Chamber and committees

You opened your remarks by referring to the committee’s letter and, in particular, the disaggregation of data. I have no wish to create a massive data factory, because I appreciate that that would expend a huge amount of time. My interest in the issue started with a simple question that I put to a business organisation when I asked for assurances that it routinely disaggregated all its data sets by gender. I received a long, fulsome answer that said absolutely nothing and could be summarised as, “No.” I then started to think about all the other data sets—you mentioned private equity, cabinet secretary.

Will you give the committee a flavour of how actively you are progressing work so that, when asked, any body that is in receipt of public funds—as well as the Government—can give assurances that they are routinely disaggregating their data sets by gender?

Yes, sorry—I, too, was triggered by the attraction of getting into geek mode.

I would be interested in the cabinet secretary’s reflections on this issue. She started to explore the concept of turnover as vanity and net profit as sanity. It strikes me as interesting that the majority of employees in both hospitality and retail businesses are women. Therefore, in looking at what data is gathered and used to make assessments, we also need to consider the role of women, because the majority of those employees are women. In that respect, and in the light of my earlier comment about turnover being vanity, looking at net profit and salaries, given that the employees are mostly women, would also yield some data.

My other reflection on what the cabinet secretary is suggesting is that, although consent is imperative, it will probably be very problematic, because a different pathway will be cleaved for businesses that are, in effect, paying their women employees less than they would if they were men.

That would be very helpful.

I am mindful of SNIB’s evidence to the committee that, because of year-end, there is a hard date. It cited a specific example of when it was trying to close a deal before year-end. If you could bear with me for a minute while I find the text in my notes. SNIB said:

“Last year, we got to 31 March and we did not know whether were going to be able to complete a £50 million deal according to the rules.”

I encourage the cabinet secretary, or whoever the most appropriate person is, to find out the latest status on that, because 31 March and, therefore, the potential to close other deals, is not that far away.

SNIB added:

“We got it done, and we did not compromise our underwriting in doing so”.—[Official Report, Economy and Fair Work Committee, 25 September 2024; c 28],

However, it commented that the need to get a deal done while fitting in with the rules could be played against it.

That is heartening and very good news, indeed.

I will be asking about that.

Good morning, Auditor General, and thank you for joining us. I just have a couple of questions, as I am mindful of the time. The first is a slightly technical question that follows on from Mr Hoy’s questions. In the update that it gave in December 2024, the Government stated that it was taking

“a cascade approach to savings”.

What is your understanding of the implications of that, in the light of the fact that all change programmes that are under way anywhere in Government are arguably now part of public service reform?

I accept what you are saying. In future reports, would you be prepared to actively consider culture as specific and measurable, for the reasons that we have outlined?

In your evidence thus far, it sounds as though the position is very complex, and the data that you have cited probably confirms that we are not entirely certain of the impact of the rise. Therefore, to pick up on the issue that the convener was probing earlier, is it reasonable and accurate to say that we do not have complete transparency—probably for a very good reason—about the impact of the original rise in ADS and that you therefore have not been able to model the potential impact of a subsequent rise from 6 per cent to 8 per cent?

Okay. Convener, I should have drawn committee members’ attention to my entry in the register of members’ interests.

If I may, I will follow up one area in relation intra-landlord activity. There is evidence that, over time, quite a number of landlords have exited the market across the whole of the United Kingdom. That was triggered by the UK Government’s withdrawal, some years back, of mortgage interest tax relief. More recently, some landlords have been choosing to exit the market but to sell with the tenant in situ, so that another landlord buys the property. That is done for the very good reason that the property is somebody’s home. Surely a by-product of the increase in the rate of ADS will be more tenants being evicted, because a landlord will be less likely to buy properties. To what extent have you factored that consideration into any scenario planning that you have done?

I will move on to my next question. I have not seen culture mentioned specifically in your report. It is a very good report, but the reference to culture is implicit, rather than explicit, in some of the commentary, such as that on transparency and leadership, for example.

Considering your understanding of the culture that prevails and that you have seen, how confident are you that changes can be made, given that the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour?