Education, Culture and Sport Committee,

Meeting date: Tuesday, May 23, 2000

Official Report 324KB pdf

---

Budget Process

Good afternoon, everybody. I am aware that we are rather pushed for time this afternoon, and I know that the minister has other engagements, so I would like to make a start. I thank Sam Galbraith for attending this afternoon's meeting to answer questions on the budget of the education department.

Minister, it has been suggested that we divide the questions into four areas: general issues, education issues, children and young people, and culture and sport. We will try to keep to that, but if there are overlaps, I am sure that you will bear with us. Would you like to take this opportunity to introduce your team?

On my right is John Elvidge, who is the head of the education department. On my left is Rhiona Bell, who is from the finance department. I will try to answer as many questions as possible, but the one thing that I do not do is micromanage my department. I am no longer an accountant. The officials will, therefore, make some contribution.

I open up the debate to questions from the committee. Let us start by sticking to the general aims and objectives of the department.

I would like to make a general point that my local authority and representatives of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities have made to me on a number of occasions. There is a danger that when we try to measure what we are achieving in education, the measurements may deflect us from our ultimate aims and objectives. In other words, we should try to measure outcomes.

The example that is often quoted—not by my local authority, but by others—is that of classroom assistants. Classroom assistants are a huge advantage in many classes and make a big difference when it comes to maintaining discipline and increasing the amount of attention that pupils get, but in some areas they are not as necessary as other measures that the money set aside for them could be used to fund.

How flexible is the system? How are you ensuring that the measures that are used to evaluate schools do not corrupt the outcomes of the education system? Our obsession with measuring things must not be allowed to undermine our aim of helping children develop as fully rounded individuals.

I do not think that the very fact of measuring corrupts, although it all depends on the measurements that are used. I think that what you are getting at is the extent to which we should be ring-fencing—directing people to have a certain number of classroom assistants, for example—rather than allowing them to use the money for other purposes.

A key issue is how much should be determined centrally and how much freedom people should have at a local level. As you know, the vast majority of spending is locally determined. However, the Scottish Executive does give direction occasionally—through the excellence fund, for example, although even there some flexibility is built in. I do not think that we have come to firm conclusions on the issue of central direction versus local accountability and determination, and we may not have found the right balance, but I am sure that the committee will want to consider that in the future.

Recently there have been a number of new initiatives. How is evaluation built in at the start of those? What commitment is there to reviewing initiatives and being open about the results?

We are committed to complete transparency as regards the results of new initiatives. Evaluation can take place only once an initiative has been set up. You are asking whether, before we set up initiatives, we decide how to evaluate them. In the past, that has not always been the case, but I think that it is important. When we set something up, effectively as an experiment, we need to decide beforehand what outcomes we want. Increasingly, we are doing that. I have taken a special interest in evaluation and research into what we are doing. We have not done enough of that. We should not wait until we come to evaluate an initiative, perhaps a year or two into its life, before deciding how we should do that.

Do you agree that if we wait until the end of an initiative before we evaluate it, that is too late? That applies particularly to initiatives such as new community schools. Do you agree that we need to identify and include stakeholders within any evaluation, which cannot be done three or four years down the line?

Yes. Good science determines what it is going to examine at the outset; it does not wait until later. If we do that, we will corrupt what we measure with prejudices that have built up. We need always to be clear on what we intend to do. Increasingly, that is what has happened. New community schools are about social inclusion, including other specialties and ensuring cross-boundary flow, and we will examine the outcomes in that area. When we introduce something, it will be mandatory for us to specify how and when we will assess it.

Is it understood that that kind of approach costs money? Is money available for that?

There are significant amounts in the budget for that. I will say something about the research that we commission. I had a meeting about this on Friday with the research community. Too often we are determining what is to be done and are telling the research community what we are looking for. I do not know whether that biases the research. The research community should be coming to us independently with ideas about how to conduct research.

You mentioned how important resources are for the evaluation process. Obviously the issue of resources is part of the process of setting the overall policy aims and objectives. However, in your evidence you have also identified the importance of external pressure groups, the general public and other agencies. How important a role do they play in determining policy aims and objectives?

That is a good question. How often is one buffeted by external pressures? The answer is probably more than we would like sometimes. That is the nature of democracy. Others make their points of view known and one can be swayed or not by them. Sometimes we may wish that it were not so, but that is democracy and we must respond to it. On the Standards in Scotland's Schools etc Bill, people have brought issues to you and to us, and we have responded to them. That is appropriate and often people suggest very good ideas.

Are there any more general questions before we move to ones specifically on education?

I want to return to the issue of ring fencing and then ask about research. Something that bothers people about the education budget is that politicians can announce good news in the papers about how much has been allocated, for example, to child care or for teachers, but then the money does not get to the classroom. Folk find it difficult to accept that things are improving so greatly. Councils and others say that that is not happening where they are. What do we do about that? It is very difficult. We are making statements about increases in the number of teachers or classroom assistants, but folk are saying that, where they are, there are no more teachers or classroom assistants.

