 Adonwch i gael i ni, yn 2018, o'r Cymru Ffnanc i L fleiddeithasol a'r dŵr. Fynd yma ydych chi amnylch, Oiley Coffey. Ieithaf, rwy'n cael'u gilydd iawn i'i roddoddw i fod hwn mor rhaid o'r bwysig yn cael eu proses fel hynny, felly rydw i'r prosesau. Y ddechrau ein hyd yn ddiwedd yn dda i'ch gw navigais bwrn, ar gyfer dechrau ar gyfer mae'r drwsiauThose Submission for 2019-20. We are joined today by Jackson Carlaw MSP, from the SPCB, Sir Paul Greis, Dj говорюan Yrcrywol, the head of finance and security, and Michael Michael Higgarty, who is the assistant chief executive. I welcome our witnesses to the meeting. I invite Jackson Carlaw if he wishes to make a brief opening statement. I want to short-stay it. I will be prepared for the committee as a third time on behalf of the corporate body, Last year, I advised the committee that the corporate body's 2018-19 budget submission was set at a level that would provide a sustainable footing for the remainder of the current parliamentary session. Members may recall it and include a significant increase at that time. Following extensive planning and prioritisation, I can confirm that this year's budget submission for 2019-20 has been set at a level of the indicative forecast advised to the committee. It remains the case that our medium-term financial plan is a prudent approach to what we can reasonably anticipate and we retain flexibility to re-prioritise resources to meet emerging demands. As such, the corporate body total budget submission for revenue and capital expenditure is £98.4 million for 2019-20, which excluding the one-off office holder relocation costs for the current year to which we referred last is a 2.7% increase over the current year. The overall net increase is a tribute tool to inflation. Our Parliament remains busy and consequently there is a high demand on the services provided by the SPCB. As your committee will appreciate and I believe this is the euphemism, uncertainty remains around the final outcomes of the Brexit process and the parliamentary impact. Officials continue to actively engage on all developments so that SPCB can be advised of any changes or impacts that must be planned for and managed. We remain assured that we have invested in the right level of capacity, expertise and support for members. We continue also to develop new ways to provide our services, which are more efficient and responsive to members' needs. For example, members of the committee may be familiar with the SPICE spotlight blog, where SPICE staff are publishing information in anticipation of high-profile issues or to quickly react to breaking issues. Subscribers are growing and although it is still early days, we are hopeful that this will reduce reactive inquiries to enable SPICE to focus the resource on to more specific and complex inquiries. We are approaching the end of the one-year pay deal for parliamentary staff and negotiations will commence in the new year to determine a new pay settlement once the corporate body is considered a negotiating remit. MSP pay rises are linked to public sector pay rises in Scotland using the annual survey of hours and earnings that is published by the Office for National Statistics. Using that index and resisting the temptation when there is no other news that might get reported to omit the decimal point, I can confirm formally that an increase of 2.3 per cent will be applied for April 2019. I would like to pick out three areas of progress based on our last budget submission to the committee. The recommendations arising from the commission on reform continue to be considered. With the majority of recommendations to be implemented now over the coming months, we are already seeing the benefit of some of the changes. We have resourced such as the emerging new ideas around public participation to enhance committee work being piloted by the newly established committee engagement unit. The corporate body expects to consider a closure report on the reform agenda in early new year and the proposed budget for 2019-20 now reflects the on-going revenue costs associated with the commission for parliamentary reform. Our project budgets reflect an increasingly mature approach to planning and prioritisation so that we can smooth our expenditure over multiple years, as all those choices have had to be made about project investment and form buyer strategy, management of risk and of course value for money. Project spend for the next few years reflects among other things the need to start to replace various aspects of our infrastructure in terms of broadcasting, facilities and IT, which have been in place in many instances now for 15 years or more. In additional, physical and online security remain paramount considerations of the corporate body and we are continuing to invest to ensure that the Parliament is welcome, accessible and primarily a safe place to work and visit. The committee will remember that our bid last year included a project to relocate three of the office holders, the ombudsman, the children's commission and the human rights commission. This has been a significant piece of work this year for the respective office holders and for the corporate body staff, which is now needing conclusions. Some have already relocated and the final will in January. Although there are still some outstanding aspects of the project to conclude, we confirm that there will be rental savings in the order of £0.5 million over the 10-year period. As a result of the co-location, we anticipate further savings and efficiencies through the Shade Services agenda in the future. That concludes my remarks in relation to the budget and I and obviously all colleagues will happily take questions. I thank Jackson Carlaw for that helpful introduction. In our report on the draft budget in 2017-18, the committee invited you and the corporate body to consider undertaking a review of