Chamber and committees

Thank you very much. That concludes our questions for the moment. We will let you know, Dr Lombardi.

I welcome to the meeting Professor Graeme Roy, who is nominated as chair of the Scottish Fiscal Commission. As before, we will move straight to questions. [Interruption.] Who stole my questions during the interval? Ah, that is what it is—I wrote them on a completely different set of paper.

You have made it clear in your statement that you are passionate about the Scottish economy, Professor Roy. Why do you want to chair the Scottish Fiscal Commission and what would you change, introduce and improve to enhance the work of the commission?

You have talked a lot about communication; for example, in your statement you said:

“I would be keen to use my networks, including via the ESRC Economic Observatory, to extend the profile of the SFC.”

Can you talk a bit more about that?

Thank you very much.

We have almost exhausted our questions, although Daniel Johnson and I still have some.

Permanent secretary, we have discussed myriad issues this morning, including maintenance and improvement of ethics, openness and transparency, diversity, structure, improving data collection and retention, culture and behaviour, record keeping, outcomes, policy decisions, the relationship with Westminster and giving of evidence to committees.

However, we have not touched on a practical issue that exercises all members of the Scottish Parliament, which is ministerial responses to correspondence. Many MSPs, across the party divides, have expressed great frustration about the time that is taken to respond to letters on matters that are of extreme importance to our constituents, as you can imagine.

We realise that you have had staff issues in recent years because of Covid and so on, but the situation was not great before the pandemic. I have spoken to civil servants who deal with correspondence and I understand that a rigid process has to be undergone before a letter goes to a minister for sign-off. I appreciate that there can be a delay at that point.

What can be done to expedite the process? Also, what can be done to ensure that the response to a letter to a minister relates to the question that is asked? Sometimes I have waited six to eight weeks for a response, only to then be too embarrassed—frankly—to send it to the constituent.

Another issue is that when I send an urgent letter to a minister, it does not seem to be treated differently from a letter that might not be time stressed.

Also, I have recently had to chase up the ministerial correspondence unit on issues that I considered to be of major significance—not to an individual constituent, but more broadly to my constituency—when I have not even received an acknowledgment after six weeks. I note that Liz Smith is nodding fiercely at that comment. What can be done to deal with that very practical and pragmatic issue, which affects all of us?

Thank you very much for that very helpful opening statement.

The first point that I will touch on relates to structure, effectiveness and working practices. The civil service is reserved under schedule 5 to the Scotland Act 1998, but

“devolved administrations operate as a single organisation, which is designed to encourage cross-government working”.

When devolution occurred, it was agreed that there would be

“a new, more flexible structure designed to focus the activity of government on collective rather than departmental objectives”,

with a

“relatively compact governing structure”.

Do you feel that that has succeeded? I realise that you have been in post for only a number of weeks and that you are probably still looking at things, but how different do you feel the structure here is from the UK structure, and how do you intend to develop further a distinct Scottish civil service identity?

You have touched on delivery. I am intrigued by the idea of a delivery executive. Could you talk to us about it for a couple of minutes, please?

I am intrigued by the direction of travel. On 8 March, Emma Congreve of the Fraser of Allander Institute said:

“when it comes to the big decisions being made on the budget and on the spending review, things are still very compressed and a little bit too siloed”.—[Official Report, Finance and Public Administration Committee, 8 March 2022; c 19.]

On 9 November, when we heard from Professor Jim Mitchell of the University of Edinburgh, Stephen Boyle said:

“It is not clear whether”

Government has

“yet moved on from what appears to be quite a risk-averse approach in harnessing innovation and learning from failures.”—[Official Report, Finance and Public Administration Committee, 9 November 2021; c 28.]

In the context of the collective working that we discussed, how do you respond to that? I realise that that latter comment was made before you came into post, but how can we move on and take an approach that is not high risk but—how can I put this—at least less risk averse and more innovative?

“Scotland’s Open Government Action Plan 2021-25”, published on 25 March, aims to

“promote Open Government values of openness, accountability, transparency and involving people”.

In response to another question earlier, you said that you did not take a defensive position. However, as you will be aware, the committee wrote to your predecessor, Leslie Evans, on 9 March expressing its disappointment that she had failed to engage with the committee regarding its invitation to give evidence. I think that it would be fair to say that your response to that was quite a defensive position. I think that that view is shared by all members of the committee. For example, you said:

“as civil servants, we must always appear on behalf of or to represent the views of our Ministers, and not in a personal capacity, always consistent with the Civil Service Code”.

However, the protocol between the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government in relation to the handling of committee business notes that:

“A committee may invite officials alone (i.e. not accompanying a Minister) to attend a meeting for the purpose of giving oral evidence on any relevant matter which is within the official’s area of expertise and for which the Scottish Government has general responsibility”.

Do you accept that latter comment? In hindsight, do you not feel that it would have been better if Leslie Evans had come along and given evidence? That would not have been on what was discussed at committee last year; rather, given her many years of experience, we could have reflected on some of her successes in the job and had some pointers about where the civil service could go in the future.

I call a five-minute break so that members can get coffee and so on before Professor Roy steps up to the plate.