I think that they will see the extra teachers and classroom assistants, but I understand the point that you make. We may say that the increased grant-aided expenditure allocation is 4.9 per cent, but everyone is talking about cuts, even in my authority. Once we have given money to local authorities, it is up to them what they do with it. I cannot control how they spend the money. That is partly why we have some specific grants, for example, through the excellence fund, which are directed at our priorities. It is up to local authorities to make their own choices.

On research, you talked about target setting and the need for research. How does your need for research square with the change in the funding arrangements for the Scottish Council for Research in Education?

SCRE still has a service level agreement for three years. There are members of the Scottish Executive on the board of SCRE and we give it directed funding. I think that it is an inappropriate way for research to be carried out. People should not be dependent on us telling them what to do. There is always a danger for the outcomes that that produces.

We will always want evaluation, and we want to have a whole host of organisations that can submit for that. In regard to research in education—I consider this issue from my own background—we need education to produce its own ideas, ask its own questions, do its own research and bring its ideas to us. There is an unhealthy relationship if we are always directing the research.

On that relationship, I am interested in how you can get independent research unless there is a funding arrangement for an independent education research body in Scotland. Clearly, if you ask universities to conduct research, you identify the research that you want. Universities do not have the kind of independence that SCRE has.

As you know, all colleges are parts of universities and have the same research ethic. There are always other sources for grants, such as the research councils or the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. It is incumbent on all the research departments to start to look for other places so that they are truly in charge of research. We will always want to fund research. We want them to come to us with research ideas and projects that they want to evaluate, so that we can award grants on that basis. We should not always tell them what they have to research. That is an unhealthy way of undertaking research and it is debilitating for standards.

Nicola, is your question on that issue or is it about education?

Probably it is a bit of both.

My question is on SCRE. I was told recently that the tendering process for research is an expensive business. It is more expensive than having an independent body such as SCRE. I do not know what the tendering process would be like for education research, but I have seen many other Scottish Executive tenders. Frankly, they are rather off-putting and they look expensive. Has the Scottish Executive worked out whether it will save money by using a tendering process rather than having an independent body?

It is not a question of saving money, it is about getting the best quality of research, so I am slightly surprised by that question. Having spent a large part of my life seeking research funds, I know that it is time rather than the financial commitment that is costly. One can be up until 1 o'clock in the morning writing research proposals and applications. That does not cost money, unless you think that my working at 1 o'clock in the morning is money. I will investigate your question and find out whether there is a problem.

I have several questions about the education budget and then some more general points. Feel free to interrupt me, convener, if you want to bring in anybody else.

The first question relates to level III figures in table 1.2 in "Investing in You" for central Government spending for schools. The figures show that £81.8 million will be spent in 2000-01 and £96.4 million in 2001-02. In the spending plans that were published last year—I do not think that you have them in front of you—under the children and education budget there is a line for schools. The figures are £41.3 million for this year and £45.3 million for next year. What is the reason for the difference between those two sets of figures?

Things have been added to the budget since then. There is partnership money under the heading "Schools standards & improvements". I do not honestly know where the extra money comes from.

The partnership money was £51 million over two years. Is it right to say that £7.5 million of that was spent in 1999-2000 on teachers' pay?

No, it is not right to say that that was spent on teachers' pay. Money for that was taken from another part of the budget. We still have some of the £51 million left.

Is all of that money included in the figures in "Investing in You"?

Somewhere. It is mostly under the schools standards and improvements section.

In the "Context" paragraph on the same table, is the capital modernisation fund for information and communications technology equipment capital grant or borrowing consent?

Capital grant.

Is new opportunities fund money for ICT training for teachers and school librarians included in the figures in table 1.2?

No, it is not our responsibility. Those items are not contained within it.

Are you able to be more specific on the school standards and improvement section as to the kind of things to which that money will be directed?

Not yet.

The excellence fund relates, to a large extent, to early intervention and things like that, including maths 2000.

Quite a lot of things.

Many of your targets in this section relate to raising attainment at standard grade and higher grade. What resources will be channelled to projects that will be specifically to raise attainment at those levels?

Those resources are contained within the general overall budget related to increased teaching, the amount in higher still, the materials for higher still and the staff development for higher still. That is all contained within that budget.

So curriculum development and so on is all contained within the school standards and improvements section.

I do not think that you can isolate it. It starts from the earliest stage with early intervention and prevention of exclusion from school. It works its way through to the money for higher still, which is a considerable spend, as you know, not only centrally but locally, and into teachers' continuing professional development. It also includes supporting parents and classroom assistants. All those matters are part of it.

Is it possible to be any more specific?

I am afraid not.

Obviously money directed at this stage to early intervention is not going to work through in time to increase attainment in standard grade and higher grade passes by 2001. What is being targeted now to achieve the listed targets?

