Finance Committee, 07 Mar 2000

Meeting date: Tuesday, March 7, 2000

Official Report 184KB pdf

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Standards in Scotland's Schools etc Bill

We will now move on to the aforementioned procedure.

I think that your sigh is quite appropriate, Keith, but I do not know whether the Official Report has any way of recording sighs.

The financial resolution relating to the Standards in Scotland's Schools etc Bill has been published. I understand that the stage 1 debate is likely to take place on 22 March.

We have already heard Keith's view on the financial memorandum. Does anyone else want to comment?

The information tells us that, in raising standards, local authorities would incur consultation costs. The amount incurred would depend on how many people were consulted. The information is bananas and does not allow us to make a serious assessment of the cost of this policy.

The same applies, further down the page, to inspector days. Three new inspectors will be required, but the resources available to the Executive will not be increased. That means that somebody somewhere will lose out. Again, the cost implication of that is not detailed, and so it goes on throughout the document. I may be being overly critical, but I suspect that the spirit of having a financial memorandum has not been followed through by whoever is in charge of drafting these things.

Those are general points. We are talking about the Standards in Scotland's Schools etc Bill. The points that Keith Raffan mentioned have some resonance.

If the Executive is making that sort of comment about appointing inspectors, it should be indicating which part of its current budget it proposes to take the money from. We have already technically approved a budget, or the Parliament has done so. If it now proposes a change—albeit not at a level of £50,000—and increased costs, the same principle should apply to the Executive as applies to subject committees in the budget system. It should be told that it must state where the money is to come from. Will it come from a section that is having efficiency savings? Are people comfortable with that? We should be able to call people from that department before us to ask them whether they are comfortable with what the Executive is doing.

Ken, you are on the Education, Culture and Sport Committee. Have questions been asked about the impact on local authorities?

I asked HMI specifically what the costs would be. The chief inspector said that it would cost three extra places, which is exactly what this document says. I agree that the information is unsatisfactory. The absolute minimum we need is a recognition that there are financial implications, but I am not sure that we are getting that. Beyond that, we should ask in future for further information on where money is coming from.

One item that is not in the bill at the moment is the mainstreaming of special needs education, which may be introduced later. We can think about it then, but it has not yet been costed and it could have major implications. When the Education, Culture and Sport Committee took evidence from the Educational Institute of Scotland and the other unions, one witness said—almost as a throw-away line—that the only piece of policy guidance that has ever been costed was the original implementation of the five to 14 curriculum, back in the 1980s. No other guidelines have ever been fully costed.

It is interesting that costings are not done at that level. If we do not ask for it, it will never happen, so we must keep leaning on people for it. As I said, mainstreaming of special needs education is not here yet, although we expect it to be introduced soon. I accept the bill as it is at the moment.

Are we to expect an amendment?

I think so. I could give you more information, but it is not—

It is not really our concern at this stage.

Looking at the section of the document on costs to local authorities, it just gets more and more bizarre. I will not quote directly, but it says that the inspection of educational facilities will incur some additional administrative costs. Every local authority is different, so it is not practical to say how much those costs will be. Local authorities are complaining like mad that all this stuff is being shoved their way with no estimates. At some stage, we should have the local authorities in and ask them about all this stuff that is coming down on them that is not directly financed.

Even if it is impossible to estimate costs for the first year, perhaps there should be a process by which local authorities can submit, after the first year, the costs and information on how they have financed them, so appropriate adjustments can be made and nobody has to rely on the imprecise and certainly not robust formulae that we use at present to decide the local government financial settlement. I sympathise with the Executive's predicament as the situation differs from one local authority to another, but the document is far too vague. It is not even giving information; it is just saying there is no information.

The question is whether we can ask for more detailed information and, if we did, what the practical effects would be.

In section 49, there is a right to borrow money. What set of rules does that have consequences for? Does it change public borrowing? Who borrows from where? What are the rules? It simply says:

"The consent of Scottish Ministers is required".

That is not clear enough. If there is borrowing, we need to know where it will come from, who accounts for it, who pays it back, whether it is in addition to something else and whether it is a transferred borrowing power. None of that is specified. We need to tease out that sort of information for all these documents as we receive them.

Are there any other comments on the bill?

We should formally note that financial provisions will be acquired through the Standards in Scotland's Schools etc Bill.

Is that all we do?

I am not quite sure about S1M-460. It talks about expenditure as a consequence of the act. Does it allow the Executive to pay money over to local authorities or is that just the Scottish Administration's expenditure?

That is standard wording.

Standard wording from another time and another place perhaps. Should that apply or should we at least question the wording and ask whether it meets the needs of this Parliament?

That wording just allows money to follow the implementation of policy. It does not say where the money comes from—information that we need. The purpose of the motion is only to give agreement to the Government spending the money.

It is standard, Richard. The point is—

I accept that.

Item 6 is on financial provision in bills. I think we have something to contribute on how the process can be improved. For the moment we must note that financial provision will be necessary, for the bill to proceed.

I am simply suggesting that we tag something on to S1M-460. Even if we accept the wording of this motion because it is the standard form, we should not let it go past without commenting that in future we will not necessarily accept that form of words. As Ken says, it enables the Executive to spend money from any source on anything, in consequence of the act. That is not acceptable.

I do not want to prolong this discussion, as we will come on to the issue in a broader way.

I do not want to prolong the discussion either, but a letter should be sent to the Minister for Children and Education and to the Minister for Finance expressing our concerns that the implications for local authorities are not clear enough. Local authorities complain about it.

Sooner or later, this committee will take a stand on an issue such as this, even if that means having local authorities before us and going into it in more depth, through an inquiry. Frankly, I am not here to rubber-stamp it and I am not happy with this.

I am seeking an assurance from the minister that any additional costs on local authorities will be defined and met from the central fund, not from within the existing settlement for local authorities.

As far as we can make out from the financial memorandum, that is not what is happening.

That is why I am raising the issue.

As Kenneth Macintosh says, there is little that we can do other than conduct an audit. After that we can issue a detailed request.

We can conduct an audit, then raise those points in a letter to the Minister for Finance.