We should be able to move through the last two items on the agenda fairly quickly. Our fifth item concerns a briefing on the Scottish consolidated fund accounts. We have received a paper from the Scottish Parliament information centre, paper FI/S2/05/6/5, and Jim Dewar is available to answer any technical questions that members might have.
I am looking at the opening balance of £880 million on 1 April 2003, which drops to £53 million on 31 March 2004. Was that opening balance an historical high? Was the closing balance an historical low? What is the pattern? Why the dramatic shift?
l do not have all the figures to make a comparison going back a number of years, but I could get that information if Jim Mather wishes it. The accounts refer to the fact that the figures concerned were higher than they needed to be. The sum was run down over the course of the year—the drop in the amount of money was intentional.
It would be useful to see what the pattern has been, so that we have the figures in a logical context and can see how everything falls into place.
Looking at the balance, I have the same concern as Jim Mather. It is the sort of thing that we would get worried about if we saw it in our bank accounts. An explanation would be helpful.
A number of things fall into that category: fines and forfeitures, fixed penalties, dividends on public dividend capital, interest and sums received from the European social fund.
Why do all those things have to be repaid?
It was presumably agreed under the Scotland Act 1998 that those things would go back to Westminster, in effect.
Yes.
I managed to find only two years' worth of accounts. I did not go right back to 1999.
I suppose that I could lodge a question to get the information and to find out where the accounts can be found. They must be presented. Did the Scottish consolidated fund exist only from 1 April 1999 or some other point in that year?
I believe that to be the case. The fund comes under the 1998 act.
The money exists in a notional account—I take it that it is simply in the Treasury's books.
I use the analogy of the fund being like the Executive's bank statement, although it includes some transactions with parts of organisations that lie outwith the Executive, such as the Forestry Commission and the Auditor General for Scotland.
My point is that, as at 31 March 2004, there was not actually a bank account with £53 million in it, for which Jack McConnell held the cheque book. I take it that the sum is simply an entry in the Treasury's books.
Yes, that is my understanding.
So, it does not mean that that amount of money is just sitting somewhere.
No.
That exhausts our technical questions on the accounts.