Justice 2 Committee, 24 Jun 2003

Meeting date: Tuesday, June 24, 2003

Official Report 99KB pdf

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Budget Process 2004-05

Item 2 on the agenda is on the budget process 2004-05. The clerks have prepared and circulated a helpful paper, which indicates the principal matters on which we have to make decisions. There are four important issues. It behoves us to agree to meet jointly with the Justice 1 Committee to consider the budget. There is nothing innovative about that; it is the practice that has been followed and it seems well founded. I invite the committee to agree that we meet jointly with the Justice 1 Committee for the purposes of the budget process.

Members indicated agreement.

The other significant issue is the appointment of an adviser. In the budget process we are very much orphans in the storm if we do not have an adviser, so it is of paramount importance that we procure one. The appointment will be a joint one, made once we have had our joint meeting with the Justice 1 Committee. There is a specification attached to the briefing note, showing what we think we require of the adviser. The specification seems pretty comprehensive, following a tried and tested pattern; if it is acceptable to members, I suggest that we agree formally to appoint an adviser and that that decision should be relayed to the Justice 1 Committee. We can then execute a decision when we have a joint meeting.

Members indicated agreement.

We should probably also consider and agree an adviser's terms of reference, although I emphasise that it would be inappropriate for the names of potential advisers to be mentioned at this meeting. Perhaps the clerk could indicate who was previously procured as an adviser. If she does not want to mention that person's name, perhaps she could state the area of expertise that was considered useful for the budget scrutiny process.

It is a matter of public record that the adviser last year was Professor Brian Main from the University of Edinburgh. His background was primarily financial. Scott Barrie was involved last year and might like to comment, but I think that committee members found Professor Main's analysis and interpretation of the figures particularly helpful in guiding them through the process.

Gillian Baxendine is right. In the year before that, we went through the budget process without an adviser and it is a matter of public record that both committees found themselves a bit at sea with some complex financial issues. Brian Main's involvement made the whole process much easier to understand.

I am glad that members are unanimously saying that we should, with the Justice 1 Committee, appoint another adviser, as I would not want us to go through what we went through two years ago. We did not give the budget the proper and adequate scrutiny that we were expected to give, as a number of us—if not all of us—were at sea in trying to understand some complex issues. I am not necessarily saying that we fully understood all the issues the second time round, but Brian Main's explanations made things much easier and we got to the real guts of issues as opposed to skirting around with some of the flotsam, as we had done previously.

Such assistance would be helpful, particularly for members who have not been members of the justice committees. What has been said also indicates the area of experience that it would be useful for the adviser to possess.

Armed with that broad frame of reference, I suggest that we should leave the clerks to do some preliminary homework with a view to assisting us with the final production of names for consideration. Do members agree?

Members indicated agreement.

The committee will certainly want to take oral evidence on the budget from the Minister for Justice and the Lord Advocate. Again, it will be the joint committee's responsibility to do so, but it is important in principle to get this committee to agree to the proposal. We will simply ask the Minister for Justice and the Lord Advoate to give oral evidence on the budget. However, it might be helpful, given the passage of time, to ask them to provide us with a paper setting out budget priorities for the past four years and for the next four years. At least that would give the committee a point of comparison so that we do not come in at a mid-point. We can look at what the various signposts seem to have been over that span of time. Would that approach be helpful?

Members indicated agreement.

That approach could be helpful if only to alert the Minister for Justice and the Lord Advocate that they may be required to appear early before the joint committee, whenever it is convened.

I think that that is enough to let the clerks go forward, unless members have other views on the budget process. After the recess, I am sure that a more detailed résumé will be brought back to the committee to let us know exactly where we are going and when we will have a joint meeting with the Justice 1 Committee.