corporate body supported office holders. What progress has there been in delivering that review? I did say, convener, last year in response to that. Given that we had unquantifiable work to do at that point in relation to implementing and considering the recommendations of the commission for parliamentary reform and also because there was considerable additional work that we were having to do in the preparation for Brexit, although the corporate body has discussed a full review, we were not sure whether this current year that we have just completed would be appropriate time to do it. Given that we were also involved in quite a lengthy negotiation with the various office holders relating to the relocation, which of course some of you will be aware had a certain public dimension to it, which required quite a lot of considerable effort on the parts of the parliamentary staff. It is also worth noting that this is something that the committee might want to consider. The Government is laying before Parliament legislation to create an additional commissioner and I know that in session 3 the Parliament wrestled with the whole business of the number of parliamentary commissioners that we had and there was quite a controversial discussion arose in relation to the recommendations that the committee made to Parliament at that time. I think that it is something that the committee might want to pursue with interest. If whether two parliaments later we maybe are at a point where there is a temptation for a significant increase in the number of commissioners that exist, that's obviously not something for the corporate body. We will have to work with whatever commission structure is applied but it is a matter that I think will be of concern. Should this proposal go ahead it will lead to a minor additional increase in the first instance and the part time basis. It is all speculative, it is in the publicly known anticipatory needs but there is no formal bill yet to be laid before us. Obviously when the financial memorandum comes with that bill it is something that the committee will have to give consideration to at that time. Emma. Thank you convener. Good morning everybody. This last year has been quite busy with additional legislative work that we are starting to see come through committees. I'm interested in whether we have seen more overtime. How has that impacted parliamentary staff? Has flexi time been a challenge? I'm just interested because in our papers it doesn't really jump out that we've had more hours worked or more flexible time. Is that something that we're going to see a challenge in the future? Can we answer that in two ways firstly? It is the case that at this same point in the current parliament we are significantly busier than we were at this point in the previous parliament. The number of committee time year on year, the increases are from last year 27 per cent more committee time and 9 per cent more chamber time. Committee meetings are up 22 per cent. An increase in comparison with the previous session at this point is 19 per cent more committee time and 5 per cent more chamber time with general committee meeting times up 17 per cent. You are correct in terms of the overall workload of the parliament. It is proving to be consistently busier in this session than it was in the previous session and Paul will address with you the specific requirements in relation to the costs associated with that. We have increased the number of staff and we briefed you on that last year and we tried to target those areas of greatest pressure. The second one is looking for more innovative ways of working. Jackson mentioned things like the SPICE blog so we tried to look at things and the advantage of that is not just a hopefully good service to members but it reduces the number of inquiries coming to SPICE so we're looking at using technology. Staff are just working very hard. There hasn't been a noticeable spike in overtime. We have a very flexible system of working so we have a highly flexible time. For example, although we're very busy at certain times of the year over the summer recess we would expect staff who principally serve as committees in the chamber to be able to draw that down. We're managing fine but it's obviously busy but we're coping well at this point with the extra demands that Jackson has outlined. The increase in the busyness isn't all attributed to Brexit and forthcoming legislation. It's just part of the process of further devolution I suppose. That's an important point. There's no doubt that obviously a lot of Brexit is related but, as we'll find out this afternoon, the new powers on taxation, income tax, this committee has obviously been at the front of that but there's a lot. The new budget process where every committee or 10 or so committees with the greatest interest in spend have had this new pre-budget process. Although Brexit is a part of it, it's a very important point to register the new welfare powers so there's an awful lot. The Parliament is busy anyway and Brexit in a sense has been on top of that. Emma, how much have you been spent on overtime and what the impact was on flexi time? I think on flexi time it's fine. We're managing. I can write you with a detail. I can't have got the actual number on overtime but I'm pretty sure there's not been a noticeable spike in that. We don't actually pay much overtime. We tend to use flexi time. There are certain offices where we have to pay overtime but by and large we try and avoid it. On the grounds that I prefer that over the year people work their hours and what we try to do is manage it through flexi and I'm pretty clear that we're still managing it fine through our flexi process. If you want, I can drop you a note after the meeting on the actual spend on overtime if that would be helpful. Can I ask a couple of follow-ups to that as well? You've described