- Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 10 December 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Tom McCabe on 24 December 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive what the terms are of the planned review of financial planning systems, as referred to in Building a Better Scotland — Efficient Government, Securing Efficiency, Effectiveness and Productivity.
Answer
Paragraph 36 of
Building aBetter Scotland: Efficient Government – Securing Efficiency, Effectiveness and Productivity statesthat the Scottish Executive is currently working to develop a new approach to long-termfinancial modelling and planning to ensure that long-term spending activity is moreeffectively aligned with corporate priorities. This has considerable potential toachieve more efficient use of public expenditure.
The terms of the project areto develop a long-term financial planning model for use within the Executive. Theintention is to develop a long-term platform to enable consistency of assumptionsand scenarios. This will enable better strategic decision making and control withinthe Executive which will allow targeting of resources to where they will achievegreatest value. The project is at an early planning stage; it will draw on expertisefrom within the public and private sector in developing the model.
- Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 10 December 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Tom McCabe on 24 December 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive why £745 million is referred to as the cash-saving target in Building a Better Scotland — Efficient Government, Securing Efficiency, Effectiveness and Productivity, if the target in that document over a three-year period is £1,732 million of savings.
Answer
On the basis of currently confirmedplans, £745 million is the amount of cash-releasing efficiency savings that willbe recurring annually from 2007-08 from a baseline of 2004-05.
£1,732 million is the amountof cash-releasing efficiency savings that will be made over the three-year periodfrom 2005-06 to 2007-08 on the basis of currently confirmed plans.
- Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 10 December 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Tom McCabe on 24 December 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive how it envisages that planned savings, as referred to in Building a Better Scotland — Efficient Government, Securing Efficiency, Effectiveness and Productivity, will be reported to the Parliament.
Answer
Paragraph 50 of the Efficient Government Plan Building a Better Scotland: Efficient Government – Securing Efficiency, Effectivenessand Productivity states that we willreport regularly to the Finance Committee of the Scottish Parliament on the progresswe make in delivering efficiency savings. I will write to the Convenor of the FinanceCommittee in due course to discuss the most appropriate means of reporting progressto the committee.
- Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 09 December 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Tom McCabe on 23 December 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive what the forecast overall rates income is for 2005-06 and how this estimate compares to the most recent estimated total rates income for 2004-05, given its aim of ensuring that there is no overall increase in rates burden on businesses in 2005-06.
Answer
The current forecast of non-domestic rate income (NDRI) for 2005‑06 is £1,951 million. The most recent forecast of 2004‑05 NDRI, based on notified returns submitted by local authorities in October 2004, is £1,813 million. However it is also forecast that some £90 million of NDRI in 2005-06 will have to be refunded in future years as a result of successful appeals against new valuations.
- Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 09 December 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Tom McCabe on 23 December 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive what the cumulative savings, as a percentage of the Scottish Departmental Expenditure Limit for 2007-08, are as a result of the plans referred to in Building a Better Scotland - Efficient Government, Securing Efficiency, Effectiveness and Productivity.
Answer
The Scottish Executive Departmental Expenditure Limit (DEL) for 2007-08 is £25,718 million. This excludes the Scottish Parliament, Audit Scotland and the Contingency Fund.
We have currently identified £650 million of recurring annual cash-releasing saving from within the DEL in 2007-08, which is 2.53% of the Scottish Executive DEL for 2007-08. In addition, we will make further efficiencies of £95 million a year from Scottish Water and further time and cash releasing savings.
- Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 09 December 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Tom McCabe on 23 December 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-10335 by Mr Andy Kerr on 21 September 2004 on non-domestic rate income since 1996, whether it will publish comparable non-domestic rate income (NDRI) data for 2003-04 and estimated NDRI for 2004-05 and 2005-06.
Answer
Figures on a comparable basis to those in the answer to S2W-10335 are shown in the following table. The figures appearing in the budget documents contain prior year adjustments whereas the returns from local authorities are actual in-year receipts.
| Year | Budget Provision for Distributable NDRI (£) | Actual NDRI* (£) |
| 2003‑04 | 1,804,423,000 | 1,706,034,8811 |
| 2004-05 | 1,873,817,000 | |
| 2005-06 | 2,008,817,000 | |
Source: Budget Publications.
Source: Returns submitted by local authorities to the Scottish Executive.
Note: 1. Notified return (pre-audit).
- Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 06 December 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Tom McCabe on 23 December 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive whether, as part of the Efficient Government Review, it intends to publish an equivalent Scottish analysis to that presented in tables 4.1 and 4.2 of Sir Peter Gershon"s report, Releasing resources to the front line: Independent Review of Public Sector Efficiency and, if so, what the timetable is.
Answer
Building a Better Scotland: Efficient Government – Securing Efficiency, Effectiveness and Productivity has a table on page 4 similar to table 4.1 of the Gershon report insofar as cash-releasing savings are concerned. Paragraph 24 of the document commits the Executive to publishing technical notes on the identified projects to secure £300 million per annum of additional time-releasing efficiencies by April 2005. Table 4.2 outlines a substance list of job cuts and here in Scotland we do not believe that this is the correct way to approach this issue. We will not be producing a similar table. It does not have a table similar to table 4.2 of the Gershon report. The Scottish Executive has not set a target for job reductions in the civil service or wider Scottish public sector and does not propose to publish a table similar to that of table 4.2 in Sir Peter Gershon’s report.
- Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 December 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Tom McCabe on 22 December 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive in what ways HM Treasury and the Gershon implementation team will be kept in touch with progress on the Executive's Efficient Government plans.
Answer
The Efficient Government Team is in regular contact with the Gershon implementation team at the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) to share information and approaches to delivering efficiency savings.
- Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 December 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Tom McCabe on 22 December 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive whether £745 million or £1,732 million has been reallocated from administration to frontline services and, if the latter figure, what the savings items were which made this possible.
Answer
Over the three year period from 2005-06 to 2007-08, £1,732 million of efficiency savings will be invested in improving public services. From 2007-08, a minimum of £745 million a year of efficiency savings will be invested in improving public services.
- Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 December 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Tom McCabe on 22 December 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive whether Audit Scotland will confirm that the savings contained in Building a Better Scotland — Securing Efficiency Effectiveness and Productivity have been delivered as well as auditing the system for delivering efficiency.
Answer
We will invite Audit Scotland to audit the system for delivering efficiency savings and to confirm that the efficiency savings have been made.
