Draft Budget (Scotland) Act 2002 Amendment Order 2003
Our first agenda item is to hear from the Deputy Minister for Finance and Public Services about alterations to the budget. I think that the minister wants to make an opening statement before we move to questions, so I invite him to do so.
This is the final meeting of the Finance Committee in this session of Parliament, so this is the last time that I will appear before the committee in this session. I thank the committee for the constructive relationship that we have developed in the past few years and for the genuine improvements in the budget process that have flowed from that. As we have discussed previously, there is still a long way to go, but the constructive dialogue has been helpful in the process. I record my genuine thanks to the committee.
Thank you, minister. Although you have introduced a degree of clarity, members have questions to ask. For the benefit of visitors, the minister has been very good in that whenever he has used an abbreviation, he has expanded and explained it. However, I should say that DEL stands for departmental expenditure limits, in case anybody failed to pick that up. Finance discussions are normally littered with such abbreviations and few people remember what they mean. Anybody who is in any doubt about what abbreviations mean should ask—a good few people around the table probably do not remember what they mean, either.
I am happy to take your comments in the spirit in which they are intended, convener. We are producing huge volumes of information, but it is difficult to say how much that assists people in gaining real insights. One thing that is noticeable about the supporting documentation and the size of the statutory instrument is that the instrument mentions figures and the supporting documentation attempts to deal with those, but relating one to another is sometimes slightly difficult. The Executive is happy to consider that with the committee—the committee's advisers and Executive officials can work on it together.
I know that members have a range of questions. I shall first ask Richard Simpson to pose questions on the overall—
I have a supplementary question to what the convener just asked. For the official 2003 document, what is the chance of producing a document that is expanded to include a line-by-line explanation?
Are you referring to the statutory instrument?
Yes.
Could you explain your question?
Very simply, there is a list of changes. I appreciate that that must be the format of the official document, but is it possible to have a second document to accompany it, which gives, line by line, a brief explanation of each change?
I am happy to consider whether that would be helpful to the Executive and the committee. I am all for aiding clarity on such matters. That can be picked up during discussions between our respective officials.
Richard Simpson has some questions on overall cash authorisation.
There is an increase of £2.5 billion, or 13 per cent, in the overall Scottish Administration—article 2(2)(a) of the order refers to an increase from £18.285 billion to £20.738 billion. Can you explain whether that is attributable to a change in accountancy systems, or it is part of an additional allocation? I should like a general view of how that substantial increase pans out.
I think that you will find that it is attributable to a combination of factors—Richard Dennis will have to help me with detail. The spring budget revision picks up changes that could have been made in the autumn budget revision; it covers two periods of time. The document covers the period of the stock transfer from the Treasury to Glasgow, which alone amounts to virtually £1 billion. I imagine that the overall total that Richard Simpson quoted will also include the draw-down of approximately £600 million of EYF—end year flexibility—money. The total will also include some of the things that I mentioned in my statement such as the Whitehall transfers, which constitute a net transfer of about £290 million.
As my colleague David Davidson said, it would certainly be helpful to have the increase analysed. If the change were listed in the explanatory note as attributable to X, Y and Z, it would allow us to understand what is going on. I appreciate that the document is against the background of changes in accounting procedures, which confuses the rest of the picture. However, if we understood the headline figure, we could begin to understand the rest.
In relation to the overall £10 million shift—the net change, if you like—a significant part of that will relate to the application of EYF that was approved but not drawn down. I think I am correct in saying that. That amount was very close to £10 million. There are other smaller amounts, for example almost £1 million from transport to cover the cost of shipping timber by sea instead of hauling it by road.
You addressed the principle well, as opposed to the particular example of the Forestry Commission, which just happened to be the example that I chose.
I am looking to see whether I have sufficient notes on Audit Scotland to be able to explain the situation. I suspect that the bigger part of the increase—Richard Dennis may be able to help me with this—is an RAB adjustment. There is also an adjustment in relation to a VAT liability of £200,000, and an adjustment in relation to speeding up a backlog of work on particular audits that had to be completed, and therefore additional resource is being brought to bear on that. I would have thought that that covers the make-up of the £650,000 that you mentioned, but we can confirm for the committee the actual figures against each of the headings that I have just outlined.
When you referred to speeding up a backlog, is it new money or EYF that is being brought forward?
