Chamber and committees

Last week, we had some very interesting conversations with the OBR about some of the challenges that forecasters are facing. I suspect that we might have similar discussions with the Scottish Fiscal Commission in the evidence session this morning. I raise that because the OBR expressed considerable frustration about the recent spring statement, as its projections on welfare spending were based on policy commitments that the UK Government had made but that were no longer the case. The statement made short-term and late adjustments, creating considerable frustration and difficulties for the OBR. In Scotland, the Scottish Fiscal Commission expressed its concerns that the mitigation of the two-child cap came very late in the day.

I know that you cannot comment on policy or on whether the right policy is in place, but do you think that Governments making very late announcements is creating genuine challenges and difficulties for forecasters and, therefore, for people like yourself, who are having to audit what is happening? Is that causing greater difficulty?

Thank you for all the excellent work that you do. I want to ask about the challenge of trying to measure the effect of putting more money into something to improve outcomes against measures that are not related to money. The reason I ask this is that, some years back—it was probably about 10 or 12 years ago—Reform Scotland did an interesting study on the considerable increase in the amount of money that had gone into education in Scotland in the context of declining outcomes in literacy, numeracy and some other issues.

Building on what the convener said, more and more money is being put into health—that is what has happened in Scotland. Some of the outcomes are not encouraging at all, while others are. How easy is it to get a handle on the effectiveness of measures that are financial—that is, measures that are down to more money being put in—against other measures that are having a positive effect but have nothing to do with money?

It was more than that—it was about 15 or 16 years ago.

The OECD’s recent analysis of the pre-pandemic and post-pandemic working population is also interesting, because it flags up that the UK does not come out of it very well and that we have not recovered to our pre-pandemic levels, either in the UK or in Scotland, whereas a lot of other countries have. Do you have any ideas about why that has happened?

That is very helpful. Thank you.

That is helpful. The other side of the coin, but very much a related point, is the fact that there is an increasing imbalance between the working population and the dependent population, which is what you have been flagging up. If we are going to close some of the fiscal gap, the other part of the policy has to ensure that the working population is able and willing to work, apart from anything else, and that it is also able to widen the tax base and return the revenues that we need in order to fill some of the gap.

There is lots of discussion at the moment about the working population and how we attract more people back into the workforce. Again, I do not want you to comment on the policy, because I know that you will not do that, but how easy is it to measure the effectiveness of those policies for getting more people who can work and should work back into the labour market?

It is just that it was quite striking that the OECD report showed that we are not doing very well in relation to other countries. There must be lessons in the fact that we are not getting enough people back into the workforce for whatever reason. We cannot set the policy until we know why people are not coming back into the labour market in the ways that we would like. Anyway, thank you for that.

Would Mr Greer comment on whether he thinks that part of the issue that we are facing is that we are trying to put structures around education in Scotland without knowing what the future vision of education in Scotland will be?

I speak with a bit of experience, having sat on the Parliament’s education committee, along with other members around the table, on two separate occasions—under Mike Russell and then under John Swinney as education secretaries—where we tried, and I think that we all failed, to come to an agreement about what the vision of education in Scotland should be, and therefore what the structure should be.

I have been following this debate quite carefully. There is a danger that we will create structures that do not necessarily articulate the vision that we are trying to establish. Would Mr Greer agree with that?

Does the member accept that the weakness that he has just identified—rightly, in my opinion—is hampering improvements in educational standards, because the system does not have sufficient trust or sufficient accountability? That is creating some of the limbo that he has mentioned for parents, pupils and teachers.

Thank you for your evidence so far. I want to ask about a specific issue. Although you are obviously not responsible for policy making, you have to respond to it. In recent times, at the UK and Scottish levels, we have seen some very late adjustments. At the time of the spring budget statement in the UK, the OBR stated that the welfare reforms would not deliver as much money as the Government had previously estimated, and so last-minute adjustments had to be made.

In Scotland, the Scottish Government was very late in announcing its mitigation of the two-child cap, and it did not provide enough information in time for the SFC to build that into a forecast. To what extent do such adjustments present a problem with forecasting? I know that you cannot set the policy in any sense, but does it create considerable difficulties when Governments make changes to their policy proposals that are a bit late for forecasting?