well the architecture and the landscape and the challenges that are going on but has there been any review of working patterns undertaken at any stage? Looking at where we are now and whether working patterns and staff are suitable to the challenge that we currently face? We've had several extended discussions about that. I don't know if you want to identify some specific areas. I can say that we are reducing the number of senior executives that we've got as part of that continual review. It's an ongoing process, I would say. Yes, we've had periodic reviews of senior management, for example, but I think it's a constantly evolving process. For example, a way we use technology is an idea and I think the best way I've found to do that is rather than have set piece reviews, I expect all the individual teams and groups to look at how we do that. Where we've had more step change reviews, for example, when the Parliament changed its sitting patterns, we had a more formal assessment as to whether the way we deployed our staff was suitable for that. What we try to do is to be constantly looking ahead and try to evolve the organisation steadily. In my experience, big set piece reviews tend not to work very well in the current climate because things move on. As Jackson said, it's a regular dialogue that we have with the corporate body as to how we work. I'm as confident as I can be, but it's a constant challenge to try to make sure that the staff group is deployed, not just to meet new challenges, but the way members work. My observation is that members operate in a more mobile way now using technology. They operate not just in their constituencies, but on the move. The way we've set up our BIT team is to try to recognise that with more mobile devices and more capability to develop software applications in-house to support that. That's the approach that we've taken, convener. I hope that answers your question. To be fair, I don't think that it really did, because I wasn't so worried about the head count. I was more worried about, in response to the demand that's obviously there, the very issues that you've just raised yourself about the organisation working differently now in MSPs working in different ways. It was really about the working patterns of people and how they are being deployed as much as it is about the number of people and the number of hours they're working that I was wondering whether any review had been undertaken in that particular regard. I think that the answer is not to have set-piece reviews, but I expect all business areas to be constantly mindful of that. They do change their working patterns. That's an incremental process over time. It's rare that we have set-piece reviews, because, in my experience, by the time you finish them, the world has often moved on again. For me, it's a constant process. Jackson mentioned some very useful information about the additional work being undertaken by committees, about the percentage more times that they're meeting, the percentage more time that plenaries are meeting. Is that information being published? I'm not aware of it. I think that's the first time we've made it publicly available. It was analysis that I had done for briefing the committee today. I think that it's something that all members of the Parliament would find quite useful to know about in terms of the work that they undertake and an understanding for the public about the additional hours that are being put in to make sure that we get through this challenging period. A couple of questions. The first is that, in percentage terms, the near-8 per cent increase in running costs clearly stands out. A lot of that seems to be explained by the migration of the IT model towards something that's cloud-based rather than on-site. Is that other offsets in the on-site IT provision? If so, where do they appear in the budget? Yes, they are. It's quite a complex move, but I think that you're absolutely right. The two areas where we'll save on-site, and this will over a number of years—one is just the amount of infrastructure, so we won't need to replace servers. We'll probably keep some servers on-site for security purposes, but as we operate more in the cloud, which obviously just means servers elsewhere, we should make savings there. There's also been a switch to having more in-house staff and then reduced contractor costs. I think our spend on contractors over the past three, four years is down by several hundred thousand pounds as we've employed more staff in-house. On the other side of that, as we're paying more on licensing costs, there are more complex licences and there are more of them. I don't know the exact numbers, but there are several hundred more licences now in operation than there were two or three years ago. I think that you'd expect that trend to continue over the next two or three years. It swings around about saving some areas and spending more on others. The second question is about security. I thank Sir Paul for arranging what was the most productive meeting with the security team following some queuing issues that we had specifically with people attending our autism cross-party group. I understand that it was an issue that had been affecting a lot of the evening events during that meeting. Whilst they are trying to mitigate it with a lot of measures around the main entrance, it became clear that there's an issue over not being able to use both the scanners at the same time because of the space and the arrangement down there. Is the increase in the security budget looking at that, or are there any plans to look at that main entrance security arrangement so that people can get in here more speedily? The attack at the House of Commons in 2017 led to a fairly comprehensive additional review of security here at Holyrood. As one consequence of that, which was obviously very visible, was the presence of