 The next item of business is the debate on motion 15421 in the name of Bruce Crawford on committee budget scrutiny. I call on Bruce Crawford to speak to and move the motion on behalf of the Finance and Constitution Committee. Mr Crawford, please. Mr Crawford, it is my pleasure to open the debate today as the convener of the Finance and Constitution Committee on our pre-budget scrutiny. At the beginning, I thank our clerks for doing such a sterling job and pulling together a report, and my colleagues for the diligent and collective way we went about coming to our conclusions. I am very much looking forward to hearing the contributions from other committees on their work. We are making just a little bit of history today with this debate. It is the first one of its kind where the conveners get an opportunity to speak about their committee's pre-budget scrutiny and hear the cabinet secretary's response. Today's debate is an important aspect of the new poll process for budget scrutiny, based on the excellent work carried out by the budget process review group. To provide just a bit of context of the debate, the group noted that the subject committees had previously very little role within the budget process once they had reported to the finance committee on the draft budget. In particular, subject committees did not have a specific role in the plenary debates on the draft budget and the budget bill. That meant that often the findings of the subject committees on the budget were unfortunately not debated by the Parliament as a whole. As more time is devoted now to the scrutiny of the new financial powers, it was considered important to ensure that the scrutiny of the existing expenditure powers was not diluted. The group therefore recommended that the debate take place in advance of the stage 1 debate of the budget bill, which was of course scheduled for next week. It is worth repeating the four core objectives of the new budget process. First, to have a greater influence on the relation of Scottish Government budget proposals. Secondly, to improve transparency and raise public understanding and awareness of the budget. To respond effectively to new fiscal and wider policy challenges. Fourthly, to lead to better outputs and outcomes, as measured against benchmarks and stated objectives. In May last year, the Parliament agreed the new written agreement between the Finance and Constitution Committee and the Scottish Government, which sets out the new process. We are now moving towards a more outcomes-based approach to the scrutiny of public expenditure. That builds on some of the previous work that subject committees have carried out as part of their budget scrutiny. I look forward to hearing from colleagues today in this debate how that work has progressed. As I said at the time that we debated the new written agreement, the biggest challenge facing us as politicians in adopting this new process, I believe, will be a cultural challenge. Moving, for instance, from judging the success based on the number of police on the streets to measuring the actual environmental, economic or social outcomes achieved by public spending. Having set out some of the context that I think was important, I will now move on to the pre-budget scrutiny that was carried out by the Finance and Constitution Committee over the past few months. On more taxation and borrowing powers have been devolved to the committee that has rightly focused increasingly on the revenue side of the budget. Our pre-budget report focused on four key documents. Firstly, the Scottish Government's five-year financial strategy. Secondly, the fiscal framework out-turn report. Thirdly, Scotland's economic and fiscal forecasts for May 2018. Fourthly, the forecast evaluation report. The first two documents are published annually by the Scottish Government following the recommendations of the budget process review group and the remaining two are published annually by the Scottish Fiscal Commission. We welcomed the publication of all four documents as a significant step forward, as well as a comprehensive basis for our pre-budget scrutiny. We gave particular focus to the operation of the fiscal framework, which I can safely say is not an easy subject to get your head around. My colleagues on the committee would share that view. We have previously emphasised that the budget is now subject to a much greater degree of volatility and uncertainty. In particular, the risk to the public finances from forecast error is very real. That risk can work both ways. It can positively or negatively increase the risk to the Scottish budget if there is a divergence in the extent of any forecast error between the Scottish Fiscal Commission and the Office of Budget Responsibility. For example, if the Scottish Fiscal Commission's forecasts are over-optimistic and the Office for Budget Responsibility's forecasts are pessimistic, that would have a negative impact on the budget. However, of course, if the converse proves true, then that would obviously have a positive impact on the scale of the budget that is available to the Scottish Government. There are some other key areas from our pre-budget report that I would like to highlight as part of this debate this afternoon. Firstly, on population growth, we heard the strong evidence to suggest that there is a risk to the size of the Scottish budget arising from Scotland's population ageing faster than that of the rest of the United Kingdom. In particular, there is a real risk from a higher growth in the old age dependency ratio in Scotland relative to the rest of the United Kingdom. That is because the size of the population is between 16 and 64, and I am just still in that bracket, which makes up most of the working age population that is important for the economy and public finances. Because those individuals are more likely to be economically active and working, they therefore generate most of the tax that the Parliament requires to raise. Those factors mean that there are a couple of fundamental questions that require to be asked, whether the Scottish Government has sufficient policy levers to address that risk and whether the fiscal framework sufficiently recognises demographic divergence. The committee believes that both of those fundamental questions should be fully considered as part of the review of the fiscal framework that is due to take place in 2021. Secondly, given the way that the fiscal framework operates, there is a real risk to the size of the Scottish budget if there is a fall in the working age population due to disproportionate decline in immigration relative to the rest of the United Kingdom. Therefore, within the context of Brexit and different demographic dynamic relative to the rest of the UK, we recommended that the review of the fiscal framework should consider the impact of immigration policy following the UK's departure from the EU, if, of course, that transpires. Finally, on forecast error, the Auditor General for Scotland was right when she said that there are inherent risks in forecasting tax revenues, because they are based on the extent of underlying uncertainty about the economy, the availability of relevant and robust data, the robustness of the office of budget responsibility and the Scottish Fiscal Commission's respective methodologies and judgments, and the differences in methodology and judgements between the Scottish Fiscal Commission and the Office for Budget Responsibility. We understood that forecast error is inevitable, and I think that that is something that we are going to have to get used to in this Parliament, and that the Scottish Fiscal Commission and the Office for Budget Responsibility have a very challenging role in preparing independent forecasts. Because of the direct impact on the size of the Scottish budget and the need to minimise the risk, we have asked the Scottish Fiscal Commission and the Office for Budget Responsibility to make it clear what their respective methodologies were and how they used the out-turn data differently. We need to understand how much of a factor that was in explaining the differences between their forecasts. To summarise, the operation of the fiscal framework needs very close monitoring and risk management to address the potential volatility and uncertainty inherent in its operation. There are risks arising from the forecast revisions, especially when there is divergence in those revisions between the Office for Budget Responsibility and the Scottish Fiscal Commission. While those revisions might not have any immediate impact on the size of the budget, they might have an impact on the size of future budgets, and that needs to be monitored very closely. To conclude, the fiscal complex is complex and there needs to be greater transparency and a wider awareness of the risks involved. The committee will try to continue to shine a light on how the framework is working. We will begin with a report on the budget that is published tomorrow. The first out-turn figures for the Metrum RC for Scottish income tax will be published in July 2019 and will have a direct impact on the size of the Scottish budget. Those out-turn figures for the financial year 1718 will be reconciled with forecasts made in December 2016 and any divergence dealt with in 2021 budget. I told you that this is complicated. This will be, however, a very important matter, as it will be the first time that we will fully see the extent from forecast error. If there is any shortfall, that will need to be addressed in the budget for 2021. Equally, if the forecast error benefits the Scottish budget, the Government will be able to draw on that money in the 2021 budget to address its priorities. I finish by putting on record the committee's appreciation of the constructive engagement that all committees have had with the new budget process. We are all learning and, throughout the next year, we can build on the work that is undertaken across the Parliament to improve budget scrutiny and to increase our influence in the setting of the Scottish Government's budget. I therefore move the motion on behalf of the Finance and Constitution Committee that the Parliament notes the pre-budget scrutiny that is undertaken by parliamentary committees. I will now call Clare Adamson, convener of education and skills, to be followed by—oh, I beg your pardon. No, I do not call Clare Adamson. He must have got a bit of a shock there. I actually called Derek Mackay, Cabinet Secretary to speak for the Government, that frightened you. Did it, Ms Adamson? Mr Mackay? Well, it would have been a great relief to me. If I did not have to give the Government's position, I am actually more than happy to, because I agree with the Finance and Constitution Committee, convener, that this is an important step in a budget process and engagement of the parliamentary committees. What should be a slightly less partisan way as we take the committee reports, consider them and reflect on them, and that is exactly what the Scottish Government has done. I reflect that part of this is about the continuous all-year-round scrutiny of the budget, and therefore there are probably further inquiries from committees that can progress. In terms of what has been published, I agree with the sentiment of Bruce Crawford in the appreciation that all have engaged in a very positive and constructive manner. As Bruce Crawford has outlined, those are the changes to budget scrutiny that were from the recommendations from the budget process review group. The principle of year-round scrutiny of the budget is important, and I again thank all committees for their consideration and engagement on that. I will now turn to the specific committee reports and reflect on their valued contributions. I turn first to culture, tourism, Europe and external affairs. On culture, tourism and major events, the Scottish Government has committed to spending £331 million, which includes the continued investment of a further £10 million in the screen sector—something that I know that the committee was interested in. In 2019-20, the Scottish Government will spend around £24 million on supporting its international relations activity, including the funding of Scottish Government operations overseas. At a time of such uncertainty across the EU, it is vital that the Scottish Government continues to build on its strong reputation overseas. The Economy, Energy and Fair Work Committee's report focused on promoting employment and encouraging fair work, including the newly devolved employability programmes and our enterprise agencies. Tackling barriers to work, supporting training and promoting fair work is essential to improving Scotland's economy and providing improving opportunities for all. I can confirm that the Scottish Government will provide almost £57 million for that employability and training, and more widely, the budget will support Scottish Enterprise with around £253 million. I fully support the committee's interests on employability programmes, and that will be considered as part of a review of employability support services. I also boost the economy by providing more than £5 billion of capital investment to grow in modernised Scotland's infrastructure. I acknowledge the concerns on the progress of the Scottish growth scheme, and the Government will, as I have committed to do, provide the committee with an update on Scottish Enterprise's use of financial transactions in April. Education is this Government's defining mission, and we remain determined to improve the life chances of the children and young people of Scotland and change lives for the better. I recognise that the Education and Skills Committee has raised a number of important issues. Within a challenging financial environment, the Scottish Government is firm in its resolve to deliver a world-class education system. That is why the education portfolio will receive a real-time increase in investment in 2019-20. James Kelly is a macae for taking the intervention. He mentioned a challenging financial environment, and the backdrop to that is important to make the most of the financial levers that he has at his disposal. Can I ask him in a non-partisan way if he supports the principle of fair taxation and if he believes that it is fair that SNP ministers in this budget will pay less tax than they did in the previous tax year? SNP ministers with the Scottish Government, just in relation to pay and tax, have taken a pay freeze since 2008, and I think that that is the right thing to do. On tax position on income tax, we are not passing on the tax cut for the highest earners in society in not following the Tories on their tax proposition. I believe that our tax system is fair and progressive if parties wish to bring to me a full proposition. Of course, I will look at that. To be fair, the Greens have engaged constructively in the budget, and I look forward to Labour's engagement in that regard as well. Back specifically to education, the budget commits to the £180 million in raising attainment in schools. The Parliament is aware that the Scottish Government is investing record sums in investment on funding for early learning and childcare. The partnership arrangement with COSLA will be supported by £210 million in the Scottish budget with a capital funding arrangement of £476 million being provided to local authorities over the four years. We are protecting our investment in higher and further education and increasing skills development Scotland's budget by £22 million to support the continued growth and expansion of apprenticeships in Scotland. The Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee has rightly considered a range of issues, including the wider benefits of environmental spend. The transition to a low-carbon economy lies at the heart of our economic strategy, and the steps that we are taking through this budget ensure that we have a globally competitive, entrepreneurial, inclusive and sustainable economy. That is why the Scottish budget includes commitments to fund around £59 million of forestry priorities. Supporting and stimulating woodland creation is part of achieving the targets in the climate change plan that was debated at the committee. We are providing over £20 million for Zero Waste Scotland to support the transition towards a more resource-efficient, circular economy. We will make available over £145 million as part of the £500 million investment in energy efficiency fuel poverty and heat decarbonisation. We will invest over £50 million in low-carbon measures, including the expansion of electric vehicles, charging infrastructure and investing £80 million in active travel. All those low-carbon activities contribute to our ambitious approach to leading the way on tackling climate change. I appreciate the Finance and Constitution Committee's focus on the fiscal framework and the financial risk to the Scottish budget that Bruce Crawford has laid out in the discussion at the committee. I recognise the challenge that it presents. It is complex, but particularly the reliance on accurate forecasting and the increased uncertainty that comes from managing increasing demand-led budgets such as a new social security programme. I look forward to working closely with the committee as its experience under the fiscal framework grows and we reach that review point. The Scottish budget will increase spending on health and care services by almost £730 million, and the Scottish Government continues to deliver on its manifesto commitment to pass on health resource consequentials in full, despite being shortchanged by the UK Government. In its consideration, the Health and Sport Committee highlighted the importance of shifting the balance of care to community health services, and the Scottish budget delivers in that key priority area. In 2019-20, more than £700 million will be invested in social care and integration, and we are investing £941 million in primary care, and our investment on mental health will reach £1.1 