Official Report 838KB pdf
Good morning and welcome to the 17th meeting in 2025 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee. We have received apologies from Ross Greer.
The first item on our agenda is to take evidence from the Scottish Government on the Scottish budget process in practice. I welcome Shona Robison, Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government, who is joined by Scottish Government officials Alasdair Black, deputy director, budget and fiscal co-ordination; and Jamie MacDougall, deputy director, spending and pay strategy. I intend to allow around 90 minutes for this session. Before I open up the discussion, I invite Ms Robison to make a short opening statement.
Good morning. I welcome the opportunity to support your inquiry into the budget process in practice. You have heard from a wide range of stakeholders as part of your work so far, and I am pleased that that has included recognition of the significant progress and improvements that we have made over the parliamentary session. Those improvements include the transparency and comparability of financial information supporting public discourse and stakeholder engagement, both as part of the budget process and throughout the year. That progress reflects our commitment to continuous improvement, the important scrutiny role that is undertaken by the Parliament and, of course, the work of the committee and the very high quality of contributions and engagements from across civic society, for which I am very grateful.
We have come a long way from the work of the budget process review group in 2017 and from the finalisation of the written agreement. The fiscal landscape is increasingly complex and has included many unforeseeable fiscal challenges, which the Government has addressed through deploying the fiscal levers that are at our disposal.
Often, I am afraid, my meaningful engagement with the committee and the provision of sufficient clarity to it is not helped by the approach of United Kingdom Government ministers towards devolved Governments. My counterparts in other devolved Governments and I called on HM Treasury to involve us at an early stage in the UK spending review and offered to work with it on areas of shared priority and common cause. However, its response has been somewhat disappointing and—frankly—has missed an opportunity to develop a new approach.
In particular, as I set out to you in detail in my letter last week, the Treasury has not prioritised meetings with ministers from devolved Governments, has refused further ministerial engagement and will not provide meaningful clarity on spending priorities across Whitehall departments until after the UK spending review has completed. That means that we will not have satisfactory clarity about the UK spending review’s implications for Scotland in advance of its publication on 11 June, and explains the difficult decision that I took to delay the publication of the medium-term financial strategy.
I appreciate the difficulties that that causes for the committee and am committed to working with you to mitigate the impact. Publishing the MTFS after the UK spending review will allow reflection on the outcome of that review and will provide a more robust central funding outlook, which is key to our financial strategy and delivery plan. The accompanying fiscal sustainability delivery plan will set out the actions that this Government will take to deliver progress.
I am pleased to announce to the committee that, as part of the MTFS, I will publish a framework for the next Scottish spending review. That framework will set out the proposed timeline for our spending review and the approach that we will take in analysing budgets and spending proposals. I intend that approach to be anchored by this Government’s four priorities and the need to ensure that Scotland’s finances are sustainable.
Given the committee’s views to date, and those of our stakeholders, I am considering publishing the conclusions of the Scottish spending review and the infrastructure pipeline reset in December, alongside the 2026-27 budget. That will allow us to present the Scottish Government’s medium-term financial plans after we receive key funding information from the UK Government following its own spending review. I plan to provide the committee with formal written confirmation of that timeline in due course, ahead of publication of the framework, and would welcome the committee’s view on that proposed timing and on other aspects of the spending review.
I look forward to our discussion.
I will touch on the subject of your letter and the MTFS shortly, but will begin with other areas that we deliberated on in our report.
You rightly spoke about the improvements in budget transparency that the Scottish Government has delivered in recent years, not least the improvement in the quality of the spring and autumn budget revisions, but there are still some areas where I think that the Government could continue those improvements.
For example, more transparency and consistency of presentation is required, particularly in relation to in-year transfers. On a number of occasions, I have raised with ministers the fact that we see the same sums of money being transferred from the same portfolios to others every single year when it seems to me to be nonsensical that those sums are not already in the portfolios to which they are later transferred. I think that there is politics behind that because of the portfolios concerned and because people might say that money is being cut from one budget and put into another. I understand that, but if that is the case, the Government should be clear and frank about it because it is nonsensical that we keep seeing that.
Over the years, I have also raised the issue of public-private partnership sums. In the past couple of years, I have raised the fact that, if memory serves me right, although there was £133 million of PPP payments in the trunk roads budget, that money does not appear anywhere else to any degree. The committee is looking for a budget that is much clearer and more transparent and that will aid the public, stakeholders and anyone else who takes an interest.
Finally on transparency, I am sure that you would agree that more detailed information on pay and workforce is required, given the huge proportion of the overall budget that goes on that.
I am always up for discussion about how further progress can be made and am keen to engage further on the detail of some of the areas that you have raised.
The only point that I would make about in-year transfers is one that I have made before. Policy direction quite often sits in one area while delivery sits in another so that, say, a policy could be set by education but delivered by local government. That is one example—there are many others. There is then a tension between the policy and its delivery. If all the money is transferred at the start, where does that leave policy decisions in that area of Government?
I would accept that, were it not for the fact that the policy, as you put it, does not seem to change year on year. That argument does not stack up if it happens five, six or seven years in a row. Although I and the committee understand that changes must be made mid-year, which is why we have the autumn and spring revisions, I do not think that it is in any way appropriate that the same resource shifts from the same budget every year. People want to be able to track where the money goes.
Let me be helpful and say that I am very keen to work with the committee further on those areas. We might be able to make a distinction between the areas that are settled and those that are more prone to policy shifts, which might, in turn, shift the funding level. We could have a look at that.
I recognise the frustration that you reflected in relation to PPP, and we can discuss that further with the committee.
The fiscal sustainability delivery plan will have quite a sharp focus on workforce and you will be able to see some of the detail of those projections when it is published. Pay is clearly a huge element of the budget and I am very open to looking at ways of being more transparent about those costs and budgeting for them.
I am not shutting the door on any of the ideas, convener. If the committee wants to make more specific suggestions on those areas or others, I am happy to look at them in advance of 2026-27.
Some of the evidence that we took from witnesses suggested a kind of wonderment as to why we were even having a fiscal sustainability plan as opposed to having such a plan in the medium-term financial strategy. The Fraser of Allander Institute, for example, thought that a separate document was unnecessary. Why is such a document necessary? We frequently hear from witnesses about the plethora of plans and strategies that the Government has. Although I understand why you would have a plethora across the Government, in finance alone there always seem to be plans and strategies that do not seem to be joined up. We have received comment that greater clarity on how the strategies join up would be good. Even better would be if there were one overarching strategy that incorporated everything, as opposed to all the different plans and strategies that seem to run in different directions.