armed officers for the first time. It's obviously for the corporate body to address, rather than to advertise any weaknesses that there might be within the parliamentary security campus, so you'll understand why it wouldn't be wise for me to speculate or to comment, other than to say that the comprehensive review has been considered carefully by the corporate body. It's thought that we simply then agree to everything because we're very keen that this Parliament doesn't become a fortress Parliament but that it does remain accessible to the public in as broad a way as is possible. Although, as was pointed out to me, the members of the corporate body are personally liable in the event that things subsequently happen, so we take the responsibility in relation to the security of everybody on the campus incredibly seriously. We're also mindful that changes that have to be implemented carefully and budgeted for over a period of time, and there are quite a number that will materialise some obvious, some less so. Of course, for members and staff, the most obvious immediate one will be the two-point identification, which will come into play in the new year, about which I think the first confirmatory emails have either gone out or just about to go out explaining how that will operate. It's been being piloted in the short term. We're mindful of the fact that it's important that we don't allow the Parliament to become a fortress. The issues of security are things that have formed quite a big part of the discussion that we've had in the corporate body. There are a range of things that we're going to be doing that do have a material effect over the Parliament on our budget, but it's important that we do. A couple of supplementaries, Patrick. Thanks, convener. It was actually following on from some of the issues that you raised earlier. I was just thinking about the commission on parliamentary reform, one of the elements that came out from a recommendation with it, and that was the new committee engagement unit. I'm just wondering whether the expectation is that the budget for that will be stable from now on or whether it will change as it develops into its role. Is there anything else coming out of the commission on parliamentary reform that hasn't yet fed through into budgetary impacts but which you see happening in the future? I think that it's just worth saying that not every member of this committee will necessarily have served in a committee that's now had an exposure or interaction with the committee engagement unit, but it has been there and is working with a number of committees now and was one of the big recommendations of the commission on reform. I think that in a number of material ways those committees that it's been working with have been able to see the benefit that it's been able to provide, but Paul, do you want to comment on where that leads in terms of budget? The short answer on the committee engagement unit, I expect it to be stable now. I think that for the remainder of this session at the very least, I expect that that's the budget that you will see both in staff and running costs. As Jackson said, it's really kicked off in July, August of this year and it's begun. It's done some good work already with the Petitions Committee. I saw a note that they did of a discussion that it had with about a dozen members just asking what their expectations were. I thought there were some really interesting ideas from members coming out about how we could enhance it, whether it's many publics or various other interesting ideas, so they will feed through. In terms of other commission, nothing major, but there are things, for example, as a recommendation review, the legislative process, so there might be a modest one-off cost for that. There's still the proposals around a backbench committee. I don't think any of these things are substantial and they certainly wouldn't knock the main budget. All of those, I think, would be perfectly capable of being resourced within existing budgets, but you might see a specific spend attached to those. If I could turn to schedule 3, what I'm particularly interested in is the budget bids and the indicative budget lines for future years in the context of actual outturn figures. I appreciate that you won't have outturn figures for the financial year 2018-19, but I wonder what assurance can committee have that the various budget lines are accurately based on previous spend. I note that the contingency budget has reduced significantly, so where is the transparency for committee to know that you don't have unnecessary headroom and other budget lines? On the final point, I think that last year I very specifically said to the committee that I felt or the corporate body felt that the contingency provision had been one that had been relied upon too much and that in the work that we did ahead of last year's submission we sought to try and identify what the actual likely requirements were going to be so that we didn't just rely on contingency, which had mopped up quite a lot of unforeseen expense. I think that there is less of a contingency, but Paul, do you want to? Again, on the transparency point, which I think is fundamentally important, we say this in our report that there are two elements to the contingency. There is the half a million, which is the classic emergency in case anything completely unforeseen happens. The other bit, though, were quite up front. That's the other half a million, where we do have a range of bids against it, but we're not funding them just yet, but we'd expect that to be used over the year. In terms of the out-turn against budget, that is something that we've been working on over a number of years to improve that. I think we were within £1 million last year, and certainly we have a target of within 2.5%, which we're meeting. I hope that we can reassure the committee