billion. Those are very significant priorities for the Scottish Government, and the budget does reflect ministers' recognition of that. In terms of justice, I recognise the vital role that our justice services provide in supporting all parts of Scotland. The budget confirms investment across the justice system priorities, including the transformation of our police and fire services. The police resource budget continues to receive real-terms protection, and the Crown Office and the procreator fiscal service and the Scottish Courts and Tribunial Service budgets will receive an increased resource budget. The significant increase over recent years in funding for community justice and support for victims, including third sector organisations, is maintained and increased further. The Scottish Government values its partnership and close working with local government, working together to support the delivery of essential services for Scotland's communities across the country. The budget will provide local government with a real-terms increase in revenue and capital funding, and the budget will provide £11.1 billion for local government. The local government and communities committee pre-budget scrutiny report focused on the local government workforce planning and the housing needs for older and disabled people as part of that scrutiny. The budget takes account of the views that are expressed, and we have been able to protect the funding that is available to assist registered social landlords in delivering adaptations for older and disabled tenants, maintaining funding at £10 million. There is wider issues and integration as part of that. For rural economy and connectivity's report, very close interest in Scotland's ferry services is the lifeline services that are vital important to supporting the connections across our rural communities. The budget continues the £10.5 million that was secured last year to support local authority ferry services. I have considered carefully the committee's interest from social security in relation to the Scottish welfare fund. The Scottish Government works closely with local authority partners in delivering the fund, and we will continue to provide £38 million in 2019-20 to support local authorities for that purpose, despite the pressures coming from UK Government's welfare reform. That figure includes £33 million for payments and £5 million to help our 32 local authorities administer the fund at a local level. We are doing the right thing in terms of building a social security system based on dignity, fairness and respect. A new agency is now operational and will continue to grow and develop as further social security benefits are devolved to Scotland. In conclusion, we are working on the delivery of the second wave of devolved benefits, and our early success is something that the Government can be rightly proud of. In conclusion, I welcome the Scottish Parliament's new approach to year-round scrutiny of the budget. It is a progressive approach to scrutinising spend and the delivery of improved outcomes in Scotland. I genuinely appreciate the constructive approach that committees have taken. I look forward to that very same constructive approach for all parties to continue as the budget proceeds to deliver the stability, stimulus and sustainability that we are looking to deliver for all the people of Scotland. I look forward to the rest of the afternoon's debate. I now call Clare Adamson, convener of education and skills, to be followed by Gordon Lindhurst. Ms Adamson, please. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I welcome this opportunity to speak on behalf of the Education and Skills Committee. I would like to pay tribute to the support of my clerks and my committee members, and I hope that I can do their commitment and diligence justice today. The committee has integrated the scrutiny of budget lines and associated outcomes into its inquiries throughout the financial year. The issues covered range from attainment and achievement of school-age children experiencing poverty, developing the young workforce and instrumental music tuition. Today, I have written to the Scottish Government setting details on the budget lines in support of the implementation of the Scottish national standardised assessments. The committee also undertook scrutiny of the draft budget to this month, taking evidence from the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, John Swinney, and, just for clarity, I say that any reference to the Cabinet Secretary is to the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills and not the Cabinet Secretary who is responding today. I would like to highlight additional support for learning in school education, a significant priority for the committee. The committee published its inquiry, which included a focus on mainstreaming in May 2017. The importance of sufficient resourcing of the policy, set against a marked rise in the number of pupils recognised as having an additional support need in some areas, were underlying themes of the inquiry report. Specific recommendations include a financial review of local authority spend, improvements to the baseline data that effective scrutiny of policy implementation needs to be based on, and qualitative research into the experiences of young people with additional support needs to assess the reality of the implementation of this policy. The committee welcomed the movement from the Government in response to some of its recommendations, particularly in its agreement to commission qualitative research. However, scrutiny of provision of ASN remains a priority for the committee going forward. In November 2018, we held a session with the Government's statisticians and policy officials on the collation of data and staff census on school support staff specifically in the support of children with additional support needs. Change in reporting reflected inconsistency in data collection across local authorities. The committee would seek clarity on the number of support staff working in ASN previously and currently not available accurately. The committee has looked at funding allocations of Scottish Children's Services Coalition suggested that there could be ring-fence budgets in support of additional support needs. The committee invited a perspective from the Government on this idea. I appreciate the arguments that were made, including by COSLA, during the evidence in our committee's inquiry into music tuition, on guarding against an over-reliance and targeted or ring-fenced funding over funding policy through core local authority budget allocations. Although a report also highlighted the success of the Youth Music Initiative, which is a Government-led initiative that is delivered by COSLA and local authorities and is thoroughly welcomed by all those who took part in it. The committee also had an inquiry into attainment and achievement of children experiencing poverty, including a focus on the cost of the school day. The committee received evidence, including from the children's poverty action group, suggesting that charging for elements of the curriculum were relatively commonplace. A musical tuition report published on Tuesday highlighted the need to ensure that no charges are attached to any activity that is required to contribute towards an SQA exam. In general, we are seeking clarity as to what can and cannot be charged for under the curriculum, and more information is required on the extent of such practices in local authorities. The committee has always been concerned about consistency of approach across local authorities, and it continues to be a theme across all of our inquiries. The committee welcomes certain moves to ensure minimal levels of support for children and their families, in particular the Scottish Government announcement towards the end of poverty and attainment inquiry that it agreed with local authorities that a minimum level of school clothing grant of £100 per year should be implemented and regularly reviewed, and that was a welcomed step. The poverty and attainment inquiry also looked at the pupil equity funding and attainment challenge funding—the draft budget has it standing at £118 million of provision. That included looking at the extent to which indicators of deprivation can be relied on as the basis for targeted funding allocations—for example, the limitations of using free school meal uptake as a criteria for the allocation of pupil equity funding. The committee welcomed the Scottish Government's acceptance of the committee recommendations in that area, when the cabinet secretary made it clear in evidence that he was amenable to finding a better approach, and the committee was pleased to hear from the cabinet secretary last week that the intention is to have the work completed on a new deprivation indicator in time for the next financial year, although we recognise that the implementation of such a new indicator will take a little longer. The cabinet secretary also confirmed last week that teachers employed under PEF are employed using the principle of additionality. It needs to be used for a new purpose aimed at reducing the poverty-related attainment gap, and the need for in-depth evaluation of PEF projects was also highlighted by the committee. This year, the committee looked at the underspends of PEF in local authorities and noted variation in levels across local authorities of that underspend. Importantly, the cabinet secretary confirmed that the underspends can be carried over and be spent by schools into the next financial year. The committee will return to underspend levels next year to assert whether the underspend has reduced at the reported level of 40 per cent on the average across all local authorities for 2017-18. A significant priority for the Government, of course, is in higher and further education. We explored with the cabinet secretary the real times increase in the revenue funding of about 1.3 per cent to £600 million for colleges. The intention is that that is used to cover the cost of national bargaining and harmonisation. In relation to higher education, the valued status of Scotland's universities and the importance of protecting funding was raised with the cabinet secretary. Although the funding is over £1 billion, it is a real-terms drop of 1.79 per cent in government funding for universities. The universities have suggested that they expect around £18 million of Barnett consequentials resulting from an increased research spending in the UK and are requesting that that be considered to be allocated back to Scottish universities. An assurance was also sought that the Scottish Government funds that are currently used to support EU students would remain in the university sector should we exit the EU, particularly in a no-Brexit deal situation. The committee has also questioned why Education Scotland's starting budget at the beginning of the financial year is substantially lower than is required. The cabinet secretary set out the logic for a new transverse and highlighted that the budgeting approach is not specific to Education Scotland and applies to Skills Development Scotland. However, the committee recognises that Education Scotland, during a time of reorganisation, change and increased responsibilities should have as much certainty as possible of its funding levels going forward. I am running out of time about other areas that I would like to highlight is that the new budget would provide the scope to deliver £10 million for compensation for survivors of abuse. The £500 million that is being committed into the expansion of early years and childcare is of extreme interest to us, especially the use of private providers, and we will be watching the development of that policy with interest and also funding to support the achievement of positive dedications for care experienced young people. The committee welcomes the opportunity to have a whole-year inline scrutiny of the budget, and unfortunately I have not been able to mention everything, Presiding Officer, but I shall leave it there. Thank you very much. I now call Gordon Lindhurst, Convenient Economy, Energy and Fair Work, to be followed by Joan McAlpine. Deputy Presiding Officer, first encounter with the budget process can be confusing for anyone, confounding even, and I am not necessarily speaking of Bruce Crawford's explanation here today of it. The thing is, I have been told that it is not really about the figures. They count, of course, it has been explained to me and they might even add up, one would hope at least, but the focus is more on policy direction. How can that be? A question asked in all innocence on the basis of reasoning advanced by the philosopher Gottfried Leipnitz, who said that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. I appreciate that these are the early days of a new budget process, one that will encourage, we hope, better scrutiny of both numbers and policy, and a more meaningful input from committees. The best of all possible worlds, we shall see. There are three areas that I want to cover today from an economy and fair work perspective. We are not ignoring energy spend. The committee will return to this during what I believe is called full year scrutiny. Let me start with employment support for those furthest from the labour market. It reserved matter until the most recent Scotland Act. Fair Start Scotland supports many disabled people and others at risk of long-term unemployment, and it is delivered by private, third sector and local authority organisations. In our pre-budget scrutiny report, we anticipated a spend on the programme of around £32 million. That is a rise of 5 per cent, but the actual figures show the budget falling by 11 per cent between this financial year and the next. That, we were told, was to reflect efficiencies and the removal of transition costs. The Minister for Business, Fair Work and Skills assured us that front-line services would not be affected. When he pressed on the possibility of further reductions, he said, and I quote, probably not. Though the official report shows that the cabinet secretary weighed in with, and I quote again, never say never. He who holds the purse strings, Deputy Presiding Officer, we also heard from the STUC, SCVO and Citizens Advice Scotland among others. The key message being that the causes of long-term unemployment can be complex, ranging across childhood experience, mental health, housing, education, drugs and alcohol, and social exclusion. The resources needed to help an individual navigate such challenges should not be underestimated. The affordability of that within the given budget is, however, questionable. We questioned the minister on the matter of one-year contracts awarded under the employability fund. We recommended extending this to three years, the same as for Fair Start Scotland. He told us we were, and I quote, moving into a new world. He did not clarify whether it was the best of all possible worlds, although I am sure that he would wish that for everyone. He did, though, indicate that the question was under review. I now turn to the second area that I wish to cover, which is the spend on the enterprise agencies. In response to our report, the Scottish Government appeared to agree with Scottish Enterprise's own assessment of its impact, that every pound that the agency spends adds between £6 and £9 of value to the economy. It is curious, therefore, that Scottish Enterprise's budget has shrunk by 27 per cent over the last decade and that Highlands and Islands Enterprise is by 9 per cent. If the agencies have been so effective in driving economic growth, why take money away? Both will see their allocations cut by a further 3 per cent or so in the next year. To be achieved by running cost efficiencies. Really? After a decade of reduced funding, the committee raised a collective eyebrow. Our report also covered how financial transactions money had boosted Scottish Enterprise's funding in recent years, but such monies were limited to equity and loan funding. Scottish Enterprise has struggled to commit some of those funds. From a pot of £10 million, we found that just half a million of funding has been invested so far. We know that financial transactions make up 30 per cent of Scottish Enterprise's budget, but we were not confident that it would succeed in committing this year's allocation, never mind next year's increase. The cabinet secretary is committed to update us on the bigger picture, the overall £500 million growth scheme by April. He sought to reassure us on the Scottish European Growth Co-Investment programme. That is the £10 million pot that it would not be lost from Scotland's public spending. Over the past 10 years, the Enterprise agencies have consistently met or surpassed their own targets, while the country as a whole has underperformed against a range of Scottish Government targets. The committee was concerned that the agencies not only set but seemed to mark their own homework, and we welcomed the greater transparency suggested by the role of the strategic board. Its chair, Nora Senior, said that the agency's plans would be reviewed by the board, and a performance framework was being developed by the analytical unit. The big challenge for the agencies is to reach people who are not yet engaged in the system, because that is where the greatest growth could be. I turn now to my third and final area, which is fair work. It was Joe Biden who said, do not tell me what you value, show me your budget and I will tell you what you value. I am not sure that that makes sense to that quote any more than my understanding of Bruce Crawford's explanation, but in any event there it is. The additional money allocated to the fair work budget line was just under £7 million, which, given the Scottish Government's emphasis on the inclusive growth agenda, might seem a modest sum. Patricia Findlay, adviser to the Fair Work Convention, has stated that the value of adopting fair work is recognised and accepted, but not mainstreamed. Nora Senior has recommended to ministers that fair work become a condition of any support from the enterprise agencies, and the cabinet secretary himself told us, and I quote, that fair work comes first. Alas, not everyone is as steeped in these principles as we would wish. We quizzed the cabinet secretary, the minister and Scottish Enterprise on the Kayam closure. We examined the sequence of events leading to the Livingston-based company entering into administration on 22 December, and workers being told that they were being made redundant on Christmas eve. We addressed the history of the business and how much funding it received due to due diligence and clawback, and, most importantly, we looked at the support available for those who have lost their livelihoods. There seem to remain more questions than answers, and we will consider to look at the merits of a wider piece of work looking at regional selective assistance. Scottish Enterprise might be working in the risk business, but their business is to manage and mitigate that risk. There is some measure of hope in that situation, with a number of potential buyers for Kayam said to be in the frame. Will it turn out to be the best of all possible worlds, Deputy Presiding Officer? Hopefully, but we shall have to see. According to Orson Welles, if you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story, so I shall stop mine there. Rather than enjoying your quotes, your range of quotes, I call Joan McAlpine, convener of culture, tourism, European external affairs, so we follow by Lewis MacDonald. