Commissioner for Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill
We move to item 4, which is consideration of the financial memorandum on the Commissioner for Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill. We have with us Karen Gillon MSP, the convener of the Education, Culture and Sport Committee, and David Cullum, who is the clerk team leader for the Scottish Parliament non-Executive bills unit. I have no doubt that someone will want to make an opening statement before we move to questions.
I welcome the opportunity to address the committee this morning, and to answer any questions members might have. It might be helpful to outline how the main costs of the bill arise, and the overall implications for the Parliament.
The financial memorandum to the bill sets out full details of the costs that are likely to arise from the bill, which seeks to establish a commissioner for children and young people in Scotland. The Education, Culture and Sport Committee anticipates that the appointment will be made on a full-time basis, and that the main costs will relate to the recruitment budget and the annual staff budget that will be required by the commissioner to carry out his or her duties. Those costs have been estimated at £150,000 and £650,000 respectively, based on a staff of 15 people. That is the number of staff that is judged necessary, having considered other models at home and abroad, to allow the office to have the full range of expertise that is necessary to fulfil its functions.
Certain judgments have had to be made regarding the salary level of the required staff. The total bill is not expected to exceed £1.217 million per year. In addition, start-up costs will arise, relating mainly to the recruitment of the commissioner, the cost of advertising and interviewing, and the higher cost of publications in year 1. Those have been estimated at around £323,000.
The commissioner will be a royal appointment, similar to the Scottish public services ombudsman and the Scottish information commissioner. Funding for those offices is channelled to the office holders through the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body's budget, but there is one main difference between the arrangements for this appointment and those for the public services ombudsman and the information commissioner: this is a committee bill and not Executive legislation. Officials from the non-Executive bills unit have liaised closely with Executive officials over the past six months. The Executive is aware of the costs and has made appropriate allowances in departmental budgets to fund the SPCB.
I would be happy, along with David Cullum, the head of the non-Executive bills unit, to answer any questions from committee members.
I will begin with an opening question. I know that other members have questions.
I am glad that you mentioned the public services ombudsman and the information commissioner. Earlier in the year, we discussed the funding for those posts with the SPCB, which explained to the committee that those posts were funded by transfers from the Executive. The SPCB indicated that it wants to remain "neutral and independent" with regard to monitoring the posts. As you will see from later committee questions, there is concern about some of the costs. It seems that the postholder will mainly be left to determine their own financial requirements. Do you have any thoughts on who will eventually monitor the on-going cost of the post?
The Education, Culture and Sport Committee's view was that monitoring would be carried out by one of the Parliament's committees, either by the Education, Culture and Sport Committee or by the Finance Committee. That would be absolutely proper.
I have a couple of questions, the first of which is specific. The financial memorandum states:
"Pensions and National Insurance contributions will account for around a further 30% of the salary paid."
First, the word "around" means that the figure could be even more than that. Secondly, even given the problems with pensions today, the sum seems high. If the employer's contribution for national insurance is 11 or 12 per cent and the contribution for pensions is around 8 or 10 per cent—which is high for public service employers—the figure of 30 per cent seems high.
My second question relates to the total cost of the bill, which is about £1.5 million for the first year and will then drop to £1.2 million. My colleagues will ask more detailed questions about the costs, but have you estimated the savings that will be made as a result of there being existing work, which I presume will not be duplicated? For example, I am thinking of the social work services inspectorate's work on children's services. The inspectorate requires local authorities to produce a wealth of information as part of the normal reporting systems. I hope that that work will not be duplicated, which will mean that there will not be additional cost on local authorities.
The financial memorandum states that
"It is not anticipated that the provisions should impose any direct costs on local authorities"
and I presume that work will not be duplicated at the national level either. There should be a reduction in the work of departments or inspectorates, but that is not taken into account in the memorandum.
The figure of £490,000 for salary costs for the commissioner's staff that is quoted in paragraph 97 is approximate. The figure of about 30 per cent has been rounded up and encompasses national insurance and pension contributions, including those for the commissioner. The actual figure is between 27 and 28 per cent, which, I am advised, is in line with other organisations. I can check the figure and come back to the committee with further information, but that is the information that I have.
Given that national insurance contributions are 11 per cent, the figure suggests a pensions contribution of the order of 16 per cent, which is unbelievable.
I will check with David Cullum. That is the figure that we have been given.
Perhaps the figure of 27 per cent includes employees' contributions, which would mean that there has been double counting. Otherwise, the figure involves pension contributions of 16 or 17 per cent. The only other organisation that does that is the Scottish Prison Service. Perhaps the costs are so high because the pension system will be non-contributory.