It is all to do with the continuing professional development, increased number of teachers within it, higher still development and the money that is going into higher still. That is all part of a package that goes to raise standards and achieve a better outcome in those matters.

On a more general issue, are the specific grants that you referred to included in the figure for grant-aided expenditure?

The specific grants are in GAE.

So those are included in the £2.7 billion GAE.

You previously said that £14 million of the excellence fund had been held back, that it had not yet been allocated, which strikes me as a bit strange. Councils have been told that they have £2.7 billion and are planning on that basis, yet you have held £14 million of it back. Have any decisions been taken about how that £14 million will be allocated?

Not yet.

What provision have you made for funding the McCrone committee's recommendations?

I will wait and see what McCrone suggests before I come up with any answers to that.

Whatever McCrone recommends will have a financial implication. Surely you are not saying that no provision has been made within your budget plans to fund the McCrone committee's recommendations?

I am saying that I will wait until I see the McCrone report. I do not want anyone to go around making statements and snap judgments.

I am not asking you to do so.

I know that you are not. Can I just tell you that I am not going to say anything further on that matter.

I reserve the right to ask.

That is fine. You can ask, but I reserve the right not to answer.

I am not asking you to make predictions about what McCrone will or will not recommend. Presumably you do not know. Only The Herald seems to know those things.

Surely there must be some provision within your budget to fund, to whatever extent, the recommendations of the McCrone committee. Is that what the £14 million is being held back for?

There is always provision within the budget for teachers' pay in the allocations.

As far as McCrone goes, I will wait until McCrone reports and I have had time to consider the report. I will then have something to say on it.

You can surely tell us what your bottom line is. There must be an upper limit that you would be able to devote to funding the recommendations of McCrone. You do not have a limitless budget, Sam, so you must know in your own mind what your upper limit is.

I say again that I will wait until McCrone reports, then I will make a statement.

I will ask one final question. Can you tell us how the £89 million that Gordon Brown announced through the budget will be allocated?

No, but I hope that I will be able to tell you fairly soon.

Can you tell us how much of it will go directly to schools?

I will tell you fairly soon, but I am not in a position to do so now.

Is the reason that you cannot tell us now that that is the money that will be held back to fund the McCrone recommendations?

I am not going to answer on McCrone again. You have had another shot at it.

I will make an announcement soon about how I am going to allocate that money. I am sorry that I cannot do so yet. Those matters take time. We must discuss them with COSLA—various people are involved in that. The position is that local authorities deliver. I must talk to them about that. I am sorry if you think that the announcement has been slightly tardy, but I want to get it right.

No matter what way you come back to me about McCrone, my position stands. I will not say anything until I see the McCrone report.

Just to put on record that—

I will move on. I will let Nicola Sturgeon back in if she still feels that she has a question. Other members are waiting to ask questions.

Before I ask a question, I want to put this on record. I may be Parliament's Mr Nice Guy, but I think that Nicola Sturgeon has stretched it a bit. We always want to get a shot at the minister and I enjoy her Perry Mason style cross-examining, but I do not think that it is entirely on.

I want to raise a point of order.

I do not want to get into an argument about this. Can we discuss it later?

I have a point of order.

I would like to ask the minister about community schools.

Sorry, Jamie, I will have to stop you. There is a point of order.

We are talking about budget projections for the next year. There is a major item that is likely to have to be funded from the budget that is available for the next year. I want the convener's guidance on whether it is reasonable to ask questions about where that money will come from.

I allowed you an opportunity to ask questions. I think that you would agree with that. Jamie Stone is entitled to his view, whether or not it is mine. You have had the opportunity to ask questions. I have indicated that I will come back to you after I have let other people in.

More of my time is being eaten into, convener, but I will make my point with a smile on my face to Ms Sturgeon.

I will question the minister about community schools. I will not ask him such long questions and I hope that he will give me fuller replies, despite the fact that he recently mistook me for Mr Jamie McGrigor.

Sorry about that. We all make mistakes.

As you know, minister, I have asked you about community schools recently. That concept has enormous appeal to me, because I see it is a way of doing up schools that need capital expenditure. I think of schools in places such as Wick, Thurso, Dingwall and Tain in my own constituency. We all have such schools.

The minister talked earlier about evaluating what he has done so far. I ask you to consider it in this way: you will have different models coming forward for community schools as the initial pilot schemes roll out. How will you evaluate which ones are the most effective models? Arising from that, how do you propose to, shall we say, roll the scheme forward to local authorities and other schools, to sell the concept once you have evaluated it?

There are three tranches in rolling this forward. The next one will be coming soon, before we get any evaluation.

John, when do we expect an evaluation of the first tranche?

The evaluation will take some time. We have an evaluation contract, but it will take some time for the schools to settle down. Most of the time spent so far has been on development of the contents. The evaluation will take account of how the schools work in practice, rather than an attempt to make a judgment about the quality of the approaches in isolation.