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I would like to start by thanking our clerks, our researchers and my fellow committee members for all the work that they have done in this budget process. This debate is a new development in the Parliament's budget scrutiny process arising, as we have heard, from the implementation of recommendations made by the budget process review group. The 2019-20 budget marks the first year of the operation of the new process, which is designed to take account of the new revenue-raising powers that have been devolved to this Parliament. Although the revenue-raising powers are important, it is important that the expenditure proposals in the budget are also fully scrutinised. I welcome the opportunity to provide the perspective of the culture tourism, European external affairs committee on the spending proposals that fall within our remit. I recognise that this is the first year of a new process and that it will take time to bed down. In future years, I consider that this debate will provide an opportunity to consider how well the new process is functioning in practice. Debates on the budget tend to focus on change in the numerical allocations. Gordon Lindhurst quoted a Democrat, rather vice-president Joe Biden. I was going to quote Republican President George W. Bush, not someone who I would normally quote, but he once remarked that it is clearly a budget and it has got a lot of numbers in it. President Bush is remembered for many things, but perhaps not his love of financial detail. However, the purpose of this budget is to dig down into the detail of the finances. For 2019-20, the budget with regard to culture, tourism, Europe and external affairs is essentially a standstill budget. I therefore wish to consider some of the broader policy themes within the committee's remit that the budget seeks to support. Turning first to culture, the new budget process places a significant emphasis on the scrutiny of outcomes. The national performance framework contains an outcome on culture, and that is welcome. However, the attribution of outcomes from spend, which is directly attributable to the culture portfolio, is present at best opaque. The cabinet secretary, Ms Hyslop, has highlighted that the Scottish Government plans to undertake work to understand how the activities that are directly attributable to the culture portfolio budget contribute towards the national outcome on culture. The committee considers it imperative that work on this issue is concluded rapidly if the committee is to be able to scrutinise the budget from an outcomes perspective. The cabinet secretary also highlighted that this work on outcomes will be aligned to the forthcoming culture strategy. The committee has noted that the culture strategy was due for publication last year, and as yet, there is still not a timescale for its publication. The culture strategy will provide a key means via which to assess the Scottish Government's cultural priorities and how the budget will support them. Therefore, the committee would welcome a timescale for the publication of the culture strategy. Scottish Government support for the screen sector in Scotland has been a key area of scrutiny by my committee in 2018, as the cabinet secretary alluded to in his remarks. We therefore welcome the £20 million in support provided to the sector that is maintained in the 2019-20 budget. My committee has undertaken considerable scrutiny of Scottish Government policy with regard to the screen sector. The committee considers the sector to have significant growth potential and is ideally placed to be a key business sector in Scotland. Currently, Scottish Government financial support to the screen sector is provided by both Creative Scotland and Scottish Enterprise. One of our key recommendations in our screen sector report was that those budgets should be brought together under the control solely of the screen unit within Creative Scotland in order to maximise the impact of Scottish Government support. As a committee, we continue to argue that the screen unit should eventually become a standalone agency. At the very least, there is a significant need for Scottish Enterprise to support to be seen to be more effective in meeting the needs of the sector. I would welcome the cabinet secretary for finances view on that issue. Lastly, in terms of culture, the committee recognises the considerable financial pressures that local authorities face in supporting cultural provision within their localities. The committee recognises that the cabinet secretary, Ms Hyslop, is keen to reconvene meetings with the group that brings together local authority culture conveners through the auspices of COSLA. The committee also shares that objective as a means to encourage strategic dialogue on how best to support cultural provision at a local level. The cabinet secretary for finance, economy and fair work has clearly set out that the Brexit process could have significant implications for the 2019-20 budget. The committee recognises that position and will continue to scrutinise the implications of Brexit for the budget within our remit over the coming year. As part of the Scottish Government's response to the challenges that Brexit presents, the Scottish Government proposes to increase the external affairs budget to £24 million from £17.2 million in 2018-19. However, the cabinet secretary has confirmed to the committee that that increase is, however, a consequence of total operating costs being included within the budget. The committee would therefore welcome the details of the exact amount of operating costs that are contained within the external affairs budget. The budget also contains details of the funding levels for the international hub offices that are supported through the external affairs portfolio. Importantly, the budget includes an increase in the budget for the Brussels office, reflecting the impact of the Brexit process. Funding for the hub offices in China, Canada, Paris and the United States are also contained in the level 4 figures for the portfolio budget. However, the hub offices in Dublin, London and the new hub office in Berlin are funded through the finance, economy and fair work portfolio. The committee has explored the rationale for the dual portfolio approach to the funding of hub offices with the cabinet secretary, but that remains an area that the committee wishes to scrutinise further in the coming months. More generally, the rationale for the choice of location for hub offices is also an area that the committee wishes to explore further. However, the Scottish Government evaluates the performance of those offices as another area that the committee has returned to regularly. The cabinet secretary has highlighted to the committee that the Scottish Government is in the process of developing business plans for each of the Scottish Government offices. In evidence to the committee, the cabinet secretary emphasised that evaluating the work of the offices in monetary terms would be problematic. As much of the work of the offices is in building relationships and influence specifically, the cabinet secretary, Ms Hyslop, said, when we look at the business plans, we will consider how we evaluate the power of influence in relationships, which is not necessarily done in monetary terms. Again, the committee looks forward to scrutinising those business plans once they are published. Lastly, tourism also falls within the committee's remit. As Mark Twain said, travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindness. The budget for tourism is essentially the money that the Scottish Government provides to support the work of Visit Scotland. In 2019-20, the budget for Visit Scotland is proposed to be £45.3 million. That is essentially a standstill budget and has been the budget for Visit Scotland since 2016-17. Nevertheless, the committee recognises that there has been a substantial increase in visitor numbers in recent years due to a variety of factors, including the week pound, as well as the successful promotion of Scotland as a location and destination. Of course, that includes a contribution related to visitors being attracted to locations that have been subject to successful screen productions filmed in Scotland. Although the rise in numbers is welcome, the committee also recognises that that can result in significant impacts on localities. The impact of tourism on our cities, such as Edinburgh, as well as more rural locations such as the north coast of Scotland, are well documented. Clearly, the ability of local communities and, critically, local authorities to respond to the capacity and infrastructure challenges that increasing visitor numbers can present is currently a key debate with regard to tourism. The committee has taken evidence on the proposals for a transient visitor levy, more commonly known as the tourist tax. To date, the committee has not taken a position on the proposed tax, but we have sought to provide a forum for the articulation of views on the issue. In conclusion, as our consideration of the budget raises as many questions as answers, the committee intends to undertake a range of work over the coming months, which will contribute to our pre-budget scrutiny for next year, but also enable us to ascertain the outcomes arising from the 2019-20 budget. Ultimately, the budget sets out spending plans, and it will be outcomes that arise from this budget that most concern my committee and indeed the people of Scotland. I have a little time in hand, but I can be elastic, as I said before, not so elastic at snaps. I now call Lewis MacDonald, who is convener of health and sport, to be followed by Gillian Martin. When it comes to new ways of approaching the budget, the health and sport committee can claim to have played a leading role. I start by thanking members of the committee, past and present, as well as committee clerks, for consistently supporting such an innovative approach. At the start of this parliamentary session, ours was, I believe, the first subject committee to build an element of budget scrutiny into all its work throughout the year. We broke new ground, too, with pre-budget reports seeking to influence the content of the budget rather than reactive reports reflecting on the budget after it had been produced. Those innovations were adopted in advance of the recommendations of the budget review group, and it is good that committees generally are now taking the same approach. Committees clearly have an important and distinct role in the budget process, which I, like other committee conveners, will describe this afternoon. It is important, though, to recognise the limitations on what committees can claim in the context of the budget process, precisely because committees seek to reach a consensus and we focus on the budget in terms of what it does in a specific portfolio. A debate like today cannot be a substitute for wider consideration of the Government's budget by Parliament as a whole. Our input to the wider debate is to inform. Clearly, it is for Parliament as a whole to decide. In order to inform the debate, we have, as a committee, sought to do three things—to improve the transparency of the process and of the budget—to secure better outputs and outcomes as measured against benchmarks and publicly stated policy objectives and to scrutinise the Scottish Government's budget proposals and its effectiveness in delivering those outcomes. The health and sport budget totals more than £14 billion—a very substantial share of all the funds that are spent by the Scottish Government on Parliament's behalf. That is why transparency matters so much. The majority of that spending is the responsibility of health and social care integration authorities. Typically, integration joint boards are made up of health boards and local council representatives. Back in 2017, the £8 billion budget allocation to IJBs was not even broken down by individual integration authority. That really hindered the committee's ability to fulfil its scrutiny function. We said so in 2017 and again last year. It is good to be able to report that we now receive quarterly consolidated financial returns from IJBs. The committee has also raised concerns about the limited financial information that is made available for NHS boards. Again, it is good to be able to report that detailed information is now being provided on a monthly basis. That information confirms the challenges that boards face in balancing their own books, which is why the Government has a performance escalation framework, which reflects its level of concern—or otherwise—about each board's ability to operate within its budget. The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport agreed at the committee last week that she would publish alongside the monthly financial information that we have secured, details of where each board stands on that escalation framework in respect of financial performance. That marks a further success for the committee in improving budget transparency in such an important area of public spending. Beyond the annual budgetary challenges for NHS boards and IJBs, we have also asked whether there are adequate financial frameworks to enable long-term financial planning by health and care providers. In line with the budget process review group's recommendations, calling for a more strategic approach to financial planning, the committee has repeatedly recommended support for long-term budget planning. We welcomed the publication of the medium-term financial framework for health and social care. We pressed in our pre-budget report for clarification on how the planned £2 billion in additional health spending would be delivered. We requested further information on Barnett consequentials on the actual amounts of spending and on the percentage increase in spending in particular areas of the portfolio. We are keen to ensure that the budget information that is published by the Government is as transparent as possible and consistent with other documentary evidence that is available. We have repeatedly called for a three-year financial planning cycle, and we are pleased that ministers have now introduced more financial flexibility for NHS boards over a three-year period. That does not yet allow three-year financial planning. Jeane Freeman told the committee last week that all that boards will be told about their baseline budgets for 2020-21 is that they will not be less than they are for 2019-20. Whether that flexibility goes far enough is therefore a matter to which we must return. Another developing feature of health delivery in the recent past is the development of regional plans for the north, the east and the west of Scotland. The committee asked that those should be published ahead of the budget precisely to improve our scrutiny of the budget itself. It is disappointing that that has not happened, although the cabinet secretary has committed to providing those plans within the financial year. The second area that I wish to highlight in terms of the impact of our work in the budget process is in linkages with better outputs and outcomes. For us to scrutinise policy priorities and the allocation of resources, we need to know not just the sums allocated, but also the impacts and outcomes that the investment provides. Integrational authorities have made only limited progress in reporting their budgets against the nine national health and wellbeing outcomes to show how the funds approved by the Parliament are actually delivering. That is despite a statutory requirement for integration authorities to report on how they have used their resources to achieve outcomes for health and wellbeing. We have, as a committee, highlighted our concern about that several times, and our pre-budget report again called on the Scottish Government to make clear that developing information linking budgets with outcomes should be a top priority. The Scottish Government has acknowledged, on the basis of the available data, that there is wide variation in performance and in ambition for change among different integration authorities. That, we believe, needs to be addressed, and the committee will explore those issues in more detail once the Scottish Government has published the findings of its own internal review of the current operation of integration authorities. We have also explored the impact