 Welcome everyone to the 29th meeting of the Finance and Constitution Committee in 2017. I can remind everyone present to switch off their mobile phones, or at least to put them on the mode that they don't interfere. No apologies have been received. We are now agenda item number one. The committee has asked to agree items three and four Felly, we agree. We are agreed. We will now come to agenda item 2. The committee will take evidence on the Scottish Parliament's corporate bodies budget for 2018-19. I welcome to the discussion Jackson Carlaw MSP from the corporate body, Sir Paul Greys, the chief executive, Derek Crowell, who is the head of finance and security, and Michelle Higgarty, who is the assistant chief executive. Jackson Carlaw, do you wish to make a few opening statements? Just briefly, thank you, convener. Good morning, colleagues. Last year, when I came here, it was as a young ingenue to these matters following the tragic loss of our colleague Alec Johnson. At least this year, I come having been immersed in the agenda of the issues that we are discussing for a little bit longer. In that session with you last year, I noted that there were a range of issues facing the corporate body that, whilst we could foresee them, we were not yet in a position to quantify in our budget. They were specifically the implications of the Brexit decision following the referendum across the UK in 2016. The work to reform Parliament that was going to emerge from the parliamentary commission and improve how we do it and what we do it. I also noted the evidence of renewed energy at the start of session 5 among all our colleagues, with new powers being handed to us in a noticeable increase in the volume of business. In fact, it is some 45 per cent of an increase in overall business in the first year of this Parliament compared to the first year of the last, which is quite considerable, and we can talk about that in more detail of its helpfulness committee, but particularly more committee meetings and longer committee meetings, which have quite an implication on resource. It is the corporate body's view that our Parliament is busier than ever. It is facing significant change, and this, combined with the impact of its new powers, means that it is no longer sustainable to continue to fund the recurring costs from our contingency, and that is what I alluded to last year. Therefore, the corporate body proposes a budget that aims to reflect the new circumstances that the Parliament faces, and in doing so it proposes a medium-term financial plan that seeks to address known pressures, anticipated risks and opportunities to improve Parliament's performance in a planned and proportionate manner through till the end of this session. The proposed budget of £89.8 million is an increase of 4.6 million, 5.4 per cent against the current year's budget, and is an increase on the estimated budget that we presented to you for this year last year. As members of the county will no doubt have noted with interest, we budgeted for a co-location project in respect of the ombudsman who must vacate their current offices and commissioners, which aims to deliver immediate and then longer-term savings, and in so doing, we are mindful of the discussion that we had at this very session last year with you and the value for money. Excluding that one-off cost, the proposed budget is just not 0.8 per cent higher than in 2018-19 indicative forecasts to this committee and 3.3 per cent higher than the current year budget. That has been helped by some reductions in certain budget lines such as rates and savings on the new IT contract relayed. The corporate body anticipates that the SPCB's budgets will be set in line with inflation for the remaining years of this parliamentary session and that any remaining upward cost pressures in these areas will be contained within existing resources. Clearly, that is caveated by any significant game-changing events impacting on Parliament. An example of that is the possibility that the SPCB will be invited to fund the Electoral Commission in respect of Scottish elections, although no bill to pursue that has yet been suggested. Turning now to the main drivers of the current budget, on all indicators available to us, the corporate body believes that we have moved on to a new level of demand for services that will continue throughout this session. It is busy on the legislative front and, in terms of inquiries, votes, motions and other indicators that we can measure, in the year we have made a few operational decisions around staffing to meet specific gaps. This budget proposes some further additional staffing, for example, to address capacity issues in the official report and in public engagement to meet the changing demands around social media and support to committees on engagement. We have also been closely monitoring and assessing the anticipated impact of Brexit for Parliament in terms of scrutiny and legislation. We know that this will be complex with challenging deadlines and that there will be additional work to support this on top of existing parliamentary work. We have made some reasonable planning assumptions about what will be required in our proposing additional staffing, primarily in clerks, researchers and lawyers, to reassure the committee however we have divided this resource up between permanent and temporary staff to give us some flexibility. Against the backdrop of additional work to the Parliament, there is also the broad cross-party support for reform. The corporate body has said to consider the resources that will be required to implement the recommendations. Many of them have no cost implication at all, but there are some that do. We are proposing an additional £0.5 million to contingency at this stage to enable the flexibility to progress this work. With regard to pay, we are approaching the end of the two-year pay deal for Scottish parliamentary staff. Negotiations will commence in the new year to determine a new settlement. As discussed with the Finance Committee in previous years, MSP's pay rises are linked to public sector pay rises in Scotland using the annual survey of ours and earnings published by the Office of National Statistics. Using that index, I can confirm formally that an increase of 0.6 per cent will be applied in April 2018. As we have provided analysis of the other costs and various schedules that form part of our budget submission, I will not repeat that information. In closing, I present the committee with the corporate body's fully considered bid for the financial year 2018-19. We have analysed the information that is available to us over many months, assessed the risks that we face and the areas that we wish to develop so that we can decisively in this budget continue to provide Parliament with the resources that it needs. Our budget is pitched at a level that we believe is necessary, proportionate and sustainable on the medium term until the end of this session. I conclude with that. