Seòmar agus comataidhean

Thank you very much. I noticed that there were more “finallys” in there than in a set of questions from Craig Hoy.

It seems only yesterday when you arrived—I cannot believe how fast the time has gone. What do you feel have been your main achievements as permanent secretary in that relatively short period of time, and in which areas do you feel that you could, and should, perhaps, have done better?

The ministerial team has not changed that much, to be perfectly honest—John Swinney’s team is much the same as Humza Yousaf’s team.

Milestones are really important. In relation to public sector reform, you have talked about a figure of £300 million over two years. It would be great if we had milestones within that two-year period, so that there is not a sudden big bang in two years’ time. Two years from when, exactly? Is it two years from 1 January or from 1 April?

Excellent. That is what we are trying to see more and more of. That is a real issue. Trying to scrutinise the work that has been undertaken over the years has sometimes been like wrestling a jellyfish because of the absence of measurable priorities.

Lastly, the committee has sought clarification of how inward secondments are used to draw on additional resource and provide staff with broader experience. The committee went to Estonia, and that visit opened our eyes in a number of areas, including to the fact that the public sector there interacts quite strongly with the private sector—more than it seems to here, where the public sector seems to be more insular.

I realise that there is an issue of supporting academic secondments that are organised by the UK Research and Innovation policy fellows scheme, but is more being done in the civil service to involve the private sector in other areas of the work that you do, and the other way around, to see how you can learn from each other?

Thank you. I want to wish you well for your future endeavours. I have certainly enjoyed the interactions that we have had. Improvements have been made over recent years, so you can hang your hat on that.

We will have a short break while we change witnesses.

Our next agenda item is an evidence session with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development on its second review of the Scottish Fiscal Commission, which was published last week. I welcome to the meeting Scherie Nicol, who is the lead on Parliaments and independent fiscal institutions in the public management and budgeting division in the directorate for public governance at the OECD.

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

What you say is really important, if it is enacted. One of the key issues for the committee and one of its great frustrations has been that everything always seems to take much longer than was initially advised. For example, in December 2023, we sought information on the capital infrastructure pipeline. We were told that the pipeline would be delayed to the summer, and then to the autumn—blah, blah, blah. It will now be published this September, which is a 21-month delay. We were also told that the medium-term financial strategy was not published because of the general election. That will now be published this summer, and so on.

Nothing ever seems to happen on time or when originally advised, there do not seem to be any specific deadlines—it is always June, September or whatever—and there is never anything particularly tangible. That causes frustration as weeks run into months and months run into years. Will there be more emphasis on pinning down those documents? It seems that their publication is derailed by almost anything that happens at Westminster, whether that is a budget or an election or whatever. We realise that those things are important, but it is almost a case of, “We have an election coming, so we will not actually deliver this.” That causes great difficulty with regard to scrutiny.

Thank you for that.

Thank you for your time. It has been very helpful and we greatly appreciate the work that has gone into the very positive report.

We heard from the Public Audit Committee that around £280 million has been saved through reform over the past couple of years and that it is proposed to save £300 million over the next couple. You are trying to encourage and support empowerment in cost recovery and revenue raising through measures such as the tourism and cruise ship levies. In which specific areas have you saved money and how much has been saved? Will you give us one or two examples, as well as some examples of areas in which money is likely to be saved in the future?

You talked about how accountability for decision-making and the delivery of outcomes has moved to a dashboard rather than a system of mandate letters, which is what the previous First Minister was keen on. How does that new approach support transparency and what are its advantages?