It is genuine new money of about £400,000 this year for Audit Scotland. I should say, of course, that Audit Scotland's budget is not directly under the Executive's control; it is scrutinised by another committee.
From where within the global sum has that £400,000 been moved?
Again, as with all such things, there will be a combination of circumstances. Some the money could be EYF that is drawn down and applied to that particular purpose, but there might have been other internal adjustments. We can track that and give the committee a note on it.
If I may, I will finish with a general point about EYF that I have a bee in my bonnet about. We should have a much clearer division in EYF between funds that are capital funds that will continue to be allocated—in other words, there is simply a delay in the allocation—funds that are for short-term contracts, where once again there is simply a delay in spending them, and funds that are genuine EYF, which are continuing revenue programmes, where a delay in the start actually does produce real money. If we had that, we would have a much clearer understanding of EYF and of your intention to use it.
It might have occurred when Richard Simpson was not on the Finance Committee, but we have done exactly that. In the course of the past year, we have split EYF into what comprises it in a much more refined way, and we plan to do further work on that to make it even clearer. That breaks down Richard Simpson's point about having capital that is committed for a particular project. A project might be delayed because of weather or whatever, but the capital is still required for the following year. It is important to say that it cannot be used for any purpose other than short-term cash-flow.
The minister said that £1 billion of the £2.5 billion rise was for Glasgow, presumably to write off the capital debt in Glasgow's housing stock. That is clearly a one-off, non-recurring item. What proportion of the £2.5 billion is for one-off payments, either to repay loans of that kind or for other capital items? How much of it relates to on-going expenditure? I am following up on what Richard Simpson said; I am not talking just about the EYF.
By definition, the Glasgow housing stock transfer costs will occur only once. In a sense, the EYF is also a one-off transfer because it is not guaranteed to recur. There will be a certain amount of end-year flexibility in any given year, but it might vary in subsequent years. Therefore, it may be applied to short-term projects. I also mentioned changes in the treatment of student loans. The accounting treatment is shifting and that will continue, because the continuing expenditure is there. Therefore, there is a mix.
Some of those funds are on-going, for example, the supporting people fund, which accounts for £245 million or something similar.
Those costs will recur. It would be comparatively easy for us to analyse which items are one-off and which will shift into the baseline, for recurring purposes. We would be happy to do that.
That would be helpful.
I said a few weeks ago when I was talking about the Budget Bill—now the Budget (Scotland) Act 2003—that we did not proceed with all of the detailed changes then because there will be many changes across the system, principally in relation to capital charges. Again, those changes will not be an immediate real cost to our budget one way or the other, but the underlying assumptions will change, which will change all of the figures.
Because this is a resource adjustment, it will reflect the resource DEL and annually managed expenditure but will not reflect the overall cash or funding requirement of any particular body. Therefore, it will be immediately apparent where those changes are having an impact.
I will clear up a technical point that arises from Brian Adam's point about the £1 billion for stock transfer. At the committee meeting in Skye, I recall that David Palmer said that if the transfer from the Treasury was not used in the current year—and there has been slippage in the stock transfer programme—it would simply go back to the Treasury and then return to Scotland later. The amount does not affect the Executive's performance on underspend because, if we do not use the money this year, it does not count as underspend. If it were counted as underspend, the Executive's performance would be considerably inflated.
I am acutely conscious of that, but I do not think that it will arise.
The money will be used this year.
As I said, I do not think that the question will arise.
That is helpful.
I take Richard Simpson's point about giving clarity on EYF. I remember Angus MacKay discussing in Kirkcudbright, I think, the proposal that the Executive would consider giving the Finance Committee statements throughout the year about how money came out of the EYF system. That refers to money that is held back for a reason and which is flagged up to us as it comes through. Has the minister picked up on that point? If not, will he consider it?
I remember Mr Davidson making a similar point about a year ago. We checked the records then, but could not find any record of Angus MacKay's having made the commitment to which you refer. Nonetheless, we have moved forward in giving clarity on EYF in the way that I described to Richard Simpson. We will continue to do that. I have made the point before that, unless we say otherwise, the committee can assume that our budgets are on target. However, the committee should keep in mind Richard Simpson's point about things that occur naturally in any big organisation, such as capital projects or individual revenue projects slipping and extra resources appearing late in the year. We will keep the committee advised of such matters at the appropriate times.
I refer you to your answer to the convener's first question, when you broke down the £2.5 billion. You said that there was £600 million in EYF from last year's underspend, for whatever reason. Does the Scottish budget get any benefit from leaving the money with the Treasury, for example in interest payments or anything that accrues?
