Chamber and committees

I was as much thinking that there is a saving in repayments, but you are right—obviously, with the Edinburgh royal infirmary, there is also a potential burden of capital investment; however, that is not apparent in the sustainability analysis that has been done.

You said that there is a joint working group, but I did not get a feel for what wider local tax-raising powers you would look at. How do you get the balance right? Earlier, my colleague Liam Kerr was talking about the local government funding formula. Different councils complain about the local government funding formula as it is. How do you get to a place where you devolve taxes further, have local tax-raising powers and still maintain equity?

My local authority, East Ayrshire Council, is one of the smaller local authorities. Councillor Parry spoke about population growth in her local authority, whereas in areas such as East Ayrshire, depopulation is an issue. How do you effectively place that responsibility on councils, devolve powers from Government and arrive at a fair and equitable position so that you do not have councils squealing, “This is not fair because there is a greater burden on us locally”?

I have one more question—

I will stick with preventative spend. Karen Hedge will say that extra money for care is a form of preventative spend because it saves money on primary healthcare. Sarah Roughead wants more money for preventative spend, which she hopes would lead to savings through a reduction in crime. Ashley Campbell has outlined the need for extra investment in housing as a form of preventative spend. Andy Witty wants extra money for colleges, as that is a form of preventative spend that helps to get more people into work. Claire McPherson might argue that the provision of additional money for universities to help young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to get into university is preventative spend. Michael Kellet has outlined the need for extra spend on health outcomes. John Dickie would say that putting extra spend into eradicating or reducing child poverty is the right thing to do and that it brings savings. I suspect that Jason Henderson would say that everything that the third sector does is some form of preventative spend.

If I am the finance secretary, with a £2.6 billion gap in revenue funding by the end of this session of Parliament, what do I do? Nobody can argue against preventative spend, and I have made a case for each one of the witnesses. How do I rebalance the budget to get extra money into preventative spend that is sustainable and realises the savings?

11:45

I suppose that the thrust of my question is this: everyone can argue for more preventative spend, particularly for their sector, but what does the Government need to do differently to move money into preventative spend?

I think that I still heard a request for more funding in there.

I want to touch on local taxation. The joint submission from COSLA and SOLACE states:

“Local tax reform should also be considered as part of a wider approach to fair, sustainable and locally accountable public finance, rather than in isolation. Reform of council tax, wider local revenue-raising powers and greater local fiscal autonomy should be considered alongside national tax policy, multi-year funding”

et cetera. From what I can see, unless I have missed it, COSLA has not put forward proposals for what alternative local revenue-raising powers would look like. Does COSLA have an agreed position on what local taxation reform could look like?

Thanks—I realise that I have not been getting far.

In relation to devolving responsibility, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that a 2.1 per cent reduction in real-terms funding would equate to council tax increases of 8 per cent. If that 2.1 per cent real-terms overall reduction in funding from central Government equates to council tax increases of 8 per cent, does that not show the risk of trying to rebalance the equation?

If between 75 per cent and 80 per cent of the funding did not come from the Scottish Government, what would be your aspiration for the percentage for councils to manage under a model that allowed them and residents to take responsibility?

Good morning. I apologise for the fact that I risk going round in circles about the lack of a delivery plan and measurable outcomes. Alison Cumming mentioned that the programme board has been in place for two years. Did you look at how it operates? To be honest, I struggle to reconcile the fact that that board, chaired by a programme lead, has been in place for two years—alongside a high-level overarching programme—with the fact that there is no delivery plan yet. How does that board function? How does it action and measure things? You detailed that a refresh programme is ongoing, but I do not understand how the need for a refresh programme was identified. What do you measure the refresh programme against for baseline outputs and why is that work getting concluded before a delivery plan has been put in place?