Education, Culture and Sport Committee, 16 Apr 2002

Meeting date: Tuesday, April 16, 2002

Official Report 236KB pdf

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Budget Process 2003-04

I am sorry to keep members waiting. Brian Adam has joined us in his capacity as a reporter from the Finance Committee. The item is to note the report on the "Annual Expenditure Report of the Scottish Executive". We have a note on the budget process for 2003-04 and a reporter's report on the Scottish Executive's AER. The report is to provide information to the committee concerning the spending plans of the Executive in order to inform the committee's scrutiny of the Executive's budget. Oral evidence will be taken on 23 April and 30 April.

Do members have any comments? Do you want to say anything, Brian, given that you have managed to trawl yourself over here?

I am meant to have a watching brief, rather than tell the committee what to do. I presume that the committee has been given the guidance from the adviser to the Finance Committee as to how best to proceed. I read the Education, Culture and Sport Committee's report with interest.

I understand that all members commended it at our most recent meeting.

It was strongly commended. I found it remarkably—

Will this be the same gag again?

No. I was going to be nice about the report. It was remarkably full of detail, and I cannot see your lips moving.

I commend the kinds of questions that the Finance Committee's guidance notes recommend be posed to the Minister for Finance and Public Services. The minister has not so far been able to provide some of the hoped-for information on the scale of unallocated resources. That information would allow people to make choices about the kind of programmes that it might be possible to slot in, and about capital resources, because the difference between capital and revenue is important. We have not yet had a summary of the expected outputs from the new spending proposals. I hope that those will be available as we go through the process for the coming financial year.

I refer to paper FI/02/4/2, which gives guidance from Arthur Midwinter on the kinds of questions that should be asked. One of the questions is:

"Does the AER provide evidence of performance in meeting targets or progress towards long-term outcomes. Can the committee suggest alternative measures to strengthen this aspect of scrutiny?"

I know that the Education, Culture and Sport Committee has been among the most assiduous committees in the Parliament in dealing with the detail of the budget process and at least posing questions, if not making alternative suggestions. We are anxious to move on from criticism of the process—we want to start offering alternatives that reflect the work that committees are doing so that, on the initiative of committees, changes can be made within the budget process during the financial year.

It is not my role to come here and tell the committee what to do; rather it is to listen to what the committee intends to do.

As a member of the most assiduous committee in the financial scrutiny process, I have a quick question. We had difficulty this afternoon because of our commitment to the committee. We received a request from Engender to consider gender proofing of budgets and we had hoped to meet people from Engender this afternoon, but because all members were attending the committee, we could not do so. Is there a specific role that we could undertake with the Finance Committee in relation to those issues, given that we missed the opportunity today to hear Engender's views?

It is up to subject committees whom they wish to invite to give evidence on the balance within the budget. Engender might well be a cross-cutting group. From what I remember, it does not relate only to education.

Engender is attempting to meet all the key committees to get a coherent and corporate view of the budget. It is addressing the issues that are raised.

The cross-cutting approach to finance is a difficult area, which the Finance Committee intends to address this year. A couple of inquiries will take place, one of which will certainly impact on the Education, Culture and Sport Committee's remit. The Finance Committee will consider the cross-cutting approach to children in poverty.

The Finance Committee has decided to consider individual cross-cutting areas because the cross-cutting approach to finance is the responsibility of that committee, which is not responsible for considering the cross-cutting approach to education, culture and sport. However, where the approaches cross, it might be more appropriate for the Finance Committee to consider that. If the Education, Culture and Sport Committee was to approach the Finance Committee to say that it is interested in that area and ask whether both committees could deal jointly with the matter, that might be viewed sympathetically. However, you might want to suggest that as an area for a future Finance Committee cross-cutting inquiry.

The Finance Committee is holding two inquiries between now and the end of the financial year. One is about children in poverty and the other is about the voluntary sector and regeneration.

It is clear that we must think about our budget in the context of such issues, but we need some help in doing so. If simple information on gender proofing of budgets and how that could be considered in our budget process exists, we would welcome it whether it came from the Finance Committee or elsewhere. However, we are not going to send people out into the world to do that. Our focus is slightly different.

