Official Report: search what was said in Parliament
The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.
All Official Reports of meetings in the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament.
All Official Reports of public meetings of committees.
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Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 8 October 2024
Kenneth Gibson
We are really struggling for time, to be honest, given that other members have still to come in, and we have another session to come.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 8 October 2024
Kenneth Gibson
It will be lost twice next year because it is an on-going £160 million every year. It will be £320 million next year.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Proposed National Outcomes
Meeting date: 8 October 2024
Kenneth Gibson
Okay, but economic growth is obviously important if we are going to provide the resources to do all that the Parliament wishes to do and, indeed, the Government wishes to do. There are concerns regarding the omission of explicit references to economic growth. For example, that led Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce, which responded to the consultation, to say that it feels as if the Government has “downgraded” economic growth, which is exactly the opposite of the message that we want to convey, given that it is one of the four priorities, as you have already touched on.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Proposed National Outcomes
Meeting date: 8 October 2024
Kenneth Gibson
You also touched on the UN sustainable development goals. Goal 1 is “No poverty”. It was unclear whether the national outcome seeks to reduce poverty because, in Scotland’s NPF, the national outcomes are more realistic about what will be achieved within a devolved setting. Is that the case?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Proposed National Outcomes
Meeting date: 8 October 2024
Kenneth Gibson
One of the UN’s sustainable development goals is that there should be no poverty, whereas the Scottish Government’s aim is to reduce poverty. Is that because we cannot eliminate poverty within a devolved setting? Is that the reason for it, or is there another reason why the Scottish Government does not have the same goal as the UN?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Proposed National Outcomes
Meeting date: 8 October 2024
Kenneth Gibson
Thank you. I will open up the session to colleagues round the table.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Proposed National Outcomes
Meeting date: 8 October 2024
Kenneth Gibson
I think that Keith McDonald wants to come in. [Interruption.]
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 8 October 2024
Kenneth Gibson
I do not think that anyone doubts that having more money in people’s pockets is a good way of reducing poverty. However, local government and others are saying that, if the money went into their services, they would be able to provide more jobs, apart from anything else, which is the best way out of poverty.
Professor Heald said that
“being ‘progressive’ on social security and other cash benefits at the expense of public services expenditure will have an ‘anti-progressive’ effect because lower income groups have less access to substitute private services if satisfactory public services are not available.”
My concern is that local government is having to focus on its statutory obligations and, therefore, cannot support things such as employability services in the way that it wishes.
People are trapped on benefits—they might have more benefits now than they would otherwise have, but they are still trapped. We want to break that cycle of poverty. You know yourself, cabinet secretary, that the situation in Dundee is a particularly difficult one.
09:15Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 8 October 2024
Kenneth Gibson
Indeed—and so is the curriculum and how it is taught, and there is a whole debate to be had on that separately.
I can understand the Government’s position on flexibility, because everyone calls for flexibility. When we had the historic concordat between the Scottish Government and COSLA in 2007, local government often did things that the Government was not happy about, and the Government was getting blamed for decisions that were being taken at local authority level by other political parties that were running those local authorities.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 8 October 2024
Kenneth Gibson
I understand that there is some politics there, but I think that the flexibility issue is one that will not go away. I would hope that the Verity house agreement will allow greater flexibility to enable better service provision, with the resources that we have.
However, the Scottish Government can make savings in other areas. One thing that I have always been surprised about is that people can go to their general practitioner and get paracetamol. I asked a question about that and found that the cost of paracetamol that was prescribed in Scotland in 2022-23 was nearly £12 million, and that the average cost to see a doctor is £56, apparently. Other products such as Calpol and ibuprofen are also being prescribed. Surely we could save tens of millions of pounds from the medicines budget if things that are readily available in local pharmacies and, indeed, in supermarkets were no longer on the list of medicines that can be prescribed.
