Chamber and committees

Well, 2.9 to 3.6 times the cost is still better than 5.5 times the cost for the Ayrshire schools programme in my area, or 15 times higher for the Edinburgh royal infirmary, but it is still a lot of money at a time when resources are not exactly abundant and would have to contribute towards that. I have concerns about that.

The Scottish Funding Council said:

“having a radical review of roles and responsibilities, almost putting finance to one side, could be beneficial”.—[Official Report, Finance and Public Administration Committee, 24 February 2026; c 38.]

That touches on the zero-budgeting model that we have raised in the committee on a number of occasions. Will more be done in that area? The committee felt that the responses to our requests in that area were not dealt with in any great detail and there was not any great commitment to that. At a time of financial difficulty, going back to first principles—although we accept that it is not something that can be done overnight—that model could be a way to release additional funds.

Good morning, and welcome to the 10th meeting in 2026 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee. We have received apologies from Patrick Harvie.

The first item on the agenda is an evidence session on the Scottish spending review and infrastructure delivery pipeline 2026. We are joined by Shona Robison MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government. The cabinet secretary is accompanied by the following Scottish Government officials: Richard McCallum, director of public spending, and Cathy Sumner, head of the public spending team. I wish all three of you a good morning and welcome you to the meeting. Before we move to questions, I invite the cabinet secretary to make a short opening statement.

We will get back under way now, because we are over our time—apologies to the permanent secretary and his officials.

The second item on our agenda is an evidence session with Joe Griffin, the permanent secretary to the Scottish Government, on issues relating to public administration in the Government. Mr Griffin is joined by Scottish Government officials Lesley Fraser, director general corporate, and—once again this morning—Richard McCallum, director of public spending. I welcome you all to the meeting, and I invite Mr Griffin to make a short opening statement. Good morning, Mr Griffin.

Thank you for those kind comments and, indeed, for your opening statement, which was very helpful.

When you were previously at committee, nine months ago, you were asked about the Scottish Government’s plans to reduce the civil service workforce, and you said that you did not have a figure for its optimal size. You had been in post only a relatively short time, so, nine months later, I wonder whether you now have an optimal size for the civil service.

I am struggling to get numbers here. Let us just change tack a little bit.

The recruitment freeze seems to go from one extreme to the other. Surely there are specialists within your team who might decide to leave for whatever reason—they might become unwell and have to leave, or whatever. If you have a recruitment freeze, is that not a bit extreme? There might be occasions when you simply need to replace certain individuals. I am looking at Lesley Fraser and Richard McCallum, on either side of you, for example. I am sure that you have succession planning, but it does not always work out.

Everyone was expected to do two days a week. Where are we with that? Is it 60, 70, 80 or 90 per cent of people who are doing that?

How can we tell what percentage of the workforce is actually following the two-day thing? It is apples and oranges. I am pretty sure that, when you gave evidence to the committee previously, you talked about people having to do two days a week, not about the capacity of buildings.

Social security has been devolved, so I understand that there might be a need for one or two more advisers. However, it seems as though there is a higher number than under previous First Ministers in previous Administrations. Is that not the case? It just seems a bit unnecessary.

Okay, thanks. I am going to make myself popular, am I not?

Let us look at something else. The committee has expressed concern in relation to the baselining of all routine in-year transfers. I am talking specifically about comparing the autumn budget revision figures to the draft budget. Tremendous progress has been made over the years on the quality of data that we are given for the spring and autumn budget revisions. There used to be a couple of dozen pages, but now we get big tomes of 150 pages that are full of detail, which is great. A lot of work has been done to align budgets with the ABR, so that we can see what is being spent and where the draft budget will take us with the most recently published figures.

However, the Scottish Fiscal Commission has pointed out that around £610 million is not routinely baselined. You have gone a long way towards a more transparent presentation of the figures, but surely consistency to ensure that all the figures are presented in that way would be much more beneficial.

I have another question before Richard comes in. Is the aim to ensure that there is alignment perhaps next year or the year after, so that we have full transparency? You are making a lot of progress, so it seems disappointing that it is not being done across the board.