Chamber and committees

I am almost tempted to leave that as the final word, because it is so important.

Nonetheless, I want to follow up on some of the points that have been made about freedom of information requests. I challenge the point about the importance of legal advice, because I do not believe that the issue is limited to that.

On 8 April, the Financial Times published an article that resulted from a freedom of information request on communications on its original FOI request regarding the Gupta guarantees. Among those communications, there was an email from 29 September between civil servants in the Scottish Government in which the following was stated:

“Here is the long-awaited decision in the Lochaber smelter appeal. Unsurprisingly, the Commissioner has not upheld our s.33(1)(b) arguments, as we have been predicting since at least the review stage. That said, I imagine this is not what Economic Development colleagues were hoping for. I’ll start thinking about what we say to them”.

The point is that it is very clear that officials in the Scottish Government were knowingly withholding information following requests, when they knew that it was highly likely that that decision would be overturned by appeal. Furthermore, those final sentences seem to suggest that there was internal pressure on them to do so.

It is one thing to withhold information on principle, and another to defend that on request. However, when you start knowingly to withhold information, while knowing that you are highly likely to have to reveal that information on appeal, are you not into slightly different territory? Are you not actually knowingly withholding information, and is that not suppression?

The most recent Scottish Fiscal Commission report, which came out in December, was very interesting and revealing. Some of the issues that it discusses are ones that the committee has pursued vigorously. However, even in the short time since that report was published, a lot has changed. We have seen the war in Ukraine and its impact on energy prices, which has fuelled inflation. That was already a concern, but it has been amplified. It strikes me that we are dealing with times in which we are having lots of black swan events. Further back, we had the credit crunch just 10 years ago, and these things seem to be happening more regularly.

Given that the commission’s role is to forecast, what is your view on how we can anticipate and accommodate such risks? Once such things have happened, how should we revise our forecasts? Will you give us some thoughts on how we deal with that?

The key point of contention is around a person’s status while they are working out their notice—whether they continue to be a civil servant or whether they are an employee of the organisation.

However, I will move on, because we have already hinted at some important things that we need to concentrate on. Your point about people having confidence in the civil service is very important—that is probably one of the most important roles and duties of your office. In a parliamentary democracy, having an impartial and independent civil service is critical. In order to maintain that, in its simplest form, it is important that ministers decide and civil servants act. You preserve that distinction by having clear roles and, importantly—as has been hinted at—accurate record keeping. Do you agree with that principle? Do any issues cause you concern? Is there a need to review and reform that record keeping and that clarity of decision making?

I would be keen to correspond or meet about that. Finally, you have agreed to come back with an outline of your approach on record keeping. Can I confirm that you will include in that your understanding of the requirements in the civil service’s “The Green Book”, the Scottish public finance manual and the Public Finance and Accountability (Scotland) Act 2000 on record keeping on those sorts of decisions and others.

The basic principle is relatively straightforward—it is about what we would have got under the block grant and the difference that policy makes—but the implementation of it is fearsomely complicated, which is tricky.

To move on a bit but following my previous line of questioning, it really strikes me that we are now facing inflation, and that it is the first time in around 30 years that that has been a major component of what we are doing. Your point about the contrast between the current context and that of the 1990s is well made.

What difference does that make to the business of forecasting, especially when the anticipated inflation rate is changing quite quickly? Six months ago, we were alarmed at the prospect of a 5 to 6 per cent inflation rate, and it now looks like the rate might well hit higher peaks. What difference does that make to the work of the SFC and to forecasting in general?

I begin, in contrast to my colleague John Mason, by saying that I totally understand why someone would be interested in coming to a small country, but one with very strong links to the other countries on these islands and indeed with Europe. However, one of the issues with small countries is that they sometimes do not see far beyond their borders. Especially when we are looking at the challenges that are in front of us right now, it is really important to be alive to the global economic issues.

With that in mind, and given your experience in San Marino, what do you think the issues are and how can smaller countries overcome those challenges and look beyond their boundaries?

Does the Fiscal Commission do those things sufficiently in its forecasting? Does it monitor the risks and incorporate the measures and techniques that you have just outlined?

I first want to follow on from some of the previous lines of questioning. An interesting point was made about public awareness of economic issues and the role of the Fiscal Commission. However, more fundamentally, I wonder whether we need people to understand how the fiscal framework works and, in particular, how block grant adjustment works. Frankly, I am not convinced that most people in the Parliament understand that. How possible is it to achieve that? The block grant adjustment is a very synthetic beast. It is not as simple as just counting up the tax receipts to find out how much money you have, as the UK Government does—it is a very hypothetical system. How do we improve awareness and understanding of that?

I do not want to concentrate on this but, to follow on from the convener’s line of questioning, do you accept that, as an office holder, you do not inherit all your predecessor’s knowledge and experience? It is not as though you are Dr Who. Do you accept that it is relevant to ask someone to come to the committee to ask about particular circumstances and their reflections on them?

For example, Mr Johnston, who is sitting next to you, has not always been in communities; he was previously in education and justice. If a particular decision had taken place regarding education, even though he is now working in communities, it would be relevant for us to ask him about that. I do not have anything particular in mind, but do you accept that it is sometimes relevant to ask previous office holders about their decisions and the experiences that they had while they were in office rather than the current incumbent?

I am sorry to interrupt, as I have no doubt that that is very important—in the information age, managing information is incredibly complicated, especially in organisations as large as the civil service—but the question is not about information; it is about ensuring that decision making is recorded correctly. The British civil service has a reputation for, and a heritage of, meticulous record keeping, which is about recording specific decisions—saying what was decided, by whom and when. That is what has gone wrong here.

I accept Mr Marks’s characterisation that there is a lot of documentation about the Ferguson Marine matter, but I have two specific questions. That variation was a clear material change to the contract, which would require not just a ministerial decision but for that specific decision to be documented. Indeed, in his evidence to the Public Audit Committee, Mr Boyle suggested that the Scottish public finance manual would require documentation of decision making, and there are questions about whether the Public Finance and Accountability (Scotland) Act 2000 and the civil service green book would also require such documentation.

First, do you accept that it was a critical decision that should have been documented? Secondly, do you accept that that might have been a legal requirement?