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for coming along. In your opening remarks, Mr Carlaw mentioned the issue of the commissioners and ombudsmen, which the committee has looked at in the past. I was just looking at the figures that you submitted for the budget bid. We now have six commissioners and ombudsmen. The overall cost of that, I note, is going up, approaching £11.5 million in the coming year. Some of that is to do with a one-off relocation, which I'm sure you'll tell us more about in due course. In relation to the non-capital costs, the one commissioner who seems to have quite a large increase in the budget is the commissioner for ethical standards and public life, which is up, I note, 10.5 per cent on the current year. I was wondering if you could give us some more detail as to why that particular commissioner has seen such an increase in his projected budget. I'll let Paul come in as well on this, but certainly from our own experience on the corporate body in the submission that the Ethical Standards Commissioner made to us during the course of the year in which he felt this increase was necessary. It reflects an increase in the number of complaints that have actually been received by the Ethical Standards Commissioner, of which he is now having to investigate. That has increased, I think, significantly such that it was necessary, I think, for an employment resource to be added to cope with that, if I recall correctly, Paul. Just to develop that a bit further, there are already three components to the increase. The biggest by far is extra investigatory work. In the past four years, what we've tended to do is fund that through contingency, but we've budgeted for around about 400 hours of investigatory work a year, but it's actually running at closer to 600. Also, in evidence to the SPPA committee, the commissioner made the point that they're also increasing in complexity, and we felt that it was more transparent rather than funding it continually through contingency to be actually upfront and put that in the budget so that you could see that. That counts, I think, for about £55,000. The other two components of that are, one, a new IT case management system, which we think will support this work, and the final additional budget is £17,000, and that's for potential additional functions around the lobbying register. The Ethical Standards Commissioner will have the function if there are complaints under the new regime, which, as you know, comes into place next year, then he has a function. That has to be an estimate, and obviously that's something that, when we present next year's budget, we'd hopefully be able to firm up on. Can I return to the collocation? It is an important consideration of the collocation. The ombudsman does have to move, so there would have been a cost associated with that, even if we hadn't then looked to collocate with other commissioners. Clearly, the various commissioners are in accommodation, which have got variable lifetimes of their existing contracts left, but there is an opportunity at this point to see if we can bring together three of the particular commissioners on to a single standalone site. We're also of the view that these aren't necessarily drop-in centres. They don't need to be in prestigious high-street accommodation addresses. It's important that they are accessible, certainly, but it is a functioning office, and we believe that the particular saving that we'll realise over the years ahead. It's difficult to be precise because there are a number of premises that are being looked at, and there's a variable saving. We are negotiating, but we think that it would be cautiously optimistic to say that we could save about half a million pounds in accommodation costs on an on-going business basis over the next decade. Okay, thank you for that. You've got a figure, a contingency figure, that I appreciate, of £1.75 million for the accommodation project. Can you maybe explain where that figure comes from? Is it related to the costs of breaking existing leases, for example? Yes, I'll come in on that one. The figure that we've put forward is that at this stage we haven't got a secured property, so we've put forward a figure that is our understanding of what we would need to put in place for things like removal costs, IT systems being installed, advisers, other fit-out costs, things like ventilation, because most of what is happening in Edinburgh at the moment is that there's a good market, it's a fluid market, it turns over very quickly, and what we are finding is that mostly its shells are available for rent, and any organisation is then going to have to go in and do a fit-out to its own standards, and obviously we would want to be taken into consideration given the nature of the body's equality considerations, of course. Those cover the main fees associated with the fit-out and the move. We would be seeking to negotiate on things like any change in rental, because we have got a staggered situation with the different properties, the commissioners and the other officers having to move at different times, so we would be negotiating around rental in the run-up to trying to secure a final property. I know that others want to come in on this, Bruce, so just one more question if I can. Are the commissioners all enthusiastic and welcoming about this project? We've been working with the commissioners and the other office holders since April of this year on a working group, and they've been working very well with us to consider the option of co-location and the impact of co-location. It's fair to say that it's changed, and we have discussed with them, I've met all of the office holders, and we've discussed the fact that their employer will have to manage the impact of that for some of their staff. We're confident that we're going to be able to secure something that working with them will meet all of their needs. Are you looking only at properties in Edinburgh? At this stage, we are, yes. The corporate body indicated that because of the continuity of staffing, it would be desirable to look in Edinburgh in the first instance. We're standing with the fact that Edinburgh is the most expensive real estate in Scotland, and all of these are Scottish national bodies, and there's no reason why they have to be located in the nation's capital. There is no reason why they have to be located in the nation's capital, but what we did look at was the fact that currently they are located in Edinburgh and that all of their staff are drawn from the surrounding areas, so it would probably be a lot more expensive for us to start to look outside of Edinburgh. They have a range of different working relationships with different bodies that are Edinburgh-based. They made representations to us about that and about the continuity of staffing that they have in the years of experience that they have in carrying out their jobs. The corporate body minded of the big change that that was going to be in terms of co-location where it was persuaded that Edinburgh first was the best option. I would say that, mindful of the very point that you make, we also took the view that that did not necessarily mean that, as has been the case in the past, they needed to be located right in the heart and centre of Edinburgh that there were other opportunities provided by business parks and other locations in the periphery of Edinburgh that might also be suitable for accommodation, and I think that they are amongst the places that we are currently also looking to see if we can identify suitable premises. Good, but other towns and cities not very far away from Edinburgh are available at much cheaper rental costs? I think that what I would say is that, if we are unsuccessful in securing accommodation, which is both value for money and fits purpose—and I think that the corporate body, I am sure, would reconsider that—but, as Jackson said, including the peripheral parts of Edinburgh, that is our first option. Clearly, if that does not prove successful, in other