I am not aware of anything like that. The key benefit is that we get the EYF money. In past years, under previous financial systems, the money would have reverted to the Treasury. One of the great advantages of the changes that Gordon Brown made to the financial management systems is that we have been able to introduce EYF, which means that we are allowed to carry money across a year-end. As we all know, there used to be the phenomenon of a year-end surge in spending to get money out the door in case it reverted to the Treasury. EYF's purpose is to prevent that from happening by allowing flexibility over a year-end, so that we can apply the money to our political priorities. We can ensure that the money is spent on high-priority matters and not just on matters that get the cash out the door. Such spending has huge benefits for Scotland.
The minister will know that I support the principle of EYF and of not wasting money at the end of the year on another coat of paint or a new carpet for a minister, for example. If the money is in the Executive's books, is there any notional allowance for it under RAB?
No.
I am sure that the minister will note Mr Davidson's support the next time that EYF is announced.
Yes, indeed.
I will support it only if we get a clear statement.
I have a technical point on the return on capital going from 6 per cent to 3.5 per cent. That will not make any difference to most departments because they have not moved to RAB yet, but the move has occurred in the health department, and that will surely have an effect on the health budget in real terms.
I do not think that it will, for reasons that Richard Dennis will explain.
It will have no effect on actual spending. Across the Scottish DEL as a whole, we expect that the change will reduce the numbers by between £300 million and £400 million. However, there will be no impact on spending and delivery, because it is purely an accounting adjustment.
We must remember that, when the original RAB adjustments were made, the Treasury equalised our expenditure up to cover all that. There was no real effect either way. The long-term benefits of the move will be that people's minds will, I hope, be focused on the real costs of deploying capital—including the opportunity costs—and the alternatives that are available. That discipline has yet to kick in fully because the accounting changes are only just coming through. The spending power of the health department has not been reduced in any way; the adjustment is purely an accounting one.
I accept that concept in relation to everything other than health. However, health has been under RAB for five or six years now and, supposedly, has been subject to that discipline. Health boards have had to make repayments to the Executive if they have not managed their capital account effectively. If that has been the case and money has been flowing between the Executive and the health boards on the basis of the capital account and the capital charges, making an accounting adjustment in the centre will have great implications. If not, the process is not worth while.
I hesitate to argue with a doctor about the health service. Notwithstanding the fact that health might have been under RAB for longer than other areas, I am not clear that, in an accounting sense, any difference is made to the resources that are available.
Would the change be nominal?
Yes, in the sense that there would be no real adjustment to the spending power. Of course, other disciplines come into force, in the way that you have suggested, but I am not close enough to the detail of the health department to know precisely what those dynamics have brought about in terms of changed behaviours and better deployment of capital resources and so on. However, if there have been such changes, I think that they would represent a gain to the health service, as money could be reapplied in other places.
I agree that there would be a gain rather than a loss, but it would reduce the drive to get rid of capital assets that are not being used. If you are sitting with an empty hospital and you are dealing with a 3.5 per cent capital charge against your budget, you are less likely to get rid of unused assets than if there were a 6 per cent capital charge. If the change is nominal, that is fine, but if it is real, which I understood that it was in health—and only in health—there will be an increased availability of money, as some money will not now be applied to capital charges.
In the same way as adjustments were made upwards to ensure that introducing the accounting change was at no cost to the system, changes in the opposite direction would adjust out without there being any real impact on the health system. No real change in expenditure power will arise from that.
We are pressed for time, so we must move on.
In the four years in which I have been on this committee, I have seen in the draft budgets lists of notional amounts that state what the Executive expects to get when something is sold off or written off. Those sums have been quite small. However, the amendment to schedule 1 shows a huge jump in the sale of surplus land and so on in relation to the Scottish Executive environment and rural affairs department, from £5 million to £60 million. Is that a result of a tidying-up exercise at the end of the first four years? Theoretically, where will that money go?
That is the result of a quirk in the way in which we report the numbers. It is all to do with short-term loans being taken out and repaid by Scottish Water to manage its cash flow and borrowing. It has a large number of short-term loans, some of which mature and are taken out again in-year. Loans that we were not aware of at the start of the year were taken out and repaid during the year and are now being refinanced. In effect, so that the money that was used to repay the first loan can be accrued to us to fund the second loan, we need to show it in the receipts column. The matter is purely a question of Scottish Water's cash management in relation to the short-term loans. There is no change to its expenditure plans; there is no extra money at all I am afraid.
