Chamber and committees

That is fine. Thank you.

It is a privilege to speak in today’s Holocaust memorial day debate and to join members in remembering all those who lost their lives in the Holocaust and in genocide since. Although we remember the victims of Nazi persecution—mainly the Jews—it is worth noting that Roma and Sinti people, gay people, political opponents, religious leaders, Jehovah’s Witnesses and countless others found themselves in concentration camps, suffering not just at the hands of the Nazis but at those of their collaborators.

One would have hoped to have seen some change with the arrival of the new millennium, but the list stretches on until today. For people in Myanmar or Kurdistan, genocide is not some distant memory but a reality with which they must live and that we must confront rather than commemorate.

Other members will discuss those stories in more depth and with more poignancy than I can in four minutes. Instead, I want to shine a light on some of the small but significant roles that the people of Ayrshire played during the Holocaust.

Let us take the story of Lore Zimmerman. Aged eight, Lore was one of thousands of child refugees who came to Scotland and the UK through the Kindertransport scheme. Having fled from Germany to Prague because she had communist parents, Lore then came to Britain and found herself at Rozelle house in Ayr, under the care of Colonel Claud Hamilton and his wife Veronica. There is also the story of Susanne Schaeffer, a 12-year-old Jewish girl from Berlin, who also came to stay at Rozelle, and that of Martha Rosenzweig—also 12 years old—for whom the Hamiltons found a home in Minishant.

Meanwhile, the Fultons of Carrick lodge took in five refugees, five months before the war had even started, including an eight-year-old and a young man who had been in a concentration camp. In a 1939 edition of the Ayrshire Post, Mrs Fulton wrote that more refugees were expected in the near future, before making an appeal for clothes and accommodation, which is echoed in the arrival of Afghan refugees today.

Then, there is Ingrid Wuga, who was born in Dortmund and whom, I know, the First Minister met before she sadly passed away. Having escaped Hitler’s Germany at age 15 through the Kindertransport programme, Ingrid came to Ayrshire and found a job sewing uniforms. Ingrid and her husband dedicated themselves to telling the tale of the Holocaust, with more than 5,000 people having heard her testimony. Quite rightly, in 2019 she was awarded the British empire medal for services to Holocaust education.

Although those stories are touching and remind us that humanity can shine through in even the darkest of times, the Holocaust will, unfortunately, cease to be a living memory as time goes by. Many survivors, such as Ingrid Wuga, directed education efforts worldwide through speaking about the horrors through which they had lived, but that experience is slipping away. As we all know too well, history is all too often doomed to repeat itself.

At 8 pm tonight, I will join others across the UK in lighting a candle in my window in remembrance of all those who have lost their lives to genocide. Those small acts are what keeps the Holocaust alive in the public memory, so I encourage everybody here to do the same.

I am pleased to speak in the debate on behalf of the Public Audit Committee. As members will know, the committee has an important scrutiny role to play in examining whether the Scottish Government and other public bodies spend public money efficiently and effectively. Key to our work are the reports that the Auditor General for Scotland prepares, which provide us with the information that we need to maintain an overview of how public money is spent and to hold public sector leaders to account for the use of that money.

Although the committee is not directly involved in the budget scrutiny process, the debate presents an opportunity to reflect on some of the themes that are emerging from our work in session 6, which might be of interest to other committees and are also intended to help inform today’s discussion.

I start by highlighting our recent and on-going scrutiny of the Auditor General’s report, “The 2020-21 audit of the Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts”. The report sets out the challenging operating environment that the Scottish Government was working in last year, as it responded to the significant threats that the pandemic posed to lives, public safety, jobs and the economy. However, the report goes on to say that the Scottish Government now needs to be more proactive in showing where and how that money was spent, and to show a clearer line from budgets to funding announcements to actual spending.

Transparency in the Scottish Government budget is critical for all committees to be able to fulfil their budget scrutiny role effectively. The Public Audit Committee looks forward to exploring how the Scottish Government intends to improve its reporting in that area in due course.

