That is all connected to the financial year 2025-26, which starts in just a few weeks. Why have we not got sight of that? What is actually contained in the capital pipeline for 2025-26?

Amendment 1, in the name of the cabinet secretary, is grouped with amendments 2 to 6.

A key initiative is the Cabinet sub-committee on investment and the economy. I understand that you held its first meeting on 10 December, but the next meeting is expected to take place in spring 2025, which seems to leave an awfully long gap. That work is an imperative for the Government, but there does not seem to be a great sense of urgency, given that there will be three or four months between meetings, for example.

Excellent. The committee likes certainty.

This afternoon, the Parliament is debating employer national insurance contributions, which is going to be quite tousy. I am not participating, so I shall look on with interest, but I understand that the level of impact that ENIC increases will have on the public sector is an issue. The most precise figure that I have heard regarding the direct cost to the public sector is £549 million. There might be costs over and above that figure, and we know that other sectors, including the private sector, third sector and so on, are affected. I have no doubt that the issue will be covered in great detail this afternoon.

Can you advise the committee on what specifically the sum of the tranche of money from the Westminster Government will be, when you expect it to be confirmed and when it will arrive?

Lastly, we took evidence from a number of public bodies and the issue of compulsory redundancies came up. Before I ask you about that, I note that you said in your response that you have asked

“the Minister for Public Finance to develop a programme of workforce reforms. This includes workforce trajectories to support the workforce control framework that is being developed for public bodies including recruitment controls, a workforce management policy and related governance arrangements. The framework will be delivered close to the start of the 2025-26 financial year.”

We will be keen to see that when it comes out.

The public bodies all suggested that they wanted flexibility with regard to compulsory redundancies. A policy of no compulsory redundancies was brought in 17 years ago, understandably, in response to the financial crash, when people were really worried about their jobs. However, we now have a situation with advancing technologies and changing jobs where we have a lot of square pegs in round holes. Public sector organisations have to reduce budgets. To achieve that, they are using voluntary redundancy to pay people who they do not really want to lose a lot of money to leave and they are stuck with people who they do not necessarily want to keep, because they might have a skills mismatch or whatever. That approach is not really efficient or effective in delivering public services; it is also very expensive.

Will there be any change, if not directly in the public sector then in some of the bodies, to give organisations what they want, which is to have flexibility in their workforce? That seems to be the implication of your response without your actually saying it.

To be fair, all our public sector organisations—local government, the national health service, whatever—try to do that, but sometimes it is simply not possible.

I will not pursue that any further at this point, because colleagues are keen to come in.

That would be appreciated.

One of the responses that you have given with regard to the medium-term financial strategy is that you want

“to ensure that the public finances are set on a sustainable footing over the medium-term.”

I am interested in what the Government means by “a sustainable footing”. The Government always balances its books—it must, because that is a legal obligation—but the committee has expressed concerns about, for example, the huge increase in social security spending and the impact on other portfolios, which are being squeezed, as a result. What does the Government mean by “a sustainable footing”?

You said that you aim to deliver the work before June. I might be a wee bit cynical, but I am not aware of many Government strategies that have come ahead of schedule. The committee is concerned that nothing seems to happen in originally envisaged timescales, which has been a real issue throughout the parliamentary session.

Under our second agenda item, we will consider the Budget (Scotland) (No 4) Bill at stage 2. We are still joined by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government. Officials who are present for this item are unable to participate in formal stage 2 proceedings, as is set out in standing orders.

Committee members should have with them a copy of the bill as introduced, the marshalled list of amendments and the groupings of amendments document, which sets out the groupings of amendments in the order in which they will be debated.

As members are aware, only the Scottish Government can lodge amendments to budget bills. The cabinet secretary has lodged six amendments to be considered today. Should there be a division, voting will be done by a show of hands. It is important that members keep their hands clearly raised until the clerks have recorded the vote. The committee is required to indicate formally that it has considered and agreed to each section of the bill, so I will put a question on each section at the appropriate point.

Section 1 agreed to.

Schedule 1—The Scottish Administration

Good morning. I think that, in fact, the risks are much greater if you do not design everything before you go to stage 1. It could go in all sorts of directions and there could be all sorts of costs added to it. We are concerned about cumulative risks and affordability. We are also concerned about the inefficiency and potential overspending with that approach. However, what is important with any legislation is that we know that it will do what it says on the tin, and we cannot have that if we have co-design post stage 1.

What is important when it comes to scrutiny is that committees feel empowered to say no. For example, when the Finance and Public Administration Committee was presented with a financial memorandum to the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill that we did not think was appropriate to that legislation, we simply sent it back to the Government for it to think again. It was just not acceptable to the committee. Committees should not just shrug their shoulders or bite their lip and say, “Well, this isn’t really what we are looking for, but we’ll just nod it through.” They have to have the strength to say, “No, I’m sorry, but we do not really think this is doing what it should be doing.”

We should also remember that it does not help the Government to pass legislation that, ultimately, is going to come back in its face some years down the line. It certainly does not help the people of Scotland whom we represent. What is important, therefore, is that we do as much of the work as we can at the earliest possible opportunity in the bill process, and I think that that will lead to better outcomes.