Finance Committee, 28 Mar 2006

Meeting date: Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Official Report 84KB pdf

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Scottish Executive Policy and Financial Management Reviews

It is past 10 o'clock, so I open the 10th meeting in 2006 of the Finance Committee. I welcome the press and remind everyone present to turn off their pagers and mobile phones. We have received apologies from Wendy Alexander and Andrew Arbuckle.

The first item on today's agenda is consideration of a paper on the policy and financial management reviews by the Scottish Executive. We have launched the committee's wide-ranging accountability and governance inquiry and, as the paper suggests, we could do some work on non-departmental public bodies. The inquiry that we have initiated will require a lot of time and work. We also have various legislation to consider, and after the summer recess we will begin stage 2 of the budget process. For that reason, it is suggested that we examine NDPBs in a time-efficient manner, so it struck me that examining them through the PFM reviews might be a sensible way of piggybacking on work that is already being done. That would also allow for a process of financial scrutiny. If members agree to that course of action, we can write to the Scottish Executive, as set out in the paper, and consider the best way forward once we have received its reply. Are members content to proceed as the paper suggests?

Members indicated agreement.

To some extent, we are dependent on the Executive's programme for reviews, but if we can agree with the Executive to proceed by that route, we may be able to offer input in respect of its timetable.

How we proceed will to a large extent depend on what information is available for our scrutiny through the policy and financial management reviews. Many of the issues about which members are concerned in relation to the performance of NDPBs may not be covered by that information. Subject to the caveat that we get access to appropriate information, the approach that is suggested could be quite useful.

One advantage of the proposal is that it may allow us to offer input not only on the timing of reviews but on their format. We may be able to suggest a consistency of purpose if we find some inconsistencies of approach, which might improve the quinquennial scrutiny process generally. We will write to the Executive as suggested.