We do not yet have any significant evaluation on which to base our next judgment. We have three tranches and we are trying to allocate funding based on the same criteria as we did on the previous occasions. I hope to make a second announcement on that. When the third one comes around in April of next year, we will see where we are with any form of evaluation by then.

This is part of the excellence fund programme. What we want to do after that with this sort of initiative will depend on what the evaluation is of these new community schools. I often say that I look forward to the day when every school is a new community school in that they have the concept of involving others within them. Before we take the next step after the initial three tranches, we will certainly have to consider evaluation.

All right. I hear what you say. Given the success of Balerno, Ullapool and Culloden in pulling together services, making money go further and being efficient, what consideration would you and your department give to extending a similar concept to the primary sector? It seems to me that in rural Scotland—particularly areas such as the Borders and the Highlands—there is some mileage in combining a number of council services under one roof.

There are a number of primary projects in the new community schools.

There are.

I was at one in the Borders yesterday and there are several others throughout the country. This is an initiative for primary schools as well as secondary schools and it seems to work. The school that I visited yesterday, at Burnfoot, was quite exceptional.

I return to the issue of the £89 million. I accept that you intend to make an announcement about it later. Is it being delayed because you are trying to agree the mechanism for distributing the money rather than where it should go?

No, the mechanism is not a problem—we give the money to local authorities, which distribute it for us. We are trying to get the right criteria for the allocation.

Can you assure the committee that you will seek to ensure that there is no top-slicing of the funds by local authorities?

That is part of the agreement.

Thank you.

Just the other day there was an announcement about the possible costs of school repairs. How much leeway is there not to find the full amount in one year, but to have a five-year or 10-year plan to carry out the repairs that are required?

As Mr Monteith knows, this is a huge issue that is not new. The sum of £1.3 billion was made available some time ago. At issue is how we address repairs. The five-year plan in the new deal was designed to provide schools with a settled amount for emergency—wind-and-water-type—repairs. We are considering how best to take this forward in the longer term. It has taken us a long time to get into this situation and it will take us a while to move forward. I am considering how we can make a contribution to repairs from the £89 million, but we will need a long-term plan.

This is not just about investing money, but about rationalising stock, as capital consent is dependent on the number of classes. There can be difficulties if a school has many more classrooms than it has classes. We need to consider a number of issues—capital consent, specific grants and public-private partnership—and to come up with a long-term solution. As the committee knows, Glasgow City Council intends either to rebuild or refurbish all its secondary schools within about three years.

I would like to take you through a few individual points on the budget that concerned me. Your objective is to bring down absence at primary and secondary schools to 18 half days and 36 half days per pupil respectively. Where in the budget table does the money for that appear?

It comes from the budget for such things as supporting parents—which is part of getting them involved—alternatives to exclusion and support for teachers.

So you have not set aside specific sums to achieve the targets for reducing absences.

No, we have not.

The context section of table 1.2 refers to the grant to the Scottish Consultative Council on the Curriculum, but there is no mention of the grant to the Scottish Council for Educational Technology. I understand that the two bodies are going to merge. Does that mean that they are both receiving only the grant that SCCC is allowed?

The SCET grant and that to the SCCC is contained in the second row of table 1.2.

Can you tell us how much of that £26.4 million goes to SCET?

SCET receives £1.4 million.

That is for this year. Obviously, with the merger coming up, you are not projecting forward.

It is projected forward.

So SCET will get £1.4 million next year as well?

Yes.

When the two bodies are merged, will they have a total budget of £2.8 million?

Yes.

Thank you.

I have a more general point on the flexibility in the budget. If we take table 1.7 as an example, we are setting a target of providing places for all three-year-olds—whose parents want them to have places—which is demand led. The Executive has a budget forecast of £112.8 million and the overall budget is £140.7 million. If the demand is not that high, I understand that the money goes back in and the department can take advantage of year-end flexibility. If demand exceeds the money that has been set aside, is that figure the limit or is there flexibility to increase the amount?

We have got it right and we have managed to balance that almost completely. I am not sure how we managed to get it so right. Do you know, John?

No.

I imagine that we have a certain amount of variability, but in this case we got it just right for the demand.

Do not forget that for three-year-olds the demand is partly determined by the number of places, which are increased each year. In that way we are controlling it. We are on course to meet those targets.

I am extremely impressed at the accuracy of your forecast.

That accuracy is due to the fact that we predetermine the demand by giving a certain amount of money to make more facilities available. In many ways, that is a fake regulation of the demand.

Yes, because local authorities can predict that demand. However, up to now it has been a question of funding nursery places in the voluntary and private sectors and bringing those up to scratch. If demand keeps increasing and we have to build new nurseries and so stimulate demand, is there a limit on the amount of money that can be drawn upon to meet that demand?

The limit is the amount that it will take us to meet our commitment to provide a place for every three or four-year-old who needs it. We shall fulfil that commitment. We have achieved our target for four-year-olds, we are at 60 per cent for three-year-olds and we expect to hit our target for 2002. There is a finite demand, which we are budgeted to meet.

