Chamber and committees

That principally relates to the completion of the reaching 100 per cent—R100—programme, which as Maggie Chapman and the committee will know, has been taken forward over a number of years and is now operational in all parts of the country.

The commitment exists to achieve the objectives of the R100 programme. In essence, we are looking at the detailed delivery of that programme year by year. That approach takes into account the changing picture of investment by telecommunications companies as they roll out their investment programmes, too. As we have seen in recent years, as changes take place in the technology available and the ability of telecoms companies to broaden their networks, it reduces the scale of the challenge under the R100 programme. It is a combination of those two factors.

I recognise all the relevant issues that Maggie Chapman raises about the importance of digital connectivity and its centrality to the ability to live and work in a range of locations around Scotland. It is important to remember that we have made absolutely colossal strides forward in the availability of such digital connectivity around Scotland.

SNIB is a long-term proposition for the Government. I describe it as, in essence, a long-term source of patient capital in the Scottish economy. We envisage SNIB being able to perform the role on a long-term basis; obviously, that has to be a long-term commercial basis. The issues of repayment and returns are significant, and we are keen to ensure that over the long-term lifespan of SNIB, it continues to perform that role in the Scottish economy.

No, I do not accept that. Scottish Enterprise’s resource has gone from £135 million to £141 million, which is an increase of £6 million, and its capital budget is going from £80 million to £76 million, which is a reduction of £4 million—so there is a net increase of £2 million. For South of Scotland Enterprise, there has been an increase in resource and capital when those are put together.

Maybe for us both, Mr Halcro Johnston.

I have not discussed that issue with the chief entrepreneur, but I am very happy to do so.

You alight on my greatest worry just now, convener. As I said earlier, and as I shared with the Finance and Public Administration Committee last week, my current estimate of the overspend on resource budgets lies in a range between £200 million and £500 million, and the variability there is about my assessment of the likely financial performance of a lot of organisations and whether they can come in on budget. My current focus is on trying to reduce that number. We go through these arguments often in Parliament, particularly with the provisional outturn statement that Tom Arthur delivers and the publication of the consolidated accounts, and some of the underspends do not translate into resources that the Government can actually spend. For example, last year there was a large underspend in student loan funding but we cannot spend that on other priorities because it is ring-fenced annual managed expenditure.

My priority is to balance the budget between now and the end of March. I am here in a temporary capacity but, in my nine years as finance minister, there is no way that I was dealing with the likely overspend of this magnitude in the middle of January in any financial year; it would be well settled by this time. I am therefore acutely anxious about that position.

Obviously, if we are able to constrain spending between now and the end of the year, or if something comes our way from the supplementary estimates of the UK Government, which we do not yet have sight of but expect to see within the next four to six weeks, the position might change and there might be some resources to carry forward. However, this is the first year that the Government has set a budget without anticipating carrying forward any resources from this year into next year.

We should be able to disaggregate the data to enable all that analysis to be undertaken.

There is also a question here—I appeal to our universities’ sense of community in this regard—about the role of universities in recognising that some of that intellectual property might have a wider societal benefit, and a wider commercial benefit for the Scottish economy. I encourage our universities to be open to that proposition.

There is obviously, as Ms Hyslop correctly said, interaction with the Scottish Funding Council and the allocation of research resources. The more we work collaboratively on this endeavour, the more we will be able to see the benefits of all of that, and Mark Logan is in place to assist us in doing that to the greatest extent possible.

Essentially, that is us responding to the profile of the range of city deals or growth deals, to use the summary title, because they span a number of years. The shortest was 10 years and the longest has been 20 years, and there has been quite a variation in the financial commitments during those years. As projects come forward, they will place varying demands on the public purse.

Some of those projects will also be wrestling with some of the issues that we are facing in our wider capital budget, which are around cost because of the increase in input prices. That might create some challenges for project timescales because, if costs are rising because of rising input prices, there might be an argument for developing a proposed project at a later stage.

I assure the committee that the commitment to such schemes remains in place. We support their delivery in concert with a range of local authorities around the country to reflect the varying timescales that have been put to us.

We want to benefit from the expertise that Mark Logan can bring to help us in meeting the challenges that I have just set out: first, with regard to ensuring that we realise the technology capabilities and opportunities that are available to us, and secondly, in assisting us by advising on how we make the transition to net zero through the encouragement and enhancement of greater entrepreneurial activity within the Scottish economy.