Finance Committee, 31 Oct 2006

Meeting date: Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Official Report 282KB pdf

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Commissioner for Older People (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum

The committee will now take evidence on the financial memorandum to the Commissioner for Older People (Scotland) Bill. The committee decided to adopt level 2 scrutiny for the bill, which involves taking written evidence from the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body, which is the body on which costs would fall. Today, we will take oral evidence from the member in charge of the bill, Alex Neil, and from David Cullum and Claire Menzies Smith, the clerk team leader and senior assistant clerk with the non-Executive bills unit. I welcome the member and his colleagues. Our normal procedure is to invite the member to make an opening statement and then to proceed to questions. Alex Neil has the floor.

I will try to keep this fairly short so that members have the opportunity to ask questions. The background to the bill lies in the substantial growth in the number of old people—both the total number and as a percentage of the population; the increasing demands on service provision from that group in society; and the whole range of issues that need to be addressed with regard to that age group.

It is clear from the evidence that we have taken—we have been round the houses twice with evidence taking and consultation, because of the change in the rules about members' bills—that a range of organisations concerned with older people believe that there is a need for someone in the policy-making arena or the parliamentary field to take an overview of the older generation's requirements.

One of the main supporters of the bill is the British Geriatrics Society, which is the organisation of doctors who deal with geriatric patients. I was not really aware of many of the issues that the society has raised until I went to speak to its members.

At any one time, about 50 per cent of admissions to hospitals are of people of pensioner age. On average, about 70 per cent of all the beds that are occupied in the national health service are for people of pensioner age. Because of the way in which the health service is organised, from the testing of new pharmaceuticals through to the provision of hospital services, the multifaceted nature of care for older people is not recognised. I will give a practical illustration of that. When pharmaceutical companies test new pills, they first tend to test them on younger people—those under the age of 70—and they usually test the medicine on its own. However, one thing peculiar to being old is the likelihood of being on four, five or six medicines at once. When medicines are tested, they are not tested against four or five other medicines that are being taken at the same time. That is a practical and important issue of the kind that an old persons commissioner could research and address. Any resulting measures would not necessarily require legislation; they might simply need a change in practice. In the case that I mentioned, the change in practice would come from the private sector, possibly leading to changes in the public sector.

There are many such examples. Some transport and housing issues particularly concern older people. Education and leisure are other areas that need to be properly researched in relation to old age. There is a continuing need to consider the impact of aging in our society. Until now, we have taken a fairly negative approach to aging. As a society, we need to take a much more positive approach, think about how we can utilise the massive asset of older people and allow them to contribute much more than they are sometimes allowed to do now.

The National Assembly for Wales has already established a commissioner for older people. He was appointed a few months ago—the post is now up and running. Much of my proposed legislation is based on the model that has been through the Westminster mill. As members know, Welsh legislation is passed not by the Welsh Assembly but by Westminster. In deciding how to draft the bill and how to tackle many issues, we referred to the Welsh precedent.

Obviously, people are concerned about the number of commissioners that are being created, but people are mainly concerned about the number that the Executive has appointed. As members know, the Parliament has five commissioners—there would be six if the bill is passed. I am conscious that we must ensure that we do not create a whole new industry of parliamentary commissioners.

When the committee was considering evidence for its accountability and governance report, David Cullum, Claire Menzies Smith and I spoke to the Parliament's legal people and others about the possibility of legislating for the remit in question but giving that remit to one of the existing commissioners. We found out that that was not a possibility for a whole host of legal and practical reasons. There is a debate to be had about the number of commissioners that we have, but the bill should not be a victim of that debate. The proposals are a separate, albeit allied, issue.

I agree with the committee that it is important that budgetary control of the commissioners should be under the direction of the Scottish Parliament Corporate Body. It is incumbent on the SPCB to have overall financial control over the commissioners in order to encourage co-location and the effective use of public money and to get value for money. However, there is no doubt in my mind that there is a job to be done and that my proposals are the right way of doing that job. There must be a parliamentary commissioner rather than an Executive-appointed body for a whole host of reasons. My colleague Alex Salmond has committed a future Administration to implementing my proposals, but I hope to beat him in arranging for their implementation.

I remind committee members that the Finance Committee's primary focus should be on the bill's financial memorandum rather than on policy issues, although I will probably allow a wee bit of latitude in that respect, given that the committee has been given background information on the issues.

Alex Neil said that he wants some of the issues that the committee has raised—particularly issues to do with financial accountability—to be taken on board. I am not sure that we would necessarily regard the financial control procedures relating to, for example, the proposed commissioner for human rights as necessarily the best model or the best practice to follow. Issues require to be discussed further, and I hope that there will be such discussion when the Parliament discusses our report in December. We think that the existing arrangements—which most people would accept have been very ad hoc—need to be significantly tidied up. Every commissioner has been created under a different mechanism, and the process needs to be rationalised.

I return to the core of the issue. Alex Neil said at the start of his remarks that old people are important. That is indisputable. The Parliament and other bodies must take old people's needs, interests and issues more seriously. However, rather than having a parliamentary commissioner, should parliamentary committees, Executive bodies and other agencies deal with older people in a different way? Why would having a parliamentary commissioner be the right answer to the problem of flagging up older people's needs more effectively?

There are two aspects to that issue. First, the nature of the work—particularly the research work—that needs to be done is such that a parliamentary committee would it find difficult to carry it out. I mentioned an issue that the British Geriatrics Society has highlighted. To improve the testing of new pharmaceuticals or to find out how rounded provision for older people in our hospitals could be better handled, a fair bit of research on best practice in this country and elsewhere would be required and work would have to be done with old people's organisations, the national health service and the pharmaceutical companies. A parliamentary committee would not be able to deal with that because it is, essentially, a research function. If there was a budget office in the Parliament—which is another innovation of which I would be supportive—it might be able to undertake some of that work, but there is no budget office and there is not likely to be one in the short term. The commissioner's work would start right at the basic need to research an issue or undertake surveys of opinion on the best way to tackle an issue. There is no body at the moment that is able to do that and take a panoramic view of old people's needs. The Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care has a specialist role and local authorities have specialist roles—and different attitudes across the 32 areas. At a national level, nobody is looking at the broad picture for our older generation.

The second point is whether, given that there is a need for the function, it should be an Executive function or a parliamentary function. In this case, it must be a parliamentary function because one of the issues that came out loud and clear in the consultation—particularly in the responses from organisations for older people—was that, for the commissioner to have credibility, he had to be standalone and independent of Government rather than an agent of Government. As members know, there is already an older people's unit in the Scottish Executive Development Department. It fulfils a useful function, but it is curtailed by being inside the Executive, which determines its work. The office of the commissioner would be a much more independent organisation and, I hope, the source of much more original thinking. It would feed into the Parliament, because it is the Parliament that should set the policy framework throughout the country in such a way that we are able to achieve consensus.

I will use the parallel example of disability. How would you counter the argument that the case for a parliamentary disability commissioner is as good as, or better than, the case for a commissioner for older people? How did you decide that what you propose is correct for older people but not for other groups?

I will push the disability argument a bit further. Part of what you argue for seems to be an older people's equivalent to the research capacity of the Strathclyde centre for disability research, which was set up some six or seven years ago and which co-ordinates disability research throughout Scotland. Would it be possible for an external agency whose main business is research to do a significant part of what you propose for the commissioner for older people?

The commissioner, using his budget, would probably buy in some research from university research departments and units; he would not necessarily do it all himself. The commissioner's function would not only be research, which would be only part of the function.

That is what you started with, which is why I am throwing the subject back at you.

Yes, I know. However, the proposal is not only about research: it is also about the total package of examining old people's issues, some of which will require research before any policy recommendations can be made and some of which will require much less research and will be more about trying to spread best practice. In that sense, the commissioner is not comparable to a research unit in a university.

Like us in Scotland, the United Kingdom Government is in the process of reorganising the commissions that address issues such as equal opportunities and race relations. There is an argument that disability and equal rights should be covered by a parliamentary commissioner or commission rather than a Government commission. Rather than justify placing the commissioner for older people in the parliamentary sphere instead of the Executive sphere, I will put the challenge the other way. Experience shows that it might be better for commissioners who are part of the UK Government structure or the Scottish Government structure to be parliamentary commissioners, because the issues that they tackle cut across parties, have much wider scope and are about the total policy framework—not just the Executive's policy, but the legislative framework in which we operate.