At the moment, the number of four-year-olds taking advantage of places is very high. The take-up by three-year-olds might remain at 60 per cent. I want to ensure that money will be available if it increases. The forecasts are for two years in advance. I want to ensure that the forecasts are not limits, but simply estimates that can go up as well as down.

They are plans.

On the same lines, consider special educational needs in table 1.12. In a sense you do not need the details. Last week, when we were debating the matter, I said that £12 million sounded like a lot of money, but did not know whether it was enough. How do you know that it is enough? One cannot really know how much change will be necessary to the structure of individual schools—how many extra assistants will be needed, for example. How do you decide three-year expenditure plans?

The special educational needs row in table 1.12 does not show SEN funding; it shows expenditure for development and minor capital alterations. There are packets of SEN funding elsewhere in the chapter; for example, the GAE also contains money for SEN. Furthermore, the pupil support row in table 1.2 includes special educational needs funding for schools such as Donaldsons. As with anything, we make predictions and judgments and try to get them as right as we can.

That goes back to Kenneth Macintosh's point that the figures are not set in stone. If, for example, you make promises about special educational needs which then cost £6 million, will they not happen?

As the inclusion row of table 1.13 makes clear, we have invested an extra £12 million over two years in special educational needs to allow as much mainstreaming as possible. All we can do is make the best possible predictions and allocate the funds. If more money is needed, we find out whether we can get it from somewhere else; if we do not spend as much as we predicted, that means that we have saved some money. For local authorities, the benefit of flexibility is that they can vary amounts and push their budgets around; we try the same centrally, even with the smaller amounts that we have. The whole process is dynamic. That said, we expect that the £6 million each year for mainstreaming special educational needs will be used.

I am sorry to harp on about this, but special educational needs is probably a better example of what I was talking about than pre-school education. Although it will be difficult to estimate demand, most of us could also predict that demand will probably increase exponentially. These services are demand led. If a local authority creates and advertises a service that makes various provisions for special educational needs, the take-up could be phenomenal—and phenomenally expensive. Are the parts of the budget that allocate money for SEN, nursery provision and so on capped, or, because they are demand led, can people keep drawing on them until the demand is satisfied?

Such demand has an upper limit. For example, on nursery places, we can accurately predict the upper limit of the number of three-year-olds at any one time and budget to fund for that eventuality. As we have a commitment to provide nursery places, we need to budget for that. The same applies to special educational needs. We do not have to worry about the bottomless pit that some health service expenditure has to fill; we have finite levels. If we have a commitment to reach certain levels, we can budget accordingly.

Although I am anxious for the meeting not to turn into "The Ian and Ken Show", Ian Jenkins can have another supplementary.

Although I am happy to accept your comment that the budget is not absolutely rigid, the Standards in Scotland's Schools etc Bill says that the local authority should mainstream special educational needs provision except where exceptional expenditure is incurred. If the money is not available in the first place, does there not come a point when the council claims that such provision is exceptional expenditure?

That has always been a slight area of controversy. As you know, the legislation has to contain some limit. I think councils are reasonable and honest. If people are unhappy, they have recourse to the law. That said, I have argued about the meaning of "reasonable" in many committees.

In the section about the new deal for schools, the aim is

"To improve the standard of school buildings".

Do you have any statistical target for the number of school buildings that will be improved by that money?

No. That money was allocated for local authorities to make their own judgments about that.

Do you have any long-term target for bringing school buildings up to scratch?

We are committed to 100 new schools and major developments by the end of the four years of government.

You are not prepared to set a time scale for bringing all Scotland's schools up to scratch.

No. We have made a start by committing ourselves to 100 new schools and major developments. That is a fairly significant commitment.

In the answers that were given to our written questions, you say that central Government support for PPPs is not included in table 1.6, which is fair enough. How much does the Government spend on supporting PPPs for schools? Where does that figure appear in the budget?

I do not know that figure off the top of my head. I will write to you with it. It is about the level-playing-field support that PPPs receive. We pick up the capital consents for schools and pay the interest on that, but that would not happen for PPPs. I will find out the figure for level-playing-field support for PPPs.

Does it appear somewhere in the budget figures?

I will check. I do not know the answer to that question.

I have one more question. When will you know the end-year flexibility for the past financial year?

The books for the past financial year close on 29 May.

How will the decisions on the allocation of that money be made?

With care.

Will all the money be spent within the education department, or will it be split between departments?

There are two types of end-year flexibility. There is end-year flexibility that concerns a slippage that is carried because, otherwise, it would be extracted from the budget. We are discussing in the Executive how best to handle the other stuff that has slipped.

Apart from end-year flexibility, where else in the education department's budget is there flexibility to fund things that are not budgeted for this year or next year, which may crop up?

Is that the McCrone question again?

No. It is a general question.

I am waiting for that question to return in disguise.