that, obviously, in the public sector and with not having a revenue raising, we always have to allow a margin for error, but we get pretty close to the budget that we set, and certainly within around 2%. That continues to be an area that I'd like to improve even further. I expect the out-turn in the current year. We don't have the actual figures that you're right, but I would expect it to be out or close to 2%, if not better. I would like to improve that further. There's a limit to where you can get. You'll know yourself. There comes a point where we can't overspend, so there always has to be a little bit of margin, but I hope that gives you the comfort. Particularly the transparency around the contingency, which I think is an important point. We're always happy retrospectively to report to the committee on what we did use the contingency for, just that you're reassured that it's not some padding. The committee has actually got budget. It has got bids against it. It's just prudent. For example, we used a fair bit last year to deal with the Commission for Parliamentary Reform proposals. Again, we've reported this year how we used that money and how some of them are now being moved into mainland budgets, like the committee engagement unit would be the prime example. I was trying to be crystal clear, or I encourage Sir Paul to be crystal clear about, that you haven't reduced the unnecessary padding in the contingency budget by inflating other budget lines, because it's not immediately transparent to us for today's purposes on outturn figures on years going by. I'll give you an absolute assurance that that's not the case. If it's further reassurance, this is obviously the key part of our budgeting year, but we have a very thorough interrogation from corporate body colleagues before we get this far, and I think that Jackson and his colleagues wouldn't tolerate that. There's a specific reason, which I think that Jackson has explained why this year's is half a million less, and it's more what you would regard as a normal contingency against our budget. I wonder if the panel could also talk a little bit more about the maintenance costs and the long-term 25-year plan and how the committee will be able to view those plans in terms of the next few years, but also looking ahead to the longer term to ensure that what is planned is necessary but also proportionate. I dealt partly with the security element of it. Sometimes those things can be quite frustrating to politicians. Members will obviously recall the upgrade costs associated with changing the lighting in the chamber, which took place a couple of years ago. Of course, it's undoubtedly the case that each of us knows of an elderly relative with a bulb that's worked since 1940 in their own kitchen, and they can't understand why we have to spend the money that we had to spend changing the lighting in the Parliament. The problem, unfortunately, is that the units that we use become obsolete or legislation changes and we're no longer allowed to use those units, and the manufacturer no longer supplies and updates them. Where we have changed sound systems, for example, in the chamber, or where we have changed lighting systems where we're permitted, we have stored all of that. The equipment in here, for example, is being sustained at the moment on the basis of spares from units that were taken out of the chamber a few years ago. However, we are getting to the point where the infrastructure supporting all of that is becoming obsolete and so elements like that have to be built into the maintenance programme, which is quite expensive. In addition, all the lifts in the Parliament are now ending the period where they can safely be operated without significant maintenance. Therefore, over the next three years, all of the parliamentary lifts will probably during the summer recess, because it's six to eight weeks that they have to be out of maintenance for, on a rolling basis, have to be very significantly upgraded and these things cost money too. I know that it can be quite frustrating because I think to myself, heck, it's a failure, new building, surely the lifts don't need replaced, but I'm afraid that is the reality. Yes, we're very careful to try and not have things like all the telephony or all of the security or all of the lift replacements having to hit the parliamentary budget on one go and phase them over time. Together with the IT upgrades that we're required to do, we try to manage that as best we can to ensure that it's an even process over the Parliament. However, we are aware of it. There's no major maintenance cost that we are aware of that we are not anticipating or that we haven't been planning to schedule into the programme over the next three years. The final question, convener, is turning to schedule one, where the total expenditure, including capital charges and non-cash items, total net expenditure, we see a very modest increase from this year's approved budget to the budget bid for next year, but looking ahead to the indicative forecasts, we're seeing bigger increases. I just wondered if you could give us a flavour of what's driving that. That's actually just a simple inflationary uplift, so we're just using a Treasury, I think, GDP deflator figure, so that at this stage is just a simple inflationary uplift. Clearly, when we come to put a proper indicative bid in next year, that will be much more broken down, so that's just a marker at this point in the process. Given that public sector finances have been very challenging across public sector, that's probably been a bit of an understatement, and while you are covering wetter, it's not advocating for any outlandish increases. I wonder if you could give an indication of where's the pain being for this organisation. I see what you mean. What are we not doing? I mean, there's a number of projects that we've had to postpone, even