As I understand it, that is about—believe it or not—giving more visibility to the shifts in the cash and recording that differently from how it has been recorded in the past. There is no real-terms effect.
I have a quick comment on the first part of the question. We have had in the budgets the notional amounts that you expect to get from surpluses, which have always been tiny sums. Do you just stick in a figure to balance the books? Is no real attempt made to say how much you predict you will get for certain things within a department?
Are you talking about the sale of assets?
Yes.
Some of the amounts are £100.
Richard Dennis will give you much more detail about this, but the convention is that when we are not clear about a particular figure or about what the outcome will be, we put in a notional figure and adjust it to the real effect later on. I am not clear whether there are many such instances of that in this revision. Perhaps Richard Dennis could explain the background to the convention.
Because we give only a single figure for each department, there will usually be a combination of elements. If we take out the water loans from the SEERAD number, about £1 million will be left, which is about what the department would genuinely expect to get from the sale and disposal of surplus assets. That number has been there since round about the start of the year. There are a lot of receipts where the exact take-up of service might be uncertain at the start of the year.
So they do not go into the EYF; they go into the consolidated fund.
If we exceeded the limit set, basically we would lose the receipts.
So the skill of the minister and his department is to ensure that they get the figures as close as is possible, so that the money is not lost from the EYF or from the departmental budget.
Yes.
Thank you. I move on to Scottish Enterprise and article 2(4)(m) of the order. There appears to be an increase in the repayment of voted loans by Scottish Enterprise from £2.7 million to £31.5 million. Will you give us an explanation of that?
There is another amendment in the spring revision to change the purpose of the section. Once amended it would read, "repayment of voted loans by Scottish Enterprise and the repayment of student loans." I am sorry that "student loans" is the answer to every question that the committee has asked about this revision of the budget.
Student loans have become a new accountancy term. I accept that. I move on to article 2(4)(q). Under item 5, on sales of buildings and so on in the health department, there has been an increase from £12 million to £128 million. Can we have an explanation of that 10-fold increase?
I touched on that in what I said in my earlier statement. As I understand it, it follows a request from Audit Scotland. When national health service trusts were set up in the early 1990s, the property owned by the health boards was transferred to the trusts, although no money changed hands and originating capital debt was set up, which represented the value of the transferred assets. The NHS trusts make repayments on the debt to the health department and it is treated as public dividend capital. The department then uses the receipts to fund the repayments on the originating capital budget. Those are simply the technical changes.
So it is a consolidation of branch business accounts into the boards. It is a tidying up within the boards themselves.
I am not sure that I follow your point.
If the trusts are now part of combined boards, the debt from the trust to the board is now in a consolidated account form. I see the minister nodding. Is that a yes? It is helpful for the record to hear the words.
If I understood the question correctly, I think that that is right. We are trying to reflect the changes that have taken place since the original arrangements were set up in the 1990s and all the accounting changes that are now necessary to tidy up these matters. Perhaps Richard Dennis can answer that point at a more technical and detailed level.
It would be helpful if a note could be sent to the clerk to clarify the matter.
We are happy to do that.
I would like some more detail on a number of points. Article 2(5)(b), which applies to the Scottish Executive environment and rural affairs department and relates to schedule 2 to the act, shows an increase from £21.4 million to £431 million, which is obviously very substantial. I note that the reason for that might tie in with some of your earlier remarks about changes in relation to Scottish Water, but will you expand on that increase?
As I understand it, the particular changes involved are the treatments that I referred to in my opening remarks, which relate to the interplay between the Scottish consolidated fund and the use of European Community receipts. Richard Dennis can perhaps go into that in a bit more depth. If you refer back to the Official Report of my opening remarks once it is published, that should cover the point. I invite Richard Dennis to deal with the detail.
I will explain how we used to treat EC receipts. As you will know, we get all the money from the common agricultural policy and other European Union schemes via the rural payments agency of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. In effect, we asked the Scottish Parliament to authorise that resource spending, drew it down from the Scottish consolidated fund and paid out the grants. When the receipts came in from the rural payments agency, we surrendered them back to the consolidated fund, so there was no net change to the fund.
I hope that that will make things more straightforward and easy to follow.