I think that the committee has a different view, based on the work that it has done.

Your introduction helped by answering some preliminary questions. Your policy memorandum suggests that the Welsh commissioner for older people is the only institution that is comparable to that which you propose. Would not it have been more sensible to wait until the Welsh commissioner had been up and running for a few years before assessing the proposed post's effectiveness and its likely cost? The remit in the bill is fairly fluid and is pretty much for the commissioner to decide.

The commissioner would decide the work programme and the priorities, but the framework and the remit are not left up to the commissioner. The commissioner would have a clear remit, within which he would decide priorities in the work programme. He would do that in discussion with parliamentarians, the Executive, older people's representatives and so on. That would not be done in isolation, because the bill contains a built-in requirement for the commissioner to consult widely on matters related to his work programme priorities.

If we were to wait five years to see how the Welsh commissioner operated, loads of issues that arose in the meantime would not be properly addressed. I have introduced the bill not because the Welsh are to have a commissioner, but because a commissioner is needed. In producing the bill, however, I referred to the Welsh example for good ideas; for example, one key question is whether the commissioner's responsibilities should become active in respect of people who have reached a specific age. We decided to follow Welsh practice on that for a host of reasons, which I am happy to explain.

I did not want to suggest that you introduced the bill because the Welsh have a commissioner; I thought that the Welsh example might be a useful comparator. Am I right in saying that the only comparator that you have, given the lack of an international comparator, is Scotland's commissioner for children and young people, who has an advocacy role in addition to other roles?

Undoubtedly, the children's commissioner closely parallels what we are trying to establish in the bill. I read every word of the convener's columns whenever they appear in The Scotsman and I note some of the criticisms that have been made by people who feel that the children's commissioner has strayed too much into the political arena. I would be happy to accept amendments at stage 2 if they were required, but if commissioners are to have credibility and to build consensus, it is important for them not to stray into the political arena and to be judicious in commenting and setting work priorities.

I am cognisant of the need to work with the Parliament and the Executive. The commissioner for older people would not be established to be a permanent critic of the Executive; that would not be its purpose. One irony is that for some commissioners who were established earlier and particularly for ombudsmen, the focus is on services that have gone wrong for individuals. The purpose of a commissioner such as I propose is to ensure that services are set up in a way that minimises the possibility of their going wrong or not being provided as they should be. I hope that the commissioner would have an impact on value for money, not just in what he or she delivered but in service provision across the board.

That was a judicious and measured answer. I turn now to the detail of the underlying costs in the financial memorandum. You have given an indication of what you think the staffing costs for the commissioner's office might be, but you have made it clear that that is not prescriptive. Am I correct in thinking that the additional costs of pensions, national insurance and so on still need to be added to those indicative costs? It does not look as if they have been included, but I may be wrong about that.

Those costs are not included—they have been excluded on the basis of advice that we received during discussions with the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body about how the matter should be handled. The costings are transparent and we have included figures but—on the advice of the corporate body—they are not in the core budget.

There are two things about the proposal that are different from the arrangements for other commissioners. First, we have not built in a provision for a chief executive because we do not need a chief executive; the commissioner should be the chief executive. Secondly, we have deliberately built in co-location with another commissioner. It has to be said that the financial savings from co-location are pretty limited, but I think that it is important to send out the clear message that Parliament will try to save a few thousand pounds when it can.

I understand the point that you are making about additional costs—it might be appropriate not to have them in the financial memorandum. Can you tell us roughly what additional costs would fall on the taxpayer?

In total, I think that we would be talking about £1 million a year, once the commission was up and running.

Would that include, for example, pension costs, even if that was not necessarily coming out of the budgets to which you refer?

Yes. About 30 per cent of the costs are salary costs, and the rest are running costs, office costs, funding for marketing and promotion and so on. I think that we have provided a breakdown of that, but we will be happy to provide more information.

You have provided a detailed breakdown, which is quite helpful.

I was also struck by the commissioner's proposed advocacy role. You make a comparison with the Scottish commissioner for children and young people, for which there was a lot of initial publicity to advertise the role and to promote awareness. Would the money for promotion that would encourage people to contact the commissioner for older people on other matters be better spent promoting take-up of council tax benefit among pensioners?

