Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Official Report 287KB pdf

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Budget Process

Agenda item 3 is on the budget process.

Members will know that, in February 2011, the committee received from the then convener of the previous session’s Health and Sport Committee a letter of complaint about the arrangements for scrutiny of the Scottish Government’s budget. This committee agreed to seek further information on that before it took a view on how to respond. Paper 2, which is before members, sets out that information, and says:

“The Committee is invited to consider its response to the letter from the Convener of the session 3 Health and Sport Committee.”

There is a suggested course of action in paragraphs 21 and 22 of that paper, but members might want to comment in general on the report and the issue before we make any decisions.

I am a member of the Finance Committee. As the paper rightly identifies, we have looked at the issue quite closely, and we raised concerns in our committee report to Parliament about the timing of level 4 data being made available, particularly for committees. We know that there is on-going dialogue between the Finance Committee clerks and officials in the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth’s department to try to improve the process. The point has been well made by the Finance Committee on behalf of the subject committees that a number of those committees were particularly concerned about the late delivery of level 4 data, and we know that the cabinet secretary has indicated that he is prepared to enter into dialogue on that point.

On the particular circumstances that the convener of the Health and Sport Committee raised, there was a pretty exceptional situation at the time. The United Kingdom general election delayed the spending review, and everything was pushed back a month or more from when it would happen in a normal year. I know that the Finance Committee has looked at the matter in some detail, and it recommended a number of changes, the full effect of which we have not really seen yet.

Are members content just to leave things as they are and not undertake a review of the situation but to wait to see the effect of the Finance Committee’s recommendations?

Christine Grahame raised some good points that express many members’ concerns about the budget scrutiny process. As the Finance Committee will obviously make recommendations, it is only fair to allow them time to bed in, following which we can consider their impact. We had a really bad winter during the budget process in 2010. I was a member of the Health and Sport Committee at the time and I remember a number of meetings having to be cancelled because of the bad weather, which meant that we did not get the witness evidence that we needed for the budget process.

I am content that we do as the convener suggests, but we should underline to the Finance Committee that it should take on board the important concerns that Christine Grahame expressed on behalf of her committee at that time, particularly if the Finance Committee is going to do work on the budget process in session 4.

We should draw to the Finance Committee’s attention the comments by the convener of the session 3 Health and Sport Committee and leave it at that.

Yes.

If no other member wishes to comment, is the committee happy with the suggested course of action?

Members indicated agreement.