Seòmar agus comataidhean

Michelle Hegarty, do you want to add something? Okay, you are feeling confident. I am sure that the committee will scrutinise that.

I will pick up on something else. Jackson Carlaw, you are probably pleased that we are not talking about the information technology system today. I felt more than a little sympathy for you last time we met, because you are accountable—rather than responsible—for the operation of that huge outfit.

I have two questions. You are probably aware that, under our remit for public administration, the committee will be looking at decision making, as a discipline in and of itself, within the Scottish Government. I have recently seen examples of risk assessment decisions being made, based on the probability of an adverse outcome, but looking at the impact on only one key stakeholder group. That is an obvious example. Given that you are accountable, Jackson, and that there are professional staff in place, how do you assess your accountability? How do you know that the decision making is as robust as it can be? I appreciate that you are doing a very good job on behalf of all parliamentarians, but you are quite exposed. How do you assess that risk to yourself? You get it in the neck if things go slightly awry.

I utterly appreciate and understand that; based on my previous career, I would consider what you are describing as the norm and what I would expect to see in place. I am probing the fact that where you have collaborative bodies that work well together and people are generally nice and get on well, it introduces a risk of groupthink, where insufficient challenge creeps in over a period, just because people are nice and believe that each side is doing a professional piece of work. There is no reason why they would not think so. That may well come up again in our decision-making inquiry.

How robustly do you ensure healthy tension as a body, given that that is absolutely necessary and can diminish over time in any organisation? Are you actively putting that at the forefront? I am thinking particularly of you, Jackson, given that you are accountable and it is your neck on the line.

My next question concerns the disaggregation of data, which is a theme that I keep following. I ask organisations, including the SPCB, whether they routinely disaggregate all the data that they collect by sex, because we cannot effect change without that. However, every time I ask that question of any body, I find that the answer is no. They do not routinely disaggregate the data. If we do not do that, how can we effect change to ensure parity? I put that same question to you.

Good morning, and thank you for attending today. I echo Jackson Carlaw’s comments about the staff. The operation of the Parliament is a huge undertaking: many people do not appreciate that. I will happily take up the offer of a tour of the basement and promise not to press any red buttons.

Slightly unusually, I start by going back to Brexit and taking issue with the convener. If I were in a similar position to you, I would need to give careful consideration to the number of full-time equivalent posts required for forthcoming work on Brexit. I know from anecdotal conversations with the clerks that the number of legislative consent memorandums, and the complexity and scrutiny of that work, has been quite considerable in the past year. When I talk about retained European Union law and the back-end scrutiny of that in the coming year, that is usually greeted by horror from the clerks whom I speak to, because so much is unknown.

I am not certain about the specific additional head count provision that you have made for Brexit, given that retained EU law might lead to circa 4,000 pieces of legislation folding. I am sure that it will not come to that, but the number is certainly considerable. What is the specific head count and how confident are you in the provision of that head count?

Where you collect data, do you routinely disaggregate it for every data item? The issue flows into your procurement policy and so on. Only by collecting data can we start to move that forward.

I will leave that with you as something to think about. Whether you routinely disaggregate all data that is collected by gender is a valid question. It flows through into procurement, for example. Do you know whether you have equitability in your procurement with regard to women-led businesses? That is an issue for many facets of the Parliament, as I am coming across.

Good morning, Deputy First Minister. I will pick up on a couple of points that the convener posited. On capital expenditure, you have given a clear rationale around the global economic considerations, and said that you might therefore seek to delay rather than stop projects. That makes me think that every capital project will be impacted by what you describe and therefore that every capital project could be delayed. Could you give any more flavour as to the type of project that you have in mind?

Thank you for that clarification. You mentioned construction, and we know that we still have a chronic undersupply of affordable housing and a massive pent-up demand that goes back years. Are you able to give any more flavour at this point of the type of project or sector on which you might seek to impose a delay for the circumstances that you have outlined?

It was mentioned earlier that the capex figure is set to fall by 2.9 per cent in real terms. I know that consideration of terms of reference for the fiscal framework review is under way, but do you sense any increasing urgency for that, given the probably fairly common calls for an increase in capex borrowing powers for the Scottish Government? Do you sense any increased urgency from the UK Government?

Net zero is a particular concern in the context of capex. We know that it will involve difficult decisions; indeed, you have commented that there will be genuinely difficult decisions for Scotland that will require significant long-term private investment and behaviour change. I wondered what you meant by “behaviour change” in that context.