words, we cannot find a property that the corporate body regards as sufficient value for money and meeting the requirements of the commissioners, then I am sure that the corporate body would look again at those options. Liam McArthur has made the case in the corporate body for Orkney, repeatedly, so we do understand the various options that exist. Thank you. Good morning. Just to follow on from this, I think that Michelle Haggerty mentioned the equality considerations that need to be borne in mind with the relocation project. I am aware that PCS has expressed concern around the impact of distance from the rail network, in particular, for disabled employees and those with caring responsibilities, and that PCS has requested consultation with the SPCB. The end principle decision has been made, but clearly the SPCB has further decisions to make, which will impact on those staff, despite not being the direct employer. Has there been an agreement to take part in that consultation with PCS? No, because we are not the employer, as you rightly say, so we are very clear on that point that the engagements between the PCSs with the employers, who are the commissioners, I think that it would be inappropriate, and I am very clear on that point. However, we do take equality very seriously, so when we have a property identified, and I think that as Jackson and Michelle have said, there is a number of properties still in play, and there are obviously commercial negotiations going on. Once we have identified a preferred property, we would undertake an equality impact assessment. We are very happy, and I think that Michelle has encouraged the commissioners individually to engage with the PCS, but we are clear that it is not appropriate for us to do so. The design of that equality impact assessment, the kind of questions that it will ask, seems reasonable that that at least should be informed by the views of those representing the people who will be directly impacted by the outcome of the decision. Our intention, Patrick, is to do the equality impact assessment jointly with the office holders, and we have already asked the office holders for previous equality impact assessments that they have done in previous moves before to their current locations to help inform it on an equality impact assessment. The employers themselves, the office holders, will commit to including the representative of the workforce in that process. They should, as part of that, bring forward any impacts on staff from an equality perspective as part of that equality impact assessment. You would expect them to include the representative union, the only representative union in those workplaces? It is really a matter for them how they engage with the PCS in terms of their staff and any concerns that would be raised, but the equality impact assessment that we would do, we would collaborate with the office holders on carrying that out. It should flush out any equality impact assessments in relation to any staff that they might employ. The questions on that should flush that out. I appreciate that, and there is not a direct employment relationship, but it would be hard for the SPCB to make a final decision and therefore to calculate the impact on its own budget if that process had been taken forward without the involvement of the union that represents the workforce. I think that we probably said as much as we can on that. It is obviously a matter for the commissioners to do that. As you say, the corporate body itself will have to judge the effectiveness of that, and we will clearly look to see the extent to which the commissioners have engaged with their staff and unions, but I think that it is key not to cross the line into telling the employers how to engage with their staff. I think that that is the matter for them. I think that it will be a positive process to do that equally. We are very serious about it just to give you that reassurance. I will come back to that, but I will install other supplementaries in this area. James? On going back to the public omnispens costs, in terms of professional fees, there is a projected increase going up from £196,000 to £453,000, which is obviously more than double. I just wondered what the background to that was. It is a demand-led organisation, and it obviously does not know the number of complaints that it will have to investigate. It has a limited control over that. Over the past seven or eight years, it has consistently had its responsibilities increased by the Parliament. More public bodies have been going to them. Recently, the Government has indicated that it also wants to set up a new national whistleblowing officer for the NHS, and it has indicated that it would like to add that to the ombudsman's responsibilities. It has written to the corporate body to ask if it can bring an order before Parliament to do that. We expect that to come into place next year, and that to be an additional functionality that it will have to take on. The Scottish Government will make some provision for the initial running costs, but, thereafter, that would come back to the corporate body to fund as well. There is a recognition in the increased workload and the new powers that consistently the ombudsman has had to take on over the piece. I can appreciate that there is an increased number of complaints. I know that from constituents that I deal with. You have outlined the position in relation to increased powers. I am not entirely clear why it has gone up by more than double. If you would like, James, we can take that away. I am more than happy to write back to you on that. I can happily drop you a note just to explain the detail of that. The calculation that we have made and agreed is all related to the new functions of the ombudsman and the assessment of what the implication is for that going forward. Okay, that is fine. Just on that, Jackson said in his opening remarks that you are anticipating that you will come back to us with future budgets in line with inflation. I anticipate that the ombudsman's functions are going to be very significantly enhanced after the social security bill is enacted, assuming that it is enacted. I anticipate that complaints about the new Scottish Social Security Agency will be investigated by the ombudsman. It may be that I am wrong about that, but it may be that that does indeed happen. Have you factored that in to this increase, or are you going to be coming back to us next year or thereafter with further significant increases because the ombudsman's workload after social security has been devolved or after devolved social security comes into force is likely very significantly to increase? I do not think that we have scoped out because it is a bit further ahead than we can what that additional responsibility would be. I think that, as I said at the start as well, if there were any significant additional new responsibilities over and above those that we have anticipated, that probably would lead to a further review of the cost. So, just to be clear, the doubling of the ombudsman's budget because of increased workload does not take into account devolved social security? It is not a doubling of the budget. The budget year-on-year increase for the ombudsman is about 2 or 3 per cent. I am talking about the figures that James Kelly put to you. From 190 something to 400 something, that is a doubling. That is not a doubling of the overall budget stuff, I think, to 2 or 3 per cent, just to reassure you on that. It is not a doubling