of targets within the health service on behaviour and outcomes, most recently with Sir Harry Burns in the context of his review of targets and indicators in health and social care in Scotland. The Scottish Government's response to our pre-budget report states that there is no intention to change targets, which appears to mean that the work of this review has now been shelved. If that is indeed the case, that is another area that I expect the committee to look at again. The third area that I wish to highlight is around the Scottish Government's actual budget proposals. We have not, as a committee, taken a view on the Government's revenue and spending proposals this year, nor have we proposed alternatives, partly because of the focus that we have had on the need for more transparency in the budget process and on the relationship between spending and outcomes. We have raised a number of fundamental questions about the Scottish Government's investment priorities. One of those areas is on shifting the balance of care. The current Government target is that at least 50 per cent of spending will be on health services in the community by the end of this Parliament. We believe that that is not an ambitious target. We have called for an acceleration in the pace of change, and we have called for the Scottish Government to consider setting a more ambitious target. We have also repeatedly asked questions about the NRAC formula, the basis for allocation of funding to territorial boards. The cabinet secretary conceded last week that there were issues about NRAC, and she suggested that she was open to discussion about those with us welcome. Finally, we have explored spending on specific areas. For example, mental health was referred to by Mr Mackay this afternoon and alcohol and drug partnerships. We have called for more transparency on funding and on outcomes in those areas. I am sure that we will return to those specific topics in future budget scrutiny to pursue those questions further. The committee, Presiding Officer, will seek to continue to make a difference to increase transparency, to focus on outcomes, to press for budget decisions with support policy objectives and to assist the scrutiny of future budgets by the Parliament as a whole. I thank the committee clerks for all their hard work and support, as we have undertaken budget scrutiny, and to fellow committee members, particularly for their collegiate manner in all that we do, and for the support that they have given me as their new convener. The Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee welcomes the focus on national outcomes in the new budget process and the opportunity to engage with the Scottish Government in advance of publication of the draft budget. We have been encouraged by the openness of the discussion. In our pre-budget scrutiny, we explored the opportunities to achieve wider benefits from environmental spend and sought to understand the carbon impact of all-capital budget decisions. The decisions that we have taken infrastructure today will lock in future emissions. Before I discuss the detail of the committee's views, while we welcome the move to include the total cost of delivery, including the cost of administration in each portfolio, and acknowledge the positive impact that that will have on transparency in the future, this first year made scrutiny quite difficult. Not having detailed information on an additional allocation of administration costs to our portfolio in 2019-20 has meant that it has been difficult to determine whether the budget for our portfolio has gone up, down or remained the same, but we realised that future years will be easier in that respect. The committee urges the cabinet secretary to provide figures on the cost of administration that have now been included in the total cost of delivery to ensure that we can make a like-for-like comparison. Overall, we remain concerned that the budget for the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform portfolio for the relevant agencies and research has been declining over a number of years, even when we all agree that environmental spend can reduce burdens in other portfolios. The impact of that is apparent when considered against the performance of the relevant national indicators. We are particularly concerned about the budget for research, Scottish national heritage and Marine Scotland. I would stress the impact of those on delivering key environmental but also economic and health outcomes. On to the potential impact of EU exit. EU exit is of great concern to us. The finance received from Europe to deliver environmental objectives is considerable. The committee remains gravely concerned that there is still no certainty as to what will replace that following the UK exit from the EU. Any reduction in budgets will have significant knock-on effects across the environmental sector in Scotland, and further work on the diversification of funding sources into the sector is vital. We have asked the Scottish Government to continue to press the UK Government to ensure that there is no detriment to Scotland's finances and that Scotland maintains the same level of financial benefits that EU funding has provided. We have also recommended that the Scottish Government work closely with agencies and partners and the UK Government to identify possible replacement funding streams as a matter of extreme urgency. The committee agrees with the Scottish Government that investment in Scotland's natural capital is both fundamental to the economy and fundamentally linked to the delivery of health and wellbeing benefits and to the delivery of the global sustainable development goals. There are significant opportunities to improve key national outcomes, including health, wellbeing and economic growth, through investment in our environment and natural capital. The committee agrees with the Scottish Government that the natural environment is currently an underutilised resource. It is also significantly undervalued in terms of the understanding of its value to the economy and societal wellbeing. In our budget scrutiny, we heard that now is not the time to draw back from investing in the environment and the circular economy. Significant health benefits and savings to the health service can be achieved through environmental spend. For example, if 1 per cent of the sedentary population, of which I feel that sometimes we are part, were to move to a healthy pathway, 1,000 or so lives would be saved and £1.4 billion would also be saved across the UK. For every £1 invested in health walks, we see £8 to £9 of benefits. When people have easy access to nature, there are three times more likely to participate in physical activity and 40 per cent less likely to become overweight or obese. Active travel is at the heart of Scotland's policies to reduce air pollution and carbon, an estimated 2,500 deaths in Scotland and 1,500 early deaths each year result from air pollution. If Scotland met its ambition of 10 per cent of journeys by cycle each year, that would also save £364 million as a result of improvements to air quality. As such, we welcome not only the doubling of active travel but the creation of low-emission zones in some of our cities. We also heard that there is a strong link to lower levels of stress and associated health complications in individuals who live in greener streets and greener urban areas, particularly for people who live in areas of multiple deprivation. The committee recommends that the Scottish Government review existing research on the health benefits of environmental spend and, if necessary, commission research to underpin future spending decisions. The economic benefits of environmental spend are well documented. Current estimates suggest that Scotland's natural capital is worth around £20 billion per annum to the economy, including tourism, renewable energy, food and drink and other sectors. The importance of the environment cannot be overstated. The leverage rates for environmental spend are high. SNH's £1.5 million spend on the SRDP environment climate scheme generated £47 million of additional benefit. The £11 million that was received by the Royal Botanic Gardens of Edinburgh from the Scottish Government in 2017 generated an additional £38 million to the Scottish economy and £102 million to the global economy. The central Scotland green network will generate £6 billion to 2050 and has the potential to benefit 70 per cent of Scotland's population. We also heard that investment in managing non-native invasive species could save £200 million a year by avoiding damage to forestry crops and infrastructure. We are keen to ensure that sufficient investment is going into Scotland's green infrastructure, particularly in urban areas, and we encourage the Scottish Government to extend the green investment fund. We heard of the importance of education policy in mobilising teachers and children to access the environment and we encourage the Scottish Government to provide enhanced funding to support outdoor learning. We are supportive of the Scottish Government's ambition for a transition to circular economy and heard that there are greater opportunities for public procurement to become a pool for new circular economy businesses. The committee encourages the Scottish Government to consider what more can be done to bring forward future work on the circular economy and green economy and provide funding and support packages in order to fully realise the related benefits. The committee is aware of the need to address the risks posed by climate change to the environment and ensure that it is more resilient to the impacts of climate change. The committee heard that the investment in the national ecological network is essential for climate change adaptation. Investment in peatland restoration and the management of water flow contributes to flood protection, and the committee encourages the Scottish Government to extend funding to those in order to achieve the significant benefits. Now to the carbon impact and the carbon assessment of the budget. We welcome the Scottish Government's commitments to increase the percentage of capital spend on low-carbon projects and to engage more widely when considering the carbon impact of the budget. However, we are concerned that the infrastructure pipeline appears to have a lower percentage of low-carbon projects. That is something that we hope that the Infrastructure Commission will address in its advice to the Government. Scotland needs to lock in a just transition to zero-carbon future now, and that will require a substantial shift in the proportion of investment that is spent in the infrastructure that does not contribute negatively to climate change. We have made a number of specific proposals on how supporting information can be improved, and we are keen to work with the Scottish Government over the coming months to ensure that Parliament better understands the carbon impact of all budget decisions. We are concerned also about the impact of proposed reduction in sustainable action fund, as that supports a number of new and innovative actions that will underpun much of the necessary success in driving behaviour change and action in new challenging areas. The research budget underpins the delivery of a wide range of outcomes and generates significant additional benefit to the Scottish economy. I would like to end by putting on record our satisfaction that the committee is now able to play a much greater role in budget scrutiny than has been possible in the past. I am pleased to be able to speak in this important debate today as the convener of the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee. I would like to start off by thanking the fellow members of the committee for all the hard work that they put in, supported by the clerks, as we were dealing with a massive amount of work on our schedule. I ought to, Presiding Officer, also refer to my member's register of interests in that I will be talking about farming, but I will be doing so as the convener of the committee. I would like to make a comment at the outset, and that is that I personally have grave concerns about the previous financial oversight system used by this Parliament of post-budget scrutiny. Based on my experience of the business world, the previous system could not be described truthfully as scrutiny. I believe that the new system of looking at areas of interest to the committee before the budget is published in the hope of influencing is laudable, and I hope that it will not be proved naive, but I believe that it needs a considerable amount of work to improve it to make it truly worthwhile. The committee chose to carry out the new process of pre-budget scrutiny on the strategic investment that is required to support the Clyde and Hebrides ferry services. We did that during the whole of 2018, and it was a very focused review. The world documented problems, which caused significant disruptions across the Clyde and Hebrides Network in the spring and summer of 2018, helped to focus our decision. The problems, more often than not, were a consequence of the unreliable and aged vessels. We were also influenced by our recent scrutiny of the Island Scotland Act, which highlighted the vital importance of ferries as lifeline services and a linchpin for the on-going sustainability of island communities and economies. The committee wanted to know, when it carried out its scrutiny, whether the level of current and planned investment in ferries and infrastructure met the needs. Nearly all stakeholders that we heard from told the committee that ferry services and infrastructure suffered from a lengthy period of substantial underinvestment. We heard that the fleet was old, with many vessels approaching at the end of their working life, and there were no spare vessels of capacity. We also heard the efforts to purchase second-hand vessels had failed, and they were likely to continue to fail because of the need for the vessel to have a shallow draft. 85 per cent of respondents to the committee's online survey thought that the current and proposed level investment in new ferries and port infrastructure was insufficient. Caledonian maritime assets limited. The Scottish Government-owned company, which owns and operates ferries, ports and harbours, which served the network, stated that a significant increase in investment would be required to ensure a properly managed replacement and improvements of ports and infrastructure that needed to be programmed. It stated in its opinion that a £30 million a year was needed to be invested in new vessels and £20 million in ports and harbours. Over the past 10 years, when it was quizzed, it proved and said that it had received less than half that amount. Following consideration of the evidence, the committee recommended to the Scottish Government that it should prioritise ferry investment with the focus on procuring new vessels to reduce the average age across the fleet, which would also improve service reliability. So far, so good. The committee had identified a problem that was supported by evidence—a true opportunity, we believe, for the committee's work to influence government expenditure. In response to the committee's report, Paul Wheelhouse, the Minister for Energy and Connectivity, said that the island and the islands pointed out what we already knew. We knew that two vessels had been commissioned, the Glen Sallacks, the Sannocks and Hull 802, being constructed by Ferguson Marine. No others ordered or confirmed. He pointed out to a further £4 million that has been invested in a resilience fund to set up to address vessel reliability issues. That, we were told, was to allow the forward purchase of fast-moving spares. Fine, of course, I believe if all the ferries were a standard model, but they are not. I am sure that the committee will want to monitor how this resilience fund is used in the course of this year. Those points were repeated when Michael Matheson, the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Infrastructure and Connectivity, when he appeared before the committee just last week. Although the investment is welcome, the problem is that the delivery of both new vessels is late and due to significant delays. With the Glen Sallacks not currently due until summer 2019 and the Hull 802 not to the following spring of 2020, that means that there will be another two summers at least of disruption. There was some dubiety when we took evidence on the fact of whether those dates were realistic. Michael Matheson also indicated that planning had been towards the future replacement of the Islay ferry. Beyond that, there are no concrete plans for vessel procurement, which the committee called for prior to the budget. The committee also called on the Scottish Government to conduct an urgent review of the ferries plan to meet current and future needs. It therefore welcomes the Scottish Government's commitment to review of the plan, covering both vessels and infrastructure. But sadly, this is not to be completed before the end of this year and indeed next year's budget. I thank the member for taking the intervention. It would be unfair to expect a committee response in the way that I am posing the question, but generally trying to be constructive on the ferries issue I think was cross-party interest in the structure of decisions around transport and procurement and maybe something committee can assist Government with to explore the issue around governance that might help us with some of these issues around delivery. Edward Mountain. Absolutely, and the committee did carry out a visit to Ferguson Marine Engineering and would like to be involved and to understand how the delivery of ferries is carried out. We have taken evidence from the agencies on the design of ferries and how those ferries are designed, which is actually critical to ensuring that delivery is carried out on time. That is something that I think the committee will want