Chamber and committees

Apologies, minister, for rewinding the clock slightly to talk about franchising. There is a little bit of mission drift in some of the questions, but this is for my own clarity. Clearly, we have to learn lessons on franchising from elsewhere, but my experience in Glasgow is that there are some very profitable routes. I think of the 61 bus in my constituency, where you can pack them in, the bus is always full and there is a high frequency of service. However, after a certain time at night, you cannot get the 8 or the 90; there are connectivity issues in my constituency. Quite often, routes are subsidised—I think that the minister mentioned £55 million-worth of subsidies. If franchising were to roll out in a meaningful way and routes were bundled as part of the franchising process, should we expect to see that public subsidy in other areas, where bus companies withdraw from a service because they have no compulsion to continue to offer a commercial service and require a public subsidy? Could we see a shift in that relationship with franchising? Has there been modelling work done in that regard? You do not need to answer today necessarily, but I am keen to better understand that relationship, because it is central to a lot of it.

I was not grilling you on that, minister.

Does the Fiscal Commission build in a tolerance level in relation to that £1.5 billion? I absolutely get the point—your forecast could be dramatically blown off course by a significant policy change at a UK or a Scottish level, or by an unforeseen event. Does the Fiscal Commission build in a 5 per cent tolerance or a 10 per cent tolerance? I do not even know whether that is a thing, as this is not my area. If your forecast is £1.5 billion, would you say that that could be 10 per cent higher or 10 per cent lower, based on a range of judgments? If so, what is the tolerance level around that?

Thanks for putting that on the record.

You have probably guessed the final part of my question. You say that you need a bit more time. The Scottish Government is committed to reviewing all of this in the round, but it cannot do that unless it is confident that it has robust baseline data. Quite rightly, you need a bit more time, but the committee needs to plan how we wish to scrutinise all of that. What do you think “a bit more time” looks like? When will things have stabilised so that we have that baseline data?

I apologise, Professor Roy: I am almost treating you as though you are a politician, which you are absolutely not. If I had asked this question of a minister or a cabinet secretary, invariably my colleague would have said, “The financial year 2024-25.”

Once Social Security Scotland gives outturn figures for all of that and they can be verified, validated and analysed, are you good to go on this? If so, what is the timescale for that? We would ask that question of the politicians, but the politicians would have to ask others. I feel as though we are asking the experts directly.

That is useful clarification, Professor Ulph. I absolutely get that and would never try to draw you on the merits of policy intent, but politicians have to make informed decisions on costings, because there are lots of things that we would like to do but we always have to be able to afford them and budget for them—not just from year to year, but in the longer term. That is why this evidence session is particularly important.

On the baseline data, the Scottish Fiscal Commission notes with regard to the adult disability payment that

“the average award level for new applications has not yet stabilised”.

By “average award level”, do you mean the number of award applications that are successful, the level of award or a combination of both? More importantly, when would you expect that to stabilise? Would that become more baseline data on which you would advise the Scottish Government about modelling work for any future changes?

I do not have any more questions. That was really helpful.

I have a brief supplementary question to Mr Balfour’s question, which I thought was really important.

Clearly, ADP and PIP are two different things but they are being run similarly at the moment, with the same criteria. Professor Roy has outlined why we could have greater uptake here under the same criteria, depending on the culture and systems that we put in place to encourage applications. However, once the migration of PIP to ADP is complete, the Scottish Government will review the criteria, including, for example, the rule about a person’s ability to move 20m. The reason for not reviewing those criteria now is that, in Scotland, one qualifying household could be assessed under the criteria for PIP while another could be assessed under the criteria for ADP. Once all are assessed together under ADP, there will be new criteria.

Will the Scottish Fiscal Commission have a role in doing further modelling work to see what the additional benefit would be to disabled households in Scotland and what the additional costs would be in budgetary terms? Would you expect to be actively involved in that?

I love your comment that you do not just make the numbers up. I am glad that you put that on the record.

Convener, I had another question, as you know, but I realise that you need to manage the time. Perhaps I could come in if there is time at the end.