil service or public sector jobs in one area to the number in another. We need to take a wider approach and carry out a proper evaluation of the effects on the wider economy and of whether the organisations have received benefits. The information from the SPPA is that the move has had a significant positive impact on how the organisation is run and has been of benefit to the area, too.
You list three socioeconomic criteria. What are the other criteria and when will we see them?
The socioeconomic criteria make up half the argument at stage 1 of the review. The review is done in two stages. The first stage balances the three important socioeconomic criteria with the business needs of the organisation. The SPPA would be interested not so much in the impact on unemployment in Galashiels, but in the fact that it would save hundreds of thousands of pounds in rent every year by being in Galashiels rather than Edinburgh.
I am sure that it could, but the deprivation indicators are almost irrelevant. The real issue has to be the characteristics of the labour markets in the areas that you are describing and how relocation can be linked to a strategic vision of economic development in those areas. Otherwise—members of the committee have made this point before—you will end up always relocating to the same places, which has concerned the committee for a long time.
What you are looking at is the outturn of things that happened before we came along. As we reported to the committee before—this point is crucial—we will no longer rely on local authority level data for this kind of thing. You referred to strategic decisions for the future. We have now published a list of more than 90 locations where local authorities and enterprise companies have identified that we need to put people. We have taken a strategic view and we are considering indicators not at local authority level, but at much more local level. That means that we would not consider the whole of Clydebank, Dumfries or Dundee, but particular parts that the local enterprise company would tell us were a good location for us. The Borders might have a high working-age population and low unemployment, but there will be bits of it where that is not the case and where we really need to concentrate our effort. That is what we are trying to do.
There is a balance to be struck between location, targeted location and having economic information at a big enough scale for it to be meaningful. You need to consider travel-to-work areas.
Rather than showing the change in working population in the Borders, Edinburgh and Scotland, it might be helpful if we had data showing the proportion of working-age people in those areas, the proportion of those people in work, and the proportion of them who work in the area rather than commuting out of it. That would give us a much better feel for the balance of advantage.
Some of the economists who worked with us on the measures are present in the public gallery. I am sure that they are taking careful note of your suggestions. As with any basket of indicators, there is scope to look at their refinement. In previous discussions, we have explored some alternatives, but all your helpful suggestions will be carefully noted today.
Moving on to finance matters, from which budget do the costs of relocation typically come?
They typically come from portfolios, although there is a small budget of about £500,000 for the small units initiative, which has helped some of the small units to relocate.
How is the impact of relocation on portfolio budgets handled?
In many cases, the analysis is that there is financial pay-back over time. Although there might be some upfront costs, savings will be made over time. It is up to individual portfolios to manage their budgets to cope with relocation.
If we were to track the relocation of SNH—the obvious choice—what is its impact on the Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department's budget?
As that was such a big relocation, some central funding was provided to assist with it.
Will you quantify that?
We do not have the figure at our fingertips, but we can supply information about how much was added to the SEERAD portfolio budget as a result of that central funding.
I presume that that was not a one-off cost in a single financial year because there are several different dimensions to the cost. Is it possible to show how that cost has been allocated to the SEERAD budget over the period to display which aspects are one-off costs and which are bolted onto the budget to take account of increased costs?
I am happy to provide that detailed information to the committee.
Has SEERAD had to contribute an element of the budget above and beyond the central funding?
Yes. We will show the percentages in the information that we will supply to the committee.
Before I ask about financial matters, I ask about information in annex A to the relocation policy paper. Have any of those examples been decided under the new policy or were they all decided under the previous policy?
It is not a new policy as such—it is more a revised one. A body such as Transport Scotland is a good example of development since the policy came to live with David Robb's division. A number of the small units have been under the new regime, so to speak, allowing us to evaluate them much more easily and get a better handle on costs.
Most of the relocations that are detailed in annex A are still to the cities and the central belt; not many are going to rural areas or outside the usual suspect places. If that is the case under the revised policy, it is disappointing, because that was why we undertook our review of the relocation of jobs in conjunction with the Executive. I note that not many agencies are relocating to your constituency, minister, or to mine.