The aim of the fiscal sustainability delivery plan is to bring all the component parts across Government into one place, where we will set out actions and the pillars of the plan so that the Parliament, the committee and external stakeholders can see it all and track its delivery. It is an attempt to make that information more transparent and accessible. I will be able to set out our suggested review processes. The plan will, clearly, be linked to the MTFS but it will focus on the how and the what, and we will be able to put some timeframes against the delivery of the actions that we need to take.
Timeframes are really important—that is what I was going to ask you about next. We hear from the Government about plans for reform, but we do not necessarily get detail on what is to be reformed and by which date. It seems to be a moveable feast. I was thinking about my tax return—the reason why I filed it at the end of January is because the deadline is the end of January; if it were the end of February, I would probably do it then, because there is always something else to do. Not having deadlines means that things drift, and we have seen such drift quite consistently. Documents that are due never seem to arrive ahead of or on time—there always seems to be some drift in that. That is the same with the medium-term financial strategy.
Something that has also come up is that, when the Scottish budget is delivered, there does not seem to be detail on the outcomes that it is trying to achieve. It is a two-dimensional document in which we see the figures in certain portfolios either going up, staying the same or going down across the years, but we do not see what the Government is trying to achieve. You valiantly try to put that on the record in a 20 or 30-minute statement, but you cannot possibly get all that detail in.
09:45I do not think that anyone wants to see a 500-page document—140 pages is sufficient—but there is room for more detail on outcomes. In particular, there is room to link the budget to the national performance framework to see how it ties in, because there is a view that the two do not seem to correlate as well as they perhaps should.
The NPF is obviously under review at the moment. It is important that all those elements are coherent. That is an important point about reform and tangible timeframes and outcomes. That will be a key pillar of the fiscal sustainability plan, which will show what needs to happen to ensure that we can reduce our fiscal pressures and extract benefit from doing things differently.
The point about outcomes is a good one. There are many documents that are much more granular in detail and focused on outcomes. For example, the Verity house agreement or health board plans have more detail on outcomes at that level. However, I take your point that we can and should be able to more readily describe the outcomes that we expect from investments. We have kept children out of poverty by investing in the Scottish child payment. We have put figures on that over the years by analysing how many children that will impact. As I described in a previous evidence session, we did the same with the lifting of the two-child cap, by working out how many children we expected to be kept out of poverty by that investment. So, in some areas, we have an analysis that is able to focus more on outcomes. However, I take your point more generally that we could make improvements.
It is about inconsistency. You are right to hit on the Scottish child payment; a lot has been said about that. If outcomes can be tied to priorities, it is a lot easier for us and others to scrutinise where the Government is meeting the priorities that it has set for itself. It is a good discipline for the Government to see that its allocation of resources is doing exactly what it says on the tin.
Another issue that has been raised—the committee saw this when we were talking to Government officials in Estonia—is zero-based budgeting. That is about having a refresh every decade or so to ask, “Why are we doing this? Is it because we have always done it?” The value of that is to ensure that we get better bang for the buck. Is that something that the Government would consider?
It is something that we should not discount. The starting point is usually the baseline. For the obvious reason, so much of the devolved spend is tied up in parcels that are the big chunks of spend—health, local government and social security. If we took a zero-based budgeting approach to health, for example, we would quickly reach the position of saying that, in order to keep the service functioning, it requires this level of funding.
Does that mean that we should not ask ourselves some fundamental questions about the outcomes for the chunk of funding that goes to local government, health, social security and everything else? We should ask ourselves those questions. Previously, we have attempted to have challenge in the system on why we are spending money on something and on what it delivers. It is, however, quite difficult to start with a blank sheet of paper when you have systems that you must operate. People expect to receive services. There cannot be a pause on all of that, so there is some essential spend.
I do not think that it is paused; I do not think that the Estonian Government shuts down for a month while it is doing that.
No, but it has more scope because it does not have the constraints.
Private companies do it all the time. If you have a budget of £64 billion, even if 1 per cent of that has not been allocated efficiently, that is a lot of money. It is about going back to first principles and asking what we are trying to achieve from the spend and whether we are achieving it. That is really about it.
The spending review might provide an opportunity to look a bit more broadly at the current position and also into the future around whether, for example, digital investment could help with reform and transformation. We could look at how we are embedding that and whether that means that things might be delivered a bit differently. It is not that I am against attempting it at all; it is just that, given the limited room for manoeuvre of large chunks of money, it would quickly become quite challenging.
Thanks. I have a couple more questions before I talk about the letter.
The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the Scottish Trades Union Congress have said that early engagement could better inform the Scottish Government’s public sector pay assumptions and could help local authorities with planning. I am sure that other colleagues will talk about that issue in some depth as we progress. Is the Scottish Government looking at engagement?
On the back of that, the committee takes a lot of evidence on the pre-budget process, and we produce a report. What impact does that have? What has the Scottish Government changed as a result of the work that is being done on pre-budget scrutiny?
I have a lot of engagement, with COSLA in particular. We engage regularly on pay and many other matters pertaining to the funding of local government. This year, there was far deeper pre-budget engagement, and I think that even COSLA recognised that it was better—maybe not perfect, but better. Similarly, I had meetings with the STUC and individual unions to set some expectations around pay, given the constraints that exist.
On what has changed, I would like to think that there are iterations during every budget process based on what we have heard. The local government budget is a good example. Hearing COSLA’s experiences of what did not work has led to a far more open-book approach for 2025-26. I would cite that as a strong example of where we listened and changed our approach. It was a much better way of getting to a place that COSLA was more comfortable and content with—it was perhaps not entirely happy with absolutely everything, but we got to a far better place.
On the medium-term financial strategy, we understood in January that, when the date of the UK spending review was set, the medium-term financial strategy would be published, too. We were quite surprised that there was a change to that date. In your letter, you say that the reason for that is that the UK Government has not worked closely with the Scottish Government, despite its assertions that it would do so and would reset the relationship between the two Governments, moving away from the relationship that existed under the previous UK Government. You specifically mentioned the Chief Secretary for the Treasury and his lack of engagement with the devolved Parliaments. Could you say more about that?
I think that I was very optimistic, originally, because there was a pretty low bar with regard to the flow of information previously. As I have said to the committee before, the flow of information and the relationships initially significantly improved, and that remains the case to some degree. To be blunt, because of that, I expected near spot-on information to be shared with us around the spending review outlook. Not least, I expected direct engagement through the finance interministerial standing committee and bilateral meetings and that that would give us some certainty. The UK Government knew what the timeline was for the MTFS, so I thought that it would be able to give us that degree of confidence.