In any event, the associated payroll costs seem quite high. I ask Karen Gillon to break down the figures for us.
We will do that.
In reply to Richard Simpson's second question, I refer him to section 7 of the bill, which states in relation to the work of the commissioner that
"the investigation would not duplicate work that is properly the function of another person."
We took a considerable amount of evidence on the matter. Initially, there was scepticism, not least from me, about the commissioner's role and work. It was thought that other people already carry out the work, but the clear evidence that we received from children's organisations, children and the Executive was that there is a gap in the current provision. Children and young people fall through the net and their rights are not properly taken into account and adhered to. The commissioner would not duplicate work, but would be a new post that is created specifically to consider such issues.
I accept and welcome that point, which is clear in the bill. Clearly, the Education, Culture and Sport Committee addressed the matter closely. It seems, however, that a number of the duties placed on the commissioner by section 4, which is on promoting and safeguarding rights, are already undertaken. For example, the inspectorate system is supposed to review
"policy and practice relating to the rights of children and young people with a view to assessing the adequacy and effectiveness of such law, policy and practice"
and promote
"best practice by service providers".
We must watch out for duplication.
We must watch out for it, but the clear evidence that we received was that although such work happens in some places, it does not happen in others and that there is a need for an all-Scotland approach.
The first paragraph of the financial memorandum states:
"The costs associated with the provisions of this Bill will fall largely upon the Scottish Parliament."
That implies that some of the costs will fall elsewhere, but I could not find any indication of that in the memorandum. Could you comment on that?
My second question relates to paragraph 96 of the memorandum, which suggests that 10 per cent of the overall budget will be required for recruitment and that that will mean £150,000 in the first year. Paragraph 95 suggests that 15 staff will be employed. Do you not think that the recruitment cost is rather high? Can you give us a breakdown of why it will cost so much to recruit 15 people? A substantial human resources department could be run for a year on £150,000.
I will take you through that, Brian. On your point about the memorandum's first paragraph, I am advised that a standard form of wording is used in such instances. In the initial transitional period there will be Executive funding, then the money will be transferred to the Scottish Parliament, by which I mean the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body.
In relation to the recruitment costs, the experience of setting up the Welsh commissioner's office was that approximately 10 per cent of the annual budget was spent on recruitment. We used that model because Welsh economic conditions are close to those of Scotland. However, before we used the 10 per cent figure we costed advertising in the national press and factored in development costs for job descriptions and other necessary preliminary work. It is envisaged that part of the drawing up of the job descriptions will involve young people. That will obviously have implications in terms of having professional assistance to ensure that young people can do that work meaningfully and that their involvement is not tokenistic.
The combined advertising and development costs would be in the region of 10 per cent. Advertising in national newspapers and using recruitment consultants are the most costly methods of recruitment. However, we feel that they would be justified to ensure that the best quality staff are found. In addition, the commissioner will have to factor in staff time for sifting applications, putting together an appropriate selection panel, interviewing and the follow-up time involved in checking references and security clearances. However, those processes are difficult to quantify in terms of staff costs.
I can provide more details about the costs of advertising in the national press, if that would be helpful.
It would be helpful if you could give us a breakdown of the advertising costs as opposed to the recruitment, training and vetting costs because even if half of the costs were for advertising, £150,000 is still a substantial amount of money. For such a figure, an HR professional could be recruited for a year. I cannot see, with the best will in the world, how that amount can be justified for recruiting 15 posts.
I will take you through the details. A full display advertisement in The Herald recruitment section is £72 per single column centimetre. Standard advertising rates for an advertisement detailing a position such as the commissioner would equal £3,024 per newspaper. It would be reasonable to assume that where a number of posts are on offer they would be contained within one advertisement. For that reason a multiplier equivalent to half the number of staff to be recruited was used. Thus, the total for advertising in The Herald would be £22,680. It is likely that the posts will also be advertised in The Scotsman to ensure national coverage, and in specialist publications if specialist skills are required. That would bring the total costs for advertising to £68,040.
Some people might take the view that if you advertise only in The Scotsman and The Herald you are not looking beyond the central belt.
Do not increase the costs any further, Brian, for heaven's sake.
My point is a valid one about something that has been a matter of concern for some time.
Right. Can I clarify that? My reference to The Scotsman and The Herald was an example. Obviously, a newspaper such as The Press & Journal would also be considered. One issue that came up in relation to the Education, Culture and Sport Committee's evidence is that we want to ensure that the commissioner is responsible for and accountable to the whole of Scotland. Therefore, advertising in newspapers that have much higher circulations in north-east Scotland than The Scotsman and The Herald would be important. I gave you a round figure for newspaper advertising costs as an example, but it does not quantify all the newspapers in which we would consider advertising.