Or mine.
Or mine.
Are there any other bids from around the table? I note that Frank McAveety is silent on the matter.
If the SNP gets elected, no jobs will come to my constituency either.
Let us look at how the cost analysis is carried out for decisions on whether to lease or purchase a property. The original figures for SNH that indicated that leasing would be cheaper than buying were based on an eight-year analysis. A subsequent indication was that we ought to spread the costs of relocation over 15 years so that we could compare like with like. We also had information that if we looked at the SNH situation over 30 years, the purchase option would cost only £13 million, but the leasing option would cost £43 million. If we were to look at the situation over 15 years, how would the purchasing and leasing options stack up for SNH?
The idea of 15 years was introduced by Sir Michael Lyons. The Treasury green book that tells us how to do option appraisal suggests that we can use anything up to 30 years, just to ensure that things are done in the right way. Sir Michael suggested that 15 years was the best way forward. We agree with that—there is no evidence to suggest that that is bad. However, whether one buys or leases will depend on the cost of the building. If it is more than £20 million, one might want to consider a private finance initiative or a public-private partnership. If it is under £20 million, it is probably not worth it. There will be a number of options to consider.
It is a bit confusing. You talked about savings being made and so on, but it is difficult to quantify those savings if we are talking about very different periods.
That is right. The minister has undertaken that, when we are sharing with the committee the options that ministers consider in making decisions, we will try to standardise them as much as possible, so that the committee can see exactly what it is that ministers are looking at. The options that ministers look at will normally be over 15 years. However, once a decision is made, the funding of the option could take three years or 30 years. It is important that everyone sees that as transparently as possible. In the SNH case, ministers have quoted up until 2011 in their initial assessment. It is right that the ministers give you that figure to show you exactly what the taxpayer and the Parliament will be helping to fund.
If you look at it to 2011, contrary to what was said at the time—when we were told that it would be cheaper—the purchasing option is more expensive.
That is why a longer-term view is important. If, over 10 years, purchasing costs £10 million more than renting, it looks more expensive but, as you rightly pointed out, when we look at it over a longer term, leasing will always be more expensive.
To give you an update, the relocation project board forecast on the outturn for the project is £2.543 million below the budget of £17.822 million. The original estimate for the redundancy costs was £8.266 million, but those costs are now expected to come in at around £7 million. That is the up-to-date position on the current financial projections.
Which part of the budget are the redundancy costs for the relocation of SNH coming from? Are they coming from the department's budget or from the central contingency fund?
They are coming out of the SEERAD budget.
Over how long a period?
Until 2011.
Over that eight-year period.
Can you tell us the cost of the SNH relocation over 15 years, which was the period used in your initial modelling?
If the committee would value that, we could provide it, but it would be an economic costing. What people are more interested in is the financial outturn, which is exactly what SNH has been reporting and what it has told this committee.
Will you explain the distinction between those two points of interest again, Mr Fraser?
I am sorry—I do not mean to be technical about this. The way in which ministers make decisions on net present value is based on economic costs and financial costs at the same time, but economic costs—which are what Audit Scotland will report on—allow us to take account of non-financial aspects. Economic costs are what the Treasury green book and Audit Scotland would ask us to take account of. Economic costs are what we would like to report to and our valuation will be published in those terms. Our commitment to you is that we will tell you the sort of things that ministers considered in making decisions based on both the economic and the financial outturn.
When will you be in a position to provide that information to the committee?
Ministers take decisions on location and relocation on economic grounds. We have provided such information in the past—we have published a number of reviews—and we have given a clear undertaking to the committee that we will provide the reasons behind all future ministerial location decisions and the figures on which those decisions are based. In most circumstances, such decisions will be taken on economic grounds and will be based on a 15-year period. There may be some circumstances in which 15 years is not the right period to apply, but that is the way in which we would like things to be done; that is what Sir Michael Lyons suggested.
We do want to hear about such a comparison.
We want to hear about that, but we also want to hear about the pattern of the financial costs. We want to know whether that pattern is in line with the pattern on which ministers based their decision. When can we get an update on that?
In each case, the financing will take a different number of years.
