Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Official Report 898KB pdf

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Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body Question Time

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Voluntary Redundancy

1. To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body how many of its staff took voluntary redundancy in (a) 2007-08, (b) 2008-09 and (c) 2009-10. (S3O-13105)

The number of Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body staff who took voluntary redundancy in 2007-08 was none, in 2008-09 was three and in 2009-10 was five.

How many staff have applied for voluntary redundancy in 2010-11? What financial costs are associated with the redundancies and what on-going savings will be made from the operation of the voluntary redundancy schemes to date?

As part of the future resource planning exercise that the SPCB has undertaken, a total of 37 staff will leave the organisation during 2011-12. As far as the costs are concerned, unfortunately we are not yet in a position to give exact figures, but we expect the scheme to pay for itself in under two years and to deliver on-going savings after that.

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Architectural Drawings

2. This one is something of an old chestnut.

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body whether Enric Miralles’s authenticated, original drawings, designs and plans are catalogued and stored in an accessible manner in the parliamentary complex. (S3O-13103)

Original Enric Miralles drawings and designs, submitted as part of the designer competition, are not held within the parliamentary complex. However, copies of Enric Miralles’s original sketches are retained and are accessible, including examples on the Parliament’s website.

Although I am disappointed to hear that the SPCB does not retain the original competition entries, I am more interested in the ones that I was assured were produced when Enric Miralles was in hospital in Houston. There was the small matter of who was actually designing the complex, but let that remain in the past and let us see the up-to-date drawings from that time. I am sure that visitors to the Parliament would love to see them, given that they are told so much about them.

I will take the opportunity to seek further information from SPCB staff on whether progress can be made on the matter.

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Ethical Procurement

3. To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body what ethical criteria are used in its procurement policies. (S3O-13104)

It is SPCB procurement policy to consider all relevant social and ethical issues throughout the procurement process. Specific criteria vary from requirement to requirement.

Since the current United Kingdom Government was formed, while it has been pursuing a policy of drastic cuts to public spending on services, it has simultaneously been writing off vast sums of money to certain of its private sector buddies, most notably Vodafone, which fought for years to have billions of pounds of tax written off by HM Revenue and Customs. Given that Vodafone is avoiding paying relevant rates of UK tax, is it really right that a Parliament such as this one uses Vodafone as its main contractor for mobile phones, so that every time a member picks up a mobile phone from their pocket, they are lining the pockets of Vodafone shareholders? Will the corporate body avoid in future any use of companies that cannot show that they pay UK tax on their profits and will it ditch the Vodafone contract?

Vodafone has had a tender and is a supplier to the Scottish Parliament. When undertaking a tender, suppliers are asked whether they have failed to fulfil obligations relating to the payment of taxes in accordance with the legal obligations of the UK or the country in which the supplier was established. If the answer to that question is yes, the supplier would be automatically eliminated.

Patrick Harvie has pointed out that Vodafone is not failing in its legal obligations and that, although it is avoiding paying tax, it is not doing so illegally. Those matters should be considered and I suggest that if the member wishes to raise any specific issues about Vodafone or, indeed, any other supplier to the Scottish Parliament he should make representations directly to the corporate body, which will consider them.

I want to stay with the question of how procurement might affect this Parliament if the House of Commons decides that a particular route should be followed. I am referring to the security arrangements that members of the security forces suggest to us. It seems to me that we always take their advice, so I would like to know how the corporate body—

The original question was about ethical criteria for procurement, Ms MacDonald.

No, it is about—

I do not think that there is a question there.

That concludes questions to the corporate body. As the next item of business is due to start at 2.20 pm, I suspend the meeting until that time.

14:11 Meeting suspended.

14:20 On resuming—