So about half the recruitment cost will be for advertising.
Yes. That surprised me too.
I want to ask about the paragraph that is headed "Publications, events, marketing, public relations". The financial memorandum says
"He or she will likely need to undertake substantial promotional work".
However, the publications costs of £325,000 in the first year and £200,000 a year after that sounds like an awful lot of promotion. The Executive is already being criticised for the number and cost of the various publicity campaigns that it undertakes. It is our duty to decide whether such campaigns provide value for money. Are we not giving the proposed commissioner the licence to promote himself beyond belief? I know that the commissioner's job is to promote himself, but is this not going too far?
It will be helpful to take you through the reasons. I have one specific example. Parliamentary question S1W-29707 from Adam Ingram reads:
"To ask the Scottish Executive how much the children's panel recruitment campaign cost in total, detailing the amount spent on (a) advertising, (b) literature and (c) staffing."
The answer, given on 1 October 2002, was
"The cost to date to the Scottish Executive of the children's panel national recruitment campaign is £395,000."—[Official Report, Written Answers, 1 October 2002; p 1756.]
Was that a relatively unsuccessful campaign? There are many vacancies in the children's panels.
That campaign was to try to improve the take up and use of the children's panels. The figures are for 2002 so the campaign is on-going.
The commissioner would require a high initial budget in order to generate widespread awareness of his or her existence and functions among children and young people as well as adults and any service provider to whom the work will be relevant.
The need to promote is key to the commissioner's functions. The publications budget is seen to be central to the ability of the office to fulfil its function. Without wanting to prescribe how the commissioner will act, a starting point would be to consider the cost of distributing leaflets, posters and so on in schools, colleges, after-school clubs, leisure centres and other places where young people and children normally gather.
In order to attract a young audience at first glance, that material will have to be eye-catching and colourful. All of that comes at a price. For example, there are 1 million children under the age of 18 in Scotland. The total cost of producing five leaflets per child would be £323,500.
That figure is only indicative because the commissioner might want to use other media, including radio or television advertising, internet advertising and so on. There are approximately 2,200 primary schools in Scotland. If each school was to receive two A1-sized posters it would cost £1,127. It would be reasonable to multiply that figure by 10 to enable distribution to primary and secondary schools, nurseries, after-school clubs, libraries, sport and leisure centres, doctors' waiting rooms and so on. The cost would then be in the region of £12,000.
That does not include the costs involved in designing the leaflets in the first place. Such a promotion would only cover a fraction of the audience that it is intended to reach. The budget is not for publications alone and it will extend to events, because accessibility and involving children are key concepts of the commissioner's work.
The commissioner might stage events throughout Scotland in order to engage as many children and young people as possible. That will involve hiring hall space, attracting guest speakers, the cost of equipment, catering, publicising the event and other related matters. In relation to ongoing costs, we have noted that similar voluntary organisations spend approximately £200,000 on that function and we have used that figure as a baseline for the future.
It is not for us to develop the commissioner's marketing strategy. Rather, we have indicated the likely scale of expenditure that we believe would be necessary given the bill's emphasis on promotion, accessibility, consultation and participation.
I am not going to quarrel about the detail of that. The commissioner will certainly be putting out more leaflets than I will be next May.
You said that it would be appropriate for one of the committees to scrutinise the commissioner's budget. If that committee was the Finance Committee, would it be within our power to say to the commissioner "No, your budget is too much. It is going to be x instead of the y that you asked for. Go away and do whatever you want for that amount." If the Finance Committee will not be able to do that, who will?
I am informed that the Auditor General would do that kind of thing. That is dealt with in paragraphs 11(1) to 11(4) of schedule 1 on page 9 of the bill.
Paragraph 11 of schedule 1 is about keeping accounts. Who will set the commissioner's budget for the coming year?
The Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body will set that budget.
The SPCB has said that it wants to be neutral on that—whatever that means. I am not sure how one can be neutral in setting a budget.
That was the point of the first question. There is concern that the commissioner—whoever that might be—will be handed a blank cheque.
That is not our intention. That is why the financial memorandum that we have given to the committee gives a detailed account of the costs that will be involved. The Parliament will have to agree to that.
That is what the question is about.
We want to know what the mechanism will be for that to happen. Who will say, "This is becoming ridiculous—you must keep your costs within a certain amount"?
It is my understanding that the SPCB would do that. It would negotiate the funding in the same way that it does for every commissioner that it funds.
That fills me with confidence. Never mind.
Funding for the commissioner would come back to the Finance Committee for approval, as part of our approval of the accounts.
Yes.