I am referring to the SNH example.
Sadly, I am not an expert on the SNH example. SNH has produced figures that lead up to 2011, which give an indication of how much the organisation thinks that it will spend. Those figures, which are in the Scottish Parliament information centre, will be revised constantly as SNH recruits new people and as existing staff decide whether they want to take redundancy packages or moving packages. That will be reported on regularly, as and when the figures become available.
There is one point that I would like to add. The experience to date has been that virtually all the relocations have come in under budget because the budgets have been set quite conservatively. For example, it looks as if the relocation of the Accountant in Bankruptcy will come in at about 50 per cent of the original cost estimate.
Let us consider the economic analysis rather than the purely financial one. How do you track the economic performance over a period of time? Do you consider the number of jobs that are created or the additional money that is brought into the local economy? How do you take a more holistic view of what a relocation has meant to an area?
That is the nub of our evaluation publication, which we are producing alongside Audit Scotland. Audit Scotland is examining the same subject.
Will the evaluation be done by the Executive or by consultants?
It will be done along with Audit Scotland. Audit Scotland will publish what it thinks the impact of the policy is. We are working with Audit Scotland on that and we also make our own comments.
We cannot send any other public sector bodies down to Galashiels because, if we do, no one will be able to get on the Borders rail link.
That is why we are having to put in the extra station.
I will just repeat the answers that we have had to our questions. In your submission, you say:
I give the committee the assurance that you will get that detailed information in the breakdown that you have requested as soon as possible.
That is information that you should have, especially in the context of the criteria on which you have said that you are going to make decisions.
If my memory serves me correctly, it took four months for the information to come after the minister's previous appearance before the committee. Could we have the information a bit quicker than that, please?
I will ensure that that happens.
I have some questions on transferability, but first I seek clarification from Morris Fraser on the previous subject. You are going to carry out an evaluation of the impact on Galashiels of the SPPA's move and of the impact on Inverness of SNH's move. Will there also be an analysis of the impact of the loss of jobs from Edinburgh? Is that also part of the evaluation?
It has to be. Often we are not creating new jobs in the Scottish economy but simply moving where the jobs are, so we must consider the impact on Edinburgh as well as on where the jobs go. It appears that the Edinburgh economy has not suffered, but the full evaluation is yet to be published. That information will be part of it.
In your June report, you state:
I have two jobs. Efficient government has visited me and I do two things. The other thing that I do is look after a public body—the Standards Commission for Scotland—which has applied to go on the register but has not yet succeeded in getting assurance that it can do so.
The list is in annex B of the December report.
It is in the December report.
Annex B of the December report contains a list of the bodies that applied. A disproportionate number—from the perspective of the Cabinet Office—of bodies from Scotland applied, partly because we have actively pursued this matter in David Robb's area.
I am slightly surprised that there is any question that a sponsoring department would not ensure that a non-departmental public body followed openness, transparency, equal opportunities and all the things that you are talking about.
Absolutely. It is just a matter of assuring the Cabinet Office about the process that the NDPBs have gone through—in fact, not so much the Cabinet Office as the Office of the Civil Service Commissioners. The way in which we recruit is very disciplined and rigorous; we just have to ensure that other people in public bodies are doing exactly the same things. You are right: there is no suggestion that people in public bodies are not doing a rigorous job; that just has to be evidenced.
From memory, I think that there are two legs to the test: one is about the procedure for considering applications and the other is about the type of work. In some cases, there may not be enough comparability between the specialised functions of an NDPB and the work of the general civil service. That may become an issue.
So, bearing that in mind, do you think that it is likely that the Scottish NDPBs that apply to go on the register will end up on it? Are any timetabling issues involved?
I would not want to tell the Cabinet Office how to do its job. The issue is before it.
Unless there are particular reasons, we would expect most to be accepted.
But there is a—
Excuse me, Mark. I want to let in Elaine Murray.
I have a brief supplementary on a point that we raised at our last meeting. Although Highlands and Islands Enterprise has applied, Scottish Enterprise has not yet done so. Is that still the case? If so, given the restructuring exercise that Scottish Enterprise has been going through, are you surprised that it has not applied?
