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At the committee’s previous pre-budget scrutiny session, Ross Haggart stated that the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service may have to save £14 million next year on the basis of a flat-cash budget, and that that was a “conservative estimate”. He said that that would equate to 339 full-time equivalent officers and 18 fewer appliances that could be crewed. What is your response to that comment?

But will the transfer of HMP Kilmarnock from Serco to the SPS not have a big impact on this year’s budget?

Is £1.4 million the cost just to transfer the prison from Serco to the SPS?

I have one final question. The retained duty system, which provides the primary fire cover for around 80 per cent of the geography in Scotland, is losing one tenth of its on-call firefighters every year and the service cannot recruit or retain enough replacements. What additional funding could you provide to address the vacancy level and ensure that terms and conditions are standardised for retained firefighters?

Is taking HMP Kilmarnock back into the public sector best value for money for the public purse? Have you considered taking any current best practices at Kilmarnock and implementing them in the SPS system?

I do not know whether you could tell me a better figure, but I have heard that extra on-going costs, not including the £1.4 million just for the transfer from Serco to SPS, could be £3 million to £5 million. Have you taken any best practice learnings from Serco?

Are you concerned about the safety aspects of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service not getting enough budget? If appliances are unable to be crewed, there will be an increased response time. I cover quite a big rural area, and the response times would be reduced there. Are you worried about the fire service’s ability to respond quickly to fires if it does not get the further funding that it needs?

Your submission states that the transfer of HMP Kilmarnock into public ownership is one of the “key pressure areas” and that

“A full assessment of any likely budgetary requirements for the transfer of the asset into public ownership is currently underway.”

Has that assessment been completed? The transfer is due to take place in four months.

Thanks. Just one quick—

Those are the kinds of costs that I am talking about. There will be costs for basic things such as uniforms, but there will also be costs relating to procurement. For example, you said that the price of food has resulted in your costs increasing by 40 per cent. I imagine that all Serco’s contracts will stop on 16 March, so you will have to have new contracts in place on 17 March. I thought that you might have a better idea of the impact that that will have on your budget, given that the transfer will take place in four months.

Good morning, Auditor General. You report that data limitations of the infrastructure investment plan meant that you have been able to account for how only £14.9 billion of the planned total investment of £26 billion has or will be allocated. Will you tell us more about those data limitations?