to follow up on. The committee, if I may go back, is very aware that our recommendations prior to the budget in the terms of need for strategic planning backed up by appropriate investment were indeed made by another committee, the Transport and Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee, in 2008. However, despite the previous work, it still appeared to the committee that we are suffering from underinvestment and lack of strategic planning as far as the ferries. I will not be able to speak for the committee in 2028, but if our views are reflected in 10 years' time, as we are reflecting the views of the committee 10 years ago, I think that the committee will find it unacceptable. The proposed new ferries plan, when it is delivered, will provide an opportunity for the Scottish Government to deliver a strategic plan that will give confidence to island communities, business and tourism, and it will prove that ferries services will fit the purpose and meet their needs, which is critical. The committee, I believe, will closely monitor that. The committee also looked at RET and recommended that the Scottish Government should reflect on the evidence that the committee had received about ways in which RET may be further improved and developed in the future. For example, differential or dynamic pricing and the ability for islanders to take priority, particularly in emergency situations. I am pleased to note in this written response to the committee that Mr Wheel has undertook to take this recommendation into account of the network-wide review of RET, which is due to conclude by the end of 2019. There was, however, a genuine concern at the committee meeting that, as a result of the recent evidence session that the Scottish Government may be considering in the short term, fair increases on summaries to help reduce demand. That move, I believe, would impact most of the island communities whom we heard from as part of the island's bill and would be detriment to their future. I would also like to mention that the RET committee also took evidence from the relevant cabinet secretary on the budget as it relates to agriculture and the digital economy. That threw up several important issues. That included the reduction of ELFAS payments and the investment that is required to deliver the ambitious R100 superfast broadband project by 2021. On the R100 project, the committee was informed that it will have to await the contract that should have been awarded in next month, which will now not happen until 2019, before we can scrutinise it. However, we will be looking to see the £600 million estimated that it will cost to deliver it in future budgets. I know that the committee will take a close interest in that in future matters. In conclusion, I believe that the RET committee responded well to the new way of looking at the budget. Unfortunately, with the budget that is just produced, we have not seen many of the items that we called for. We look forward to seeing the Scottish Government taking into account the very important matters that we raised on critical services to the islands that the ferries produce. We will look forward to reviewing them in the future budget next year. I welcome the opportunity to participate in today's debate to share the pre-budget work of the Equalities and Human Rights Committee. The committee has a crucial role in helping to drive forward scrutiny of Scottish public funding to deliver equalities outcomes. Since September 2016, the committee has also considered how human rights could be more explicitly identified through the Scottish Government's budget. The committee's report published just over a year ago, making the most of equalities and human rights levers, sets the scene. The committee has sought to build on that work. I thank the clerks for their diligence and support in doing this, and my fellow members for their dedication in exploring those matters through the pre-budget phase, and acknowledge that scrutiny of cross-cutting issues can be challenging and require sustained commitment over the longer term to make progress. I would also like to recognise the contribution made by the public bodies, organisations and individuals who shared their experience with us and helped us to keep the spotlight on equalities and now human rights. The committee appreciates the way in which the Minister for Older People and Equalities has engaged with us and welcomes the carefully considered response to our findings from the Cabinet Secretary for Social Security and Older People. The budget for promoting equality is £24.6 million. We note that this is a cash increase of 8.4 per cent on last year. The Government has told us that this will be used to respond to recommendations from the advisory group on women and girls and the First Minister's advisory group on human rights. The budget line will implement the social isolation and loneliness strategy and deliver a framework policy on older people. It will, as I said, deliver and respond to the First Minister's national advisory council on women and girls and continue to support front-line services and wider activity to address gender-based violence and inequalities, including a major campaign to challenge sexual harassment and sexism. Because of the cross-cutting nature of equalities in human rights, we note that some of the spending plans come under the portfolio of communities and local government. The committee may have a small budget line to scrutinise, but we have a big role and a significant challenge in looking strategically at the account taken of equalities across the Scottish Government's budget. It has been 10 years since the Scottish Government first published its equality budget statement, a world leader in equalities budgeting, with many countries striving to achieve a similar approach. Equality budgeting has moved on and the revised budget process offers us an opportunity to reinvigorate the focus on equalities. Starting this year, under the new approach, the Scottish Government has committed to publishing additional equalities information prior to the summer recess. The committee welcomes this crucial step forward and encourages other committees to make use of this information to support and influence their own budget scrutiny. That, in turn, should influence the Government's budgetary decisions to deliver equality outcomes across portfolios. The committee understands from the Government that work is currently under way, developing options on what information could be included, and my committee would be pleased to meet with the Cabinet Secretary for Social Security and Older People to discuss the various options under consideration. It is important that we ensure that Scotland builds on its equality leadership, and we would welcome views of all committees to support this discussion. A key area of focus for the committee is the collection of equalities data. Data is crucial if we are going to be able to successfully measure outcomes. Chris Oswald, from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, told us that the 10-yearly census remains the gold standard of equality's data, but the UK Government had decided to reduce the amount of administrative data that it collects. He said, and I quote, The situation in Scotland is particularly unhelpful because the ethnicity categories are collapsed into five when the data is gathered across 14 categories. That means that it is not possible to discern the distinctions between the outcomes for Pakistani, Bangladeshi or Indian people, which are quite stark if we are looking for nuanced policy. Similarly, Dr Alison Hosey of the Scottish Human Rights Commission spoke of the problem of carrying out analysis from a rights perspective on the currently available Scottish data sets, referring to the rights to health, housing, food and social security. She said that trying to look at key aspects of those rights was extremely difficult, owing to the lack of financial information in the budget that related to those particular spends. In its response to us, the Government pointed to a range of data sources, for example the Scottish Surveys core questions, which covers a range of areas such as equality characteristics, housing and employment. It is a new gender index that captures information on gender equality and on health, a new report measuring the use of health services by equality groups. The Government acknowledged that all public bodies needed to do more and in 2017 produced an equality evidence strategy. That identifies the evidence gaps in equality's information. It has also updated the evidence finder tool. I urge committees to make use of those tools and resources to help inform their scrutiny work, so that together we can work towards filling the gaps and in doing so gain a clearer picture of equality's outcomes. The use of equality impact assessment is a continuous theme for the committee. We agree with the Government that AQIAs are an invaluable tool for determining the impact of particular policies on protected characteristics. Those assessments should be the backbone to policy development and underpin spending decisions. Those should be drawing out issues of intersectionality, where a policy has a cumulative equality impact on, for example, people with a combination of protected characteristics—perhaps an older, disabled man or a pregnant Muslim woman. A recent strand of our work has focused on cumulative impact assessment and their use by local authorities. That can show where decisions across an authority have had an cumulative impact on certain groups in their communities and so help with budget setting. Also on cumulative impact, evidence from the Equality and Human Rights Commission highlighted the work that they were undertaking with Landman Economics to develop better scrutiny of budget decisions taken by the UK Government between 2010 and 2015. A report of that work is due to be published shortly. It will assess the potential impacts on different groups of changes to taxation, social security and public services up to 2022. Chris Oswald told us that that work has allowed the AHRC to identify that, going forward, the largest losses will be for those in income desail 2 for any family with more than three children and for lone parents. Those three groups will have the most significant losses. Black and Caribbean communities are the next most affected, and then it is people with severe disabilities. In terms of age, the most significant losses are among the 18- to 24-year-old age group. The committee notes that the Scottish Government's publication of its distributional analysis on income tax changes, which looked at changes to income group, age and disability, and we welcome the Government's commitment to continue to explore cumulative distributional analysis during this year and suggest that the Government might want to consider the work commissioned by AHRC and any lessons that can be learned from it. Before I conclude, it would be remiss of me not to highlight the action being taken to identify human rights explicitly through the budget process. As such, the committee is pleased to see the inclusion of a human rights income and outcome in the Scottish Government's refreshed national performance framework. We respect, protect and fulfil human rights, and we live free from discrimination. The committee looks forward to the development of indicators in support this year. The committee is supportive of the development of human rights-based budgeting in the Scottish budget system to ensure that Scotland is meeting its international and national human rights obligations, but recognise that that will need to happen in a planned way, ensuring that the right building blocks are put in place first, and we acknowledge that that may take time. In closing, I would like to leave with one key message, if I may. Scotland has previously been at the forefront of equality budgeting, and we must continue to lead. There is lots of innovative work going on across Government and public bodies. It is absolutely essential that we all make the most of the work of the information and the tools that we have available, so that we can all be assured of a solid connection between public policy making, resource allocation and stated equalities and human rights outcomes. Margaret Mitchell, convener of the Justice Committee, followed by Bob Doris. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I stated at the outset that I very much welcome the new pre-budget process, and the opportunity affords me as the convener of the Justice Committee and other conveners to set out their committee members' priorities and the issues that they have highlighted. The new process has, from the Justice Committee's perspective, worked well and ensured that, during the year, the committee kept budgetary issues at the centre of much of our scrutiny of bills and inquiries. I thank my fellow Justice Committee members for their contributions to our pre-budget scrutiny this year and for the consensual way in which we reached our unanimous conclusions. I also thank the members of the Justice Subcommittee for policing and its convener, John Finnie, for its work on policing aspects of the Justice budget. I pay tribute to the committee clerks for their invaluable assistance and support and to all the organisations and individuals who gave evidence to both committees as part of our budget scrutiny. The Justice portfolio budget is a little over £2.7 billion, which equates to approximately 6.5 per cent of the Scottish Government's total proposed budget for 2019-20. Although that is a relatively small percentage of the Scottish Government's budget, it is important to stress that Justice portfolio spending decisions have potentially major consequences in terms of the protection of the public, the functioning of a fair justice system and the effectiveness of our police and fire services, which means that those decisions are among the highest priorities of any Government. The Justice Committee therefore focused on the following Government plan spending, funding for the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, funding for IT projects in the justice sector and funding for the third and voluntary sectors. I will address each of those areas in turn, starting with the Crown and Procurator Fiscal Service. The smooth running of the service is fundamental to the effectiveness of Scotland's justice system, which is why the first inquiry carried out by the Justice Committee in the new 2016 session was into the functioning of the Crown Office. That was considered a priority as the committee heard evidence at that time and for some considerable time before that the service was just about managing with its budget. Since then, the Crown and Procurator Fiscal Service has, for several years, been the subject of the Justice Committee's budget scrutiny and also the monitoring of the committee's inquiry recommendations. Consequently, additional funding of up to £3.6 million has been provided for the Crown and Procurator Fiscal Service and £300,000 for the Scottish courts and tribunal service. In addition to that, the committee has gratified that this continuity in scrutiny has led to 60 newly appointed COPFS staff who will be prosecutors and that some of the additional £3.6 million that COPFS funding has been provided to resources to help to increase prosecutions of domestic violence and sexual offences. The COPFS IT systems provide crucial services such as witness notification, the provision of real-time information on witness citations and case management. During a very worthwhile meeting, the deputy convener and I had with the Lord Advocate and the Crown agent to discuss how they planned to use some of the £3.6 million additional funds. The need to improve those IT services was stressed. The committee considers that it is vital to ensure that those IT systems are modernised, improved and linked seamlessly with the Scottish courts and tribunal service and Police Scotland to ensure the effective functioning of our justice system. An IT funding was more generally and specifically for policing the second area that the justice committee focused on. In 2018, the SPA board supported an online business case for a £298 million IT upgrade for Police Scotland over the next nine years. That is required to modernise existing systems and introduce new mobile devices to ensure that our front-line officers have the technology that they need. Although additional £12 million in the draft budget for IT purposes is welcome, it falls far short of what is required and might reasonably have been expected, given the challenges and potential dangers that our officers face every day. The committee therefore welcomes the reassurances that the cabinet secretary gave the sub-committee on 17 January when that was put to him, to the effect that our police have to be given the tools for the job. In addition to that, both committees heard the SPA view that Police Scotland's current budget of £23 million was a disproportionately small capital grant for a body of its scale and importance. That is implications for police maintenance, where Police Scotland has confirmed that it has the current overspend of around £6 million per year. However, while the Scottish Government is aware of that, there appear to be no extra funds for fleet and estate management provided for in this year's capital budget, which remains the same as 2018-19. The committee therefore again welcomes the cabinet secretary's reassurances to the sub-committee on policing that he will look at this before the next spending review. Finally, the Justice Committee pays tribute to the outstanding work of the many organisations that work in this portfolio. During the committee's scrutiny of the Scottish Government's management of offenders bill, it was evident that the support from the voluntary sector when prisoners are released from prison is critical to help with housing, employment and access to GP