We move to item 6 on the agenda, which is a discussion of the committee's future work. I want to highlight certain issues, although the work that we are going to do on FIAG will be a priority for us. We also have continuing work to do on our PFI/PPP inquiry.
What was the logic behind the Finance Committee's considering that issue?
From memory, Donald Gorrie would have conducted the inquiry into the voluntary sector with the assistance of another member—
The other member was to have been Adam Ingram.
That is correct. The inquiry was to have been done on a reporter basis and would have been conducted in tandem with the Social Justice Committee's inquiry, rather than as a full-blown inquiry.
The committee would need to be careful, given that an inquiry is being undertaken by the Social Justice Committee. Although we might have an interest in that work, that interest is peripheral—we should leave the inquiry to the Social Justice Committee.
Absolutely.
I am content if that is the committee's view.
I know that we are trying to move on, convener, but we should take some time to think about issues that might be a bit more relevant. Structural funds is an interesting issue, but there is a danger that we might die on our feet if we consider it again. There are other issues that we might examine. Last week, there was coverage of levels of debt, collection rates and so on.
It depends on which aspect of structural funds we examine. We could consider the allocation of funds or how funds are spent when they are allocated. The mechanism for the next round of structural funds will be different, although we do not know what the differences will be. I am not clear what we would examine. We might end up considering a moving target or a situation that will not be replicated, in which case criticisms would be interesting, but academic.
The committee previously considered European funding; we must be careful that we do not duplicate previous work. I agree with Tom McCabe that there are a number of different areas that we might want to consider in more depth. I am sure that the Finance Committee has mentioned one or two other issues that it may or may not like to examine in future inquiries.
Perhaps the topic could be on the agenda for the next meeting, at which members could give their ideas.
One way in which Government has delivered finance in recent years is the challenge-funding approach. That applies especially to local government, but also to health. There are concerns that that approach involves an awful lot of wasted time and effort, in both Government and lottery funding. We could broaden the idea of examining lottery funding to cover the whole challenge-funding approach. We could consider whether that approach is the best way in which to allocate funds; whether a significant amount of money is wasted through the cost of the process; and whether it is an appropriate mechanism through which to deliver finance for services. We could include lottery funding, local government challenge funding or the transport fund—whatever is in that particular pocket.
We have a full programme of work that will occupy the vast bulk of our time until the summer. That programme includes budget issues, the PPP/PFI inquiry and work on the financial issues advisory group. We might embark on other work before the summer, but I suspect that we will not get far with it. It would be useful if the clerks spoke to members individually during the next couple of weeks and produced a paper, say within four weeks, to highlight some possibilities. We can plan our programme on that basis.
We know how the system works.
We should discuss with members the work programme and return to it when we have mapped out what members want to do. At that point, we can take a balanced view.
Meeting continued in private until 12:04.
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