Chamber and committees

Good morning, and welcome to the 32nd meeting in 2022 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee.

Our first agenda item is an evidence session with the Institute for Fiscal Studies on the United Kingdom autumn budget statement and the wider UK context, with a view to informing our scrutiny of the upcoming Scottish budget 2023-24. We are joined remotely by David Phillips, associate director, and Ben Zaranko, senior research economist, at the Institute for Fiscal Studies. I welcome you both to the meeting.

I move straight to questions. Your submission states that the Office for Budget Responsibility notes that the UK’s economic position with regard to fiscal policy has been beset in the past six months by

“a series of dramatic swings in the direction of fiscal policy with five major fiscal statements delivered by three successive governments”

and that

“the net impact of this series of announcements and reversals has been to add over £40 billion of borrowing by 2027-28”.

What will the impact of that be on not just the UK economy but Scotland’s economy?

Ben, do you want to come in?

We can all see that the plan is for the real impact of the budget to fall after the next UK general election. Do you disagree with the OBR when it says that these continual policy changes have cost £40 billion in additional borrowing? That seems to be the implications of your response, David.

I could have understood such an approach 20 years ago, perhaps, but we now live in a fetid environment on social media, and the fact that a minister is named will mean that he or she will continue to be vilified. “No smoke without fire”, and all that kind of stuff, will still be said. Is that fair to a minister and his or her family? The complainant will not be named, so they will be able to continue with their work, even though they have made a complaint that is not upheld, but there will still be murk around the minister, will there not? That cannot possibly be fair and it is not balanced. That also assumes that their privacy will be protected throughout the process, but I would be shocked if it were, because leaks happen in such instances.

That is a fair comment. Who will publish the report every six months?

I will ask you about one more thing that I and committee members are a bit concerned about. Normally, capital cannot be used for day-to-day resource spending. It appears from the figures that we have been provided with that savings of around £150.1 million have been made in relation to the capital budget. Is it the intention for that to be spent on resource? Normally, money from capital is not spent in that way—for example, on salaries. We have seen money go the other way, from resource to capital, but that is not something that we see very often.

The flexibility that you are seeking is not normally permitted. Have you had any indication of whether it will be permitted in this case?

Okay. If we look at where the £150.1 million is drawn from, we can see that there is £60.9 million from net zero, energy and transport and certain amounts from rural affairs and islands, social justice, housing and local government. In relation to the latter, there would be a £10 million reduction for housing capital projects. Given the accelerating inflation in construction, which is higher than general inflation and the retail prices index, what impact would taking £10 million from that have on the affordable housing programme?

Item 3 is consideration of evidence on the Scottish Government’s continuous improvement programme and its updated complaints policy. On Friday, members received a letter from the Deputy First Minister containing additional information to inform today’s discussion. The letter and our meeting papers are available on the committee’s web pages.

We will take evidence from John Swinney, Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Covid Recovery. Mr Swinney is supported today by Ian Mitchell and Ashleigh Gray, who are Scottish Government officials. I welcome our witnesses to the meeting and invite Mr Swinney to make a short opening statement.

It is important to have objective criteria. You are absolutely right: you cannot encompass everything, but it is important to have that, because the public’s view of bullying might not be the same as that of the Scottish Government, particularly depending on how old someone is. In my younger days, bullying was only about violence and intimidation; now, of course, the perception of bullying has changed quite considerably. It has a much broader meaning, because there is a much greater understanding of psychological bullying. Of course, if someone is threatened with violence and intimidation, that is obviously psychological as well. There are other forms of bullying—for example, psychological bullying and passive aggression, which is an issue that might or might not be covered by the criteria—I would be interested in finding out whether it is. Can you give us some examples of objective criteria? I would appreciate that so that the public have a greater understanding of what you mean if you say, “Bullying was upheld because of the minister’s actions in terms of X, Y and Z.”