some investment in some sort of the technologies and things, so what we try to do is look to how we sort of balance it out with that. We've deferred things, some of the sort of TV and other upgrades and things like that, so what we try to do is look ahead and think what is affordable, so there's probably about a million and a half pounds worth of projects we'd like to have done next year, but we're putting off to future years, so that's how we tend to do it. Obviously staff are working very hard, there's a sort of busyness about the place, so I think that's probably where I would say we've had to make choices. I think another area that's really worth pointing out, it's not in the area of pain but I think it's about smart use of resources. The Parliamentary Bureau has now, just in the last six months, begun a much more strategic look at the way we organise business, and this is a real big help for us in trying to be more efficient in supporting that, so they're now pulling together not just the Government's legislative programme but the committee's workloads and other things, and what that enables us to do is to allocate resources more efficiently against that, so if we see pinch points coming ahead. So there's partly about things we're just not doing and we're deferring, and partly just about the way we try and organise our resources, so we've got the resources where they're most needed, so I hope that's the best answer to your question. Can I ask a point on schedule 5 on the balance sheet under the tax payers equity section? Obviously the balance sheet details the actual position at the end of 2018 and then projects 2019-20, and there's a trend of the general fund decreasing by £17 million. And the revaluation reserve increasing by £17 million. I just wondered what the background was to those trends. Derek, if you wouldn't mind this. It's simply the accounting adjustments that we revalue the building every year in line with RICS indices, and we also have to charge depreciation on the building every year. Those are accounting adjustments, they're non-cash items but they affect the stated value of the building and the accounts. So the revaluation reserve going up indicates the value of the building going up. How does the general fund figure go down? Is that due to depreciation coming off? It will reflect the depreciation yet. It's basically the total asset value of the Parliament. The asset value has been written down because the depreciation has come off. James Murdo. I want to go back to an issue that Jackson touched on at the very start about MSP's pay and the budget for that. MSP's pay is due to go up 2.3 per cent. Next year, but the overall budget is up 3.3 per cent. Can you just explain what the reason is for the difference in these figures? Yes, I can. Obviously there's a discrepancy between my confirming that MSP pay will go up by 2.3 per cent and the overall increase in pay being 3.3 per cent. There's an additional £168,000 cost associated with the fact that the First Minister has in the last year created an additional two cabinet secretaries and one more junior minister. So three additional Government ministers than we had in the previous year's budget and that accounts for the overall increase beyond the 2.3 per cent for members' pay to bring it up to 3.3 per cent. So it's an additional £168,000 attributed to those additional costs arising from additional ministers. Okay, thank you for that. This is quite interesting because I'd always understood that MSP's pay would come out of the SPCB budget, but is it also the case that ministers' pay's come out of the same budget? Have you ever thought that came out of the Scottish Government budget? It's always been this way. It's partly just the way the Scotland Act is set up. So this isn't new, this has always been the case. Okay, thank you. Is this the highest ministerial salary bill we've ever had? That's not something I've looked to confirm, Mr Fraser, but I suspect it might be on the basis that it's the highest MSP salary bill we've had, too. I don't think costs decline, they invariably increase, but I think it probably is the biggest complement of ministers we've ever had, so I think it probably, if one was to establish from the record, would confirm that to be the case, but I can only speculate on that. It's not a chart we maintain. I think it would be interesting for the committee to know. Well, I'm sure the committee would enjoy finding out. Thank you. Tom. Thank you, convener, and good morning. It's just one or two very quick questions. Reference was made to Brexit uncertainty, and I haven't checked Twitter in the last half hour, so I don't entirely know where that is at the moment. However, I just wonder, in terms of the contingencies that have been planned for, what consideration has been given to the possibility of a no-deal, and particularly we have a number of EU nationals who work part of parliamentary staff, as well as being employed by MSPs. Their status would be up in the air in that scenario, so I wonder how, in terms of scenario planning for a no-deal has informed the budgetary process. Well, I'm sure Paul will comment further. Can I say that the corporate body has acted in a completely apolitical way in regard to this? No-deal has always been one of the options as a responsible body that we have considered, along with seeking to do the best we can, very often in the absence of any firm information, which I happily concede. We have to deal in that environment. It certainly was one of the considerations when we set the budget before the committee last year. We recognized that it was something of an open window, and of course the Parliament itself is now having to deal with the actual progression of SSIs and SSIs that are beginning to arise as a consequence of it. My understanding is that we feel we've done a pretty good job of anticipating this at