services. Warringly, the committee also heard that if those services are not available, joined up and properly resourced, the result will almost certainly be to set up an ex-prisoner to fail and potentially return to prison. The Justice Committee therefore seeks to ensure that those voluntary organisations are adequately funded. Quite simply, it considers that this makes sense given that imprisonment costs tens of thousands of pounds more than the cost of providing support services to prisoners on their release. Crucially, the committee calls on the Government to consider multi-year funding that would help to ensure that the third and voluntary sectors can focus on the vital services that they supply instead of being trapped in a continuous cycle of applications for funding. Here, once again, the committee welcomes the cabinet secretary's commitment to continue to look for opportunities to move other victim support organisations to longer-term funding cycles. However, the committee urges him to go further and expand the approach to funding not just to those working to help support victims but to other voluntary and third sector organisations in the civil and criminal justice system. As the Parliament takes on more powers, the scrutiny work of its committees becomes even more important. The Justice Committee and the sub-committee members call on the cabinet secretary to take on board our findings when finalising funding decisions for the COPFS, the Scotland IT projects and multi-funding for the third and voluntary sector organisations working in the criminal and justice sectors. In the meantime, both committees thank the cabinet secretary for justice for the constructive way that he has engaged with members and looked forward to working with him on the issues raised today in the coming months. Bob Doris, convener of the Social Security Committee, followed by James Dornan. Thank you, Presiding Officer. As convener of the Social Security Committee, I welcome the opportunity to participate in this pre-budget debate. The first such debate is part of the revised budget process, as we know. I am sure that we hope to enlighten and inform fellow parliamentarians, but more importantly, the wider public about the scrutiny that all committees give to financial matters here in this Parliament. First, a bit of context. In April last year, the Parliament unanimously passed the Social Security Scotland Act, paving the way for the Scottish Government to deliver newly devolved benefits to the people of Scotland. Those benefits will form one part of what is a complex delivery of social security, with different agencies delivering different aspects of that system. The majority of social security benefits remain reserved to Westminster and administered by the Department of Work and Pensions, and that includes the much-debated universal credit, which will play six legacy benefits that are housing benefits, income support, income-based jobseekers allowance, income-related employment support allowance, child tax credit and working tax credit. It is also worth noting that those two tax credits have previously been the responsibility of the HMRC. In addition, local authorities are responsible for discretionary housing payments and the Scottish welfare fund. The Department of Work and Pensions is paying carers allowance on behalf of the Scottish Government under an agency arrangement, and Social Security Scotland is currently paying a carers allowance supplement and best dark grant pregnancy and baby payments. A period of transition is also reflected in the 2019-2020 budget portfolio. For the first time, the social security budget has been set out separately from the Scotland Act implementation line, adding more clarity to the spending plans of the Scottish Government. In 2019-2020, the social security budget will be £560 million. That consists of support for the programme of delivery and the administration of Social Security Scotland. For the £560 million, it is forecast that £435 million will be paid to the people right across Scotland. In relation to the Scottish Government budget for 2019-2020, there are several aspects of the budget that our committee would like to highlight, the first in the establishment of Social Security Scotland itself. Last October, members of the committee were delighted to have the opportunity to visit agencies' new headquarters in Dundee. We have with some of the recently recruited staff who talked enthusiastically about the challenge of setting up a new organisation from scratch. It was the same members of staff who helped to administer some of the first payments delivered in 2018, which were the carers allowance supplement payments, the best start grant pregnancy and baby payments. The committee was pleased to hear that the best start grant pregnancy and baby received exceptional application numbers. That is a good thing, but with such a demand-led expenditure, the committee did ask the question of how the Government would cope with greater than anticipated demand. The cabinet secretary has assured the committee that if demand was greater than expected, then all eligible people would still be paid, and the Government was keeping an exceptionally close eye on any in-year budgetary pressure, which the committee welcomes. In 2019-2020, Social Security Scotland will continue to expand its functions, delivering an estimated £56 million in benefits across the country. It is expected to deliver elements of the best start grant, best start foods, funeral expense assistance and the young carers grant. In keeping with the spirit of the Social Security Act, the Scottish Government consulted on each of those forms of assistance. In order to contribute to those consultations, the committee heard evidence from stakeholders, charities and people with lived experience who are expected to receive those forms of assistance. Those people told us about their personal circumstances and the difficulties currently facing them. I would like to thank all of them for contributing to the work of our committee. The regulations for elements of best start grant, funeral expense assistance, have recently been laid and will be considered by the committee in due course. It is interesting to pick up some of the key points that the Scottish Government has highlighted. The funeral expense assistance that will replace the current DWP funeral payment will increase eligibility in Scotland by around 40 per cent. It is forecast and forecast to become very important that, in its first full year of operation, the Government will spend £6.3 million. That is 25 per cent more than the DWP spent the equivalent benefit in 2017-18. Under the early years assistance best start grant, two new grants will be added. The early learning grant and the school age grant. The value of both grants is expected to be £250. New forms of assistance continue to be proposed by the Scottish Government. Last week, it opened its consultation on the job grant, a grant that aims to help to meet the initial cost of starting work and to support the smooth transition into employment for young people on low incomes. The grant will consist of a one-off payment of either £250 or £400 if the young person is a parent. The Government also confirmed that it was operating carers allowance supplement by the rate of inflation, as required under the Social Security Scotland Act. The Government is using the consumer price index CPI as its measure of inflation, meaning that, in 2019-20, that will increase the weekly rate by 2.3 per cent to £8.70. The delivery of the form of assistance has been classed as wave 1 by the Scottish Government and is expected to deliver that by the summer of 2019-19. Wave 2 will include some much meteor-larger projects such as disability-related benefits, the replacements in Scotland of PIP, and other forms of support for people with long-term illnesses, injuries or impairments. The delivery of benefits under wave 2 is not included in this year's coming budget, but the agency has continued to increase its capacity to be able to deal with them going forward. That is reflected in the Social Security Scotland's operating budget, which has increased to £41.5 million, £20.1 million in staffing costs, £5.6 million in ICT, and £4.2 million in facilities and property, £11.6 million in other payments, including administration payments, to the DWP for functions delivered. Over the next four years, the Scottish Government estimates that the implementation costs for Social Security Scotland will be around £308 million. That is between 2070-18 to 2020-21. The committee will continue to monitor the cost of implementation as part of our on-going budget scrutiny. In terms of forecast, today our committee also met with the Scottish Fiscal Commission, who explained their role and that the Scottish Fiscal Commission provided the forecast of expenditure to claimants for the Scottish Government's social security system, both the year ahead and on a five-year estimate. There is a second set of forecasts in May to accompany the Scottish Government's medium-term financial strategy. It also evaluates its forecasts annually and is published in the autumn around the same time as the Scottish Government's fiscal framework outturn report. Given that the new Scottish social security system remains in its infancy, I suspect that this autumn our committee will, of course, be very interested to see how accurate forecasts have been. For instance, I merely speculate, should take-up exceed forecasts, how have those cost pressures been managed, and what implications may there be for the following year's budget? Or indeed, if uptake is behind forecasts, will that impact on the following year's budget also, in terms of money allocated to the benefit itself, or to see an entitlement campaign to drive uptake? There were three aspects that the committee members were asked to bear in mind when looking at budget lines and cost pressures and what we might want to do in scrutiny in relation to the social security budget by the Fiscal Commission. That is the eligibility criteria, uptake and the level of the benefit. You can change any one of those things and dramatically change the outturn in relation to money that is paid and what you are trying to do is a policy outcome. We will look at all that going forward. I must mention the Scottish welfare fund. The funds administered by Social Security Scotland are not the only social security parts that are made by the Scottish Government. The Scottish welfare fund is delivered by local authorities. The previous convener of the committee, Clare Adamson, had some concerns in the committee's concerns that the welfare fund was high enough to meet the needs and demand out there within society, and she noted that the £33 million budget had not increased since its inception, had it been increased in the rate of inflation, it would today be £36 million. Our committee has similar concerns about whether that budget will meet the demand out there across our local authorities and we are disappointed that the Scottish Government has not agreed to that. One caveat on that, of course, is that the Scottish welfare fund does not spend all monies allocated towards it. We have to ask the question, why borders only spend 64 per cent of money allocated under the Scottish welfare fund, but Inverclyde spends 110 per cent. It supplemented it. A whole range of new budget lines for the social security committee to scrutinise is that we are getting more baselines in this financial year and lots more scrutiny going forward as part of a rolling programme of this new budget scrutiny process. James Dornan, convener of local government and communities committee, followed by Jenny Marrick. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am pleased to get the chance to speak in this debate on behalf of the local government and communities committee. The local government and housing budget is vast. This year, the committee decided that it would focus on three issues. One of those is the biggest bend within our remit, the local government annual settlement. Another is, in relative terms, a small spend, funding for housing adaptations for older and disabled people. Thirdly, the committee looked at thematic cross-cutting issues, that of workforce planning and local authorities. We took evidence on all three issues and I want to thank the witnesses for their expert input. Of course, some of this work dates from before I became convener in September and indeed the committee's work this year builds on a body of evidence built up throughout this session. I want to thank my colleagues on the committee both past and present for their hard work and my predecessor, Bob Doris, who helped set these priorities during his time in the chair. Taking the three issues that I mentioned in reverse order, I suspect that workplace planning and local government has become something of a Cinderella subject in terms of parliamentary scrutiny and yet it is critically important. Tighter public finances and demographic changes including the challenges of an ageing population are leading local authorities to ask big questions about how they organise our human resources to optimise delivery. Council workers, of course, are not merely resources, they are people and any changes must take account of the human factor. Council workforces have shrunk over the last decades and councils understandably wish to avoid compulsory redundancies but one of the concerns that the committee heard from witnesses was a perceived hollowing out of council workforces with more senior and better paid staff accepting a nudge from management to move on in an effort to save money and understandably avoid those compulsory redundancies. However, the committee heard the evidence that in many cases this has turned out to be a false economy with valuable experience lost for good. The underlying question that the committee posed in a pre-budget letter to the Scottish Government was that, where does the balance lie between respecting the autonomy of each council and recognising the Government's responsibility on strategic challenges? As we said in our letter, the balance of evidence suggests that there is a need for more work done at national level, data gathering, horizon scanning and decision making, and that the Scottish Government has a role to play in this. From the Government's response, we are not totally convinced that they have yet fully engaged with that point. Of course, we must not forget that there is also plenty of scope for councils to exercise collective leadership. The underlying challenges in this area are not being a way, so this dialogue is bound to continue. The committee's next step will be an evidence session and absenteeism in the local government workforce. I turn now to housing adaptations, making physical changes to homes to help elderly people and people with disabilities go on living there. Spending in this area is, in global terms, small, but as we all know from constituency cases, a far from insignificant issue. A good intervention can be transformative, vastly improving people's quality of life. It can also be a textbook example of spending to save. If we enable people to go on living at home when the only realistic alternative would be full-time care, the impact in the public purse is surely reduced, as well as, of course, making the quality of life better for the individual and family. There is much very good work already going on, and if there are problems, it is important not to overstate them. However, let me signal a couple of related matters in relation to which the committee has shown a dogged interest. First, there is the frustration that the lack of progress in realising what the jargon calls a 10-year neutral approach. In plain English, it should not matter whether you are an owner or occupier, a private tenant or in social housing, you should have an equal chance to get an adaptation done and done to the same standard. That is a long-standing Government goal, but it is clear from the evidence that some tenures are still less equal than others and it appears that it is tenants of RSLs who are most likely to lose out. It also appears that total demands on the RSL adaptation budget increasingly outstrips available funding. The committee wishes to see the Scottish Government do more work to cost the level of unmet demand on this budget line. The level of spending by integration joint boards, still relatively new bodies of course, is also somewhat opaque and there are question marks over how well they plan their services in this area. It is natural that some will perform better than others, that is what devolved decision making means in practice, but in the years ahead the committee would like to see evidence of good practice being shared and standards being driven up overall. We intend to take evidence and IGBs in the next financial year. I turn finally to the local government settlement. The public discussion that takes place each year in this budget line is a passionate one. The state of our care services, our public libraries, our roads, our refuse collection and our public spaces is important to us all. You may be a wee bit surprised to hear this, but party politics occasionally strays into that debate, but let me outline what the committee has agreed on. We all accept that the past decade has been tough for public services, including local government. Clearly local government financing has impacted by the overall amount of money available in Scottish public finances, which in turn has impacted by the state of UK public finances. It has been said elsewhere that the era of austerity in UK public finances is coming to an end. Let us hope so, but does that mean that next year's financial settlement signals a beginning of the end of a period of what the committee called in a pre-budget letter doing more with less? Yes, say the Scottish Government, no say Kozla. For guidance, I turn to the spice briefing paper