of the budget. If there is a detail within it, we will check that out and get back to you, but it is not a doubling budget. It is actually quite a modest increase. The ombudsman is an organisation that has had a lot of additional functions. Your social security point is a well-made point, but looking at the timing and scale of that, I think that it would not have been sensible in this round to try to speculate on that once that is in place and if the Parliament decides that the ombudsman should take that, I think that that might be one of those significant issues that Jackson Carlaw alluded to and would have to work through quite carefully. I am aware that you are of the scale of the operation and that might well be, but I think that it is just not possible to speculate this far out, so I think that that is why Jackson quite properly indicated that there are one or two potentially very significant changes that would have to come back, which is why our undertaking that this is a medium-term budget has to have that caveat in. It may well be by this time next year that we are able to have a more informed discussion with the committee as to what that might look like. Critically, what the timeline is, as you know yourself, is coming on stream in steps and we could look at that with you as well. I think that Derek could maybe just speak to the point about the numbers just to clarify any confusion arising there. On schedule 4B that you have got that gives a breakdown of the revenue costs, the SPSO for 1718 showed the new functions as a single figure of £1 million, but for 1819 that has been allocated out into the individual line, so that is why the individual lines are showing such a big increase relative to the total professional fees. The previous year's figure was £196, so I would have assumed that that was sitting on the same line, and it was a like-the-like comparison. The new functions that were budgeted in 1718 were just put in as a single figure of £1 million, and that has now been allocated out into the individual components. In the same column that you have identified, you will see a million at the bottom of that, which is now, in this year, being allocated out into the line items. The total has gone from 4304 to 4400. I understand about the overall total, but on that individual line you are showing 1718 at 196, so I am assuming that you have broken that million figure down to the particular responsibilities, and then it has gone up to £453 million, so there is still a doubling on that individual line. It is just showing that it is a total for 1718, but what we could do is analyse that £1 million. I think that, for your sake and my own as well, we can write you a detailed note on that. To reassure the point in response to Mr Tomkins, the overall increase is 2.2 per cent year-on-year just for the ombudsman as a whole, but we will write you a detailed note on that particular point. Alexander, is it on commissioners as well? So, I will just go back to location. So, just quickly back to location. When you are looking for relocation of the officers and you say that you have to be in Edinburgh because of the staffing issue, is the radius of where you are looking the same as for MSPs who have to commute in daily? We will be looking in the wider Edinburgh area and peripheral Edinburgh. But the same distance that you apply for MSPs who do not get accommodation there? That would be broadly... I mean, there are three zones, you know, for members, and we haven't looked at it. I mean, that's a very precise thing defined in the expenses scheme. We haven't looked at it with that precision, but, yeah, broadly speaking, we're looking at the greater Edinburgh areas. That would include, I think, as Jackson himself said, things like the business parks out at the guile north of Edinburgh as well as the centre just to give you... So, they're not exactly the same, but broadly speaking, yes. Before we move on to general staffing issues, I was going to further question on the commissioner's issues, because in our draft report for 1718, the committee welcomed the suggestion from the corporate body that we wish to consider undertaking a review of the SPCB-supported office holders, and we invited you at that stage to consider that issue. Now, it's almost been... We're almost at 20 years since the Parliament's been in place, and, obviously, I know that those commissioners have come on at different stages, on this one, at different stages. Given that the Parliament has been in place that length of time and we've now got all this architecture, where have we got to with that review? It would be interesting to understand, because I think that it probably is about time that we did something serious on that. I think that we've fair to say, convener, that in this particular year, we have looked at savings that can be achieved through co-location and other efficiencies. In the Parliament before last, I certainly sat on a committee of the Parliament when proposals were made to reduce the number of commissioners. Crucially, at that point, to consider the creation of additional commissioners, there was talk in that Parliament of a veterans commissioner, of an older people's commissioner, and there was the prospect of a very considerable extension in the number of commissioners overall. In the event, some of the proposals that Parliament then considered met with quite considerable resistance in terms of merging some of the commissioners. I think that the corporate body in this particular year, looking at the various things that I identified in my opening remarks, Brexit, the parliamentary reform commission and the additional powers that are coming to us otherwise, have not specifically initiated what would be a further more detailed piece of work on the commissioners. However, if the committee was again to suggest to us that they felt that that was something that we should do, then it is something that we would certainly consider doing. Good morning. I am just looking at schedule 3 of your paper, and that is the one where you have broken down the new staffing. The one that I am interested in is the 13 new operational posts. Obviously, you said that you have taken them on to allow the Parliament to fulfil its scrutiny role with regard to constitutional issues and Brexit. I am interested in those roles and what the split will be between the five areas that you have listed here, such as committee, legal, spice, media and BIT. Can you give me an idea of how that will fall between the 13? I think that Paul is best placed to speak to that. Thank you. Five in the legal office, two in the committee office, four researchers in spice and one each in media and BIT. They are a mixture of permanent and temporary. It is probably important to make a one overall comment that picks up a point that Jackson Carlaw made. We have to be flexible as well, so as this committee knows better than any, we do not exactly know what this sort of scrutiny load will be particularly around constitutional change, but also new powers that must not be forgotten coming online, social security and others. When we see how that pans out, we may flex that, but that is our starting point, that breakdown. If we need to flex that through the year, because, for example, we need more researchers or fewer lawyers, then clearly we will do that, but that is our starting assumption for those 13 posts. Obviously, you have listed six years for public engagement, which I know is part of another change to the Parliament's