Item 3 is consideration of the committee's work programme. The clerks have produced a paper that sets out the commitments that we have already agreed; comes back with further information that members requested on several issues; and highlights a number of issues that have arisen since the previous consideration of our work programme.
Does the committee therefore wish me to write to the Scottish Government before that meeting to ask whether it might introduce any legislative changes with regard to parliamentary commissioners and ombudsmen?
Secondly, we have a paper on the mechanisms for agreeing pay for senior public officials. Does the committee wish to carry out further work on this issue?
Perhaps I should come in here, as I originally brought the issue to the committee's attention. There is a Scottish Executive policy called "Public Sector Pay Policy: Policy for Senior Public Appointments 2007-08", which relates to chief executives, chairs and members of public bodies. Given the public concern about the level of remuneration for certain public sector appointments, we should look at that document. I am not suggesting that we have anything like a full-scale inquiry on the matter. However, as well as considering the matter from a wider perspective, we could have a one-off evidence session with the finance directorate to find out, first, whether the policy is appropriate—the policy is set out in a fairly substantial, 24-page document and I do not think it has ever been scrutinised in the Parliament's eight years—and, secondly, whether it has been properly implemented. Indeed, I believe that John Swinney has already asked publicly whether the policy has been properly pursued in relation to one particular quango. As it represents a legitimate area of interest for the Finance Committee, a one-off session to establish the current position would be helpful.
I have no objection to Alex Neil's suggestion, but it strikes me that our examination of public sector pay will be rather lopsided if we look only at senior public sector pay—which I accept there is public concern about—without considering the broader issue, which, after all, has fairly fundamental consequences for the committee's routine work. I am not sure that, in the on-going budget process, the committee will necessarily look at the broader issues surrounding public sector pay as a whole, as opposed to those relating to the senior posts that are mentioned in the paper before us. If we are going to look at the issue of pay for senior people, we will also need to consider the overall pay bill, whether the procedures that are followed for other groups of staff are appropriate and, indeed, whether they have any consequences for public service provision in Scotland.
My experience in local government suggests that the salaries of posts below senior level are subject to a much higher level of democratic scrutiny than those at senior level. It is certainly appropriate that we examine that gap, but I do not see the need to consider both issues at the same time.
Those posts are part of a system that has as its first line of protection certain democratic safeguards. However, I feel that we are moving from Alex Neil's idea of having a one-off session to something much wider.
Perhaps I can suggest a compromise. We could have a one-off session and then review the outcome to find out whether we need to consider the issue in more depth or to broaden our examination to cover the issues that Derek Brownlee has raised. If we start with a one-off session, we might decide to kill it there and then, or we might decide that the committee needs to consider it further. Would that be a good compromise?
It might be, but it might also be useful to get a similar paper on other pay mechanisms within the organisations that are covered in this paper, so that we can compare what is happening in the organisation as a whole with what is happening to the senior staff. That might be a suitable compromise.
So we would have two papers. If we did the one-off session and covered both papers, we could then decide whether we wanted to do any further work.
I suggest that the clerks take on board what has been said and come back to the committee with a suitable suggestion. They should also consider how the timing fits in with the overall work programme. Our further work on this issue will be based on the paper that has been proposed in this discussion, which will come back to the committee. Is that agreed?
Thirdly, we have a paper from the Scottish Parliament information centre on economic statistical publications. Does the committee wish to examine any of those publications in greater detail?
The paper refers to the "Public Expenditure Statistical Analysis" and "Government Expenditure and Revenue in Scotland" as being particularly relevant to the committee's remit. I would quite like to do more work on both sets of statistics because they are important. PESA seems to be the basis on which the Scottish Government has calculated its baseline and made its claims about the level of increase that it will be getting, so it is worth considering that and its relevance. GERS is always controversial, so it might be worth coming back to it again.
You would like to have another look at those two subjects.
Yes.
Is that generally agreed?
We therefore want to examine those publications in greater detail.
Finally, our schedule has some time available in the first half of next year. The work programme paper suggests that an inquiry might be designed that could link the various issues that we have been considering in relation to the future of public services. Do members want to take that forward? If so, we can consider drawing up a detailed paper at a subsequent meeting. Are there any comments?
It is reasonable to link the three strands together. In the past, we have done quite a lot of work on scrutiny and regulation, so there is no need to repeat too much of that but, equally, it would be a shame to see it just go. The two other strands might involve more detailed work, but the broad concept is quite reasonable and could be quite valuable to the committee's broader remit.
Are there any other comments?
I agree with Derek Brownlee that it would be useful to consider the broad concept. Undoubtedly, the future of Scotland's public services is a big and increasingly important issue, so it is right that the Finance Committee should take an interest. However, the subject is pretty wide and could take us in many different directions. The broad concept is right, but I think that we might need to spend a bit more time considering the specific areas that we should examine. Otherwise, this could be the inquiry to end all inquiries.
We would be in permanent session.
We now move into private session, as agreed at the start of the meeting, to consider our candidates for the post of adviser for our capital investment inquiry.
Meeting continued in private until 14:37.