on the settlement, which states on the same page that the local government budget will increase by 2 per cent and also decrease by 3.4 per cent both in real terms. I hope that that clears the matter up for you, but let me be clear. I am grateful to the member for giving way. He is right that there are different ways of interpreting those figures, but he is also aware that, in his evidence to the committee, Kozla described not only the reduction in the unring fence part of the local government budget but also new national protections and new national priorities. He said that the combined perfect storm will have a fundamental impact on the ability of local authorities to invest in people, places and what is generally called inclusive growth. Can the committee tell us whether his committee has heard from any local councils that do not share that deep concern about the impact on their local services if the budget is passed in its current form? James Stornan We heard from a number of witnesses that accepted that fact that the local government received the ability to access money that protected their budget, including the reason of council tax and other methods of being able to raise finance. Although it might well be complaining that the budget directly from the cabinet secretary was not to the liking, it accepted that if it took all the opportunities to raise finance that there was no drop in the budget. I will do that. The committee reminded the chamber that the resources spokesperson for Kozla described the priorities that Patrick Harvie has described as excellent priorities and priorities that Kozla and local government support. James Stornan The cabinet secretary's spot on that Kozla did also say that she did not want to go down the route of the mess that local authorities were in through funding in England and under the Westminster Government. Yes, yes, happy to. I'm sorry, I did just the chair's look. Hold on just a minute. Apologies. We're getting very, very close to it down here, so if it's quite quick. Mr Doris, Bob Doris. I'm very brief. With the convener recognised as I used to when I chaired your committee that Kozla would always try to make the finance position of councils as bleak as possible and the Scottish Government as positive as possible and there's a balance to be struck with that balance within this debate. James Stornan I appreciate that Kozla are there to represent their members as local authorities and therefore would make the best case that they possibly could for their local authorities. I'm surprised that this actually, I thought this was going to be one of my quieter speeches. Yeah, well it's going to become that if you could wind up, please. I will try my very hard this, because I'm not sure. And let me be clear that this is no criticism of the spice paper. It merely reflects the underlying confusion around local government financing. Paper carefully explains it whether you see a rise or a cut depends on how you classify new non-discretionary spending given to councils for specified purposes. In a letter published yesterday, the committee called on the Scottish Government to set out its own interpretation of what elements of local government spending are discretionary and which are ringfest and to work with local government sector to find a common language on this issue. I'm under no illusions that we can eliminate partisan disagreement about local government spending and I'm not sure we should even try. But when politicians get stuck in semantic arguments about accounting points about whether a cut is actually a rise or a rise is actually a cut, it's about that time that the public reaction is to switch off and go and watch Coronation Street. So even for that reason alone it would benefit us all to have a bit more clarity about the meaning of protected and discretionary spending in future and more reassurance that even where they can't agree, central and local government are speaking the same language and we look forward to the Government's response on this issue. Finally, Presiding Officer, I'd like to finish by thanking all my clerks and the other support staff for all their help to both the committee and me as a congener. Thank you. Move on to Jenny Marra, Public Audit and Post Legislative Scrutiny Committee, who will be followed by Colin Beattie and I understand that it's an agreed six minutes. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can I start by thanking the clerks of my committee for all the work that they do throughout the year? It's very much appreciated by me and all our members. The role of the Public Audit Committee is to examine whether public funds are spent wisely and to hold to account those who are charged with spending taxpayers' money. Our committee undertakes this work primarily through its scrutiny of reports prepared by the Auditor General for Scotland. As a result, the Audit Committee traditionally has had little direct involvement in the budget scrutiny process, focusing instead on how and whether spending decisions are good and are wise and whether policy is delivered. However, the shift in the Parliament's new budget process to an outcomes-based approach suggests that, in future, there may be a unique role for our committee in supporting subject committees in their budget scrutiny, which is why I am speaking today. The budget process review group noted that an outcomes-based scrutiny approach provides a means for evaluating the economic and social outcomes being achieved by public spending and involves bringing financial and performance information together so that the impact of spending decisions can be better understood. The committee has regularly emphasised in its audit scrutiny that there should be a clear link between what public money is being spent on and the outcomes that it delivers. However, there are three aspects that I would like to highlight—inputs and outcomes, better data and the need for an explicit link between public spending and the national performance framework. On inputs and outcomes, despite the long-standing commitment to an outcome-based approach, the audit reports that we receive still suggest that performance of many public services is still measured in terms of inputs rather than outcomes. For example, the Auditor General's 2018 report on early learning and childcare indicated that the Scottish Government did not set out what specific outcomes the expansion to 600 hours of funded ELC was intended to achieve. That leads to better data. The new budget process emphasises the need for better performance reporting to provide a clearer focus on the delivery of outcomes. That includes better information about what activity public spending will support, its aims and the contribution that it expects to make to national outcomes. However, a number of reports from the Auditor General have suggested that data to demonstrate improved outcomes or progress towards longer-term reforms is something that is often completely absent or underdeveloped. Again, to cite the report on early learning and childcare, the Auditor General concluded there that the Scottish Government had not planned how to evaluate the impact of the 600-hours expansion. While the Auditor General's 2017 progress report on self-directed support stated that data should have been developed earlier in the life of the strategy in order to measure the progress and impact of the strategy and the legislation. Finally, the explicit link between the national performance framework and the Government's individual policies and strategies, its detailed spending proposals and the agreed national outcomes, is not always evident. Let me give another example. Audit Scotland has noted that, while the national performance framework measures progress towards economic targets and outcomes, it does not measure the contribution of policies and initiatives to delivering those outcomes. In her recent report on the 1718 Scottish Government consolidated accounts, the Auditor General noted that, as with previous years, the accounts did not report on the performance of individual portfolios or the Scottish Government as a whole, limiting anyone's ability to see the Government's own contribution to the national outcomes. That, again, is something that needs to be addressed if we are going to have confidence in the system. The budget process review group report indicated that Parliament's committees are able to draw on a basket of evidence on the intended impact of policies and public spending and the effect that they are having. It noted that that will be a key part of how the Parliament committees evaluate public spending and how they seek to influence the formulation of future spending proposals. The budget group concluded that there was scope for committees to make better use of audit reports as part of the basket of evidence to support their evaluation of public spending. Although individual subject committees will continue to have a key interest in how well specific policies and programmes are being delivered, the Audit Committee is well placed to offer an overarching perspective on how effectively the Government is delivering improved outcomes overall for the people of Scotland. How and in what form that support might take is something that I would be keen for the Audit Committee to explore with subject committees following the completion of this first year of the new process. Colin Beattie for the Scottish Commission for Public Audit, again in agreed six minutes. Presiding Officer, I welcome the opportunity to take part in this debate on behalf of the Scottish Commission for Public Audit. I would first like to thank the clerks for their work in preparing our report of 21 January. Excuse me, Mr Beattie. Something wrong with your microphone. Can you check your card or stick it up there? Sorry, I had it there for sure. If you would start again, please, Mr Beattie. Presiding Officer, I welcome the opportunity to take part in this debate on behalf of the Scottish Commission for Public Audit. I would first like to thank the clerks for their work in preparing our report of 21 January. The commission was established under the Public Finance and Accountability Scotland Act 2000, and its membership consists of five MSPs, including myself as chair. One of the commission's main areas of responsibilities is to examine Audit Scotland's proposals for the use of resources and expenditure and reporting them to Parliament. Audit Scotland is an independent body that carries out audits and public entities to ensure best value and efficiency. Their work covers more than 220 organisations with those entities spending about £40 billion of public money annually. In previous years, the commission has reported on its scrutiny of Audit Scotland's annual budget proposal to the Finance and Constitution Committee. However, following the report of the budget review group in June 2017, the commission now reports directly to the Scottish Parliament. Audit Scotland's budget forms part of the total Scottish budget, and the commission's report, which was published last Monday, therefore supports the Parliament's wider scrutiny of the budget for 2019-20. Audit Scotland's budget is drawn from two main sources. The first source, which makes up around 75 per cent of its total budget, is from the fees that it charges audited bodies for their annual audit work. The second source of audit Scotland's budget is the monies approved by the Scottish Parliament from the Scottish Consolirated Fund. This year, Audit Scotland is seeking £7.564 million from the Scottish Consolirated Fund, which is an increase of £416,000 on last year's total resource requirement of £7.148 million. The budget proposal from Audit Scotland, which was provided in December 2018, broadly funds activities carried out by Audit Scotland, such as performance audits, the national fraud initiative and the new financial powers that are in the process have been devolved to Scotland. The budget proposal notes that it has been prepared in the context of a number of significant uncertainties, such as the impact of the UK autumn budget statement on Scottish budgets, the Scottish Government's public sector pay policy and the impact of the United Kingdom leaving the EU. The UK is moving rapidly towards its exit from the European Union in March 2019, and Brexit carries with it unknown risks and implications, especially for the public sector. As such, work for this fiscal year will likely increase as the UK exit strategy becomes clearer and, as a result, Audit Scotland may have to hire more employees. Accordingly, the budget proposal also contains a request to double the management contingency from £150,000 to £300,000. The reasons for this, given by the Auditor General at the commission's report on 12 December, are that it is a direct response to the uncertainty that we are now facing, given the extent of that uncertainty that we are facing with regard to not just the work that we might need to carry out, but what the impact might be on our costs in future. We therefore propose to increase the contingency to £300,000. As members will see from our report, Audit Scotland has a three-year phased approach to resourcing the audit needs of the new financial powers. We looked at this approach for the first time last year and again this year. This year's budget proposal highlights the additional work requirements arising from the financial and performance work, which is required to be undertaken on Social Security Scotland. The budget proposal stated that Social Security Scotland began operating as an executive agency on 1 September 2018 and will be responsible for delivering 10 devolved benefits totaling around £3.3 billion of spending annually. Audit Scotland is the appointed auditor for the agency and its payments, and as such, has a new team to lead on all financial and performance audit work on Social Security Scotland. The commission recognises that the devolution of further financial powers will result in an increased workload for Audit Scotland and considers that its proposed increase of £285,000 to fund people costs is appropriate. It will meet the requirements of the phased transfer of the new financial powers to Scotland. Additionally, part of that receipts will be assigned to the Scottish budget from April this year. Audit Scotland will be working closely with the national audit office to ensure a managed VAT assignment to the Scottish Parliament. Audit Scotland will also be working closely with the national audit office and the Scottish income tax. That will provide for increased assurance to the Scottish Parliament and HMRC's administration of different tax bans and rates for Scottish taxpayers. We note in our report that there are some signs that performance and audit quality has fallen. Audit Scotland's budget provides £250,000 to address this, with Audit Scotland confirming that it is increasing its learning and development work to tackle the concerns raised during its audit quality annual report. The commission will in future look to see how effective that budget is in improving audit quality. The Scottish budget is linked to economic performance. As such, Audit Scotland will need to build capacity to oversee the reporting of fiscal management and financial sustainability, and that will help Parliament in our maintenance of scrutiny. Last year and again this year, we also looked at Audit Scotland's fee strategy. In this year's budget proposal, while the costs of auditing NHS bodies and education bodies remain broadly the same as in 2018-19, the cost of the audit of local authorities has increased by 4.2 per cent, or £483,000. Audit Scotland has explained that this is because local government meets all the costs of its audit work, and the increased costs seen this year have risen from the increased number of local government bodies now being audited. Furthermore, the integrated joint boards have increased in size as they have begun to take on their full responsibilities. Having considered and reported on Audit Scotland's budget proposal, the commission has agreed to recommend to Parliament that Audit Scotland's budget proposal for 2019-20, including the request for a total resource requirement of £7.564 million be approved. That concludes the convener's contributions. We now move to the winding-up speeches, disappointing to note that there are some conveners absent from the chamber. First of all, I will call Kate Forbes for eight minutes, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I would like to start at the outside by thanking committee conveners not only for their contribution to today's debate, but also for their budget scrutiny in the way that they have led at their committees over the course of the last few weeks and months. Today's debate is, of course, one of the recommendations and part of the implementation of the budget process review group. That revised budget approach was structured around the following framework, which has been touched on by some of the committee conveners. It would be a full-year approach, a broader process in which committees would have the flexibility to incorporate budget scrutiny, a continuous cycle that scrutiny should be continuous, and not just one-off when it comes to the budget itself. Critically, and Jenny Marra touched on this in her contribution, it would be outcome-focused that scrutiny should be evaluative with an emphasis on what budgets have achieved and aim to achieve over the long term, that it would be fiscal responsibility that scrutiny should have a long-term outlook and focus more on prioritisation. Lastly, and most interestingly perhaps from today's debate, that it should be interdependent. That scrutiny should focus more on the interdependent nature of many of the policies that the budget is seeking to deliver. A debate like today, while two and a half hours of different subject areas demonstrates the ways in which different committees have an interdependence on each other. I hope that