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That would be great.

Incidentally, when the committee suggested an annual parliamentary debate on public service reform, I was quite surprised that your response was that you would progress such a debate in the coming months, subject to parliamentary business accommodating it.

Given some of the stuff that clogs up the weeks’ parliamentary chamber sessions, an annual debate on reform should not be too difficult to organise.

I will put my tuppence-worth in regarding ENICs by saying that the Government did not have to raise as much tax as it decided to raise. As you said, it could have brought in a wealth tax or an online-sales tax to boost the high street. It could have taxed gambling, gaming or big tech, or it could have reversed the tax cuts on banks. It is important to look at the package and to see where the best balance would be.

We will take a five-minute break before coming back for stage 2 of the budget bill.

Good morning, and welcome to the sixth meeting in 2025 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee. We will consider the Budget (Scotland) (No 4) Bill at stage 2, but before we turn to formal stage 2 proceedings, we will take evidence on the Scottish Government’s response to the committee’s report on the Scottish budget for 2025-26.

We are joined by Shona Robison, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government. She is accompanied by Scottish Government officials Jennie Barugh, who is director of fiscal sustainability and exchequer development; Richard McCallum, who is director of public spending; and Lucy O’Carroll, who is director of tax. Before we turn to questions, I ask the cabinet secretary to make a short opening statement.

One of the issues that the committee has pressed you on, since about December 2023, is the capital infrastructure pipeline. In the response to our committee report, you said that you have

“instructed officials to work on a reset of the infrastructure pipeline to 2026-27 with the intention of publishing this in September following the outcome of the UK Spending Review.”

That is nearly halfway through the financial year, and 21 months after the committee sought that. With a 12 per cent increase in capital spend, surely that matter should be at the forefront of the Government’s thinking and we should have much more information at this point on what that infrastructure pipeline contains if we are to ensure that it is fully optimised in the forthcoming financial year.

A key initiative is the Cabinet sub-committee on investment and the economy. I understand that you held its first meeting on 10 December, but the next meeting is expected to take place in spring 2025, which seems to leave an awfully long gap. That work is an imperative for the Government, but there does not seem to be a great sense of urgency, given that there will be three or four months between meetings, for example.

Excellent. The committee likes certainty.

This afternoon, the Parliament is debating employer national insurance contributions, which is going to be quite tousy. I am not participating, so I shall look on with interest, but I understand that the level of impact that ENIC increases will have on the public sector is an issue. The most precise figure that I have heard regarding the direct cost to the public sector is £549 million. There might be costs over and above that figure, and we know that other sectors, including the private sector, third sector and so on, are affected. I have no doubt that the issue will be covered in great detail this afternoon.

Can you advise the committee on what specifically the sum of the tranche of money from the Westminster Government will be, when you expect it to be confirmed and when it will arrive?

Lastly, we took evidence from a number of public bodies and the issue of compulsory redundancies came up. Before I ask you about that, I note that you said in your response that you have asked

“the Minister for Public Finance to develop a programme of workforce reforms. This includes workforce trajectories to support the workforce control framework that is being developed for public bodies including recruitment controls, a workforce management policy and related governance arrangements. The framework will be delivered close to the start of the 2025-26 financial year.”

We will be keen to see that when it comes out.

The public bodies all suggested that they wanted flexibility with regard to compulsory redundancies. A policy of no compulsory redundancies was brought in 17 years ago, understandably, in response to the financial crash, when people were really worried about their jobs. However, we now have a situation with advancing technologies and changing jobs where we have a lot of square pegs in round holes. Public sector organisations have to reduce budgets. To achieve that, they are using voluntary redundancy to pay people who they do not really want to lose a lot of money to leave and they are stuck with people who they do not necessarily want to keep, because they might have a skills mismatch or whatever. That approach is not really efficient or effective in delivering public services; it is also very expensive.

Will there be any change, if not directly in the public sector then in some of the bodies, to give organisations what they want, which is to have flexibility in their workforce? That seems to be the implication of your response without your actually saying it.

To be fair, all our public sector organisations—local government, the national health service, whatever—try to do that, but sometimes it is simply not possible.

I will not pursue that any further at this point, because colleagues are keen to come in.

That would be appreciated.

One of the responses that you have given with regard to the medium-term financial strategy is that you want

“to ensure that the public finances are set on a sustainable footing over the medium-term.”

I am interested in what the Government means by “a sustainable footing”. The Government always balances its books—it must, because that is a legal obligation—but the committee has expressed concerns about, for example, the huge increase in social security spending and the impact on other portfolios, which are being squeezed, as a result. What does the Government mean by “a sustainable footing”?

You said that you aim to deliver the work before June. I might be a wee bit cynical, but I am not aware of many Government strategies that have come ahead of schedule. The committee is concerned that nothing seems to happen in originally envisaged timescales, which has been a real issue throughout the parliamentary session.