Finance Committee, 24 Jun 2003

Meeting date: Tuesday, June 24, 2003

Official Report 97KB pdf

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Adviser (Candidates)

I would like to raise an issue before we move into private session. Has the committee received, in respect of how we go about a decision to appoint an adviser, any guidance on consideration of comments that a potential adviser might have made on the record about party politics and—in particular—on any party affiliations or party political views that he or she expressed? We all want somebody who is seen to be relatively impartial and who did not, for example, take part in the election that we have just been through. I would be concerned if we lacked information about such matters before coming to a decision about any of the candidates who are before us. I seek the convener's guidance on that point.

I invite the clerk to comment.

I have checked the procedure that we adopted and I have established that the current procedure has been signed off by both the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body and the Parliamentary Bureau. The Conveners Group is also party to the procedures and the committee has followed them. The groundwork is laid by colleagues in the Scottish Parliament information centre and the person who is most closely associated with that—Camilla Kidner—is at the committee today. She will say more about the procedures that we have adopted.

I will outline the procedures for appointing special advisers. We have built up a database—currently of about 350 names—which was populated initially by an open advertisement in the press earlier this year. As the database is built up, SPICe will use its subject knowledge to consider other candidates who are pre-eminent in their fields and who can be suggested to the committee. In building the database, one of the questions that we ask is whether candidates feel that they have a conflict of interests. The question of whether they feel that they have a conflict of interests that might affect their work for the committee is also part of the contract when we appoint advisers. We rely on the candidates to highlight areas of conflict, but it might be that the committee would want to discuss the particular merits of the candidates who are put forward.

I seek clarification. I do not plan to name names, because that would be invidious at this point in the proceedings; however, I have before me cuttings of statements that appeared in Business a.m. on 27 April 2003 and in the Sunday Herald on 16 March 2003. The cutting from 16 March states that one of the candidates described a senior SNP politician as being guilty

"of making ‘basic errors' or indulging in ‘creative accounting.'"

The candidate also stated:

"Personally, I know of no academic paper which supports the SNP's fiscal surplus position, and the SNP's own calculation of a fiscal surplus does so simply by varying the estimates of spending and revenue in GERS, leaving its calculations based on the same type of data they criticise."

In the article of 16 March the same candidate, whose name I will not mention at this point, said that he backs Labour in its indifference to the deficit; as far as he is concerned there is a single UK treasury and that is that.

I mention those remarks because it seems to me that a person who, in effect, took one side's part in the political election campaign that we just fought has a conflict of interests. Can the representative from SPICe tell me whether there was a search of cuttings and whether SPICe obtained those cuttings? If not, is that something that should be done?

I suggest that—

Could I get an answer from SPICe first, convener?

Of course—

I think that John Swinburne has a point of order.

I suggest that we draw the information out at any meeting that we have with the candidates and ascertain whether there is any potential bias in their outlook.

I am happy to go along with that suggestion, but could I first have an answer from SPICe, convener? It is a fair question. It is one that I did not wish to ask and I put on record the fact that I raised the matter in private with the clerks and the convener before the meeting. However, we are where we are. Could the representative from SPICe tell me whether the cuttings to which I have referred have been accessed by SPICe?

We did not do a search of cuttings in relation to candidates. We looked on academic websites to ascertain their CVs, publications and general history. We would not usually do a search of press cuttings in relation to advisers, although we might be able to do that in the future if committees feel that to do so would be helpful.

I propose that we move into private session to consider item 2. Is that agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

Meeting continued in private.

Meeting continued in public.