As far as I understand, it is still the case that Highlands and Islands Enterprise has been accepted on to the scheme and Scottish Enterprise has not yet applied. It is for Scottish Enterprise to decide whether it wants to apply.
Sportscotland has applied, but our information is that as at April 2006 its application had not been approved by the Office of the Civil Service Commissioners. Does that mean that staff who do not wish to participate in the relocation to Glasgow will be unable to transfer into the civil service? Will they face redundancy?
Transferability applies for a two-year period from 3 April, as an initial pilot. If the scheme is still open in 2009, one would assume that sportscotland staff will have the opportunity to apply for any post that the Executive or other Government departments have posted on the gateway, as it is called. All Government departments publish the posts that they have not filled internally on that external gateway, which is open to other departments. NDPB staff will have access to the gateway. If the scheme is still open then, sportscotland staff will have access to the gateway in 2009 and presumably also in the period until 2009.
I have two issues with that, the first of which relates to sportscotland staff. If staff members—who, I imagine, are fairly specialised—do not wish to relocate and cannot find another job through the civil service gateway, will they end up being made redundant? What will the situation be?
That is a management issue for sportscotland, which has to determine how best to persuade and encourage staff to do what it wants them to do. One of the options for sportscotland staff is that, instead of moving, they can look for the generalist and specialist jobs that exist in the Executive and other Government departments.
But the civil service will not necessarily be able to absorb all those people. Sportscotland may have to make major redundancy payments because its people who do not wish to move have no automatic transfer rights.
You are absolutely right. Public body staff have no automatic right of transfer; it is up to the individual staff member to decide what they want to do. One of the good aspects of the decision is that it will happen in 2009 or 2010. Between now and then, staff have plenty of time to decide what they want to do.
The second issue concerns the status of the scheme as a pilot project. When we heard evidence back in December, you said that it was intended that staff who used the gateway to transfer from an NDPB to the civil service would have continuity of service in relation to their pension rights. You also said that you were pressing the Cabinet Office for guidance on the matter. Have you received that guidance? If so, what does it say?
On that one issue, we have not had a firm reassurance as yet. We continue to press for it.
Could you explain how that relates to the point on the trial period or pilot project?
My understanding is that the Cabinet Office is running the project for two years and that it will be monitoring its success or otherwise to see how many people move and how many people it helps. If it helps a lot of people and is really good, I imagine that the Cabinet Office will decide to continue it. At the moment, it has just announced that it will be running it for two years and will be examining how successful it is.
So the situation for sportscotland staff is that if they decide not to transfer to Glasgow, there is no guaranteed job in the civil service for them and no guidance as yet on the continuity of pension rights if they get another job in the civil service. Also, because the relocation will not happen until 2009, although it has been announced now, there is no guarantee that the trial will continue. Is that not a fairly brutal outlook for sportscotland staff?
It is not our favoured outlook, but it is the reality of the situation. What you have described is exactly what the Cabinet Office has in mind. We will feed into that process, but it is the policy of the Cabinet Office and of the Office of the Civil Service Commissioners.
Do you have any idea when you are likely to get the guidance on transferring pension rights?
I do not. We hope to get it in the next few months, but I cannot guarantee when.
I am quite shocked that that is the position for sportscotland staff. I am surprised that there has not been any more detailed contingency planning for the situation in which those staff, many of whom have specialist roles, find themselves.
We hope that many will wish either to transfer or to travel through to Glasgow. That is one of the options open to them and we would encourage them and give them support to facilitate that as far as possible.
Maybe we should take questions next from the member representing the constituency to which sportscotland is moving.
Would the same concerns outlined by Mark Ballard not also arise with any relocation over the next two or three years, given the decisions that are still awaited from the Cabinet Office? Surely they arise not only for sportscotland but for any organisation.
That is correct. Similar concerns arise for most relocations. In the case of a good number of the relocations, such as that of the Accountant in Bankruptcy, the majority of staff did not transfer but were relocated locally. In Tiree, 50 per cent of the staff were relocated locally and 50 per cent transferred from Edinburgh. There are different circumstances for each relocation and different numbers of staff will choose to relocate or to stay. That is the same across the piece. The work by the Cabinet Office is to try to provide another option for staff who are affected by relocation.