There is always flexibility in the starting allocations and it mostly comes down to end-year flexibility. We have some unallocated funds. We adopt a policy of trying to allocate money at the start, so that everyone knows what they will receive from the budget, rather than holding funds back, which is not good practice. In that way, we limit our flexibility, but we do so for the benefit of all the folk who are delivering the services. It is important that they know their allocation at the start; that limits our flexibility. However, there are some unallocated funds.

You say that there are some unallocated funds. We have already identified £14 million from the excellence fund. Can you tell us where other unallocated funds exist, under specific headings in this budget?

They are in table 1.2, on "School standards & improvements".

How much of that is unallocated?

In 2000-01 the figure is £9 million. There is some further unallocated money in 2001-02.

It is the £14 million plus the £9 million under "School standards & improvements".

Yes.

Are there any other unallocated funds in the education department's budget?

Not that I am aware of.

So we are talking about just over £20 million for this year.

If that is how you have counted it up, that must be right.

Plus whatever there is for end-year flexibility.

Yes.

Before we move on, I want to ask a question. One of the issues that has been commented on—if I can put it like that—is local authorities' allocations for education spending and the fact that some of those allocations have been ring-fenced. Do you foresee any changes to that over the next year?

There is some debate on ring fencing. Local authorities do not like ring fencing at all, as it cuts down their flexibility. I have attended several meetings in my constituency at which it was demanded that the local authority's education allocation be ring-fenced because the authority is unusual in consistently spending less than its allocation.

There will always be ring fencing and aid-specific grants when there are specific aims that we want to achieve. That is what the excellence fund is; I do not think that that situation will change. The committee could have a useful debate on the balance between ring fencing and flexibility.

We will move on to discuss children and young people and the provision for them in the budget papers. I will ask a quick question while members consider what questions they want to ask.

Minister, has there been improved co-ordination since the children and young people group was established?

Co-ordination in making decisions and considering issues has certainly improved. Those outside the Executive have also noticed an improvement. Many local authorities—Stirling Council comes to mind right away—are well down the road of linking up services. We used to have social work in one basket, the children's reporter in another and child care services in yet another, but now they are all together. Our youth policy covers those areas. The establishment of the group has helped to draw those issues together.

One of the difficulties children's reporters can face is that of the problems social services have with placements. We would like to think that we are drawing them together. Kids who face the children's panel are often looked-after children, who have their own problems. Rather than having different departments dealing with those problems separately, we now try to pull together. I hope that the co-ordination is a bit better as a result. While bearing in mind what some local authorities have done, we have taken a lead; I hope that co-ordination will spread out to the remaining local authorities.

An issue that is sometimes raised is that of money being made available from one part of the budget for a children's service in one area, but not being made available for the same service in another area. Do such problems remain, or has the establishment of the group dealt with them?

There will always be problems, which can be highlighted by the difficulties facing the children's panel. While I will give more money to the children's panel, social work services do not have the means to fund the placements that the members of the children's panel want, which frustrates people and is bad for everyone concerned. We are trying to strike the right balance and I hope that, with people talking to one another, we can deal with those problems.

One area that we will address is that of increased disposals from the children's panel. A time intervals group has been considering the time it takes all the various parts of the children's panel system, such as police, social work and education authorities, to prepare reports, to try to get people to do that work more quickly. That co-ordination of services, which pulls together all departments—not just my department—has led to a different culture that keeps the child, rather than the service providers or the structure itself at the forefront: so we do not say, "Well, my department can't do it," but there is one approach.

Can I draw your attention to table 1.7? There are quite dramatic increases in the pre-school and child care line for—

Sorry—which table?

I refer to table 1.7 on page 15, where there are quite dramatic increases in the money for pre-school and child care. We have heard much about the £24 million from the new opportunities fund for the provision of 100,000 child care places by 2002. Is that money broken down—

No. The new opportunities fund money is not our money—we have no control over it and no responsibility for it.

So you do not include that funding in your budget?

We have no control or influence over lottery funding and how it is spent, other than the directions that we give to the distributing bodies. That funding is not contained within our budget.

If you do not control funding, you do not include it in your budget lines?

That is correct.

I cannot identify where sure start, about which we have heard much, fits in. Where does sure start appear in the budget?

We will find that information quickly for you.

Sure start is included in the pre-school and child care line.

Can you break down the £140.8 million that is planned for this year, to tell us what is being spent on sure start?

Off the top of my head, I think expenditure on sure start will be £14 million. It went up from £9 million last year to £14 million this year. Next year it will rise to £19 million.

Can I take you back off the top of your head to last year? How much was that figure?

I think it was £9 million. I think it went £9 million, £14 million, £19 million. Do we have the figures?

I do not have them broken down to that level.

Nevertheless, I remember the debate that took place then.

Does all the sure start money come from your budget and not from the lottery?

It is all from my budget.

You mentioned children's hearings, which are shown in table 1.11. There are historic figures but none for the future. Is there a reason for that?

