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It is important that we focus on outcomes, but they have to be funded. We must therefore have an element of realism in a financial memorandum. If there is going to be a framework bill, we need to know that the outcomes that the Scottish Government seeks to achieve will be fully funded. The Finance and Public Administration Committee took evidence from stakeholders that suggested that the delivery cost of the bill could be as much as twice what the Scottish Government said it would be. Clearly, that level of difference gives serious concern.

The committee took a lot of evidence on the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill, and you will be aware that it was not willing to accept the Scottish Government’s financial memorandum. It had to completely rethink not only the financial memorandum and the costs inherent in it, but also its objectives and outcomes. For example, the initial proposal to have 32 boards became a proposal to have one board, and the proposal to transfer 75,000 council workers to those boards was dropped. We have to get the finance right if we are going to deliver the outcomes that we want, but we cannot do that if we do not know what the bill will ultimately deliver because that is not set out in the primary legislation.

Although I could give my own view on that, I would have to speak to colleagues on the committee to hear what they think, because I am here to represent the views of the committee, not to give my own views.

There has been an element of frustration within the ranks of the Finance and Public Administration Committee regarding some of the legislative proposals that the Scottish Government has introduced. We take the view that stakeholder engagement and co-design are really important parts of the legislative process but that that should take place before we get to primary legislation.

The reason for that is straightforward. First, it is far easier to scrutinise primary legislation than subordinate legislation. When the Government enacts legislation after a bill has been passed, it is quite difficult for us to scrutinise that.

Even before we get to that stage, if we do not have a proper bill design that includes all the proposals that the Scottish Government intends to implement through that bill, we cannot ascertain the ultimate costs for the Scottish Government or for stakeholders, which is very inefficient in our view. That also poses risk to the Scottish budget. A bill could be introduced that has been costed at £X million, but we could find that cost multiplied by several factors once secondary legislation has been added.

Our view has been consistent across the legislative profile in the Parliament that framework bills, although we are not particularly keen on them, if they are to be used, all the co-design work and stakeholder engagement should be done prior to the bills coming to the committee, so that we can fully analyse the costs.

I agree with that. I think that everyone would expect consistency throughout the Parliament, one way or the other, and that has not happened.

Every year, we raise with the finance secretary the fact that the same budgets have the same money taken out year in, year out. It seems to us to be the wrong way to set up the budgets, because we are not given an accurate picture of what the budget is. From everyone’s perspective, transparency is important.

Similarly, last year, I raised the issue of public-private partnership payments. Those were listed as being £133.9 million in 2024-25 for the trunk road network, which was much the same as the previous year. However, it is seen only in trace amounts across the budget document, despite a written answer from you last week showing that £14,699 million in PPP payments remain outstanding. As agreed last year, should appropriate figures not be shown across all portfolios, so that we can compare in the interests of transparency? Why is that information not in this year’s figures across each portfolio?

I am sorry, folks, but I will have to call a halt or we will be in breach of the standing orders. I apologise. All that I can do at this point is thank the cabinet secretary for her evidence. We will consider the evidence received and publish a report on the Scottish budget before the end of this month.

Looking at the office-holders, and ignoring the fact that there are others in the pipeline, we find that the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman has a 6.7 per cent increase in its budget, the Scottish Information Commissioner has a 6.3 per cent increase, the Scottish Human Rights Commission has a 6.9 per cent increase, the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland has a 5.2 per cent increase, and even the Scottish Biometrics Commissioner has a 6 per cent increase. We are seeing significant above-inflation increases for those office-holders in the bid—why is that the case?

Some of the increase relates to salary, as you mentioned, but MSP staff salary provision will increase by 3.2 per cent, so it looks as though our own staff will receive a lower level of increase than the increase for any of the office-holder staff other than the Standards Commission for Scotland staff, for whom the figure is 2.8 per cent.

Okay. I suppose that I am happy with that.

Let us move on to parliamentary staff numbers. In your submission, you state that you

“remain committed ... throughout Session 6”

to the staff baseline agreed in 2022-23. You also talk about a couple of posts having been added in security in order to

“deliver a new service to monitor social media activity referencing MSPs”,

noting that those increases have

“largely been offset by other reductions across the permanent staff complement”,

meaning that there is no overall change in staff numbers.

Can you tell us what that social media referencing monitoring service is?

Yes, they might welcome increased scrutiny, and I am sure that the Parliament would as well, but the issue is who would do that. We have an increased number of commissioners. How close to capacity is the SPCB in carrying out scrutiny? The committees are saying, “Hold on—we’re at capacity.” I do not think that this committee could scrutinise all the commissioners, especially if more are coming down the pipeline. Where are we on that?