I have to say that, at the meeting that we had—it was not a FISC meeting—with all the devolved Administrations and the secretaries of state, when we asked questions around, for example, the spending department priorities and which departments were likely to be prioritised over others, what we were told was, in essence, what was in the public domain and nothing more. When a request to have bilateral meetings was declined, because the Chief Secretary to the Treasury said that there was no time because he was tied up with bilateral meetings with Whitehall departments that would not conclude until the end of May, we made the point that the outcome of those discussions would determine the funding envelopes for the devolved Administrations. After that meeting, I felt growing unease and receding confidence, not least given the defence announcement, because there were signs of shifts in spend without the ability to have any level of detail about that.
At one point, there was a kind of vague offer along the lines of, “If you give us some broad envelopes, we’ll maybe tell you whether those are in the right ball park,” but, even then, the UK Government was saying that it probably could not do that until the end of May and possibly early June. In the light of all that, I am afraid that I concluded that, out of a difficult set of options, the primary overriding consideration for me had to be the accuracy of information, and I was not confident that I could provide accurate information at the end of May in advance of 11 June. We would potentially have to immediately revisit that information—two weeks later—if it turned out not to be accurate. I understand the committee’s concern about the terms of the written agreement, but I had to make a judgment about what was paramount. I felt that the accuracy of information was paramount, and we just do not have that at the moment.
During last summer, autumn and into the winter, you were saying that relationships had improved, so there is, obviously, concern if that is not the case. On 29 March, this committee and our Welsh and Northern Irish counterparts had a meeting with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. It was meant to be an in-person meeting but, a few days beforehand, it was changed to an online meeting of 45 minutes. On the day, that was reduced to 30 minutes and, once he came on the call, it was reduced to less than 15 minutes. There were 11 political parties at the meeting who wanted to engage, and we could not. In fact, his own political party was probably the most critical of that engagement. Is there a wider issue with the UK Treasury or, specifically, with the CST? Obviously, we will have concerns if that is going to be an on-going situation. We do not want relationships to deteriorate as the months and years progress.
No, we do not want that to happen. Perhaps there was a bit of a flush of a new relationship and the possibility that things could be done differently, which all felt very positive, but that seems to have waned. At the April meeting, I was genuinely surprised, as others were, when we were told point-blank that there was no time for any bilateral meetings with the devolved Administrations. We felt that it was important to have parity with Whitehall departments, to have a direct relationship and to get the information that we require. What has happened has landed quite badly, I have to say.
Let me get this clear: your view is that the devolved Administrations are being treated with less respect or are being given less attention than UK Whitehall departments.
10:00
Well, we have not been offered a meeting that is comparable with the meetings with Whitehall departments, which will be taking place throughout May. We understand the time pressures. I appreciate the time that it takes to have meetings with all the respective parts of the Government, but it was a bad message to send. I felt that that would have been an opportunity to get, in confidence, an understanding that we were in—
A steer, basically.
—the right place. We just have not had that. It is important that we have a protocol with the Treasury. That has been good for the flow of information more generally and an important improvement, which we value, but there is work to be done to rebuild a bit of confidence, to be honest.
The committee has written to the CST about our engagement with him, so I understand where you are on that.
Colleagues will have questions about this matter in relation to the wider issues that we are deliberating on this morning, so this is my last question on it. In your letter to the committee, you said:
“The Prime Minister’s announcement on the prioritisation of defence spending was a significant development, which came after my original decision on the date of the MTFS”.
What about the statement in March? Is that likely to have much impact?
I had a general sense of shifting spend and we had no line of sight on what that would mean. We asked the Chief Secretary to the Treasury to give us a sense of the spending departments that were likely to be prioritised and protected, compared to those that were not. For example, we do not know where local government will sit in terms of Whitehall department priorities. He just said that he had to meet with all the departments, but, at this stage, they must have some sense of the priorities. I felt that all of it represented a bit of a shift. Compared to the assumptions that we had made, we are now in a different place, unfortunately.
I will open up the evidence session to committee members. Michael Marra is first.
Good morning, cabinet secretary. You have touched on issues around the advice that you take in relation to the budget, and I wonder about the tax advisory group’s role in that regard. On what the group made of your changes to income tax, Dan Neidle, who is a member of the group, said:
“Nothing. Because they didn’t ask us. It was pure politics.”
Why would you not ask a tax advisory group, commissioned and chaired by you, for its views on your tax policy?
The tax advisory group—we were really clear about this with the members of the group and in our public communications—was not set up in such a way that we would say to it, “This is our tax policy for the budget.” Apart from anything else, if I were to do that before informing the Parliament, I would get myself into difficulty. The tax advisory group was not a group that we would, in essence, consult on the tax rates for each budget, and that was made very clear with the group at the start.
We work with the tax advisory group on things such as the public’s understanding of tax and areas that we could improve in that regard and on ensuring that we look at all the component parts in the here and now and the areas that we might look at in the future. In essence, that is my response. I would not have been telling the tax advisory group about our proposals for tax. That would not be right, because the Parliament should hear about those first and foremost.
You would not take any expert advice on that tax rate, then.
We take advice from the Scottish Fiscal Commission. We give the commission the information and details of what we have been looking at. We give it various options, and it comes back with what they would mean in terms of revenue raised or potential behaviour change. We will also look at data from HM Revenue and Customs. We look at all those things, but the Fiscal Commission is the main body that will have done analysis in advance of our making decisions.
The terms of reference for the tax advisory group say that the group will advise on the development of a tax system
“that is fit for purpose, delivers sustainable public finances and supports high quality public services and a flourishing economy ... the group should consider the total tax burden, including the relationship between local and national, devolved and reserved taxation, and may identify areas of further discussion”.
It is clearly not the view of Mr Neidle, as a member of the group, that it should not have been consulted on such a significant change in tax policy. Will you be advising him or other members of the group that they were wrong?
We were really clear with the tax advisory group about its role, what it would do and what it would not do. In considering areas of tax behaviour in a general sense, and in getting advice, it was clear that there were differing views in the room. For example, the STUC had a view on the role of tax and the tax burden that differed from that of some of the business organisations.
Those discussions were important. How can the public be made more aware of tax? That helps with people adhering to their tax liabilities. Some very important discussions and pieces of work were undertaken. However, the tax advisory group was never a group that would be consulted and asked about a specific rate of tax, because that would not be appropriate. The Parliament is the place that hears about the Government’s position on tax, not an advisory group. There would be a risk of the Government’s tax proposals being in the public domain before the Parliament heard about them, and I would be getting into some significant difficulty if—
When did the group last meet? The last published minutes are from November 2024.
Yes.
Are there any meetings planned for this year?
One of the things that we were considering was the future of the advisory group and its future role. I can write with further detail on this but I recollect that, at the most recent meeting, I asked the group’s members about its future and its role, and about what might be appropriate, given the position that we had reached. That discussion is still on-going, but I will write to the committee with an update of where we have got to.
Under its terms of reference, the group is meant to meet four times a year. We are now in mid-May, and it has not met at all this year.
Well, as I say—
It sounds as if you are not sure whether it will meet again. Do you think that the group’s work is completed?
Some parts of the work of the advisory group were completed, but there might be more work to be done. The tax strategy was published: that was clearly an important milestone, and the advisory group had a lot of key input into it. That strategy was a product of its work. The publication of that strategy provided a natural point at which to discuss the future of the advisory group.
There is a lot of interest in new taxes, for example. Is there a role for the advisory group regarding what some of those may be? Similarly, there is a lot of interest in local government taxation. That discussion is on-going.
There are no meetings scheduled, as far as you are aware.
No, but I will come back to the committee with the latest on the review.
I will move on. Turning to the advice from the Scottish Fiscal Commission, I was interested to note that, on 1 April, Graeme Roy told our committee that the Scottish Fiscal Commission had not been asked to do any work at all on full fiscal autonomy, which is the stated policy of the Government. He said:
“we have had no instructions on that, so we have not looked at anything like full fiscal autonomy.”—[Official Report, Finance and Public Administration Committee, 1 April 2025; c 27.]
If that is the policy of the Government, as you set out to the Scottish Affairs Committee, would it not be best to take some professional advice as to what the implications of that might be?
Angus Robertson replied to you on this matter just last week, Mr Marra. He said:
“The Scottish Government stands ready to engage at any point with the United Kingdom Government on substantial new fiscal powers for Scotland, following which we will model the impact of potential policy choices.”—[Official Report, 14 May 2025; c 9.]
We are ready to engage with the UK Government in looking at full fiscal autonomy if it is open to engaging with us on the detailed work for that. We have asked for a proper review of the fiscal framework—one that goes beyond just the margins—and we have asked the Treasury to do a more fundamental review of the fiscal framework. We have not yet had any indication that the UK Government would be up for a more general and wider review, but we will continue to pursue that.
What would be the fiscal impact of full fiscal autonomy?
We would have to do the detailed work at a point in time. It would clearly depend on the financial circumstances of that point in time—whether that was now, five years ago or 10 years ago. We would have to do detailed work with the UK Government and, if it was serious about wanting to engage with us, it would—
So, you do not know. Full fiscal autonomy is the policy today, but you do not know what its fiscal impact would be.
No detailed work has been undertaken on the basis of where we are at the moment and the current fiscal position. If we reached an agreement that such work should be undertaken, it would be done with the UK Government.
The mechanical principle is that you are pursuing this area of policy with the UK Government and you have a view of what the destination should be for the fiscal framework, but you do not have any idea of what the fiscal impact would be—
It depends on what is on the table. If we were to consider specific tax powers or areas of devolution or spend that we do not have powers over—corporation tax, for example—we would have to know what was on the table in the discussion with the UK Government, so that we could model what that would mean. We have never hidden away from the fact that we want independence—or any powers short of that—for this Parliament. That is not a secret.
Detailed financial and economic modelling would have to be done on the basis of what we were talking about. For example, if there were to be a framework review that got into the detail of which areas would move, shift or be devolved, at that point, the detailed analysis would be done on each of the tax powers that would move to the Scottish Parliament.
At the moment, the policy is a principle. We would have to discuss this with the UK Government and do detailed work on what we had discussed and agreed on. Nothing has been agreed with the UK Government—
David Phillips of the Institute for Fiscal Studies said that
“full fiscal responsibility would likely entail substantial spending cuts or tax rises in Scotland.”
That is some expert advice. Do you agree with that?
We have an annual debate about “Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland”, because the GERS figures are based on the current constitutional arrangements rather than on the opportunities that would come from Scotland being able to make its own decisions on tax and use economic levers that we do not currently have. Goodness—if ever we needed an example of why that matters, we could look at what happened to the fishing industry this week. These are points of principle that we clearly disagree on. You are not in favour of the movement to Scotland of any further powers, and I take a very different view.
We would need to get into the detailed work on what we were talking about. For example, if the UK Government were willing to have a more general review of the fiscal framework, we would identify what powers and levers we were talking about and, at that point, do the detailed work of asking what that would mean for Scotland under the current arrangements. In the absence of any of that, full fiscal autonomy is a principle that we adhere to, but—
The GERS figures for 2023-24 show that the net fiscal balance was -£22.7 billion—
That is under the current constitutional arrangements, which says quite a lot about those arrangements—
That is 10.4 per cent of gross domestic product.
It is the union dividend.
10:15
You are talking about a move to independence and the assignation of the fiscal element, but the expert opinion is that such a shift in the constitution would have significant negative effects. You are acting to pursue full fiscal autonomy, but your Government has undertaken no analysis, despite the fact that the GERS figures are your figures—
Well, the GERS figures—
Hold on. Excuse me for a second. We are drifting quite significantly away from the issue on which we are supposed to be taking evidence, Michael.
I take that—
I have given you a lot of leeway, but you know what we are discussing today.
Let me just put on the record, convener, that the GERS figures are based on the current constitutional arrangements and all their constraints. They take no account of the levers that we would have as an independent country or, indeed, if we had additional economic levers. GERS demonstrates the constraints of the current constitutional arrangements very well.
I appreciate your point, convener, but exploring the issue of—
I have given you a bit of leeway, but we have to stick to the Scottish budget process.
I understand that. I will leave it at that point.
Thank you. I will bring in Liz Smith, to be followed by John Mason.
I want to deal with the facts about the current settlement. As I understand it, the Scottish Fiscal Commission—which we have great respect for across the Parliament, and particularly in this committee—sets out the facts of where we are when it comes to predictions, as well as what the current situation is. It is not allowed to advise on policy—that is entirely in the hands of Government. Cabinet secretary, when it comes to addressing concerns arising from the Fiscal Commission’s statistics, whose advice do you take?