What are your observations on recent relocations from the capital city to Glasgow? Has there been a significant haemorrhage of key staff from those agencies when they have shifted to Glasgow?
We are not aware of big losses. Transport Scotland is probably the last body that was relocated, and I think that the majority of staff relocated.
There are a number of specialist transport staff for whom the relocation was an issue, and we are having on-going discussions about that. In general, however, we are not aware of any problems. Despite our actively seeking people's views, nobody has come to tell us that that is a major problem.
Do you have any figures for the number of sportscotland staff who have indicated that they would not move?
We do not have that detailed information. It is also unlikely that there will be a final view on that, given that it will be 2009 before the relocation takes place. There were some early indications that a substantial number of people were not happy to transfer, but as the relocation is still a couple of years down the line it is perhaps a bit early to start coming to a firm view. People will have to examine their circumstances and consider whether there are other options for them.
One of the key commitments that parts of the country had to make in applying for a national sport facilities development—one of the principal objectives—was potentially to accommodate the headquarters of sportscotland. That means that the design and development of a national arena, which is to be in the east end of Glasgow, must take into account the need for offices and other support accommodation for sportscotland. Although staff may not need to move until 2009, what is the timescale for some of those other critical decisions?
I imagine that discussions are already taking place with the local authority—which is very involved in the project and is doing the construction work—to evaluate what office accommodation and space will be required for sportscotland once the transfer takes place. It will be up to the management of sportscotland to take a view on that.
Could the Executive take the view that binding commitments should be made, given that the development will involve a significant outlay from the local authority and other partners? Jeopardising that would be a significant misuse of public resources.
The Executive is fully engaged with both sportscotland and Glasgow City Council on the project to ensure that it goes smoothly and that the right decisions are made about accommodation and what is needed to get the project right. It is an important project, given the bid for the Commonwealth games in 2014, and a lot of thought has gone into it. Patricia Ferguson is working closely with Glasgow City Council to ensure that the project goes as smoothly as possible and that the least possible disruption is caused to both the council's development plans and sportscotland.
I am aware that the council is involved in discussions with sportscotland and its staff. It is a difficult transition period, and it is hoped that those discussions will reassure staff. People are not being moved to some archipelago; they are being moved to an exciting part of Glasgow that is part of the gateway project, which was announced yesterday.
The First Minister gave a commitment that there would be no reduction in funding for sport and that is the position. The move will take place in 2009 and there will be a spending review before that. The First Minister is already on record on that matter.
Will some of the other costs have to be found from within the portfolio rather than from the sport budget line?
It will be up to the portfolio to decide whether the initial costs can be met from within its budget. The First Minister is on record guaranteeing that there will be no reduction in sport funding. That is to be welcomed by everyone.
Let us move from the sportscotland relocation to the big one that is coming up—the Registers of Scotland relocation. We have two separate pieces of background information on it: one says that you are at stage 2; the other says that a shortlist has been approved. When do you expect to make a decision on the Registers of Scotland relocation?
We have taken some time to consider the Registers of Scotland relocation because it is one of the biggest so far. It is a partial relocation, rather than relocation of the full 1,300 jobs, which is important. We are close to a final decision; given its significance, it is important that we get it right.
In your opening remarks, you said that the Executive is carrying out a review of Government-owned assets. If you find that there are Government-owned buildings in Edinburgh that are underused or which have a low rental value, will that affect the Executive's overall policy on relocation of public sector jobs?
The Executive already has information on its assets throughout the country. The review is about the NDPBs and other bodies that the Executive sponsors. We are gathering information from them to feed into that, which will give us a baseline asset register for the whole public sector in Scotland. That baseline will allow us to consider rental values and occupancy rates across the piece. It will provide opportunities for the efficient government programme and strategic opportunities to consider relocation and co-location, which is another important area of work that we are progressing. This is a significant step forward in taking a strategic overview of opportunities for progress in efficient government, relocation and co-location.
