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A paper has been circulated on the proposed approach to budget scrutiny and suggestions have been made. The paper is based on previous discussions by the committee, and perhaps the clerk to the committee, Stephen Imrie, can give us an update. Today, I gave him a response from sportscotland that was not easily forthcoming, in that we had to persuade it to give us some information. Frankly, some of the responses are not acceptable, and neither is the lack of other responses. We should write to the bodies to say that we expect a reasonable, timeous and detailed response from them. Do members agree to do that?
Members indicated agreement.
Are members happy with the recommendations in the paper?
Members indicated agreement.
Does anyone want to raise any issues?
There was a request that we select the non-departmental public bodies that we want to give evidence from the national collections. I would rather see what they submit to us before taking any decision.
Yes, because otherwise we would be operating in a vacuum. We will revisit the paper next week.
I suppose that we could threaten them by saying that if they do not give us a good answer, they will all be asked in.
Absolutely.
To update the committee, I should say that the paper was done at a particular moment in time and that the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland has now submitted its information, as has sportscotland, which was fairly forthcoming with information. Others have mentioned the problem that we do not yet have the Executive's 2007-08 budget, which is one reason why a few of them waited to respond. I am happy to go back and tell them that the committee is looking for the information.
We will build the update on that into the work programme paper for next week. That will make sense, as it will mean that we will be looking at the total work programme, rather than bits and pieces.
Meeting closed at 16:11.
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