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Displaying 1196 contributions
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 23 January 2024
Michael Marra
So, if the total cost is £65.8 million, it feels to me, given the answers that you gave to my colleague, that the costs are pretty much going to be the same.
Let us take the health and social care partnership in Dundee. At the moment, there are 18 members sitting on that board and the votes are split equally. There are six voting members—three from local authorities and three from the health board. Are you proposing that we change that model?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 23 January 2024
Michael Marra
Do you mean that, if the committee had signed off the original FM, we would potentially have been looking at a bill of £3.9 billion?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 23 January 2024
Michael Marra
You do not know—okay. I think that that role is key. My view is that those organisations are non-strategic because of the critical interaction between the two sources of finance, and I am not hearing any clarity in the proposals about how you are going to deal with those finances differently. It is all tied up in the votes, as far as I can see. If you do not deal with that issue, I do not think that we have answers to that.
On the interaction with the national care board, from the answers that you have given, I am still struggling to understand the point at which a decision might be taken nationally to instruct one of the integration authorities to do something. Is that the relationship that you foresee?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 23 January 2024
Michael Marra
The intervention powers are already there and ministers can already do that. You have said that you want to increase local democratic accountability; I am wondering about the interaction between that and the national board. Suppose a local authority says that it does not have any money and is skint because it has had its budget cut for more than a decade—or probably for 15 years by then—and that it does not have any more money to put in. Is it your view that the national body will tell it to put money in?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 23 January 2024
Michael Marra
That is 30 million quid to not tell local authorities to do things differently, because you said that you do not envisage local authorities being told that they should do things differently or spend more money.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 23 January 2024
Michael Marra
I am keen to get on the record the costs in the first instance. We have quite an unusual set of papers. There was an original financial memorandum, then an updated financial memorandum, and now there is a new financial memorandum. According to the first set of figures in the original financial memorandum, the delivery could cost between £644 million and £1,261 million. Is that correct?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 23 January 2024
Michael Marra
Could you give me those extrapolated figures again, please?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 23 January 2024
Michael Marra
I have not heard that figure before, but that might just be ignorance on my part. The figure in the updated financial memorandum is £880 million to £2,192 million over 10 years. Is that correct?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 23 January 2024
Michael Marra
You said in one of your earlier answers that you want to enhance local democratic accountability. In the health and social care partnership in Dundee—the IJB or integration authority; they are the same thing—there are three elected members out of 18 people. Do you not think that there should be a majority of elected councillors on those bodies?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 23 January 2024
Michael Marra
How much is that national body going to cost, according to the memorandum?