Another comment in your opening remarks was about the location of the wildlife crime centre in Berwick and its 10 jobs. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has announced that up to 9,000 jobs will also be dispersed from London. If Scotland has only received 10 of those jobs so far, we are not doing very well, are we? What influence does the Executive have in deciding on relocations within Scotland?
In response to your first point, a lot of work is being done by the Executive, by local authorities and by enterprise companies to ensure that we make the best possible case for Scotland to be among the relocation areas that are chosen by the UK Government. However, let us not kid ourselves; there is substantial competition around the country and we have to make the best possible case. That is why we are working with local authorities and enterprise companies to ensure that we propose what we think will be very attractive options for the UK Government to consider.
The final decision on UK relocations lies with—
The decision will lie with Whitehall, but it is up to us to make the case. That is our role and that is why we will be meeting the UK Government in the summer. Representatives are coming up here to be shown around some potential opportunities. Our role will be akin to that of the enterprise companies and local government in trying to attract jobs in those relocation opportunities. We intend to pursue that, given the threat from the efficiency review that is happening down south.
I wish you luck with that.
The Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform gave his statement on efficient government last Thursday. I am struck that the convener of the water customer consultation panels has relocated jobs to Alloa. In the context of efficient government, why was it not decided to locate the water customer consultation panels jobs in the vicinity of the water industry commissioner, who is the economic regulator of the water industry? One is the customer voice and one is the economic regulator. One is located in Stirling and the other is located in Alloa, which are hardly at opposite end of the country, but if we need those two bodies—I question whether we do—why was energy not put into co-location in order to save the taxpayer some money?
The two bodies were co-located, but it was decided to move one.
There we are; that is even worse; we are now relocating from the hotbed of Stirling in to Alloa.
As I understand it, the building was not big enough for both bodies to share and the water customer consultation panels convener thought that Alloa was the right place to which to relocate.
Surely the decision to relocate two bodies that play largely similar roles—one from the economic perspective and the other from the customer perspective—to make them something like nine miles apart, with all the costs of setting up separate buildings and facilities, does not suggest that a terribly coherent approach is being taken or that things are joined up.
As I understand it, the building was not big enough to accommodate both bodies. Moreover, they took the view that they did not wish to be located in the same office.
Did they not get on during tea breaks?
They believed that there was a conflict.
They could not share the water cooler.
The map in the Scottish Executive's update paper tells us all that we need to know about the relocation policy. Although a couple of bodies have been relocated to the south-west, the Borders and Argyll, the relocations have been concentrated mostly on the cities in the central belt. Absolutely no jobs have been relocated to the communities that I represent—indeed, none has been relocated anywhere in Perth and Kinross or Angus. Given the factors that were highlighted in the evaluation assessment under the headings "Supporting Fragile and Declining Communities", "Helping Areas of Economic Hardship & Deprivation" and "Decentralised and Sharing the Benefits of Public Sector Employment" around the country, I would have thought that areas such as rural Perth and Kinross and rural Angus, where there are significant areas of deprivation, where there is a need for decentralisation of responsibilities and where fragile and declining communities need support, would pass the test. Is there some mark on a map somewhere that means that Perth and Kinross and Angus do not benefit from this policy, or does the methodology need to be improved to put them higher up the economic pecking order?
There is no map anywhere with a line through Perth and Kinross or Angus. Other local authority areas are in the same position and MSPs regularly make representations to me on relocating jobs to their areas.
To return to our discussion on the Office of Government Commerce, I recall that when Chancellor Brown announced relocations out of London and the south-east he was talking more in the region of 20,000 jobs. Can we have confirmation of that figure, and a report on the policy's progress and the open allocation of jobs by nation and region?
The Chancellor of the Exchequer's commitment was to relocate 20,000 jobs by 2012. I am happy to provide information on how the United Kingdom policy is proceeding and where relocations have been made to date.
Now that we have exhausted our questions, I thank the minister and his officials for giving evidence this morning. I presume that we will see you in six months.
Perhaps before then.
I will suspend for a minute to allow a changeover of witnesses.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—