Initially, the commissioner would obviously advocate his or her services and the fact that he or she exists. However, I expect that much of the marketing and promotion budget would be for identifying best practice in key areas. I return to the health service example and how old people, who dominate the hospital-patient population, are dealt with. It may well be that the commissioner would use some of the money to organise workshops, perhaps in co-operation with the British Geriatrics Society, to examine best practice, which could be done jointly with the health service. I do not envisage the commissioner operating in isolation. That would be a bad mistake, which is why there would be a statutory commitment for the commissioner to work in partnership with others.

We have used the words "marketing" and "promotion", but the commission would not be in the same category as Kellogg's Corn Flakes or a product of that nature. Some of what is done will be facilitation rather than marketing and promotion as we know it. Once the commission was up and running, it would not be primarily about promoting itself, but about promoting the issues that the commissioner had taken on. The commissioner, unlike the Scottish public services ombudsman, would not take up individual cases. It is important for the ombudsman to advertise to people in Inverness, Ullapool, Dumfries and right across Scotland, including the housing schemes in Glasgow and Edinburgh, that she is there, so there is a huge marketing and promotion job to be done to make people aware of what the ombudsman can do. However, because the commissioner would not deal with individual cases, such mass marketing would not be needed.

You gave the example of guidelines on the testing of drugs and cited that as an area in which the impact of a commissioner might be desirable. If the commissioner were to be set up, surely to make a real difference he or she would have to interact with councils, health boards, charities, private companies and so on. If so, why in paragraphs 119 and 120 of the financial memorandum do you say that you do not anticipate any costs for local authorities and other bodies? If the commissioner is doing his or her job properly, there are bound to be additional costs.

Costs will be primarily in time. Indeed, if the commissioner does his or her work properly, he or she might save local authorities a lot of money by spreading best practice on how to deal with older people. For example, I hope that the commissioner's work might lead to increased value for money in local authorities' very sheltered housing services.

The same point applies to all bills, no matter whether they have been introduced by the Executive or members. For example, when the Housing (Scotland) Bill was considered in the first session of Parliament, no one on the then Social Justice Committee noticed that the business plan contained no provision for the costs of second-stage transfer. We are now facing a potential black hole of £500 million. Of course, I do not expect that the same thing would happen if the commissioner for older people were established.

I would be appalled to find such a black hole in this financial memorandum.

One correct answer that I thought I might tease out of you on the statements in paragraphs 119 and 120 is that although there might well be costs, it is very difficult at this point to foresee any that might arise. I think it unlikely that the commission will not, if it is to be effective, impose costs on local authorities and so on. You mentioned time, which is a very real cost.

Again, it will depend on the commissioner's work programme. I cannot sit here and say definitely that once the commission is into, say, year three or year four of operation it will not be engaged in a project that a local authority will want to put money into. That is well beyond the reasonable requirements of any financial memorandum.

There is also the question of monitoring the budget. At the beginning, you made helpful remarks about the need for value for money. However, as that will place additional requirements on the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body, should not the financial memorandum set out provision for additional costs that the SPCB incurs in managing the budget and in ensuring that value for money is delivered?

No—those costs are built in. I do not think that the corporate body will have to take on any additional staff to look after the commissioner. Given that, last year, Parliament's running cost was £110 million—or £60 million; I suppose that it depends on what the building brings in—the commissioner's £1 million budget would be a very small percentage of the overall budget. It is very much what people in an economics class would call a marginal issue.

How did you decide on the proposed body's staff structure and numbers?

We decided on those matters after consulting the SPCB and examining existing commissioners here and further afield; there is now quite a range of such organisations. With regard to staffing, the closest parallel is probably the Scottish commissioner for children and young people, although I point out that our commissioner would have far fewer staff. We also considered the Welsh example and the Scottish human rights commission. After thinking about the commissioner's remit and proposed work programme, we felt that 10 staff would be a reasonable complement. Moreover, because we propose to co-locate the commissioner with another one, we will save money by not having to staff a separate reception facility.

The commissioner's workload could, however, be twice what you have estimated.