role. Do we think that that will be enough for member support if we are taking on a considerable amount of work or it is just too early to say whether it will be sufficient? I do not know. You will see that we also explained how our contingency is fitted this year, and I would reassure the committee that the highest call on the contingency would be scrutiny work around any form of constitutional change, whether that is new powers or Brexit process itself or additional responsibilities that might come on the far side. We feel that this is as far as we can go with our current analysis, and rather than just pack out more posts, we have put some money in the contingency, and it would be the first call on the contingency if we needed additional posts in those areas. Just looking at the thing in the round, the budget is now over £100 million for the first time in total, so it is a not inconsiderable amount of taxpayers' money that we are dealing with here. Having said that, I am glad to see that you are taking it seriously in terms of your value for money agenda, and that is obvious. There are some cost areas where I can see IT, purchasing, etc., where you have made some reductions, which is great to see. I am intrigued by the 45 per cent number that Jackson Carlaw mentioned at the start in terms of the increase in workload. I would like to ask for any more information that you have got on where that is and to follow on from the staff positions that sit behind the process and some of that work. What kind of analysis have you done or what is on and going in terms of streamlining process, process marketing reviews, etc., to understand? There are a couple of jobs here that are very similar, and they are sort of admin. Here, we can maybe take some of that out and make it a bit more efficient, etc. I might just want to reflect on some of that. One of the things that I think is quite commendable within the operation of the Parliament in the past year is that a very considerable amount of the increase that we have seen has been accommodated from within existing resource. Some of that 45 per cent, which makes up the headline, I think that we would probably agree between us, is not necessarily labour intensive. The fact that more motions are tabled by members and considerably more have been is not in itself a significant increase in cost. Committee meetings meeting is a significant additional cost. In the last session, there had been 367 committee meetings in the first year. There have been 427 in this meeting for 798 hours. Committees are meeting more regularly. Members here will know that committees that may have met once at Fortnite previously are routinely meeting once a week. There is a commitment in terms of official record and parliamentary resource that is associated with that in particular. I think that, in addition to that, we are partially anticipating things within the Reform Commission where there are suggestions that committees could meet at the same time as Parliament is in session. That would add quite deliberately a cost to the Parliament because we do not have to provide services duly when that takes place. There would be additional costs quite specifically associated with us being able to do that. It is an interesting thing that, generally speaking, members in this session have been very engaged and the number of motions taking place, even the number of new bills being presented by members. There is a considerable additional commitment coming from that. I will let Sir Paul flesh that out a bit further again. In addition to that, the 45 per cent relates to, for example, motions and questions, so they are up. To give you a bit more flavour in this first year of this session compared to the first year of the last session, which I think is the best comparison, committee time is up about 8 per cent, chamber time up about 12 per cent. To take committee time back to the beginning of session 3, it is nearly 40 per cent higher. In terms of the productivity of the organisation, I think that that is quite substantial. We have done a number of things over the years. Quite significant reforms have actually been made by the committee office system. Your own clerks, no doubt, could talk to you about that, but it is a much more flexible system so that the more senior clerks take on responsibility for more committees. We have more adaptability, so essentially we could try to move the staff to where the issues are. Clearly, we have used technology to improve systems. A number of the project investments that we have ahead may not be in the next year, but the years beyond, for example, the committee agenda system, can help us with that. We are looking specifically at an interesting project, which is a collaboration between ourselves and other parliaments around the legislative drafting system. This is the legacy from nearly as the convener pointed out 20 years ago, and it is no longer supported. We have had a joint procurement project to develop a new system that will improve the effectiveness of drafting from the Government side through to our own side and, hopefully, provide a better service for committees, looking at how legislation changed the process. They found assurance that Michelle Hegarty chairs our strategic resources board. When they look at any project that is usually technology-related, but not always, but particularly there, they always look for where is the business efficiency from this to give you that assurance. I hope that we will try to build it in the way that we do it. Those few specific examples, I hope, illustrate what we are trying to achieve. No, that is right. I have just been on one very, very specific, and this may not be relevant, but it is something that we see. You mentioned motions. I think that being new, we are getting into the habit of doing what other people do, which is generating motions on practically anything that happens in your constituency. Is that process fairly automated, or are there costs that are significant? Frankly, when you look at some of our stuff, a lot of it, there are motions that are very, very important, but there are many that you may think that this looks a waste of somebody's time. It is automated, and it is pretty efficient. It has a cost, but I would not want to overstate that. Of course, with the high volume that further incentivises us to look at how we can streamline it. In other words, you are asking, does it cost more than the £10 that we are celebrating in the motion that has been awarded to somebody? Correct, yes. Exactly. A very flash question, and you may or may not be able to comment or answer this. If, when we moved a magic wand and somebody decided that Brexit was not a good idea after all, and you did not have to budget for costs associated with Brexit, how much could you save? Well, it is not the corporate body's business, of course, to anticipate what the political background or associated business of Brexit would be. We simply are charged with ensuring that the Parliament can function in all circumstances. I do not think that we have quantified what it would not cost to go ahead with Brexit, although obviously— We have identified what extra roles you need to be in to deal with extra workload caused by Brexit. I suspect that even rolling that back would probably have a certain cost implication, but I do not know if we are specific. I do not know if we have looked at it that way round. Yes, it is hard to be too precise. Do you know how many roles you are talking