I can confirm that the recommendation to make that change came from Audit Scotland. Audit Scotland is seeking generally to make things more transparent, although sometimes it might not appear that way at first.
I am pleased to hear that.
The principal amount relates to the Scottish Transport Group pensions arrangements that have been arrived at. That accounts for £176 million, which is the vast majority of the change. Also included in that overall figure are the receipts relating to the residual value of the housing stock in Glasgow and the Borders, where stock transfers have taken place. That comes to about £50 million. Together, those two would account for the bulk of the change from £5 million to £250 million.
Article 2(5)(o) shows an increase from £633 million to £816 million. That applies to the finance and central services department.
That relates to exactly the same point that Richard Dennis covered in relation to EC receipts and their interplay with the Scottish consolidated fund. The other bit of the Executive has to reflect the same changes.
I expect that this will turn out to be another minor technical point. Article 2(6)(d) relates to schedule 3 to the act. There is a decrease in the Audit Scotland allocation from £50 million to £5 million. What is the technical explanation for that change?
The decimal point was in the wrong place.
That is the most interesting thing that I have heard today—ye cannae get the decimal point in the right place. Now we want to know why you did not confess to that in your opening remarks.
We were setting a test to see how closely members had scrutinised the figures. The important thing is that the error has been noticed.
Who signed the accounts off?
The accountable officer.
The important thing is that, thanks to the spring revision, the figures will be right before the end of the year, so the accounts will be right.
I have a more general question. Many of the revisions are for income from charges and asset sales and so on. The remarks that we have heard suggest that departments have an incentive to get those figures pretty accurate, otherwise the increased income from accruals will go to the Scottish consolidated fund rather than to departmental expenditure limits. Given that, why do the changes come to about £1 billion? Would it be right to interpret that as suggesting that the departments did not quite get their figures right?
As I set out earlier, the spring budget revision contains some substantial changes that are mostly of a technical nature, so the £1 billion is not real new money that could be used for additional service provision or for any other purpose. I have already covered the sorts of things that appear in the changes. In total, EC receipts, which Elaine Thomson just asked about, account for almost £600 million of that £1 billion. The Scottish Transport Group pension fund accounts for another £176 million. Stock transfer receipts for the residual value of the stock from Glasgow and the Borders account for £50 million. The changes in health board receipts that we mentioned earlier are £116 million.
My question is whether the fact that we do not have accurate figures to begin with has an impact on the individual departmental expenditure limits. Obviously, there is no impact on the Scottish consolidated fund, but is there an impact on the control that individual ministers or departments have over their expenditure?
In reality, that is why we always take the spring budget revision right at the end of the financial year. Once the instrument has been sitting for 40 days, we are in effect right up against the end of the financial year. We always lay the instrument as late as possible so that the numbers can be brought up to date with our latest predictions for the year-end. If the numbers were wrong, there would be an impact on departments' DELs. We do our best to ensure that that does not happen.
Do members have any other questions?
I have one last question, which arises from the fact that I have not been on the committee throughout the past four years. Is the scale of change in this revision typical of what has happened over the past four years, or is it exceptional, because of resource accounting and budgeting?
The changes are significantly bigger this year because of the elements that I have indicated. For stock transfer, £1 billion is coming from the Treasury. There are other technical changes in the system, such as the change in the treatment of structural funds and so on. It just so happens that those changes have arrived at this particular time. The £1 billion that is coming from the Treasury for stock transfer is a huge and unprecedented sum of money. That is part of the benefit of being part of the UK, of course.
Aw, never.
That is what Brian Adam gets for asking an extra question.
It is nothing at all to do with the elections.
The discussion has been fascinating. We have spent over half an hour considering technical changes that account for big sums of money. Our discussion stresses the need for us to find a way to present these things in the simpler language that members have been asking for over the past year. If we could do that, it would benefit both the Executive and the committee, and would save so much time.
I completely accept that. We are always looking for ways to deal with these things. As Deputy Minister for Finance and Public Services, the spring and autumn revisions are one of the most difficult things to deal with, because they deal with changes that range from pennies to literally billions of pounds. Not having at one's fingertips all the detail that is required to answer the committee's questions is a continuing frustration. I am all in favour of simplifying the process and the ways in which we respond to the committee's questions.
That the Finance Committee, in consideration of the draft Budget (Scotland) Act 2002 Amendment Order 2003, recommends that the Order be approved.
Motion agreed to.