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I must apologise for shuffling my papers while you were speaking; I was listening to you, but I was trying to find a specific page that I cannot seem to find in this massive tome. I annotated the pages that I was going to ask questions on last night, but I seem to have missed that one out, so I apologise for my ceaseless footering.

I cannot find the page, but the question is about your capital plan. If I remember correctly, it seems that you will invest something like £787,000 in capital during the next year, which is an increase from more or less zero during the past year or two. Can you talk us through that investment and tell us what you intend to deliver with it?

Good morning, and welcome to the 32nd meeting in 2023 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee. We have one public item on the agenda, which is the first annual evidence-taking session with representatives from Revenue Scotland on how it fulfils its functions. We are joined by Elaine Lorimer, Revenue Scotland’s chief executive, and Aidan O’Carroll, its chair.

Before I wish the witnesses good morning, I should say that I was privileged to be invited to host a reception for Revenue Scotland in committee room 3 a couple of weeks ago. I thought that it was a very successful and enjoyable meeting. I was sorry that Elaine Lorimer was unable to make it that night due to illness, because she missed a very interesting event.

I invite Aidan O’Carroll to make a short opening statement.

Thank you for that clarification.

My last question is on the information on page 38 of the resource accounts document, which is on performance analysis. I was pleased to see that, between 2016 and 2022, the 10 categories that you have, from “Leading and Managing Change” through to “Engagement Index”, have all improved significantly. However, there is variation in improvement. For example, you are sitting at 61 per cent for “Pay and Benefits”, compared with 92 per cent for “My Team”. I am not really sure what “My Team” relates to. Can you explain that graph and set out the progress that has been made and that you plan to make?

Okay. I have hogged the floor enough. I open up the session to colleagues.

I asked about it because the tax gap is one of the contentious issues. I was looking for a ballpark figure; I was not looking for you to say that it is £10.3 million or £4.5 million. Is it about 1 or 2 or 3 per cent? If we do not know what the gap is, it is hard to tackle it. I know from your accounts that more than 99 per cent of the money that is due is being collected, but it seems to me that there might be a gap outside of that.

That is great. Indeed, that, in itself, is a very helpful comment.

Thank you for answering our questions so fully and frankly. There is one issue that you said that you would get back to us on, so we look forward to receiving that information.

That concludes the public part of today’s meeting, as our next agenda item is discussion of our work programme, which will take place in private.

You are being diplomatic in the responses that you are giving. It seems to me—correct me if I am wrong—that you were presented with a take-it-or-leave-it situation with little wriggle room. As my mother would say, half a loaf is better than no bread. Was that the kind of approach with which you were presented?

That is great. My last question is about VAT. As you will be aware, last week we took evidence on VAT assignment; we had a round-table discussion with a number of organisations, including the Scottish Fiscal Commission and Audit Scotland. We had planned a 75-minute session but we took only 50 minutes because it became very clear that no one thinks that VAT assignment is in any way a good idea. I might not be speaking for everyone, although I am pretty sure that I am, but we felt that it was added to the Smith commission so that it could appear that the commission was going to move towards 50 per cent of taxation being devolved at some point and it was thrown in as part of that mix.

However, when we looked at the intricacies of assignation and the nightmare that it would be—HM Revenue and Customs, for example, briefed us on volatility, as did many others—it appeared to us, the Fraser of Allander Institute and the SFC that it was not in Scotland’s interests to secure the assignment of VAT. The volatility would be huge and we could see zero benefits, because we would not have control over the policy or the VAT levels at all. Of course, it was also a way of getting around the fact that, when we were in the European Union, we could not devolve VAT to sub-state legislatures.

Will the Scottish Government abandon the policy of assigning VAT or will it consider whether VAT can potentially be devolved in future? What is the Scottish Government’s position on that? It seems to us that Scottish Government officials have done a lot of work on that over many years. I feel for the people who have been doing that work, but it is a dead end as far as we can see. That is the unanimous view of the committee and, indeed, of the people who participated in last week’s round table.

We have spoken about prudential borrowing over the years. It is available to local authorities, and it has always seemed bizarre to me, as well as many others, that local authorities appear to have more flexibility with borrowing than the Parliament does.

Thank you for that helpful opening statement. The committee was taken by surprise by the announcement. I recall what a tortuous process it was to construct the fiscal framework in the 2011 to 2016 session of the Parliament. Had it not been for the First Minister and Deputy First Minister of the day digging in their heels at the last minute, we would have ended up with a framework that would have cost this Parliament several billion pounds over years. A deal was struck. Therefore, we expected the review to be a much more drawn-out process.

You touched on the process. On the delegation of powers over taxation, for example, the UK Government still has control over national insurance, VAT, quite a lot of income tax, corporation tax, fuel duty, savings, dividends and excise duties on cigarettes, tobacco and alcohol. Did the Scottish Government propose any of those for devolution? We will talk about VAT assignment in a minute. How far did the Scottish Government try to push the envelope? I appreciate that you said that you had an opportunity to secure improvements, but it is clearly not a negotiation of equals. Where are you pushing in addition to the areas that you mentioned in your opening statement?