about by additional of the cause of Brexit? There are two points that I would make, and obviously it is a politically delicate issue. Some of the fact. In terms of our response to it. We are in the middle of it already. You will know, and this committee is a good example. Although technically Brexit has not happened, the Parliament is heavily engaged with the process, both through its committees and through plenary. Given that the corporate body's job is to provide the services that the Parliament requires, we have to work on the basis that it is going ahead until we hear something different. You will notice that we talked about extra posts, we talked about Brexit and constitutional issues. It has raised the whole constitutional debate, and a lot of the engagement of committees and plenary might have a Brexit element, but it often strays into other areas as well, so it is quite difficult just to pick it out. However, you will see in schedule 3, and I do not think that we could probably say anything more than we have said in schedule 3, that is our best estimate of where we stand on it. However, to pick up the point that I made in response to Ash Denham, there is obviously further contingency because we just do not know how it is going to play out, but we have not reversed engineered it in the way that you have asked, so it is not possible to put an exact figure on it. Can I go back to pick up on some of the stuff that Ash Denham is asking about? One of the things is that in looking at the additional staffing requirements, the 13 new operational posts for committee, legal, spice, media and bit, the six additional posts for public outreach work and a further seven post support increased level of demand for other parliamentary support. Given that, as Adam Tomkins alluded to earlier, we are now going to be taking on additional social security powers. This committee and other committees will become much more involved in the fiscal framework issues, the budget, adjustment processes, tax and borrowing, Fiscal Commission Revenue Scotland, as before I get to any of the Brexit issues around the legislation that will come to the Parliament here, whether it is fisheries, bills, environment bills, trade bills, all of the issues to do with the supplementary legislation surrounding that. I just want to be absolutely sure in terms of the balance that we have here between the different staffing increases that you are as convinced as you can be that the balance is right here between what is coming in terms of operational posts and the other areas. Beyond the contingency that you described to Ash Denham, what room for flexibility have you left yourself if it proves that the additional posts that you have identified for operational purposes are not sufficient? I think that you make a very important point. It is the reason why we have chosen to put a very, very considerable, some, I think, £500 million into contingency, because we recognise that we cannot anticipate the way all of these things will unfold or the order in which they will unfold, and there are clearly some very important issues straight ahead of us. Some of the engagement issues arising from the reform commission have yet to emerge back out of discussion within the various parts of this Parliament that are looking at how that might operate. I think that we are mindful of the point that you make, Sir Paul. Absolutely. There is also a detailed point. I may come back to convener on the public engagement posts, but we think that there is sufficient flexibility and just to reiterate the point that we have been monitoring this very carefully. Even before the year, the natural year begins, you will know how things are moving as we move into next year. We will start to get a clearer idea, particularly around the scrutiny burden around subordinate legislation, and just to absolutely reassure the committee, if we detect at all that we do not have sufficient resources to do all that, we will switch resources into it and we believe that there is enough flexibility in the budget to do that. On the engagement posts, it may be worth just pointing out as a point of detail, and I do apologise that it does not maybe come out as clearly as it could in schedule 3. We talk about establishing six permanent public engagement posts. In fact, three of those posts are already filled on a temporary basis, so they are not six new posts. Three of them will be new. The other three, we have taken a judgment that has been filled temporarily using contingents. The others were persuaded that there is a case for making them permanent, but just to be clear, whereas the 13 posts above are all new posts on top of it. Again, as I reflected on that, that might have been rather more clearly explained, but I hope that that gives you some further reassurances as to where we see the balance priorities. It is helpful. Obviously, there have been some moves already in terms of providing Parliament with support and advice on Brexit, because there is now, as I see from my inbox, a Brexit unit being established within SPICE. What sort of consultation was held with particular committees here? Frankly, I have had no consultation about that Brexit unit before it was set up. I would have thought that customers, i.e. the conveners, the clerks, et cetera, who were involved materially in those issues at the stage would have had some consultation before it was set up about what is the expertise, what is going to do, what are our needs, but I am not aware of that. There may be stuff going on that I am not aware of, and that Mr Johnson or the clerks are aware of that I am not. Are you aware that consultation went on before it was set up? I would have thought so too, so I am surprised to hear that you did not know about it. I think that it is a worthwhile development, and I think that it draws in externals others on what I will take away straight after this meeting that has gone and talked to my colleagues as to how, as we develop that unit, we can make sure that it does engage with committee, especially lead committees such as this, to make sure that it is meeting your requirements. It is a reorganisation of resources within Spice to give a clearer focus. It particularly draws in, and I know that you have benefited from that input yourselves, experts sitting outside Parliament. We think that that is a really important part of this, but if you convene, I do not feel that you have been sufficiently consulted or at all on it, then that does surprise me, and it is something that I think we can rectify. It is only just begun and will not be something fixed in stone, so I can give you an absolute assurance that they will engage with you. If you have some particular views as to how that unit might develop going forward, then obviously we will take that into account. I certainly think that myself and other committee members might want to talk to or understand what they are going to do. Particularly, it is not just about just now, it is about later, the common frameworks, the various pieces of legislation that will fall and the support that all committees affect those who are going to be involved in the process that they are going to need. I think that I would welcome that discussion. Listen, there may have been something that dropped into my entry a few months ago that I did not notice, so it did forgive me, but I am not aware of it. No, no, it is a very fair point, and even if that was the case, I think that it would actually be a very productive thing