Chamber and committees

That is an excellent point, with which I whole-heartedly agree.

I was about to mention that there are 21 uses of the term “trust” in the report, and rightly so. We must acknowledge how many people have lost trust in politicians in the political process and, by extension, their legislatures. Sometimes I despair as we go along in the hurly-burly of our politics, in which people challenge each other without thinking what that says to people outside about trust in their legislature. We need to be very careful about that. We need to maintain such trust, for it underpins and is the guardian of democracy.

I would add one group to that list, and that is journalists. The report notes that getting them more engaged would help to spread knowledge. Building the knowledge of journalists is valuable. I still encounter multiple instances where they either do not appear to, or perhaps choose not to, understand, for example, governance, or the separation of the Government and the judiciary—that appears to be an issue with MSPs, too—or concepts such as the fiscal framework.

On another note, I mentioned earlier that I consider the report to be a good one. Costs have been carefully considered, which is vital, as we are living in very constrained times. I notice with favour the consideration of governance and accountability, and that model must be maintained. I completely agree with other members’ comments about the proliferation of roles such as those of commissioners.

Moving on, the report notes that legislation will require Government and cross-party commitment. A common framework to measure impact was suggested. That must evolve over time, based on a thorough and committed feedback loop. On Martin Whitfield’s comment in which he expressed disappointment at the proposed timescales, I take a different view. It is clear to me that the proposal must proceed with cross-party buy-in and the folding in of best practice and learning as we go along.

I am moving to a close, Presiding Officer—I have just a couple more comments. I suspect that Jackson Carlaw’s legendary sense of humour contributed to the writing of the report, which notes that

“there can be a tendency for attitudes within the ‘Holyrood bubble’ to become out of step with the views of ordinary people across the country.”

I think that that will win understatement of the year. There is also consideration of a travelling exhibition—hopefully, it will not be our oddest MSPs on display.

Seriously, though, I will conclude there. Both participative and deliberative democracy are vital to enhancing scrutiny, and they enshrine the vital link between citizens, our legislature and democracy. On that note, I say that I embrace the principle whole-heartedly.

[Inaudible.]—finance committee, but, if he does not mind me saying, perhaps that is missing the point, because perhaps we are too ready to have concluded what the answer is without allowing people to make their voices heard. Would he concede that?

It is.

I have a quick supplementary question. As a member of the Finance and Public Administration Committee, I am, probably unsurprisingly, incredibly struck by the increase in cost of 42 per cent from the original financial memorandum. That obviously leads me to consider confidence going forward, particularly in relation to the unknown unknowns. I also have questions about confidence in the known things as more detail emerges.

If you had to put a number on it—where zero means you have no confidence and 10 means you have absolute confidence—how confident are you that the remaining process will flush out the unknown unknowns and that the financial provisioning can then be put in place?

My wee worry, based on previous experience, is that the bill will become more embedded—which will happen as it goes through the stages—but by that point we will have run out of money and we will have to squeeze it in to processes in your organisations.

I am trying to flesh that out a wee bit and hear about your level of confidence, because 42 per cent is a startling increase—it really is unbelievable. I am not necessarily asking you all to comment, but do comment if you have any reflections about confidence. In other words, is enough money going to be available?

Jillian Gibson, I see you nodding. Do you want to come in?

Dr Scott, you were obviously joking when you said that you would take a red pen to the bill, but what I hear from what you have described—I do not want to put words in your mouth—is that you are perhaps concerned that, in talking about what amendments are possible, there is a risk that they might be too superficial.

I am new to the committee, but, given what I have heard, it is almost as though consideration of the rights of victims has been completely removed from the process. Does the bill need to be completely turned on its head so that it has a rapier-like focus on victims throughout? That would be a much more substantive change than some potentially gentle amendments at stage 2. I would like you to flesh out your statement about a red pen a bit more.

Okay—thank you.

Good morning. Thank you for all the information that you have given so far. The session has brought out the considerable uncertainty about and complexity of what we are doing.

As the convener has pointed out, an FM should show the margins of uncertainty for any estimate. I often search for key words to get a picture. There is not any particular disclaimer of uncertainty but, if you search for the word “range” and look at the ranges, you will see that the ranges are vast in the estimates. Some of the figures for regulation range from £30,000 to £200,000. Basically, the bigger the range, the higher the uncertainty and the less accurate the estimate. I want to get your sense of that from a confidence point of view. A lot of information has come out this morning but, in addition to what you have already said, are there any particular areas where the range of estimate expressing uncertainty is so utterly huge as to be worth not very much at all?

Charlie Devine, you smiled at me, so you can go first.

I have probably made my point about the vast ranges. Both Charlie Devine and Jim Jack alluded to behavioural changes, and that is the element of uncertainty in the bill.

I want to pick up on something that my colleague John Mason asked about earlier. He used the terminology “good” and “bad”, but I am going to make it a little more academic and ask how much confidence you have in the estimates on a scale of zero to 10, where zero is no confidence and 10 is high confidence. I think that I can fairly reflect that you have expressed considerable uncertainty about what they mean for you, so this is not meant to be about apportioning blame; I am just trying to reflect where we are in the process. What number would each of you give for the FM where zero is “nul points”, literally, and 10 is a high degree of confidence?

Is that a four, then, to be specific?