That is possible, but his or her workload will be the subject of budgetary constraints. That is why I have made it absolutely clear that the SPCB should decide and control the budget. As with any organisation, the commissioner will have to work within that budget. As a result, budgetary control by the SPCB, which the convener mentioned earlier, is essential not just for this commissioner but for all commissioners.

Just out of interest, how many respondents to the consultation indicated that the commissioner would mean additional public sector expenditure?

None of them—in fact, many organisations such as Help the Aged, Age Concern and the Scottish Pensioners Forum, as well as a range of other bodies including COSLA, believe that the creation of a commissioner for older people would save them time. The existence of a focus point would mean that they would not need to knock on many of the doors that they have to knock on at the moment, and would be able to use the commissioner as a conduit for policy discussions with Parliament. Most organisations that were consulted believe that far from taking more time or costing more money, a one-door approach to Parliament's consideration of older people's issues would save time and money. I think that they are right.

The breakdown of the projected budget for the commissioner shows that more than half the total expenditure would go on staff costs. If additional costs such as office costs are taken into account, very little is left to spend on operating the services that the commissioner would provide.

The staff costs would never go above 30 per cent of the total expenditure.

They would, as the year 2 figures that are given on page 18 of the financial memorandum show.

The staff costs would be slightly above the level that I suggested, but it is a labour-intensive business. The commissioner and staff would have to have the necessary experience and knowledge. I probably should not say this now that the new age-discrimination legislation has come in, but I doubt whether a person in his or her 20s or even someone as young as I am would have the necessary experience to do the job without requiring a long learning curve. You get what you pay for. The work of Parliament is labour intensive—a high percentage of its total costs go on MSPs' salaries and expenses. That is the nature of the business.

Are you suggesting that the commissioner and his staff would be older people?

No, but we should not rule that out because to do so would send out entirely the wrong message. Devolution has addressed the absurd situation that used to exist, whereby a person over 65 would not be considered for appointment to a quango. I am talking not about quangos that deal with issues to do with older people, but about bodies such as Scottish Enterprise, which could have benefited from the experience of older people. It is clear that the commissioner should have knowledge and experience of, and a track record in, dealing with the issues with which they would be faced.

We should note that if the expenditure on the other items was increased, the staff costs would fall as a percentage.

Yes.

As you are aware, the Finance Committee has been discussing the right relationship between the Finance Committee and the SPCB as regards budget, in relation to both existing commissioners and possible new commissioners. You have said several times that you would like the budget of the commissioner for older people to be controlled by the corporate body. With previous legislation, the committee has identified a lack of clarity about what such control amounts to in practice. Will you take us through how you envisage the controlled direction that you talked about working in practice?

It is not for me to solve the general problems of the relationships that exist between the Finance Committee and the corporate body and between the corporate body and all its employees. The proposed commissioner would be covered by the agreed framework; the committee is considering what that framework should look like in the future.

It is vital that the budgets of all commissioners whose budgets are part of the corporate body's budget be firmly under the control of the corporate body and be part and parcel of the budgeting process; they should not be determined unilaterally by commissioners. The Finance Committee has the role of deciding how much money is available to the corporate body for running Parliament. I presume that as part of that process, each year the corporate body puts to the committee a set of budgetary proposals, which include the estimated costs of the various commissioners for the coming years. It is then for the committee to decide how much money to allocate to the corporate body and for the corporate body to manage the budget that it is given. That is my understanding of the process.

I am not sure that it is for the Finance Committee to decide how much money the corporate body receives.

Ultimately, Parliament decides that on a recommendation from the Executive, although we make a submission.

If there was disagreement on budget levels between a commissioner for older people and the corporate body, who would ultimately take the decision?

It would have to be the corporate body—there is no question about that—which is answerable to Parliament.

If there was such a disagreement on not the total budget heading but the spending within it, who would take the decision?

I would hope that we would not get into such an antagonistic situation, but at the end of the day the corporate body is responsible to Parliament for expenditure of public money. The corporate body must satisfy itself that the money is being spent, first as Parliament designated and, secondly, in a way that maximises value for money. As such, the corporate body must reign supreme, but it must do so with wisdom and tact and by ensuring that the role and objectives of the commission and the legislation that sets it up are not undermined.