for the colleagues leading that unit to come and have some discussions with the committee just to understand your perspective as to how you would like it to support your work going forward. Incidentally, convener, I think that I am right in saying that there has been a 21% increase in the first year of this Parliament over the last year of the last Parliament in the number of inquiries members have made of Spice itself. I have got to say that the advice that we have had from them through the process so far of the whole issue of Brexit and indeed the budget has been fantastic, but I might put that on record. Emma, then I will come to Patrick. Thank you, convener. Good morning everybody. I heard a lot about the establishment of the six permanent public engagement posts, and I am interested in the outreach activity, so if we are going to go out there and engage in rural Scotland and the people out there, there is obviously going to be cost implications for accommodation and travel for the outreach. How would that look? One of the principal recommendations arising from the commission on parliamentary reform was a new focus on public engagement. The public engagement unit working with committees is designed to stimulate committee engagement beyond Parliament itself with a view to trying to solicit fresh witnesses with different perspectives that can be brought to the consideration of the legislation that we are undertaking. A lot of the resources in seeking to find ways in which that much broader base of potential witnesses will be able to engage with committees and enrich parliamentary life and, hopefully, involve them much more in the whole process of the development of and consideration of legislation going through Parliament. There was a very strong feeling, as somebody who sat on the parliamentary reform commission, as we went round Scotland, that that engagement was currently sporadic and that Parliament was inclined to hear very often from what was broadly termed the usual suspects and not necessarily from a much broader community Scotland in terms of the evidence that it was hearing. However, I think that that was a large part of what underpinned the recommendation, which is within the report, which Parliament has, I think, in a nominal way said it wishes to support, but there is a lot of, I think, detail before we get to that. I think that Michelle can probably... Yeah, that is exactly it. I think that a lot of committees in the Parliament have reflected over the piece that the one thing that they hear a lot of is from the usual suspects, as Jackson has alluded to. The outreach work has been very much about obviously helping people who can add value to the committee's deliberations, be prepared to come forward and to undertake that, and that can be, obviously, quite a difficult experience for people, and especially some of the subject matter can be very difficult for them to convey as well. I think that we did have a really good example around the homelessness inquiry, where a lot of that outreach support was on, first of all, working with two voluntary sector organisations to identify people who would be able to come forward to the committee and share their actual daily experiences, and also preparing them and giving them support the entire way through the process up to and giving evidence to the committee. That is time intensive. It requires a specific skill set, and that is the investment that the outreach team wants to make now, converting two of the temporary posts into permanent posts based on the experience that they have provided to committees and the end results of that that have impacted on the quality of the committee work. I support it. I think that it is great. We need rural Scotland, we need to be getting out there and speaking to people, so I welcome it. Do you have a wider question on efficiency issues? I am interested in the efficiency of the Scottish Parliament's corporate body. How do we compare with other assemblies, Governments, Ireland, UK and Wales, for instance, if we are now working at over 45 per cent increase in the business? I know that everyone feels that. How do we compare to other parliaments? I would like to say very well. Benchmarking is difficult, but I could give you an example. Benchmarking of the UK Parliament is just incredibly different. It is such a different, it is bicameral, it is a huge, huge organisation. What we do is often look at individual services as very strong links, whether it is technology, security, clarking, research, you can talk about spice, their links with the House of Commons, so library. We look at that. It may not be efficiency to Benchmarking, but we are always looking to see what we can learn from each other. In raw numbers, for example, the total staffing complement now in the Scottish Parliament was around 500. The staffing complement, I think that the Welsh Assembly was around 450. I think that suggests that we are not far out of Kilter. They have a whole range of responsibilities, but many fewer members. It gives you some comfort on Benchmarking. From time to time, we have looked at it to see whether it can be done numerically, but it is just too many variables. I would be worried that we would get something misleading. What we try to do is, across individual services, work with our colleagues in other parliaments in the UK to see what we can learn from each other. The legislative drafting development that I referred to in an earlier question is an example of where we decided that we could gain efficiencies by collaborating. We are paying less than 10 per cent of the development costs of that new system by sharing the development with other partners, the Scottish Government and some of the UK players. That is probably as much as I can say, but I hope that it reassures you that we take it very seriously and that we look to see what we can learn from other institutions. I was going to come on to pay briefly before that. If you are looking for comments on the Brexit unit, they published an interactive Brexit timeline on Monday of this week, and I think that that is awesome comic timing. They have set themselves a very high standard there to maintain. On the staff pay issue, aside from the number of staff that the Parliament needs, I think that Jackson Carlaw mentioned that he is coming to the end of a two-year pay deal, and the paper here says that, for budgetary purposes, we have made provision for a percentage increase to be applied from April 2018 and for incremental progression within agreed pay scales. Is that an intention for another two-year period, or is that for a one-year period from next year? I think that we are in the process of being about to embark on a negotiation, as I think all I would safely want to say. That negotiation last time around led to a two-year pay deal, but the negotiation starts afresh, and I do not think that at this stage we have set out any conclusions or expectations of what we might arrive at. I do not think that I would want to prejudice it beyond that, but I do not think that I could say any more. That is an open question. It is an open question, that is what I would say. Further in that paragraph, it says that discussions would take place once the SPCB has agreed a negotiating limit, a negotiating remit. I am assuming that you have not got to that point since that paper was written. Will that take into account the outcome of the Scottish budget process? Obviously, one of the issues that the Scottish Government is under