Education, Culture and Sport Committee,
Meeting date: Tuesday, May 8, 2001
Official Report
147KB pdf
Budget Process 2002-03
Item 4 is the budget for 2002-03. I welcome Richard Simpson, who is the reporter from the Finance Committee. I ask Cathy Peattie to introduce the report that she has prepared.
My main concern is the lack of indicators. We can have the best policies in the world and positive intentions, but if indicators are not written into budget documents, it is difficult later to scrutinise what has been done and how things have been achieved. That is a very important issue. There is perhaps a need to learn from the process so that those drawing up the budget ensure that indicators are included. We should flag up that issue.
It is open to members to comment on my report. We should ask the minister to the committee. I would like to hear more about the budget in relation to the McCrone settlement. It is for the committee to decide whether to invite the minister to speak to us.
I am keen to examine how money has been identified for the cultural strategy. Also, where is the extra £1 million coming from for Scottish Opera? I would like to know more about what is meant by cultural champions and how that initiative will be administered.
On sport, again there is an issue in relation to policy objectives and indicators. I am sorry if I repeat that point, but I think that indicators are important, as I do not know how else we can measure success.
I have one or two points that I would like Cathy Peattie to take on board. I agree that the minister should come to the committee.
Under "Education and Children", the paper refers to the differences in the figures from year to year—I think that all of us are struck by that. Although we asked that question last year, we did not receive a very satisfactory response and we need to explore the matter further.
In the section on funding, I am very surprised to read about the increase in the budget for Her Majesty's inspectors of schools. I would have thought that the changes to the status of HMI would have resulted in a decrease to that budget, or at least would have left it static. We need a further explanation of that.
Anybody would be concerned by the drop in pupil support in the budget line that deals with schools. If money is being taken from elsewhere or going elsewhere, that should be made much more clear in the documentation. I do not resent the fact that I am able to attack the Executive for spending less per pupil in schools, but it seems a rather odd item to have in the budget.
Under the heading of "Culture", it occurs to me that, if the Executive is keen to pursue its national cultural strategy, it must begin to earmark funds for some of the objectives of that national cultural strategy. The budget does not indicate that that is the case, and the answers to some of the parliamentary questions of my colleague Irene McGugan seem to suggest that parts of the national cultural strategy are falling by the wayside.
We need to be much more clear about the relationship between a major policy document that lays out a strategy for the future and the spending lines that flow from it. There seems to be no relationship within the documentation. Dr Richard Simpson may have experience of this in other departments. I am deeply interested in where the extra money for Scottish Opera has come from. This committee has to return to that issue. We received a letter from the First Minister saying that Allan Wilson would talk to us about that and we need to arrange that meeting.
There is a continuing discussion about the possible merger of Historic Scotland and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland. There are concerns about such a merger and it would be useful if the committee could consider the matter before the merger takes place. However, the planned expenditure does not appear to bear any relationship to that debate. That is a worry and we need to examine that issue much more closely.
Issues relating to museum funding are also not fully transparent within the papers. We will need to see much more clear information on the change in the status of museums and the audit that is taking place.
In relation to sport, we need to get more detail on the fact that the budget is static, particularly with regard to the question that Cathy Peattie raises in the document about how inflation is taken into account. We also need to know more about how much money will be used to promote social inclusion and how that money will be separated from the rest of the budget. The problem with the way in which the information is presented throughout the budget document is that individual items are not broken down far enough.
I do not know how the minister would respond to a point about the problem that I have previously mentioned of money being earmarked by the Executive for certain initiatives but not being available to be spent on those initiatives by the time that it reaches local authorities' grant-aided expenditure. I know that there are problems with ring-fencing and so on, but I would like to know more about Government policy on such matters. I understand that the ministers are interested in outcomes and want to shift their emphasis towards looking for the results and targets that Cathy Peattie is talking about. That is a debate that will not be solved in our discussions immediately but needs to be kept firmly in mind.
I ask Cathy Peattie to take those points on board. We will try to find a slot for a meeting with the minister prior to the delivery of our report to the Finance Committee. The timing will be tight, however.