A further theme that has been drawn to the committee’s attention is the importance of long-term funding decisions. For example, during our scrutiny of “Scotland’s colleges 2020”, Colleges Scotland stated that

“colleges make lots of short-term decisions, which are often not the best financial decisions. If the sector could be afforded a multiyear funding settlement, that would go a long way to allowing us to be much more strategic and would be better use of the public purse.” —[Official Report, Public Audit Committee, 23 September 2021; c 5.]

The committee notes the Scottish Funding Council’s call for the provision of multiyear financial settlements for colleges—a call that the Education, Children and Young People Committee supports. The Public Audit Committee waits with interest to see how the Scottish Government intends to take forward that call.

The committee also held a round-table evidence session on Audit Scotland’s most recent work on child and adolescent mental health services. We heard that it is vital that improvements be made to track whether the significant investment in that area leads to improved outcomes for children and young people who need that support.

I will mention briefly our scrutiny of the Auditor General’s recent report, “Community justice: Sustainable alternatives to custody”. The report highlights that the Scottish Government has yet to achieve its objective of ensuring that people who are convicted of criminal offences increasingly receive community-based sentences where appropriate, instead of going to prison. The Scottish Government’s reducing re-offending policy acknowledges that community sentences are more effective at preventing re-offending than prison sentences; however, community justice funding makes up less than 5 per cent of overall justice funding, and there has been little change in recent years. The committee considers that there is scope for the Scottish Government to review its budget in that area to ensure that it is sufficient to achieve its policy objectives.

The areas that I have highlighted will be of interest to other committees. The Public Audit Committee is keen to work collaboratively on issues where there is a shared interest and looks forward to doing so in order to support, help and contribute to the budget scrutiny process in the years to come.

Sorry, Presiding Officer, but my supplementary is for question 4.

The new guideline is misleading in title as it refers to under-25s. People in their 20s are clearly responsible for their actions and should be punished appropriately if they commit a crime. However, the guideline states that people as old as 24 should receive a lesser punishment for committing exactly the same crime as people who are aged 25 or over. Does the cabinet secretary think it right that, under the new guideline, 24-year-olds can receive less punishment than 25-year-olds for committing the same crime?

Thank you. I hand back to the convener.

You mentioned the tracking of Covid-19 spend. Scottish public sector expenditure in 2020-21 changed significantly from initial plans due to the response to the coronavirus pandemic. In-year changes to budgets, which were primarily due to the additional Covid-19 funding, were reported via three budget revisions—in summer 2020, autumn 2020 and spring 2021. The summer 2020 budget revision gave a good level of detail on the allocation of the Covid-19 Barnett consequentials that had been received by that time. However, the subsequent budget revisions in autumn 2020 and spring 2021 gave much less detail on the allocation of further Covid-19 Barnett consequentials and it has proved very challenging to track how additional funding that relates to the pandemic has been allocated and spent.

I have three questions. First, the pandemic has highlighted weaknesses in tracking in-year changes to spending plans. How can reporting be improved to enable better scrutiny of in-year changes to spending plans, even if those are on a less significant scale than in 2020-21?

The census programme has been subject to a number of reviews. Challenges were first identified in 2018 and, in March 2019, the programme status was marked as red. Following the implementation of a recovery plan, the subsequent reviews noted significant improvements. A review in February 2020 gave the programme an amber rating and concluded that the census would have been able to proceed in 2021 had it not been for the pandemic. The most recent review, at the end of November 2021, gave the programme an amber/green rating.

I have two questions, which, in the interests of time, I will ask together. How is NRS managing risks, particularly around finance and resourcing, in the run-up to the census going live? What further review activity is anticipated over the remainder of the programme?

Yes, that is fine. You are happy with the process that you have in place.

Okay—thank you.

Finally, will you provide further assessment of the funds committed to and spent on the Covid-19 response?