Finance Committee, 20 Jun 2000

Meeting date: Tuesday, June 20, 2000

Official Report 77KB pdf

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Bail, Judicial Appointments etc (Scotland) Bill

We come to the committee's consideration of the financial provisions of the Bail, Judicial Appointments etc (Scotland) Bill, which will be discussed in Parliament on Thursday.

As ever, the explanatory notes to the bill contain the financial memorandum. There seems to be remarkably little in the memorandum in terms of additional costs. Members will note that the replacement of temporary sheriffs by part-time sheriffs will result in little additional cost, even on a forward basis.

Paragraph 55 of the explanatory notes suggests that the cost of fees for part-time sheriffs will normally be about £2 million a year. That cost is not very different from that of temporary sheriffs. Paragraphs 56 and 57 say that there will be no costs on local authorities or other bodies. There does not seem to be a major issue, but does any member wish to comment?

I have one comment that arises from the financial memorandum, but which does not refer to it directly. I was wondering about the statement that the £2 million—which, I assume, will be partly extra money, although I note that £1 million of fees relate to this financial year—

"can be met from current resources within the Justice Programme".

Can the committee write requesting guidance on that? I wonder how much flexibility there is within current resources. We should perhaps be aware of that—it is certainly not something that I am clear about. Such statements often crop up in such documents and it is not yet clear to me what the Executive's position on the matter is. The committee wrote some time ago about the matter.

We did make that request, although I would not say that it was "some time ago". The committee wrote the letter about a month ago, in relation to one of the bills that we considered recently.

That is a long time in politics.

Callum Thomson has reminded me that the committee asked the Executive to specify in the financial memorandum which level 3 heading the costs emanated from. That has not yet been done. We want it to be done when the committee's remit to consider financial memorandums is given to subject committees after the summer recess.

Paragraph 60 is on the running down of district courts, which has an implication for local authorities. In some cases, the authorities might have to dispose of buildings and in others they might have to agree about amalgamation. I do not think that the matter can just be written off. Inevitably, there will be costs relating to winding-down and moving staff out, although those costs cannot be quantified now. I can think of one or two courthouses that would almost certainly need to be totally revamped before the buildings were used for anything else. Should not the committee raise a question about that?

I am not clear about the second sentence of that paragraph, which reads:

"The business of the District Courts is said to be falling off".

You used the phrase "running down", David. Do you mean the closure of some district courts?

I suspect that that could happen in some cases.

The paragraph does not state that. It might—or might not—happen in the future.

A few such buildings are in the wrong place and there is also the problem that many are grade 1 or grade 2 listed buildings. Responsibility must be taken for them—they cannot be allowed to crumble.

It might be possible to get confirmation from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities on the matter.

I suggest that—bearing in mind the time scale that we face—we ask for that information. The bill has to be discussed in the chamber on Thursday. We should also agree that a financial resolution for the bill is required. We will flag up the matter, although the question of district courts is not an essential part of the bill.

I am comfortable with that.

On that basis, does the committee agree that the bill requires a financial resolution?

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you. That completes agenda item 3. As we have agreed, the committee will now go into private session to consider the final draft of our stage 1 report on the budget for 2001-02.

Meeting continued in private until 12:26.