the moment, and the members of the staff who have been deployed specifically to try and ensure we get this right have accommodated everything that's had to happen. They've been surprised by anything at all yet, but I've known that no-deal is one of the scenarios that we look at. Paul? No, it's really just to confirm that. We have a specific team, which is scenario planning, as you say, all the time as things develop, including no-deal, and we're confident that this budget has sufficient in it. Part of the contingency would enable us to do that, or we would flex other things to focus, and it would obviously be a top priority. Your point on EU nationals is well made. We're really following the same approach as the Government. We're reassuring both my own staff, but obviously through our contractors' staff, to give them every support we can to ensure that, through whatever deal is ultimately agreed that their position is as secure as it can be and offering them reassurance and advice as we go along. My second question is a different topic. The Standards Procedures and Public Appliance Committee this week published its report on cross-party groups. We are now somewhere north of 100 cross-party groups. I believe there are now more cross-party groups in the Parliament than there are MSPs who are either not party leaders or members of the Government. Has any consideration been given in terms of the budgeting process to ensuring that adequate facilities are made available so that all of those cross-party groups can be accommodated? As I'm sure all members are aware, they're often very well attended and there's a great demand that sometimes there can be challenges in terms of accessing facilities. As a Member of Parliament, I have noted the same growth in cross-party groups and I know that the committee itself was supposedly undertaking an evaluation and a more rigorous assessment on the creation of new cross-party groups. The corporate body does not fund or support financially cross-party groups at all. We provide accommodation costs but we don't provide any support beyond that so it's not really something we've had to make any significant budgetary provision. I appreciate that. It was with regards to cross-party groups that I should have clarified meeting off-campus due to a lack of availability within the Parliament if that is something that has been considered in terms of supporting cross-party groups to meet off-campus. No, it hasn't and I'd be quite reluctant. The strength of cross-party groups is that they can be formed as and when. The minute we officially get involved is that we have to have some kind of regulation or control and I don't think that would go against the... There's no expense incurred for a cross-party group to meet within the Parliament. However, if the committee rooms, for example, or other things are unavailable, they would necessitate the meeting off-campus. For that expense, as I understand, would be incurred by the cross-party group. Has any consideration been given for parliamentary support to provide additional facilities off-campus? We've not been asked, but I would personally remain reluctant to do that. I think it crosses the... We begin then to become a funder, essentially, of those groups. They can use this facility because it exists already and the marginal extra cost of meeting an entry room is quite low. I feel there's something particularly valuable about cross-party groups, which is part of the fact that they're not, in a sense, controlled as part of the formal machinery. I think I'd be extremely cautious about moving into that space. We do everything we possibly can, of course, within this facility to make it possible for them to meet. We'll leave equipment out, et cetera. That's the balance we try to strike. I've not actually been approached directly on that and it would be a matter for the corporate body. We may have done. Maybe your memory is better than mine. It would be a matter for the corporate body, but, to be honest, I'd be quite reluctant to go there, even though I'm sympathetic. I'm not entirely just trying to remember. I think we may have... I may be right or wrong about this, so I think we might have received one request or one or might have been informal or not. We've received no formal request from members or groups of members or cross-party groups that I can think of beyond possibly that one that's just in my mind. The answer to your question is no, the corporate body hasn't given any due consideration to that. Obviously, if we requested to do so, we would, but it's also true to say that the corporate body members are usually very reluctant to set precedents and there are a number that are being set. Obviously, we've had a very considerable precedent set in relation to the implementations for additional security costs at members' offices, which we've had to look at very carefully and decide what we thought was appropriate. We can be quite circumspect before we would agree to anything, but we haven't formally been asked to, so, of course, if we are formally asked to, we would formally review. Thank you very much for that. I don't think there's any other questions from members. I thank the representatives of the corporate body for their evidence-taking session today. Very helpful. Obviously, your evidence will form part of our budget report when we publish that towards the end of January. Thank you very much. I'm just going to push on to the next business. The next item on our agenda is to consider a negative statutory instrument in relation to Revenue Scotland's sharing information with the Welsh Revenue Authority, the Revenue Scotland and Tax Powers Act 2014, Auxiliary Prefisions Order 2018, SSI 2018, 2018, a bleak 346. Do members have any questions or any comments? There are no members' questions and no members' comments. In that case, we now move into private session.