The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.
All Official Reports of meetings in the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament.
All Official Reports of public meetings of committees.
Displaying 1319 contributions
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 30 November 2021
Douglas Lumsden
You are right. Tillydrone hub in Aberdeen involved a great collaboration. What is holding us back from having more of that? Is it to do with finance or is it more about banging heads together?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 9 November 2021
Douglas Lumsden
My last question is about health and social care. There have been a large amount of Barnett consequentials—I think that a total of £700 million is shown—and there is an extra £24.5 million from the Home Office. It seems that not all of that money is being spent on health and social care and that it is being moved to other budgets. Is that correct?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 9 November 2021
Douglas Lumsden
Will additional funding go to local government to pay for the pay offer or do local authorities have to find that money themselves?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 9 November 2021
Douglas Lumsden
Yes. The table on that page shows that there is a cut of approximately 33 per cent to the spending on learning. Is that fair, or is that money being spent elsewhere within the budget? The committee received a lot of evidence that we have a big skills shortage in Scotland.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 9 November 2021
Douglas Lumsden
Is that the same with housing, for example? I think that there is a 20 per cent cut—£205 million. Has the money been allocated to another department for it to spend on housing instead?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 9 November 2021
Douglas Lumsden
We might look at that and think initially that it is a cut to the housing budget, but it is not really that. Money has been allocated to another department to spend on that area.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 9 November 2021
Douglas Lumsden
To go back to Daniel Johnson’s earlier comment about the different boundaries that exist, given that there are 14 health boards and 32 local authorities, do we have any hope of success without real structural change? Do we just have to bite the bullet and agree that we need a big overhaul of public services across the board?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 9 November 2021
Douglas Lumsden
My next question concerns education and skills. I refer to page 43 of the papers.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 9 November 2021
Douglas Lumsden
So there is no overall reduction in the amount of funding for education and skills. Is that correct?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 9 November 2021
Douglas Lumsden
Therefore, when we see an increase of £724 million and the proposed budget going up by only £473 million, that does not mean that the NHS has been short-changed by a quarter of a billion pounds; rather, the money is simply being spent by other departments almost on behalf of the health and social care department. Is that correct?