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I am tempted to ask a whole barrage of questions on that, but time is against us. The Deputy First Minister is waiting for us to ask him questions on the budget. Your answers have been very comprehensive and we have overrun our time quite significantly. I thank you for your contributions and members for their questions.

We will have a break until 11 o’clock to enable a change of witnesses.

Thank you very much for that opening statement.

Over the next few weeks, we will have three debates. There will be a committee debate on our report on budget scrutiny and then there will be debates in the chamber on stages 1 and 3 of the Budget (Scotland) (No 2) Bill. We will end up having a tussle over the budget across the party divide, so I believe that one of the most important steps that we can take is to clarify the figures.

Let us look at where we are. At the very start of the 2023-24 budget document, the budget is set against inflation of 11.1 per cent, yet the Scottish block grant has declined by 4.8 per cent in real terms over two years. However, that is calculated by using a GDP deflator of 3.2 per cent, which I should point out is the usual comparator for analysing real-terms changes in public spending. As the Office for Budget Responsibility and the Scottish Fiscal Commission have highlighted, that approach does not capture the realities that the public sector faces, whereas if the consumer prices index were to be used to measure inflation, it would show UK funding to be 10.8 per cent lower than it was two years ago.

However, although those are the figures in the document, when the Scottish Parliament information centre looked at the same figures, it found that

“resource is due to increase by 3.7% in real terms in 2023-24 and capital is set to fall by 2.9% in real terms.”

Do we accept those figures, which, superficially, appear to be contradictory, or are the figures different because the balance has shifted between the block grant and the taxes that are being raised?

Just one more question from me, based on what you have been saying, with a bit of a glint in your eye, I think, over the past few minutes, which is about expectations and predictions. You talked about the legal requirement to make the books balance and you talked about contingency elements being unresolved. In the interests of transparency, what sum of money are we talking about that remains unresolved?

Thank you for that.

On that note, I thank the Deputy First Minister for his evidence and I thank his officials for their work. I also thank colleagues around the table.

Good morning and welcome to the first meeting in 2023 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee. I wish you all a happy new year.

We have a single item on our agenda, which involves taking evidence from two panels of witnesses on the 2023-24 Scottish budget. First, we will hear from the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body on its own budget bid; we will then take evidence from the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Covid Recovery.

For the first panel of witnesses, Jackson Carlaw MSP, who is a member of the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body, is joined by Scottish Parliament officials. David McGill is clerk and chief executive of the Scottish Parliament; Michelle Hegarty is deputy chief executive; and Sara Glass is group head of financial governance. I welcome all of you to the meeting.

I understand that Mr Carlaw would like to make a short opening statement.

In other words, it is “steady as she goes”.

A total of £2.213 million is being spent on software and licences. What is the split between software support and licences?

I was hoping to find out how the costs for software and licences could be split up. It is like the question about the difference between contractors and permanent staff—I would like to see more directly where the money is going.

That would be great.

I have a question about another area—one that I do not think my colleagues will be queueing up to ask. It is about the issue of MSPs’ salaries. You mention an increase of 1.5 per cent. I will come back to that. The figure goes from £13.482 million to £13.499 million. I could not understand that, because a 1.5 per cent increase would have been £190,000, but the increase is only £17,000. Are there a couple of folk we do not know about who are going on extended unpaid leave? I am wondering how we got to those figures.

Indeed.

Okay, I have taken up more than enough time. I have more questions, but it is time to let other members in. Liz Smith will be first, followed by Daniel Johnson.

Thanks for confirming that we will get an updated financial memorandum—that is very good news.

I have a second question about that. You talked about £100 million extra going into national care service pay, which will be very welcome. For every £1 increase in hourly pay for care staff, what is the impact on the Scottish budget? For example, if the pay was to go up from £10.90 to £11.90, what would be the additional impact on the Scottish budget? That is significant, and I imagine that the issue is likely to come up over the next few weeks.