Is that in relation to what we should accept or should not accept from the Scottish Fiscal Commission?
That is correct.
The Scottish Fiscal Commission will give us options that are based on what we ask it to analyse. For example, on tax, we might give it ranges of workforce assumptions and it would model those. We would have choices to make based on the information that we get back. Options would be put to me by my financial officials, using the SFC information, which would say, “If you do that, these are the implications and this is the effect.” We would then have to make judgments about what we think is—
How does the advisory group on tax strategy input into that?
The tax advisory group looked at the overall tax position. It considered many themes, including the public’s understanding of tax and the coherence of the tax system. For example, if you increase the public’s understanding, are they more likely to then adhere to and pay their taxes? It considered the burden of tax, and we had a look at some of the HMRC data on behavioural issues. The group’s input was more about tax in a general sense rather than on specific rates.
I understand that. That is interesting because, if the group is providing advice about behavioural changes, surely that is extremely important for any decision that the Government comes to in relation to a strategy that will provide you with extra revenue and enable you to control public finances. How easy is it for you, as the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government, to be able to take on board the facts that the Fiscal Commission has given you and also the advice—and it is advice—that your tax group is providing? That advice includes behavioural change. The Fiscal Commission says that behaviour is crucial for the amount of revenue that you are likely to bring in, not just now but in years hence.
I take the point. We just need to bear in mind the dynamics of who sits around the table in the tax advisory group. On the one hand, the STUC has a particular view of what should happen vis-à-vis tax, which is very different from the views of business organisations that sit around the table. They will say different things to me.
We then have the tax experts, who are a little bit more dispassionate, I guess, in their view of behaviour, and we also have local government, which has its own views. That means that there is not one view emanating from that advisory group, but a range of views. What I—and we collectively—tried to do was to pull as much of that as we could into a coherent tax strategy. Nevertheless, many of those views will not be able to be reconciled.
I understand that; they probably could not be reconciled at all. Nevertheless, you have to make a decision, in setting your policy, as to which views you consider most important, and that has to correlate—I would hope—with the information that the Scottish Fiscal Commission and the other economic forecasters have provided. It is on that aspect that there are some issues to do with a lack of transparency.
I know that it would be for the Parliament to decide on this, but does the Scottish Government have a view on the possibility of introducing a finance bill in this parliamentary session? Such a bill could be important as it would not only put the Government’s tax-and-spend priorities on a legal basis but enable the Parliament to scrutinise that in the usual way during the passage of the bill. Is the Government open to doing that?
Before I come to that, I will say something further about your previous question. All the advice in the round—whether it is the factual advice that the SFC has given us, the options that have been put through internal processes or the work and advice of the advisory group—have led us to make the decision that we have, in order to provide certainty for the remainder of the current parliamentary session on any further changes to income tax. The result of all that was a decision that we had gone as far as we could. Others will disagree with that, but it was the balanced view that we came to in the light of all the evidence. We heard the range of views and that is where we, as a Government, landed.
A finance bill would allow us to scrutinise the Scottish Government’s tax and spending proposals. It would allow the Parliament as a whole and not just committees to scrutinise the decisions that have been made in that regard. In addition, I would have thought that it would enable the Parliament to make greater use of the data that has been presented to it.
I have no objections in principle to a finance bill—it would just be a very different way of working. I guess that it could be an annual bill, but it would not necessarily have to be; it could be regular as opposed to annual. We would need to think about the undertaking, not just for Government but for the Parliament, and about the parliamentary procedure and process. We would need to think through how that might work.
I can see some of the advantages to such an approach. I am thinking through some of the stand-alone legislation that we have had. For example, we had the Aggregates Tax and Devolved Taxes Administration (Scotland) Act 2024, which showed that we can introduce tax amendments that require primary legislation, but other changes have been made via secondary legislation.
On whether or not we would bring all that together in an annual bill, it would be the case that, in some years, not many of the elements would change, whereas in other years, the changes might be more expansive. We would have to think that through. My answer is that, in general, we are not against a finance bill, and it might be something that we could do some work on.
You have heard the criticism that has been levied that different committees of the Parliament—with the notable exception of this one—tend not to scrutinise the budget in huge detail because of all the other work that they are doing. Consequently, as the convener said at the outset, there is sometimes difficulty in understanding where various budget lines are, particularly budget line 4—in other words, where the money is. However, if we had a finance bill, the Parliament would scrutinise the different stages in considerable detail, which might help with some of the issues to do with the lack of transparency.
We should undertake to have further discussions about it. I have no in-principle objection and I take the point that our engagement with the debate in committees was perhaps lacking some interest, so we need to reflect on that—we should not just ignore it. However, it would take some time to put in train the very different set of arrangements that would be needed for a finance bill. We should take the issue away and have further discussions about the implications not just for the Government but for the Parliament and parliamentary time. We are happy to do that.
Liz, I think that you should rescind your retirement in order to progress that in the next parliamentary session.
We are all very keen on multiyear and long-term plans, settlements and so on. The third sector wants them and the SFC is looking 50 years ahead, but here we are, 22 days before the UK spending review, and none of us really has any idea what will be in that. Is there any point at all in us looking further ahead when we are so dependent on Westminster?
There is a point to our looking ahead if we can get into a regular cycle, and—credit where credit is due—that is one of the most important changes that the UK Government has made to the cycle, which, I think, is three years for resource funding and four years for capital funding. I see that my officials are indicating that that is correct. That gives people the ability to have a line of sight of the financial envelopes beyond year-to-year funding, which matters because, in turn, that would enable me to discuss the potential for multiyear settlements with local government or other parts of the public sector that have difficulty with year-to-year budgeting. The third sector is another example of where that would make a difference. It would help if we were able to provide a line of sight, particularly for three years’ resource funding but also for capital funding.
There is a caveat to that: what that amounts to in the funding envelopes is dictated very much by the UK Government’s discussions with Whitehall departments that will take place. Indeed, those are taking place as we speak. By and large, those discussions will determine the bulk of the funding for the devolved Administrations.
I have to admire your optimism. The UK Government has said that it will make those settlements every three or four years, but we have no way of knowing that. It is not bound by that in any way; it can just change its mind. There was meant to be a UK general election every five years, but the then UK Government dropped that.
That is true, but there are probably advantages in that approach for the UK Government, given that the end of the spending review period will be 2028-29. You can see why that might be of some advantage to a sitting UK Government in relation to the election cycle.