I am sure that the corporate body would operate in that way, but paragraph 112 of the policy memorandum says:

"The Commissioner will need to balance how much resources in any year are devoted to carrying out investigations and how much to the Commissioner's role in awareness raising and promotional activities."

As you will know, one question that the committee had for the commissioner for children and young people concerned the amount that she had chosen to spend on promotional activities. Judging by what you just said, the commissioner would need to strike a balance, but if the corporate body or even the Finance Committee disagreed, they would have the power to alter the balance. Ultimately, it would not be the commissioner's but the corporate body's decision.

It must be the corporate body's decision, but it has to be based on available information and on the request by the commissioner. As I understand it—and as is the case for the other commissioners—the normal process would be for the commissioner to put to the corporate body a proposal on how much money was needed and how it was intended that it would be spent under broad headings. The corporate body would consider the proposal and make the final decision on the totality and broad headings. Obviously, one would anticipate some possibility for on-going virement between the headings, but in the end the corporate body is responsible for the taxpayer's money, so it would have the final say. I would be surprised if the Finance Committee got into the level of detail for the corporate body's budget, but that is between the committee and corporate body.

I am asking these questions because, to some extent, we did that with the closest parallel commissioner at the last round. If your argument is that it would be the corporate body rather than the commissioner that ultimately decided the balance between investigation and awareness raising and promotion, how would that impact on the commissioner's independence—especially the perceived independence—which you stressed earlier as being the reason for having a parliamentary commissioner rather than an Executive officer?

I imagine that if it got to that stage—it is an unlikely hypothetical situation—there would also be input from other committees; for example, the Communities Committee may get involved, or Parliament might have to set up an old people's committee. We do not know how Parliament, as opposed to the responsibilities of the corporate body, would oversee the commissioners' policy work. There is a debate to be had about that, on which I hope the Procedures Committee will come up with an acceptable set of proposals.

The policy issues would affect the commissioner for older people, but they should not be determined by the needs of a single commissioner. They are general issues about how we handle all the commissioners. We should not handle the commissioner for older people any differently from how we handle the other commissioners. My view is that, as well as being responsible for budget and strategic plans to the corporate body, each commissioner should report on its policy work to a committee of Parliament.

The logical committee for Parliament's scrutiny of the work of a commissioner for older people would be the Communities Committee, which should input into setting priorities for the commissioner's work programme. At the end of the day, it is the commissioner who proposes and disposes, but they have to do that within the budgetary constraints and guidelines that are set by the corporate body. If things were to become heated, a committee of the whole Parliament could be convened to take the final decision on a dispute. However, if that were to happen, it would indicate a breakdown in the corporate body's management of the situation.

I said that because, in the Commissioner for Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2003, it is clear that

"The Commissioner is not … subject to the direction or control of … any member of the Parliament … the Scottish Executive; or … the Parliamentary corporation."

Your proposal is somewhat different. If, as you suggested, a communications breakdown occurred, would not the commissioner ultimately have to take direction from the Parliament?

No, we are talking about the limited area of the budget. Obviously, the Commissioner for Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2003 is now some three years old. We are further down the road; we have more experience of commissioners and how to manage them. If we detailed exactly what the commissioner must do or if we used the budget to undermine the commissioner's remit, we would defeat entirely the point of having an independent commissioner for older people. At the end of the day, the Parliament elects the corporate body to undertake its wishes, which are both budgetary and policy in nature. Obviously, the corporate body must reconcile the two.

If I may, I will test you with an example that is not entirely hypothetical. The children's commissioner has announced the development of a new award: the Scotland's children's choice award. The SCCYP says that the award will give

"youngsters from across the country the chance to acknowledge the adults in their lives who they feel have made a special contribution to their development by respecting their rights … The award could go to … A teacher who has helped a pupil through a difficult time … police officer who has helped set up a community group … parent who helps a child with a disability access support … journalist who writes positive articles about young people".

Would it be appropriate for the commissioner for older people to put in place a similar type of award?

We are getting into policy issues; the question is not strictly a financial one. Like everyone else, I have my views on some of the priorities that some of the other commissioners have set. I assume that the purpose of the project is to raise awareness and that an evaluation will have to be done of whether the award meets that aim. Commissioners must strike a proper balance between doing what they set out to achieve—and getting consensus on that—and maintaining their public profile. They need to ensure that pursuit of the latter does not undermine their ability to obtain support for what they are trying to do.