Given that we are talking about a parliamentary appointment, the funding will come out of the SPCB's budget. I wonder whether there are opportunities for the Parliament to supply some of the services that the new body will require. We have mentioned the recruitment costs. Do opportunities exist for using parliamentary human resources? You mentioned the creation of a website, which will require information technology support. Have you thought about minimising costs through the joint use of resources or by examining the operation of similar organisations to assess whether there is scope for sharing facilities and resources?
Although the financial memorandum lists rental costs as being £40,000, there is no mention of insurance, rates, heating and telephone costs and so on. Are such office costs included with the rental costs?
I understand that all such office costs are included under the rental costs heading. We can give the committee more detail, if it would like. Rent will make up a fifth of the costs; the associated costs will make up the rest.
Although advice on sharing resources would be available, the Education, Culture and Sport Committee is keen for the commissioner to be independent of the Executive and the Parliament. The commissioner should be able to determine their agenda for working with children and young people. It would not be helpful if the Parliament led them by the nose in relation to what they could produce and when they could produce it. The kind of material that the Parliament produces is not child friendly. The Parliament does not have the kind of information and expertise that the commissioner would need to draw on. In spite of our best efforts, the Parliament is bad at being children and young-people friendly. It would be more appropriate to draw support and advice from other organisations, rather than from the Parliament.
I accept your points about the independence of the commissioner and the need to be child friendly, which demands colourful and imaginative materials to attract children's attention. Nevertheless, there are a number of back-office functions such as HR and IT support, to which the need to be child friendly is not relevant. Consideration of the best use of resources is relevant in that context.
Before we can consider sharing parliamentary resources, we need to ensure that parliamentary resources have sufficient capacity. In my experience, the Parliament is not able to cope with its own work and would therefore not be able to cope with any extra burden. I would be reluctant to place the burden of the children's commissioner on parliamentary resources. The fact that the Parliament is already overstretched means that there could be no effective sharing of resources.
One of the problems is that there is a perception that we are very good at spending other people's money. A fear is that we are creating posts such as this without any on-going control over their financial expenditure. That is a worry.
I fully appreciate and understand that.
You have described the mechanism by which the legal aid system works—it is not cash limited. I am not sure that the corporate body would want to be anywhere near such a mechanism.
You have said a lot about access to the system and information going out. Access to the system is a key point, yet you are making a single office the site for the commissioner. Will provision be made for regional contact points within the £325,000 for publications, events, marketing and public relations? One of the major issues is how people get in touch with the commissioner locally.
We have not set a single office cost; there is a budget for office costs. That does not necessarily relate to one office; there could be more than one office. We have deliberately not prescribed where the commissioner should have his office or offices. The committee felt that having an office in Aberdeen would be no more accessible to somebody in Wick than having one in Edinburgh. The arrangements for being accessible to children and young people are slightly different to those for being accessible to adults. We need to consider imaginative ways of providing accessibility. That is not to say that the commissioner cannot have an office in the north of Scotland or would not want to have one there. There is scope within the budget for them to do that.
Paragraph 99 of the financial memorandum states:
"the Commissioner will have one office base."
Are you using some of the £325,000 to make the process accessible throughout Scotland?
We discussed that there would be one office base, wherever that may be, but that does not mean to say that there are not sub offices. That is similar to what has happened with the care commission. The commissioner could use joint premises with other organisations such as local authorities, so that they would be accessible and not have huge additional costs. There could be sub offices around Scotland if that was deemed to be appropriate. It will be for the commissioner and their staff to determine how best they get out and about around Scotland. Whether they have sub offices is one of the decisions that they will have to make.
On the basis of the financial memorandum, you are assuming that there will be one head office. You are saying that within the budgets that are listed, finance will be available to do what you talked about to take the commission out and about. I presume that that will come out of the £325,000.
Yes.
Are you confident that after a year or two of the operation of this post there will not be a request for a substantial increase in the budget?
No. I cannot determine what the Parliament will deem as necessary in future or what the commissioner will ask the Parliament to provide funding for. It will be for the Parliament to make a decision on the budgets. Future developments might mean that more or less money is necessary. I do not want to give you a definitive answer—as others have done previously—and live to regret those comments. It would be improper for me to do that. It is for the Parliament, through the corporate body and the Finance Committee, to determine whether any funding application would be supported and whether money would be made available to the commissioner.
I asked the question because I detect an increasing concern that we legislate without taking proper account of on-going costs. From this morning's evidence, I do not have great confidence that the figures that are outlined will remain intact for long. I think that the budget will grow considerably. People should know that when we legislate on matters such as this there can be considerable cost to the public purse.
That completes the questions. Thank you very much for your attendance.