On principle, leaving aside some of the cynicism—I totally understand why you have that—it is a good idea to have that cycle of spending outlook.
I agree that it is a good idea. We will see whether it happens.
Yes, that remains to be seen.
You will have 14 days between 11 and 25 June. That is not very long, and I presume that things need to be printed and all that kind of stuff. Will you be able to do all that work in 14 days?
10:30
It is a challenge. The teams know that it is a challenge, but they stand ready, once they have the financial envelopes, to rapidly run the numbers through to make sure that we can produce that information for 25 June. The only other option would have been to go to September, and I felt that, given the committee’s strong views, that would have been even more challenging. I am keen to get that information out.
It will require a big effort, but some pillars of the work on the delivery plan and parts of the MTFS are being constructed now. The figures for the spending outlook will be slotted in.
Various witnesses have raised the subject of public participation and involvement in the budget. A lot of the public seem to feel that we should just cut taxes and increase public expenditure, which some of us do not think works. As I said, you are an optimistic kind of person. Can we, as a Parliament and as the Government, somehow engage the public more in understanding where the finances go?
I think so. That was one of the live areas in the tax advisory group’s discussions. Research shows a low understanding of the different systems. Not everybody knows that we have devolved taxes or that income tax is devolved. That is not unique to Scotland, as people’s understanding of the tax system generally is probably quite low, but we have a more complex system.
We have commissioned external research by Ernst & Young on international best practice in tax communications, and we will publish that at the end of May. It has helped to inform us on topics such as tax literacy. We know that the higher tax literacy is, the better the compliance level. If people understand tax and are brought into the system, if you like, they have better levels of compliance.
We want to continue to look at how we can raise awareness. The guide “Your Scotland, Your Finances” is quite a good explainer, but we want that information to reach a wider audience. There is more work to be done.
It might not be everybody’s bag, but we are hoping to have the first tax conference in autumn. We do not want it to be attended by just the great and the good of tax experts and everybody who likes to talk about tax.
All the committee members will be there.
We are giving thought to how to involve the public more in that and make it a dynamic event, rather than something that is quite dry and just for people who are in that field. We are putting thought into that and the overall structure of how we might—
Should schools be doing more?
I think that there is something about financial literacy generally. It is important that young people are financially literate, not just about tax but about basic protections, given the amount of scams and people’s level of vulnerability in the digital world. It is really important that young people have those tools so that they can understand and navigate through a complex system and the risks. Anything that can be done to improve that would be good.
What about MSPs? Do you think that half of them are clued up in finances?
I could not possibly say. I would hope so—I would be disappointed if they were not.
Liz Smith was very kind: she said that they tend not to scrutinise the budget because they are too busy, or words to that effect. To be serious, we sometimes feel that the other committees in the Parliament leave the financial stuff to this committee. A number of us have experienced being on other committees where it seemed that, if we did not raise issues of finance, nobody would. Is that just inevitable?
I go back to the earlier exchange with Liz Smith. I think that we were all taking note of the lack of committee engagement; it felt very perfunctory, and we all want something better than that. The question is, what might work better? There might be a common cause to make some improvements. A finance bill might be one route forward, but there could be other routes, and we should have further discussion about that.
I think that, when they do a bit of pre-budget scrutiny and report back, some committees wonder whether it really has an impact on the Government. However, linked to that, there is the idea that committees should look at financial matters throughout the year, which, I presume, would have an impact. Can you say something about the impact that committees are having on the Government in that regard?
Obviously, we take careful notice of every committee report—what they say and the issues that are raised—and we try to answer queries and to reflect some of that opinion in how we might improve things at the Government end. There is a point to be made about the on-going level of engagement on budgets throughout the year and whether there is more that we can do to support committees in that work. Some committees will focus on certain large spending areas, but issues that can become quite public and controversial can involve small areas of spend. There was quite a lot of interest when we had to do the emergency budget review, with elevated interest among the public, in committees and in the Parliament. However, there is probably less interest in on-going routine scrutiny of the budget, so there might be things that we can do in that regard.
An example at the moment is that the Education, Children and Young People Committee is looking at the situation at the University of Dundee. The issue is mainly financial, although there are probably other issues involved, too. That matter is not specifically linked to the budget, but it is a budget or finance kind of thing—it involves questions about how universities are funded—so does the Government take notice of that kind of inquiry?
Yes, of course. It is a very high-profile inquiry, and we are very much taking notice of it.
Some witnesses have suggested that there should be a pre-budget statement. Part of me wonders whether we need that, because it would involve yet more information being produced, but I suppose that the argument is that it would set out a broader plan before budget plans had been finalised. Do you have thoughts on that?
I am trying to think through what such a statement would contain. It would have to be fairly general in nature, otherwise we would, in essence, be doing the same thing twice, and I am not sure that that would be the best use of time. If there are big changes—for example, if something happens that will have a major impact—it is important to bring that to the attention of the Parliament. I would always try to do that, as we have done previously, if something was going to have an in-year impact.
The convener mentioned pay policy. There was criticism previously that you had not spelled out your pay policy. This year, you did—from memory, it is 9 per cent over three years or 3 per cent for one year, but the national health service has quickly settled for a two-year deal of 4.25 per cent and then 3.75 per cent. Where are we going with this? It seems that the pay policy sets a basis for discussion but that people then negotiate beyond that.
We can have a debate about how successful the process has been. One of the things that we were attempting to do through our pay policy was to really push multiyear pay settlements, and we have been quite successful in that respect, as we have significantly moved away from single-year pay deals. For example, ScotRail’s pay deal is 6.6 per cent over two years, and I am not sure that we would have got there if we had not set the expectation that, if you want more than 3 per cent, it will have to be a multiyear settlement. In that respect, we have managed to really push multiyear pay deals.
NHS pay under the agenda for change should, in my view, be seen as a ceiling, not a floor. In previous years, that has meant that nobody has had a bigger increase in pay than nurses. We have on-going dialogue with local government on expectations to ensure that we reach settlements that are fair but affordable. There are discussions with local government about a multiyear deal, which is helpful, because, if we can get to a position in which there is an outbreak of peace for a couple of years for everybody—including those on the union side—who is consumed with the enormous task of annual pay negotiations, we can buy a bit of time to be spent on other areas, such as reform and terms and conditions, which unions and particular workforces are keen to focus on. We could use those two years to make progress in those areas.
Good morning. Some of my questions are linked to what has been discussed already, so we will probably dance around a bit.