We would be interested in the Finance Committee's cross-cutting inquiry on children in poverty. I would certainly be interested and the issue would come within the remit of the Education, Culture and Sport Committee. I hope that the Finance Committee's cross-cutting inquiries include other committees, rather than that committee trying to do the job itself. It would be useful if the Education, Culture and Sport Committee were involved.

I am also a member of the Equal Opportunities Committee. That committee is considering gender issues and Engender gave evidence to the Equal Opportunities Committee this morning. Engender is also interested in mainstreaming, which is relevant to the education budget in terms of how it is achieved and how money is allocated. We need to consider that issue.

Brian Adam has hogged the show so far, so it is Irene's turn.

I am someone to whom understanding of the budget process does not come easily.

Do not put yourself down.

I endorse the final recommendation about the content of the budget headings being altered. That makes scrutiny over time a little more difficult because there is no consistency from one year to the next. I remember that we raised a similar issue with the ministers last year. We are in the same position in that it is difficult to backtrack year on year and to be clear about where money is coming from and going to.

I have two simple examples from the budget process paper. The first is that the level 3 expenditure on children and young people is "significantly higher" than forecast because of the inclusion of the changing children's services fund. That is fine, but then we also see that money has been moved into budgets for young people and looked-after children from social work services training. It all becomes very confusing—for me anyway.

We also want more information about the moneys that are going into the excellence fund. Again, there is change in the way that those moneys are being allocated to local authorities.

If we could find a method that allows some consistency and easy comparisons year on year, using the same headings in the budget, that would be helpful to me.

That parallels something that came out of the Finance Committee last year.

I am conscious of the time. Do any other members want to say anything?

Last year and the year before, we complained about the format of the information and said that it was difficult to scrutinise. We always want the information to be better than it is, and we must be aware that we asked for changes that would make the information better and that things are moving in the direction we wanted. I had the job of considering the education budget and it was difficult to identify where money goes and how to monitor it. On the positive side, we asked for the changes that we seem now to be complaining about.

I remind the committee that successive finance ministers have made commitments to offer the services of the Executive's officials in helping to work up any alternatives that committees wish. I understand why Jackie Baille is laughing, but successive finance ministers have made that offer. The process is important and I echo the remarks that have been made about difficulties in following changes. However, it is important that the Parliament should move forward and consider different approaches. The Minister for Finance and Public Services has offered help on behalf of the Executive in constructing the costs of alternative proposals.

I accept Irene McGugan's point about transparency. The recommendation would make our scrutiny more difficult, but we cannot move beyond that until there is transparency. I accept entirely Brian Adam's comments on the opportunity not only to consider what the Executive is doing, but to suggest ways of doing things better. However, to reach that stage, we need improvements to work their way through the system, which would help us. Like Irene McGugan, I always find budget time difficult, because people change headings. There have been changes in the excellence fund, so we should take up the suggestion to "receive further information".

There are also issues relating to level 3 expenditure in schools. Money seems to have moved around. According to my calculations, there is not an exact match and money is adrift somewhere. To which heading has it gone? We need to scrutinise further and think through what the committee has considered during the year that might benefit from additional budget consideration. I also want clarification on the changing children's services fund. My recollection at the time of the announcement was that £80 million was to be made available over three years, but the figures do not add up to £80 million. Clarification about the envisaged period and how the money pans out would be useful.

I want to say something about gender budgeting. It is important that every committee of the Parliament—not just the Finance Committee—is responsible for mainstreaming equality into the budgets that they scrutinise. In education, I think that the schools division is one of the two pilot mainstreaming areas with which the Executive is proceeding. Given that we are scrutinising the part of the budget that is for schools, we should ask the Executive what impact mainstreaming has had and seek information from Engender on whether there is a toolkit that we can use in our budget scrutiny that would help in considering equal opportunities dimensions.

I take on board those helpful comments. Over the next week, we could try to contact Engender to find out about a variety of issues and whether a toolkit is available that would assist us.

I thank Brian Adam for attending. He is free to stay, if he wishes, but I have a funny feeling that he wants to leave.

I will forgo the pleasure of staying.

We are insulted.

I will attempt to join the committee on other occasions.

We are missing you already, Brian.