What historic figures?

Table 1.11 on page 19 gives us only the figures for 1997-98, 1998-99 and 1999-2000.

I do not know why.

I take it that you are going to spend money on the children's hearings system.

Absolutely. I have no idea why there are no figures for future spending. I shall look into it.

You have not forgotten the children's hearings system?

No.

Let us leave that on the table for the moment.

We can find out.

We would like to know.

I want to ask about Community Learning Scotland. Given the increase in problems with adult literacy and numeracy, do you think that the focus on young people in the education system has been at the expense of community development of lifelong learning?

I wish I knew the answer to that question. When I looked at what some of the money was spent on, I wondered whether we might usefully review who gets grants. That is an area that requires further examination.

Under table 1.11 can be found the objective:

"Develop an Action Programme for Youth".

How much money will be devoted to that?

I do not know how much will be devoted to that. Sorry.

I think that you could tell her, minister, because you told me in an answer to one of my questions.

Oh, great. Well, that is splendid. There you are; ask your colleague.

Do you mean that you do not remember it?

Ask your colleague. How much was it? Was it a lot?

I think that it was £70,000.

Good.

That did not seem very much, because it included funding for the youth summit in Motherwell. I think that bringing 1,000 kids together would use up the whole of your £70,000 budget. That is why it sticks in my mind. Perhaps that is another question on which you could come back to us.

Under the same heading are two targets. The first is:

"Ensure that every local authority prepares a CLS."

I assume that that stands for community learning strategy. The second is:

"Implement review of community education training."

Although those targets are included under your level III figures, surely they are costs that will be borne by local authorities rather than by central Government.

We make specific grants for community learning services.

Do you know how much will allocated to those targets?

It will be £0.6 million, £0.7 million and £0.7 million.

Will all that money go towards those two targets?

In part, yes.

You made an announcement on child care last week. Are resources set aside to fund the framework for the child care strategy?

Not much in the way of resources is needed for the regulatory system, other than those required for setting up the social services care commission. A lot of that will involve transferring and pulling into one place services that are already provided by local authorities. Big resources are not involved in that. The big resources will be needed for training and educating child care workers.

I asked you last week about the working group on the Scottish Criminal Records Office checks. When that group produces its findings and establishes a cost for SCRO checks, that will have to be borne within the regulation of child care. You are answering the convener by saying that there are no cost implications, but there will be cost implications.

Last week, we were talking about bodies that get public money. However, some voluntary organisations get no public funding. Cullen talked about that and the issue of checking on the people who are involved in those bodies. That is a slightly different issue and it has funding implications for the scouts and the Boys' Brigade. That is what Jackie Baillie's group is discussing.

Depending on the working group's recommendations, the regulations produced last week could have funding implications for bodies such as local authorities, nurseries and after-school care organisations that work in partnership with a local authority.

Local authorities and publicly funded bodies are already required to have the checks that we are talking about. Cullen asked whether the checks should be extended to other bodies. If that happened, those bodies would have to pay.

The Cullen report was produced before the present partnership agreements were in use. That means that there will now be implications for others.

I am not sure that the situation has changed that much, but you are right that there will be implications for others. It is important not to confuse the Cullen recommendations with the regulation of local authorities, statutory bodies and bodies to which public money is given. The issues are related but separate.

We will move on to deal with culture and sport.

I am interested in the cultural strategies and the relevant consultation. What provisions have been made for the strategy's implementation?

There will be funding implications and we will have to put some money aside for that. I hope that we will launch the strategy reasonably soon—I do not want to give a specific date.

Do you think that it will be this side of the summer recess?

No.

I want to talk about libraries and museums. As you and Rhona Brankin will admit, minister, the situation is patchy throughout Scotland—some museums are great, some not so. The Executive has a role in education in setting standards and in examining those standards. Could the Executive play the same role in the museums and libraries avenue, as it were? Might you put the boots on and go into that avenue more heavily?

Me? Put the boots on? A mild-mannered, easy-going chap like myself? Certainly not.

It is an interesting suggestion, but local authorities would criticise us for regulating them. A balance must be struck, similar to that for education. Am I going to inspect their libraries and museums when they have the responsibility for funding them? You might want to talk to the local authorities about that, Jamie.

Thanks for playing the ball back to me, minister. Andrew Carnegie saw it as an ideal that there should be a set standard for libraries throughout Scotland. I suggest to you, minister, that the fact that the standard of libraries varies is a problem.

I am interested in your suggestion. You will understand if I do not rush into anything at this stage. I think that you should pursue that with local authorities.

You think that I should?

Yes.

Do you accept that it is worthy of consideration?

I will give it a bit of thought.

I want to ask the minister about table 1.18, which indicates the spend on culture, sport, Gaelic and films. Does the line for sport include the funding for Hampden Park?

Yes.

