Chamber and committees

I have a last wee question, just to bottom that out. A lot of our discussion has summed up the issues that we face at the moment, such as lack of access to labour and problems with capital, and has moved on to the longer-term impact on productivity or the lack of it. That is where the UK scores badly when we look at comparator countries, whether they be small economies or larger advanced ones.

My question to you is: based on all the people with whom you work, do you anticipate a slowdown in investment? That might be investment in automation—which David Thomson brought up earlier—or in more general terms, while, at least in the short period, we will be focusing on getting through what looks likely to be a difficult period or in the longer run because of the wider concerns that are being shared about another decade of austerity. It would be useful to hear your thoughts on that.

That is helpful. My last question concerns the energy suppliers. Are people getting the support that they need from the suppliers? We have covered extensively the support that they need from Government. Are they getting the support that they need, from what you are picking up?

So, it is policy driven—I understand that. You are correct that the amalgamation of health and social care has been a wish for a long time. However, that different approach has clearly introduced significant other risks, even with apportioning or estimating costs up front. The ranges that you have set out are very wide.

Let me put it this way: if it was your personal money, you would not be risking it. How will you mitigate the risk of there being significant cost overruns in a multitude of areas? My colleagues have mentioned issues with VAT, defined benefit pensions, assets, staff, double running, IT and even uncertainty about the governance of boards. Each one of those issues would introduce additional costs. How will you mitigate the risks in the process that you have adopted?

You make a point that reflects my personal experience, which is that a programme plan is only ever accurate after the programme has finished. That is the standard issue and risk for all the spend. What you are describing makes that more likely, rather than less likely. You are talking about the business cases in the areas that you mentioned earlier, but only at that point will we start, from a financial perspective, to get a sense of the risks to the public purse. There are concerns about parliamentary scrutiny, on which I absolutely back up what my colleague, Mr Mason, said.

I looked in the financial memorandum specifically for the word “risk”. It is mentioned only twice. However, this is screaming out that there are huge risks, to me. It might be that you are under pressure in terms of timescales in which to deliver, but from my perspective of financial scrutiny, I am seeing a blank cheque. That is deeply worrying in respect of the public purse.

If you had had a choice, would you have produced that financial memorandum or would you have wanted more detail and further breakdowns based on the policy provisions? Were you pushed to bring forward the financial memorandum?

Thank you.

Good morning. I read all your submissions with great interest, and I share your concerns about some of the issues that have already been touched on around VAT, pensions, assets, governance and so on. In the previous evidence session, I added in some of my own concerns. However, in the interests of giving every panel an equally hard time, I want to ask you some questions.

Any change that removes or is perceived to remove responsibilities is always resisted by the affected body. To what extent are you simply resistant to change and protecting your own turf, if you like?

Sarah Watters smiled, so she can go first.

When do you anticipate baselining your estimated costs, so that you can nail your colours to the mast a bit more? At what point will that occur?

To build on that, we talked earlier about economies of scale. I think that Paul Manning mentioned the loss of economies of scale to local government. However, a corollary of that is the benefit of economies of scale to the Scottish Government. I want to ask about that because, all the way through this session, we have commented on public sector funding and our being in a precarious position, and we do that continually.

What specific economies of scale can you see with at least some of the proposals for the Scottish Government and therefore the public purse? It strikes me—I have put this on the record before—that having 32 local authorities with duplicate functions across the board is not necessarily the most efficient way of working. I am interested in your thoughts about where the economies of scale are for the Scottish Government rather than the disbenefit of economies of scale for you.

The financial memorandum does not mention economies of scale.

Does Sharon Wearing want to answer either of my questions?