On financial literacy in schools, I received a written answer yesterday to a question about a Bank of England pilot project—which is taking place in England but could equally apply in Scotland—in relation to increasing the uptake of economics as a subject in schools. The written answer reveals that, in Scottish schools, there is uptake of economics at national 5 level in only 12 schools, at higher in 37 schools and at advanced higher in only five schools. In part, that could be because there is no demand, but might you be keen to join the Bank of England programme to ensure that people leave school with a level of financial literacy that would perhaps give them a greater understanding of tax and spending as they move forward in life?
I will certainly look at that programme in more detail. I am always keen to look at new ideas and initiatives. If something is working elsewhere, I would be keen to look at it, so I will follow that up.
You said that work has been done to increase understanding of the tax system because that leads to greater compliance, but another way to achieve that would be to simplify the tax system. Have you taken external advice on that from either the tax advisory group or a consultancy?
On simplification of the tax system and ensuring that people can understand it, including the different tax bands as well as what is devolved and what is reserved, the tax advisory group discussed that issue on more than one occasion. Obviously, in Scotland, we have a different bands system. I would argue strongly that the system here is more progressive, but I accept that it is more complex. Therefore, it is even more important that people are made aware of the fact that it is a different system. As I said earlier, greater awareness is likely to ensure closer compliance.
Mr Marra probably tested the convener’s patience with his line of questioning, so I will not seek to do that, but, in your letter to the Scottish Affairs Committee, you clearly asserted that full control over spending and tax—full fiscal autonomy—
“would create a fairer system that would protect public services and allow investment in our economy.”
What is your evidence for that? From whom did you commission that evidence to allow you to make that statement on the public record?
10:45
It is no secret that I, along with my Government colleagues, believe that Scotland would be better served if we were able to make decisions on all aspects here, because we would have levers that we do not currently control and would be able to make decisions that we cannot currently make. That is a point of principle. Our position for more than a decade has been that that is what we would pursue, short of independence.
On the idea of incremental gains, one reason why I was keen to have a more fundamental review of the fiscal framework was to recognise the limitations. We are unable to respond to headwinds and events, such as a global pandemic or a war in Europe, as we would want to, because we are very constrained by the current fiscal framework. My assertion, and the Government’s, is that we would be better served by having a full range of fiscal levers at our disposal. The point that I made to Michael Marra was that the detail of what that might look like would be the result of the work that we would do as part of any review of the fiscal framework, but that door is not open at the moment.
You are talking about a potential £9 billion black hole. That assertion does not put food on the table, and you should surely do that work before you make such an assertion.
None of that takes account of the use of levers; it is all predicated on the current constitutional arrangements. The GERS position is, in essence, a failure of the current system when we should be looking at having a different system and at how those levers could be used. We can debate that—
That is probably best done in another place.
Turning from tax to spending, I note that public sector reform will be fundamental to future public spending proposals. Your letter to the committee says that the public sector reform programme and strategy will be published in June. Can you say when in June that will happen? Will it be before, alongside or after the publication of the medium-term financial strategy?
That decision sits with the Minister for Parliamentary Business, and it will then have to go to the Parliamentary Bureau. I cannot give a specific date until that is agreed, but it will be important to set that out in detail, with a clear link to elements of the MTFS and to the sustainability plan, of which reform will be a key pillar.
If reform is going to be as bold and ambitious as it needs to be, given the current situation with the Scottish Government’s budget, it will be fundamentally material to the MTFS.
It will, of course, be material to that.
On more recent issues, it emerged over the weekend that you want to get civil servants back into work. It was also, and somewhat regrettably, reported that, at present, you cannot quantify how many civil servants are seeking to watch Netflix or surfing pornography on their work devices because the number is so high. On the culture of the public sector reform programme, how ambitious will you be about getting civil servants back to work or about ensuring that they are more productive wherever they are working? There seems to be a gap in that the additional investment that you have put into the civil service has not been met by a commensurate increase in productivity, perhaps because civil servants are getting up to things that they should not be doing.
First, as is the case in any workplace, viewing inappropriate material is a disciplinary matter, as it rightly should be.
Would you sack those civil servants if they were identified?
I am not in a position to sack anyone, because that is not what ministers do—
Again, we are kind of drifting—
—but I would expect line managers to enact the proper disciplinary procedures, as they are set out, if someone was viewing material that they should not be viewing during work time or on work devices. That would be the case in any workplace.
On productivity, I do not hold the assumption that you can be productive only if you are in the office. Staff can be productive wherever they work, as long as they are managed in an appropriate way and are meeting the goals that are set by their line managers. We have to be careful not to see some of the progress that has been made in relation to more flexible working patterns, particularly for those who have caring responsibilities, as a negative—I do not see it as a negative. However, elements such as being part of a team and getting to know colleagues are important, too. There needs to be a balance, with people being in the office at an appropriate level to be able to do those things while making sure that productivity levels are upheld. The permanent secretary is seeking to achieve that balance through the guidance that was sent out to staff a couple of weeks ago. He will expect staff to adhere to that position, which I think strikes the right balance.
You talked earlier about making sure that targeted outcomes are driven by your spending choices. Recently, it emerged that the total cost of Government spin doctors has reached £100 million over three years—I concede that that figure includes spending by health boards. Will that kind of Government and associated departmental expenditure be included in your public sector reform programme? Before you allow such a significant increase in the future, would it be better to tie that expenditure to a public service outcome target? What could the public service outcome target be for increases in expenditure on spin doctors as opposed to doctors, for example?
When you use the term “spin doctors”, I think that it is in reference to the entire communications staff across every public sector organisation. I will write back to the committee on that. The special advisers take up a couple of desks in the office on the fourth floor of the Parliament. The idea that there is an army of hundreds of them is not the case—no way. I think that that figure captures every communication officer in every public body in every part of the public sector, including every NHS board and probably local government, too, in order to make it a big figure. If your question to me is about what the value of those roles is, I think that it is important that there is communication from our public organisations, not least the NHS. Public organisations must have an effective way of communicating, and that is what the people concerned are tasked with doing.
There is a challenge in making sure that we are able to sustain our public services and that we prioritise and make our front-line public services sustainable. Without getting too far ahead of what will be set out regarding the workforce and the public sector in the reform programme, that will inevitably mean changes to how things are delivered. The use of technology and digital will help us in our ambitions to make those changes, but some support functions will look different over the next few years. That will all be set out in due course as part of those plans.