I have some reservations about the wisdom of the children's commissioner investigating private finance initiative schemes. That is not because I am a defender of PFI schemes—far from it—but because of the potential for the commissioner to stray from her remit. If members look at the Official Report of the debates on the Commissioner for Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill, they will see that those who framed the legislation did not view such investigations as a priority.

At the end of the day, we have learned the lessons. In the bill, we have made it clear where the exceptions to the commissioner's independence lie—we have listed them. We have done so to get a better balance between the independence of the commissioner and the need for accountability. Indeed, the commissioner should not stray at all from the remit that is laid down in the bill.

Okay. So, no trophies.

I have never been one for trophies, mainly because I have never won any.

Good afternoon, Alex. I have been on the Finance Committee for three and a half years and I am always worried about the prospect of one-way financial traffic. Has there been any attempt to quantify the potential overall positive effect that the bill could have and the financial impact of improved services; a higher incidence of paid and voluntary work into old age; increased levels of self-sufficiency; lower occupancy in hospitals, nursing homes and so on; and an overall reduction in medication costs as people have a better balanced life? The potential financial benefits could screw down the budgets of other budget holders.

One good example is that the British Geriatrics Society has done detailed work on the savings to the health service of having better profiling of the introduction of new pharmaceuticals. However, there are problems with trying to quantify to that level of detail. First, there is the cost. Secondly, there is a lack of detailed financial information—each project would require a PhD on it. Thirdly, such analysis depends on the work priorities of the commissioner.

However, on the general, underlying theme of your question, I believe that, for £1 million a year, the commissioner could provide substantial value for money. They could be instrumental in spreading best practice in some of the examples that I have given, which would lead to financial savings or substantially improved value for money both in the public sector and, in some cases, in the private sector. I think that we would get a good bang for our buck, but it is difficult to be precise about the number of bangs and the number of bucks.

It interests me because I see the possibility of exporting the statistical research costs to the likes of the NHS, which is probably monitoring the situation just now anyway, and the Inland Revenue, which should be able to tell us how many people over retirement age are still in work, and so on.

My view is that, once the commissioners have been up and running for, say, five years, the Parliament—it would be a matter primarily for the corporate body and the Finance Committee—should undertake a piece of work to evaluate their impact against their original remit to determine whether they have made a positive contribution. When we pass legislation, we should evaluate the results. I would like all the commissioners to be evaluated after five years.

The office of the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman appears to be grossly underresourced for the workload that it has. I know from the 20 or 30 inquiries that I have pursued with it that it is taking up to a year to do investigations. That defeats the purpose of the ombudsman's remit and is a big issue to be addressed. Given that the ombudsman has been up and running as a unified service for three or four years, now seems to be the time to do a discrete piece of work to evaluate properly whether it has too wide a remit or needs more resources. Similarly, I would hope that, once the commissioner for older people had been up and running for four or five years, we would evaluate its work systematically, through the Finance Committee and the corporate body, to determine the net economic and social impacts of the body. If it was not good enough, we could change it; if we thought that it had been a waste of money, we could admit that we had tried and it had not worked.

You make a good case. Let us return to your proposition and the statistics that you cited. You said that 50 per cent of hospital admissions were of older people; that 70 per cent of hospital bed occupants were older people; and that certain people take up to four or five medicines in later life. Are not those statistics on which we could seek to improve, year on year?

Absolutely. Hospital admissions are one issue. When an old person breaks a leg, they are taken into hospital and get their broken leg attended to but not their hernia or stomach complaint. They then have to leave the ward that they were in and go back into a different ward in the hospital two months later to get their hernia or stomach complaint treated, instead of everything being done at once. That is the kind of area that needs to be addressed. The commissioner would consider the situation from an older person's point of view—from the consumer's point of view—and, working with the health service, could improve the level of service.

There are no further questions. I thank Alex Neil and his colleagues for coming along. When we complete our report, it will go to the lead committee on the bill, which is the Communities Committee.

I am hoping that the lead committee will be changed to the Equal Opportunities Committee, as the Communities Committee is overloaded with work. I thank the committee for that session. I enjoyed it.