I know that later there will be further discussion of a boxing match that is scheduled for Hampden Park. Recently I wrote to you about the Scottish cup final on Saturday and the allocation of tickets for that match. That raises a question—not only for Aberdeen supporters, but for all of us—about the way in which the national stadium operates and uses public money. Do you have a view on the accountability of Hampden, in relation to the types of event that it chooses to stage and the way in which it allocates tickets for those events?

I think that I am getting drawn into the committee's next discussion, which I should avoid, as I am here to discuss the budget. The money was given to National Stadium plc and Queen's Park, and the deal was that the Scottish Football Association would lease and run Hampden. I will not go any further than that, as I do not want to interfere with your next discussion.

I would not ask you to interfere with a committee discussion, but Hampden raises wider questions about the use of public funds by such companies. There may be a budgetary angle to that.

You are asking whether, if we put public money into something, we should always lay down conditions for how it is used. In the case of Hampden, we have done that. That is one of the reasons for saving it—if it went bust all the conditions regarding community use of the stadium would be lost. In the past, we have not seen fit to impose any other conditions.

In your reply to a previous question of mine, you explained that you did not think it possible—understandably—to invest money in museums that are independently run and funded through local authorities, as opposed to the national museums, which are run by the Scottish Executive. Is there any leeway within the budget, as part of the cultural strategy, for considering whether some of those independent museums might better be funded within a national rather than a local structure? Some of the museums are considered to be national, although they are funded primarily by local authorities.

As Brian Monteith knows, this is a big issue. There is always scope for bringing museums under national control, but the funding implications of that would be cuts to local authority budgets for museums, which would mean taking away local authority functions. It is not possible to solve museums' financial problems simply by designating them as national museums, as I am sure Brian Monteith is aware—although sometimes when I hear this issue debated I think that there are many people who believe that, if we call something a national museum, the funding issue will be resolved. The problem is not the name of the organisation, but the fact that there is no money.

There are different kinds of museum, and some are of particular importance. The problem is that there are 160 independent museums in Scotland, many of which have financial difficulties. If we offer funding to one, more and more will ask for it. Many of the museums were set up with totally unrealistic expectations, and they cannot expect us to fund them. I do not see any short-term solution to this problem. In Parliament, Brian Monteith asked me about the Scottish Mining Museum. Last year, we invested £100,000 in that museum, subject to certain conditions, but this year it is back for another £200,000. The same thing will happen next year. If we took the museum under our control, we would need to find the money from somewhere else, as we simply do not have it. I do not think that there is an easy solution to this problem.

What role do you think the national review group will have in taking forward the "Sport 21" agenda and in examining future resource allocation?

"Sport 21" was a seminal document. It is about the involvement of youth and social inclusion, and we are currently reviewing it. I think that, under its new chairman, the Sports Council will be very effective in determining just how much the strategy has achieved and how much further forward it needs to be taken. I am optimistic about sport in this country and about what the Sports Council and the Scottish Institute of Sport are doing.

Are you able to make links, or is there a mechanism for doing so, between educational achievement in sport and the role that sport can play in raising educational achievement?

We are considering that at the moment. Sport has many values: its health value is crucial and another aspect is the fun of it. Sport gives a lot of people a sense of identity and purpose, makes them feel part of the community, keeps them together and improves their achievement. It is difficult to provide figures to support that idea, which is why it is only a hypothesis, but I hope that it will be borne out.

Fiona McLeod mentioned the way in which we account for lottery money, which is not under your control or our control. However, that money will be used to achieve the objectives that the Executive will set. For example, the Executive is investing £1 million in the football academy, with £3 million coming from lottery money. What systems are in place to ensure that the money is properly accounted for and spent on the objectives that the Parliament sets, given that the money is not the Parliament's?

We issue instructions to the lottery money distributing bodies. When we came to power, we prioritised social inclusion in the distribution of that money. That has had a significant effect: 20 per cent of the sports lottery fund goes to socially excluded areas. That is constantly monitored by the grant-giving body, which compiles a report, so that we know exactly—as you can see from the figures that I have produced—how the Executive's objectives are being met.

I have some factual information for Jamie Stone and the minister, who discussed standards in public libraries. The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities has issued a set of standards for public library services, which may be useful in any discussion on the funding of public libraries and whether they are meeting their targets.

The minister's objective is to establish a Scottish football academy. Table 1.18 shows that the planned expenditure for sport this year is £10.3 million. Does that include the money that has yet to be allocated?

Yes.

You say that the funding would be agreed early in 2000-01. Do you have any idea when that might be? The figure of £1 million is constantly bandied about.

We are going to allocate £1 million from within the sportscotland budget.

Would you consider allocating more?

No. We have stated that our allocation will be £1 million.

The budget document states:

"Funding package to be considered and agreed early in 2000/01."

Yes. The funding package will be considered in relation to other contributions, but there will be no more from our budget.

Thank you, minister, for answering our questions.

We will take a couple of minutes for a break.

Meeting adjourned.

On resuming—