My final question goes back to the convener’s question about large in-year transfers. I want to close this one issue down. A number of stakeholder bodies that have come to the committee have said that they would like what the convener described to happen and that it happens elsewhere. Are you saying that it is impractical, undesirable or impossible? Which is it?
No, I am not saying any of those things. I am just setting out the reasons why there is sometimes a delicate balance of policy and spend for the number of police officers or teachers. The delivery sits in a different place to the spend, and it is about making sure that there is still policy coherence if we make changes to the delivery. The point that the convener made earlier was that there are some areas of spend that are quite stable and remain the same. There may be a distinction to be made between those areas and some of the more fluctuating policy and delivery areas, where keeping the spend the same would be trickier. I am not against looking at that, and I do not want you to get the impression that I am. I am just setting out that there are sometimes good reasons why those in-year transfers happen in the way that they do. However, I am very happy to look at that.
Good morning. I just have a couple of wee questions, because most areas have been covered.
I visited the Legislative Assembly of Alberta recently. For your information, all oil and gas receipts accrue to the Alberta Government’s balance sheet, and it has no limitations whatsoever on its borrowing powers. Perhaps it is a matter of education for members in this Parliament—perhaps even for this committee—why that would be a good thing. Seriously, particularly when we think about capital borrowing provisioning and how the Scottish Parliament compares with other areas and jurisdictions, there is a general ignorance in this Parliament as to the considerably higher number of powers that there are in other jurisdictions—and, critically, what is able to be done with those powers.
Do you think that it might be helpful for people to understand a bit more about that? I do not want to go off topic and get a row from the convener, but those powers must surely serve a purpose, and that purpose must be to grow the economy.
Absolutely. We sometimes need to raise the horizons. The debate sometimes feels a bit sterile; we talk about just the GERS figures, rather than the evidence of what other jurisdictions have been able to do—short of independence, in some cases. You have cited one case, and I do not think that people in Alberta would be hankering after having those powers removed.
We need to get beyond the sterile debates and have a debate about a sensible set of arrangements that would give us the ability not just to grow the economy, but to manage some of the headwinds. Our very limited borrowing powers do not enable us to do that. That gets us into difficulty, because we rely on the UK Government, of whatever colour, to negotiate—for example, as it has done around the impact of the global pandemic, which was an exceptional event. We want to be able to mature our powers and levers to a position where we are able to do more of that ourselves. I do not think that that is a terribly controversial thing to say.
Where that gets into the principles and the details is where it would require a lot of negotiation with the UK Government. That would have to be done in good faith, but that door is not open at the moment.
Obviously, this morning’s session has been about the Scottish budget process in practice. In your earlier remarks, you alluded to the inefficiency of the process. If you were going to adopt a process, I certainly do not know anybody—whether the Fiscal Commission or any other organisation—who would start from this position. However, what always interests me is whether we are able to collect the cost of the inefficiencies.
You said earlier that the devolved institutions are not accorded the same respect as other Whitehall departments when it comes to projecting the UK spending review. What that means is that you will have to make some assumptions. You will have to put the time and effort into doing those and then, presumably, have to redo them when you get told the details, later on.
To what extent are you able to—or do you—collect the costs of that inefficiency in the process, or are you just continually responding to it? I think that focusing on those figures could be quite illuminating, because we all know that we have quite a difficult crisis in public sector funding generally.
We do not collect the costs in that way, but it is clearly inefficient to have to go backwards and forwards to extract information. The protocol was probably an attempt to streamline the process and have an agreement that could help to move that forward. We are pleased that we got that, but it is then about the custom and practice. You would have thought that it would have been good for the same time, effort and priority to be given to a sit-down negotiation with each of the devolved Administrations, rather than our having to negotiate and spend all that time with Whitehall departments. By and large, our budget will be set by the fallout from that.
11:00
That is inefficient.
It is inefficient, and I will tell you about another thing that is inefficient. We offered to work with the UK Government around some of the economic opportunities. At the meeting that was not the FISC, I made the point that, if we aligned our economic energies and efforts—and, sometimes, our funding—so that they faced in the same direction, we could get a lot more out of that. For example, the Scottish National Investment Bank should be able to access the National Wealth Fund, rather than being the recipient of decisions that are made elsewhere. How could we align and agree to get more bang for the bucks from the investments that we are making? That was our offer.
How has that been received?
The Acorn project is a good example of that. We have offered to increase funding in order to push the UK Government down the road of approval of Acorn, and it remains to be seen whether that happens at the spending review. There is an inefficiency in not aligning the investments, strategies and leverage that we have as Governments. We should be trying to face those in a similar direction.
Particularly if there is a shared endeavour around post-Brexit economic growth.
Exactly.
I have just one question to finish off the session. Audit Scotland recently produced a report on the Scottish National Investment Bank. It praised the bank and said that it has generated income in excess of its operating costs, that it is “well run” and that
“It has a rigorous process for investing public funds”.
The report said that SNIB has invested some £785 million and has a return of £1.4 billion in private investment sector funding that has leveraged into that. Audit Scotland said that
“The Scottish National Investment Bank will not ... end its reliance on public funding”
unless ministers convince the UK Treasury to change its rules, which mean that the bank is unable to keep financial returns and reuse them for future investments. Audit Scotland goes on to say that there is a
“lack of flexibility around the bank’s budget”,
because of
“the barriers presented by UK Treasury rules.”
Have ministers taken action to address that with the Treasury? If so, what response have you received so far?
We have raised those issues with the Treasury in order to find solutions. Additional budget flexibility could also assist in managing SNIB’s financial position. We are keen for SNIB to be given the same status as the National Wealth Fund, because they are both public sector financial institutions, and that would enable SNIB to have more flexibility. I think that the latest from the Treasury is that it has not closed the door on that.
The Treasury has not closed the door; it is prepared to engage with us and recognises the need to ensure that there is equity of treatment and that these fiscal powers and responsibilities are properly taken forward in Scotland. There are conversations with SNIB and with us, so we are engaged with the Treasury on that.
We should maybe revisit that.
We will keep you informed of any substantial developments.
Thank you for your evidence. Do you want to make any further points before we wind up?
I have just been reminded that I am chairing a meeting of the tax advisory group in late August.
Great stuff. I hope that it does not clash with our away days on 26 and 27 August, but there you go. We will certainly ask you about that in the not-too-distant future.
As a committee, we will consider the evidence that we have received and, next month, we will publish a report on the Scottish budget in practice.
We will take a five-minute break, now, to allow for a change of witnesses.
11:04 Meeting suspended.Previous
Attendance