pressure on is to achieve at least an inflation-based increase in the public sector pay settlement for its own employees. There is a consequent sense of an expectation of leadership to other public bodies and other public employers in the public sector. Will the SPCB's approach take into account the outcome of that Scottish Government pay policy in respect of an inflation-based settlement, if that is what happens? Corporate body has to look at lots of things. We look at comparators, not just the Scottish Government, although that would be one to reassure you on that, but bearing in mind, we are an independent service, not linked to the Scottish Government. Affordabilities is a key question. We have a long history of fruitful negotiations with the unions, which includes, in our case, the PCS but two other unions as well. We also look ahead in setting that remit as to what we might anticipate our staff would want, Patrick. There is a range of issues, but one of the factors that we would look at would be anything that we understand as to the broader economic climate and the approach that the Scottish Government and its agencies are taking to their pay. It may not be a determining factor, but it would certainly be one relevant factor that we would consider. In terms of what has been budgeted for, you are confident that the budget would allow that flexibility if that is the possession that is agreed? We believe so. Thanks very much, Bruce. Good morning to you. I wonder if I could ask you a wee bit about digital services in the Parliament. I think that the Parliament's digital presence is really good and very strong, and the support from all the IT teams is absolutely first class. You mentioned in your paper that we will be investing in upgrading the Parliament's website. Could you give us a little glimpse of what we might be looking forward to seeing in there, please? I think that Michelle is the best person to take us forward on that. Good morning. That is a big project that has just kicked off, and it has been on the radar for a little while. The last website was brought into place in 2011, and since then, technology, as you will be aware, has moved on apace. In fact, most organisations now do not do a big build of a website, then leave it and then come back and rebuild it again. The intention would be that we would do a step change this time. We do need a new platform because our current one is unsustainable in the long term, but what we are intending to do is put in place a website that can be iteratively developed over the intervening years so that we do not have to do a huge build again, which is costly. It also gives us the opportunity if we use the right technologies to flexibly improve it as it goes forward. The stage that it is at at the moment is scoping out a road map for the website, how it is going to be delivered, and it is getting a lot of user feedback. In fact, yesterday, the team was in the garden lobby trying to talk to members and get their feedback on the existing website and what they might want from a future website. As a result of all the user involvement, the intention is to bring forward a beta version in the 2018-19 financial year, which people can have a play about with and give feedback on. At some point, over the next two years, it will completely move away from the current site and to have the new site, but that will also be an investment. It is in all the online services, not just the website, but it will also be on the intranet, which is for the staff and the organisation, around the various things that we have to do to manage our daily business, and also the members' portal and where that goes next, because there has been a lot of feedback about that as well. Emma, you have mentioned public engagement and the usual suspect was mentioned in the discussion. Do you ever see that it will get to a point where the public directly can participate in things such as Scottish Parliament committees through Skype or Twitter or submitting questions? It is suitably moderated, of course, because it does happen in other forums, and I am not just wondering if Parliament might embrace that through the committees and even through the parliamentary website so that the public has got direct access to communicate with members of the Parliament. I think that that is a really interesting area. In fact, I have had some direct experience when I was giving evidence earlier this year to the Environment Committee. I came in early and they were doing a moderated session exactly as you described. Through Facebook Live, they were taking questions suitably moderated by one of my colleagues. The committee, and it had some expert witnesses, was trying to take those, and I thought that it was a really interesting experiment in direct democracy. From the corporate bodies point of view, we would want to be led by committees on that. If there is demand out there from committees, and there clearly is some, then we would feel that we have the technological capability to support you in that, but it should be driven by the business of the Parliament. We do not get too carried away investing in clever new technologies if it is not demanded by the committee, but if committees want to move in that direction, we think that we have some of the technical capability now, but as we go forward, we would make sure that that was built in. It is one way in which you can distribute and share the life and work of the parliament, the parliamentarians, with a whole of Scotland rather than just Edinburgh, for example, where people have to come here to have an experience of what goes on. Using the digital technology, you can distribute that to anywhere in Scotland from Shetland, right down to the border. I look forward to some opportunities to do some of that work in the future. Okay, thanks, Willie. James. Just going back to the staff budget again, you have, in relation to staff turnover, built on a figure of 540,000, which in effect is like a credit, because you are saying that there will be some periods where there is an understandable gap between somebody leaving and recruiting. So, just in terms of staff retention, what is our trend like? Are we confident enough that we're retaining our experienced and professional staff and also that we're following up in recruitment so that those gaps are minimised? Yes, we do. We have very good staff retention. The 2 per cent is something that Derek advises on, and that means that that's fair. We don't feel that we should budget for the full amount. We think that's prudent, but we have very good staff retention, especially in key areas such as clerking and research. Like many organisations, we struggled to recruit in highly buoyant markets such as IT and legal. We've been looking very creatively, especially in the IT side. For example, we've been recruiting people more directly from college and university, where we can often attract people. I think that we accept that they might only stay with us for three or four years. We really struggled to compete in that mid-market where lots of other organisations frankly outbid us in terms of what they can pay. Across the piece, I think that I'm very pleased—it also enables us to invest with confidence in those staff that we feel we're going to get payback in terms of their expertise. That's been a hallmark of the Parliament over our entire lifetime. I thank the panel very much for coming along this morning. It's been a good session. I now move the committee into private session.