committee conveners certainly felt that they were able to lead on that up-front scrutiny, rather than, just as Edward Mountain mentioned, being post-budget draft published. The debate today also shows the huge breadth of budget spend and priorities in areas of education, health, infrastructure, justice, transport, environment and many other areas. Although there is no doubt a range of views when it comes to spend priorities and indeed there will be ample time, no doubt, with debates in the next few weeks to debate and discuss those spend priorities, there is nevertheless a lot of agreement on the importance of outcomes and indeed a lot of agreement on the outcomes that we all seek. Rather than fixate on the numbers as important as they are, there is an importance there in looking at the ways in which those numbers have an impact on people. I am sure that you are delighted to hear that. That cannot respond to all the points that have been raised in the debate today. I will leave that to the next speaker, who has no doubt scribbling furiously. I know that the Government has responded to or responses will be forthcoming to committee letters. I want to touch on all the committees that have contributed today. I want to do that in the context of those outcomes. If I take education to start off with, we want young people to achieve their best in this country. We want them to be able to access the same opportunities no matter where they are from, no matter where they live and no matter what they want to achieve. The draft budget invests near over £180 million to close the poverty related attainment gap, which was mentioned in the speech earlier, which includes £120 million for headteachers to spend on closing the attainment gap. We want our young people to have those opportunities at an early age, so there is £210 million of resource in the draft budget and a total of £500 million that goes on nursery buildings and nursery staff. We recognise the specific challenges, too, and are providing £12 million for mental health provision. Moving on to economy and fair work and Gordon Lindhurst's contribution, we want to see a healthy economy, we want to see businesses growing and thriving, we want to see jobs being created and people in this country enjoying a steady, fair wage. We want jobs to be fair. There are, of course, economic challenges ahead, so that is why the draft budget invests in the economy, which includes a new £50 million fund for town centres to drive local economic activity and stimulate place-based improvements. One of the things that I was most delighted to see in the draft budget is a new £1 million digital start fund to ensure that those that are furthest from the digital workforce get the support that they need, whether that is women returning to work or those from more disadvantaged backgrounds. Moving on to culture and Joan McAlpine, we want to celebrate our historic environment, we want to promote our tourism industry and we want to support cultural organisations. That will be the second year in which £6.6 million of additional funding will be needed to enable Creative Scotland to maintain support for its regular funding programme. Joan McAlpine also mentioned the hub offices across the world, and it is hugely important now more than ever that we are outward looking as a country and as a Government. Moving on to health and Lewis MacDonald, we want people to access free healthcare, free health services at the point of need, and we need to drive reform, particularly in light of the demographic challenges that Bruce Crawford touched on. That shows the importance of pulling a lot of budget scrutiny and discussing the challenges that we face across different areas. Of course, we need to invest wisely, and the budget transforms NHS with £730 million of additional investment in health and social care. It is right that committees scrutinise where that is spent. We are extending free personal care and we are increasing direct investment in mental health to £1.1 billion. Lewis MacDonald touched on the importance of long-term budget planning. Here, perhaps more than anywhere else, is the importance of targeting our investment wisely. Moving on to the environment and Gillian Martin, we need to play our role in mitigating and adapting to climate change, caring for the planet and using our resources, not just our financial resources but our other resources, wisely. The budget includes £20 million for Zero Waste Scotland to help to support that transition towards a more resource-efficient circular economy and more than £145 million investment in energy efficiency, fuel poverty and heat decarbonisation. Here, perhaps more than anywhere, we see the importance of preventative spend for seeing the economic benefits, the health benefits of targeting our investment wisely when it comes to the environment portfolio. There is a clear overlap of budgets. Moving swiftly on to rural economy and Edward Mountain's contribution, I certainly agree with him that we want people living in rural areas to have the same opportunities, the same services and the same level of infrastructure as anybody in this country. There are, of course, particular sectors—agriculture, forestry and seafood—that we need to support and invest in, because perhaps more than others are facing the challenges with Brexit. The committee's focus on ferry transport is something that I certainly endorse and the importance of investing in ferries. Moving swiftly on to Social Security and Bob Doris, we have transformed and we are transforming the landscape for social security benefits in Scotland to deliver a system that treats people with dignity, fairness and respect. The budget provides £435 million of direct assistance through our social security interventions, including more than £100 million to support those on low incomes and to continue, as we have been doing now, for some years to mitigate the hugely unfair bedroom tax and UK welfare cuts. Moving on to justice, Margaret Mitchell, the importance of access to justice, law courts, policing, which are indeed the foundation stones of our society to ensure that nobody is deprived of that access to justice. The budget includes £18 million to support victims of crime and tackle violence against women and girls. Equalities in human rights in Ruth Maguire touched, I thought, quite eloquently on the way in which equalities in human rights have to be embedded in every portfolio. I could go on, but I am going to stop now, because I realise that time is of the essence. In an international, I think that it has been a very helpful debate. I hope that it helps with committees that are trying to drive and be at the forefront of that budget scrutiny. Perfect time. I now move to Adam Tomkins, vice-conviner of the Finance and Committee. To close the debate, around nine minutes will take us up to decision. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. It is my pleasure to close this debate on behalf of the finance committee. I would like to start where the convener of the committee, my friend Bruce Crawford, started, which is to thank our clerks who serve us. It is clear from this afternoon's debate that all committees across the Parliament are well served by their clerks, but none more so, I think, than the Finance and Constitution Committee, and we are very much in their debt. As we have heard this afternoon's debate is an important part of the new process of budget scrutiny, which, among other things, was designed to bring this Parliament's subject committees much more to the forefront in the year-round process of budget scrutiny, with at least the following three aims in mind. First, there should be greater parliamentary influence over the Government's budget priorities and decisions. Secondly, there should be fuller transparency with regard to the budget process. Thirdly, there should be a sharper focus on better outputs and better outcomes of spending decisions. As the convener said in his opening remarks, this requires, as much as anything else, a change in our culture, so that politically we focus not just on short-term numbers but on long-term outcomes, both in Government and in Opposition. It is clear from what we have heard this afternoon that this has been an enterprise that has been shared seriously by committees right across the portfolio spectrum, not least in health, where Lewis MacDonald, on behalf of the committee that he convenes, said that the Health and Sport Committee has been in the vanguard of the revised budget scrutiny process, especially in regard to transparency and the transparency of the budgets of health boards and joint integrated boards, but where he warned us, in what I thought was very striking remark, that even integrated authorities who are statutorily required to report to Parliament on their budgets in a matter that directly links them to outcomes are poor at doing so, not necessarily failing to do so but struggling to do so, which is, I think, poor's for thought, not just for the health committee but for all of us. As I said, Presiding Officer, it's clear that there has been serious engagement with this process right across the Parliament, but there have also been some concerns expressed this afternoon by one or two conveners of committees, Edward Mountain, perhaps most notably warning us that we shouldn't be naive in terms of what we can expect from the input of committees into this process. I don't want to go through committee by committee what we've heard this afternoon, Presiding Officer, but I do want to draw out, if I may, two or three themes from a number of the contributions that caught my ear, and I think will require us to think a little bit further and deeper. One of them was just referred to by the minister, Kate Forbes, in her closing remarks on behalf of the Government, and that is the theme of preventive spend. Preventive spend is something that the Christie commission told us a long time ago that we needed to do much more of in Scotland, and notwithstanding the recommendations of the Christie committee and notwithstanding the fact that all political parties accepted and endorsed those recommendations, it's still something in Scotland that we're really not very good at. I think that we have to have an honest conversation in Scotland about why our parliamentary politics is not very good at delivering effective preventive spend. One of the reasons why we're not very good at it is because it's sometimes difficult to see the results of effective preventive spend within an election cycle. I passionately believe in parliamentary democracy. I much prefer parliamentary democracy to democracy's other forms, to direct democracy, but that's a debate perhaps for another day. I passionately believe in parliamentary democracy, but one of the flaws of parliamentary democracy is that we think that we need to see results within a parliamentary cycle. This is not a plea for fewer elections. This is not a plea for longer parliamentary cycles. It is a plea for what Bruce Crawford referred to as a change of culture, so that we accept, both in Government and in Opposition, that effective parliamentary spend is not necessarily going to yield visible or tangible results within the lifetime of a single Parliament. I thought that Gillian Martin spoke very… Can I just give two examples and then I'll happily give way to the minister? I thought that Gillian Martin spoke very interestingly about this in the context of the environment and what she had to say about health walks, about active travel, about air quality and about stress and the relationship between those aspects. Margaret Mitchell also talked about it very effectively in the context of the work that the Justice Committee has been doing. Again, another interesting example of what Margaret Mitchell had to say is that she said that the Justice Committee's bill scrutiny of the management of offenders' bill is something where their work on budgetary scrutiny is to the forefront. There's a direct relationship between the bill scrutiny work of that committee and thinking about the budget in a year-round way. What she said was that it is evident from the evidence that that committee has received, but without adequate resourcing, our management of offenders is doomed to fail. It needs to be joined up, it needs to be properly resourced, otherwise the potential for ex-offenders simply to return to prison and to cost much more to the public purse will simply be there. I happily give way to the minister if she still wants to see it. Kate Forbes, just a genuine question on preventative spend from a committee perspective for it to work. It has to happen on a cross-committee basis and committees being willing to recognise that a budget line might need to go elsewhere. How does he see that happen for a committee perspective? Adam Tomkins I think that that's a very interesting question. Later in my remarks, I want to talk about one or two of the challenges that I think have been posed by this afternoon's contributions. One of the challenges that's been posed by this afternoon's contributions is exactly that. I think that you referred to it, minister, as interdependence in your remarks a few moments ago. Again, there are a couple of very interesting examples of where spending to be effective has to be understood to be cross-portfolio. If we have subject committees that are focused on individual portfolios, how can we ensure that either the budget decisions or the spending decisions in those portfolios are effective? Two examples are striking. First, what Clare Adamson had to say about the relationship, the very complex and extraordinarily important relationship between child poverty and education policy. The second example, again, from what Gillian Martin had to say about the importance of environmental education, are those issues for the Social Security Committee? Are they for the Education Committee or are they for the Environment Committee? The answer, of course, is that they are for all of these committees. One of the things that we perhaps might need to see as we go forward with this process is more effective joined up working between committees. That happens increasingly in the House of Commons. I think that we might want to see it in this Parliament as well. It might address the remarks that the minister just made. A second theme that I wanted briefly to allude to before I finish, Presiding Officer, was made quite strikingly in Gordon Lindhurst's comments from the economy committee. That is not about the importance of preventive spend but the effectiveness of spend. He asked a very interesting question, which the minister's responding, I do not think with respect, referred to. He said that for every pound spent by the enterprise agencies, we are told, between £6 and £9 is added to the value of the Scottish economy. That is a brilliant example of the effectiveness of spend, yet the budget that we were told has been cut over the last decade of SNP administration. That is an example of the kind of long-term economic planning and the emphasis on the effectiveness of spend and on outcomes, as the convener said, that we need to focus on as we go forward. To conclude, Presiding Officer, I think that we have heard this afternoon that there are a number of challenges as we go forward in budget process. The challenges both for the future review of the fiscal framework, which the convener referred to in his opening remarks, and challenges also for the Scottish Government, whoever the Scottish Government is, at the material time. Challenges for the fiscal framework include the management and allocation of volatility, uncertainty and risk. We all know that there is increased volatility, uncertainty and risk in the Scottish budget. The question is, is that risk fairly allocated between the Scottish Government and other institutions in the United Kingdom? One aspect of that, which we heard quite a lot about this afternoon, is the relevance and importance to the budget of relative population decline on the health of Scotland's public services and the added risk that Brexit poses to that. Those are challenges for the future of the fiscal framework that, I think, from this afternoon's debate, the Parliament will want to take forward in the future. Challenges for the Scottish Government, as underscored in the finance committee's pre-budget scrutiny report, are first, of course, on-going subdued growth relative to the rest of the United Kingdom, and secondly, something that we haven't heard very much about this afternoon, but which has been absolutely central to the finance committee's consideration of this year's budget, which is the much lower number of higher and additional rate income taxpayers in Scotland than had initially been forecast. Whoever the Government is, those are challenges that are going to have to be taken seriously going forward. As I have said before in this chamber, we are entering a new period of devolution in which our Parliament is responsible for raising much of the revenue to fund our public services. That requires us all to rise to the challenge of using those new powers wisely and to manage the inevitable risks with a pragmatic and reasonable approach. Can I finish by echoing Bruce Crawford's view set out at the beginning of this debate? The biggest challenge that we face is cultural. Let's allow our politics to mature with a clear focus on outcomes and on what we are seeking to achieve, rather than arguing only about numbers, notwithstanding how important numbers can sometimes be. I therefore support the motion in the convener's name. Thank you. Thank you very much, and that concludes our debate on committee's budget scrutiny. We are going to turn straight to decision time, and there is only one question this evening. The question is that motion 15421, in the name of Bruce Crawford, on committee's budget scrutiny, be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. That concludes decision time. I close this meeting.