Seòmar agus comataidhean

My fellow commission members will be relieved to hear that I will not go through appendix 1 line by line.

I understand what most of the line items are, but what is contained in “Other accommodation Costs”? There has been an increase in those costs of more than £100,000, from £445,000 to £592,000, in a single year. What do those costs include, given that they do not relate to “Rent & Rates” or “Travel & Subsistence”?

I want to pick up on that and to re-emphasise the point that the chair made. In the coming financial year, the public sector financial settlements are likely to be extremely challenging. In that context, 8.4 per cent will be difficult to justify in comparison with other public sector bodies. A point has just been made about essentially living by the guidance that you provide to public sector bodies. Is making that statement not inviting at least that challenge?

How many additional public bodies will you have to audit in the coming financial year compared with the current year?

Even if you are looking at forecast error, ultimately, that will be driven by the size of tax receipts, not by inflation. Both those borrowing pots, for want of a better description, are indexed not against inflation but against the GDP deflator. It just strikes me that, even using the Treasury’s logic, it is not indexing against the right thing.

What you have just set out explains why the sequence happened, from an intergovernmental perspective, but do you acknowledge that that has not necessarily accommodated the parliamentary process that one might want?

This issue is perhaps something for the committee to explore—I am mindful that I am a substitute member. Some have questioned the timing of the release of the independent report and the final negotiations. I understand the Deputy First Minister’s explanation that the issue is very technical, and I concede that there is probably a limited audience of interest, but nonetheless we are talking about the fiscal envelope that is available to the Scottish Government, which is of fundamental importance to everything that we do.

Has there been some thought in the Scottish Government that there should perhaps be a period to allow for scrutiny and discussion, because these matters are complicated? We have had quite an interesting and constructive discussion this morning, which can help analysis. Will the Scottish Government undertake to have the possibility of scrutiny and, at the very least, enable independent reports to be digested? Having those things concurrently undermines the ability to scrutinise.

I would like to follow on from that line of questioning. Matthew Elsby has stated that, essentially, the Treasury was considering the matter in the context of its own borrowing. That having been said, the Treasury does not state its borrowing parameters on the basis of an index of inflation. It mentions a percentage of GDP on a rolling five-year average and overall total borrowing against GDP. Indeed, that is how all economies, in broad terms, will consider their year-to-year quantum of borrowing and their overall debt. I am just wondering whether that was explored.

More broadly, if the principle of taxpayer fairness is fundamentally about ensuring that policies are cognisant of how they impact tax receipts, is there not a risk to both Governments should the Scottish economy underperform or overperform compared with the UK economy? If we underperform, we could be left with a more generous borrowing allowance than was intended. If the Scottish economy overperforms compared with the UK economy, even an annual overperformance of 0.5 per cent over five years could leave that quantum looking considerably smaller than it did at the point when it was agreed.

Did you explore looking at that from within the parameters of the Treasury’s fiscal rules? Can you comment on the risk to both Governments if you index against inflation rather than the economy?

On a related point—this is a bit of a hobby-horse of mine from my previous tenure on the committee—I have always had a fear that the way that block grant adjustments are calculated becomes risky as time goes on. Fundamentally, you are indexing back to 2016. When you are in fiscal year 2017, that is fine, but the moment that you are into fiscal year 2021, let alone 2031, that becomes an increasingly synthetic exercise.

Was that explored as something that will need to be reviewed and revisited in future years? Especially when you hit the 10-year mark, unwinding all the different fiscal decisions made by the UK and Scottish Governments in order to benchmark and then calculate block grant adjustments becomes very prone to human error—or it certainly becomes a very synthetic exercise. Was that explored in the discussions, even if that might be something for future negotiation?

I am not used to all this lavish praise, convener.

I want to follow up on a couple of points that were discussed, particularly around transparency. I am always struck by the fact that, essentially, the discussion and debate around budget time is always at level 3 and level 4, yet the actual budget bill is, essentially, at level 1, and, critically, when you look at the outturn, you see that it is, by and large, specified at level 1.

I want to ask about transparency. I fully take on board your point that overprovision of information can be a problem, and I do not want to cause officials panic about lots more work, but is there a case to explore on whether outturn could be specified in a greater level of detail? I ask that because, ultimately, my basic point of principle is that, when you are setting a budget, you need to look at how you performed against last year’s budget, and the importance and the level of scrutiny is at level 3 and level 4. Do you think that there is a case to be made for looking at the degree to which we can report back at that level on outturn?

Your answer almost demonstrates my point. At the moment, we do not know how this will all fit together. We do not know whether the co-design might actually come forward with things that would require different powers and abilities. The point of scrutiny is to look at whether the correct powers, procedures and fiscal measures are in place in order to support the policy intent and the outcomes of that legislation. The point is that you can look at it as a discrete package and not make it up as you go along.

I fundamentally fail to understand why the co-design is not done first, so that local authorities can set out what powers and financial considerations they need so that you can ensure that the legislation is in place to make sure that it works. Why not just do that co-design first, up front, and front-load it prior to introducing legislation? I just do not understand.